by Beauman, Ned
‘Colonel Gorge is in his study, but he will be down in a moment. Please come through to the parlour.’
The previous afternoon, on his return to the Chateau Marmont, Loeser had been given a telephone message from Rackenham: ‘I’m having supper with Gorge tomorrow night and I’ve told him I’m going to bring a guest. Short notice but you have no friends here so I assume you’re available. Come at seven and try not to be too dour.’ Partly because of that last instruction, and partly because it would justify having accidentally packed the absurd item, he was wearing a tie his great aunt had given him, which had an ugly repeated pattern of clock faces. He didn’t really have a plan for the evening. (‘Yes, Colonel Gorge, I should be delighted to have a tour of the house. Will it by any chance include your legendary giant vault of “rare books”?’) ‘Am I the first to arrive?’ he said.
‘No, Mr Rackenham is already here. Would you like anything to drink?’
‘Whisky, please.’
‘I’m afraid Colonel Gorge does not allow liquor in the house.’ Woodkin’s diction was so gracefully servile that it didn’t sound like he was speaking out loud so much as just drawing your attention to a particular combination of semantic units that he wondered if you might find appealing.
‘What do you mean?’ said Loeser.
‘No alcohol whatsoever. He’s very strict.’
‘O brave new world. Well, I mean, do you have any cologne? Surgical spirit? Cooking wine? Anything of that kind?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘What do people normally drink here?’
‘The Colonel prefers ginger ale.’
The ‘parlour’ was about the size of a cathedral nave. Rackenham stood at the opposite end, practically out of earshot, studying a portrait of a muscular grey-haired man with a grim, almost demented gaze and the sort of moustache that could beat you in an arm-wrestling contest. There were ten such portraits hung around the room, and as he waded through the thick golden carpet to join Rackenham, Loeser happened to pause and look around him, and realised that the steel spokes of their regard converged on an invisible axle precisely where he stood. He let out an involuntary squeak of fear and hopped out of the way, then hurried on. Rackenham nodded hello, and Loeser saw that the engraved brass label on the frame of the nearest portrait read ‘Hiram Gorge: 1854–1911’. He glanced at its peers on the left and right. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘The face in all of these paintings is the same. I mean, it’s not just a family resemblance – they’re identical.’
‘I’m sure you can guess the explanation,’ said Rackenham.
Loeser gasped. ‘Mein Gott, you mean Gorge is some sort of immortal undead being like Dracula?’
‘No, not quite. Our host can trace his ancestry back to the seventeenth century, but no original portraits survive. So he had all these commissioned when he built this house. He sat for all ten of them in different period costumes. The artist was rather good – you’ll notice the physiognomy does become subtly more atavistic as they go back in time. Of course, there’s also no hint here that his grandfather’s mother was a Mexican girl. Or that he has some Creole blood from a generation or two before that.’
Loeser trudged across the room to look at the portrait next to the door, the ‘oldest’, which showed Gorge in a powdered wig and lace cravat, with the label ‘Auguste de Gorge: 1638–1739’.
‘No! Gorge is descended from Auguste de Gorge?’
‘Yes,’ said Rackenham. ‘Most of us are, probably. De Gorge had an extraordinary number of children. Mostly illegitimate, however. Wilbur Gorge’s branch of the family tree was almost the only one to retain the family name.’
‘How can he have lived to be a hundred and one?’ said Loeser, trudging back again.
‘Old for his era, yes, but still no Dracula.’
‘I thought he was ruined after the Teleportation Accident.’
‘He was. It didn’t kill him, though. Very little did, it seems.’
Woodkin came in with Loeser’s ginger ale. When he’d gone out again, Rackenham took a pewter flask out of his pocket, unscrewed it, and poured a few measures of gin into Loeser’s glass. Loeser thanked him, sipped, winced, and gave the improvised highball a stir with his little finger. ‘This house is erstaunlich.’
‘It’s not even the biggest on this street. This is Millionaire’s Row.’
‘Still. Did he inherit the money?’
‘No. Gorge’s father died penniless in Albuquerque. Sky-Shine paid for this monstrosity.’
‘But how rich can you possibly get selling – what is it? Car polish?’
