“How very nice,” Malcolm said, having no idea what the man was talking about and not caring. It was undeniably true that a variety of diverse forces had come together to make Malcolm’s life miserable, but this creepy fellow had nothing to do with that. “Life takes unexpected turns,” he said, not knowing what else to say.
Mr. Umbral looked him up and down with interest. “That’s quite true. I worked with your grandfather long ago. I don’t suppose he mentioned that?”
Malcolm was unable to think of anything to say in response to that.
“No, I suppose not. Old Tibbs always knew when to say nothing. One of our best. One of the absolute best.” He looked at Malcolm carefully again, as though trying to assay his genes.
“Well,” Malcolm said, “we shouldn’t keep the President waiting, should we?” He gestured for Mr. Umbral to precede him into the room.
“No, I don’t think you should,” Mr. Umbral said. He smiled at Malcolm again, briefly showing the pointed tips of his brown teeth, and passed through the doorway.
I’m in an alternate universe, Malcolm thought. And it’s the wrong one.
* * * * *
“I think it was during that Cabinet meeting,” Malcolm said, “that I finally admitted to myself just how much I did not belong there. Finally Shirley said she’d see what she could do to get me out.”
“And I guess she succeeded, then?” Carol asked.
“Took her a few months, but she did. Basically, she made a deal with her SS buddies.”
“Almost cost me my job, too.”
The two men turned around at the voice. A stunningly, exotically beautiful woman had come up behind them. She had shoulder-length black hair with a very few gray strands in it, olive skin with only a few wrinkles, and almond-shaped black eyes that betrayed an inner cynicism. Those minute signs of age, to Malcolm’s occasional annoyance, made her not less attractive but — maddeningly — all the more irresistibly sexy.
Carol squeezed his lips into a thin line to keep himself from drooling visibly. Ah, lucky Malcolm!
“The deal,” Shirley explained to Carol, “was that I’d be personally responsible for Malcolm from that point on and I’d make sure he didn’t do anything to embarrass the President. Fancy hated the deal, but she couldn’t budge Zip or the others. I was one person they weren’t going to eliminate for her.”
“It helped,” Malcolm added, “that Fancy got distracted around then. That was when she was planning the commando raid into Brussels to kidnap the wife of the President of the Northern Union and bring her to Washington for trial and execution.”
“Jesus!” Carol said. “I never even knew anything about that! Trial on what charges?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe for being too young and slender and good looking and having too much fashion sense. Fortunately, Fancy was dissuaded.”
“Malcolm,” Carol said, “you’ve done and seen so much, you simply have to write your memoirs. Record everything for future historians.”
Malcolm said vaguely, “My debt to the world, huh?” Then he looked around nervously. Then he laughed at himself. There was no reason to be nervous. All the dangerous people were dead. Well, except for Shirley.
“And then our second civil war broke out,” Shirley said, “and everyone got distracted. Old news. Malcolm, did you see that Jerry and Al’s new science-fiction spy thriller reached Number One on the New York Times bestseller list?”
“No, dear, I didn’t see that, and I’d really rather not talk about it.”
“Well, then, did you hear the news about your ex-wife?”
“She went on a hike in the mountains and got eaten by a bear?” Malcolm asked eagerly.
Shirley shook her head.
“A mountain lion? Anything?”
Shirley laughed. “It’s been a long time, Malcolm. Give up on it. No, no disaster. She’s just been appointed President of Colossoverse Telephone, Television, Natural Gas, Savings, Radiation, Electricity, Insurance, Steel, and Extortion. Newspaper says her salary will be $500,010,000.”
“It figures,” Malcolm said disgustedly.
“It was just on the local television news. She was interviewed. She said something about Colossoverse buying the last radio station it didn’t already own. She also announced a corporate name change. In keeping with the new, advanced, customer-friendly nature of the company, it will now be known as Universal Tibbs. Company motto will be, ‘We rule.’ She said she owes her business success to scrupulously following the principles explained in, quote, my brilliant ex-husband’s stupendous breakthrough book, Business Secrets from the Stars, end quote. The news anchor said that she was a great favorite with all the guys at the station, and they all wished her the very best of luck.”
The only sound that came from Malcolm was the grinding together of dentures.
Shirley took pity on him and decided not to tell him that the news item had included the detail that Marlene would be working closely with Big Buck Grossbuck, the Supreme Big Guy at Universal Tibbs, Ted Jones, the Vice Big Guy, Wallace Tenhut, the Vice President for Recreation, and the new Chief Presidential Playpal Marlene had just hired, Fred Seicht, who had recently been allowed to return to the United States after completing his term at one of the Northern Union’s Junior Big Guy Institutes.
“She looks and sounds like an interesting person,” Shirley said. “I think I’ll arrange an introduction for myself. Maybe we can compare notes. Now that our two organizations have merged officially, we’ll need to work closely with each other, anyway.” She returned to the house.
Carol watched her go and sighed despite himself. Shirley always reminded him of a young Hispanic girl he had known decades ago, during an uncharacteristically tumultuous period of his life. That had been before Bess, of course. “She’s still showing up?” he asked. “Still coming to visit?”
