The Frederick Pohl Omnibus (1966) SSC

by Frederik Pohl

  There was a Nike battalion in Pung's Corners, and they say they shot down the first couple of helicopters that tried to land because they thought they were the enemy. Maybe they did. But along about the fifth copter, they didn't think that any more, I guarantee. And then the planes stopped coming. Outside, they had plenty to think about, I suppose. They stopped bothering with Pung's Corners.

  Until Mr. Coglan came in.

  • • • •

  After Coglan got his line of communication opened up--because that was what the big suitcase was, a TV communications set--he talked for a little while. Charley had a red dent on his forehead for two days, he pressed against the doorknob so hard, trying to see.

  'Mr. Maffity?' boomed Coglan, and a pretty girl's face lighted up on the screen.

  'This is Vice President Maffity's secretary,' she said sweetly. 'I see you arrived safely. One moment, please, for Mr Maffity.'

  And then the set flickered and another face showed up, the blood brother to Coglan's own. It was the face of an elderly and successful man who recognized no obstacles, the face of a man who knew what he wanted and got it. 'Coglan, boy! Good to see you got there!'

  'No sweat, L.S.,' said Coglan. 'I'm just about to secure my logistics.

  Money. This is going to take money.'

  'No trouble?'

  'No trouble, Chief. I can promise you that. There isn't going to be any trouble.' He grinned and picked up a nested set of little metallic boxes out of a pouch in the suitcase. He opened one, shook out a small disk-shaped object, silver and scarlet plastic. 'I'm using this right away.'

  'And the reservoir?'

  'I haven't checked yet, Chief. But the pilots said they dumped the stuff in. No opposition from the ground either, did you notice that? These people used to shoot down every plane that came near. They're softening. They're ripe.'

  'Good enough,' said L. S. Maffity from the little cathode Screen.

  'Make it so, Coglan. Make it so.'

  • • • •

  Now, at the Shawanganunk National Bank, Mr. LaFarge saw Coglan come in and knew right away something was up.

  How do I know that? Why, that's in a book too. The Federal Budget and How I Balanced It: A Study in Surplus Dynamics, by Treasury Secretary (Retired) Wilbur Otis LaFarge. Most everything is in a book, if you know where to look for it. That's something you young people have got to learn.

  Anyway, Mr. LaFarge, who was then only an Assistant Vice President, greeted old man Coglan effusively. It was his way. 'Morning, sir!' he said.

  'Morning! In what way can we serve you here at the bank?'

  'We'll find a way,' promised Mr. Coglan.

  'Of course, sir. Of course!' Mr. LaFarge rubbed his hands. 'You'll want a checking account. Certainly! And a savings account? And a safety deposit box? Absolutely! Christmas Club, I suppose. Perhaps a short-term auto loan, or a chattel loan on your household effects for the purpose of consolidating debts and reducing--'

  'Don't have any debts,' said Coglan. 'Look, what's-you-name-'

  'LaFarge, sir! Wilbur LaFarge. Call me Will.'

  'Look, Willie. Here are my credit references.' And he spilled a manila envelope out on the desk in front of LaFarge.

  The banker looked at the papers and frowned. He picked one up.

  'Letter of credit,' he said. 'Some time since I saw one of those. From Danbury, Connecticut, eh?' He shook his head and pouted. 'All from outside, sir.'

  'I'm from outside.'

  'I see.' LaFarge sighed heavily after a second. 'Well, sir, I don't know.

  What is it you wanted?'

  'What I want is a quarter of a million dollars, Willie. In cash. And make it snappy, will you?'

  Mr. LaFarge blinked.

  You don't know him, of course. He was before your time. You don't know what a request like that would do to him.

  When I say he blinked, I mean, man, he blinked. Then he blinked again and it seemed to calm him. For a moment, the veins had begun to stand out in his temples; for a moment, his mouth was open to speak. But he closed his mouth and the veins receded.

  Because, you see, old man Coglan took that silvery, scarlet thing out of his pocket. It glittered. He gave it a twist and he gave it a certain kind of squeeze, and it hummed, a deep and throbbing note. But it didn't satisfy Mr. Coglan.

