Hubbard, L Ron Mission Earth 05 Fortune of Fear

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.He looked at the door.Then he looked at the phone.I realizedthat he had been waiting around for news from Izzy.He got up and went to the phone.He picked it up.No dial tone.Dead.He pushed some buttons foran outside line.Still dead.Aha! I knew what had happened.The phones had been shut off by the phone company! A surge ofpleasure raced through me.Heller put it back on the cradle.Then he looked at the bathroom.The lights there had been on a littleearlier.He went in and threw the switch.He threw another switch.Nothing happened.No lights!Oh, wonderful! The light company had shut off the lights!He turned on a water tap.Nothing happened! Oho, I gloated.The water company had shut thewater off!He went over to a radiator and felt it.Evidently it was ice cold.The furnaces were off!He was in a super-posh Atlantic City high-rise hotel-casino.He was, in fact, the proprietor.And allthe utilities were shut down tight!I gloated.Given time, even the pipes would freeze!Glory, glory! Fate was driving misfortune in with a sledgehammer!He began to pace slowly back and forth, occasionally glancing at his watch and then at the door.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlOnce he said, "Izzy, where are you?!"Twelve-thirty came.The room must be getting cold, for he threw his trench coat over his shoulders.He continued to pace.He continued to glance at his watch.Oh, I enjoyed every second of it!One o'clock came.The Countess had not come back.No slightest sign of Izzy.Heller sank down ina chair."Izzy, you have deserted me and I don't blame you one bit."He saw some smoke rising from down the Boardwalk, quite a distance away.He went to thewindow.He couldn't see it very well.Some sort of a burning vehicle.There was smoke drifting also fromthe direction of the beach.He didn't bother to go into the sitting room and look.I guessed that it might berioting and looting.One-ten.A knock on the door.Heller raced across and opened it.A very mournful Izzy stood there.He looked even shabbier than usual.The Salvation Army GoodWill overcoat was faded and shiny with wear.His briefcase was a mottle of scuffs with paper tearsshowing through.And he looked far sadder and more slumped than usual, a feat which was nearlyimpossible.Heller let him in."Oh, Mr.Jet," said Izzy."I told you not to do anything foolish.I have never heard of such acatastrophe in the whole history of business.I have told you and told you to keep your name offcorporations.Now you're in it up to your skull top.You should leave business to me."Heller sank into a chair and put his head in his hands."I know that now.""You should have known it yesterday.Business is one of the most treacherous tools of Fate.But it ismy fault.I saw a gleam in your eye and, when you have it, you always go out and get people to shoot atGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlyou.And now they've used submachine guns, cannons and even a hydrogen bomb.Oy, what rubble andwreckage!"Heller said, miserably, "I know.I know.What is the state of affairs now?"Izzy said, "There is a little bit of nonpessimistic news which I don't trust and bad news which isreliable.So I will give you the bad news first.""Probably," said Heller, "the good news is that they will feed me breakfast before they exterminateme.So go ahead.""You should have been suspicious when they let you win so much for so long.In order to pay thebets you were placing with such wild abandon, they dragged down every casino's cash, every bankaccount the corporation had.They even wired money in from Las Vegas.They also collected in advancefrom all hotel guests.They exhausted every possible source of cash they could lay their hands on so itwould flow back to them through you, laundered as corporation losses."The corporation cash-liquidity picture is minus millions and millions.And it also has to honor theIOU markers issued like an avalanche at the end of the night, and so we come to the nasty subject ofdebt."Money they should have paid for utilities phone, lights, water for months has been going intotheir pockets.So the service was cut off today on all these, and to it is added heating oil.It even includesgasoline charge accounts for the extensive corporation rolling stock."All staff of all the corporation's numerous businesses are unpaid and have been for some time.Thegovernment IRS withholding tax is also missing."The money which went into the staff pension funds was invested in businesses which mysteriouslyfailed, and so the pension fund has to be made up."All state and local taxes, including sales tax, are owing for the past year.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html"Most of the hotel equipment is on time-payment contracts and those companies want to take theequipment back, even the furnaces."It's winter and there is no yacht traffic for the marina and nothing is travelling on the IntracoastalWaterway."It's winter and there's nothing one can do with the amusement piers."It's winter and there are no vacationers to fill the hotels."Heller shivered."Is that all?""No," said Izzy.He was unfolding a newspaper."That spaghetti-eating schlemazel Piegare must havetalked to the press right away last night, the schmuck.Have you seen this?" He was holding the frontpage of the New York Grimes before Heller's eyes.It said:WHIZ KID STEALSATLANTIC CITYThe resort metropolis is the first American city to be stolen since the Indians ripped off Roanoke fromSir Walter Raleigh in A.D.1590.In a raging midnight gun battle which local police and the Army did not stop, Jerome Terrance Wister,known as the "Whiz Kid," [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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