Confident that all would now be well, I retired that night and slept peacefully.
The Bentley Bucks Deluxe always put a morning paper on any breakfast tray—perhaps to take attention off the fact that the two-dollar ounce of orange juice was out of a tin can. I was developing what psychologists call a newspaper-anxiety syndrome, a common ailment on Earth these days, one which is responsible for the majority of commitments to mental institutions. The symptoms are you feel fine and cheerful and then you catch a glimpse of any corner of a newspaper, like under a dog's dish, and you begin to shake; it is only after you look at some of the type that vertigo extremis sets in.
That was exactly what happened to me. The ounce of orange juice was halfway to my lips when I saw the lead story:
WHIZ KID
CHALLENGES
OIL COMPANIES
In an exclusive statement to the New York Yuk, the Whiz Kid today asked, "How come America and the world is letting itself get gypped by the oil companies?"
Spokesmen for the Seven Brothers, which includes Octopus Oil Company as their acknowledged senior, said, "We are only public service organizations. The cost of oil is such that we have done everything possible to cut it. Such accusations are common."
The story went on. I was shaking so that I couldn't see the type to finish it.
I rushed into the hall, realized I had no bathrobe on, rushed back and put on an overcoat and then phoned for a bellhop to bring up a copy of every newspaper in the stand.
Crouched on the floor, I went over them. They all carried the story. The only difference was that the name of the paper had been changed in the first line. The Whiz Kid had made the statement exclusively forty times, to forty different papers including the Garment Daily Worker.
I must be calm, I told myself. Then I realized that Madison, of course, had not had time to stop the story. It takes a few hours to set a newspaper into type and he probably had not been able to stop it.
The viewer was sitting there. How was Heller taking this? Sometimes he stopped by his office before leaving for the speedway.
Yes, there he was. He had newspapers spread all over his desk. Shortly, he picked up his gloves, ready to leave. Izzy was coming in the door. Heller went back to his desk.
"Where is all this coming from?" demanded Heller.
Izzy looked very sad. "A publicist would say you have caught the public fancy."
"But I didn't make any such statement!"
Izzy shrugged and then made a circular motion with his finger around his temple. "That's newspapers."
"What do I do about it?"
"Leave for South America," said Izzy with sudden interest. "I can get you a ticket on the first flight out."
"Oh, this isn't that bad. It's what I'm trying to do, really. But it's strange. No reporters have come near me and here I am making statements."
"Air tickets are cheap," said Izzy, "compared to what this can cost in the long run."
Heller was going to leave again and Izzy said, "Just don't connect any corporations with racing. Or your name!"
I was confident that Madison would have stamped on the campaign by now. I idled away the morning and after lunch, went out for a walk in Central Park. The air was chilly.
Coming back, I chanced to see an advertising sign on top of a building, a big one. Workmen were busy spreading a new display on it.
A corner of what they were pasting up in sections made a chill go through me. It was a WH.
I steadied myself against a litter basket.
In horror, I saw it go together piece by piece.
It had a huge caption:
WHIZ KID TAKES ON SEVEN BROTHERS!
And there was a caricature of the Whiz Kid with glasses, pugnacious jaw and teeth. He was wearing boxing gloves. He had just knocked down one of them. The other six were cowering to escape him. Puddles of oil splashed about.
A billboard campaign! Gotten out and executed at incredible speed!
Well, wait. That would have taken two or three days. It was part of Madison's original effort.
Back at the hotel, I got on the viewer. Heller was leaving the speedway. He was looking at a billboard. It was the same caricature. But he got out and, being Heller, climbed up to the walkway they have along the bottom for workmen to stand on, and read the tiny type, financed by the Americans for Cheap Fuel Committee,
He got down and drove along. Sign after sign after sign! Everywhere he looked on his road back through Brooklyn to Manhattan, he was seeing these signs.
I groaned! What a sickening spectacle! The whole town was being plastered with those (bleeped) signs! Usually they advertised air travel or cigarettes or foreign cars. All that had been swept away. It was only "Whiz Kid!"
I tried to phone Madison. I could not make contact.
I tried to phone Bury. He would not be back until the morrow.
But worse was yet to come. Thinking I ought to watch a movie, something calm like the FBI making America safe by blowing up its buildings, I turned on the TV.
A talk show! There sat the Whiz Kid. I realized it was the set that Madison had erected out at the speedway. The Whiz Kid wasn't heard. His lips were moving. The commentator was dubbing in what he was saying.
All about how he had a cheap fuel and America would be greatly benefited and could now look forward to prosperity.
The interrogator was shot separately.
Half an hour later, another channel, same patter!
Madison again was not available!
All evening, on whatever channel, even in the news, you could count on the Whiz Kid popping up with an overdubbed set of statements.
I suffered through the night. Nothing could be worse than this. Madison had turned his coat! He had sold us out! I knew how he was getting such coverage. He must be in contact with the Rockecenter-appointed bank directors on every paper and TV channel and he was giving them their orders and they were passing them down the line.. Madison was selling Rockecenter out, using Rockecenter's own press-control network! A traitor!
Even worse was to come. In the morning, in addition to more news stories, I chanced to turn the TV to a housewife program.
There stood the Whiz Kid before a group of housewives! In the flesh. In person. And he was telling them what a shame it was they had to empty their teapots to buy gas when a fuel existed that was so cheap they would be able to buy mink coats with the money they saved. They were hysterical with joy!
In person?
I went to the viewer.
Heller was en route to the office! He wasn't talking live to any housewives!
I looked at the TV again. Glasses, buckteeth, pugnacious jaw...
I phoned Madison. I got him at his mother's place.
"Madison!" I screamed at him. "I thought I told you to mend your ways!"
"I did!" he said. "I doubled the coverage and added controversy! I know it is awfully fast but I think we're making it. We are forming fan clubs now, coast to coast."
"Oh, my Gods!" Then, as the TV was still on and the Whiz Kid was still addressing housewives, I cried, "But how are you doing this housewife thing?"
"Oh, the double," he said. "Well, in handling publicity, you never can trust a client. They always say the wrong things and are not handy when you need them. That's why I had to have a double. I could have gotten some actor that looked much more like Wister but in his envelope of instructions Mr. Bury said that if I used a double I could only use this young man. He was very emphatic about it. This double has buckteeth and a heavy jaw and he's blind as a bat without glasses. He wouldn't consent to our pulling his teeth and plastic surgery or contact lenses. And Mr. Bury was so emphatic, I had no choice. I had to make Wister look like the double. Do you have him on? I think he is marvelously convincing! I've got to hang up. Good-bye."
I rang his phone again. Nobody answered.
Not for nothing did his colleagues call him J. Warbler Madman. He was as crazy as a coot! He was going to make Heller a household word as the Whiz Kid!