“Well, I’m paid for it, Mr. Stendahl,” said Pikes softly as he lifted the plastic eyelid of the robot and inserted the glass eyeball to fasten the rubberoid muscles neatly.
“There.”
“The spitting image of Mr. Garrett.”
“What do we do with him, sir?”
Pikes nodded at the slab where the real Mr. Garrett lay dead.
“Better burn him, Pikes.
We wouldn’t want two Mr. Gasretts, would we?”
Pikes wheeled Mr. Garrett to the brick incinerator.
“Goodby.”
He pushed Mr. Garrett in and slammed the door.
Stendahl confronted the robot Garrett.
“You have your orders, Garrett?”
“Yes, sir.”
The robot sat up.
“I’m to return to Moral Climates.
I’ll file a complementary report.
Delay action for at least forty-eight hours.
Say I’m investigating more fully.”
“Right, Garrett.
Good-by.”
The robot hurried out to Garrett’s rocket, got in, and flew away.
Stendahl turned.
“Now, Pikes, we send the remainder of the invitations for tonight.
I think we’ll have a jolly time, don’t you?”
“Considering we waited twenty years, quite jolly!”
They winked at each other.
Seven o’clock.
Stendahl studied his watch.
Almost time.
He twirled the sherry glass in his hand. He sat quietly.
Above him, among the oaken beams, the bats, their delicate copper bodies hidden under rubber flesh, blinked at him and shrieked.
He raised his glass to them.
“To our success.”
Then he leaned back, closed his eyes, and considered the entire affair.
How he would savor this in his old age. This paying back of the antiseptic government for its literary terrors and conflagrations.
Oh, how the anger and hatred had grown in him through the years. Oh, how the plan had taken a slow shape in his numbed mind, until that day three years ago when he had met Pikes.
Ah yes, Pikes.
Pikes with the bitterness in him as deep as a black, charred well of green acid.
Who was Pikes?
Only the greatest of them all!
Pikes, the man of ten thousand faces, a fury, a smoke, a blue fog, a white rain, a bat, a gargoyle, a monster, that was Pikes!
Better than Lon Chaney, the father? Stendabi ruminated.
Night after night he had watched Chaney in the old, old films. Yes, better than Chaney.
Better than that other ancient mummer? What was his name? Karloff?
Far better!
Lugosi?
The comparison was odious!
No, there was only one Pikes, and he was a man stripped of his fantasies now, no place on Earth to go, no one to show off to.
Forbidden even to perform for himself before a mirror!
Poor impossible, defeated Pikes!