‘Of every ten tins of car polish that are sold in this country, Gorge’s firm makes seven, under various different brand names. “You doll up your wife, why let her ride in a shabby car?” And each tin sells for a dollar but costs ten cents to make. That’s what his wife told me. You can get unbelievably bloody rich selling car polish. But there’s no heir. The Colonel and his wife only have a daughter, and they haven’t shared a bed in a decade. No male cousins, either. The last one went down on the Lusitania. So ten generations after Auguste de Gorge, the name dies in this house.’ If Gorge’s wife wouldn’t fuck him, thought Loeser, that was obviously why he’d started his famous collection. Rich and powerful as he was, the sort of man who drank ginger ale at dinner was probably too morally squeamish for physical infidelity, so, like Loeser, he’d devoted himself to the only release that was still available to him. Loeser found this at once depressing and comforting. No doubt it gave Gorge the sort of ‘satisfaction’ that a man might feel after being fitted with the world’s most advanced and expensive catheter.
‘So what’s it like? To “cuckold” him?’ He had never used the word in English before.
‘Have you ever persuaded anyone to betray their husband or wife with you?’ said Rackenham.
‘No.’
‘There’s really nothing more satisfying than the first time you manage it. I was fourteen, I think. After that it’s routine, of course, and Pasadena is a long drive for me. But the boys on Venice Beach don’t have any money, the cocaine trade here seems to be run by surprisingly circumspect Mexicans, and I’m not about to take a job for the first time in my life. Gorge’s wife likes to buy me things, but unlike the other women of Millionaire’s Row, she won’t ever give me cash, because she’s worried I’ll feel like a gigolo. As if I’d be measly-minded enough to give a damn. So I just pawn everything. She won’t come down tonight, by the way. Amelia doesn’t like to see her husband and me in the same room. She always counterfeits a headache.’
‘What’s the daughter like?’
‘Mildred? One of the most disagreeable females I’ve ever met in my life.’
‘Ugly?’
‘No, in fact she has rather a cud duck, as we used to say at school. It’s not that. You’ll understand if you ever meet her. Now, I may as well warn you, there is one other thing about Gorge,’ said Rackenham. ‘He’s not all there.’
‘What do you mean?’
Rackenham was about to explain when Woodkin ushered two more guests into the drawing room, so instead he just smiled at Loeser and murmured, ‘You’ll soon see.’
Woodkin introduced the new arrivals as Ralph Plumridge, Assistant Public Utility Liaison at the Los Angeles Traffic Commission, and Wright Marsh, Vice Chairman of the Executive Council at the California Institute of Technology. Loeser’s heart sank. In Berlin he’d always gone out of his way not to socialise with people with real careers. They were impossible to talk to.
‘We just happened to arrive at the same time, you understand,’ said Plumridge to no one in particular. ‘We’re not a couple of queers!’ In fact, the two bureaucrats’ mutual aversion was obvious from the absurd way they had positioned themselves not quite side by side but instead angled slightly outward, like two secret agents confining each other to peripheral vision.
‘Hey, Marsh, I heard one of your biologists got his tenure revoked last week.’
‘Not that I’m a
ware of.’
‘Yeah, he did. The other fellows at the department said he was faking his fieldwork. He submitted a paper describing something that none of them had ever heard of in their lives.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was like a man, he said, but with these two big lumps on its chest, and no dick! Ha ha ha!’ Plumridge slapped his thigh.
When Wilbur Gorge came in, he looked just like all his portraits, although they hadn’t been able to capture his bisontine bulk. Before acknowledging anyone else, he circled the room, greeting all nine patrilineal ancestors by name, then apparently checking the symmetry of his moustache in the final portrait of himself as if it were a mirror. At last he joined his three-dimensional companions. ‘Marsh,’ he cried. ‘Plumridge. Rackenham.’ Then he glared at Loeser.
‘Colonel, this is the fellow I was telling you about on the telephone,’ said Rackenham. ‘Herr Loeser from Berlin. He’s an old friend of mine.’
