pick a slum we can
clean up for not too much, and let's see what you can work out. This
cleanup theme isn't bad, it's just peace on earth that doesn't really
belong to us you know.

"I tell you what. We'll go to fifty thousand dollars or so on a
cleanup job, and you use that. Leave the world to the politicians and
the eggheads."

After he hung up, Randolph stood by the telephone, still chewing his
lip. Could you clean up something like a slum for say fifty thousand
dollars? Oswald would double the figure in his own mind, of course,
always did. But he'd get the sales out of it. His contract was tied to
sales.

Yes, he thought, it was best to call him off the track he was on now.
Lawyers or no lawyers, that sort of thing was dangerous.

It took a week, and it took every member of the staff that could be
pulled off other programs, as well as the ones assigned to Witch.

The "slum" had been located--three buildings in a short block just up
from the Battery, surrounded by new buildings. It was a
one-privy-to-a-floor, cold-water only setup, with a family living in
every room. It existed on high-value land only because the land and
buildings were tied up in an estate and couldn't be sold. But they
could be remodeled and thrown into one, and contracts were signed,
permissions granted, the paperwork alone filled nearly a complete file
cabinet.

It would take double the fifty thousand dollars, of course--maybe
more. But Randolph had authorized it, hadn't he? He always named half
the figure--or less--than he meant to be used. Anyhow, international
ratings and sales would more than make up the purse, because this
thing would hit socko. Worry about the cash was the last thing that
was bothering Oswald. He had a bear by the tail, and his contract
price was tied to the gross....

The show was ballyhooed the whole week while the work went on.

"Clean, clean, Witch clean--what's the witches next big cleanup?
Witches of the world, unite--let's cleanup this old world and make it
livable...."

The night the new cleanup job was to show, Randolph tuned in his TV as
ignorant of the details as the next viewer. It worried him a little
that Oswald insisted on keeping him in the dark on everything except
the fact that it would be a slum cleanup, but he had the best p.r. men
and the best lawyers in the country working on it, he told himself;
and certainly the sales charts for the past two weeks had been
spectacular.

"We can count