Malcolm nodded. “Every six months, approximately,” he said. “Whenever she gets tired of dealing with strong, deadly people who’re just like her and feels the need for my groveling worship, gratitude, and fear.” He had often imagined a lifetime relationship with his dream girl, but he had never imagined it quite this way. Sometimes, toward the end of Shirley’s visits, he caught himself staring at her mouth — at her teeth — in fearful expectation.
“Um, Carol, you probably shouldn’t mention to anyone that you’ve seen her here. Safety first.”
Carol turned slightly paler than usual. “Whatever you say.”
Malcolm sometimes wondered what position Shirley occupied these days. Head of the CIA? Head of some much deadlier agency whose existence the public didn’t even know about? She didn’t let information slip. Not unintentionally, anyway. She said just enough to keep Malcolm in a constant state of fear — and, paradoxically, and even to his mounting self-hatred, of desire.
The months between her visits stretched interminably. Then she would show up unannounced, bringing Malcolm a few nights of passion and terror. When she was done with him, when she had gained whatever it was she gained from these visits and had left again, he was happy to see her go and relieved that he was still alive and well. A few days later, he would begin longing for her again.
There were times, brief moments, when he didn’t think she was real. Had he imagined everything? Had the last however many years been a fantasy? Was he in reality confined in a straitjacket in a mental asylum, living inside his mind in the world of his own fiction? No: the sheer physicality of her brief visits made that impossible to believe.
Carol shook himself. “I have to go, Malcolm. Have to go tend my garden.”
“I didn’t know you had a garden.”
“That’s a metaphor, you heathen, atheist, anti-Christian devil spawn. What I really have to do is work on my sermon for tomorrow’s broadcast.”
“Are you finally going to going to give in to temptation and speak your mind?”
Carol sighed. He looked around quickly before talking. The gesture was unconscious. Everyone did it. He lowered his voice. Peo
ple did that a lot, too. “Don’t be silly. I like breathing.”
“So what will your topic be?”
“I think it’ll be something about this being after all the best of all possible worlds.”
Malcolm laughed. “I might actually watch you this time.”
He watched Carol drift away across the lawn to his own mansion, noticing how frail his friend had become. At least I’m not that badly off, Malcolm thought. Yet.
Lukas? he called out silently.
Still no answer.
Malcolm sighed and shook his head.
Well, yes, Carol was right. Malcolm had been Vice President of the United States, even if for only six months and during the administration of an insane dictator. He had had one immense bestseller. He had even changed history. Surely that was enough for any man. He was rich, he was still somewhat famous, and most of his body worked adequately.
Above all, there was Shirley
So what if Marlene was more successful than he was? Marlene was still a bitch.
So what if Joe Hoffman had attained the kind of permanent literary success that Malcolm had longed for but failed to achieve? Hoffman was showing his age, too. Nor did he seem to be a happy man.
The last time Malcolm had seen him, Hoffman had seemed filled with self-loathing for having turned his back on Larry Lefkowitz after the latter’s suicide. “I was frightened,” he had confessed to Malcolm. “You should never be frightened.”
“It’s natural to be frightened,” Malcolm had assured him, driven suddenly to pity. “That’s human nature. It’s evolution. It’s how we survive.”
“Well, yes” Hoffman had said, “but we must never let it make us betray ourselves.”
Malcolm, who felt that betrayal was the basis for much of human society, had patted the other man on the shoulder, noticing for the first time how bony Hoffman felt, how the muscles that Marlene had once admired had shriveled away.
Instead of triumph, that too aroused a feeling of sympathy. After all, Malcolm was also getting older. No, not older: old. Lately, when he looked in the mirror, it seemed to him that he was wearing someone else’s skin, and it was a half-size too large.
Nothing worked properly nowadays. Oh, not just the parts of Malcolm’s body, but the machines he was surrounded by. Even computers.
Especially computers, for God’s sake!
He had spent years programming those things, learning how to make them do the specific tricks he wanted them to. He had, he thought, gotten to be damned good at it. Maybe he hadn’t had what it took to be a Grade A+ programmer, but he had made himself into a very solid and reliable Grade B, and sometimes he had even managed to rise to somewhere between B+ and A-. Which, he had always been convinced, still made him better than ninety per cent of his colleagues.
At times, he had thought it a silly way to make a living. At all times, he had taken pride in his competence.
But where were the skills of yesteryear? It wasn’t really a skill he needed now or had needed for many years. Thanks to Business Secrets from the Stars, Malcolm would never again have to lift a finger. He could hire someone to lift it for him. Even though he hadn’t had another literary success, he had nonetheless earned the right to call himself a writer — in terms of dollars, anyway, if not in terms of recognition by the literary establishment. He had no need to bother about computers, or at least about the programming of them. That kind of work was beneath him now.
He had once read that Henry James had said that the only proper pursuit for the intelligent man was the writing of novels.
Was it Henry? Or was it his brother? Had whichever James boy it was come up with that line during a hiatus between robbing banks? Or had someone else said that, someone not even named James?
That didn’t matter. Details, details. The sentiment was a good one, in any case.
