Vertigo

by Bob Shaw

  “Evening, Buck,” Werry said pleasantly. “Looks like the party’s going well. I brought Rob along to show him how we do these things in Alberta.”

  Morlacher looked at him with cold eyes, still not acknowledging Hasson’s presence, and said, “The booze is over by the fountain.”

  Werry laughed. “That’s all we need to know. Come on, Rob.” He took Hasson’s arm and began to guide him across the patio.

  Hasson refused to move. “Perhaps May would like a drink.”

  “I can look after May,” Morlacher said, tilting his head to give Hasson an appraising stare.

  “You’re busy with the cooking.” Hasson addressed himself directly to May. “The usual, is it? Rye and ginger?”

  “I …” She gazed back at him, wide-eyed and flustered. “I’m not thirsty yet.”

  Morlacher tightened his grip on her shoulders. “I’ll fix the lady a drink when she’s ready. What’s the rush?”

  Werry pulled harder on Hasson’s arm. “That’s right, Rob. It’s every man for himself around here.”

  Morlacher nodded slowly and an unexpected look of satisfaction appeared on his face. “Talking about every man for himself, Reeve Werry, I did something today that you should have thought of a long time ago.”

  “Yeah?” Werry released Hasson’s arm. “What was that?”

  “You know that black hound of mine? The one I tried to shoot last year for tearing a piece out of Eddie Bennett’s leg?”

  “You put him down, did you?”

  “No — I put him to work. Starr and I went out to the farm and netted him today and carried him up to the hotel and turned him loose up there. Any punks who move in tonight are going to move out a hell of a sight faster.” Morlacher grinned, showing his inhumanly powerful teeth.

  Werry looked impressed. “That should make a difference I’ll get one of my boys to drop him some food every day.”

  “No you won’t — I want the brute to stay mean and hungry From now on he’s on a strict diet of angel food. Get it?”

  “Hey, that’s a good one,” Werry said, chuckling. He turned and sauntered away across the patio, waving salaam-like greetings to people he recognised, giving the impression he had forgotten the existence of Hasson and May. Hasson, feeling betrayed, followed in his wake, noting as he did so that Morlacher and May were moving off in the direction of the house. He caught up with Werry at a portable bar where two men in white jackets were dispensing liquor in heavy goblets which were decorated with simulated rubies.

  “Do me a favour,” Werry said to Hasson as soon as they had obtained their drinks, “try not to upset Buck — it only makes life difficult for me. Why were you arguing with him, anyway?”

  “That’s a good question,” Hasson said in a stony voice, “but I think I’ve forgotten the answer.”

  Werry looked perplexed. “I hope you’re not going to start going funny on me, Rob. I’m off to do a bit of mingling. See you around.” He moved away towards a group of men and women who were dancing in a comer of the patio.

  Hasson stared after him in exasperation, then turned his thoughts to the question of what he was going to do during the next four or five hours. There appeared to be about thirty people in the general area. Many of them were dressed in duvet garments of one kind or another to ward off the early season coolness, with the result that the atmosphere of the gathering was an uneasy blend of party and heroic picnic. A number of the guests were wearing identical gold badges. Hasson spoke to a gaunt, shivering middle-aged man who was determinedly lowering drink after drink in the manner of one who wanted no memory of the occasion, and learned that the visitors were members of an association of chambers of commerce from the western States. They were on a goodwill tour of the Canadian federation and the gaunt man gave the impression of suffering deep regrets over having strayed so far north from his home in Pasadena.

  Hasson remained with him for some time discussing the effects of latitude on climate. Other tourists joined in and when they heard Hasson’s British accent the conversation developed into a lively debate on the effects of longitude on climate. Hasson, far from being bored, took pleasure in his newly regained ability to mix and interact with strangers. He drank, obtained food from volunteer cooks at the grill, drank some more, danced with various women wearing gold badges, and smoked his first cigar in months.

  In between times, he observed that Morlacher and May were absent from the rest of the assembly for the best part of an hour, but by then he had reached a condition of malty benevolence in which he was prepared to concede that May could have been looking at her host’s stamp collection, and in which he saw clearly that other people’s problems were no concern of his. Life on the ground, it seemed, could be perfectly acceptable as long as one was prepared to live and let live. The notion struck Hasson, retired air cop and reformed meddler, with all the force of a brand-new philosophical concept, and he was exploring its implications when the dance music was suddenly switched off and everybody near him turned to look at something which had begun to happen in the centre of the patio. He moved into a clear space to get a better view.

  Buck Morlacher and two other men were wheeling a flat-bed bilaser projector into place. They locked its wheels, made some control adjustments and a glowing image of the Chinook Hotel sprang into being above the machine. The solid-seeming representation was about three metres high and showed the building as it might have appeared in the Architect’s mind, complete with scenic elevators and roof gardens. A murmur of appreciation was heard among the viewers.

  “Sorry to interrupt your enjoyment, ladies and gentlemen — but I guess you knew there had to be a catch somewhere,” Morlacher announced with a grin that hovered between candour and coyness.

