The curtains parted. Buzzers went. Red lights flashed. On the Air appeared in a big panel. A girl in a housecoat held up a huge card. It said:
APPLAUD
Music blared. Tom Snide himself pranced out on the stage throwing kisses. He was an older man with curly hair and a very false smile. "Good afternoon, good afternoon, housewives of America, my dearest friends who keep sweeping my popularity from coast to coast."
The girl in the housecoat held up a card:
LAUGH
"Just don't sweep it under the rug," said Snide. The girl held up a card:
LAUGH HARDER
"Welcome to 'Weirdo World'!" said Snide. "I'm sure all of you feel right at home."
The girl held up a card:
HOWL WITH LAUGHTER
"Today we were lucky enough to get on our show a young man who has stirred the hearts and skirts of America and the world. And here he is, the weirdo you've been panting for, the notorious outlaw, WISTER, THE WHIZ KID!"
The girl held up a card:
SHRIEK!
The Wister double peeked out from behind a potted palm, raced over to cover behind a desk and then hid behind a piano.
"What are you ducking for?" said Snide.
"I'm afraid that audience will swarm over the footlights and rape me," said the double.
The girl held up a card:
SAY OOOOO WITH DELIGHT
"No, no," said Snide. "We've packed the place with security guards so they can't get at you. Come out in plain sight."
"And no process servers?" said the double.
The girl held up a card:
SHRIEK WITH LAUGHTER!
The audience shrieked, but Tom Snide had lied. The shabby man in the shabby coat was peering out from under the brim of his shabby hat, just two seats away from me. His face was all bandaged up, too! But he was waiting for the Countess Krak, commitment paper in his hand. And then I looked just beyond him. Two Bellevue attendants! They must have a wagon outside waiting.
I glanced at my viewer. The Countess Krak was sitting there watching the show on TV!
A camera swept the shrieking housewives. I saw it on the Countess Krak's screen. The camera, amongst the others, SHOWED ME!
I scrunched down. Oh, Gods, she had better not notice!
Then her screen, seen through my viewer, was again showing the stage.
The Whiz Kid swaggered into full view. He was dressed in the black of a Western outlaw, but had red hearts for pistol holsters. His buckteeth and hornrimmed glasses did not go too well with the rig.
He sat down in the interview chair.
"How do you do it?" Snide said. "Get all these women so crazy over you that they sue you for billions?"
"I guess it just comes natural," said the double.
The girl held up a card:
LAUGH WHILE SAYING OOOOOO
"When you really get into it, it's easy to understand," said the Whiz Kid.
Card:
LAUGH LOUDER WHILE OOOING LOUDER
"The women all over the country seem utterly crazy over you," said Snide. "Doesn't that seem sort of weird?"
"It's a hard life," said the double. "And the longer I'm at it, the harder it gets."
Card:
SCREAM WITH LAUGHTER
WHILE OOOING WITH SCREAMS
"Most men," said the double, "couldn't stand up to it, and I admit I have been lying down on the job."
Card:
SHRIEK WITH LAUGHTER
"I understand they want to arrest you now for raping a minor," said Snide. "I shouldn't have thought you would have stooped to that."
"Well, she was pretty short," said the Whiz Kid.
Card:
HOWL WITH LAUGHTER
"With all these legal entanglements," said Snide, "I should imagine you have pretty steep legal fees."
"It's worth it," said the Whiz Kid double. "But the real cost is in replacing pants I have to leave behind when the husband comes home unexpectedly."
Card:
LAUGH LIKE MAD
Snide said, "Well, if you are going to devote all your spare time between robbing trains and stealing cities to hopping in and out of beds, I think your legal fees will soon exceed what you find in the Wells Fargo boxes. The law is a pretty expensive business. How do you propose to solve it when this bed-hopping bankrupts you?"
"I'll act as my own lawyer," said the double. "Nothing is going to keep me from tasting the pleasures of the flesh. The country is absolutely crammed with beautiful women with nothing to do after their husbands leave for work." Then in a whisper, barely audible on the program, he said, leaning toward Tom, "Hey, you're off the script."
"Well," said Snide, ignoring the double's aside, "we'll just see how well versed you are in law. We have a lawyer here to interrogate you on the subject of law."
Another sound. Voltarian! I thought I had lost my wits. Then I located it. It was coming from my viewer. The Countess Krak had her left-hand microphone in her hand and into it she had said, "Cue. Walk to center stage." In VOLTARIAN!
Snide had risen and was making an elaborate, ushering bow.
ONTO CENTER STAGE WALKED MISTER CALICO!
Oh, indeed Snide was off the script!
The cat had a black harness. It was wearing a big, black bow tie. It surveyed the audience.
"Chair on your right," said the Countess Krak in Voltarian into her left-hand mike.
The cat jumped up on the second interview chair. It sat down, looking at the Whiz Kid double.
"What the hell is this?" said the double. "That's no attorney. That's a cat!"
The cat opened its jaws. It said, "I am a lawyer cat."
The girl with the cards was just standing there staring. The audience was open-mouthed.
A talking cat!
Oh, that devil Krak. I knew exactly what she had done. She was using Eyes and Ears of Voltar gear. She had a mike hidden in the cat's ear to direct it and she had a speaker hidden in the cat's tie so she could talk through the cat. And she'd even trained the cat to open and close its mouth when it heard the speaker going. (Bleep) her!
Snide was in on it! The fool had fallen for it as an unheard-of novelty! Snide said to the cat, "The Whiz Kid seems to doubt your credentials, Lawyer Calico. Perhaps you had better convince him."
The cat-Krak talking through her right-hand mike -said, "He should understand the PURR-pose of the law."
The girl with the cards had recovered. She raised a card:
LAUGH
The audience didn't read the card. They were saying, "A talking cat." "It's really talking." "What a cute cat." "Listen to it TALK!"
"Snide," said the cat, "you have a very disorderly audience." It turned to the seats. "Order in the court!"
Snide banged a gavel. "I am sorry, Lawyer Calico. Continue with your credentials."
Krak, watching her TV of the show, leaned into her right-hand mike. The cat seemed to say, "Cats are the very basic of the law. All cases begin with a CAT-alogue of crimes."
The girl raised her card:
LAUGH
It wasn't needed. The audience was laughing.
Where the Hells was Krak operating from? I grabbed the walkie-talkie. I said, "That's her, making the cat talk!"
"We'll handle," said the security officer back.
"Continue," said Snide to the cat.
The cat seemed to say, "The law violently opposes anything DOG-matized. Police CAT and MOUSE with criminals. Criminals RAT on one another. Judges think everyone is a RAT. And the end product of any legal action is a CAT-astrophe!"
The audience, uncoached, was screaming with laughter.
"But Snide," the cat seemed to say, "I'll give you the final proof that I am indeed a lawyer cat."
Krak was whispering orders into her left-hand mike.
The cat got up off the chair and jumped onto the Whiz Kid double's knee. It seemed to pull something out of its harness. It was sniffing into the Whiz Kid's pockets. Had it put something in one?
"What are you doing?" said Snide.
"I'm doing what every lawyer does," said the cat.
Suddenly it grabbed the double's wallet out of his hip pocket!