“Who's angry?"
“But must you always speak with such insufferable bluntness?"
“There's another way?"
“Shell, be serious. We must coexist—don't you believe Khrushchev sincerely wants peace?"
“Sure.” He blinked, surprised. I grinned. “Only he means something else by the word. Look, a Commie says to his neighbor, ‘I'm for peace, pal. Give me your house, money, wife, furniture, and old light bulbs, and we'll have peace. Otherwise I'll thump you on the head and take them.’ And if the neighbor won't go along with this jazz, the Communist yells, 'You are not for peace.’ Does it begin to filter through your skull that we can't talk a language of reason to Soviet psychos and liars—"
Buffington interrupted again, yanking on his goatee as if attempting to remove it. “There you go. Always you talk about the Russians as if the word were an expletive. And that is the real problem—the problem in depth. As long as there is such complete lack of brotherhood and understanding among peoples there will be war."
“Oh, nuts. Brotherhood and understanding again. Doc, how understanding can you get? Start with the little ones: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Add the Poles, Czechs, Romanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians—there's understandable understanding for you. Add the half billion of China, plus North Korea, North Vietnam, East Germany, Tibet. Now Cuba. Not to mention the Communists—pretending to be non-Communists, of course—everywhere in the States, right here in Mexico, in Laos, Iraq, Uruguay, Bolivia, all through Latin America; in Japan, Turkey, Africa, India—hell, every place you can name. You can't play footsie with the Commies, Doc; they take the foot."
The Doc didn't say anything.
Buff said, “You made a speech."
I grinned at her. “I guess I did."
Monique said, “I don't know what you're talking about."
Dr. Buffington said, somewhat disgruntled, “Neither does he."
I laughed. “Incidentally, I wasn't talking about the Russians. I was talking about Communists. And Russia isn't basically Communist—less than four percent of the Russian people are Party members, Doc. Even fewer in the satellites. The Reds are in control, that's all. Hell, there's probably twice as many anti-Communists as that in Soviet slave labor camps."
“That may well be true. But our government deals with those few who are in control. And I still insist that the only weapon in the war against war is truth, complete truth."
“Nice alliteration, but it just ain't so. Truth is one weapon, sure, but it's only one—and it can't beat a clever lie that people believe to be truth. Especially when the lie is repeated over and over again. You're a scientist, Doctor. You know your Pavlov. Enough repetition and the dog salivates, enough skillful repetition and the man salivates—or believes. And don't forget, Pavlov was a Russian."
“Well...” He paused, scowling.
Buff patted her dad's hand, got up and looked at Monique, and they both automatically went off toward the rest rooms. It's a funny thing, but it seems that women are constitutionally incapable of going to the john alone. Whether two or more, they leave en masse, like a parade.
I watched them go, and had some of my drink.
Dr. Buffington stared intently at me and said, with the manner of a man who has solved a vexing problem, “Shell, I fear you have succumbed to McCarthyite brainwashing."
“Come off it. I've succumbed to facts. As for brainwashing, my friend, the shoe is on the other foot. We've got a very clever gang of pro-Red salesmen in the States—in the press, television and radio, publishing, movies, schools, government agencies—any place where spoken and written words can be used to shape opinion or policy. They feed us a whitewashed Red line, and we swallow it—"
“Nonsense. The American people have more sense than to be influenced by obvious Communist propaganda."
“It isn't ever called Communist, it's called American. And it isn't obvious or it wouldn't be effective propaganda. They don't hit us with a red club, just tap us lightly with a soft pink sap—over and over and over, like the ringing of the Pavlovian bell.” I paused. “It's all in knowing how to make the dogs salivate, Doc. And they know how."
He frowned. “As a scientist, I am fully aware of what can be done to condition animals, Shell. Even people. It could happen in a police state, perhaps, but not in the United States."
