Forry said, "Anything we order tonight is probably safe. It's unbelievable that the bogeymen know we're here. But after tomorrow morning, when we let it out where we are, nobody in this team is to drink or eat anything that doesn't come from our private stock. Don't dial for drinks on the autobar, don't have any food sent up from the kitchens. From now on, we're poison-conscious. Also conscious of the fact that a bottle can be gimmicked with explosives. Take off the cap and wham."
"Yeah," Roy said in resignation. "From now on, we've got to assume that anything that could possibly kill us, will."
Mary Ann glanced over at him, her eyes sad, but she said nothing.
Roy glanced at his diminutive manager. "What was that about you asking the IABI for protection? And about the guns? I didn't know you'd requested gun permits for the boys."
"I haven't," Forry told him. "But it sounded good over the air. Bring home to the viewers the toughness of the spot you're in. At that stage, it was just as well the IABI didn't know where we were, even if they did want to guard us. They're undoubtedly infiltrated by the Graf's organization, and we'd have put ourselves on the spot. And asking for gun permits for them would have revealed the fact that Ron, Billy, Les, and Rick were lined up with you and that might have led to tracking us down. If the IABI denied we'd asked for protection, nobody would believe them."
"You're quite a Machiavelli, Forry," Ferd wheezed.
Les had served them drinks and they settled back in satisfaction. They all felt the tensions of the past few days.
Forry said, taking out the last pack of cigarettes he had bought in Nassau, "I hope that soapy manager can come up with tobacco as well. I'll have to order that, too, before the night is out. That's all I'd need, some doped cigarettes."
He looked over at Ron. "You know this place better than any of the rest of us. Go around and decide what rooms each of us should have. Give Roy the most strategically located one—you know, the one that's furthest from both of the elevator and staircase."
Dick stood and walked over to the French windows that opened onto the hotel's roof. There was an extensive garden, largely of potted plants, a swimming pool, a sun deck, tables, and folding chairs. He said, "What's to prevent a chopper from settling down out there with a few of the Grafs lads in it?"
"Nothing," Forry growled. "We're going to have to post a full-time guard outside."
Dick turned and looked at him. "There's only four of us."
Forry nodded. "I know." He looked at Roy Cos. "We're going to need another four of your Wobblies. Have you got four more like Ron, Les, Dick, and Billy?"
The Wobbly national organizer sighed. "There aren't as many of us as all that, you know, and we're not all young, unattached, strongarm types. And probably a lot of the membership don't even agree with what I'm doing."
"All right," Forry said sourly. "But we need at least four more guards, preferably familiar with guns."
"Guns? What guns?" Dick said bitterly. "Just one of the Graf's pros with a shooter could blow the asses off us all."
Forry looked at him. "By tomorrow we'll have guns. You can buy anything in this country if you have enough credit, and as of tomorrow, we'll be openly spending Roy's million a day. As an old-time crime reporter, I have a few contacts. Gyrojets all right?"
"Yes," Dick said, happier now. "Both handguns and assault rifles."
Roy said, "I'll get together with the boys and we'll try and pick four more guards." He turned to Mary Ann and Ferd and said, "How'd the broadcast go over?"
Mary Ann said, "Well, good and bad." She glanced over at Forry. "For one thing, his presentation isn't too good. His appearance is, well, poor. A hero can't be pale and dumpy."
Forry ran his eyes over the Wobbly organizer, who was grimacing, and nodded. "I should've thought of that. There're injections these days that can darken his complexion, or we could use a sunlamp. And we can have him massaged and dieted down to the point where he doesn't look so lardy."
"Hey," Roy said in protest.
They ignored him.
"There's another thing," Ferd Feldmeyer said. "That first speech was good enough, perhaps. It summed up the Wobbly program. But we can't just repeat it over and over again. We've got to have fresh material."
"Like what?" Dick asked, in rejection. "I thought it was swell. Gave the movement's stand exactly. That's the point of the whole thing."
The speechwriter shook his head. "You can't just keep hitting the viewers over the head with a flat statement of what you want. You've got to come up with new, exciting stuff; something to keep them coming, wanting to listen in to future programs."
Ron said, "But we've got nothing else to say."
Ferd took another pull at his cognac. "Then we've gotta find some exciting details. Almost anything that's a current issue, something they aren't doing right under this so-called welfare state.
"Take VD—various drugs have been developed up over the years to combat venereal diseases. First the sulfas. They were tremendously effective when first discovered, but in a few years, new strains of gonoccocci had developed that were immune to sulfa. Then the antibiotics like streptomycin came along, but the germs adapted to them and eventually thrived. Well, suppose we put our scientists to work on a whole series of new antibiotics. Then, on D-Day, everybody in the country would take the new antibiotic, whether or not they had ever had any venereal disease. Every man, woman, and child, including the president and Roman Catholic cardinals. Later, one of the other new antibiotics would be given everybody, to nail the germs missed that first time. And from then on, nobody would be allowed into the United States of the Americas until they'd had their antibiotics. This is a half-assed description of an idea some researcher wrote, and I may have some of it wrong. But I know smallpox was eradicated. I bet VDcowWbe."
"Great," Roy said, "but it has nothing to do with fundamental social change. It could be done under any system."
"But the thing is," Ferd said patiently, "to get to the people, you've got to participate, take a strong stand on everything from pollution and depletion of natural resources to ending war, women's rights, race problems, and all the rest. Your stand should sound more sensible than anybody else's, or else more Godly. And you've got to sound off about it, louder and more insistently than anybody else. If you're ever going to get a following, that'll be how."
The identity screen on the door buzzed. Ron and Billy popped to their feet.
"That'll be the first load of food and guzzle," Forry said. "You boys supervise it. Roy and I'll go into our rooms so that nobody'll recognize us."
"I'm going to bed anyway," Roy said. "I'm bushed to hell and gone and I've got a sneaking suspicion that tomorrow'll be a busy day." He paused and added in deprecation, "I've got a suspicion that the rest of my life is going to be a busy day."
It was a half-hour later that a knock came at Roy Cos's bedroom door. He was lying on his back in bed in his pajamas, hands under his head, staring at the ceiling. Beside him, on the night table, was a drink he had brought from the living room. It was untouched.
He looked at the door and said, "Come on in."
Mary Ann was clad in a simple white nightgown and sturdy bedroom slippers. She carried a half-empty bottle of Scotch. Her hair had been combed out and her face glowed as if freshly washed—or freshly made up.
Roy said, his tired hazel eyes puzzled, "Hello, Mary Ann. Something up?" He came to one elbow.
"That should be my question," she smiled, and closed the door behind her. Her face had a flush which, Roy decided to his surprise, brought a wistful beauty to her ordinary plainness. Mary Ann Elwyn would never be thought of as a pretty girl but her femininity was there, now that she had discarded her brisk office efficiency.