His glance fell on Miss Hine’s sewing machine. She had established a sewing nook at one end of the long porch, and her stuff was there to stay from the settled looks of it. Natural light, she said, was just the thing for fine sewing, and she had proceeded to set up her tailor shop here, where, strictly speaking, she had no right to be. “The solarium,” she called it.
The woman was popping up everywhere. Only last night she had proposed a game of cards in the Red Room, another area where she had no business. “How about a hand of canasta, Lamar?” she had said. “You’re not doing anything, are you?” Not doing anything! Couldn’t the woman see all those books and papers in his lap? Did she think he had time to waste on parlor games? She had her own sitting room, why couldn’t she sit in it? She had also presumed on a very brief acquaintance to call him Lamar. There were just three people left on earth who addressed him so—his wife, Sydney Hen and Mr. Bates—and he saw no reason why this little woman should be the fourth. Not even W.W. Polton had taken such a liberty.
All this, with the best yet to come, the roomers. Soon there would be a pack of coughing drifters bumping around upstairs, alcoholic house painters and clarinet players, tramping to the bathroom at all hours of the night. Still, to give the woman her due, she had been very decent in offering to mend his clothes and in putting her tiny car at his disposal. She had brought no cats along with her and no miniature dogs. She did not whinny or titter and had not, so far, tried to embrace him. And, in any case, someone would have to stay behind as caretaker of the Temple when he went to Indianapolis. He would need Maceo at his side in the governor’s mansion.
One term, at his age, would probably suffice. Was it two years or four? He read through the closing words of his speech and shook his fingers outward in a remembered gesture from the lectern. It was good to be active again. It was all coming back to him now and he was eager to face his old adversaries, the ignorance and indifference of men, row upon row of blank faces and fallen jaws. It was a good speech with an interesting theme, change, although, to be honest, he had never really seen himself as an agent of political change.
What could he, Governor Lamar Jimmerson, Master of Gnomons, do for his fellow citizens? One service came immediately to mind. As his first official act he would order the Parks Department to install a guardrail all around the base of Rainbow Falls, with plenty of warning signs. Such an inviting place and yet so treacherous. At this very moment white-haired judges and rumpled old family attorneys were down there losing their footing and crying out as they fell and bruised their buttocks on those cruel green rocks, first slick and now hard. But then downstream a bit, below the cascade, all violence spent, wouldn’t there be a limpid pool where older men in prickly blue wool bathing briefs could paddle about unobserved with swim bladders under their arms?
Outside there was a roar and an expanding plume of white smoke. The construction workers had pushed the Buick off to get it started. It was a 1940 Buick Century, black, with four doors, a straight-eight engine, the starter button under the accelerator pedal. Maceo, behind the wheel, waved off the pushers with thanks, then turned to look at Mr. Jimmerson on the porch. Mr. Jimmerson nodded once in response, to acknowledge that the Buick was living and breathing again. They looked at each other across the way for quite some time.
It was almost ten o’clock when Popper emerged from his room, smelling of rum. He was nervous. His smile was tight. The black wig was riding low on his forehead. He made no apology for being late.
“Are we ready? Is everything in hand? Pawing the dirt, are you, sir? We need to shake a leg. Has Maceo loaded the books? Here, sir, let me help you with your Poma. There we go, snug does it. Say, what happened to the hair on this thing?”
“It’s been falling out for years.”
“The dapple effect is lost.”
“Yes.”
“It needs something to set it off.”
“No, it’s all right.”
“But your Poma no longer has Focus, sir. It needs something—right here at the peak, some culminating event. A big yellow jewel would do it, or no, a blue Christmas tree bulb powered by a hidden battery. A soft blue radiance atop the Cone of Fate.”
“No, it’s all right the way it is, Austin. I don’t want my cap wired up. It’s Sydney who likes trinkets. He has a brass ball or a marble on top of his Poma. That’s not for me. You know how I feel about trinkets.”
“Your scorn for ornament. I did know but had completely forgotten.”