I sighed. “O.K. But the next time some fat issue involving Russia or Communism comes up, watch the same pink and pro-Red cats start shoving the Russia-Communist angle into the background and concentrating instead on America's errors, or Red hysteria, or McCarthyism—whatever the current Party line happens to be. Watch them play up Russia's successes and America's failures, while at the same time playing down Russia's failures and America's successes. With the natural result that a lot of people gradually start believing the Russian molehill is a mountain, and the American mountain is a molehill. Which ain't the truth, Doc—but which sure helps Russia's phony propaganda. As you did today, by the way."
“You reactionary imbecile. In my speech, I spoke from sincere and honest conviction, from the depths of my heart—"
“I would prefer more of your head—"
“—and not even an imbecile like you will deny that the Russian peoples, even the Communists, are human beings. Should we ignore this, like ostriches? They are our Russian brothers! And we are our brother's keeper!"
I grinned. “Maybe so, Doc. He sure needs a keeper."
His face started getting red, and he gulped the last of his highball. I looked around, hissed at a waiter and signaled for more drinks. The Mexican cigarette girl was across the room, facing away from me, bending over. Man, I thought, she looks almost as good from this end. The hell with Communists.
When I turned back to the doctor he was staring across the room, and for a moment I thought I'd jarred him. But that wasn't it. Buff and Monique were parading back, looking content. The girls sat down and Buff said, “Still jabbering away, aren't you?"
“Still jabbering,” I said. “But we are about out of jabber."
Dr. Buffington said, “Imbecile."
He said it pleasantly, but he still looked a little steamed up, so I said quietly, “Hell, you know what I mean, Doc. Shaping public opinion, whether it's in international relations or home-grown subversion is like the public relations business. Control enough of the words reaching people and you can make most of them believe damn near anything. You can make them believe—falsely—that Chiang is a ‘corrupt dictator’ and Mao Tse-tung is simply an agrarian reformer; that Batista is a ‘corrupt dictator’ and Castro's a Cuban Robin Hood; that Rhee and Trujillo are ‘corrupt dictators’ but Red dictators are democratic reformers—hell, isn't that what's happened, what's happening right now? Don't we sell out our friends and pay off our enemies? Man, control enough of those words and you can make the whole world go to war, or refuse to; make people afraid of the Bomb, or Fallout, or the giant Russian Molehill; practically make people strip naked in the streets."
Monique gurgled.
I looked at her.
“That last one,” she said, “should be interesting."
I grinned at her. “Yeah. Be fun trying, anyway. Might take a long time with the prudish ones."
“Like me."
“Yeah, like you, dear."
Then: “Cigarettes, cigarros, cigarettes?"
I turned my head. And there she was, it was, they were—the Mexican cigarette girl. She was leaning toward me over the tray of cigarettes, and it looked as if she were going to go up in smokes.
“Cigarettes?"
“Hello,” I said. “But of course."
We finally settled on a package of Belmonts. She pulled the little red strip, opening the pack, tore the top half open and pulled one cigarette partly out of the package. Service. All kinds of service. She cleverly stayed bent over while she made change for a twenty-peso note I gave her, and by the time I got my change I'd ripped the cellophane off the pack and badly bent one of the cigarettes.
When t
he girl left, Buff said dryly, “I'll bet she sells lots of cigarettes,” and Monique put in, “Shell, did you have to give her ten pesos?"
“Oh, that,” I said. “What's money? Eighty cents. Share the wealth. Poor hard-working girl—"
They ha-ha'd together. I let them ha-ha while I told them I was only kidding, I'd thought it was one peso. We batted the conversation around for a while, then ordered dinner. I had breast of pheasant. After some of the finest food in Mexico the conversation, which had entered a lull, spurted up again. The doctor held forth for a while about his work.
After his wife's death from polio two years ago, Dr. Buffington had begun compiling all available statistics on cases of polio, and deaths from the disease, among both vaccinated and unvaccinated victims.
He said, “I have since carefully investigated the Cutter incident, the epidemics in Massachusetts, Des Moines, Rhode Island and elsewhere, and the overall record, from 1955 to the present. It has become obvious to me that the Salk vaccine in many cases, rather than protecting the recipients against polio, caused them to contract polio."