  “Don’t worry, though — this is only going to take up a minute of your time — and I think you’ll agree it’s worth that much to become acquainted with some of the truly wonderful amenities that Central Alberta can offer to businessmen who are interested in reaching new suppliers and new markets. Now I know the Western Prairies air corridor stops a few hundred kilometres south of here, but that’s nothing but a minor detail when you think of the potential for new business that this area offers.”

  Morlacher produced a sheet of paper and began to read out statistics which supported his argument. Most of his audience appeared suitably interested, although there was a stealthy drift from the outskirts of the circle in the direction of the bar. Hasson discovered that his own goblet was empty. He turned to go for a replenishment, but stopped in mid-stride as a new sound impinged on his hearing.

  It was an unexpected, alien, unidentifiable sound — a ghastly hybrid between a moan and a scream which immediately conjured unwanted thoughts of demons and banshees, and which brought a coldness to the heart. Morlacher stopped speaking as the sobbing wail swiftly reached a crescendo which beat on the gathering like a siren.

  It’s coming from above, Hasson thought, but before he could look upwards into the night sky there was a kind of pulpy explosion near the centre of the patio and a number of women shrieked with horror. Hasson shouldered his way forward and saw something black and incredibly bloody lying on the stone slabs.

  For an instant he was able to identify the grisly object — it could have been an insane and meaningless concoction of charnel house nightmares — then he realized he was looking at the flattened, ruptured body of a large black mastiff. Spatters of crimson reached out from it in all directions. From the condition of the dog’s carcass Hasson estimated that it had been dropped from a height of several hundred metres.

  That almost happened to me once, he thought bemusedly. But now I’m safe. I don’t care about that dog — because now I’m safe.

  “You lousy bastards!” Morlacher roared as he leaped on to the low platform of the bilaser projector. His clothing was disfigured by a diagonal streak of red blotches. He shook his fist at the sky and its unseen habitants, and his presence in the cone of laser rays caused the solid image of the Chinook Hotel to
shimmer and dissolve like a vision projected on a screen of smoke.

  “You lousy shit-head bastards!” Morlacher bellowed, his massive figure seeming to swell with uncontrollable fury. “I’ll get you for this.”

  He lowered his gaze and, apparently remembering the presence of his out-of-town guests, made a visible effort to bring himself under control. A shocked silence had descended over the patio, a silence which was disturbed by the faint sounds of a woman crying. Morlacher took out a handkerchief and dabbed himself with it while he muttered apologies to those nearest him. He stepped down off the platform and began to move through the hushed assembly, his eyes questing from side to side. Hasson guessed he was looking for Al Werry.

  “Tough luck, Al,” Hasson murmured to himself as he turned towards the bar with his empty goblet. “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.”

  seven

  Wrapped tight in a cocoon of self-interest, Hasson continued to live as quietly as he possibly could, devoting all his attention to his own welfare.

  In that isolationist and myopic frame of mind, the importance he attached to events was reduced on a logarithmic scale by their distance from the core of his own being. News of world trade and shifts in global strategies, for example, had so little significance as scarcely to register on his consciousness. He was aware of Al Werry being unusually busy on the days following the barbecue, spending long hours rousting aerial vagabonds, but that too was at a remove from the hub of reality and no more worthy of his concern than the activities of the shadow people in a poor holoplay.

  The truly momentous happenings in Hasson’s life, the events which could stir his imagination and dominate his thoughts, were of a different class altogether: the discovery that his skin was becoming tanned as a result of his prolonged spells in the open air; his growing ability to jog for kilometres over terrain which formerly would have exhausted him at walking pace; the Epicurean pleasures he had learned to derive from such noble arts as breathing properly and sleeping well. He made living an end in itself, a goal which was continuously achieved, and as the days progressed he felt increasingly safe, secure, impregnable… A five-hour trek across rolling grasslands had left Hasson feeling hot, dusty and tired. He took a cool shower and changed into fresh clothing, then realised he had neglected to take his full quota of yeast for the day. Oliver Fan had promised him he would eventually learn to enjoy the taste of the aromatic brown powder, and although he had made little progress in that direction he conscientiously swallowed fifty grams of it on a daily basis. He picked up the yeast canon and went downstairs, pausing for a moment in the crowded hall as he heard a familiar twanging voice coming from the direction of the kitchen. It appeared that Ginny Carpenter had returned from her stay in British Columbia.

  When he went into the kitchen he saw Werry and May Carpenter seated at the round table with beer glasses in front of them, while Ginny — as spiky and sparkly as ever — was standing with her back to a counter, arms folded, relating details of her trip.

  “Well, look who it is,” she said. “The quiet limey.”

  “I’m very well, thank you,” Hasson replied politely. “How are you?” He turned and nodded greetings to Werry and May, then rook a glass out of a cupboard.

  Ginny examined him critically, blinking a little, and spoke as if he was no longer present. “He’s looking a bit more human, anyways — I told you all he needed was a spell of good food and good home cooking.”

  Hasson smiled at her. “Is that why you went away?”

  Her face stiffened and she looked at Werry with scandalised eyes, seeking support.

