by John Brunner
She was repeating her earlier question. "What do you make of all this -- uh -- Murray?"
"You really want to know?" He took out his cigarette case and lit another. "All right, I'll tell you my impression so far. Delgado knows what he's doing. Sam Blizzard doesn't. When I was -- no, it doesn't matter where I heard it. But I heard Burnett of the Gazette say that Sam had collected a gang of no-goods and washouts, and with the exception of yourself he's damned right. I've never seen such a collection of second-raters in my life."
There was a stunned silence beside him. Finally Heather said, "But I don't understand. There's yourself, to start with. I mean, you've been a star for six or seven years, haven't you?"
Murray got to his feet. "Past tense," he said. "Excuse me for saying it, but I have to say it to somebody. Who do we have here? Me, since you brought the subject up -- the guy who drank himself from West End leads to the line outside an agent's office in six short months. Ida Marr, who -- ah, skip it. If you don't know about Ida yet, you'll find out soon enough. Adrian Gardner, too. Don't you remember Ade and the row there was about the fourteen-year-old boy he'd picked up in Oxford? He was damned lucky he didn't get jailed for that. I don't give a hoot for people's private lives provided they keep them private, but Ade can't. And then there's Gerry, Gerry Hoading. He was a boy wonder like me, wasn't he? A few years ago people were talking about him in hushed tones, saying his work was opening a new era for the theater the way Diaghilev's designers did for the ballet. Why do you think he's here and not lounging around a Mayfair apartment saying 'Sorry, too busy!' whenever the phone rings?"
"W-why?" There was a tremor in her pleasant, low-pitched voice.
Abruptly, Murray was hating himself all over again. It wasn't fair to spew out his own miserable ideas at this girl's feet. He took a deep breath.
"Skip it. I don't want to play holier-than-thou."
"No you mustn't leave it there. I can't tell if you're just being snide and bitter or -- " She broke off, as though afraid of her own presumption.
Damn. Why did I have to start on this, anyway? Murray said tiredly, "Okay, okay. The poor bastard is hooked. He's a junkie. Without his stuff he doesn't produce anything. With it he's so unreliable nobody can afford to take him on. He's the way I got to be when I was drinking. Satisfied?"
There was no answer. Feeling as though he had just kicked a kid's toys to pieces, he grunted a good night and went back into the house, sweating from head to toe. They were still living it up in the lounge; it sounded as though they were dancing. Did Delgado know what he was playing at? Or, by relying on Blizzard -- who had assembled this bunch of crumbs -- had he proved that he didn't? The answer eluded him. He went up to his room to take a shower before turning in and rinse the bad feeling off his body.
It didn't work. He took another tranquilizer and reflected that he was going to use up his stock of the pills pretty quickly at this rate.
Just before climbing into bed, it occurred to him to check the wardrobe and see if Valentine had carried out his instructions. He had. There was now a neat group of cans of assorted fruit juices on the shelf, and the siphon and the remaining bottles had been removed. So far, so good. He put out the light and lay down.
He had nightmares.
In the morning, the gentle noise of the bedside phone brought him out of uneasy slumber. When he sleepily put it to his ear, he heard Valentine's voice, more impersonal than ever through the instrument, informing him that breakfast was served from eight until nine. Murray muttered thanks and swung his feet to the floor before he could lapse back to sleep.
So -- now for it. He fumbled his feet into slippers, put on the robe he had left lying across the bed, and went to the washbasin. He hadn't finished his unpacking yesterday and his shaving tackle was still in his bag. After he'd shaved, he opened the mirrored cupboard above the basin, meaning to put his razor, shaving cream and aftershave lotion into it. There was a tooth mug in the cupboard. There was also a half-bottle of Scotch.
He stared at it incredulously for an eternal moment. Then a wave of rage darkened his mind. He grabbed the bottle from the shelf, snapped the neck against the side of the washbasin, and let the contents flood down the drain. The smell sickened him; after a moment, he dropped the bottle and went across the room to the phone. There was no dial on it. He picked it up and waited.
Soon, he heard Valentine's voice. "Yes, Mr. Douglas? What can I do for you?"
"Why the hell was there a bottle of whiskey in the medicine cabinet in my room?"
"A bottle of whiskey, sir? I'm very surprised to hear that."
"Are you? Are you really?" Murray drew a deep breath. "Well, get this. If I find any more liquor in this room, I shall bring it to you and force it down your throat, and I will push the bottle after it. Do you understand? Now get someone up here to clear away the mess!"
"I will attend to it myself when breakfast is over, Mr. Douglas. Ah -- perhaps I should remind you that it is now twenty-five minutes past eight o'clock."
"Oh, go to hell!" Murray said and slammed the phone down. He looked around the room, clenching his fists. There were drawers aplenty, the shelves of the wardrobe, the bookcase, the shoe rack. There was the bed. He remembered very well that in places such as those he had once hidden his own liquor from friends and doctors.
