“Nice of you. Why bother?”
“Partly sheer stubbornness; you make it so obvious you want nothing of the kind. Partly professional ethics, a thing which I wouldn’t expect a child, however precocious, to understand fully.”
He went slowly past her and opened the door. “Good-by, Dr. Wenzell.”
“Good-by, Robin. And good luck.”
~ * ~
Later, in her office at the hospital, Peg’s phone rang. “Yes?”
“Peg! I’ve just received a note, by messenger, from Robin English.”
“Mel! What did he say?”
“He inclosed a check for just twice what I billed him for, and he says that he won’t be back.”
“Mel, is it safe?”
“Of course it’s not safe! The pituitary reactions are absolutely unpredictable—you know that. I can’t prognosticate anything at all without the seventy-two-hour checkups. He might be all right; I really wouldn’t know. He’s strong and healthy and tremendously resilient. But to stop treatment now is taking unfair advantage of his metabolism. Can’t you do anything about it?”
“Can’t I do anything?”
“He’ll listen to you, Peg. Try, won’t you? I… well, in some ways I’m glad to have him off my neck, frankly. It’s been… but anyway, I’ll lose sleep over it, I know I will. Will you see if you can do anything with him?”
A long pause.
“Hello; Peg—are you still there?”
“Yes, Mel… let him go. It’s what he wants.”
“Peg! You… you mean you won’t see him?”
“N-no, I—can’t, Mel. I won’t. Don’t ask me to.”
“I hardly know what to say. Peg, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter. I won’t see him, that’s all, and if I did it wouldn’t do any good. I don’t care what hap—Oh, Mel, do watch him! Don’t let anything… I mean, he’s got to be all right. Read his stuff, Mel. Go see his plays. You’ll be able to f-find out that way.”
“And if I don’t like the looks of what I find out, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Call me up whenever you find out anything, Mel.”
“I will, Peg, I’m—sorry. I didn’t realize that you… I mean, I knew it, but I didn’t know you felt so—”
“Good-by, Mel.”
She hung up and sat and cried without hiding her face.
~ * ~
Robin’s first novel was published five months later, while his musical, “Too Humorous To Mention,” was eight weeks old and just at the brilliant beginning of its incredible run, while “The Cellophane Chalice,” his little, forgotten book of verse, went into its sixth printing, and while three new songs from “Too Humorous” were changing places like the shells in the old army game, on the Hit Parade in the one-two-three spots. The title of one of them, “Born Tomorrow,” had been bought at an astonishing figure by Hollywood, and royalties were beginning to roll in for Robin’s self-tapping back-out drill bits.
The novel was a strange and compelling volume called “Festoon.” The ravings of the three critics who were fortunate enough to read it in manuscript made the title hit the top of the best-seller lists and stay there like a masthead. Robin English was made an honorary doctor of law by a college in Iowa, a Kentucky Colonel, a member of the Lambs Club and a technical advisor to the American Society of Basement Inventors. He dazedly declined a projected nomination to the State Senate which was backed by a colossal round robin; wrote a careful letter of thanks to the municipality of Enumclaw, Washington, for the baroque golden key to the city it sent him because of the fact that early in his life he had been born there; was photographed for the “Young Men of the Month” page of Pic, and bought himself a startlingly functional mansion in Westchester County. He wrote a skillful novella which was sold in Boston and banned in Paris, recorded a collection of muezzin calls, won a pie-eating contest at the Bucks County Fair, and made a radio address on the evolution of modern poetry which was called one of the most magnificent compositions in the history of the language. He bought a towboat and had a barge built in the most luxurious pleasure-yacht style and turned them over to the city hospitals for pleasure-cruises to Coney Island for invalid children. Then he disappeared.
He was a legend by then, and there was plenty of copy about him for the columnists and the press agents to run, so that in spite of his prominence, his absence was only gradually felt. But gradually the questions asked in the niteries and on the graveyard shifts at newspaper offices began to tell. Too often reporters came back empty handed when assigned to a new R. E. story—any new R. E. story. An item in the “Man About Town” column led to a few readers’ letters, mostly from women, asking his whereabouts; and then there was a landslide of queries. It was worth a stick or two on the front pages, and then it suddenly disappeared from the papers when all the editors were told in a mimeographed letter that Mr. English’s business would be handled by his law firm, which had on proud exhibition a complete power of attorney—and which would answer no queries. All business mail was photostated and returned, bearing Robin’s rubber-stamped signature and the name of his lawyers. All fan mail was filed.
The categories of men who can disappear in New York are extreme. The very poor can manage it. The very rich cannot; but those richer than the very rich can manage it, with care. Robin did it.
And then the rumors started.
