and
passed him the cigar humidor. "How's Pelton's attitude toward the
Consolidated Illiterates' Organization, now?"

Cardon, having picked up the Italian stiletto to puncture his cigar,
looked at it carefully to make sure that it really had no edge, and
then drew it quickly across his throat.

"Just like that. You know what really happened, yesterday afternoon,
at the store, don't you?"

"Well, in general, yes. I wish you'd fill me in on some of the
details, though, Frank."

"Details he wants. Well." Cardon blew on his coffee and sipped it.
"The way we played it for propaganda purposes, of course, there was
only one big riot, and it was all the work of the wicked Literates and
their Independent-Conservative hirelings. Actually, there were two
riots. First, there was one the Independents had planned for about a
week in advance; that was the one Sforza tipped us on, the one that
started in China. Graves knew about it, enough to advise Latterman to
get all the Literates out of the store before noon, which Latterman
did, with trimmings.

"Then, there was another riot, masterminded by a couple of
Illiterates' Organization Action Committee people named Joe West and
Horace Yingling, both deceased. That was the result of Latterman's
bright idea to trap Claire and/or me into betraying Literacy. These
Illiterate fanatics made up their minds, to speak rather loosely, that
the whole Pelton family were Literates, including Chet himself. They
decided that it was better to kill off their candidate and use him for
a martyr two years from now than to elect him and have him sell them
out. They got about a hundred or so of their goons dressed in
Independent-Conservative KKK costumes, bought air support from Patsy
Callazo's mob, up in Vermont, and made that attack on the top landing
stage, after starting a fake riot in North Jersey, to draw off the
regular Radical-Socialist storm troops. Incidentally, when I found out
it was Callazo's gang that furnished those fighter bombers, I hired
another mob to go up and drop a block-buster on Callazo's field, to
teach him to keep his schnozzle out of politics."

Lancedale nodded briskly. "That I approve of. How about West and
Yingling?"

"Prestonby's muscle man, Yetsko, killed West. I took care of Comrade
Yingling, myself, after I'd gotten reinforcements to the store--first
a couple of free-lance storm troops that the insurance company hired,
and then as many of the Radical Rangers as I cou