Gorge shook Loeser’s right hand in a way that made Loeser glad he wrote with his left, and then said, ‘All wrong, your clocks.’ Loeser looked down at his tie and smiled dutifully at the joke. But Gorge’s expression was oddly serious. ‘Hours out. Can’t stand a bitched clock. Wind ’em for you if you like. Don’t know why you’ve got so many. Just need one, most cases.’ Loeser hesitated, and Gorge reached out and started to scratch at his tie. ‘Can’t seem to find the knob,’ said Gorge. ‘Bolted on, are they? Glued?’ His eyebrows were so bushy they looked almost tumorous.
‘That is merely the pattern of Mr Loeser’s necktie, sir,’ said Woodkin, handing him a glass of ginger ale.
‘Necktie! Right. Beg your pardon. Marsh! Wife?’
‘Her sister called just before we left. Some minor emergency. Sends her apologies.’
‘I didn’t know you were married, Marsh,’ said Plumridge.
‘Yes. Last month.’ Marsh took a photo out of his wallet and passed it around.
‘Congratulations, pal, she’s just your level,’ said Plumridge.
‘Hello, Mrs Marsh,’ said Gorge politely. But then when Marsh made to put the photo back in his wallet, Gorge grabbed his wrist. ‘God’s sake, man, don’t stuff her back in there! No air. Sure to suffocate. Don’t you care a snap about your wife?’
‘It’s only a photograph, sir,’ said Woodkin.
‘Photograph! Right. Pardon me.’
‘Will the Gorge ladies be joining us?’ said Plumridge to Gorge.
‘No. Upstairs with her skull. Off at Radcliffe. Stag tonight.’ After a moment’s analysis, Loeser took Gorge to be referring respectively to his wife, his daughter, and the occasion. Gorge turned to Woodkin. ‘Tell Watatsumi nix the tuna. No need for damsel food.’ Woodkin nodded and went out. ‘Nazi, Loeser?’ said Gorge.
‘Pardon me?’ said Loeser.
‘Nazi?’ repeated Gorge, as if he were offering Loeser some sort of hors d’oeuvre.
‘No, Loeser is not political,’ interceded Rackenham. ‘He is very happy, I’m sure, to have escaped all the unpleasantness going on in Berlin.’
Loeser thought of Brecht and nodded.
‘When Professor Einstein last came to the Institute, he told me he thought it might be a very long time before he could go home,’ said Marsh.
‘What’s he like?’ said Rackenham.
‘Fascinating. You know, last year, a woman donated ten thousand dollars to the Robinson Laboratory in exchange for meeting him. Worth every cent, I should say.’
‘Talk much, him and Bailey?’ said Gorge.
‘They did, yes. Which is unusual. Professor Bailey is normally quite secretive about his work.’
‘Why would a CalTech physicist need to be secretive?’ said Plumridge. ‘He’s juggling atoms, not patenting a toaster.’
‘I believe he’s just reluctant to disseminate even the first hints about his researches until he’s quite sure they will develop into something worthwhile.’
‘Field?’ said Gorge.
Marsh hesitated. ‘Physics.’
‘Know that! Branch?’ Marsh didn’t answer. ‘Theoretical or applied?’ said Gorge. Marsh still didn’t answer. ‘Don’t know or won’t tell us?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Marsh at last.
‘You mean to say you don’t have even the faintest idea what your top scientist is working on?’ sneered Plumridge. ‘Except that it’s “physics”? Doesn’t he talk to anyone about it?’
‘He does have one research assistant,’ said Marsh. ‘But he chose someone from outside the faculty – a non-specialist, in fact – so as to cut down on departmental gossip. All I know is that he’s in touch with some top men at the State Department. Quite a lot of our physicists are, to tell the truth. Although I shouldn’t say any more than that.’
‘Weapons,’ said Gorge.
‘Perhaps,’ said Marsh. ‘As you know, Dr Millikan is normally very much against federal involvement in the sciences, but he believes an exception should be made for defence research.’
‘Made an investment, why I ask. Take an interest.’
‘Of course.’
‘The Colonel just gave CalTech a lot of money,’ explained Rackenham to Loeser.
‘Million dollars for the Gorge Auditorium,’ said Gorge. ‘Put on some plays. Can’t stay in labs all the time, the students. Ran an opera house in Paris, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Ran a dirty puppet show in New Orleans, my great-great-great-great-grandfather. Family tradition. Not my own game but damned proud of it.’
