CHAPTER 22.

"Let's take it from the place where you mount the scaffold, Mr. Palma."

Palma sat down on the edge of the gallows platform, dangling his legs. Squinting at the glaring after- noon sun, he wiped perspiration from his bald head. "I didn't realize getting executed was such a ch.o.r.e."

This isn't your everyday hanging, cookie," said the bouncing young man in the four-piece bottle-green worksuit. "This is a big one, a real bellringer of a public hanging." He was pacing the flagstone court-yard at the foot of the gibbet, nudging the a.s.sorted television and motion-picture cameramen into new positions, whispering instructions to others, of the score of technicians loitering there. "We've got, cookie, two of the most notorious highway robbers on the planet getting stretched at once. It's going to be a beaut."

Palma sighed out his breath. "Hutchison, you're obviously a well-informed lad," he said down at the bouncy producer-director of his execution. "Surely you've heard of me, Palma the photographer. I even won a Pulitzer Prize once, over in the Earth System of Planets. I'm no highwayman."

Hutchison was conferring with a technician. "We're going to have to do something about your head," he called to Palma.

The Robot Magistrate already told me about that."

"No, no, I mean while you're still alive. We're getting a glare."

"We might postpone the execution until an overcast day," suggested Palma.

"Not on your tintype, cookie. You and the Scarlet Angel take off at noon, come rain or come shine. Freddie, do something about Mr. Palma's head."

Freddie, a small catman, bounded up the gallows steps flourishing a makeup case. "Have you presentable in a minute, cookie."

"You could call the Coult Publications rep in the capital," Palma said to Hutchison. "He'll tell you I'm universally renowned."

Hutchison had his head close to that of a very old lizardman. "Boots thinks you're not properly defiant, Mr. Palma," he said through cupped hands. "Can you give us a little more defiance mounting the steps?"

"How about a few obscene gestures?"

"No, no, cookie. We've got our kid audience to think about. A nice defiant shake of the fist might be exactly what we want."

"Hey," said Palma, "I think my hanging from a rope is going to scare those tykes more than a thrown finger. Why don't we change it to a fine and probation?"A blue-haired black man had been telling Hutchison something. "Gurney here thinks you'd look better cringing than defiant. Want to give us a few sample cringes, Mr. Palma?"

"No. It's my execution and I'd rather do it defiant."

An anxious-looking young man popped out of one of the TV trucks. "Let's get the rehearsal rolling again, if we may, Hutch," he said "I've got to have my crew at the public horsewhippings by two."

"Can we step livelier, Mr. Palma?"

After a moment of watching the trucks and the distant iron gates of the stone-walled prison yard, Palma said, "Soon as Freddie's through with my head."

"All done, cookie." Freddie administered one finalpat of powder before bounding down the steps.

"Very well, Mr. Palma, from the top if you please."

Palma stood up. "I'd feel more natural if the Scarlet Angel could join me for-"

"No, no, that's bad luck," Hutchison told him. "Youshouldn't see her till the real execution."

"This isn't a wedding."

"Listen, cookie, I've produced more executions than you can imagine. It's better the partic.i.p.ants don't get a look at each other until the-"

Bam Bam! Bam!

"Will you, for the love of goodness,stop that pounding."

Bam! Bam! Bam!

"We got to get this G.o.dd.a.m.n royal viewing-standfinished in time for the hanging, G.o.dd.a.m.n it!"

The lizard carpenter on the half-completed stand shook his hammer at Hutchison.

"What royal viewing-stand?"

"This G.o.dd.a.m.n royal reviewing-stand, for the G.o.dd.a.m.n king to sit his G.o.dd.a.m.n a.s.s on."

Hutchison scowled "n.o.body told me the king was going to attend."

"Well, he is."

Bam! Bam! Bam!

"Now I'll have to give him ten minutes of my execution for denying he's the Phantom of the Fog,"

said the producer-director. "I'm really getting weary of this sort of thing, King Waldo barging in on my executions and stealing the spotlight from-"

"Tell him about n.o.blesse oblige," said Palma as he climbed, slowly, down the scaffold steps.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Palma glanced around him. The farthest TV truck was only a hundred feet from the gates. It looked tough enough to smash the iron gates off their hinges. "I've been thinking," Palma said to Hutchison, "I might want to sign up with Criminal Exploitations after all. Are Bert and Howie around?"

"They're beyond help."

"Meaning what?"

"Both of them had complete nervous breakdowns and had to be rushed to St Charlie's."

"A hospital?"

