by Sladek, John
‘Hell, Anne, I know you haven’t encouraged him, but the poor guy’s only human – what’s left of him – and you’re a damned fine piece.
‘The thing is, he’s fallen way the hell behind in the mail sorting. And every time you go in to help him catch up, he gets farther behind. It’s obvious the guy’s crazy about you.’
‘But Phil, I’ve tried everything I can to discourage him …’
‘Listen, tell him you’re all dated up with the vice president.’
‘Eric? Oh, Eric doesn’t mean a thing to me. I mean, we’re just – mutual friends, if you know what I mean.’
‘Makes no difference. Just go in there and say, “Listen, Ray, lay off. I’m Eric Bland’s girl.” That’ll cool him down. Oh yes, and while you’re at it, take in these photos to be guillotined, will you. And tell him to hurry up with it.’
‘Then, Father, I put my farm in the soil bank, and I joined a Christmas Club, and I bought Defense Bonds, and I put blood in the blood bank, and willed my cornea to an eye bank, and put my money in a Swiss bank, and the gold from my teeth I left instructions to be deposited in a safety deposit box under the name “Max Heiliger”.
‘And I invested some sperm in a sperm bank, bought some gilt-edge securities and some blue-chip stocks, and I invested more money in National Banks, State Banks, County banks, and then I bought some insurance.
‘I insured my home, life, wife, car, farm, crop, valuables, health, children, dog. Then I gained a plenary indulgence for myself, my wife and children, and our neighbors on both sides. And I built and stocked up our bomb shelter and insured that, and put in a machine gun, grenades, plenty of ammo, and then I installed new locks all over the house, burglar alarms, bullet-proof glass, and I put a second, secret bomb shelter under our basement.
‘Then I put up a cyclone fence with barbed wire across the top, and inside that a bomb-proof wall with broken glass on top, and inside that an ornamental wrought-iron fence with spikes on top, and inside that an electric fence. I put in an emergency generator, a nurse in residence, an operating room in the basement, electrostatically-filtered air conditioning, a gas leak alarm, and a well.
‘I studied all the consumer magazines, paying particular attention to safety recommendations, and I bought only approved appliances. I rewired the house, had new gas and water pipes fitted. Then I subscribed to a freezer plan, laid in a year’s supply of food, and I subscribed to a cryogenic storage plan for when I should die. I engaged the Night and Fog Security Agency to check all the locks and warning devices every night and report to me over television, I bought a pair of Alsatians and a pair of Dobermans and a canary to warn us of coal gas. I had the family immunised against tetanus, typhus, smallpox, etc., etc.; I fumigated once a month and bought a cat and a rat terrier.
‘I hired a mechanic full-time to check my car over, piece by piece, and I had him install every new safety device I could find. I rotated my tires weekly and traded them in every 5,000 miles.
‘I installed a door-answering system with one-way mirror, microphone, metal detector, radiation detector, and fluoroscope; I sealed the fireplace and reinforced the walls and roof, and had a monthly check for dry rot, mold and termites. Then I began giving tithes; took my wife to the best psychiatrist and my children to the best child-guidance psychotherapist, for check-ups; I put explosion-resistant screening in front of the TV set, moved all electric receptacles well out of the children’s reach, hired a round-the-clock guard to keep them out of the kitchen, locked all poisons in a safe to which only I knew the combination. I fireproofed the house, and …’
‘And so,’ Anne Stoat admitted, ‘I don’t really know my husband. I can’t really blame him for wanting someone to keep an eye on me. He probably thinks of me as “the enemy”.’
Bob signalled the waiter and ordered two more pigeon feathers. ‘But you’ve never even seen him?’
‘We were married by proxy. He was on a big case at the time, invasion of Antarctica or something. No, I’ve never seen him – though I do watch the Thursday night TV program based on his life, and they say it’s cast very authentically.’
‘But you, ah, sleep together?’
‘Sure, but in separate dreams. I think I’d go crazy, if it weren’t for my job at Drum Inc.’
‘Drum Inc.! Rings a bell. Wait a minute. Yes, we’re investigating them right now. In connection with the disappearance of a South American republic. And-other things. Anne, do you think you could help us?’