  'Wait a minute,' he said, offhandedly, and he adjusted it and squeezed it again. 'That's better,' he said.

  The note was deeper, but still not quite deep enough to suit Coglan.

  He twisted the top a fraction more, until the pulsing note was too deep to be heard, and then he nodded.

  There was silence for a second.

  Then: 'Large bills?' cried Mr. LaFarge. 'Or small?' He leaped up and waved to a cashier. 'Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! You there, Tom Fairleigh! Hurry it up now. What? No, I don't care where you get it. Go out to the vault, if there isn't enough in the cages. But bring me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!'

  He sank down at his desk again, panting. 'I am really sorry, sir,' he apologized to Mr. Coglan. 'The clerks you get these days! I almost wish that old times would come back.'

  'Perhaps they will, friend,' said Coglan, grinning widely to himself.

  'Now,' he said, not unkindly, 'shut up.'

  He waited, tapping the desk top, humming to himself, staring at the blank wall. He completely ignored Mr. LaFarge until Tom Fairleigh and another teller brought four canvas sacks of bills. They began to dump them on the desk to count them.

  'No, don't bother,' said Coglan cheerfully, his black eyes snapping with good humour. 'I trust you.' He picked up the sacks, nodded courteously to Mr. LaFarge, and walked out.

  Ten seconds later, Mr. LaFarge suddenly shook his head, rubbed his eyes and stared at the two tellers. 'What--'

  'You just gave him a quarter of a million dollars,' said Tom Fairleigh.

  'You made me get it out of the vault.'

  'I did?'

  'You did!

  They looked at each other.

  Mr. LaFarge said at last: 'It's been a long time since we had any of that in Pung's Corners.'

  • • • •

  3

  Now I have to tell a part that isn't so nice. It's about a girl named Marlene Groshawk. I positively will not explain any part of it. I probably shouldn't mention it at all, but it's part of the history of our country. Still--

  Well, this is what happened. Yes, it's in a book too--On Call, by One Who Knows (And we know who 'One Who Knows' is, don't we?) She wasn't a bad girl. Not a bit of it. Or, anyway, she didn't mean to be. She was too pretty for her own good and not very smart. What she wanted out of life was to be a television star.

  Well, that was out of the question, of course. We didn't use live television at all in Pung's Corners those days, only a few old tapes. They left the commercials in, although the goods the old, dead announcers were trying to sell were not on the market anywhere, much less in Pung's Corners. And Marlene's idol was a TV saleslady named Betty Furness.

  Marlene had pictures of her, dubbed off the tapes, pasted all over the walls of her room.

  At the time I'm talking about, Marlene called herself a public stenographer. There wasn't too much demand for her services. (And later on, after things opened up, she gave up that part of her business entirely.) But if anybody needed a little extra help in Pung's Corners, like writing some letters or getting caught up on the back filing and such, they'd call on Marlene. She'd never worked for a stranger before.

  She was rather pleased when the desk clerk told her that there was this new Mr. Coglan in town, and that he needed an assistant to help him run some new project he was up to. She didn't know what the project was, but I have to tell you that if she knew, she would have helped anyhow. Any budding TV star would, of course.

  She stopped in the lobby of Pung's Inn to adjust her makeup. Charley Frink looked at her with that kind of a look, in spite of being only fifteen. She sniffed at him, tossed her head and proudly went upstairs.
/>
  She tapped on the carved oak door of Suite 41--that was the bridal suite; she knew it well--and smiled prettily for the tall old man with snapping eyes who swung it open.

  'Mr. Coglan? I'm Miss Groshawk, the public stenographer. I understand you sent for me.'

  The old man looked at her piercingly for a moment.

  'Yes,' he said, 'I did. Come in.'

  He turned his back on her and let her come in and close the door by herself.

  Coglan was busy. He had the suite's television set in pieces all over the floor.

  He was trying to fix it some way or another, Marlene judged. And that was odd, mused Marlene in her cloudy young way, because even if she wasn't really brainy, she knew that he was no television repairman, or anything like that. She knew exactly what he was. It said so on his card, and Mr. LaFarge had shown the card around town. He was a research and development counsellor.

  Whatever that was.

