“What happened—in particular?”
“That’s the next crisis. We lost two hundred and three resident families.”
“And took in how many?”
“Eighty-three. Some of them, of course, renting from the owners.”
Barry Ten Eyck winced, got up from his desk and looked out the window and over the acres of parks and trees that surrounded the hundred-and-nineteen-story, aluminium-sheathed, twin towers of the apartment building which he managed.
He muttered, barely audible, “The building is less than ten years old. What gets into people that they can’t stay put in an apartment worth some $40,000 that they’ve been given practically free?”
Carol Ann said dryly, “They haven’t got anything else to do but move around. They get bored.”
He took a breath and turned to her. “What’s the current occupancy, Miss Cusack?”
She flicked a switch, said something into a desk TV phone screen. She looked up and reported, “Four thousand and fifty-two, including Mr. Vanderfeller’s penthouse.”
He grunted. “Which is empty most of the time. It’d be our most lucrative occupancy if we had some high-living playboy in there.”
Carol Ann said, “Which brings us to your third crisis.”
He looked at her.
“Mr. Cyril Vanderfeller is in residence. He wants to see you soonest.”
Barry Ten Eyck groaned. “This is my day. And it started so sun-shiny. What is there about the old rich that they all like to make like Meritcrats? I’ll work in a visit to him some time this afternoon.”
“He said soonest.”
“Miss Cusack, I’m the Demecrat of this deme and if I started letting people like old man Vanderfeller order me around it’d soon get to be such a habit on their part, I’d never get any work done. What else is wrong today?”
“You’ve used up your four crises.”
“I’m feeling masochistic. Let me have it. Deal me brutal blows.”
She looked at her notes. “There’s a petition being circulated by the Gourmet Club. They want a Moroccan restaurant.”
“A Moroccan restaurant. What in the hell is a Moroccan restaurant? What do Moroccans eat?”
Carol Ann shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. Dates?”
“Ha, ha, Miss Cusack.”
“At any rate, they’ll bring up the request at the Deme-Assembly this afternoon.”
“Oh, good grief, is that today?” He thought about it. “A Moroccan restaurant. We have French, Italian, Mexican, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese restaurants, besides the four auto-cafeterias. Now they want a Moroccan restaurant. I’ll wager there aren’t fifty people in Shyler-deme who’d ever eat in it.”
“Yes, sir.”
He sighed plaintively. “I am put upon, Miss Cusack. I suffer needlessly. Dial me a Moroccan cookbook. I’ll have to learn something about it.”
He stared unhappily and unseeingly at a far wall while she activated the TV phone library booster and dialed cookbooks and then sub-categories until she got down to Moroccan cookbooks.
She said, “There are only seven in English.”
“Any one’ll do,” he said gloomily. He looked down into the booster screen and began idly flipping pages with the button.
One of her desk screens lit up and spoke. She said to him, “Mr. Hardin.”
He activated one of his phone screens. “Morning, Bat. What spins?”
The face in his screen was that of Bat Hardin, his Vice-Demecrat and second in command. Hardin was a hard-working type in his late thirties and bore a perpetually worried expression. He had crisp, short hair, a dark complexion and his features were so heavy that he would never have been thought handsome by average contemporary standards. He was a good team man, always available when things got rugged.
Now he was looking at his chief strangely. “I’ve just been talking to Stevens. Listen, you’ll never believe this. There’s been some more burglaries.”
Barry stared at him.
Bat said doggedly, “Three more. Last night. On the eighty-third floor this time.”
“God dammit!” Barry Ten Eyck came to his feet. “Meet me in Security.”
Bat’s face faded even as he said, “Great.”
Barry Ten Eyck said to Carol Ann, “I’ll be over in Stevens’ office.”
The Security offices were immediately across the corridor from those of the Demecrat. Barry Ten Eyck met Bat Hardin at the door.
Barry said disgustedly, “Same pattern?”
“Evidently.” Bat Hardin was a medium sized man with a military carriage. Barry had heard that he had fought in the Asian War and for a time had been a police officer in a mobile town.
The door identified them and immediately opened.
Stevens looked up from a phone screen he was scowling into.
“What in the devil is all this, Stevens?” Barry said.
Stevens held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Three more burglaries. This time on the eighty-third floor.” He was a sour man, tight of face and not exactly unpopular with the rest of the staff; a better description was that he was avoided, at least socially. He was competent at his job and Barry Ten Eyck appreciated having him. Competent men were at a premium, especially these days when you didn’t have to work if you didn’t want to, because of that confounded Negative Income Tax so many people seemed to take as a free ride from the cradle to the grave.
Bat said, “The last three were on the sixty-second floor. You said the only way it made sense was for the crook to live on the same floor.”
“That’s the only way it does make sense,” Stevens said stubbornly. “And even that doesn’t make very much sense. This whole thing is impossible.”
Barry drew up a chair. “All right. You’re Security. Tell us about it.”
Bat sat down too and held his peace, although he was characteristically chewing away on his under lip.
Stevens said, “Look. Shyler-deme is a building with five thousand apartments. Given full occupancy, we have some twenty thousand tenants, give or take a few hundred. Okay. Every tenant, man, woman and child, has an I.D. which is identified by our TV computer check. Outsiders to this building can come onto the ground floor and never be checked. But the moment anybody enters an elevator, he’s checked through his TV pocket phone I.D. card, or, if it’s a child, his electronic tag
