NEWSHOUND

By Milton Lesser

The Fourth Estate was highly specialized
in the 22nd Century; for example, a good newsman
predicted coming events—and made them happen....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
July 1955
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Darius McLeod leaned back comfortably and watched the mayor sweat.

His Honor popped a phenobarb tablet between his lips, tossing his head and gulping the pill down without water. His moist, nervous hands left their wet imprint on the desk top when he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a clipping from the morning's New York World.

"You people elected me, McLeod," he said. "Now get me out of this mess."

"We merely supported your candidacy, Your Honor," McLeod said easily. "But let's see what you got there."

"It amounts to the same thing," the mayor pleaded. "For God's sake, give me a break."

McLeod shrugged and unfolded the World clipping on his desk. "Naturally, the World will oppose your administration," he began. "Otherwise they'll never be able to live down the Star-Times' scoop on your election."

"That's precisely what I was saying. The way I understand it, you people will have to support your man. The Star-Times can't abandon me to the wolves, not now."

"I'm only a reporter," McLeod explained. "We report events, not make them."

"That's it. That's what I mean. The attitude. You're treating me like a child."

"You're acting like one."

"All I want is what's fair. Whatever you think is fair."

"Then let me read this thing." The column clipped from the World bore the cut-line COMING EVENTS. McLeod had always liked the Star-Times' LOOKING FORWARD better, although he had to admit that the World's cut of a swami rubbing his crystal ball had a certain fundamental appeal for the masses. House-written, the World column appeared under the by-line of Nostradamus.

McLeod scanned the printed lines quickly. There was a prediction on the outcome of the World Series. It had better turn out incorrect, thought McLeod: the Star-Times had spent a small fortune building up the opposing team. There was something about the dangers of forest fires and an indirect reference to the possibility of a conflagration next week in the Adirondack Game Preserve. (The Star-Times would be alerting its fire-fighting unit to prevent such a possibility, McLeod knew.) There was a talk of an impending war between Yugoslavia and France at a time when relations between the two countries were never more harmonious. McLeod wondered how the World would ever swing it. He read the last two items aloud.

"'We think it's high time the mayor of New York be exposed for his corrupt political dealings. We wouldn't be surprised if the mayor were forced to resign his office in January.... What ace reporter of what rival New York daily is going to meet with a fatal accident next week? Remember, you read it here first!'"

"January," said the mayor as Darius McLeod folded the column and lit a cigaret. "That's next month."

"They could be talking about me."

"Eh? If I'm forced to resign, you'll be scooped."

"Yeah, scooped," McLeod mused. "We're their chief rival. I'm the big Huck-a-muck over here. Those dirty sons—they can get me out of the way and scoop us at the same time. Listen, Your Honor, check back with me later. I've got to see the City Editor."

"But I'm not politically corrupt—"

"We'll decide. We'll let you know," Darius McLeod shouted, already running from his glass-walled office and through the clattering din of the City Room, disturbing the milling knot of scribes and gunmen going over last minute instructions from the Crime Editor, shouldering by the line of trim, pretty co-respondents receiving their briefs from the Society Editor, almost knocking down the Medical Editor who was either on the point of finding a cure for the World's latest plague or dreaming up one of his own, McLeod didn't remember which.

McLeod found Overman, the City Editor, perched on a corner of his desk and barking orders into a microphone. "What do you mean, he won't jump? We said he'd jump. Coax him. Push him if you can get away with it, I don't care. Don't make it obvious." Overman cocked his gaunt head to one side, listening to the receiver imbedded in his ear. He looked like a walking ad for hyper-thyroid treatment, with bulging eyes, hollow cheeks and fidgety limbs. He couldn't sit still and he didn't try. "All right, we'll hold up the story. And you're the guy who asked for a raise." Overman dropped the microphone hose back into its cubby and looked up. "Sometimes I wonder what the hell they think a reporter draws his salary for. What do you want, Darius?"

"The World's gunning for me, chief."

"I already saw it."

"Then don't just sit there."

"What do you want me to do, hold your hand? Of course the World's gunning for you. Great story for them, and they also kill off our star reporter in the process. If they get away with it."

"Damn it!" McLeod exploded. "This is the twenty-second century. If the World says I'm going to meet with a fatal accident, then my life's in danger." McLeod winced at his own words. In a matter of minutes he had been reduced to the mayor's level and he didn't like it.

"Counter-prognostication has already taken steps, Darius. Don't go off the deep end on me. It happens like this every time. Even a top-flight reporter sheds his own sophistication when the story's about himself."

"How do you expect me to take it?"

"Just relax, that's all."

"Maybe you want me to write my own obituary."

"Don't try so hard to be funny. Excuse me." Overman cocked his head again and listened, then pulled out his microphone and barked: "All right, all right. Don't cry. We can't get them all. I'm not saying it was your fault. Report back in."

