"Take us to the warder," said Flick.
They walked across the gritty courtyard, through a rusty door, and shortly were ushered into a stone-walled room where a very old and tough-faced man was just getting his jacket on. "And what's so urgent that you come here at night?" said the warder, scowling.
Flick held up Madison's identoplate.
"PR man?" said the warder. "What's that?"
"Parole officer," said Flick. "Apparatus parole officer." And he made a little gesture toward the two "bluebottles" that had followed them in. The warder signalled with his hand that the escort could withdraw.
Flick reached into Madison's coat and drew out two one-thousand-credit notes and slid them into the warder's palm. It was a year's pay.
"Ah, yes," said the warder. "A parole officer. Anybody special?"
"Lead us to your computer consoles," said Flick.
The warder took them down a stone passageway, ushered them into a room where several consoles sat, deserted at night. He waved his hand in invitation and left, shutting the door.
Flick took off his mustard-colored tunic, rolled up his sleeves and sat down before a keyboard and screen.
Madison said, "Flick, you've GOT to tell me what you are up to NOW!"
"Well," said Flick, with a glance to make sure the door was shut, "if you plan a robbery you've got to have a gang."
"You don't need a gang, Flick."
"Now listen," said Flick, "I've dreamed and dreamed of having my own gang. I never had the means to break one out. Now, you're not going to spoil it. You got to be more careful of dreams: they're fragile." He turned to a pad on the desk, a big smile beginning to split the horizontal oval of his face. "Oh, man! Am I ever going to have a great gang. Now I'm going to make a list of absolute essentials, so don't you interrupt."
He began to write and Madison, looking over his shoulder, read:
IDEAL GANG
1 Female for a footman in the car to fool with and feel up when I have long and tiresome waits.
5 More drivers for getaway and loot coaches and in case I get tired driving.
3 Chefs for cooking in relays 24 hours in case I get hungry at odd times.
1 Sealer to climb up walls and open windows and roof traps in places I think I might get dizzy or my shins barked.
1 Purse snatcher to get keys to houses and opening plates to avoid making noise by breaking locks.
1 Electronics security expert that knows all about security systems and can defeat them.
1 Salesman to fence loot for me so he gets caught and I don't.
1Good-looking girl to dean up my wont because I hate making beds. Ha. Ha.
6 Whores to sleep with and cook for the rest of the gang so they leave mine alone.
He chewed the end of the pen for a bit, then he said, "Nope, that's it. That's just about right. A gang right out of my dreams for sure. Now I'm going to computer out ten candidates for each of these jobs, then I'll get the warder to dig the applicants out of the old bunkers and parade them and I can select the absolute top-best criminals. Perfection!"
He turned to the console and shortly the screen began to show a racing blur of numbers, names, faces and records. Flick was preselecting categories and then entering them by number in on a side, portable computer board. Thousands of names and faces were pouring through.
Madison watched dully, wondering how he was going to stop this.
No master at operating one of these, Flick occasionally hit a wrong key. This got him in a tangle and wrong categories flashed up while he tried to get back.
"Wait!" said Madison, suddenly jarred out of his preoccupation. "What on Earth is that category you just passed? Go back to it."
Flick did. "Circus girls? What would anybody want with circus girls? All they ever do is stand around and show off costumes. And there, look at the crimes: life for rolling drunks. That type of criminality is NOT dignified. We're not rolling drunks: we're in the house-robbing business."
"Wait, don't shift categories yet. Some of those carry the educated symbol. Does it say any of them were ever models?"
"What's a 'model'?"
"Pull the printout on those and get them paraded along with the rest."
Flick muttered. He hit another wrong key.
"Hey!" said Madison. "There's an ex-Homeview cameraman doing life for equipment theft!"
Flick was disgusted. "Look, if you're going to put together another gang, go over to another console: you're getting in my way."
Madison approached another console and figured out how to operate it. He got to work.
Madison, two hours later, was feeling more than slightly ill. He was standing in the ghastly blue light of the prison courtyard, one hand on the airbus, trying not to vomit. Naturally fastidious, he feared he'd be smelling that smell for weeks.
The warder, good as his word, had paraded ten candidates at a time in a noisome assembly bunker and Flick and Madison had had the job of interviewing each. Between them, they had examined 480 prisoners. They had selected 48. They had been cursed luridly at the last by the 432 luckless ones who had NOT been chosen.
And here came the fruits of their interviews after being handled on the prison rolls. The small mob was being prodded forward by stingers in the hands of guards. Additional "bluebottles," alert with guns, walked behind.
The night was dark and the courtyard cold with wind in off the sea. The prisoners' rags were blown like tattered banners about their filthy limbs. They stank; their hair was matted; they were thin. The fourteen women and thirty-four men should have been cowed, but they were not.
They came to a stop in the sudden glare of a spotlight on the wall. They had not been outside, some of them, for years. They looked around brazenly. A couple of them barked laughs at the guards, jeering laughs. Flick and Madison had not chosen convicts who looked cowed.
The warder, walking over the black pavement to Madison, heard the laughs and turned around and glared at the group. Then he turned back to Madison and pushed papers at him on a board so they could be stamped.
"I hope you know what you're doing," the warder said. "The people you selected were not the ones I would have picked for parole. You passed over many a bird down there that have maybe reformed. Some of these you picked are probably killers we never got the goods on. Those women are a bad lot-capable of anything. I think they fooled you with their looks. But you guys in the Apparatus always have been crazy. We pick 'em up and you turn 'em loose. The government pays us to prevent crime and pays you to commit it. Funny world."
Madison handed the now-stamped papers back.
"You got forty-eight killers there," the warder said. "Don't turn your back on them. Good luck."
He walked a few paces toward the prison doors and then changed his mind and faced the tattered, filthy group grinning at him in the wind and spotlight glare. In a loud, harsh voice he said, "Listen, you bird droppings. If any one of you show up here again, I'll put you in the iron box and down in the darkest hole and we won't even bother to bury you when you die. You'll stay free only as long as this Apparatus officer here is still alive. Your papers say you are to be returned here any time he says so. If you run away from him, a warrant goes out for you and back here you come. You belong in Hells, not in free air." He pointed emphatically at Madison. "Obey that man, you (bleepards), or you're dead!"
Madison watched the warder tramp away. The fellow had earned his money: he had turned total control of these convicts to Madison with that speech even though he might suspect that Madison would order them to commit crimes.