Cardon, having picked up the Italian stiletto to puncture his cigar, looked at it carefully to make sure that it really had no edge, and then drew it quickly across his throat.
"Just like that. You know what really happened, yesterday afternoon, at the store, don't you?"
"Well, in general, yes. I wish you'd fill me in on some of the details, though, Frank."
"Details he wants. Well." Cardon blew on his coffee and sipped it. "The way we played it for propaganda purposes, of course, there was only one big riot, and it was all the work of the wicked Literates and their Independent-Conservative hirelings. Actually, there were two riots. First, there was one the Independents had planned for about a week in advance; that was the one Sforza tipped us on, the one that started in China. Graves knew about it, enough to advise Latterman to get all the Literates out of the store before noon, which Latterman did, with trimmings.
"Then, there was another riot, masterminded by a couple of Illiterates' Organization Action Committee people named Joe West and Horace Yingling, both deceased. That was the result of Latterman's bright idea to trap Claire and/or me into betraying Literacy. These Illiterate fanatics made up their minds, to speak rather loosely, that the whole Pelton family were Literates, including Chet himself. They decided that it was better to kill off their candidate and use him for a martyr two years from now than to elect him and have him sell them out. They got about a hundred or so of their goons dressed in Independent-Conservative KKK costumes, bought air support from Patsy Callazo's mob, up in Vermont, and made that attack on the top landing stage, after starting a fake riot in North Jersey, to draw off the regular Radical-Socialist storm troops. Incidentally, when I found out it was Callazo's gang that furnished those fighter bombers, I hired another mob to go up and drop a block-buster on Callazo's field, to teach him to keep his schnozzle out of politics."
Lancedale nodded briskly. "That I approve of. How about West and Yingling?"
"Prestonby's muscle man, Yetsko, killed West. I took care of Comrade Yingling, myself, after I'd gotten reinforcements to the store—first a couple of free-lance storm troops that the insurance company hired, and then as many of the Radical Rangers as I could gather up."
"And Pelton knows about all this?"
"He certainly does! After this caper, the Illiterates' Organization's through, as far as any consideration or patronage from the Radicals is concerned."
"Well, that's pretty nearly the best thing I've heard out of the whole business," Lancedale said. "In about eight or ten years, we may want to pull the Independent-Conservative party together again, to cash in on public dissatisfaction with Pelton's socialized Literacy program, which ought to be coming apart at the seams by then. And if we have the Illiterates split into two hostile factions—"