The writing of novels. Or the thinking about the writing of novels. Or the daydreaming about the writing of a novel that someone — some publisher, some reviewer, damn it, some fellow writer — would regard with just a bit of admiration.
So who cared about computers and the art of programming them? Not Malcolm!
From time to time, he would buy a magazine or book written for those who did care about that arcane art, because of a vague feeling that he ought to keep up with what had once been his field.
He could never get more than a few sentences into the damned thing.
What the hell were these kids doing nowadays? None of it made any sense. The publications were filled with words and phrases and even concepts — concepts, damn it! — that meant nothing to him, that he couldn’t even begin to wrap his mind around. The latest one was something called Layer Connections. All computer programs were now supposed to be written in the form of Layer Connections. This would guarantee that they’d take five minutes to write, they’d be esthetically and philosophically superior, they’d be bug free, and the world would be an immeasurably better place. Layer Connections was the new paradigm.
Paradigm. That word had become popular again. But only new paradigms counted. If you wanted to sell something, you called it the new paradigm. In with the new paradigm, out with the old. Buddy, can you paradigm? Nope, sorry. I’m fresh out.
The Layer Connections paradigm. What the hell did that mean? Might as well call it Fleegle. Fleegle programming. That made just as much sense, God damn it.
Maybe what made it worse was that the articles were all written by smug young people who were so sure they knew everything and to whom Malcolm’s years of experience and accomplishment counted for nothing. God damn them.
Even the hardware was weird and absurd nowadays. Computers were silent and completely sealed. Tiny little Goddamned boxes. You couldn’t even look inside them. By God, Malcolm remembered when you could open them up and stare at the stuff inside and pretend that you knew what it all was.
You were even supposed to talk to the Goddamned things, instead of typing!
He remembered that back when he was in high school, he had really liked the talking computers on that TV show, Star Trek, the original one, the real one. In real life, he couldn’t stand the damned things’ stupid fakey voices and patronizing manner. They knew they were so much smarter than Malcolm Erskine, and they didn’t bother trying to hide it. And they always pretended to keep misunderstanding him and displaying the wrong words on the screen, instead of the ones he spoke to them, no matter how loudly and distinctly he said them. So he’d find himself yelling and swearing at the stupid things, and even though they were featureless little boxes, he just knew they were laughing at him. Fuckers.
So he’d always order his computer to pop up a keyboard for him. Deformable plastic with telescoping carbon nanotubes inside it, or some such thing. They had a good feel to them, he had to admit that. Adjustable, too.
Adjustable. Deformable. The whole damned world had lost its solidity. No sooner did Malcolm think that he understood what was going on around him than it all melted into something else.
Deteriorated into something else.
Deteriorating. Everything was deteriorating.
Deterioration. Maybe that was the word that best described the universe, not betrayal. It was one or the other of those. Malcolm was sure of that.
So he had felt quite a bit of sympathy for Joe Hoffman’s sad deterioration, even though Malcolm was sure that he himself had not deteriorated anywhere near that much. Still, what could he say to the man? “You’re right, Joe. You’re a deteriorated coward. That must be tough to live with. You should just go find a lamppost now, just like your protégé.” No, that would have been inappropriate.
Instead, he had said goodbye to Hoffman and had returned to his mansion in Redland Heights.
And here he was, in that mansion. All in all, Malcolm had managed to get a pretty big chunk of the American Dream, and he was fairly satisfied with the path he had followed to achieve it.
He checked his watch. Early yet.
With a spring in his step, he headed
for one of the side doors of the mansion.
He had his own garden to tend to. Malcolm had indeed been thinking about writing his memoirs. Not a single book of his since Business Secrets from the Stars had sold well. None of them had sold at all, to be truthful It was time for another bestseller.
He knew in his heart that his memoir would be that bestseller. It too was to be titled Business Secrets from the Stars, but with the subtitle The Real Story. It would tell the truth about the original book, about the fakery and cynical silliness of it. This new book would blow the lid off the whole con game — Malcolm’s scam and the many political scams it had given rise to.
America would eat this book up! Eager for the truth at last, tired of centuries of self-deception and play-acting, his fellow citizens would buy his new book by the millions and would love and praise Malcolm Erskine for telling them the truth about themselves and for forcing them to face their own gullibility.
* * * * *
Perhaps Malcolm should have been thinking of lampposts as he sat down at his desk, ordered the computer to pop up a virtual screen and create a keyboard, and began to type:
It all came to me while I was eating lunch in a Mexican restaurant.
I was there alone. I always ate lunch alone. I never wanted my thoughts about writing interrupted by the inane chatter of shallow companions.
I was taking a break — brief, always brief — from writing. I had just completed the latest in a succession of critically praised novels, each of which had earned me the profound admiration of my fellow authors, and I was trying to choose which of various enticing literary projects to next pursue. Which would be the most satisfying, the most intellectually and artistically fulfilling?
Or should I, to divert myself and amuse my admirers, write something light, frothy, purely entertaining, a jeu d’esprit? No, I decided, the writer’s life is too short to spend any of it traveling such byways.
Business Secrets from the Stars Page 36