"Yes, indeed, you do have a good record," the personnel man was saying approvingly. "No absences in five years, no latenesses. Very good indeed."
"Then," said the air pollution inspector eagerly, "I'll be upgraded? I'll get that promotion promised two years ago?"
The personnel man cleared his throat, but his smile remained radiant. "Just as soon as business picks up, we'll give you a promotion and raise in pay...."
Bong!
A roar of mirth arose from the waiting air pollution men as Monitor Jeb nervously pulled his Monitex from its concealing pollution meter shell and read the violation off to the enraged personnel man. A fifty credit fee for use of the copyrighted verbal phrase Just as soon as business picks up, we'll give you a promotion and raise in pay.
As Jeb escaped the wrath of his victim, one of the men snickering nearby muttered, "Hah! He'll have to rack his tiny brain for a new way of stalling us from now on."
In the next three hours, Jeb drove himself hard. He picked up a twenty credit fee when a doorman outside a Teletheatre had bonged the Monitex with "Plenty of seats inside!" He scooped up another violation in a bar when a bleary-eyed man with veins showing in his nose murmured to the bartender, "Well, I'll have just one more." He wandered to the telephone booths and waited for one of the standby violations to fall into his pocket; sure enough, a handsome, dark-eyed fellow murmured into the mouthpiece, "I'll be working late tonight again, honey; sorry."
The time passed too swiftly and when Jeb paused to get a bite of food, he saw, dismayed, that even though he was having a pretty good day, it was far from the killing he'd promised Laurie. Ten and twenty credit violations didn't make a man rich.
What I need is one of the really big ones, thought Jeb desperately.
With fumbling fingers, he pressed out a core number on the Monitex.