"What's the matter?" McLeod wanted to know.

"Harry Crippens is the matter. Remember Congressman Horner? That story yesterday?"

McLeod recalled it vaguely. Something about Horner committing suicide unexpectedly.

"Well, he didn't jump. The World's Security Forces rescued him and got a scoop. Another wrongo for us, Darius. That's the second story Crippens bungled this month."

"Maybe it wasn't Cripp's fault, chief." Crippens was a plump, owl-faced man with big, watery eyes swimming behind concave glasses. McLeod had always liked him. He was the grimmest, saddest, cryingest, most logical drunk McLeod had ever met. Wonderful drinking partner.

"I didn't say it was. Just thinking, though."

"If psychology flubbed a dub on Horner, you can't blame Cripp."

"Not what I mean. The World's prediction is vague, see? Who's a star reporter? How do you single the man out? Any big by-line guy will do, right?"

"I guess so."

"Crippens gets his share of by-lines, Darius."

"Hey, wait a minute—"

"Why spend the time protecting you next week if we don't have to? It's expensive and not a sure thing. We'd hate to lose you, Darius."

"Thank you."

"But Crippens is bungling. He ought to meet the World's requirements. We do the job for them the first of next week. They get their story and we keep our number one man, alive. How does it sound?"

"Rotten," McLeod said. "I'm not going to sit by and let Cripp take that kind of rap for me. What kind of louse do you think I am, anyway?"

"Let it simmer, Darius. There's no hurry. I suppose His Honor has been around to use your crying towel?"

McLeod nodded. "That's right."

"I thought he would. It was your series of articles that got him elected in the first place. You saved my life, now support me. One of those deals. It was obvious the World would try to show corruption after their own candidate lost."

"Is the Star-Times going to protect Mayor Spurgess' record?"

Overman jerked his head from side to side, the stretched, translucent lids blinking over popping eyes. "It's always easier to prove corruption than disprove it, you know that. We'd be backing the wrong animal, Darius. I've got it figured, though."

"How do you mean?"

"They won't have much of a story if something violent happens to the mayor between now and next month. I don't want to see it in LOOKING FORWARD, though. Just make it happen and get the scoop. See? We can't let the mayor resign. This is the surest way."

"Anything particular in mind?"

"It's your assignment, Darius. Whatever you do is all right with me."

"That poor guy treated me like his father-image before. Well—"

"You're not weakening, are you, Darius? There's no time for emotion in this business, none at all. You've got to go out and get a story before some other outfit changes it on you. Or you've got to make their stories fail to happen. And whatever you do, you've got to keep the TV outfits guessing. If news starts happening according to Hoyle, we're all through. Us and the World and all the other newspapers wouldn't stand a chance, not with TV right on the spot. Keep TV guessing. Confused. Never sure. Give some crumbs to the World, even, if you have to.

"So there's no time for thalamic responses, Darius. Do I make myself clear?"

McLeod bristled. "You never had to give me that kind of lecture. You think I'm a cub or something? Don't worry about Mayor Spurgess, we'll fix him up."

"Splendid. But there's something else. Crippens."

"I told you how I felt about that. I don't want any part of it. Talk about your Judas's—"

"Crippens or you, Darius. The World's gunning. You know it."

"I can't tell you what to do. But I'll warn Cripp, that's all."

"That would make your own assignment rather difficult."

"What assignment are you talking about?"

"Crippens. The way I figure it, you have a lot at stake there. We'll let you handle Crippens."

"You're crazy!"

"You are if you refuse. We won't give you a single Security man for protection. Remember what they said in COMING EVENTS. Your one chance is to get Crippens before they get you and then let the World scoop us. I would suggest the first thing next Monday morning, but then, it's your baby."

"First Mayor Spurgess and now Crippens. Are you trying to make me a hatchetman?"

"A reporter, Darius. You've always been a good one."

"But Crippens is my friend."

"I wish we had another way out. Crippens has his place on the Star-Times, but we thought too much of him. We don't want to lose you, Darius. You can take that as an objective compliment and sleep easy. Your job's secure."

"Thank you very much."

"Don't be bitter. A man in the newspaper business is top-dog these days, see? I don't have to tell you. We're not passive receptors. We control things. We make things happen. We play God, but we've got competition. You've got to take the good with the bad, that's all. See what I mean?" All the while they had spoken, Overman had not moved from where he had perched his small frame on his desk, but his nervous legs had walked miles, his scrawny, sleeve-rolled arms had waved, flapped and gesticulated, his wide, bulging eyes had darted about the frenzied confusion of the great room where news was created and missed nothing. It was Overman's passion, McLeod knew, his alpha through omega. He suddenly wished it were that simple for himself. Less than half an hour ago, it would have been.

"We'll have our obituary people compose something tender for Crippens," Overman said. "Keep me informed, Darius."