‘When it’s finished, the Gorge Auditorium will be one of the finest buildings on campus,’ said Marsh.
‘Oh, what an achievement,’ said Plumridge.
Woodkin came back into the drawing room. ‘Watatsumi tells me dinner is about to be served, sir.’
‘Mess hall!’ said Gorge, and the five of them followed him to the dining room, in which a crystal chandelier hung galactically over a long table. They all sat down except Woodkin, who stood behind his employer like a valet. Two maids brought in five silver serving dishes, inside each of which was a cheeseburger and a china bowl of frenched potatoes.
Loeser saw that Rackenham, who was seated next to him, had taken out a fountain pen and was sketching some sort of spotty cucumiform entity on his napkin. He then gave the napkin to Loeser and whispered, ‘Say to Gorge you don’t like pickles so does he want yours.’
‘Why?’
‘Just say it. You don’t like pickles so does he want yours. He’ll like it. I promise. You don’t understand American table manners yet.’
Loeser cleared his throat. He didn’t want to do this but he was only here because of Rackenham so he wasn’t sure he could refuse. ‘Colonel Gorge, I’m afraid I don’t happen to care for pickles, perhaps you’d like to—’
But Gorge had already snatched the napkin out of his hand. ‘More for me!’ he cried cheerfully, and stuffed it into his mouth. Then as Loeser watched in horror the tycoon began to chew.
Woodkin stepped forward. ‘That is not a pickle, sir, that is only a drawing of a pickle in black ink on a napkin.’
Gorge spat out the sodden wad of cotton. The action of his jaw had been so powerful that it was already frayed at the edges. ‘Napkin! Right. Beg your pardon.’ He laughed industrially. ‘Fine prank, Krauto. Damned fine prank.’
Woodkin, who had presumably observed Rackenham’s guilt and Loeser’s innocence, said: ‘Actually, sir, it might be that not everyone at this table is quite familiar with the details of your condition.’
‘Oh? All right – explain: can’t tell the difference between pictures and the real thing. Got it? Just can’t. See the difference, not blind, just don’t realise it. Damned confusing. Have to get Woodkin to remind me. Used to be all right, but it’s the polish. Sky-Shine. Huffed too much of it over the years, working on the formula, testing the product, sleeping in store rooms. Polished part of the noggin clean away. Don’t know what to do, the doctors. Don’t blame ’em. Why I can’t drink: makes it even worse. Get by al
l right, though. Still whip smart at everything else. Except spelling. Never could spell, though, since I was a cub – nothing to do with the polish, that. Waste of time, anyway, spelling. Waste of fucking time!’
‘As Colonel Gorge says, his severe visual agnosia has not affected his business acumen,’ added Woodkin. ‘He is simply required to work in an office with no photographs, diagrams or figurative art of any kind.’
‘Right. Can’t have pictures of anything. Just like the damned Musselmans! Can’t go to the movies, either. Went to see Shanghai Express couple of years ago. Shouldn’t have, but Dietrich. Tell ’em what happened, Woodkin.’
‘When the film started, Colonel Gorge assumed he must have been drugged, kidnapped, and taken to China. He assaulted one of the popcorn boys, fled, and found himself outside on Hollywood Boulevard. Thereupon he observed an advertisement for a depilatory product that made comical use of an image of a mountain gorilla, and attempted to wrestle the animal to the ground before it could endanger a nearby lady.’
‘Saw my mistake pretty soon after that, of course. Felt like a fool. Paid for all the damage.’ Gorge applied seven or eight spoonfuls of mustard to his hamburger and then turned to his newest acquaintance. ‘Living whereabouts, Krauto?’
‘The Chateau Marmont,’ said Loeser, who had hoped he might have misheard the first time Gorge called him ‘Krauto’.
‘I don’t know how you can stand to live in a hotel,’ said Marsh. ‘There’s no privacy.’
‘Yes, he should certainly move. Don’t you have a few properties near here, Colonel?’ said Rackenham.
‘Think so. Woodkin?’
‘Only one at present, sir. You own a house in that inconvenient triangle of land between your tennis courts and the Sprague mansion. It is currently untenanted.’
‘Why the hell untenanted?’
‘It’s quite small, sir, and there is nowhere to a park a car.’