The role of “Billy-buffoon” which he had taken in his musical was a mask-and-wig part, and it was said that his understudy didn’t work at every performance. English was reported to have been seen in Hollywood; in Russia; dead; and once even on Flatbush Avenue. Robin’s extraordinary talents, in the gentle hands of idle talk, took on fantastic proportions. He was advisor to three cabinet members. He had invented a space drive and was at the moment circling Mars. He was painting a mural in the City Morgue. He was working on an epic novel. He had stumbled on a method for refining U-235 in the average well-equipped kitchen, and was going crazy in trying to conceal that he knew it. He was the author of every anonymous pamphlet cranked out to the public everywhere, from lurid tracts through political apassionatae to out and out pornography. And of course, murders and robberies were accredited to his capacious reputation. All of these things remained as engagingly fictional as his real activities had been; but since they had nothing like books and plays and inventions to perpetuate them, they faded from the press and from conversation.
~ * ~
But not from the thoughts of a few people. Drs. Wenzell and Warfield compiled and annotated Robin English’s case history, with as close a psychological analysis as they could manage. Ostensibly, the work was purely one of professional interest; and yet if it led to a rational conclusion as to where he was and what he was doing, who could say that such a conclusion was not the reason for the work? In any case, the book was not published, but rested neatly in the active files of Mel Warfield’s case records, and grew. And then there was one Voisier, himself a mysterious character about whom little was known except his aquiline features and unbuttoning eyes and his wealth, all of which were underestimated. Voisier thought about Robin a great deal; and because he was Voisier, he was able to gain scraps of information not available to most people. The conclusions he drew from two or three of these, one afternoon, led to the ringing of Peg’s phone.
“Dr. Wenzell?”
“Yes?”
“Voisier speaking. Do you know Robin English?”
“Voisier, the producer? Oh, how do you do? Yes, I—have met Robin English.”
“Do you happen to know where he is?”
“Does anyone?” she countered. “I understand that his lawyers—”
Voisier’s soft chuckle slid over the wire and came out of the receiver like little audible smoke rings. “I have encountered his lawyers. Dr. Wenzell, I have to find out where he is.”
“What has that to do with me?” Peg asked cautiously.
“There is some connection betwee
n you and Robin English,” said Voisier smoothly. “Just a moment—I’m not trying to find out what it is, and I don’t care. I know only that it is a matter of professional interest to you and a Dr. Mellet Warfield; and I don’t care what it is. I’ll be frank with you; I must see him purely on a business matter. It will be to his advantage—all of his dealings with me have been, you know. After all. I discovered him.”
“You discovered him the way the atom bomb was discovered by the mayor of Hiroshima,” said Peg tartly.
Voisier laughed urbanely. “Very good.” Peg was figuratively conscious of the swing of his boom as he changed his conversational tack. “Please, Dr. Wenzell—let’s not get off on the wrong foot. I’m sorry if I seem to pry. Will you take lunch with me tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry. I’m busy tomorrow.”
“Dinner this evening, then. That would be better.”
“I am completely tied up, thank you,” said Peg, over the rustle of silk in his voice. “And besides, I do not know where Robin English is or what he is doing. Good-b—”
“I know what he is doing,” said Voisier quickly.
“You—”
Through a smile, Voisier’s easy voice said, “Of course. I don’t know where he is, that’s all. I thought that with what I know and what you know we might be able to locate him. For his own good, of course. I gather that you would like very much to know where he is.”
“What’s he doing?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone!” he said, in the voice in which one says “You mustn’t play with Daddy’s watch!”
“I wish you—” said Peg sharply, and then sighed. “When can I see you?”
“Thank you very much, doctor,” he said abjectly, and was that a touch of relief in his voice? “Dinner tonight, then—unless you are busy, in which case… ah… cocktail time is practically here. I could meet you this afternoon, if you could—”
“Thank you,” she said, and startlingly, she blushed at the eagerness she heard in her own voice. “How soon can you get here?”
“Very soon. I know where it is. I’ll see you in a moment. And thanks again.”
He hung up, and Peg sat looking at the bland cornerless bulk of her cradled telephone. Robin, Robin English. She formed his name with silent lips, and smiled a little. “Robin,” she whispered, “I’m going to catch you by the ear and stand you in a corner for doing this to me.” Robin was a child—such a child.
Her assistant came in. “A Mr. Voisier to see you doctor.”
“Thank you, Helen. Ask him—Voisier! Good heavens, I didn’t expect him so quickly! Yes, show him in. Show him right in!”
~ * ~
Voisier appeared at the door, rather as if he had been projected there. He looked over the office, more rapidly than he appeared to be doing it, and then let his gaze slide to rest on her face. He smiled.
“Mr. Voisier?”
“‘I am very glad to meet you, doctor.” He came forward, and she noticed that the Homburg he carried was not black, but a very dark brown. Like his eyes.