"I haven't told you I'd do it."

"Whose obit would you rather see them write?"

"You could protect me instead."

But Overman jerked his head side to side again. "It's the same as politics. Much simpler to make news than to prevent it. The one sure way to protect you, provided you don't foul things up with Crippens."

"Well, I don't—"

"One of you makes the obituary page next week. The World's already seen to that. Take your choice, Darius."

"Yeah ... sure."

"And don't forget about Mayor Spurgess. You've got a busy time ahead of you. Good luck."

Walking back toward his own office, McLeod saw that the flow of co-respondents had slowed to a trickle. He swore softly. The last girl in line was Tracy Kent, a tawny-haired divorce specialist with an admirable record. McLeod liked Tracy, but it was strictly brother-sister stuff.

Tracy was going to marry Harry Crippens.

CHAPTER II

"Hey, Darius. A girl gets hungry for lunch around this time every day."

McLeod smiled. "Won't Cripp be along soon?"

"Search me." Tracy rubbed her stomach under the smooth, tautly drawn fabric of her dress. "When this piece of machinery starts to gurgle, I eat."

"Well, I was going to head over to the Press Club in a few minutes anyway. Don't you have to get yourself caught with someone today?"

"Later on. Tonight. Now I'm hungry."

Tracy Kent was long and almost lean with hips angular rather than rounded and the clean lines of her long-striding legs accentuated by the tight sheath of skirt as she walked with McLeod toward the elevator. She was all woman unless you happened to look at her a certain way, when you caught a glimpse of something coltish, almost like Peter Pan, in the way she carried herself or smiled at you. She did not look like a vamp, thought McLeod, which helped explain why she was such a successful co-respondent.

"One of these days I'm going to stop feeling like a brother toward you," McLeod promised as they climbed into his copter on the roof.

"You're flattering but tardy, Mr. McLeod. I'm going to marry the guy."

"Crippens?"

"Don't look at me that way. He's your friend, too." Tracy grinned as the rotors flashed above them, then pouted. "Darius, do we have to go to the Press Club for lunch?"

"Mixing business with pleasure, I guess. Got to see some people. Why, does someone bother you over there?"

"That Weaver Wainwright, always staring at me like he wants to sit down at his thinkwriter and let the world know what it's like with a co-respodent. Me."

"Wainwright's one of the men I want to see."

"The Star-Times' hot-shot reporter hob-nobbing with that riff-raff from the World?"

"You named it," Darius McLeod said as their copter rose up from the roof of the Star-Times building and retreated from the checkerboard pattern of other copters resting on their landing squares. "Why the sour face?"

"Because I read COMING EVENTS, Darius. Do you think Wainwright's been assigned the job?"

"It's a damned good guess. He just got back from overseas. He's been sopping up spirits like a blotter over at the club and making nasty noises while waiting for a new job. This is probably his baby."

"Why, Darius?"

"Because he's their number one boy."

"No. I mean, why you?"

McLeod shrugged. "Does there have to be a reason? It's good copy for them. The Star-Times loses a guy who's been around, too. That's the newspaper business, Tracy. Don't look for any reason."

"Don't be so calm about it. What's Overman going to do?"

McLeod considered the question as he brought the copter down expertly through the lanes of local traffic here at the edge of the city. Off in the distance, rank on rank of hemispherical suburban homes marched off, in orderly rows, to the eastern horizon. The Press Club, almost directly below them now, had snipped half a dozen square miles from the patterned picture. It was castle, game preserve and sylvan retreat not for one monarch, but for hundreds. Newshounds, newshens, gunmen. Flashing letters swam up at them from the green woodland, blinking on and off garishly—THE FOURTH ESTATE.

If he told her Overman had failed to offer any protection, she'd realize another alternative had been selected. It would be better if he lied. "What's Overman going to do?" he repeated her question. "The usual. I'll be protected. Don't worry about me."

"But if Wainwright's all they say, he's like a bloodhound. Be careful, Darius."

"Hell, I said don't worry. I have till next week, anyway."

"This is Friday."

"Yeah, Friday." Their copter alighted with hardly a quiver. Uniformed lackies were already polishing the chrome and glass by the time McLeod helped Tracy to the ground. She came down lithely, long hair whipping about her face and brushing against McLeod's cheek. A girl scantily clad as an American Indian led them across the landing field and along a path through the gnarled oaks which made the Fourth Estate resemble more a chunk of Scotland than Long Island. But while they couldn't see the acres of neon tubing from the ground, their pulsing glow spoiled the effect.

The clubhouse itself was an architectural nightmare of quarry-stone, turrets, battlements—and great, soft-hued thermo-glass walls. Music stirred the air faintly with rhythm as they crossed the drawbridge (which actually worked, McLeod knew) and entered the lobby. The pretty little squaw disappeared and was replaced at once by the weaponcheck girl, dressed in top hat and tails, but not much else.

