Crompton Divided Read Online Free PDF Page A

unit somewhere deep in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of romantic New Mexico. Got a good show for you felons out there; latest bank robbery scores on the hour, and, of course, our Opportunity Line which presents daily a list of Golden Sucker Cities where law enforcement has gone lax, or venial, or just plain non-existing! Tonight’s show is brought to you by Footpad Tailors, inventors of the Overcoat with a Thousand Pockets; and by Martin and Mishkin tempered steel burglar tools, and Old Heidelberg cyanide tablets for the job that goes sour. We’ll be hearing more about these and other fine products later in the show. But right now I’ve got a hot flash: An impeccable source from within the organization tells us that Pyschosmell, Inc., the monopolistic octopus of the fragrance world, has been knocked over to the tune of fifty-nine grams of lurhistia, most precious substance weight for weight in the galaxy! The name of the suspect has already been announced, so we break no confidences when we say: Alistair Crompton! If you can hear this, you haven’t gotten far enough away! Good luck, Alistair, you’re going to need it! And now a selection of tunes from The Beggar’s Opera. … ’
    Rutinsky turned off the radio. He said to Crompton, ‘Bit of sloppy planning, eh?’
    ‘It’s impossible!’ Crompton said. ‘The business was to shut down for two weeks! Nobody ever checks up on me! I don’t understand –’
    ‘Understanding is a luxury you can’t afford right now,’ Rutinsky said. ‘Good-bye, Crompton. If you’re caught, tell them that Rutinsky sneers at them.’
    So saying, the Chief Agent drew a zero-null hyper-energizing quickcloak out of his pocket. Quickly he shook out the folds of the stolen garment (for it could be carried legally only by FBI men of Ultradon category) and arranged it around his shoulders. Instantly he vanished. Only his red fox porkpie hat was left on the bar. The Mark of Rutinsky!
    Crompton paid for the drinks and flung himself out into a hostile and unpromising world.
     
     

 
    5
     
     
    ‘ Alone with you at last, my curvaceous darling – and now, the foam! ’
    Would you mind turning off the radio?’ Crompton asked.
    ‘Not a chance, buddy,’ the sweating pedicab driver snarled. ‘I always listen to the “House of Chagrin,” my favorite show.’
    ‘ Let me show you how they do it in Djibouti ,’ the radio warbled, ‘ with butterflies! ’
    Crompton leaned back, trying to keep his composure. What had happened? How had they gotten on to him? Did he have a chance now? His destination was the New York Spaceport situated in what had been Brooklyn before the interdiction. Already he had gotten as far as Stone Street and Avenue J, with no pursuit in sight. Only a little farther now. …
    ‘ Ditmas, for the love of litmus paper, get your hands off my giggie! ’
    Now the taxi was rounding the William Bendix Memorial. The doubleshotted circumvex towers of the Spaceport were just ahead! But now traffic was clogging the road – bicycles, pedicabs, tricycles, men on roller skates, women on pogo sticks, persons jogging – all of the variegated transportational forms that made New York famous as ‘The City of the Sweaty Thighs.’ And now, just ahead, the main gate!
    ‘ Rutabaga? Surely there is some simpler explanation. ’
    ‘Driver, let me out here,’ Crompton said.
    ‘That’ll be five and six.’
    ‘ Graustark? I should think not! ’
    ‘Haven’t you got anything smaller?’
    ‘Keep the change!’
    ‘ Denigration is for beginners, my poor Sylvie; the experienced man likes his mot just so. ’
    Leaping from the pedicab, and narrowly escaping being run over by a walrus-bearded man driving an oxcart, Crompton rushed through the main gate, trying to look like a man who was about to miss his spaceship, which, indeed, was his situation. He rushed past the Disneystand and the hard-apple salesman, swept by the Punishment Boutique, and came huffing up to the Trans Pan