Chapter 19
Just as he passed the little park on West Fourth east of the canal, he saw headlights behind him. He was too tired to swear. A patrol car? Probably. He could not even get out of the van and run. An eighty-year-old could catch him on foot now. The car swung out to pass him, then slowed to match the pace of his van. A window went down, and the man behind the wheel shouted at him. What he said was drowned in thunder, though the window on Dunski's right was up and so would have muted the man's voice. Dunski put that window down and shouted a question at him. The driver was not in uniform, and the car was unmarked. That did not mean the two in the car were not organics. However, if they were, why had they not slapped the orange flasher on top of their car? Perhaps they were immers sent to aid him.
He stopped the van and waited for the two to come to him. They were organics. But they were also immers, and they had been dispatched to see that he got a ride. Gaunt had been warned by one of the guards across the street that Dunski was not leaving at once as ordered. They were on their way to pick him up when Headquarters had ordered them to Jones Street. Someone had called in about the shooting.
"I'll tell you later what happened," Dunski said. "Just now, get the stoned woman into your trunk. I'll leave the van here." The man's partner, a woman, said, "We have orders to take you to our superior." Dunski turned the motor and lights off and got out. The woman hurried to help unload Snick. Dunski said, "Oh, I forgot!" and he wiped the wheel and the door handle of the van with his handkerchief. Then he crawled into the back seat of the car and lay down. The trunk lid slammed, and the two got into the front seat. "Maybe he should have gone into the trunk, too," the woman said.
The man did not reply. The woman spoke into a wristwatch in a voice too low for Dunski to distinguish the words. Not the organic frequency, Dunski thought. The man drove to Wornanway, two patrol cars, sirens wailing, passing him toward the west. The car turned left to go north on Womanway, turned right on East Fourteenth Street, and then left onto Second Avenue. Just past Stuyvesant Square, the car stopped before a block building. Dunski had seen this before, a structure resembling the Taj Mahal, though smaller. It housed high government officials and also contained the offices of many residents, stores, an empathorium, a restaurant, and a gymnasium. The situation must be bad indeed. Only if the council had no other way out would he have been brought here.
The man stayed in the car to listen to the organic channels. The woman conducted him into a large marble corridor lined by the stoned bodies of elegantly clothed officials who had once trod these halls of power. Some of them needed dusting. They stopped at one of the elevator doors, where the woman said, "He's here," to a wall strip.
"He'll come up alone," a deep male voice said. "You get back to your post. After the disposal."
"Yes, Oom," the woman said. She did not leave, however, until Dunski had gotten on the elevator and the doors were closing. He rose to a floor in the dome, got out into a luxuriously carpeted and decorated hail, and said to the man waiting there, "Dunski." The man nodded and escorted him down the hall to a door. Its plaque bore two names, Piet Essex Vermeulen and Mia Owen Baruch. He knew the names, though he had never met their owners. They were his second cousins, once removed, Vermeulen on the paternal side and Baruch on the maternal. Since they were related to him, he had surmised that they were immers. Until now, he had had no proof of that.
That they were among the loftiest officials was evident by their single occupancy of the apartment. They had antiques and knickknacks and wallpaper, numerous items that did not have to be stored six days out of the week. Their situation was even superior to that of his friend of Tuesday, Commissioner-General Horn, who shared her apartment with one other, a woman of Thursday.
Vermeulen, a tall thin man, took Dunski's rain apparel and hung it up. His short and thin wife asked Dunski if he wanted anything to drink or eat. He spoke hoarsely and slowly, "A bourbon and a sandwich, thank you. I'd also like to use your toilet."
When he returned to the living room, he sat down on a huge stuffed couch covered with factory-grown fur. His pants and shoes were wetting the sofa and the carpet, but he did not care.
Mia Baruch brought him the drink and then sat down by him. He swallowed a fourth of it and sighed.
Vermeulen sat down but said nothing until Dunski had eaten his sandwich. "Now," he said, hitching forward in his chair, "you report everything. My people gave me some details on radio, and I've had reports from other days and from your immediate superior. But I want the whole story, all that's relevant, that is."