Anne finished her drink without replying. When she looked up, their eye-beams locked, exchanging messages of involvement. ‘Let’s have the next drink at my place,’ she said.
‘… and I’m still not really sure,’ Kravon finished. ‘I just know I’ve forgotten something. And don’t tell me I’ve forgotten God, because I haven’t.’
The grotesque bundle of clothing before the mirror put on a dog collar and threw a strait-jacket around its shoulder pads. Then it began tucking things in its belts, holsters, scabbards, bandoliers, obis and cincts: a sixgun, a sceptre, a crozier, a switchblade, a fasces, a roll, a sabre, a scout knife, a hanger, a rolling pin, grenades, a fuse, yarrow sticks, a flute, a splinter from the true cross, pencils with your name imprinted in 14-kt. gold, a fountain pen, a fountain pen which sprinkles holy water, a fountain pen which sprinkles teargas, a rectal thermometer, a syringe, a slide rule, Old Glory, a monstrance, a whip, a tampon, a coke, an electric toothbrush, an olive branch, carrots, a cigar, an umbrella, Keys to the Kingdom, silver bullets, an Ibis stick …
‘Father? What do you say?’
The face, invisible inside the hollow layers of space helmet, crash helmet, etc., may have moved; the figure may have spoken; but nothing came out.
‘God damn it, say something! Say something!’
Kravon leaped at him, tearing at the folds of brocade and khaki and nylon and leather. The overbalanced, swaying mass tipped back, collapsed softly on the carpet, cloth-to-cloth impact.
Snarling, Kravon tore away layer after layer, flinging aside an old school tie, a Nazi armband, a maniple.
‘Good God!’
The final transparency, thought Travers. The whole works, the jello girls, Kravon, the universe. They’re all completely insensible.
A little later they found Kravon on his hands and knees, still pawing over the pile of rags. After thumping and kicking him awhile, they estimated Kravon had a good ten years’ service left in him. But just to be sure, they would give him, as Dr Freag put it, ‘a change of heart’. The research team – Freag, Ortiz, Logan, Gibbel, Born and Stoneweg – was split into two groups. Freag’s group wanted to test a new surgery machine, while Born’s group wanted to see how many different organs from various donors could be stuffed into one skin and live. Now each team would begin the wearisome search for a donor. The first team to find one would get Kravon.
The company doctor had some objections. Who were they, non-medical men, to judge whether or not Kravon needed a new heart? In his opinion …
The two teams silenced him by threatening to do two heart transplant operations.
The pretty nurse did not have Ray fooled. He noticed the way she fussed around making his bed, taking far longer than with the other patients. Let her go on pretending to be all career and no heart, he knew better. Obviously she was enjoying feeding him his meals, he could tell by the loving way she spooned in every bite.
Okay, she never smiled or spoke to him, that was her way, maybe. Didn’t it prove all the more that she couldn’t trust herself to keep cool? Sure it did. And even the way she handled that bedpan …
Not that he really wanted to let himself go with her. There was always the outside chance of a mistake – then he’d find himself in a false position. He didn’t really trust her. Maybe she, too, would go off with Eric Bland. She was probably making a date with Eric right now, this minute!
Ray nudged the emergency light switch with his nose. If she didn’t come to answer it within, say, five minutes, he’d know somethin
g was up. She was off somewhere in the nurse’s lounge, screwing Eric Bland … letting Ray die, for all she knew.
He could see just how it might happen, too. He might accidentally bite the end off the bent glass straw in his glass of water on the side table. Then he might accidentally run his neck against the jagged edge, and cut the jugular vein or the carotid artery or something. Something pulsing.
‘Marilyn? He l …’
Bob rolled back and lit a cigarette. The front side of his body was tingling with information about Drum Inc., and he knew without asking that Anne felt the same about the CIA. Trying to make words of what he felt, he watched the script of smoke curl towards the acoustical ceiling. The words were garbled, but they were there:
Drum. Drum would corner information? Drum would compress all information into a single message, which it (someone?) would eat. Drum was taking over the microwave towers, the coax, the telephones, the TV stations, the satellites … and one Thursday evening everyone would be told that they (all the others?) were under arrest. Under body arrest, whatever that meant. Drum was having its heart transplanted? To another company, Lion Oil. Spell it backwards.
