Players at the Game of People

by John Brunner

  "You know I don't," Godwin said as the parlor engulfed him: a dark place full of overstuffed Victorian furniture, bric-ŕ-brac displays, velvet drapes tied back with thick gold cords, almost the only modern note being struck by the TV set and, its attached recorder. One entire wall was taken up by a bar whose display would not have disgraced a pub.

  "Well, I bloody know you didn't come round to watch my tape of yesterday's Prudential match!" Bill said tartly, dropping into an armchair and waving his guest to do the same. "What is it? Got under your skin, did she -- the little one?"

  "I don't think so," Godwin said after a hesitation. "No, to be honest I came to ask you a question."

  "So let's be 'earin' from yer!"

  "Are you satisfied with what you've got?"

  The words were out before he could check them. It had been in his mind to ask a different question, but it seemed of secondary importance compared to what he had just said.

  Bill's face darkened. "Wotcher mean?"

  "Well . . ." A helpless gesture. "Well, if they won't let you in the betting shop any more, for example. Doesn't it sort of spoil something in life for you?"

  Contemptuously: "If they won't listen to me, let 'em rot! Lord, between us we could've cleaned up . . . But they won't, so the 'ell with 'em. Far's I'm concerned, I'm livin' the life of Riley, an' if me mates don't want a share, they don't 'ave to 'ave one. What's turned you so sour all of a sudden?"

  "I . . ." Godwin licked his lips. "Bill, what would you do if you thought somebody had sussed you out?"

  "Like for instance?"

  "Well, the police."

  "Flex 'em, wot else? I never 'ad no trouble with the rozzers! Nor the buggers in the tax-office neither, though they was persistent for a while. 'Ere! Y'know something?"

  He leaned forward earnestly, eying Godwin with disapproval.

  "I don't like wot you're implyin'! You run acrost somebody you can't flex out?"

  "I was sort of tired when it happened, and I didn't catch on until later," Godwin said in a self-exonerating tone.

  "Hah! I still don't like it! With that on yer back, yer didn't oughta come 'ere, did yer?"

  "I've done what I can. I put Hamish Kemp on it right away -- "

  "'Im?" Bill interrupted contemptuously. "Not much better'n a rozzer 'imself, that one. Did 'e do yer any good?"

  "Well . . . Well, not yet, to be frank."

  "Hah! In that case, then, I think I shall trouble yer to be on yer way." Bill drained his tankard, set it by, and rose to his feet again, making meaningful gestures in the direction of the door. "After the bother I've 'ad with the new kid -- "

  "Bother?" Godwin broke in sharply, also rising.

  "Oh, no more'n usual, I suppose," Bill admitted with a dismissive shrug. "But you know 'ow it is right at the beginnin' -- gettin' used, and that . . ."

  Godwin nodded. He knew only too well, when he troubled, or cared, to recall his own experience in that area. Which was seldom.

  "Don't bother seeing me out," he muttered. "I can find my own way."

  He wished with all his heart and soul that that were true.

  Still there was no word from Hamish. Abruptly Godwin grew annoyed. The standardized perfection of his hotel, which was always flawed, got on his nerves. The food it served -- so his body reported -- was contaminated with artificial preservatives, and was likely to drive him back to Irma, at least, if not clear to Luke, within a matter of days. He felt uncomfortable and edgy, and that dismayingly echoed recollections from the past he had once imagined he was escaping forever.

  An uneasy, vague, intransigent suspicion that he had been betrayed began to haunt his dreams. Once it woke him screaming from a dry throat at five a.m.

  It was no use. He must go home. The hell with Hamish, who had so far let him down.

  As though to make a point, he reclaimed his car from Soho.

  But gray weather shrouded London; layers of cloud shed their impassive tears into a chill irregular breeze as a succession of low-pressure areas drifted in from the North Atlantic. Godwin, of course, had no need to care about the fact that the street people were being forced to revert to their winter habits even though the summer was barely half spent, dossing down by night under makeshift awnings of tarpaulin stolen from building sites, by day running after passers-by with torn plastic shopping bags over their heads. He woke morning after morning to the sight and sound of surf beating on a Bahamian beach, to the crisp clear air of the Alps, to all the complex shouts and stinks of an Egyptian market, or to wherever else he chose. He feasted daily on turtle soup and venison, on Whitstable natives and Maine lobster with drawn butter, on sweetbreads vol-au-vent and T-bone steak, on hearts of palm and grilled red snapper . . . and then, at first with a sense of defiance as though challenging his owner to compensate him for the disappointment -- for the agony -- involved in what should have been his latest reward, subsequently with no more than delight and gratitude, on dishes such as he had never dared imagine: strange delectable foods of improbable texture which uttered to the air fragrances no terrestrial kitchen might achieve. All these were washed down with Mumm and Krug and Saint-Èmilion and Nuits-Saint-Georges and Tokaji and Mosel and eventually liquors requested at random, many of unlikely colors, glowing and sparkling, oily on the palate or chilling or burning, which combined with the incomprehensible new food so perfectly as to gratify his inmost yearnings and leave him lazily content.

