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Ross shook the hand, collected his party, and drove off.
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Early Thursday morning, Gilbert Falck entered the offices of the Telagog Company when
nobody else was present. There was not even a single controller carrying a client through an early-
morning crisis. Without hesitation, the young man got to work on the mechanism of his control
booth and Jerome Bundy's next to it.
With a screwdriver he removed the panel that covered the wiring at the front of the booth.
He traced the wiring until he found a place where the return motor leads of his booth and Bundy's
ran side by side. With wire cutters he cut both wires and installed a doublepole double-throw
knife switch. When the switch was down the controls would operate as usual; when it was up, he
would control Bundy's client while Bundy controlled his. However, as the sensory circuits were not
affected, each would continue to see, hear, and feel the sensations of his own client.
Falck did not consider himself a heel. But he had fallen heavily in love with Claire La
Motte and deemed all fair in love. His effort to have Ross disgrace himself by uninhibited
behavior in Westchester had backfired, so that Ross had ended up more solid with Claire than ever.
Ross, while he had not exactly complained to the company about the paces that Bundy had
put him through, had asked them to go easy. This request had caused Falck's and Bundy's supervisor
to glower suspiciously and to warn the two controllers not to try stunts. Therefore, Falck did not
dare to undertake any direct bollixing of his client's actions or to ask Bundy to. He must work by
a more subtle method.
He had already tried to date Claire by telephone. She, however, was free only on weekends
and had been dated up solidly for the next two by Ross. After this afternoon's contest, some of
those dates might no longer be so solid.
Falck measured the panel. With a hand auger, he drilled two tiny holes in it. Then he
looped a length of fishline around the crosspiece of the knife switch and pushed both ends back
through the upper hole in the panel from the back. He did likewise with another length of line
through the lower hole, screwed the panel back into place, and tautened the lines.
Now he had only to pull hard on the upper double length of fishline to pull the switch
from the down to the up position. Then, if he released one end of the line and reeled in the
other, he would remove the line entirely from the works and could stuff it into his pocket.
Similar operations with the lower line would return the switch to its original position.
Later, when the excitement had died down, he would remove the panel again and take out the
switch. There was a chance, of course, that the electricians would come upon the switch in
checking for trouble, but Gilbert Falck was no man to boggle at risks.
About ten on Thursday morning, Ross's telephone in the Gazette offices rang.
"Ovid? This is Claire. You won't have to meet my train after all."
"Why not?"
"Because Peshkov's driving me down."
"That guy! Is he planning to attend the contest?"
"So he says. Would Mr. Ballin mind?"
"Hm. I don't think so, but I'll call him and straighten it out. I got
-I've got influence with him. Is Peshkov coming alone?"
"Well, he wouldn't let his family be contaminated by this example of bourgeois frivolity,
but he wants to bring Fadei."
"The goon? No sir! Tell him he'll be welcome (I think) but no bodyguards."
Ross called the Outstanding Knitwear Company and persuaded a dubious Marcus Baum to let
Peshkov attend the showing.
The contest took place in Marcus Ballin's showroom, directly underneath his lofts. Despite
the swank decor of the showroom, the noise and vibration of the knitting machines came faintly
through the ceiling. The showroom had been fixed up something like a nightclub, with a stage a
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