  Marlene was conscientious, and she knew that a good public stenographer took her temporary employer's work to heart. She said:

  'Something wrong, Mr. Coglan?'

  He looked up, irritable. 'I can't get Danbury on this thing.'

  'Danbury, Connecticut? Outside? No, sir. It isn't supposed to get Danbury.'

  He straightened up and looked at her. 'It isn't supposed to get Danbury.' He nodded thoughtfully. 'This forty-eight-inch twenty-seven tube full-colour suppressed sideband UHF-VHF General Electric wall model with static suppressors and self-compensating tuning strips, it isn't supposed to get Danbury, Connecticut.'

  'That's right, sir.'

  'Well,' he said, 'That's going to be a big laugh on the cavern in Schenectady.'

  Marlene said helpfully: 'It hasn't got any antenna.'

  Coglan frowned and corrected her. 'No, that's impossible. It's got to have an antenna. These leads go somewhere.'

  Marlene shrugged attractively.

  He said: 'Right after the war, of course, you couldn't get Danbury at all. I agree. Not with all those fission products, eh? But that's down to a negligible count now. Danbury should come in loud and clear.'

  Marlene said: 'No, it was after that, I used to, uh, date a fellow named Timmy Horan, and he was in that line of business, making television repairs, I mean. A couple years after the war, I was just a kid, they began to get pictures once in a while. Well, they passed a law, Mr. Coglan.'

  'A law?' His face looked suddenly harsh.

  'Well, I think they did. Anyway, Timmy had to go around taking the antennas off all the sets. He really did. Then they hooked them up with TV

  tape recorders, like.' She thought hard for a second. 'He didn't tell me why,' she volunteered.

  'I know why,' he said flatly.

  'So it only plays records, Mr. Coglan. But if there's anything you want, the desk clerk'll get it for you. He's got lots. Dinah Shores and Jackie Gleasons and Medic. Oh, and Westerns. You tell him what you want.'

  'I see.' Coglan stood there for a second, thinking. Not to her but to himself, he said: 'No wonder we weren't getting through. Well, we'll see about that.'

  'What, Mr. Coglan?'

  'Never mind, Miss Groshawk. I see the picture now. And it isn't a very pretty one.'

  He went back to the television set.

  He wasn't a TV mechanic, no, but he knew a little something about what he was doing for sure, because he had it all back together in a minute.

  Oh, less than that. And not just the way it was. He had it improved. Even Marlene could see that. Maybe not improved, but different; he'd done something to it.

  'Better?' he demanded, looking at her.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'I mean does looking at the picture do anything to you?'

  'I'm sorry, Mr. Coglan, but I honestly don't care for Studio One. It makes me think too hard, you know?'

  But she obediently watched the set.

  He had tuned in on the recorded wire signal that went out to all of Pung's Corners TV sets. I don't suppose you know how we did it then, but there was a central station where they ran off a show all the time, for people who didn't want to bother with tapes. It was all old stuff, of course. And everybody had seen all of them already.

  But Marlene watched, and funnily, in a moment she began to giggle.

  'Why, Mr. Coglan' she said, though he hadn't done anything at all.

  'Better,' he said, and he was satisfied.

  He had every reason to be.

  'However,' said Mr. Coglan, 'first things come first. I need your help.'

  'All right, Mr. Coglan,' Marlene said in a silky voice.

  'I mean in a business way. I want to hire some people. I want you to help me locate them, and to keep the records straight. Then I shall need to buy certain materials. And I'll need an office, perhaps a few buildings for light industrial purposes, and soon.'

  'That will take a lot of money, won't it?'

  Coglan chuckled.

  'Well, then,' said Marlene, satisfied, 'I'm your girl, Mr. Coglan. I mean in a business way. Would you mind telling me what the business is?'

  'I intend to put Pung's Corners back on its feet.'

  'Oh, sure, Mr. Coglan. But how, I mean?'

  'Advertising,' said old man Coglan, with a devil's smile and a demon's voice.

  Silence. There was a moment of silence.

  Marlene said faintly: 'I don't think they're going to like it.'

  'Who?'