  After which, when he stretched out on his enormous bed, a companion would present her(?)self, and there would be further gratification, often as remarkable as the food.

  Gradually he came to realize that there was no reason why he should have gone to Bill's to inquire about the fate of Gorse; that there was no more reason why he should concern himself with her than with Patricia, or Elvira, or Kate, or Lucy, or Guinevere, or . . .

  The list was far too long for him to review.

  And yet something remained: an insoluble residue. He combated it as best he might; it proved resistant.

  It was a fact that for the first time ever he had felt impelled to inquire after one of his recruits. It was a fact that, for the first time ever, he had infringed the unspoken courtesies which obtained between . . . well, between himself and those who were like him. (He knew no more precise term.) It was a fact that instead of enjoying rest, refreshment, and reward from his latest payment for services rendered he had --

  Stop. Thinking back to that was unbearable, particularly to the (shy away!) timeless time when he had been abandoned.

  But . . .

  All right! So he had been in a pet! Was the way he had been treated justifiable, even in a pet?

  Like a stone in his shoe, that possessed the power to irk. Having nothing to do, nowhere to go, compelled to wait for Hamish's report, he fretted ceaselessly as though he were an oyster doubtful about the advantages of becoming parent to a pearl.

  Without having the faintest idea whether one would emerge.

  All his sources of gratification wore away. Daily he inspected the street through rain-washed windows smeared with bird shit, expecting the blond woman to be there. At first he could turn away from frustration when she was not and seek solace in one of the strange, even weird, liquors and drugs which now were being furnished to him . . . and which, on the unconscious level, he was beginning to understand. One mealtime he set a forkful of food to his mouth just long enough to taste, and withdrew it, exclaiming to the air, "I know how that was done!"

  It was extraordinarily delicious. It drew on a cuisine he had never imagined. It had been -- he was instinctively certain -- dipped in liquid nitrogen before cooking. As if to mark some sort of achievement in his life, the partner who came to him that night extorted amazing pleasure from his body.

  Yet in the morning when he woke to carnival in Bahia his mouth was full of the taste of ashes. He was reminded of the hangovers he had once endured.

  And felt cheated. It should have been part of the bargain that there would be no more.


  He found himself beginning to wish he had a copy of his contract, well though he knew it could never have been written down.

  The phone rang. Weary of his outlook on the Piazza San Marco, Godwin reached for it, thankful for the least distraction.

  It said, "Hamish. Meet me at Whitestone Pond."

  "You found out who she -- " Godwin began eagerly, but the line went dead. For a moment he was annoyed; then he began hastily to dress.

  Lately he had not used the car, thinking it too conspicuous, but now he was in too great a hurry to consider the hell of public transport, the agonies of delay, the overcrowding and constant risk of breakdown. Ignoring speed limits whenever traffic allowed -- and that meant most of the way, for although, as he realized with surprise, this was a Sunday morning, there were very few people out and about except the omnipresent trios of police, two men and a woman, charged with a different kind of duty than arresting drivers for speeding -- he reached his destination in less than twenty minutes.

  Hamish was waiting for him on a corner where in the old days there had always been numerous speakers on Sunday morning, advocating political, social, or religious causes, who always attracted at least a dozen vaguely interested listeners. Today there were none, and the fact that the sky was once more gray and overcast did not suffice to explain the whole reason. But that was no concern of Godwin's, or Hamish's.

  Linking arms affectionately and leading the way toward the pub a few hundred yards away, Jack Straw's Castle with its improbable crenellations, the detective said with warm enthusiasm, "My dear God, I'm indescribably obliged to you! What a fascinating challenge you offered! I've quite neglected my tame discs since I last saw you. Every moment of my time has been devoted to unraveling your little mystery."

  "Have you found her?"

  "Found? If you mean have I made face-to-face contact with the lady -- scarcely, old man! But I know who she must be, and I can tell you where to look for her yourself."

  He paused, relishing the recollection of his achievement -- and it was one, as Godwin readily conceded; perhaps nobody else in the world could proceed to a sure conclusion on such flimsy evidence. That, though, was what Hamish had struck his bargain for, so it was not he who deserved praise for his success.

  "Come on!" -- impatiently. "Out with it!"

  He unlinked his arm, for the few passers-by, bound like themselves for the pub as opening time approached, were giving them suspicious and hostile looks.

  "Very well," Hamish sighed, glancing around to make sure they were not overheard. But they had passed the pond itself, a shallow artificial bowl where two or three bare-legged children were wading in pursuit of toy yachts under the bored supervision of parents or nannies, and the vacant near-countryside of Hampstead Heath stretched away on either hand.

  "Her name is Barbara Tupper, alias Simpkins. Age going on fifty, five feet five, slim build, naturally fair hair worn long, divorced, one child not by her ex-husband . . ."