Dunski gave it to him, stopped now and then by questions from Vermeulen and Baruch. When Vermeulen was satisfied that he had heard all, he sat back, his fingers church-steepled.
"It's a mess, but it can be cleaned up. The organics won't be looking for Castor now, but there's all those dead men. The authorities will be wondering what they had to do with him. They'll research the dead, study their bio-data, review every recorded minute of their lives, seek out and interview people who knew them. They'll try to connect all of them. I don't think they'll solve the mystery. Let's hope they don't. We've covered our tracks very thoroughly. But you never know what little meaningful item they might find."
"What about next Wednesday?" Dunski said. "The organics will be questioning me. As Bob Tingle, I mean. If they get suspicious, they'll use truth mist. You know what that means."
Vermeulen dismissed the possibility with a wave of his hand. "What do they have? The lock that Castor ruined was replaced before the paramedicais got there. Your weapon was taken away. You had an accident, slipped on a piece of soap and struck your head, that's all. Our people in Wednesday, some very high-placed officials, will take care of all that."
He was probably right, Dunski thought. But too many immers had become involved in getting him out of this mess, and too many knew one or more of his identities.
Vermeulen said, "You've covered your tracks well. However, there may be witnesses, people who looked out from the nearby buildings and saw you."
"It was raining hard, it was dark, and I was wearing a coat and hood," Dunski said. "Could I have another drink? Thank you. Some people did come out just as I was getting into the van, but they didn't get close. And the clouds stopped the sky-eyes from following me."
"I know that," Vermeulen said. "The organics will work on this until close to midnight, then they'll close shop. They'll leave messages for Tuesday's and Wednesday's authorities. But those will consider the matter closed. Castor, an obvious psychopath, has been killed. End of the trail. Today, though .. there's all those corpses. That's Thursday's business only, but the immers in other days will be notified of this so that they can come up with something to erase all tracks. A false explanation, maybe. That might be best." His face lit up. "Any explanation, if it seems to fit, will be better than none. They'll keep an unsolved case in the bank, theoretically always active. Solved, it'll be in the history section."
Dunski fought to keep his eyes open.
"That's probably the best plan. Only ..
"Only what?"
"What about Snick?"
Vermeulen shook his head and said, "Garchar went too far." (Garchar must be the man I called "Gaunt," Dunski thought.) "I wouldn't have condoned killing her, though the mutilation would have been blamed on Castor, a very good idea. But I don't think I could have done it. I can't fault Garchar. He was in command and had no time to check with us. Still ... anyway, that's past. Snick will stay stoned and will be put in a safe place."
Vermeulen church-steepled his fingers again.
"Today won't miss her. They'll think she's off on her own chase, if they'll think about her at all. Castor's kept them pretty busy. And what happens tomorrow? Will Snick appear at organics HQ with her visa and her orders from Sunday? No, she won't. So, how will Friday know that she's supposed to appear? It won't, and the following days won't know about her, either. Nobody will know that she's missing until Sunday comes and she doesn't report to her supe
riors. Sunday can do nothing about it except to leave inquiries for the following days. When Sunday comes again, it will get the news that Snick disappeared on Thursday. We'll have plenty of time to get ready for then, and we might not have to do anything at all."
"I hope so," Dunski said. He thought about Panthea Snick, cold and hard, stuck somewhere, perhaps for centuries, until she was found, if she was ever found.
"Poor man," Mia Baruch said, patting his hand.
Dunski looked at her, and she said, "Your wives ... murdered, so ghastly."
"He got his revenge, anyway," Vermeulen said.
She snatched her hand away and moved away from him. Of course. He had killed a man. It did not matter that he had done so in self-defense or that Castor should have been killed. She was repulsed by the idea of sitting so close to such a violent man.
"I know that revenge doesn't bring back the dead," Dunski said. "It's an old clichй. But revenge does have a certain satisfaction."