“You got here very quickly, Mr. Voisier.”
“I was just downstairs when I called.”
She frowned briefly, realizing that she had been told that he had come to the hospital perfectly confident that he could talk her into seeing him. She wondered why she didn’t mind too much. “Sit down a moment,” she said. “I’ll be ready to leave in a second.”
He thanked her, and surprised her by not taking the chair she indicated at the end of her desk and close to her, but one in the corner. He sat down, ignoring the magazines on the end table next to him, and rested a part of the weight of his eyes on her as she worked, stacking the reports on her desk and putting them away.
When her desk was clear she paused a moment, thinking, and then dipped into the file drawer and brought out her copy of Robin’s case history. She did not open it—she knew every line in it—but sat running her fingers over the binding, wondering whether to bring it with her.
“Bring it along,” said Voisier, his eyes on the ceiling.
“I knew someone else who acted telepathic,” said Peg with a little quirk of the lips. “All right.”
The way he helped her on with her coat and handed her through the door made her feel like reaching for a lace train to drape over her arm as she walked. They did not speak as they went down in the elevator. She wanted to study his face, but he was studying hers, and strangely, she did not want to meet his eyes.
Parked in front of the hospital was a low-slung limousine, beautifully kept, not too new. A chauffeur with a young, impassive face opened the door and Peg got in, feeling the lack of a velvet carpet and a fanfare or two. Voisier followed, and the car slid silently into traffic. Voisier gave no orders to the chauffeur, which was another indication to Peg of how sure he had been that she would come out with him. She wondered if he had made reservations wherever they were going. She never knew, because they pulled up in front of Lelalo’s, and both the doorman and the head waiter greeted Voisier effusively and she realized that they would at any time, reservation or no reservation. They were shown to a very comfortable corner table. Peg asked for an Alexander; Voisier did not order at all, but a silvery cocktail was brought and set down before him.
Finally she met his eyes. He seemed relaxed, but watchful, and his gaze was absolutely unswerving. She gritted her teeth and said lightly, “Have you read any good books lately?”
His eyes dropped to the case history lying on the table between them. “No,” he said.
“Tell me what you know.”
He drummed idly on the table with long, flexible fingers. “Robin is in the trucking business,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yes. And in insurance. Air freight. Distilling. Drugs. A few others.”
“For goodness’ sake! But that doesn’t sound like Robin!”
“What doesn’t sound like Robin?”
“Robin is almost exclusively a creative person. Business—organizing, money-making itself—these have never had any interest for him.”
“They have now,” said Voisier in a slightly awed tone.
“If he did go into business,” said Peg carefully, “it would be like that—diversification, and excellent results in everything he tried. That is, if he’s still… I mean, if he hasn’t changed. How do you know this?”
~ * ~
“I can’t understand how he’s doing it,” Voisier said, ignoring her question. “He has bought out a bunch of independent truckers, for example. Standardized their equipment, rerouted and scheduled them, put in the latest equipment for servicing all the way, so that he has practically delay-proof service. He pays his employees eight per cent more than… than other firms, and works them four less straight-time hours per week. Yet his rates are twelve per cent per hundredweight under those of any of his competitors. Am I boring you?”
“You are not.”
“He has hit the insurance business in an unusual way. He has a counseling service made up of insurance men so carefully chosen and so highly paid that his agency is a factor to be reckoned with by every company in the East. His specialty is in advising clients—the thousand-dollar policyholder to banking insurance—on ways and means of combining policies to get the maximum coverage from the smallest premium. His charge is nominal; it doesn’t seem to be a money-making proposition, much, at all. But he is getting an increasing power to throw large blocks of insurance business any way he wants to. He does it to the benefit of the policyholder and well within the law. In other words, what he is machinating for is influence. And since nobody can possibly predict what he is going to do next, the agency is a Damocletian sword over us… uh… over the insurance companies.”
“Mr. Voisier—wait. How do you know all this?”
“The most amazing thing of all is what he is doing in the drugs business. He has tapped a source of hard-to-get biochemicals that is something remarkable. Some sort of synthesis… nerve mind. I’m running along like a Wall Street
Journal excerpt and I’m not going to start reciting things from the Journal of the Chemical Institute.”
“Have you seen him?”
“I have a picture of him. He spoke at a trucker’s union meeting with his independent chain proposal recently. It’s a good shot, and though he’s changed a little since I last saw him, there’s no mistaking him. He was using the name of Reuben Ritter—not that that’s a matter of any importance, since elsewhere he is known as Schwartz, Mancinelli, Walker, Chandler, and O’Shaughnessy. Where he goes after the meetings and an occasional dinner he attends, no one knows. He only goes out on business and he always leaves a highly competent authority behind to handle the details.”
6 Great Short Novels of Science Fiction Page 41