She smiled professionally at Tracy, then frisked her expertly, finding the trick pocket in her skirt and removing the tiny but deadly parabeam from her leg holster. Tracy grinned back like a yawning cat. "I'd have given it to you."

"I'm sorry, m'am. They all say that." The weaponcheck girl turned to McLeod. "It's the law around here, you know that. Good afternoon, Mr. McLeod."

The hands darted with quick, practiced precision over him after he nodded. He felt the sleeve-holster slip out by way of his armpit, was given a numbered check for both weapons as the girl hip-wagged away and suspended their weapons from hooks in her arsenal. They were then led to a table near the bandstand, where they ordered cocktails.

"It's an awful lot of fuss just to eat lunch," Tracy said. "Every time that weapon hen paws me like that, I want to scratch her big, wide eyes out. Darius, I'm still afraid for you. Is Wainwright here?"

"I haven't looked, but don't worry. I have till next week, anyway."

"They could kidnap you and hold you somewhere till they're ready to kill you."

McLeod tried to hide his momentary confusion by making a production of lighting his cigaret and smiling at someone he hardly knew at a nearby table. Tracy certainly had a good point—which he hadn't considered until now.

Tracy glanced about uneasily in the dim light. "Did Overman think of that? I don't see any Security men around."

McLeod exhaled a long plume of smoke and watched it get sucked into the unseen currents of the climatizer. "They don't let themselves get seen," he said easily. "They wouldn't be good Security men if they did, would they?"

"But what are you going to do, Darius? Can't you take some kind of positive action? It's not like you, just sitting around and waiting."

McLeod wanted to change the subject, for Tracy had a way of ferreting out the truth even if she suspected nothing. He'd always thought she was wasting her time as a co-respondent and often told her so, but she'd always countered by striking a bump-and-grind pose and saying she had all the equipment. "Have you heard about Cripp?" he asked her now.

"Only that he was going out on an assignment. Suicide I think."

"Unfortunately, the guy had a change of heart. They had to tear up the obit."

"Was it Cripp's fault?"

"I doubt it. Suicide and murder are two different things. Psychology fouled up, that's all."

"But Overman must have been furious, anyway. Poor Cripp."

"Overman'll get over it. Cripp's a good man."

Tracy shook her head slowly. "Thanks for saying it, but Cripp isn't cut out for the newspaper racket and you know it. A couple more flubs and Overman will begin to think Cripp belongs to the Anti-Newspaper League or something."

"Very funny," McLeod told her. "I can just see it now: Cripp a subversive."

"Shh!" said Tracy, raising a finger to her lips. "We shouldn't even talk about things like that. Mentioning the Anti-Newspaper League in here is like eating beefsteak in Delhi."

A figure approached their table and sat down at the empty chair without receiving an invitation. "Did I hear something about the Anti-Newspaper League?" the man demanded, chuckling softly. He was tall and gaunt but well-tanned, the whites of his eyes very bright against the skin of his face. He had a long, sad nose which drooped mournfully almost to his upper lip, mitigating the effect of his smile.

He was Weaver Wainwright, ace reporter of the World.

"We're just a couple of subversives, Mr. Wainwright," Tracy said.

"So that's why the Star-Times is filling its pages with wrongos these days. How do you do, McLeod?"

"Never felt better. Ought to live to be a hundred, at least. Can we get you something?"

"As a matter of fact, I've just had lunch. Brandy might help my sluggish liver, though."

"Brandy it is," said McLeod, and gave the new order to their waiter when he arrived with a pair of Gibsons. "According to what I read in the papers, the World's thinking of starting a Tong War with us." McLeod hid his impulse to smile by making a conventional toast to Tracy. He wondered how much his unexpected candor had unnerved Wainwright and decided to study the reporter's reaction carefully.

But Wainwright merely grinned, making the upper lip all but disappear and the nose become more prominent. "At least you read a good newspaper," he said. "I don't think it's fair for you to say we had war in mind, McLeod. Nothing of the sort. Our Prognostication division merely indicated that a certain well-known opposition newsman was going to meet with an unfortunate accident next week. While prognostication is pretty reliable—especially coming from a good newspaper—it's hardly the last word. Ah, here's my brandy." And he began to sip and stare over the rim of his glass at Tracy.

"Nice stay in Europe?" McLeod wanted to know. Under the circumstances, Wainwright's composure had been admirable.

"Fair. But then, you read the papers."

"You mean that business about Yugoslavia and France?"

"That's right. Your man—What's his name, Kitrick?—thought there would be peace. He's wrong, you know. All you have to do is touch a spark to the right fuse in the Balkans, I always said. Kitrick was trying to put the fire out by spitting."

"Wayne Kitrick didn't think there was any fire to put out," Tracy told the World reporter. "As of now, there isn't."

