appear where he was supposed to and say what he was told to say.
He had wanted to know what about his school and the man said that would all be cared for, that he couldn't fail.
The man had said that from time to time it might look like he was being put in jail but that wasn't anything to worry about because there was a REAL person, Jerome Terrance Wister, and that if the chips fell the wrong way, it would be THAT one who would go to jail, finally.
He had wanted to know how come this fellow had the name Wister also; he had heard once that he had had a brother but had never known where he was. His own name was Gerry Wister and he dimly recalled the brother's name was Jerome. But the man said not to worry about that, it didn't make any difference.
"You mean," said the Countess Krak, "that you believed that the man you were helping to wreck was your own brother?"
"Well, sort of," the double replied, "but the man explained that they were just trying to make my brother famous."
"By putting him in jail?"
"Well, there was all that money they offered me and the women they promised."
The Countess Krak pushed the mike into her chest. "What primitives! No sense of honor!" Then, to him, "Continue."
The double rattled on in the muffled way of the wholly hypnotized.
The Countess Krak was beginning to get impatient. She was tapping her foot. She had heard a lot of this history of racing and Atlantic City and Kansas before and the only difference now was that she was hearing it was all cooked up by somebody.
I was very, very nervous.
The double at length ran down.
"So what was the name of this man?" said the Countess Krak.
"I called him Ed."
I began to breathe more easily. The double had had no dealing directly with Madison.
But then at the next question, my heart missed a beat.
"Who pays you?" said the Countess Krak.
She might hit paydirt with this!
"Cash in an envelope."
"What's on the envelope?"
"Nothing."
Her foot was tapping faster with impatience. "Is there anything IN the envelope except cash?"
"Only the receipt I sign and give back to Ed."
"And what is on the receipt?"
"The amount. And I initial it."
"Anything else?"
"Only the letters F. F. B. O."
"What do they stand for?"
"I don't know," came the muffled reply.
"F. F. B. O. That's all?"
"That's all."
My hair was standing up. F. F. B. O. stood for Fatten, Farten, Burstein and Ooze, the advertising and PR giants that handled the Rockecenter accounts and employed J. Walter Madison for this particular black PR campaign. Oh, the careless, stupid fools! Their accounts department was out-security!
And then I was greatly heartened. I had just remembered what Bury had told me. You had to be in the advertising world itself to know what F. F. B. O. stood for. It was even a test of being a professional advertising man!
The Countess drilled some more. But that was all she learned.
Satisfied at last, she got on to other work. "Now, you are going to do something," she said. "You are going to go into Superior Court and stand before the judge and you are going to state that every crime Jerome Terrance Wister is supposed to have done, you did. You owe it to the honor of your family. So you will do it without fail. You will state this in such a way that Jerome Terrance Wister will be absolved of all past charges and any current ones. It is YOUR face that is known on TV and in pictures and you will convince the judge that this is so. This includes marriages and adultery and the rape of a minor. And if anybody tells you to do different, you won't. Understood?"
"Yes."
"Now, you will also write a full confession that this is all a put-up job and will begin the moment you awake and I give you paper. Understood?"
"Yes."
"Now you will forget you have been kidnapped or hypnotized and will think you came to me with this as your own idea and you will stay with us and not run away until you appear in court. Understood?"
"Yes."
She clicked off the helmet and removed it from
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