I said, “Huh?"
He smiled slightly. “The usual reaction. It is my conclusion, however. The facts show clearly that a large percentage of those who have contracted polio—usually of the paralytic type—had received three or more Salk shots; some have died. The figures are impressive. Whether the vaccine caused the disease in those victims, or merely failed to give any protection whatsoever, might be argued by some; but if the rate of occurrence in those vaccinated, even three and four or more times, is a coincidence, it is an ugly coincidence. Moreover, the incidence of polio is rapidly increasing—particularly the paralytic type."
He went on to state facts and figures and medical theory, most of it over the rocks in my head, then explained that his own approach to combating the disease had been on a chemical basis. He was attempting to find a nontoxic chemical combination which, when introduced into the weakened body, would accelerate the body's own defense mechanisms temporarily, invigorating them sufficiently that they could throw off the disease in the same manner as a normally healthy body would.
His voice rose a little as he went on, “As my work progressed, it became evident that if such an approach proved efficacious in the treatment of poliomyelitis, there was no reason why it should not be equally effective against other diseases. The prospect is immensely exciting."
I let that sink in. “You mean—if it worked, that is—you could eliminate all disease?"
He smiled. “Not quite that exciting, Shell. But perhaps most cases of disease caused by viruses or bacterial invasion.” He paused. “Basically my approach is an attempt to strengthen—temporarily—the body's own natural defenses, chemically, rather than through the introduction of disease into the healthy body, or polluting a clean bloodstream."
“Well, you're the doctor, Doctor. But that makes sense even to an imbecile like me."
He grinned. I asked him, “How are you doing?"
“I'm close. Very close. I've seen amazing recoveries among animals. Another year or two, perhaps ... Of course, there have been many disheartening failures."
As he went on, I glanced around and spotted a big, good-looking Mexican ogling our table. With Buff and Monique here the table was worth ogling, and it occurred to me that maybe it was a little goofy for the Doc and me to be sitting with these two delightful dolls and talking about dead experimental apes. The peculiar way they'd died interested me, though.
A little over two months back, Dr. Buffington had shot some new gook into experimental chimpanzees. Their movements became jerky, disoriented; they blundered around their cages, banging into the bars, then fell, twitched a bit, and died. He'd followed up on that particular formula and found out what was wrong. I didn't get it all, but he gave me a lot of technical stuff about dendrites, and synapses becoming inoperable, and the nervous system rotting away. What it boiled down to, as far as I was concerned, was that the synapse is like a bridge the nerve impulse has to cross, and that the bridges were out; consequently no messages or orders could be transmitted between the brain and any affected part of the body. The Doc had some very jerky apes there for a while.
“Screwy,” I said. “This nerve gook knocked off the chimps, huh?"
“Well, they actually died of suffocation—couldn't breathe. They'd have died anyway from any of a number of other complications.” He paused. “You might say that the injection overstimulated the entire nervous system, burned it out, in effect—with the weakest or most susceptible links in the nerve chains succumbing first. In layman's language, a little like sending too much current through a wire."
I thought about a wire getting red hot and then melting; and millions of nerves overstimulated, writhing, dying. “Nasty stuff to have lying around."
He grinned wryly. “You may be sure none is. I destroyed even my notes on that particular experiment, once it was concluded. If I hadn't, it would have been much like leaving poison unmarked."
“Or poison gas. The stuff sounds something like the nerve gases you hear about. As possible weapons in war, I mean."
“Yes, somewhat.” He nodded. “But this was more deadly than anything I've heard of. I was using incredibly minute quantities.” He frowned. “What's in your mind occurred to me, of course. I learned enough about it to guess that it would make an unbelievably horrible weapon, relatively simple to produce. But I destroyed everything."
Buff broke in. “Not till he got a whiff of the stuff, though. Nearly killed him."