Baruch sniffed and moved further away. Dunski managed a tired grin and said, "What about Rupert von Hentzau, my wife?"
"She's been notified," Vermeulen said. "She'll set up your dummy for you in your cylinder. Or, as I suggested, she should leave the commune tonight, tell them that you and she are divorcing them. Some excuse. If she does leave, she'll go to an emergency stoner. She'll take your tomorrow's bag with her. Whether she leaves or not, she's made arrangements to get your bag to you. She sent her love to you and said she'll see you tomorrow. That is, next Thursday."
Dunski saw no reason to tell him that he had planted duplicate bags around the city.
Vermeulen paused, then said, "As for you, you'll stay here. There's no problem with that, is there?"
"You know that my wife, Friday's, is in South America on an archaeological dig?"
"Of course. I had to inquire about her because I had to make sure about your situation."
The man knew too much about him, but it could not be helped.
"I'm very tired," Dunski said. "I'd like to shower and then get to bed. It's been an ordeal."
Vermeulen stood up and said, "I'll show you to your room. When you wake up, we'll probably be gone. You can get yourself breakfast and let yourself out. I've left a message for your superior, tomorrow's, that is. I just told him that you'd transmit the relevant data. I suppose your superior will get in touch with you as quickly as possible."
"It depends on whether he thinks it's necessary."
The bedroom was luxurious and had a king-sized bed that could be let down by chains from the ceiling. Vermeulen pushed a button on a wall panel, and the bed lowered slowly, then settled on its legs, which had extended from the posts during its descent.
"If anything happens before Mia and I stone, I'll leave a message. That strip there," he pointed, "will be flashing. You can get a night robe from that closet."
"Very posh," Dunski said. "I'm not used to such high class."
"We have greater responsibilities, so we deserve more," Vermeulen said.
Dunski bade him good night. After Vermeulen had closed the door, Dunski tried the door. It was locked. He brushed his teeth with a disposable brush he found in the bathroom cabinet, showered, and got into bed. The sleep he had expected to come so quickly was not on schedule. Derailed somewhere. Images of Ozma, Nokomis, and Castor tramped through the hall of his mind. He began trembling. Tears flowed, though they did not last long. He got up and went to a small bar in a corner, another luxury, and poured four ounces of Social Delight No. 1, another luxury, into a glass. Fifteen minutes passed while he walked back and forth, his legs drained of strength but unable to stop moving, the drink in his hand. Just as he was downing the last of it, he saw Wyatt Repp, grinning under his white ten-gallon hat.
Wyatt said, "I should have been in that glorious gunfight, Shootout on Jones Street, not you! I would've loved it!"
"It isn't midnight yet," Dunski muttered as Wyatt faded away.
After he got into bed, he began weeping. Images of Snick cold and hard as a diamond were reflected on all sides in the crazyhouse mirrors of his mind. As he floated into a gusty sleep, he thought, I shouldn't be grieving more for her than for the others. It isn't right.
Friday-World
VARIETY, Second Month of the Year
D5-W1 (Day-Five, Week-One)
Chapter 20
Wyatt Bumppo Repp strode from his apartment, went down the hail, and stopped before the elevator. His white ten-gallon hat, scarlet neckerchief, ruffle-necked and balloon-sleeved purple shirt, factory-grown black leather vest, huge belt with a massive buckle embossed with a cowboy on a bucking bronco, tight sky-blue jeans fringed with leather at the seams, and high-heeled white tooled leather boots bearing decals of crossed six-shooters were worn by only one man in Friday. Wyatt Repp, the great TV writer-director-producer of Westerns and historical dramas. The only item lacking-he was irked by this-were elegantly tooled holsters and elegantly embossed toy pistols. The government said no to that. If little boys could not play with toy weapons, why should this big boy? He would set a bad example.
Never mind that the government did not restrict the showing of weapons or violence on strips and in empathoria. This government, like all since the founding of Sumer, was splitbrained.