They joined Maceo beside the rumbling, smoking Buick and there engaged in a discussion over which car to take. Mr. Jimmerson was for the Crosley, he having no confidence in the rotted tires on the Buick. Popper argued that the Crosley was too small for three men and several hundred pounds of books. Maceo agreed, and said that he did not care to wear his chauffeur’s cap if they took the Crosley. Mr. Jimmerson pointed out that the Crosley was a later model than the Buick, with sound little tires, offering less risk of breakdown.
“But the Crosley is not a touring car, sir,” said Popper. “What about your rest? Have you thought of that? I know a little something about sleeping in cars and, believe me, no one has ever taken a nap in a moving Crosley. And what will those lawyers think when we come driving up in such a clownish little car, with the back bumper dragging from all the weight? ‘Look, here are three fellows coming up in a pale green Crosley. I wonder who they are. I wonder what their visit means. Pranksters, you think?’ Now is that the kind of reception we want? No, sir, the Crosley won’t do.”
Mr. Jimmerson tapped a sandal against one of the Buick tires. He now wore thin white socks to protect his feet against the chafing straps. “But look at those cracks,” he said. “You can see the cords. We could have a blowout and turn over. We might find ourselves stumbling around in a pasture holding our bloody heads.”
“They’ll hold up if Maceo takes it slow. Heat is the great enemy of tires.”
Maceo loaded the Buick trunk with boxes of Hoosier Wizards. Popper and Mr. Jimmerson sat in the back on seats of dirty brown plush.
They were off. Out on the highway the white exhaust smoke increased in volume. The cars behind them had to drop back from a normal interval or be caught in a choking, blinding whiteout. The drivers of these cars were hesitant to pass, to move into the dense cloud, the unknown, and, with Maceo taking it slow, there soon developed a long, creeping, serpentine motorcade behind the black Buick.
“Let them honk,” said Popper. “A very low form of expression. If they knew who they were honking at they would blush.”
Inside the car the sweet smell of rum was strong. Mr. Jimmerson rolled down a window to get relief and asked Popper if he had taken to drinking in the morning now. Popper did not answer the question. Instead, he reached over to Mr. Jimmerson’s wattles and took a fold of flesh between thumb and finger. “Patches of gray bristles,” he said. “Here and here. You missed a spot or two with your razor. It doesn’t look good at all.”
Mr. Jimmerson recoiled, and said, “I don’t believe I would talk about anyone’s looks, Austin, if I was wearing a Halloween wig like you.”
Popper raked the clotted black locks out of his eyes. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what got into me. I’m on edge, I’m not myself today. Don’t pay any attention to me. It’s not a pleasant subject, which of us looks the worse, and I should never have introduced it. I doubt if the point could ever really be settled. The truth is that all three of us, Maceo not excepted, could do with a facial tone-up. What am I talking about? I’m sorry, sir, it’s my nerves. I had a bad dream last night. I was out in a desert and a rat crossed my path. He was not scurrying, with abrupt starts and stops, none of your rat sprints, but loping like a cheetah. His ears were laid back. This rat had no local business to see to. He was on a cross-country mission. A rat of doom. When I woke I was soaked in sweat and my heart was thumping, and so I had a couple of rum-and-tonics on an empty stomach. I’ll be all right when I get a bite to eat. Once we get this maiden speech out of the
way everything will come right. Did you have a good breakfast, by the way?”
“Yes.”
“Meg calls it the most important meal of the day.”
“I had a good enough breakfast but what are we going to do about my lunch?”
“No need to worry on that score, sir. They’ll have a lavish buffet down there if I know my lawyers. Great red haunches of meat and crystal tureens piled high with chilled shrimp. Expense no object. These are not abstemious men. It won’t be a soup kitchen.”
The tires held all the way to Rainbow Falls State Park. The streamer of smoke gave an illusion of speed and as the Buick rolled down the woodland lane it was like the passing of a comet. But the arrival caused no stir. There was no one on the veranda to greet the Master, no receiving line, no photographers, no reception of any kind. Rain was pattering on the leaves. Maceo began unloading the books. Popper led Mr. Jimmerson up the steps and into the great timbered hall.