  In a monotonous professional drone he reeled off item after item that he had learned about her, and with every phrase Godwin's heart sank more.

  "I think you know her," Hamish said suddenly, breaking off and staring keenly at him.

  "Yes."

  Who, after all, was more likely to be on Gorse's trail than her mother?

  "How?"

  But there was no chance for Godwin to answer, to explain that in fact he didn't know her, had only recognized that she must be someone he had heard of.

  Not waiting for a reply, Hamish spun on his heel, almost tripping over his own feet in his hurry, and strode back the way they had come. A few incurious strollers noticed but paid no attention.

  Godwin halted, staring. He thought of calling out, but it seemed pointless. Hamish had always been a strange and unpredictable person; perhaps he had been struck by a crucial idea which he felt he must act on instantly. One riddle having been solved, there must be another, or he would grow bored with his mere existence, as witness the lengths he went to to invent problems for himself.

  When he had gone twenty or thirty paces, though, he looked distractedly from side to side as though intending to cross the road from the pond side to the East Heath, and wanting to check for oncoming traffic. There was some -- a couple of motorbikes roaring up from the direction of the Bull and Bush and a group of three cars approaching more slowly from Central Hampstead.

  Instead of waiting, he disregarded their presence and walked into the middle of the road, where he began to twitch and jerk and fidget and mouth nonsense, his eyeballs rolling upward in their sockets. Like a marionette controlled by a crazy puppet-master he shook and swayed and jumped up and down and beat his face with his fists until blood began to run from one corner of his mouth, after which he raised his arms higher and started to rip his hair out by handfuls. All the time his lips were moving in soundless curses. Shortly he wet himself; by then, most of his hair was gone, leaving huge raw patches on his scalp, and he turned to clawing at his forehead first, then his eyes.

  Before anybody reached him among the few onlookers who were not too frightened to interfere, he had gouged both eyeballs out and with horrific and appalling strength he had torn open the sides of his throat so that his Adam's apple fell forward in a gush of blood and he tumbled to the roadway and was dead.

  Godwin could do nothing to help. He stood so completely paralyzed by the pangs of punishment that he could not even shut his eyes and escape the sight of what was happening.

  Police appeared from everywhere, at least twenty of them, some running up the steep slopes of the Heath, some emerging from dark green hedges behind the pond, some seeming to materialize from thin air. Godwin still stood helpless. He was not the only person, though, who to outward view had simply been transfixed by shock. Half a dozen mostly elderly folk nearby were crying and having to lean on each other for support, while the children who had been playing in the pond were being whisked away, screaming.

  That was what had been most horrible of all: the fact that Hamish had not uttered a sound while he was destroying himself.

  Or, to put it another way: being whipped to death.

  At long, long last Godwin was able to move stiltedly away and return to his car. Carefully, slowly, thinking about every single movement, he drove home, half certain of what he was going to find when he got there, and likewise half eager and half terrified.

  As he approached his home street he thought his sight was being blurred by tears, but it was rain once more; people were ducking into shelter to avoid it, a mere drizzle thus far but portending heavier downpours later on. By the time he left the car in the garage and made for home it was coming down in steady rodlike streaks, warm but harsh.

  And there, standing in the same porchway on the other side of the road, was the woman. He had somehow known (but if she had not been there he would have forgotten his premonition -- of course, and as usual) and was anyhow prepared.

  She was wearing old jeans and a grubby brown jacket and a plastic snood that failed to cover her hair. Her face was the face: the one which had haunted too many of his dreams since he won his George Medal. Until this moment, he had been able to forget in his waking hours just how many such there had been. It was aged to correspond with what Hamish had told him.

  But nothing fitted! Nothing, nothing ! He could not have gone back to a past reality! If she was fifty now, she could not have been ten during the Blitz!

  Poised to enter his home, he checked. She was approaching, glancing up at the rain much as Hamish had glanced left and right as though to avoid oncoming vehicles -- stop it! She was proffering something for him to look at, and waving. He waited under the porch of his home with a sense of foreboding. The downpour redoubled just as she arrived on his side of the road, soaking her from head to foot. But she paid no heed. She flourished before him a scrap of newspaper in a transparent plastic envelope.

  And said something, drowned out as a boy on a noisy motorbike roared along the street, attracting all the attention of a
ll the kids who had been, as usual, turned out of their houses to fend for themselves, to go to school or not as they chose, their parents having given up caring.

  "What?"

  "I said" -- shouting now -- "I want to know who the hell you think you are!"

  "Why?"

  "You can't be him ! You can't!" She was staring at him with huge sad eyes, rain dripping from the rat-tails of her blond locks. "But you look so like -- ! And where the hell is my daughter?"

  She clutched his arm; he shook her off, turning away. "I think you must be out of your mind -- madam !" he said cuttingly, and resolved that if she persisted, he would invoke the flex. Probably he should already have done so.