The Model 99's screens, turned to night frequency, showed it all up plainly, color-corrected to look like day. It was quite startling to then look out and see only blacks and shadow.
Flick was sorting out the buildings. He found the various chimneyed structures where they made cloth and fabric molds and discarded them. He was able to label the many-windowed, low, long buildings, each standing in its park, as design and assembly structures.
"I thought you'd cased this joint," said Madison.
"I did. I saw it on Homeview," said Flick. "It produces, all by itself,.07 percent of all the clothing for the nobility, their staffs and estates."
"That's not very much," said Madison.
"But it's quality we're after and that is the TOP.07 percent. Or maybe it was 7 percent: I always have trouble with my ciphers because they're nothing, you see, and you don't have to bother with them. But I'll convince you: the cloth they make in them factories down there have been used in stage clothes for Hightee Heller. So there's no better recommendation than that!"
Hightee Heller? thought Madison. Ah, yes. He'd heard something: that was Jettero's sister. "That's the Homeview star," he said.
"Star?" sniffed Flick. "You mean Goddess! Don't you go running down the girl of my dreams. Hey, there it is! The warehouse! No windows. See it in that snarl of monorails? Here we go!"
They shot down to a truck roadway that ran under the monorails and stopped. They were in a park, close by the warehouse, within a hundred feet of its doors. Three air-coaches came down, crump, crump, crump, on the road behind them.
It gave Madison the creeps. Here he was in a glaringly recognizable car, accompanied by three vehicles full of naked cons. He looked around hastily for guards.
The night was very black here, the moon blocked out. Ah, there it was: a watchman's office, marked by a blue light. The office itself was inset into the side of the circular warehouse and close by the main entrance.
His attention was distracted by someone at their windows. It was the sealer, the purse snatcher and the electronics security man, stark naked.
The security man said to Flick, "All the controls will be in that watchman's office. This place will go up like a celebration if we even touch the latch of that front door at this hour. We were talking it over in the coach." But he was pointing at the watchman's windows.
Madison's hair stood up. In silhouette, a watchman could be seen peering out.
"You see?" said the electronics convict. "Our gang ain't complete. We ain't got no slugger to take the watchman out."
"Oh, yes, we have," said Flick. "The chief. He's a first-rate murderer."
Madison groaned. He knew he had set up the wrong image.
"Well, don't hold us up, Chief," said Flick. "Go on over and erase that watchman. Sir."
Madison knew his control of this gang was on the line. But murder?
"When you get in there, Chief," said the electronics man, "you'll find a big board. So as soon as you take the watchman out, remove the activating plate from his belt and push it over a green dot you'll find on the board and all the alarms will nullify."
Madison braced himself. He got out of the airbus. Two of the roustabouts had come up and showed every sign that they were going to go accompany him.
In a firm voice, Madison said, "Don't come with me. I don't want any witnesses to learn how I really work."
"He'll be armed," Flick said.
"You birds stay here," said Madison. And they watched him walk down the road, visible only against the watchman's windowlight.
They saw Madison enter the office and the watchman vanish from the window. A small sound came to them, something falling. Then there was a delay and they grew more and more nervous. "Maybe he's having trouble with the opening plate. Those boards are pretty complex. I better go help."
"You stay here like he said," snarled Flick. "You caused enough trouble for one night."
They became more and more edgy.
Then suddenly someone was running toward them and they tensed.
It was Madison.
He beckoned.
Nervously they followed him.
Madison reached for the entrance door and opened it. At his gesture, forty-eight naked cons slid like whispers into the building.
Flick glanced toward the watchman's office.
"Don't go in there," said Madison. "It would turn your stomach."
Madison firmly closed the door behind them, fumbled along the wall and pushed a panel.
The interior of the warehouse flooded with light.
There were tiers and tiers of shelves of boxes, racks and racks of clothes, men's and women's.
The convicts let out suppressed squeals of delight and began to rush along the racks and tiers. They began to tear down boxes of fancy shoes and grab hats and capes.
At a low word from Madison, Flick called them to come back.
Holding items already grabbed they unwillingly returned.
Madison walked up to a rack of shimmering white dresses, probably expensive beyond belief. He ripped one off the hangings. He was using it to wipe his hands!
THEY WERE BRIGHT RED!
Madison tossed the gown, now gory, on the floor.
The convicts stared at him.
Madison went over to a hook and took down a book that was hanging there and looked at it. "Yes, I thought so," he said. "This is the stock book for these rows. It has all the sizes. Now what I want you to do is each one outfit himself for any role he might have to play. Try everything on carefully."
"Oh, no," Flick gasped. "That will take time. On a job like this you grab and run!"
"And wind up with a sloppy-looking gang?" said Madison. "Take your time. We've got hours to dawn."
"There are sometimes roving watchmen, too!" said Flick.
Madison let out a snort. "They're not roving anymore."
The convicts hastened back to the shelves. They began to grab stock books. They began to look at sizes. And soon they were very busy indeed.
The circus girls paraded around, getting opinions on which costumes were the most provocative until Madison told them they had to look like ladies of quality and, on this new thought, had to select all over again.
Flick kept trying different tunics on his footwoman to see which ones best showed off her breasts until Madison forced him to find his own and then match hers to that. He had to correct that again when Flick found some lepertige tights that left everything on her front bare. "But," argued Flick, "I found some for myself and they match the upholstery!" In the end, Madison did manage to get them into shimmering violet uniforms but he had to let them take the tights as well: it was the foot-woman, this time, who was protesting. She LOVED them!
The two actors who had been impersonating officers had to be argued down into more junior ranks when they found whole racks for generals and admirals.
The horror-story writer couldn't find anything gruesome enough and Madison had to force him into a wardrobe for scholars and lettered men.
The director went crazy trying to decide whether he could direct best, dressed as an archbishop or a lord, and
Madison had to talk very fast to get him to choose clothes of a working executive.
What was most trying about it, to Madison, was that he really didn't know the styles or what they represented. He was finally saved by the studio production secretary finding vast books of fashion plates which showed what was now in style.
After that, it was plain sailing. He firmly got them to outfit themselves as, each one, people of quality, working people, domestics, executives and actors.
At last he could turn to his own wardrobe. And he had very little trouble with that. He found the racks for top-flight executives like presidents of companies and, in a conservative way, got himself into the height of fashion.