"Bang-Bang," said the Countess Krak, "you stand by out here." She popped a pill into her mouth. She hefted her shopping bag and followed the butler.
They went through a large, iron entrance door and entered a huge hallway. It was all of gray stone and decorated with displays of broadaxes, battle-axes and headsmen's axes. The butler motioned for her to wait and walked on through another door at the end.
The Countess Krak took a completely blank card out of her purse. She took a small vial and sprayed something invisible on it. Then she put both back into her purse.
The butler came through the door and stood beside it. As though summoning someone to a royal audience, he said, "Dr. Morelay will see you now."
The Countess Krak passed him and entered a dark room. It seemed to be a sort of combination consulting room and den, made oppressive by black beams in the ceiling and deadly by the amount of electric shock equipment standing about.
A woman was standing there. She was dressed like a Harley Street doctor would be dressed-black suit coat, pants and vest. She looked to be in her mid-forties. Her grayish hair was pulled severely into a knot. Her eyeglasses had a black silk ribbon. She held them and looked
through them with great distaste at the Countess Krak. So this was the Miss Agnes I pretended to know, this was the Miss Agnes that Bury hated so. Rockecenter's private shrink!
She began with no preamble. "So there you are at last! First you delay, delay, delay delivery! And all the while I am told I have this wonderful special-built present coming! A surprise it was supposed to be, a surprise I never could imagine! And what finally arrives? That horrible monster of a land yacht! An outright bald hint that I take myself away! Who wants to go away? Not me! A rotten thank-you for a lifetime of selfless service! And then what happens? I call and call and call and call! I tell you and tell you and tell you to take it away and give me the money instead. And all I get is the silly excuse that it's special-built, that it has been designed especially for me and even has a small padded cell!"
She stalked forward. Her expression was deadly. "Your driver put it right where it is! It blocked the drive! No one has been able to get in and out, for I shan't let anyone touch it until you give me the money and take it away! So give it to me," and she stretched out her claw-like hand.
The Countess Krak glanced over her shoulder to make sure the doors were closed. She reached into her purse and pulled out the blank card. She handed it to Dr. Morelay.
The woman held it close to her face.
The Countess Krak said, "There's nothing on that card, is there?"
"No."
"Then you won't mind if I put this helmet on your head, will you?"
"No."
The Countess Krak pulled a hypnohelmet out of her shopping bag and, with one smooth motion, popped it on the head of Agnes Morelay and turned it on.
She led the woman over to the consultation couch and eased her onto it. She plugged in the microphone.
"Sleep, sleep, pretty sleep. Can you hear me?"
"No."
The Countess Krak took the card out of her hand and took it over to an ashtray and touched a match to it. She came back and fanned a hand under the visor of the helmet.
"Can you hear me?"
"Yes," said Dr. Morelay.
It was only at that minute that I recalled the Eyes and Ears of Voltar perfume the Countess Krak had taken from the warehouse: it made the person say no to everything and was intended to protect chastity. What a vicious creature the Countess Krak was! And here she was daring to put a full-pledged psychologist and psychiatrist on her own couch! What villainy!
The Countess Krak sat down in the consultant's chair, held the microphone comfortably before her face and said, "You seem troubled about something. Would you care to tell me about it?"
"Not enough reward."
"What reward should there be?"
"Money, money, money, money!"
"What have you done to deserve it?"
"The Rockecenters had a sacred charge from Goeb-bels to render all other races incapable of defending themselves against Hitler. The Germans may have lost the war but this did not nullify the sacred trust. As a psychiatrist and psychologist, knowing my debt to Germany for those vital subjects, I have forwarded them
with dedication. The Rockecenters advocated worldwide population reduction for generations. It is a sacred family trust and I have carried it on. With every possible trick I could devise I have made Delbert John Rocke-center carry out his family commitments. Utilizing the Rockecenter control of the World Federation of Mental Stealth and the National Associations of Mental Stealth, I have spread far and wide the doctrine of Psychiatric Birth Control. And for Delbert John Rockecenter himself, personally, I caused him to found the foundations which, with glandular operations and drugs, have made him immortal."
"Is there anything else for which you should be rewarded?"
The body on the couch did a small writhe. The voice was muffled but it carried hate. "I listen to his puking drivel about watching chorus girls going to the toilet and making Miss Peace exhibit herself to him while she pees until I could simply strangle him."
The Countess Krak lowered the microphone into her shoulder. She muttered in Voltarian, "Hmm. Where there is this much hate, there must have been love. Oh, well, I'd better get down to business." She raised the mike and said in English, "Is there a son?"
The body on the couch writhed worse. "That would be a DISASTER! There is a ten-billion-dollar trust fund that would go to a son. It would split the control of Delbert John into fragments! THERE IS NO SON! THERE MUST NEVER BE A SON!" Then she relaxed a bit and an evil-sounding laugh came out of the helmet. "There can never be one now. The drugs he's been on for years and years and something else I did have made him totally impotent! I think I handled that
very nicely." Then she went into a writhe again. She grated, "The dirty, filthy, two-timing (bleep)!"
The Countess Krak lowered the microphone. "Oh dear," she said, "this hate is getting in the way." In English she said into the mike, "Was there ever a time when you were in love with Delbert John Rockecenter?"
The body on the couch did an instant explosion. Then it shuddered and writhed. Muffled venom came from the helmet. "He ought to be killed. He ought to be killed!"
"I think you better tell me all about this," said the Countess Krak.
The woman went stiff.
"Tell me," said the Countess Krak firmly.
"We were children. I lived right here on this neighboring estate. At every party, I was there. And every time I saw Delbert John, I used to think that someday I would marry all that beautiful Rockecenter money. It was what I lived for, just to marry him. I studied psychology just to know how to marry him. I took up psychiatry just to marry him. I forewent (bleeping) all the other little boys just to marry him. I didn't even (bleep) at college so I could marry him." A wail. "And what did he do? When I returned, proudly holding my psychiatric degree, all ready for the kill, the dirty (bleep) had got high on drugs and run off and married a (bleeping) chorus girl!" There was an agony of motion on the couch, as though she had been stabbed. "I was SCORNED! I was FORGOTTEN!" She got her breath. "And where was Miss Agnes, his childhood sweetheart? NOWHERE!" She lay gasping.
"So what did you do?" prompted the Countess Krak.
"I swallowed my (bleeping) pride! I served him like a slave! The family never learned of the marriage or they kept it hushed up. But that was not the problem. When
he learned that the (bleepch) was pregnant, he was beside himself. He didn't know what to do. If the baby was a son, it would inherit ten billion bucks by trusts! It would shake his control.