"Give it some time," Wainwright promised. "You see, the President of Yugoslavia was indiscreet in his youth, most indiscreet. With elections approaching there, he had the alternative of—well, you know what a newspaper can do to a man of position who's been indiscreet. Drink to it?"

They did. In spite of everything, McLeod had to admire Wainwright. In the old days, nations went to war for economic reasons, over diametrically opposed political philosophies, because of religion. Today, a sharp reporter dug deep to unearth closeted skeletons and moral potsherds and literally blackmailed a chief of state into war. Wainwright was sharp, all right. History might one day write up the whole series of twenty-second century wars as Blackmail Wars, but meanwhile the U. N. could only gnash its collective teeth while Wainwright picked up a fattened paycheck.

"I'll bet you're proud of yourself," Tracy said.

"I don't see why not. Kitrick will be reamed, my dear."

"And so will a few million innocent people."

"Perhaps you weren't fooling when you mentioned the Anti-Newspaper League. But of course, you're pulling my leg."

"I'm a co-respondent," Tracy said coldly. "I don't have to turn cartwheels over your end of the newspaper game."

"Tracy," McLeod said. This was one facet of the girl's character he'd never seen before. He could almost see the gears meshing into place inside Wainwright's skull. He didn't mind talk which bordered on the subversive, as long as it came from Tracy, who was quite outspoken about a lot of things, but Wainwright might have other ideas.

But Wainwright said, blandly, "From a moral standpoint you carve out your pound of flesh every now and then too, my dear. Or don't you think framing innocent men in compromising circumstances is immoral?"

"You wouldn't understand the difference," Tracy said.

"It is a difference of degree, not kind."

Tracy bit her lips and did not reply. It was like a revelation to McLeod. He suddenly wondered if Cripp knew how maladjusted his fiancee was.

Abruptly, Wainwright changed the subject. "Are you well insured, McLeod?"

"I never could figure out who to name as beneficiary."

"That's a shame."

"If you've planned anything now, I thought you'd like to know Star-Times Security Forces are all around us," McLeod bluffed.

"You underestimate me, sir. Prognostication comes up with the raw facts, which I sift for story material. I merely wait for things to happen. However, in case you have any inclinations to put the shoe on the other foot, I'm sure you realize World Security men often lunch at the Fourth Estate."

That, McLeod suspected, was no bluff. Tracy was still nibbling on her lip but managed to cast a worried look in his direction. They ordered and ate in silence while Wainwright swirled and sipped another brandy.

"Have you heard about poor Mayor Spurgess?" Wainwright asked as McLeod cooled his coffee with cream.

McLeod scalded his lips. The World reporter was playing cat-and-mouse with him, taunting him overtly. Perhaps Wainwright figured he could kill two birds with one stone, getting McLeod while McLeod tried to protect the mayor's record. He hoped Wainwright had not thought of Overman's alternative.

"You're a busy man," McLeod finally said.

"I detest inactivity. I assume since you wrote Mayor Spurgess into office, you are going to protect his name. Miss Kent, could you excuse yourself for a moment?"

Tracy waited until McLeod nodded, then stood up and mumbled something about going to powder her nose. McLeod lit a cigaret and waited.

"Now we can talk," Wainwright said. "Recognize the spirit in which this is said, McLeod: you're a fine reporter."

"Thanks."

"But you're as good as dead. We've written your obituary."

Strangely, the announcement brought no fear. Although it had only been a couple of hours, McLeod felt as if he'd been living with the idea for years. "You haven't printed it yet."

"In time. But we don't have to print it. Naturally, it's news, McLeod. You have a well-known name. But there are others equally well-known. More well-known. We can come up with a wrongo occasionally. Basically, we want to kill you because you're too valuable to the Star-Times."

"Your motive doesn't interest me. And I have some news for you: I'm a long way from dead."

"Don't be melodramatic, McLeod. We'll get you. A routine assassination-accident doesn't often become a wrongo, you know that. We have decided to make an offer to you."

Now McLeod's skin did begin to crawl. Statistically, the assassination-accident case was more fool-proof than any other. Gunmen commanded good salaries and did their work expertly. Ninety-five per cent accuracy could be expected. "I'm listening."

"Join the World."

"Come again?"

"I'm sure you heard me. Quit the Star-Times and join us. We'll match your salary, we won't kill you—"

"But the Star-Times will!"

"You'd be valuable to us, aside from your abilities as a reporter. No doubt, they've included you in any long-range plans they might have. We'll have them piling up wrongos from now till doomsday."

"Which is exactly why they'll have me killed if I become a turncoat."

"We'll offer you full protection."