Though the tenants waiting for the elevator had seen him often, they stared at him admiringly and greeted him enthusiastically. Repp basked in the sun of their regard. At the same time, he felt a smidgen of shame because he was taking advan tage of their ignorance and was, in a sense, a sham. No real cowboy ever dressed like this, and real cowboys had never carried a shoulderbag. However, they should have known this, since his TV shows portrayed cowboys as realistically as research allowed.
The tenants greeted him loudly and exuberantly. Repp replied softly, true to the tradition of the low-voiced and gentle hero who was, nevertheless, as tough as they come. "Smile when you call me that, stranger."
On the way down in the elevator, he answered as best he could the questions of the passengers about his forthcoming drama. When they got to the lobby, all scattered and went their own ways. His heels clicking on the marble floor of the lobby, he strode out into the bright sun and cool air. He got into the waiting taxi, and replied softly to the driver's greeting. The driver, having been told via strip of Repp's destination, drove from the corner of East Twenty-third Street and Park Avenue to Second Avenue. He turned the taxi right and drove to the rear of the block building that had once been the site of the Beth Israel Medical Center. The Manhattan State Institute of Visual Arts was a six-story building looking more like a corkscrew than anything. This had, of course, given rise to jokes about what the institute was doing to the public.
The driver opened the door and said, "The storm sure cleared the air and cooled things off, Ras Repp."
"It cleared up and cooled off a lot of things," Repp said. "You have no idea, pardner."
Events were back in a steady and normal course. Castor was dead. Snick was hidden. The immers were covering up and straightening out the trail. Today could go as the days past had. He would have problems, but they would stem from his profession, not from the acts of criminals and organics pursuing those criminals. Although-he grinned-there were some who said that his dramas were crimes.
He felt elated, and his walk was springy as he strode across the sidewalk and entered the walk leading to the building. The passersby stared at him, some calling to him thbugh he did not know them. The great fountain midway between the sidewalk and the building shot water from the tops of the heads of the group on the pedestal in its center. There were twelve men and women there, stone, not stoned, statues of great visual artists of the recent past. Perhaps his statue would be among them someday. The spray fell upon his face and cooled it. He saluted the twelve as he passed them, and he walked between the rows of giant oaks and entered the nine-sided door. An elevator took him to the top floor, where he greeted the receptionist. The room beyond was large and dome-shaped with a huge round table in the cente
r. Men and women rose from the chairs around it as he came in. He answered their good-mornings, threw his hat on the table, put his bag on the floor, and sat down. His girl Friday, a man, brought him coffee. Repp looked at the time strip on the wall. "Ten o'clock," he said. "Exactly on time."
Another wall strip was recording his actions and speech. It would tell the government work-monitors that he had not delayed between inserting his ID disc-tip into the office door and his entry into the room. Visual artists were not given credit by the hour; they were paid as specified in their contracts with the Department of Arts. This gave them a weekly credit, the amount varying according to the government-decreed stature of the artist. If the project was finished on schedule, the artist concerned did not have to refund a certain amount of credit. If the project was under schedule, the artist was given a bonus. And if the government visual arts committee decided that the quality of the project was high enough, it awarded the artist another bonus.
The artists, however, could put in as many hours as they wished to make sure that the project was done in time or to raise the quality.
The arrangement was not one that most artists liked. In fact, most of them, including Repp, detested it. They could do nothing about it except to make a formal organized protest. This they had done several times. So far, without success.
Nevertheless, although the schedule was the only really important item for the government, aside from the budget, of course, the monitors kept a close watch on the time put in by the artists.
Some things had not changed since the ancient days of Hollywood. Repp, for instance, was getting triple credits because he was the chief scriptwriter, the chief director, and a lead actor. He had used his own influence and that of an immer on the visual arts committee to secure three simultaneous positions. The political jockeying and jousting had cost Repp many evenings, not to mention many credits for giving parties, but the effort had been worth it. If he could keep the triple positions for his next show, he could get a bigger apartment. If one was available.
Dayworld Page 15