"That's Bonbucks Teller's JFK branch right over there, dearie. The one with the gold and diamond front. See the sable flag flying in the wind? And so I'll leave you now. I have a date with the mayor tonight and all he does is talk about his awful wife so I got to get home and rest up first. Here's my business card, dearie. Look me up and don't let them paint your head blue."
They kissed and the Countess was on her own.
Like a regiment with nothing but ruin in mind, the Countess descended upon Bonbucks Teller's.
She had the list. She sped, prebriefed, from department to department, pointing at a thousand-dollar item here and a ten-thousand-dollar item there.
Her only pause was in footwear. They had an elegant display of "disposable shoes" at one hundred dollars a pair, Not guaranteed if worn more than one day, boxed in thirty-day handy supply packages. She went conservative suddenly and only bought one box. Her splurge here was on soft Moroccan leather boots, blue, red and white, that went with The Pirate Look. She thought she had better have two of each as they were on sale at only five hundred dollars the pair.
How apt, I thought. Pirate boots for a real bloodthirsty pirate with a record as long as the Spanish Main!
The "marionette shoes" that gave one The True Puppet Look were just flap-flaps of colored plastic that looked like they were riveted to the sides of the legs and toes. She didn't favor them and I completely understood why: she was not a true-blue marionette: others danced to the Countess Krak's puppet strings, she didn't dance to their tunes worth a (bleep)! She only bought twenty pairs.
Clerks were following her about like jackals hanging around a lioness to pick up bits of the kill. They were tallying up a list so long it took a second clerk to carry it.
Oh, Heller, you are not just into it, you are done. I was a man of experience. I knew.
There was quite a row in the hair salon. Not with the Countess but between two coiffateurs. One said that it would wrench his soul if he could not shave her head and paint it blue and the other, fending off the flashing scissors with two deadly curling irons, said, "Touch not one hair of that golden head but wreck your country's flag instead," and won! A dreadful battle! They made her an emergency appointment for a half hour hence, to give her a "golden aura windswept with ruby dust," and rushed her to the accounts office to tally up the wounded and slain.
The accounts manager was dressed in a cutaway morning coat with tails. But he didn't fool me. He had digitals running at a greedy pace for eyes.
Seated at a plush, upholstered desk, the Countess Krak, in her dingy veil and hooded, dirty robe with holes in it, must have looked like a poor risk. She had yet to remove the healing cup above one eye and this certainly must not have added to her appearance of being an accounts receivable.
The yards of bills added up to $178,985.65 plus New York sales tax of 11 percent. Oh, marvelous! That locket would not even cover a third of it! Heller, I gloated, you have had it!
"Address?" said the accounts manager. It is too forward to ask for names in such a place. Such wealthy patrons must feel known.
The Countess was looking over Mamie Boomp's list to see if she had missed anything important like the right color necklace to go with the breakfast, sea-green organdy, casual house wrap. Absently, she reached into a pocket of her cloak and handed him something.
At first, I thought it was the necklace. I couldn't see as she was looking at the list, not him.
The accounts manager said, "Jerome Terrance Wister, Empire State Building? That's an office." She must have given him the scrap on which I had written Heller's address.
"Yes," said the Countess absently. "I suppose it is. My man is very important. He is here to make the planet run right so I suppose he has to have an office. Could
I add an aquamarine necklace to that list here? I overlooked it."
The accounts manager walked away. He had gone into another office to phone. They always do. It would be impolite, even nasty, to discuss money in front of a customer.
I tried to turn my sound up and overhear. All I got was a jet plane taking off over at the airport.
Oh, Heller, you might have been in trouble before, but you're really over your head now! $178,985.65 plus New York tax and an aquamarine necklace! You'll drown!
After a bit the accounts manager came back. "Where did you just come from, Miss?"
Oho, I bet that had been a surprise to Heller! He might even be feeling amazed. But he sure would shortly be sick if the accounts manager hadn't yet given him the total!
The Countess Krak fished around in her pocket and came up with the messy ticket folder, now all ripped out. "Afyon, Turkey," she said. And she held out the folder with that on it.
"The identity verifies, then," said the accounts manager. "I will add the necklace to this bill. They just called up the price. So, with your permission, I will total it."
The Countess Krak was still reverifying her list.
The accounts manager wrote a final figure on an invoice. He pushed it toward the Countess Krak and tendered her a pen. "If you please," he said, "your signature."
"How do I sign this?" said the Countess Krak, taking the pen.
"Why, just like this, of course. Don't change it in any way. It always causes a terrible row when they do."
He put down the item I had written Heller's Earth name and address on. Then he turned it over.
The Countess's eyes focused on Sultan Bey and/or Concubine. Roman Villa. Afyon, Turkey.
IT WAS MY OWN SQUEEZA CREDIT CARD!
I reeled. There must be some awful error! I yanked the pack out of my pocket and shuffled rapidly through them. The Squeeza card was GONE!
Oh, Gods, in my haste to find something to write Heller's address on, I had lucklessly chosen the only credit card in the deck that had a totally blank back and was not in laminated plastic! And it was a credit company whose monthly interest charge, in one month of unpaid balance, would equal the original bill! The worst credit hounder of the mob!
There was still a chance. She might bungle the signing! They still might detect she was not Utanc, not the "concubine," and sling her in jail for forgery. I held my breath.
But the Countess Krak was obeying orders. Penmanship was a fitting part of her criminal talents. She signed it just like she had been told: "Sultan Bey and/or Concubine. Roman Villa. Afyon, Turkey."
With a sickening surge, I suddenly realized that she had thought I had given her a credit card! She was so (bleeped) stupid she didn't even realize she was forging anything! She would have that as a defense if they detected it!
But the manager took the finished product, compared it expertly to the card and nodded. All hope died within me.
"Miss," he said to the Countess Krak, "according to the accounts and credit report I just got from the Central
Credit Card Bureau, your master is always easy to locate. We can find him right down to the hour and minute at any time. But you, I am sorry to say, having a WATS phone line you use all over the world, can never be spotted. Please tell us where you are from time to time. You see, it is giving our downtown store problems."
"Oh, I'm sorry," said the Countess Krak, undoubtedly mystified but taking this strange planet in stride.
"Yes. We always send our best customers flowers every Saturday. Your favorite black orchids have been coming back from the Bentley Bucks Deluxe Arms penthouse. So is it now all right for us to send them to this office at the Empire State Building?"
"Quite all right," said the Countess Krak with charm. "But please include the store card prominently so my man won't think they're from some stupid Apparatus executive and kill him."