"I'm already getting full protection—from the Star-Times," McLeod lied. It was almost a tempting offer, although its virtues were purely negative. The Star-Times had refused to offer him protection because Overman thought it would be simpler and more certain to serve up a substitute reporter for the kill. If McLeod accepted Wainwright's offer, at least he'd be able to sleep easy regarding Crippens. But if the World's real purpose was to remove McLeod from the Star-Times' staff, one way or the other, they might risk an all-out Tong War and still gun for him.

Besides, no turncoat newspaperman had ever survived six months. McLeod knew it and was sure Wainwright knew it and guessed the World reporter was promising him all he could under the circumstances—a temporary reprieve.

"I know what you're thinking," Wainwright told him. "The Star-Times will get you if you turn on them. If necessary, they'll drop everything else until you're dead."

"Well, yes. That's just what I was thinking."

"I don't envy your position," Wainwright admitted. "You believe I'm offering you a few months more of life at best. But you're mistaken, McLeod. It will appear as if we have killed you. We can do it, working together. But I offer you life. The accident will all but destroy you, although means of identification will remain. Don't you see what I'm driving at? We can substitute some derelict for you, then change your appearance and employ you on the World. The Star-Times will never know the difference."

It was a daring plan. It was just the sort of thing which made the newspaper business in general—and Weaver Wainwright in particular—so omnipotent these days. McLeod did not try to hide his interest. The plan had more than negative virtues, after all.

"How do I know I can trust you?" McLeod asked.

"I'm afraid you don't. But let it simmer. What it boils down to is this: you're going to have to take a calculated risk either way, McLeod. No doubt, you've devised some scheme to give us a fat wrongo instead of your corpse. It may or may not work. Statistics say it will not. On the other hand, I promise you life. My plan not only could work, it should work. The risk there is that I may not be telling the truth. You'll have to decide ... here comes Miss Kent."

"The girl with the crooked face," said Tracy, sitting down. "Unless you tell me it's straight."

"As an arrow," said McLeod, hardly hearing his own words. The more he thought of Wainwright's plan, the better he liked it. If Wainwright were telling the truth, he'd be able to get both Cripp and himself off the hook at the same time. "I'll think about it," he told the World reporter, who was smiling and getting up to leave.

"Call me," Wainwright said, and was gone.

"What did he want?" Tracy asked.

"The usual," McLeod told her, realizing a near-truth was often the best lie. "That I join up with the World and get protected."

"You wouldn't last a month and you know it. So why did you tell him you'd think about it?"

"To let him think I was playing both ends against dead center, I guess. I don't know. I just want to come out of this thing alive, Tracy."

"I was thinking. There must be something we could dig up about Weaver Wainwright, something we could hold over his head so he'd rather be guilty of a wrongo than see it revealed."

"I doubt it. Anyway, you don't blackmail newspapermen."

"You don't kill them, either. Darius, did you ever stop to think how—how awfully evil this whole setup is? I don't mean just about you and how the World wants to make a story out of killing off the opposition. I mean everything. I mean Weaver Wainwright starting a war in Europe so his paper can get the inside story on it. I mean the President of Yugoslavia being blackmailed by a garden variety newspaperman. I mean Cripp getting chewed out because he went to cover a suicide and the man didn't jump. We ought to celebrate, don't you see? A human life was saved. I mean me getting myself caught with important men so their wives sue for divorce and we get the story. I mean disease that doesn't have to happen and medical cures held back until one paper or another can scoop them. I mean scientific discoveries which aren't made because research scientists and development engineers are on newspaper payrolls and perform their basic research and experiments, then wait for the newspaper stories to be released at an editor's leisure. I mean ... oh, what's the use? You're laughing at me."

McLeod was trying not to smile but meeting with little success. "I just never heard you talk like that before, that's all. Tracy, you're like a little girl in a lot of ways—idealistic, romantic, building castles on air and not accepting the real world, but—"

"Real!" Tracy cried. "It's phony from the word go. We're making it—to suit headlines."

"Stop shouting," McLeod said in alarm. "People are staring at you."

"I don't care about them."

"Well, I do. Before you know it, they'll be investigating you for Anti-Newspaper tendencies. What's the matter with you?"

"My God! Don't sound so gosh-awful righteous, Darius. You treat this newspaper business like a religion."

"Maybe I like being top-dog."

"So now you're going to get yourself killed. A sacrifice to the Headline God."

"Stop it," McLeod said. "I won't get killed if I can help it."

"And if Wainwright can help it too, is that the idea?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Sometimes I ... I hate you, Darius McLeod. That's what I'm talking about. They're going to kill someone else and change your face and let you work for the World." Tracy stood up and patted her lips with a napkin.

McLeod climbed to his feet too. "How did you know about that?"

"Don't bother getting up. I can find my way back alone, thank you."

McLeod sat down, staring at her.

"Maybe it's because I'm a spy. Maybe I work for the World." Tracy pivoted and stalked away, her heels click-clacking defiantly on the marble floor. McLeod gaped after her until she disappeared.