  “You needn’t try to put one over on Rob these days,” Werry said, looking delighted. “He’s as sharp as a razor lately — it must be something to do with that blasting powder he keeps swallowing.”

  “What is that stuff?” Ginny watched suspiciously while Hasson took a spoonful of yeast and washed it down with water from the tap.

  “Yeast. He gets it from the health food store on Second Street.”

  “Oily Fan’s place?” Ginny gave a yelp of derision. “Anybody who goes in there needs his bumps felt.”

  “Mum!” May Carpenter whispered. “That’s not a very nice thing to…”

  Ginny waved her into silence. “You can’t tell me anything about those Chinks. I see “em hundreds of times in their corner stores. You know what they do to pass the time?”

  “You’ve told us before,” May said wearily, with a flickering glance at the ceiling.

  “They keep opening matchboxes and taking one match out of each. Nobody’s going to miss one match out of each, you see. Just standing there all the time — opening matchboxes and taking one match out of each. We wouldn’t do a thing like that, but after they’ve done it fifty times they’ve made the price of an extra box of matches.” Ginny paused, having completed her case, and looked at the others with a mixture of indignation and triumph. “What do you say to that?”

  “What do they sell them in?” Hasson said, thinking about Oliver and his insight and compassion.

  Ginny frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what do they sell those extra matches in? According to you they’ve got fifty extra matches, but no box to sell them in.” Hasson nodded to Werry. “Did anybody ever sell you a paper bag full of matches?”

  “He’s got you there,” Werry shouted gleefully, gripping Ginny’s thigh. “You never thought of that one.”

  “Just you listen to me, Al Werry, and I’ll tell you what they do,” she snapped, beating his hand away. She opened her mouth several times, as though prompting it to go ahead and produce an explanation by itself Finally, when it had become obvious to her that no suitable words were forthcoming, she looked at Hasson with eyes which were dulled with hatred.

  “I haven’t got time to stand here jawing all night,” she said. “I’m going to make the dinner.”

  The ultimate weapon, Hasson thought, but already he felt mildly disappointed in himself for having squared up to a tiny twig of a woman whose aggression was probably a sign of unhappiness.

  “I shouldn’t have made that crack about your cooking,” he said, smiling. “I’ll look forward to eating anything you want to conjure up for us.”

  “Have a beer, Rob,” Werry put in. “I’m on duty tonight, so I won’t be able to have one with you later.” He stood up, took a can of beer from the refrigerator and led the way into the front room. Hasson winked at Ginny, changing her expression to one of bafflement, and went after Werry. The two men sat for an hour during most of which Werry talked about the difficulties of police work and how much better off he would be in some other occupation. He looked composed and dauntingly immaculate, but there was a new soberness in his eyes which suggested that Buck Morlacher had managed to penetrate his mental armour, and he spoke at length about his renewed efforts to block off the Chinook Hotel to trespassers. His two air patrolmen, Henry Corzyn and Victor Quigg, had been detailed to circle the lofty upper section from before dusk to prevent unauthorised entry. Werry himself had arranged to spell them in four-hour shifts during the night vigil, which was why he was to go on duty as soon as he had eaten dinner.

  “The trouble is I’ve been extra busy during the day, as well,” he grumbled, tapping the side of his beer glass to revive the head. “Now that the good flying weather is back, kids are drifting in from all over. The Chinook draws them like a magnet, you see. We keep turning them back or busting them for flight offences, but there’s always another lot on the way and we can’t stop them all. Especially after dark.

  “Sometimes I feel like getting hold of a tonne of hidyne and blowing the stick out from under the big lolly. It just isn’t right for most of the city’s police force to be tied up trying to look after one man’s private property.”

  “It’s bound to become dangerous with neglect,” Hasson said. “Maybe you could get an order to have it pulled down.”

  “Maybe, but it would take years.” Werry gave an introspective sigh. “You can see
the attraction it must have for some kids. They can have their own world up there — a world that no adults ever see. They can have their own society up there, with different rules, and no parents butting in to spoil things. The parents can be two or three hundred kilometres away, or more, not even knowing where the kids are, and that’s a bad thing, Rob.”

  “I know, but the only way you could hope to link social units together again, the way they were in pre-flight days, would be to implant radio tracers in everybody — and that son of thing isn’t on the cards.”

  “I don’t know,” Werry said moodily. “I think it’ll come to that some day. I really do.” He jumped to his feet and did his now- familiar parody of a military salute as May appeared in the doorway to announce that dinner was ready.

  Hasson followed him into the kitchen and noted that the table had been set for four. “Where’s Theo tonight?” he said, realising that he had done very little in the past few days to rebuild his relationship with the boy.

  “He took some milk and cold cuts up to his room,” May said. “He wants to listen to the radio in peace.”

  “Oh?” Hasson recalled an earlier conversation with Theo. “I didn’t know he was keen on radio.”

  “He listens quite a lot at night,” Werry said. “It’s a big help to him, having the radio.”

  May nodded her agreement. “That’s right — it means a lot to him.”