The dancers were gyrating around. Colored lights were flashing over them. A Neo Punk Rock group, huge feather plumes sticking out of their shaven heads, were leaping about with their instruments, making a deafening din.
Three young men came over to the table of the girls. Apparently they did not know the girls, for there was an immediate round of introductions. One of the young men was white, the second was Hispanic, the third was black. They were dressed Neo Punk Rock-in feathers and breechclouts over cloth with spangles. Whatever they were saying was lost in the din. The girls got them to sit down and started pouring liquor into them from their own glasses. The white one was pulling up Dolores's skirt and putting his hand under it. Dolores was screaming with laughter.
"Hussies," muttered the Countess Krak, and took a contemptuous sip of the Seven Up she'd been served.
Two young men suddenly appeared in front of her table. "Wanta dance?" said one, lifting his Neo Punk Rock breechclout.
The two young men suddenly let out screams simultaneously. They fled. I couldn't understand it. The Countess had not even paused in raising the Seven Up to her lips. She had not even made a sudden motion. But she must have kicked both their shins underneath the table.
The three on the other side of the room had gotten up to dance. A new piece was starting with savage, sexual drumbeats, and a spin of colored lights pulsed in rhythm to it. The three, including Maizie with her enormous belly, jostled into the dancers and began to grind and crush against their partners. The chorale came on:
Shiver, shiver, shimmy!
And rub, rub, rub!
If you aren't coming,
Put it in the tub!
Four and twenty harlots
Leaped about with glee.
If you can't whip her,
Put her on your knee!
If you can't (bleep) her,
Get her to go down!
Can't have little babies
Running 'round the town!
So shiver, shiver, shimmy!
And come, come, come!
WHEEEOOOOOO!
"Disgusting," muttered the Countess Krak. But it was apparently a comment directed toward two Neo Punk Rock men who had joined the partner of Toots Switch and were lifting their breech clouts at her while she screamed with delight.
The Countess Krak's eye lighted on a commotion at the door. The shabby man in the shabby coat was thrusting his head with its shabby hat into the faces of people near the door. He rushed further into the room. He took advantage of the lull between numbers to tear about looking at everyone.
The Countess Krak's eye shifted. Inspector Grafferty was at the door, two policemen with him, backup for the process server. Aha! I was getting action! Dingaling, Chase and Ambo had pull!
The crowd saw the cops and became uneasy.
The process server was tearing all over the place. He was looking at everyone. A new piece had started up and he was jostled.
He pushed up to the raised platform.
He peered into the face of the Countess Krak.
Then he RUSHED ON AND PEERED AT ANOTHER FACE!
I blinked.
How had he missed? Ah, he hadn't missed. He had come back and was looking at the Countess Krak, as I could see in her peripheral vision.
The Countess Krak raised her palm to her lips. What was she holding? She was looking straight toward Grafferty over by the door. Then she glanced at her palm. A little tube. She pressed a tiny switch on it. Then she put the end of the tube in her mouth, aimed at Grafferty and blew!
An astonished look came over Grafferty's face. He suddenly roared out above the music, "POLAR BEARS! MEN! ARREST THESE POLAR BEARS!"
His men rushed into the place, nightsticks flying, clouting everyone, screaming, "You're under arrest!"
Grafferty kept screaming, "POLAR BEARS!"
People were rushing for exits.
The band deserted en masse, diving behind the stage in a clatter of falling instruments.
Others on the raised platform rushed about. The shabby man went down under the press of bodies.
The Countess Krak stood up, finished her Seven Up, picked up her purse. Suddenly I saw by her arm that she was very dark tan! She was made up as a high yellow in an evening gown!
She was walking carefully. The shabby man was on the floor.
I knew she would do it!
Very precisely and exactly, she stepped squarely on the middle of his face!
And gave her foot a neat twist!
The turmoil was dying down.
A cop shouted, "We can't find any polar bears, Inspector!"
"POLAR BEARS!" screamed Grafferty. "Arrest them anyway!"
A cop was beside the Countess Krak. Almost all the
other patrons were gone. "Come with me!" the cop said, brandishing his nightstick.
"Ah'm not a polah beah," said the Countess Krak.
"Yeah, excuse me," said the flustered cop.
She walked past Grafferty, who was still screaming at the door. She reached out and plucked something from his neck, a movement so swift it was just a blur on the screen.
Suddenly I knew what she had done, (bleep) her. It was an Eyes and Ears of Voltar dart that, when put into a person, gave him sound and image that would make him think he had gone crazy. But Grafferty had been incapable of that and had added his own interpretation to his vision.
Suddenly the Countess' viewer was black. I could not account for it at all.
A voice-Bang-Bang's! Muffled as though through a partition. "Jesus, Miss Joy, I think somebody must have set us up. Did you get the pictures?"
"I think we'll get much better ones," said the Countess Krak. "They left with five young men. Drive to the apartment now. Take your time."
A motor started up. Aha, she was in some kind of a vehicle!
"Bang-Bang," she said, "I'm puzzled. What's the primitives' name of that activity?"
"Neo Punk Rock," said Bang-Bang. "It's all the rage now."
"Hmm," the Countess Krak muttered to herself. "But why do they do it standing up?"
I sat back. I didn't have to do another thing. She was heading right into a steel-jawed trap of shoot-on-sight!
Krak's viewer was very dark for a long time. Only the sound of traffic and the hum of the motor of their own car. I wished I knew what sort of a machine it was: Seemed very strange to have no windows in it. Well, I would keep alert. Sooner or later she would look at it in a lighted area and maybe even at its license plates. Those license-plate numbers were a vital factor in any police activity, so much so that you couldn't really harass citizens at all unless all vehicles were numbered. But these considerations were just to occupy the time. Good Gods, the Bronx was a long way by car from Manhattan.
Then the vehicle slowed. It went for a little distance and then speeded up again. Bang-Bang's voice: "Miss Joy. I think somebody set us up again. I counted four security men as we went by that apartment house. All armed with riot guns. We was expected. I think I better take you back to the hotel."
Silence. Then, "Bang-Bang, is there a police station near here?"
"I'll look. But Jesus Christ, ma'am-beggin' your pardon-you bring cops in and they'll nab us sure. They won't never go up against security police like those. They looked TOUGH!"
"Go to the police station."
"I don't like this, Miss Joy. And I don't know where one is. Usually a proud type like me doesn't descend to hobnobbing with low-life cops."
A light came on. She was sitting in a little compartment. It had a narrow bunk and a pile of clothes and a small door that went to what was probably the driver's chair. What was this thing? She was looking in a directory open to the section, Police.
"Four thirty-five Grassy Meadows Lane," she said. "Go there."