“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 cliché. 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)
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 split-brained.
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 advantage 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 though 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 center. Men and women rose from the chairs around it as he came in. He answered their good-mornings, thr
ew 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.
Work moved along smoothly if the squabbles and arguments and subtle insults were not considered. These, however, were a part of TV and empathorium-making and to be taken in stride. The first two scenes scheduled for the morning were graphed and regraphed until perfect. Repp had a short but hot dispute with Bakaffa, the government censor, over the use of holographed subtitles. Repp claimed that they distracted the viewer and were not necessary because they had been in so many shows that the audience knew what the archaic words were. Bakaffa insisted that “nigger” and “wop” and “saw-bones” and “accumulation of interest” and “gat” and “rod” and “pansy” and “morphadite” would not be understood by at least half the audience. Whether they did or did not understand these ancient words made no difference. The government required that all such be explained in subtitles.
Repp lost, but he had the satisfaction of driving Bakaffa close to tears. He was not sadistic. He just wanted to make Bakaffa earn his extra pay as a government informer.
At ten minutes after one, during the third scene, the main character’s left leg suddenly shrank to half its length. The technicians tried to locate the malfunction in the holograph-projector, but they failed because the trouble-shooting equipment had also malfunctioned.
“OK,” Repp said. “It’s twenty minutes to lunchtime, anyway. We’ll eat now. Maybe the trouble’ll be fixed by the time we get back.”
After he had eaten, he strode down the wide corridor of the first floor from the sandwich shop. The sun coming through the story-high windows shone whitely on his Western outfit, and his high heels clickety-clicked loudly. Many recognized him, and some stopped him to get his autograph. He spoke his name and ID number into their recorders, said he was sure glad to meet them, and strode on. There was one embarrassing though not entirely unpleasing incident. A beautiful young woman begged him to take her to his or her apartment and do what he would. He turned her down graciously, but when she got on her knees and put both arms around his legs, he had to call to two organics to pry her loose.
“No charges,” he told them. “Just see that she doesn’t impede this pilgrim’s progress.”
“I love you, Wyatt!” the woman cried out after him. “Ride me like a pony! Fire me like a six-shooter!”
Red-faced but grinning as he got on the elevator, Repp muttered, “Jesus Christ!”
Since he and his wife had agreed to be chaste while they were separated by her Chilean expedition, he had not bedded a woman. He was honest enough to admit to himself that his celibacy had not been based solidly on morality or lack of desire for any but his wife. He needed a rest from sex; he had to recharge his battery, as it were. Though he had a wife on every day but Sunday, more than one on Thursday, and thus each day should have been stimulated afresh, much like a rooster in a barnyard, he was sometimes not up to the freshness and the challenge. His gonads did not use the same system or arithmetic as his mind.
Feeling good because he was wanted but did not want, he walked into his office and sat down at his desk. Strips displayed messages for him, number-one priority being from his wife, Jane-John. She looked happy because she was coming home next Friday. Stoned, she would be loaded into a plane on Saturday, tomorrow, and delivered to the airport the same day. From there, she would be cargoed via dirigible to the Thirteen-Principles Towers. He was to pick her up next Friday at one in the morning. Or, if he could not make it, she would take a taxi.
Jane-John Wilford Denpasat was a beautiful dark-skinned woman with depigged blonde hair and depigged blue eyes.
“I love my work, Wyatt, but it’s getting to be a drag because we have to be transported two hundred miles every day from the digs to the nearest stoning station. And I miss you terribly. See you soon, bucko. I can hardly wait.”
Waiting was easy for her despite what she had said. Unconscious people did not fret and fume or get nervous. And, though he would not be stoned every day until next Friday, he would be someone else and so not thinking about her. New Era society did have its disadvantages, but it also had many benefits. Check and balance; tit for tat; give and take; loss and profit.
