“Come on, buster. Order or split, you can’t stand there all day.” The voice graveled in my ear and I muttered some excuse and shuffled off to the nearest booth and dropped into it. I knew now what had to be done.
Simply stand the problem on its head. Instead of me looking for The Bishop I would have to make him look for me.
I drank my drink until my sinuses hurt, staring unseeingly into space as the pieces of the plan clicked into place. There was absolutely no chance of my finding The Bishop on my own-it would be foolish to even waste my time trying. So what I had to do was commit a crime so outrageous and munificent that it would be on all the news channels right around the planet. It had to be so exotic that not a person alive with the ability to read-or with a single finger left to punch in a news channel-would be unaware of it. The entire world would know what had happened. And they would know as well that The Bishop had done it because I would leave his calling card on the spot.
The last traces of drink slurped up my straw and my eyes unfocused and I slowly returned to the garish reality of Macswineys. And before my eyes was a poster. I had been staring at it, without seeing it, for some time. Now it registered. Laughing clowns and screaming children. All rapt with joy in slightly faulty 3D. While above their heads the simple message was spelled out in glowing fetters.
SAVE YOUR COUPONSII GET THEM WITH EVERY PURCHASEI!
FREE ADMISSION TO LOONA PARK!!!
I had visited this site of plastic joys some years beforeand had disliked it even as a child. Horrifying rides that frightened only the simple. Rotating up-and-down rides only for the strong of stomach; round-and-round and throw up. Junk food, sweet candy, drunk clowns, all the heady joy to please the very easily pleasable. Thousands attended Loona Park every day and more thousands flooded in on weekends-bringing even more thousands of bucks with them.
Bucks galorel All I had to do was clean them out-in such a very interesting way that it would make the top news story right around the planet.
But how would I do it? By going there, of course, and taking a good hard look at their security arrangements. It was about time that I had a day off.
Chapter 7
For this little reconnaissance trip it would be far wiser for me to act my agew-or less. With all the makeup removed I was a fresh-faced seventeen again. I should be able to improve upon that; after all I had taken an expensive correspondence course in theatrical makeup. Pads in my cheeks made me look more cherubic, particularly when touched up with 3 bit of rouge. I put on a pair of sunglasses decorated with plastic flowers-that squirted water when I pressed the bulb in my pocket. A laugh a second! Styles in dress had changed, which meant that plus-fours for boys had gone out of fashion, thank goodness, but shorts were back. Or rather a reprehensible style called short-longs which had one leg cut above the knee, the other below. I had purchased a pair of these done in repulsive purple corduroy tastefully decorated with shockingpink patches. I could scarcely dare look at myself in the mirror. What looked back at me I hesitate to describe, except that it looked very little like an escaped bank robber. Around my neck I slung a cheap disposable camera that was anything but cheap, disposable-or only a camera.
At the station I found myself lost in a sea oflookalikes as we boarded the Loona Special. Screaming and laughing hysterically and spraying each other with our plastic flowers helped to while away the time. Or stretch it to eternity in at least one case. When the doors finally opened I let the multichrome crowd thunder out, then strolled wearily after them. Now to work.
Go where the money was. My memories of my first visit 43 were most dim-thank goodness!-but I did remember that one paid for the various rides and diversions by inserting plastic tokens. My father had furnished a limited and begrudging number of these, which had been used up within minutes, and of course no more had been forthcoming. My first assignment then was to find the font of these tokens.
Easily enough done, for this building was the target of every prepubescent visitor. It was a pointed structure like an inverted icecream cone, bedecked with flags and mechanical clowns, topped with a golden calliope that played ear-destroying music. Sureounding it at ground level and fixed to its base was a ring of plastic clown torsos, rocking and laughing and grimacing. Repellent as they were, they provided the vital function of separating the customers from their money. Eager juvenile hands pushed buck bills into the grasping palms of the plastic punchinellos. The hand would close, the money vanish-and from the clown’s mouth a torrent of plastic tokens would be vomited into the waiting receptacle. Disgusting-but I was obviously the only one who thought so.
The money went into the building. Now I must find where it came out. I strolled about the base and discovered that the regurgitating dispensers did not quite girdle ft. To the rear, behind the concealment of trees and shrubs, a small building snuggled up to the base. I pushed my way under the shrubs and found myself facing a private policeman stationed beside an unmarked door. “Get lost, kid,” he said sweetly. “Employees only.” I dodged around him and pushed against the door-and managed to photograph it at the same time. “I gotta go to the bathroom,” I said crossleggedly. “They said the bathroom was here.” A hard hand pulled me away and propelled me back to the shrubbery. “Not here. Out. Back the way you came.” I went. Very interesting. No electronic alarms and the lock was a Glubb-rehable but old. I was beginning to like Loona Park after all.
It was an excruciating wait until dark when the park closed down. Out of boredom I sampled the Glacier Ride where one hurtled through mock ice caverns with Things frozen into the ice on all sides-though they occasionally lunged out at the screeching riders. Roqet Rovers was equally bad, and in the name of good taste I will draw the curtain down over the heady joys of Candyland and the Swamp Monster. Suffice to say that the time did arrive at last. The token dispenser closed down an hour before the park shut. From a nearby vantage point I watched with avid interest as an armored van took away a great number of solid containers. Even more interesting was the fact that when the money went-so did the security. I imagine that the logic behind this was that no one in their right mind would want to break in and steal the tokens.
So I wasn’t in my right mind. As darkness fell I joined the exhausted celebrants as they staggered towards the exits. Except that I didn’t get that far. A locked door at the rear of Vampire Mountain unlocked easily under my gentle ministrations. I slipped into the darkness of the service area. High above me, pale fangs shone and fake blood dripped; I felt very comfortable indeed tucked in behind a coffin filled with dirt.
I let an hour go by, no more. This should clear the employees out of the way but still leave enough revelers in the streets outside the park so that my disgusting outfit would not be noticed when I finally made my exit.
There were guards about, but they were easily avoided. As I had expected, the Glubb opened easily and I slipped quickly inside. The room proved to be windowless, which was fine since my light would then not be seen. I switched it on and admired the machinery.
A simple and clean design – I appreciate that in machinery. The dispensers were ringed about the walls. Silent now, but still obvious in their operation. When coins or bills were inserted they were counted and passed on. Machines above released the measured amount of tokens into the delivery chutes. Beside them pipes sprang out of the floor and terminated in a bin above-undoubtedly they were filled from underground conveyors that returned the tokens ready for redispensing. The bucks, untouched by human hands, were being conveyed through sealed and transparent tubes to the collection station, where the coins fell into locked boxes. They were not for me since they were too bulky to move easily. But, ahh, the bills, they were far lighter and worth far more. They slipped along the chutes until they dropped gracefully through an opening in the top of a safe. An operation that appeared to be relatively secure from light-fingered employees.