The doctor shrugged. “I was careless. Didn't realize how volatile the liquid was, how quickly it became gas at normal temperatures, and I got a—a whiff of it. The barest trace, fortunately, but I had a bad time of it for a few hours. Cold skin, cold sweat, I felt like a walking corpse. Fast heartbeat and shortness of breath, weakness, a terrible anxiety. And a panicky feeling out of all proportion to the real danger, even though I could do nothing to counteract the effects. That was really the worst part, the fear of ... well, not of anything specific. Just an all-pervading fear."
I shook my head. “Nasty stuff, indeed, Doctor. And you agree it would make a very nasty weapon. Lord knows what we'll have in the next war, besides the bombs. Or, more likely, instead of the bombs."
After a minute's silence he said, “I've thought a good deal about that. Naturally some of my colleagues knew about my experiments. Word got around, apparently, and I was twice approached by men from the Army and asked about psychological and lethal effects of the liquid. One man, a colonel, came all the way from Fort Detrick, Maryland—the U.S. Army Chemical Corps installation there, where so-called nerve-gas and other experiments have been conducted—and suggested that I return to Fort Detrick with him.” He sighed. “I told both men I had destroyed everything, that the effects were accidental and I could not reproduce my experiments."
“You destroyed your notes, Doc, but they must still be in your brain. It would drive me nuts carrying that around."
He nodded and said soberly, “That's true, Shell, but I told them what I tell you now. My life is devoted to saving lives. I refuse to let my brain father such a monster."
He had spoken in such somber tones that it was almost spooky, and I felt fine hairs wiggle at the back of my neck. “Hope nobody ever changes your mind, Doc,” I said.
Buff drummed on the table with red fingernails. “That's enough of your gruesome old conversations. Absolutely, bloody well enough. If this continues one second more I'll pick me up a Latin lover. Have you noticed how many good-looking men there are here? And women?"
“Ah,” I said.
“He has.” Monique pinched me again.
“Sure,” I said, “but you two tomatoes—"
“Don't call me one of your tomatoes,” Buff said.
“Ladies stand out, even in Mexico.” It was true enough, but my point was that nowhere else, not even in Hollywood or Las Vegas, had I seen so many striking women—and not a flat chest among them. I didn't quite know how to
explain this to the girls, however.
I was glancing idly around while the conversation was cooking and I noticed an example of one of the “good-looking guys” Buff had mentioned. It was the same one I'd seen before, a regular Latin slicker with black wavy hair and a thick black mustache. He was barrel-chested and a little rough-looking. Sort of a Latin Hemingway type. He'd been gone for a while, but he was back again, and still ogling. He sat alone now at the next table and was staring at Buff, rather insolently, I thought.
A good many Mexican men are, while not insolent, merely more open and obvious in their admiration when they find something to admire than guys from, say, California or New York, Mexicans being quite sensible about such things. But this guy was insolent; it was the way he looked and where he looked, and the way be was wiggling his eyes and lips, and maybe ears, and no telling what all.
I didn't like it. I tried to ignore the guy. He wasn't to be ignored.
“Seems to like you,” I said.
“Or something,” Buff said. “I wish he'd go away."
He didn't. He kept ogling for a minute, then got up and came to our table. He leaned over Buff.
“Hi, baby,” he said thickly. “I'll buy you a drink, baby.” He sounded drunk, but his English was perfect.
Buff turned her head away from him. “No, thank you,” she said softly.
“Let's have fun,” he said. “Lots of fun. You and—"
“Beat it,” I said. “Vanish. Take a walk."
He turned slowly toward me. “You want to know what you can do to yourself? I'll tell you."
I could feel the slow flush, the blood creeping up my neck, the pulse-thud in my throat and wrists. I bit my lip and kept the heat down inside me; I sure as hell didn't want a big scene here in the Monte Cassino. Besides, I don't usually go around popping people unless it's absolutely necessary. This guy was about my height and husky enough, but unless he'd been stuffed with as much lethal training as I'd got in the Marines and as a detective, he simply wasn't in my class. That's no particular credit to me, but I didn't want to mess with the guy, even though I wasn't worried about the beef.
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