Though the strips had not shown a chess move since Tuesday, Repp still felt disappointed that there was none today. He thought of Yankev Gril—Jimmy Cricket—and felt keen regret that their game had had to be dropped. Where was Gril now? Still playing in Washington Square Park? In jail? Stoned and awaiting trial? Or convicted and permanently stoned?
His other messages concerned business. The most important was a reminder that he was a guest on the ILL Show. He should be in the studio at 7:30, and he would be on at 8:00 sharp.
No immer had tried to get into contact with him via strip or in person. That omission was, he supposed, good news.
21.
At the end of the workday, Repp taxied home. After working out on a gym set, he showered and then ate a light supper. He arrived at the Thirteen-Principles Towers Building at exactly 7:25 P.M. and was in the studio at 7:30. Here he was made comfortable by the secretary of the host of the ILL Show, Ras Irving Lenin Lundquist. During coffee, he read the strip display that described the guest list and the topics and suggested a few witty remarks he might like to make.
At 8:40, Repp left the studio. He was satisfied with his performance, though several of Lundquist’s remarks had stung him. It was good publicity to be seen on the ILL Show, hosted by the self-styled Gray Monk of the Mind. Lundquist avoided the showy and flamboyant and went for the serious and the intellectual. Instead of dazzling stage scenes and a startling and flashy costume, the studio room was modeled like the host’s idea of a medieval monk’s cell. Clad in a gray robe, he sat on a chair behind a desk on a platform that was a foot higher than the guests’ chairs. Lundquist was thus able to give the impression that he was the inquisitor-general of Spain and that his guests were on trial. During the nasty questions and comments he hurled at Repp, Repp made the studio audience laugh. He asked Lundquist when he was bringing in the rack and the iron maiden. Because the ILL Show audience was composed mostly of the better-educated
or those who thought they were, Repp could be assured that it understood the references. That was one of the reasons Repp had exposed himself to the barbs and insults. Another was that he hoped to give as good as or better than he got. Also, it was well known that Lundquist, no matter how he seemed to despise his guests, invited only those he thought had somehow managed to get at least in the neighborhood of his intellectual eminence.
Lundquist attacked Repp on the premise that his character was insecure and shaky.
“You seem to be hung up on role-changing and shapeshifting, Ras Repp. I need enumerate only a few of your movies, which reflect this obsession, this compulsion, which, in turn, reflects the basic core of your being. Or perhaps I should say, reflects the lack of stable identity. There are, for instance, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Odyssey, Proteus at Miami, Helen of Troy, and Custer and Crazy Horse: Two Parallels That Met.
“All these have to do with disguises, hallucinations, or illusions about identity, or changing of shapes and, hence, change of identity or a seeming change. Curiously enough, you are best known as the man who writes the best Westerns. In fact, as the man who resurrected the Western drama, which had been dead for a thousand years. Some say, better dead.
“Yet those works which have attracted the attention and even the blessing of some art critics have not been Westerns. Except, of course, for your Custer and Crazy Horse. And that is a most curious Western. Custer and Crazy Horse both get the idea that they’ll go to a medicine man, get shape-changing powers from the medicine man, adopt each other’s shapes, and lead their enemies to their deaths. Of course, neither knows that the other is doing this. Thus, Custer-as-Crazy Horse kills Crazy Horse-as-Custer, and then, unable to change his shape, is killed by whites.”
Lundquist smiled his infamous smile, which had been likened to, among other things, a vagina with teeth.
“I have it from a reliable source that your current work-in-progress, Dillinger Didn’t Die, is based on a remarkably similar idea. In fact, your protagonist, the ancient bank robber, escapes from the FBI, the organics of the twentieth century, by magically turning into a woman. He does this by getting his moll, I mean, his woman lover, Billie Frechette, an Indian of the Wisconsin Menominee tribe, to take him to the tabu abode of Wabosso, the Great White Hare, the Menominee Trickster. This creature of ancient Indian legend and folk tale gives Dillinger the power to turn into a woman at an appropriate time.