"A loony bin," said Hutchison. "But we can't chitchat all day. Let's run through your last walk once more, cookie."

Someone suddenly b.u.mped into Palma from behind.

"Oops, sorry. Who is that?" The hangman had arrived, large, stripped to the waist, black hooded.

"We don't want any clumsy hangmen around here, Spingarn," warned Hutchison.

"I'm not Spingarn, I'm Lizorty." The hangman stumbled into Palma once again. "Spingarn is laid up with the vapors and a touch of brain fever."

"OK, OK. Climb up on the platform, Lizorty. Stand there with your arms folded, looking tough."

"Yes, I'll certainly try to convey ... oops, I'm afraid I've b.u.mped into you yet another time, sir.

Who did you say you were?"

"I'm Palma, the star of the festivities."

"Oh, you're one of the ones I'll be hanging tomorrow, do you mean?" asked the hangman. This isreally much more difficult than I was led to believe. For instance, I can barely see out of this darned hood."

"You've got it on backward."

"Is that it? I'm glad you told me. This is my first try at being a hangman."

"I'll help you straighten it." Palma moved around in back of the broad Lizorty. He took hold of the bottom of the hood with one hand, then grabbed the hangman's wrist and pulled his arm tight up behind his back.

"Hey, ow! That hurts."

"Walk," ordered Palma. "Straight ahead. We're going to borrow a truck."

"This is my first day as a hangman, I can't go skylarking around-"

"Walk!"

"Ow! Very well."

With the hangman serving as a shield, Palma headed toward the truck he'd eyed earlier.

"Everybody stand back or I'll throttle Lizorty here."

"Oops ... tripped on something."

"A cable. Step over it, keep walking."

Hutchison said, "You're simply holding everybody up, Mr. Palma. You can't possibly escape."

Palma gripped the hangman's thick neck. "Try to stop me and it's curtains for your brand-new hangman."

The bouncy young man took a stungun out of his pocket. "Stop right there, Mr. Palma."

Still fifty feet from the truck he had in mind, Palma said, "I'm warning you. I'll strangle this guy."

"Go ahead," said Hutchison. "Then we can get a fresh hangman over and get back to rehearsing your hanging." He walked right up to Palma and pressed the nose of the gun to his neck.

"OK, you asked for it." He allowed a few seconds to pa.s.s, then let go of his hostage. "I guess I can't strangle him."

"I knew that, cookie." As the hangman stumbled away, Hutchison put his stungun away.

"Whenever you're ready, Mr. Palma,"

CHAPTER 23.

"Get your Palma balloons! Get your Palma balloons!" shouted the enormous catwoman as she rattled several inflated ones in the air. "A striking likeness to the devilish rogue!"

A one-armed old man bellowed, "Buy your copies of The True and Shocking Memoirs of the Ruthless Scarlet Angel Together with Details of Her l.u.s.tful Days with Palma, the Bald a.s.sa.s.sin!

'Couldn't put it down,' says Abel of the Laranja Bulletin, 'A joy to read!' says Sheldorf of the Express.

Lurid, racy, un-putdownable! Paperback rights sold for a six-figure amount."

"Palma on a horse! Palma on a horse!"

"Authentic reproduction of an oil painting of Scarlet Angel in a state of undress!"

"Palma and Angel spoon and fork set!"

Splat!

A ripe vegetable, something pale blue he couldn't identify, hit Palma over the left eye. As he was wiping it off a tomato hit him in the chest. "Now that I recognize," he said.

He was riding along, alone, in an open horse-drawn cart. In the cart ahead rode the Scarlet Angel. There were at least two thousand people packed into the prison courtyard, not including the television, radio, and film crews. The noon sun blazed a s.m.u.tty orange.

"Aid the sightless, sir." A yellow-bearded blind man in purple-tinted gla.s.ses had made his way to the side of the slow-rolling gallows wagon.

"How about you aid me?" asked Palma. "All you have to do is-"

"Stall them," the blind man said.The bald photographer blinked. "Jack?"

The blind man was gone, back into the pushing, shouting crowd.

Palma poked the tip of his tongue into his cheek. The Scarlet Angel glanced back at him at that instant He smiled at her.

She smiled back, but sadly.

The viewing-stand was perched on gold-painted posts several feet above the ground, trimmed with considerable blue and gold bunting. King Waldo II and a dozen government and prison officials were already seated there, protected from the bright sun by a blue and gold awning.

The king sat with his crown in his lap. "I think, Warden Heartloft, we ought to schedule all future public executions late in the day."