“What’s up, Crackers?” somebody growled.
“The mark sapped me down.”
* * ** * *
That was interesting. I had been spotted and the punk had been sent to welcome me. Now I knew where I stood. The opposition had made their first mistake.
“He was starting to cross under when I spot him,” Crackers went on, breathing heavily. “He saps me and I see I can’t handle him and I go for help.”
Someone answered in a guttural whisper. Crackers lowered his voice. It wouldn’t take long now for reinforcements to arrive and flush me out. I edged farther and chanced a look. I saw two heads outlined above. They didn’t seem to be looking my way, so I started across, walking silently toward a narrow loading platform with a wide door opening from it.
Below me, a lone light reflected from the wet pavement of the second level, fifty feet down; the blank wall of the Blue Tower dropped past it sheer to the glistening gutters at ground level. Then I was on the platform and trying the door.
It didn’t open.
It was what I should have expected. Standing in the full light from the glare panel above the entry, I felt as exposed as a fan-dancer’s navel. There was no time to consider alternatives. I grabbed my power pistol, flipped it to beam fire and stood aside with an arm across my face. I gave the latch a blast, then kicked the door hard. It was solid as a rock. Behind and above me, I heard Crackers yell.
I beamed the lock again, tiny droplets of molten metal spattering like needles against my face and hand. The door held.
“Drop it and lift ’em, mug,” a deep voice yelled. I twisted to look up at the silhouettes against the deflector rail. I recognized the Slavic face of the man called Heavy. So he could talk after all.
“You’re under my iron, mug,” he called. “Freeze or I’ll burn you.”
I believed him, but I had set something in motion that couldn’t stop now. There was nothing to go back to; the only direction for me was on the way I was headed—deeper into trouble. I was tired of being the mouse in a cat’s game. I had taken the initiative and I was keeping it.
I turned, set the power pistol at full aperture, and poured it to the armored door. Searing heat reflected from the barrier, smoke boiled, metal melted and ran. Through the stink of burning steel, I smelled scorched hair—and felt heat rake the back of my neck and hands. Heavy was beaming me at wide aperture, but the range was just too far for a fast kill. The door sagged and fell in. I jumped through the glowing opening, hit the floor and rolled to damp out my smouldering coat.
* * *
I got to my feet. There was no time now to stop and feel the pain of my burns. They would expect me to go up—so I would go down. The Blue Tower covered four city blocks and was four hundred stories high. There was plenty of room in it for a man to lose himself.
I ran along the corridor, found a continuous service belt and hopped on, lay flat, rode it through the slot. I came out into the light of the service corridor below, my gun ready, then down and around again. I saw no one.
It took ten minutes to cover the eighteen floors down to the sub-basement. I rolled off the belt and looked around.
The whole space was packed with automatics; the Blue Tower was a self-sufficient city in itself. I recognized generators, heat pumps, air plants. None of them were operating. The city services were all still functioning, apparently. What it would be like in another ten or twenty years of anarchy was anybody’s guess. But when the city systems failed the Blue Tower could go on on its own.
Glare panels lit the aisles dimly. I prowled along looking for an elevator bank. The first one I found indicated the car at the hundred-eightieth floor. I went on, found another indicating the twentieth. While I watched, the indicator moved, started down. I was getting ready to duck when it stopped at the fifth. I waited; it didn’t move.
I went around to the side of the bank, found the master switch. I went back, punched for the car. When the door whooshed open, I threw the switch.
I had to work fast now. I stepped into the dark car, reached up and slid open the access panel in the top, then jumped, caught the edge and pulled myself up. The glare panels inside the shaft showed me the pony power pack on top of the car, used by repairmen and inspectors when the main power was off. I lit a permatch to read the fine print on the panel. I was in luck. It was a through car to the four-hundredth. I pushed a couple of buttons, and the car started up. I lay flat behind the machinery.
As the car passed the third floor feet came into view; two men stood beyond the transparent door, guns in their hands, watching the car come up. They didn’t see me. One of them thumbed the button frantically. The car kept going.
There were men at almost every floor now. I went on up, passed the hundredth floor, the one-fiftieth, and kept going. I began to feel almost safe—for the moment.
* * *
I was gambling now on what little I knew of the Blue Tower from the old days when all the biggest names congregated there. The top floor was a lavish apartment that had been occupied by a retired fleet admiral, a Vice-President and a uranium millionaire, in turn. If I knew anything about kingpins, that’s where Max Arena would hang his hat.
The elevator was slow. Lying there I had time to start thinking about my burned hide. My scalp was hit worst, and then my hands; and my shoulders were sticking to the charred coat. I had been travelling on adrenaline since Heavy had beamed me, and now the reaction was starting to hit.
It would have to wait; I had work to do.
Just below the three hundred and ninety-eighth floor I punched the button and the car stopped. I stood up, feeling dizzy. I grabbed for the rungs on the wall, hung on. The wall of the shaft seemed to sway . . . back . . .
Sure, I told myself. The top of the building sways fifteen feet in a high wind. Why shouldn’t I feel it? I dismissed the thought that it was dead calm outside now, and started up the ladder.
It was a hard climb. I hung on tight, and concentrated on moving one hand at a time. The collar of my coat rasped my raw neck. I passed up the 398th and 9th—and rammed my head smack against a dead end. No service entry to the penthouse. I backed down to the 399th.
I found the lever and eased the door open, then waited, gun in hand. Nothing happened. I couldn’t wait any longer. I pushed the door wide, stepped off into the hall. Still nobody in sight, but I could hear voices. To my left a discreet stair carpeted in violet velvet eased up in a gentle curve. I didn’t hesitate; I went up.
The door at the top was an austere slab of bleached teak. I tried the polished brass lever; the door swung open silently, and I stepped across the threshold and was looking across a plain of honey-colored down at a man sitting relaxed in a soft chair of pale leather.
He waved a hand cheerfully. “Come on in,” he said.
4
Max Arena was a broad-shouldered six-footer, with clean-shaven blue jaws, coarse gray-flecked black hair brushed back from a high forehead, a deeper tan than was natural for the city in November, and very white teeth. He was showing them now in a smile. He waved a hand toward a chair, not even glancing at the gun in my hand. I admired the twinkle of light on the polished barrel of a Norge stunner at his elbow and decided to ignore it too.
“I been following your progress with considerable interest,” Arena said genially. “The boys had orders not to shoot. I guess Luvitch sort of lost his head.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, “that a little skin graft won’t clear up in a year or so.”
“Don’t feel bad. You’re the first guy ever made it in here under his own steam without an invitation.”
“And with a gun in his hand,” I said.
“We won’t need guns,” he said. “Not right away.”
I went over to one of the big soft chairs and sat down, put the gun in my lap.
“Why didn’t you shoot as I came in?”