No, or Drum was buying, stealing, getting at that feeblest of all communication links – between inside man (‘My bowels now function normally, Ground Central. All systems go. Repeat …’) and outside man (‘Do you read Breughel? I read Mao. Anyone read the Bible? He has not read Carter Brown’s No Blonde Is an Island.’).
‘What are you thinking?’ Anne asked.
‘Huh?’
‘You look like a Xomboid. I’ll bet you didn’t know it could be like this, is that it?’
‘There’s more where that came from. Just put down that cigarette.’
More? There had to be more, and he turned to her again, seeking. His tongue probed her mouth, taking readings from electrical fillings in his mouth her mouth probed his tongue probed his mouth taking electrical fillings from her readings his readings; under his hand a pulse; their nerve ends took hold swelling with data merging … merged.
Who was Murd? What was the fictitious Lion Oil Company? What about the Misses Bunne? Who was asking all these questions of whom? What happened to Travers? Did ‘David’ control the reality of the firm? Of the firmament? Who controlled the reality of ‘David’? Why was Max Heiliger?
The messages flowed and structured himherthem; he looked into her eye once; again he looked out of her eye. Their double back shivered as nerve splices made, coded molecules unzipped to one another, particles collided and collapsed (emitting final pictures of the return of the Yomboids, final answers looped through final answers that doesn’t make sense I know but get to a telephone no time to pick it up and dial just flow in with the final answer a gun inside a never mind the exchange hurry on to the CIA tape constantly running constantly playing The Time Is Exactly the time is running the final answer a gun barrel in a flower in a banana in a gun my back brain your back brain squeezes the trigger) and they watched the delicate metal petals curl back slowly exposing the rifled ballistic message (O ballistic missal O O O cabalistic O:) ‘Hello, Marilyn …’ ‘Disappeared! Damnedest thing I ever saw,’ said Stoat, running through the film again. ‘Both of them? Looked like they just sort of melted together, then disappeared!’ His suntan was fading.
Behind him a pair of code clerks were arguing. ‘Well, all I can say is, I read the same story under a different title when it first came out. Lion Oil, it was called, and I say it was a lot of poop.’
‘God, it’s Galt again. He’s been signalling every two minutes, all damned day. Then he’ll say he wants a bedpan, and as soon as I get him on it, “Never mind.” I’m tired.’
‘Maybe he’s got a crush on you.’
‘Probably. He doesn’t know I’m married, because I can’t find my name badge. I thought I had it in my pocket – here it is … there. “Mrs E. Bland.” Maybe next time he starts ogling me while I’m feeding him his pablum or putting him on the pan, maybe next time he’ll take the hint.’
‘But you’re not actually physicians?’ The chief surgeon smiled.
‘Well, then, I’m afraid I couldn’t allow …’
Freag spoke in a tone of kindly menace. ‘Don’t be a dumb shit!’ he said quietly. ‘All we want to do is get the body first. Warm, if possible. As for medical doctors – well, we can buy a couple of hundred or so, over and above the hundred we have running around the lab right now.’
‘That’s right,’ said Dr Logan, who breathed with increasing difficulty. ‘Who believes in symptomatic medicine, anyway?’
Seeing the surgeon stiffen as if taken by a total body erection, Freag turned savagely on his colleague. ‘For Christ’s sake, Logan, shut up! Don’t listen to him, Doctor, he’s a Zen macrobiotics nut. Brilliant innovator with cars, knows nothing about the – ahem – life sciences.
‘But let me just say this, doctor to doctor. Do us a little favor. Fix up all the waivers, papers, etc., then just shoot the body over to us in dry ice. You won’t regret it, I promise you.’
‘Well, I don’t know. Professional favors, yes, but you three gentlemen are not exactly in the profess …’
‘Well, we’ve got a dying heart patient over there at Drum Labs, that’s all I know! This isn’t a matter of professional favors!’
The surgeon looked shaken. ‘Dying? But this “donor” isn’t critical, you know. You may never get a heart from him. Unless you count on something like his “accident-proneness” to knock him off. And where could he be better protected against accidents than right here?’
‘We’ll take that chance. If I know Galt, he’ll probably fall out of bed on his head or something. Could happen any day.’