He made a minute check. Finding nothing, he began to relax. He felt a pang of appetite accompanying his relief, and realized that there had been a point to Valentine's remark about the time. He started to dress.
Most of his clothes were still in his bag and would now have to stay there until later. He went to get out a favorite sweater, which had been packed first and was thus at the bottom of the bag, and underneath it he found another bottle of whiskey.
He seized it by the neck, unwilling to believe that it was real until he could feel it cool and solid to the touch. A whisper of terror went across his mind like a bitter winter wind. This was a twin of the bottle in the medicine cabinet. Had he himself -- ?
No, by God, I didn't. And I'm going to take Sam Blizzard by the neck as I've got this bottle and make him tell me what devil's trick he's playing!
He swung around and hurled the bottle at the wall over the washbasin. Splinters of glass flew, and there was a vast brown splash as the whiskey poured after what had already gone down the drain.
He pulled on the sweater and made for the door.
All right, Blizzard, damn you. Here I come.
VI
But Blizzard wasn't in the dining room. There were two young men he knew only by sight sitting together at the far end of the long table, but everyone else appeared to have finished -- except Heather, who sat by herself near the door. There was an unused place setting next to her. Murray sat down and the black-suited man waiting by the sideboard picked up a glass of orange juice to place before him.
"Morning," Murray said. "Seen Blizzard?"
"Oh -- oh, good morning, Murray." She had been preoccupied and only now noticed who had joined her. "I was -- uh -- going to keep that place for Ida. She asked me."
She would. "Skin Ida," Murray said. "Have you seen Blizzard?"
"Well . . . Yes, he's already finished breakfast. Went out a few minutes ago." She hesitated. "Is something wrong?"
"Yes. Never mind, it's nothing to do with you." He gulped down the orange juice, and for a moment in his imagination it filled his nose and throat with the hotness of whiskey. He put the glass down and said under his breath, "God damn ."
"Well, well! Morning, Murray!" With acid sweetness, Ida's voice came from behind him. "Is that the place you were going to keep for me, Heather darling?"
"I'm sorry, Ida. I didn't have a chance to -- "
"Oh, never mind. There's one opposite, I see." On stage as ever, Ida swept around the end of the table. She had put on black jeans and a black sweater and wound her throat with a chain of enormous gilded links. She looked tired. "My own fault for being late, I guess. Thank you." This to the bringer of orange juice. "I'll ju
st have some dry toast after this, and about a gallon of black coffee. What's up with you, Murray? Hangover?"
The glass before Murray was deftly exchanged for a plate of cornflakes. He picked up his spoon and didn't say anything.
"Not funny?" Ida said brightly. "Never mind, Murray, you'll be over it by lunchtime."
"Stow it," Murray said. "I'm on the wagon and you know it."
"So you were telling us last night. That's why I thought it was so peculiar when I passed your room just now. The door was open and one of these vampiric valets they keep here was clearing up some kind of mess. And there was a stink of Scotch you could cut with a knife."
She smiled with honey and venom. At his side, Murray was aware of Heather looking at him, horrified. His desire for food vanished like a flame blown out.
"This place isn't a country club," he said, pushing back his chair. "It's a lunatic asylum. Or if we go on like this for four solid weeks we're going to turn it into one. Don't let me interfere with your new romance, will you, Ida?" he ended savagely as he spun on his heel.
She deserved that for the crack about a hangover. But I wish Heather didn't have to be there and hear me.
Nine-thirty, and astonishingly everyone was present, on time, in the miniature theater -- except, once again, for Delgado and Blizzard. Last of the other arrivals was Lester Harkham, the lean, fortyish lighting expert who almost always worked on Blizzard's productions. He came from backstage when the rest had settled down, jumped to the auditorium floor, and, before dropping into a seat next to Gerry Hoading, announced that Delgado and Blizzard would be with them in a few minutes.
Murray looked around. There was a piano with an electronic keyboard at one side of the stage, and Jess Aumen was sitting on its stool, moving one hand idly over the keys but not making them sound. He was a sleek young man with the artificially polished good looks of a male model, but he was undoubtedly a good composer.
Lester, Jess, Blizzard, and Gerry -- if he could be kept on the rails -- that was as good a supporting team as you could hope for. Then why in heaven's name hadn't he lined up more talent to put on stage? Apart from those with whom Murray had worked before, there were only the two young men who had been finishing breakfast when he arrived -- Rett Latham and Al Wilkinson -- and a girl called Cherry Bell, about whom he knew nothing. She was sitting with Rett and Al in the front row.
People were tense. You could feel it without following their conversation.
Then Blizzard and Delgado appeared from backstage. Blizzard was carrying one chair and dragging another. He set them up facing the others over the footlights, and he and Delgado sat down.
The author took out, with theatrical deliberation, another of his king-size cigarettes and lit it with a flourish. Today he had put on a sharkskin jacket and fawn trousers, and there was a pearl the size of a pellet of buckshot on his tie.