The lawyers were drowsy. They had been feeding and drinking for more than an hour and many of them were sunk in leather chairs and couches, dozing, the older ones blowing like seals. A few were still on their feet, standing about in pairs, at the bar, around the snooker table, before the cold fireplace, laughing quietly as they exchanged stories of daring raids on public funds, strife fomented, judgments consumed, snares successfully laid.
At the rear of the big room a boy in a short red jacket was sliding a wooden beam across the doors to the dining room. He was locking up. Luncheon was done.
Popper said, “It looks like a fellowship hour.”
“Where is the waterfall, Austin? Did we pass it?”
“It’s down there in the woods somewhere. This is just what I was counting on, sir. We can meet with these fellows on an informal basis before you give your address.”
“Is that the falls I hear? I expected a different kind of noise. I never dreamed that Rainbow Falls would whir.”
“That’s just some mixing machine at the bar, sir, a little cocktail engine of some kind. Here, let’s make the most of our opportunity. Let’s wake some of these old bozos up.”
Popper took the Master in tow and they went forth to mingle and ingratiate themselves. The first man they disturbed said, “Go back where you came from, fatty.” The next two were a bit more friendly, mistaking Mr. Jimmerson for the stage magician who was to perform at the banquet that night. Another one asked to know the name and address of his hatter.
Soon, however, his identity became known. This was the mystical old bird from Burnette who, not even a member of the bar, dared to run for public office. This was the turbulent old fellow from the north who wanted to shut down all the nursing homes and quarter all the old folks with their sons and daughters. The word spread and the lawyers began to mutter.
“What is he doing here?”
“Who invited him anyway?”
“I like his nerve!”
“The gall of some people!”
“What a crust!”
“What a getup!”
“He comes here in his nightgown and tarboosh!”
“The very idea!”
“Of all the nerve!”
“Take a look at the other guy!”
“I thought I had seen everything!”
“This is the limit!”
“This takes the ever-loving cake!”
They began to close in on Mr. Jimmerson and put questions to him in a legal tautolog that he could not follow. The questions became accusations and before long the courtroom gobblers were baiting him from all sides, with no one to gavel them down. The Busy Bees were swarming. Young ones darted in to poke the Master’s belly and tug at his gown. Popper tried to answer them and fend them off. Mr. Jimmerson’s head swam. He stood there scratching the backs of his hands and saying nothing.
The cross-flow of words became a torrent. It was a talking frenzy. The lawyers were seized, possessed, with a kind of glossolalia. Their speech was no longer voluntary or even addressed to anyone. They jabbered mindlessly into the air, their eyes half closed in a transport, and one man was so driven that he had stopped uttering words altogether and had taken to mooing and lowing and moving his feet up and down in the slow clog dance of a zombie.
Then there came the peal of a little silver bell from above and the hubbub subsided, trailing off through a low ululation to, finally, silence. The strange delirium was broken. A man in a dark suit and with receding waves of gray hair was standing at the rail of the mezzanine gallery. He struck his little bell again with a silver mallet. The lawyers looked up at him, their chief.
“Order,” he said. “Pray silence. Busy Bees, your attention, please. Thank you. Tipstaff? Will you wake those delegates on the couches? Will you clear the couches and make a thorough room check? Thank you. A clean sweep-down fore and aft, if you please. Turn them out, Tipstaff, prod their bottoms with your staff, and don’t forget to check the canteen and the steam room for skulkers. While you’re at it you might check the windows for peepers and sneaks who would learn our tricks. I hate to break up your naps, gentlemen, and your romp, but we have a full docket this afternoon and we really must turn to. It’s time to put our brandies and panatelas aside and proceed to business. First, an announcement. A little surprise, or rather a big one. An unexpected guest. I have here at my side a distinguished U.S. Attorney. It is my privilege to know him personally. All of you know him by reputation. So, without further cackle, I give you, gentlemen, the prosecutor’s prosecutor, that celebrated pit bull of the Justice Department—”
A pudgy little man stepped forward to the rail. He wore a seersucker suit. His hair was cut in a flat brush.
The lawyers gasped.
“White!”