CHAPTER III

McLeod made an appointment to see Jack Lantrel, the Gunman Chief of the Star-Times, Saturday morning. He spent the remainder of Friday pondering and drinking a little too much. The combination yielded a hangover, but not even tentative conclusions. While Tracy Kent had become an unexpected enigma, he couldn't spend too much time on it. Wainwright's proposal nagged at all his thoughts, but he kept telling himself he couldn't trust the World reporter. And for the first time he found he didn't like the feeling of power inherent in a newspaperman's position. Having the power of life and death over nameless, faceless people was one thing, but playing the role of the Greek hag who snipped the thread of life with a pair of indifferent scissors for Crippens was quite another.

Lantrel met McLeod in the Gunman's office, greeted him and said, "Dragging me down on Saturday, this better be important." Jack Lantrel was a harried-looking little man. You always expected a great, bosomy wife to come charging in to henpeck him, although, like McLeod, Lantrel was a bachelor. He straightened the thinkwriter and the other items of office equipment on his desk with mechanical efficiency. He was an old fuddy-duddy, thought McLeod, but he had signed the death warrants for hundreds of people.

"It's a job," said McLeod.

"Well, that's what I draw my check for. But we work on a rigid schedule, Darius."

"Then call it a priority job. Mayor Spurgess."

Lantrel looked up from where he'd been drumming his fingers idly on the desk. "Motive is none of my business," he admitted. "But did you say you want to have Mayor Spurgess gunned?"

McLeod sighed. "Yeah."

"I'm glad my particular job is comparatively simple. You just elected the guy."

"And now we want him killed. Overman would sleep easier and so would I if you did it by tomorrow night."

Lantrel grunted something, prodded the intercom button on his desk and demanded in his high-pitched voice, "Will you please get me the habit file on Mayor Spurgess?" He turned to McLeod. "Sunday night, eh? That doesn't give us much time."

McLeod shrugged and watched a secretary bring in a bulging plastic file envelope which Lantrel flipped through expertly. "Here we are. Subject generally dines late Sunday night, reviews his Monday morning schedule, smokes a pipe and plays with the TV set until he's convinced there's nothing to interest him, then ... oh! here we are ... takes a walk around twenty-two hundred hours, alone, without his wife."

"Sounds simple," McLeod said.

"An assassination-accident," Lantrel informed him with surprising enthusiasm, "is never simple. Despite the statistical expectancy of success, there are too many random factors you have to contend with. If the weather's bad, perhaps subject won't take his evening constitutional. Perhaps subject's wife will break the pattern with some company for dinner. Subject might conceivably take a friend along with him. You see what I'm driving at?"

McLeod nodded. "All I want to know is this: can you do the job Sunday night?"

Lantrel scanned the file again. "Subject leaves his house at twenty-two hundred, returns by twenty-two forty-five. That gives us forty-five minutes. Probably, Darius."

"Good enough."

Lantrel slid a gunman form into his thinkwriter, hunched himself down in his chair and watched the machine type. Presently the sheet of paper slipped out the other side of the squat machine and McLeod read:

DATE: 14 Dec 2103

NAME: Darius John McLeod

ASSIGNMENT (CURRENT): City Desk

JOB NO.: 03-4-12

CLASSIFICATION: Top Priority

SUBJECT: Peter Winston Spurgess, Mayor, New York City

DATE OF EXECUTION (APPROX): 15 Dec 2103

METHOD: Vehicular, or other, accident

CODE: 4-12-DJM

APPROVED:
/s/Jack Lantrel
JACK LANTREL
GUNMAN EDITOR

THE UNDERSIGNED HEREBY CERTIFIES THAT JOB NO. 03-4-12, HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS 4-12-DJM, HAS BEEN ORDERED IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE EXISTING REGULATIONS GOVERNING ASSASSINATION-ACCIDENTS, AND THAT 4-12-DJM HAS BEEN APPROVED, ORALLY OR IN WRITING, BY THE City Editor. THE UNDERSIGNED IS COGNIZANT OF THE FACT THAT ANY FRAUD OR DECEIT IN THIS APPLICATION, WHETHER FOR PERSONAL GAIN OR OTHERWISE, IS PUNISHABLE BY SUMMARY REVOCATION OF HIS (HER) NEWSPAPER LICENSE.

DARIUS JOHN MCLEOD

It suddenly was no simple matter for McLeod to scrawl his name at the bottom of the sheet. He was aware of Lantrel, a puzzled expression on his face, watching him. It seemed entirely routine to affix his signature, but quite suddenly he was aware of the machinery that would put into operation. Gunmen would be selected for the job, would study Mayor Spurgess' habit file, would agree with Lantrel on the modus operandi. Within thirty-six hours, Mayor Spurgess would be dead.

Darius McLeod executioner?

