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Maybe my stealthy temperance campaign was having results. Dad looked positively startled, and then replaced the bottle he was holding. "I believe I'll make it unanimous," he said. "Fix me up a fruit fizz, too, Walt." I mixed two more fruit fizzes, and we carried them over to the table. Bish sipped at his critically. "Palatable," he pronounced it.
Oscar, I recalled, was the one who had been the most impressed with Bish Ware's argument that lynching Steve Ravick would cost the hunters the four million sols they might otherwise be able to recover, after a few years' interstellar litigation, from his bank account on Terra. That reminded me that I hadn't even thought of Bish since I'd left the Times. I called back.
Dad had the same idea, only he was one hundred per cent for my going with Murell. I think he wanted me out of Port Sandor, where I wouldn't get in the way of any small high-velocity particles of lead that might be whizzing around. We heard nothing more from Bish Ware that evening.
Bish teetered slightly, getting out a cigar and inspecting it carefully before lighting it. "We-el," he said carefully, "my diocese is full to the hatch covers with sinners, but that's scarcely news." He turned to Tom. "One of your hands on the Javelin got into a fight in Martian Joe's, a while ago. Lumped the other man up pretty badly."
Tant Sannie stood before the steps of the kitchen; upon them sat the lean Hottentot, upon the highest stood Bonaparte Blenkins, both hands folded under the tails of his coat, and his eyes fixed on the sunset sky. The German dropped the saddle on the ground. "Bish, bish, bish! what may this be?" he said, and walked toward the house. "Very strange!"
The dog outside carried the other end. "An' 'e ishn't dead?" Dad said, after hearing what had befallen Dave. "Don' b'leevsh id wuzhn't bit. Die 'fore shun'own ifsh desh ad'er bish 'm." "Bit!" Dave said bitterly, turning round to the surprise of everyone. "I never said I was BIT. No one said I was only those snivelling idiots and that pumpkin-headed Irish pig there."
We tiptoed up, and I even drew my pistol to show that I wasn't being foolhardy. The big social room was empty. A couple of us went over and looked behind the bar, which was the only hiding place in it. Then we went back to the rear and tiptoed to the third floor. The meeting room was empty. So were the offices behind it. I looked in all of them, expecting to find Bish Ware's body.
"Well, we'll have to decide on what it'll be, pretty quick," Mohandas Gandhi Feinberg said. "What are things like at the Municipal Building?" Oscar Fujisawa asked. "You say Ravick has fifteen to twenty city cops at Hunters' Hall. Where are the rest of them? That would only be five to ten." "At the Municipal Building," Bish said.
Publicity, I thought, is the only weapon Dad knows how to use. He thinks it's invincible. Me, I wouldn't bet on what Steve Ravick wouldn't dare do if you gave me a hundred to one. Ravick had been in power too long, and he was drunker on it than Bish Ware ever got on Baldur honey-rum. As an intoxicant, rum is practically a soft drink beside power.
I demanded. "Nah; they wouldn't even tell me the right time. Afraid it would excite me." So I told him; first who Bish Ware really was, and then who Ravick really was. He gaped for a moment, and then shoveled in more food. "Go on; what happened?"
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