"Okay, let's get on," Blizzard said after a general nod to his listeners. "First -- "
"First, Sam!" Murray hauled himself to his feet and planted both hands, palm down, on the back of the seat before him. "I'd have raised this with you privately, but you've been generating your aura of mystery and busyness, and I've not been able to get at you. I want you to tell me why the devil you've been telling your slimy creature Valentine to scatter bottles of liquor all over my room."
There was a seemingly endless silence, during which Delgado's calculating dark eyes fixed on Murray and stayed there. An expression of interest developed very slowly around those eyes, like an image appearing on a photographic film.
"You must be crazy, Murray," Blizzard said at length. "I know damned well why you're on the wagon, and I wouldn't do anything to push you off. I suppose what you mean is that I told Valentine to leave some drinks in everybody's rooms and forgot to warn him to skip yours. I did forget to tell him. I'm sorry, and it won't happen again."
"Not good enough, Sam." Murray hunched forward. "There were bottles left openly on a shelf along with glasses and some soda, and that's okay -- I had those taken out. But I want to know why another bottle was put in the medicine cabinet and another hidden at the bottom of my traveling bag."
There was another silence. Delgado raised a finely drawn eyebrow, and Murray could hear the tumblers clicking in Blizzard's mind. The director scowled at length.
"I don't know anything about them, Murray. And I think it would be a damned good idea if you'd shut up and sit down before I tell you the only way I can think of for a bottle to get into your bag."
Murray looked around him. Everyone else was regarding him steadily. Ida Marr was smiling a little, but the others were sullen or worried. He hesitated, calling himself every kind of a damned fool for not waiting till he could get Blizzard alone.
"No, don't sit down, Douglas!"
The words came softly from Delgado. The author had stirred and was leaning forward with a speculative expression now. "You begin to be interesting. You suggest a theme. A persecution. If I understand, you are saying that someone is attempting to make you drink again when you are forbidden to."
"I'm saying nothing of the sort," Murray snapped, and dropped back into his seat.
"Now consider this." As though the denial hadn't been spoken, Delgado took a large pad of paper and a pen from the side pocket of his jacket, and poised to make notes. "Cherry, come up here."
The girl about whom Murray knew nothing obeyed. She moved to the edge of the stage near Delgado's feet, turned around and hoisted herself up with legs swinging. She put a shorthand pad on her knee, produced a pen of her own, and slipped on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
Oh. Murray had assumed she was a member of the cast. But you would need someone to fix the suggestions as they were made and to type up draft scripts. That must be her assignment.
"Consider forms of persecution," Delgado was saying. "By advertisement, for instance. If you don't have a particular gewgaw, you're a slob."
"Chasing people who already have serviceable objects to replace them with flashy new ones," Constant put in. "That's a kind of persecution, if you're looking at it your way."
"Right. More?"
It grew. It grew incredibly. By lunchtime it had taken such a grip on them that they barely dragged themselves away to the dining room. Even Murray was forced out of his angry withdrawal, and the air began to smell of electricity. By afternoon they had stepped through half a scene, about forty extemporized exchanges that served to delineate a pair of characters, and Jess Aumen was improvising angular modern chords. Also improvising, in his own way, was Gerry Hoading. He had clearly got his supply of dope from somewhere; his face was flushed and his voice kept sliding up the scale toward shrillness. But his imagination was working double time, and before they walked through the brief scene he chalked out the floor plan on the stage. He laid out with gestures an entire two-level set which suggested further possibilities of action.
At five o'clock Delgado abruptly stopped everything, told Cherry to go away and type up her notes, and, taking Blizzard's arm, led him backstage. The tension dropped but didn't disappear; the effect was that of a slowly leaking tire.
The group drifted back to the lounge, arguing at the tops of their voices, and the arguments went on all evening.
It was a long, long time since Murray had seen enthusiasm of this order generated so quickly. And it was due to Delgado, no one else. His mind was keen and darting; even though he was working in a foreign language his ear was sharp enough to catch and correct the awkwardness in a proposed line, and his corrections were so transparently right that not even Ida had tried to contradict him.
How long would it last? They were going to work again tomorrow. By this time next week, Murray judged, tiredness would be competing with enthusiasm. But by then they might have a complete outline, and presumably it would take Delgado a couple of days to organize and edit his script. Oh, it was beginning to look feasible.
Tonight, nobody had the bad taste to try and make him take a drink, so that was all right. When the tal
k lost its intensity and one or two people -- Heather, Jess Aumen -- had drifted to bed, he decided he'd better do the same.
Getting up, he tossed a casual good night to the others and made for the door. Behind him, someone else rose, and in the hallway he heard his name called. He turned back. Gerry Hoading was coming out of the lounge.
"Murray, mind jf I have a private word with you?"
"No, go ahead."
"Let's keep walking. I'm turning in, too." Gerry waved toward the winding stairs. "Uh -- I don't quite know how to put this, but I've got to say it. Look, you know my trouble, don't you? We've worked together before, so I guess you must."
"Yes, I know about it. Why?"