"Security!" Gordon muttered bitterly. Security was good at getting people in trouble, but he had seen no other sign of it.
Randolph frowned over his cards. "Yeah, I know. The government set them up, gave them a mixture of powers, and has been trying to keep them from working ever since. But somehow they did clean up Venus; and every crook here is scared to death of the name. How come a muckraking newspaperman like you never turned up anything on them, Gordon?"
Gordon shrugged. It was the first reference he'd heard to his background, and he preferred to let it drop.
But Mother Corey cut in, his voice older and hoarser, and the skin on his jowls even grayer than usual. "Don't sell them short, cobber. I did—once.... You forget them, here, after a while. But they're around...."
Bruce Gordon felt something run down his armpit, and a chill creep up his back....
Out on the street, a sudden whooping began, and he glanced down. The parade was on, the Croopsters in full swing, already mostly drunk. The main body went down the street, waving fluorescent signs, while side-guards preceded them, armed with axes, knocking aside the flimsier barricades as they went. He watched a group break into a small grocery store to come out with bundles. They dragged out the storekeeper, his wife, and young daughter, and pressed them into the middle of the parade.
"If Security's so damned powerful, why doesn't it stop that?" he asked bitterly.
Randolph grinned at him. "They might do it, Gordon. They just might. But are you sure you want it stopped?"
"All right," Mother Corey said suddenly. "This is a social game, cobbers."
Outside, the parade picked up enthusiasm as smaller gangs joined behind the main one. There were a fair number of plain citizens who had been impressed into it, too, judging by the appearance of little frightened groups in the middle of the mobsters.