Prestonby nodded. “I’ll have him come here to my office, and stay there till I get back; I’ll have Yetsko stay with him.” He turned to where the big man in black leather stood guard at the door. “Doug, go get Ray Pelton and bring him here. Check with Miss Collins for where he’d be, now.” He turned back to the screen. “Anything else, Frank?”
“Isn’t that enough?” the brewer-Literate demanded. “I’ll call you at the store, after a while. ’Bye.”
The screen darkened as Cardon broke the connection. Prestonby got to his feet, went to his desk, and picked up a pipe, digging out the ashes from the bowl with an ice pick that one of the teachers had taken from a sixteen-year-old would-be murderer. He checked his tablet gun, made sure that there was an extra loaded clip in the holster, and got two more spare clips from the arms locker. Then, to make sure, he called Pelton’s store, talking for a while to the police sergeant Cardon had mentioned. By the time he was finished, the door opened and Yetsko ushered Ray Pelton in.
“What’s happened?” the boy asked. “Doug told me that the Senator … my father … had another heart attack.”
“Yes, Ray. I don’t believe he’s in any great danger. He’s at the store, resting in his office.” He went on to tell the boy what had happened, exactly and in full detail. He was only fifteen, but already he had completed the four-year reading course and he could think a great deal more logically than seventy percent of the people who were legally entitled to vote. Ray listened seriously, and proved Prestonby’s confidence justified by nodding.
“Frame-up,” he said succinctly. “Stinks like a glue factory of a put-up job. Something’s going to happen to Russ Latterman, one of these days.”
“I think you’d better let Frank Cardon take care of him, Ray,” Prestonby advised. “I think there are more angles to this than he told me. Now, I’m going over to the store. Somebody’s got to stay with Claire. I want you to stay here, in this room. If anybody sends you any message supposed to be from me, just ignore it. It’ll be a trap. If I want to get in touch with you, I’ll call you, with vision-image.”
“Mean somebody might try to kidnap me, or Claire, to force the Senator to withdraw, or something?” Ray asked, his eyes widening.
“You catch on quickly, Ray,” Prestonby commended him. “Doug, you stay with Ray till I get back. Don’t let him out of your sight for an instant. At noon, have Miss Collins get lunches for both of you sent up; if I’m not back by fifteen-hundred, take him to his home, and stay with him there.”
For half an hour, Frank Cardon made a flying tour of Radical-Socialist borough headquarters. Even at the Manhattan headquarters, which he visited immediately after his talk with Prestonby, the news had already gotten out. The atmosphere of optimistic triumph which had undoubtedly followed Mongery’s telecast and his report on the Trotter Poll, had evaporated. The Literate clerical help was gathered in a tight knot, obviously a little worried, and just as obviously enjoying the reaction. In smaller and constantly changing groups, the volunteers, the paid helpers, the dirt-squirters, the goon gangs, gathered, talking in worried or frightened or angry voices. When Cardon entered and was recognized, there was a concerted movement toward him. His two regular bodyguards, both on leave from the Literate storm troops, moved quickly to range themselves on either side of him. With a gesture, he halted the others.
“Hold it!” he called. “I know what you’re worried about. I was there when it happened, and saw everything.”
He paused, to let them assimilate that, and continued: “Now get this, all of you! Our boss, and—if he lives—our next senator, was the victim of a deliberate murder attempt, by Literate First Class Bayne, who threw out his supply of nitrocaine bulbs and then goaded him into a heart attack which, except for his daughter, would have been fatal. Claire Pelton deserves the deepest gratitude of every Radical-Socialist in the state. She’s a smart girl, and she saved the life of her father and our leader.
“But—she is not a Literate!” he cried loudly. “All she did was something any of you could have done—something I’ve done, myself, so that I won’t be locked out of my own safe and have to wait for a Literate to come and open, it for me. She simply kept her eye on the Literates who were opening the safe, and learned the combination from the positions to which they turned the dial. And you believe, on the strength of that, that she’s a Literate? The next thing, you’ll be believing that professional liar of a Slade Gardner. And you call yourselves politicians!” He fairly gargled obscenities.
Looking around, he caught sight of a pair who seemed something less than impressed with his account of it. Joe West, thick-armed, hairy-chested, blue-jowled; Horace Yingling, thin and gangling. They weren’t Radical-Socialist party people; they were from the Political Action Committee of the Consolidated Illiterates Organization, and their slogan was simpler and more to the point than Chester Pelton’s—the only good Literate is a dead Literate. He tensed himself and challenged them directly.
“Joe; Horace. How about you? Satisfied the Pelton girl isn’t a Literate, now?”
Yingling looked at West, and West looked back at him questioningly. Evidently the suavitor in modo was Yingling’s province, and the fortior in re was West’s.
“Yeh, sure, Mr. Cardon,” Yingling said dubiously.