Hardly. He was merely carrying out an assignment. Newspapers were active agents in the modern world. If it had not been his assignment, it would have been someone else's. You could hardly consider it murder. Murder was punishable today as it had always been—by capital punishment or a long prison term. A newspaperman was above reproach—or imprisonment.

McLeod saw the parallel that he had first seen in Overman's office yesterday. He was both executioner and victim. Even now as he was signing the application for Mayor Spurgess' death, perhaps Weaver Wainwright was signing one which read, SUBJECT: Darius John McLeod, reporter, New York Star-Times. The World Gunman Editor might now be studying his habit file, weighing the various factors to determine what situation seemed most promising as a vessel for his "accidental" death. Did the editor know that McLeod often spent weekends racing across country or down to South America in his jet? It was there in his habit file in all probability. Did he know that McLeod visited the Star-Times space station once every fortnight because he was being groomed to cover the Star-Times dash to the moon, if ever they got the jump on the World space station and could leave Earth's gravitational field without the near certainty of being tracked and shot down by a World rocket? Did he know the thousand one little habits which, combined in various predictable patterns, made up McLeod's life? Unfortunately, the answer had to be in the affirmative. It left McLeod feeling a little sick.

"What's the matter, Darius? Is something wrong?"

"Huh? No. Nothing." McLeod signed the application. "There you are."

"Fine," said Lantrel, placing the application in his out basket. "Call me at home tomorrow afternoon, Darius. I'll give you the details so you can cover the assignment. You know the number?"

McLeod said that he did and left. He wondered if Weaver Wainwright would make a similar call. The worst part of it was that he didn't know when.

When he reached his bachelor apartment in the East Seventies, the door recorder told him that two visitors, one male and one female, were waiting for him. McLeod felt the comforting bulk of his parabeam in its arm holster and loosened it there. If they had entered his apartment it was because their fingerprint patterns had been included in the locking mechanism, but he couldn't take any chances. He opened the door and sighed his relief.

"Morning, Darius," Harry Crippens greeted him cheerfully, bouncing up from a web-chair and extending his hand. "Shake hands with a reporter who just got a big, fat, unexpected raise."

McLeod lit a cigaret and said, "I'm very glad to hear that, Cripp. Did Overman tell you?"

"Nope. First I knew of it, I read it in the paper. Take a look."

As McLeod took this morning's Star-Times from Crippens, Tracy entered the living room from the kitchen. "Coffee in a minute, Cripp," she said. "Oh, Darius. We're making ourselves to home, as the expression goes. Did you see that crazy thing in the paper?"

"I'm about to," said McLeod.

"Crazy!" Crippens cried in mock horror. "I get a raise right before we get married and she says crazy."

"Well, it doesn't make sense."

McLeod turned to the Internal Affairs page of the Star-Times. With the newspaper profession supplanting Hollywood fifty-odd years ago as the world's most glamorous, articles on internal affairs had evolved from small islands of type in a sea of advertisements to a place of importance with their own daily page and special editor.

"Three column head," Crippens said proudly. "Liberal quotes from the King himself. Maestro Overman."

"That's what I mean," Tracy repeated. "Crazy. Only yesterday, he was chewing you out."

The article said that a new star was on the Star-Times horizon, and went on to discuss all the successful assignments Crippens had handled. There was no mention of his wrongos which, McLeod knew, were considerable. A two-column cut of Crippens at his thinkwriter was included and the caption rendered a thumb-nail biography. The article concluded by mentioning a raise in salary which gave Crippens more than Tracy and almost what McLeod earned.

"That's great," McLeod said, finding it difficult to maintain his enthusiasm. Damn Overman, he didn't miss a trick. Fattening the calf for slaughter.

"Now the girl's got to marry me," Crippens declared. "I earn more money than she does." He was flip, building effusively in the best newspaperman fashion. He was not the serious, intent Crippens McLeod had always known, although, on closer examination, McLeod realized that the owlish eyes looked quite sober.

"Quit your kidding," McLeod told him. "Harry Crippens would probably celebrate by discussing his next assignment, or making a study of the moral factors involved. What's the matter?"

"Not a thing," Crippens assured him easily. "Here, have a drink. It's your whisky."

"In the morning?" asked Tracy.

"This is a celebration, girl. There you go." And Crippens sloshed liquor into three glasses. His hands were shaking.

"I said what's the matter?" McLeod ignored the drink.

Crippens didn't. "Not a thing. Not a single, solitary thing."

"Go ahead and talk to him," Tracy said.

"Don't mind her, Darius. Have another?" Crippens poured for himself.

"Darn it, Cripp. Even if it means making me feel better?"

"Darius wouldn't do a thing like that, that's all."

"Like what?" McLeod wanted to know.

"I have to hand it to you," Tracy told him. "I thought you'd do your best to change the subject."