“Those full cheeks! It’s Bulldog White!”
“He’s got White!”
“Order,” said the chief. “Yes, I have indeed got Pharris ‘Bulldog’ White, and what is more, my brave advocates, I have persuaded him to read us his full trial notes and citations from United States v. Omega Gypsum Co.”
White held a fat book aloft and the lawyers cheered.
“And that’s not all,” said the chief. “Bulldog has also very kindly consented to give us a report on loophole closing. Every year we are closing more and more, but, as we all know, there are still far too many human activities that can be carried on without the intercession of lawyers. Bulldog will give us the current rundown on that from Washington. Ludlow? Is Ludlow on the floor? Ah, Ludlow. It’s short notice, I know, Ludlow, but I wonder if you would form up our glee club and give Bulldog a proper welcome.”
The man called Ludlow began to shout commands. Thirty or so of the lawyers scrambled about and arranged themselves into three curving ranks. Ludlow stood before them. He rotated a fist high above his head and the men burst forth with a greeting. “Glad to have you, Bulldog! So pleased that you could come!” Then Ludlow sounded a note on his pitchpipe and the men hummed, some of them leaning well into the note. Ludlow raised his arms and the men sang.
Go, go, go, go,
Go where e’er you please,
We’re the bow’tied boys of the bar O!
And aren’t we busy bees!
Hail then the
On they sang. Mr. Jimmerson was hungry, not to say weary, and things were moving too fast for him. His strength was failing. Where was the roast beef? Since breakfast at the break of day he had not seen so much as a celery stick. And how explain the behavior of these men? First they rail at him and now they seemed to be serenading him. This was what it was to leave home. These were the shocks to be met with outside the Temple. Would this music never cease?
The song had a good many stanzas. Pharris White stood at the rail, taking the tribute with a frozen smile. His gaze ranged over the scene below, then stopped and lingered on the fat man in the gown. The Master of Gnomons! That black man carrying boxes was his servant! And that fellow going for the door was—Popper!
“You there! Popper!”
Popper glanced back over his
shoulder in the way of one who has heard a great rushing of wings, and for an instant the two men looked each other in the face. Even across that gulf and through the hairy clutter of disguise Pharris White knew his man.
“Stop him!”
“My file is no longer active, White!” shouted Popper.
“Your file will be active as long as I can draw a breath! Stop that man! That’s not his natural hair! That’s Austin Popper! I have a warrant for his arrest!”
But Popper was already through the doorway before anyone responded. He made for the woods and was crashing through the wet underbrush when the lawyers came storming out onto the veranda. There they stopped short, drawing back from the rain, and milled about, uncertain, awaiting guidance, while precious seconds were lost.
Pharris White appeared and they gathered about him expectantly, with most of them giving ready assent to the authority of this cherubic figure in seersucker.
The fleeing man, White explained to them, was one Austin Popper, a federal fugitive of many years’ standing, once thought to be dead. He was an elusive fellow. He was not believed to be armed nor was he considered dangerous in the usual sense of that word. At the same time he was desperate and might well resist arrest with his fists, or, if one lay handy, a stick, or even by butting with his head. But they could be assured he was no bruiser. He was out there somewhere in a crouch but they need not fear his spring. As a runner he was probably no better than average for his age and weight. There was nothing in his record to suggest that either his speed or his endurance was in any way remarkable, and yet here again as a desperate man he might draw on hitherto untapped reserves. This man, the aforesaid Popper, affected an air of boldness. He was clever, though not a man of genuine learning. He lived by his wits. He sometimes traveled with a bird. For many years now he had been using writing paper taken from the Hotel Rollo in Rollo, Colorado. No one could say how much of that paper he had carried off. Of his women and his hobbies nothing was known. He held, or did hold at one time, a high position in the Gnomon Society, an ancient and secret order of global reach, with all that that implied, namely, unstinting aid from his brothers, curious winks and hand signs, a code of blood vengeance, access to great wealth, access to dark knowledge, knowledge that was not always fairly shared with deserving Neophytes of the order. These were a few things to keep in mind.
The Masters of Atlantis Page 14