Logan erupted in a sudden coughing fit. The surgeon drew back, while Ortiz patted the brilliant innovator on the back. Dabbing at blood-flecks on his lips, Logan whispered, ‘Yes, Galt is very Yin, very Yin. Needs a proper diet: whole-grain cereals and very little liquid.’
A professional cast came into the chief surgeon’s eye. ‘I believe you’re hemorrhaging; better step down to the emergency ward and have someone take a look.’
He made a move as if to support his arm, but Logan drew back quickly. ‘Keep your symptomatic hands off! I know what the hell’s wrong with me! Too much centripetal downward force – I’m overloaded with salads and Vitamin C.’
‘Doctor, come quickly!’ Nurse Bland came pounding down the stairs, looking radiant. ‘It’s Mr Galt! He …’
Ortiz, Logan and Freag shoved past her and ran up the stairs.
‘Good idea,’ whispered Born to his subordinates, as the three of them marched down the aisle between beds.
‘Eh?’
‘Putting on our lab coats, posing as staff. See Galt anywhere?’
Stoneweg shook his head. ‘How about behind that screen?’
‘Yes … Ah, Mr Galt. How are we feeling this morning?’
The patient did not reply.
‘Now, young man, we re just going to run a few tests, a few routine – my bag, Gibbel. Not that one, that’s the dry ice.’
Born drew a stethoscope from the proper bag. He took it in both hands, holding the rubber tubing like a garotte, and approached the bed.
Stoneweg, who had been leaning over the patient, exclaimed, ‘The son of a bitch’s croaked already!’
‘What?’
‘Must’ve just done it, sliced his neck on this glass tube. Still warm.’
‘Excellent. Boys, I think we’re the first to find the body. Now get busy with that scalpel, Duane.’
Dr Stoneweg, who had once had training as a mortuary assistant, began pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. Born seized his arm. ‘For Christ’s sake, we’re not washing dishes on television. Just grab the ticker and let’s move out!’
Stoneweg took up a likely-looking knife, bared the patient’s chest, and paused.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. But I – uh – hardly know where to start. I’m not very good at this, I guess. In fact, at Sun
day dinners, my wife won’t even let me …’
‘Will-you-hurry-up?’
Stoneweg plunged in then, and in a few minutes was elevating the organ of emotion over the bag of dry ice. Freag’s hand, then his menacing smile, came around the screen. ‘I’ll take that, gentlemen. Thank you.’
‘Like hell!’ Gibbel slashed at his face with a scalpel, nicking Freag’s chin.
‘So that’s the way you want it?’ Freag flung a loaded urine flask at him, then grabbed another weapon from the medical bag and went into a fighter’s crouch. ‘All right, baby, if that’s how you want it, baby, come and get it, baby, anytime, come on, it’s waiting for you, baby, if that’s …’
Born kicked the screen over on him. Ortiz swung a wooden crutch and caught Born behind the ear. Stoneweg kicked Ortiz in the stomach. Logan leaped in the air and threw out one hand in a karate manoeuvre that knocked Stoneweg to his knees and sent the heart skidding under a bed. Gibbel carved the air and cursed, waiting for Freag to work his way out from under the screen. Logan went diving after the heart. Ortiz revolved the crutch again, slamming Born in the side of the head, breaking his upper plate. And so on.
DRUM PLANS SPLICE WITH BELL
DRUM-LION OIL MERGER?
BELL TO TAKE OVER DRUM INC
LION OIL TO ACQUIRE DRUM
BELL WILL ADD LION OIL
DRUM TO GET IN OIL
When Miss Bunne had cleared out the pile of rags from Travers’s office, she shovelled it onto the slot in the wall which led to the incinerator in the sub-basement. Winded, she sat down for a moment and fussed with her hair.
In so doing, her sleeve slipped back, and she read the retirement date stencilled on her arm.
‘Whew! No wonder I’m tired. I almost forgot.’ She rang for Miss Bunne.
‘It’s about my retirement, Miss Bunne,’ she said, ‘due yesterday’
‘Lucky you!’ They exchanged smiles. ‘Well, now, what do you have? Any keys, company property?’
‘It’s all right here, Miss Bunne,’ Miss Bunne said, indicating the neat pile on the desk.