Vickers (Corp.s.e.)

"I'm a little confused. Why should I be of any concern to you at all? I'm an out of work corpse. I'm in enough trouble already."

Mossman's voice came out like slow gravel.

"But you are a corpse, Mort. You're a corpse and you're in this town. This is my town, Mort, and any kind of corpse causes me concern. I wonder who you might be here to kill, Mort." He made a dismissive gesture that might have been a shrug in a man who wasn't too heavy to raise his shoulders. "You might have come here to kill me."

There was silence in the room. George Revlon was standing a little behind Vickers on his right. Mossman's personal attendant, a world-class muscle builder called Chuck, stood further back on his left. Both seemed to be waiting for an answer. All Vickers could do was look pointedly around the penthouse. The top of the Global tower was a cluster of transparent domes of four-inch blown plexiglass. They all belonged to Herbie Mossman. They were his private domain from which he could personally watch the sweep of his desert empire. One dome was his vast office, a second housed an equally vast dining room, another his pool and the one that was a constant opaque black hid his legendary bedroom. In the office, as the sun rose higher, light sensitive pigments progressively filtered it through a screen of deep gold. It was like being dipped in maple syrup. Vickers' chair had been set at sufficient distance from Mossman's huge desk and huge chair to make it feel like an inquisition.

"I think you know that I haven't come here to kill you, sir."

On the way up to the penthouse, he'd been sca

"Perhaps not a frontal assault, but who knows what might be contemplated in the dark schemes of Victoria Morgen-stern."

It was Vickers' turn to shrug. "She cut me loose. There's nothing else that I can tell you."

A white-coated butler appeared at the other end of the room and came silently across the acre or so of deep pile carpet. He held a silver tray in his right hand. On the tray was an extremely generous slice of banana cream pie, a large glass of chocolate milk and a large Coke. Mossman postively beamed.

"Flanders."

"Sir."

Mossman patted the left arm of his chair. "Just set it down here, Flanders."

The chair arm was quite large enough to accomodate the tray. The righthand arm had a small computer terminal built into it.

"Will that be all?"

"All for now."

"Thank you, sir."

There was silence in the room while Mossman ate. All conversation was put on hold as he shovelled pie into himself with a silver fork. His eyes were half-closed and he was clearly in ecstacy. Vickers couldn't remember seeing anyone so absorbed in their food. When he'd finished he wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. His eyes flicked to Vickers and it was back to business.

"Suppose I offered you a job, Mort. What would you do?"

"I'd jump at it."

"Without knowing what it might be?"

"I'd assume you'd want me as a corpse, but I'd take anything that'd get me out of the storm."

"From my point of view, having you on the payroll at least puts you where I can keep an eye on you."

"Then you are offering me a job?"

"Provisionally. You have a good reputation. If you're not pulling something, you'd be a valuable asset."

"I'll take it."

"I rather thought you would."

Mossman glanced down at the computer terminal. "Note to Pattel in Legal. Vickers is to put on a standard corpse indenture with the rider added to cover the special project."

Vickers raised an eyebrow. "Special project?"

"You didn't ask what the job was."

"That's right, I didn't. But now I have."

"I'm putting together an elite team for a very special project. You'll be a part of that team, Mort. That's all you need to know at the moment, except that you'll initially be based at a place in the desert just out of town. You and the others will be isolated there. You can look on it as refresher training."

Vickers tried to picture Mossman dragging his lard around a strip of blistering desert doing "refresher training." He hadn't forgotten that the man mixed chocolate milk and Coca-Cola. Something flashed on Mossman's terminal. He tapped the keyboard.

"This is very interesting." He regarded Vickers with an amused expression. "I wonder how you'd react if I told you that a Contec hit team has installed itself in your room at the Pyramid."

Vickers didn't even try to disguise his concern.

"You're not serious."

"Indeed I am. According to our tap into the Pyramid's computer, they've made a prisoner of your girl friend and are, at this moment, watching the tapes that you and she made last night."

Vickers stood up. "I have to get over there."

Revlon quickly interjected. "The woman didn't mean anything to you, did she? If you take on a hit squad actually inside the Pyramid while you're registered in the employ of Global Leisure, it could cause major intercorporation problems. I seriously advise you to accept Mr. Mossman's offer and simply leave town."

Vickers shook his head. He was tired of ru

"I owe Lavern that much. I'm going back over there." He glanced at Mossman. "We haven't inked anything yet. If there's trouble, you can always disown me. Everybody else does. I'd appreciate it, though, if someone could supply me with a gun."

"Quite the little knight errant, aren't you, Mort? I wouldn't have expected it."

To be truthful, Vickers himself wouldn't have expected it, either.

"I'm getting tired of being bounced around."

In the back of his mind there was also an image of a trio of ballerinas sitting around laughing at the video tapes of his antics in bed. His pride gritted its teeth and wanted to hurt someone.

"You'd be a fool to go against three of them on your own."

Vickers was surly. "I can handle it."

Mossman shook his head. "You won't have to. I'll give you the backup that you need. You can go and rescue your girlfriend as a Global corpse."

Revlon's mouth opened and closed like the beak of a chicken in shock.

"It would have serious repercussions, sir. I insist."

"Don't insist to me, Revlon. Just warn the Pyramid as to what we intend and have them make the arrangements. There'll be no repercussions. They don't want to fuck with me."

Vickers' eyes narrowed. "What if they warn the Contec team that we're coming?"

Mossman dismissed the idea.

"This is hometown boy against outsiders. We have to coexist fifty-two weeks in the year. They won't warn them." Mossman's look of amusement returned. "This is a great test of loyalty, Mort. On your very first job for me, you're going up against your old employers."

Vickers gave a final tug on the blue nylon climbing rope. He hated to work either on cliffs or on the outside of buildings, but in this case there seemed to be no other way. Mossman had supplied him with two companions, an Australian surfer with an extra Y chromosome and the unoriginal name Bruce, and Frank Lang, a wiry Oriental stress freak in a black track suit who probably believed that he was the descendant of ninja. The three of them were poised on the edge of a fifty-fifth floor terrace, one floor above the suite where the Contec team were holding Lavern. Bruce seemed totally unmoved at the idea of rappeling down the side of one of the world's biggest buildings. Personal danger and the chance to hurt people seemed a natural break from beer and sun. Frank Lang, on the other hand, was a pocket package of compressed tension who might well go off like an uncoiling spring once they were inside the place.