  'The bigwigs. They're aren't going to like that. Not advertising, you know. I mean I'm for you. I'm in favour of advertising. I like it. But--'

  'There's no question of liking it!' Coglan said in a terrible voice. 'It's what has made our country great! It tooled us up to fight in a great war, and when that war was over, it put us back together again!'

  'I understand that, Mr. Coglan,' she said. 'But--'

  'I don't want to hear that word from you, Miss Groshawk,' he snapped.

  'There is no question. Consider America after the war, ah? You don't remember, perhaps. They kept it from you. But the cities all were demolished. The buildings were ruins. It was only advertising that built them up again--advertising, and the power of research! For I remind you of what a great man once said: "Our chief job in research is to keep the customer reasonably dissatisfied with what he has." '

  Coglan paused, visibly affected. 'That was Charles F. Kettering of General Motors,' he said, 'and the beauty of it, Miss Groshawk, is that he said this in the Twenties! Imagine! So clear a perception of what Science means to all of us. So comprehensive a grasp of the meaning of American Inventiveness!'

  Marlene said brokenly: 'That's beautiful.'

  Coglan nodded. 'Of course. So you see, there is nothing at all that your bigwigs can do, like it or not. We Americans--we real Americans--

  know that without advertising there is no industry; and accordingly we have shaped advertising into a tool that serves us well. Why, here, look at that television set!'

  Marlene did, and in a moment began again to giggle. Archly she whispered: 'Mr. Coglan!'

  'You see? and if that doesn't suffice, well, there's always the law.

  Let's see what the bigwigs of Pung's Corners can do against the massed might of the United States Army!'

  'I do hope there won't be any fighting, Mr. Coglan.'

  'I doubt there will,' he said sincerely. 'And now to work, eh? Or--' he glanced at his watch and nodded--'after all, there's no real hurry this afternoon. Suppose we order some dinner, just for the two of us. And some wine? And!'

  'Of course, Mr. Coglan.'

  Marlene started to go to the telephone, but Mr. Coglan stopped her.

  'On second thought, Miss Groshawk,' he said, beginning to breathe a little hard, 'I'll do the ordering. You just sit there and rest for a minute. Watch the television set, eh?'

  • • • •

  4

  Now I have to tell you about Jack Tighe.

  Yes, indeed. Jack Tighe. The Father of the Second Republic. Sit tight and listen and don't inte
rrupt, because what I have to tell you isn't exactly what you learned in school.

  The apple tree? No, that's only a story. It couldn't have happened, you see, because apple trees don't grow on upper Madison Avenue, and that's where Jack Tighe spent his youth. Because Jack Tighe wasn't the President of the Second Republic. For a long time, he was something else, something called V.P. in charge of S.L. division, of the advertising firm of Yust and Ruminant.

  That's right. Advertising.

  Don't cry. It's all right. He'd given it up, you see, long before--oh, long before, even before the big war; given it up and come to Fung's Corners, to retire.

  Jack Tighe had his place out on the marshland down at the bend of the Delaware River. It wasn't particularly healthy there. All the highlands around Pung's Corners drained into the creeks of that part of the area, and a lot of radioactivity had come down. But it didn't bother Jack Tighe, because he was too old.

  He was as old as old man Coglan, in fact. And what's more, they had known each other, back at the agency.

  Jack Tighe was also big, not as big as Coglan but well over six feet.

  And in a way he looked like Coglan. You've seen his pictures. Same eyes, same devil-may-care bounce to his walk and snap to his voice. He could have been a big man in Pung's Corners. They would have made him mayor any time. But he said he'd come there to retire, and retire he would; it would take a major upheaval to make him come out of retirement, he said.

  And he got one.

  • • • •

  The first thing was Andy Grammis, white as a sheet.

  'Jack!' he whispered, out of breath at the porch steps, for he'd run almost all the way from his store.

  Jack Tighe took his feet down off the porch rail. 'Sit down, Andy,' he said kindly. 'I suppose I know why you're here.'

  'You do, Jack?"

  'I think so.' Jack Tighe nodded. Oh, he was a handsome man. He said: 'Aircraft dumping neoscopalamine in the reservoir, a stranger turning up in a car with a sheet-lead body. And we all know what's outside, don't we? Yes, it has to be that.'