The Tomorrow File Page 10
“What are you going to say to Lydia Ferguson when you meet her?”
“ ‘Happy to meet you, Lydia.’ ”
“Be serious. I mean after, when you talk to her. Are you going to ask if you can see her home?”
“First I’m going to ask if she likes Italian food.”
“Italian food? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“You’ve forgotten. Mary’s autopsy report. Harris had consumed proveal, propep, spaghetti, and red petrowine four hours before he was stopped.”
I went over to the branch of the American National Bank located within the compound. The ANB was one of Lewisohn’s ideas. It had been sold to the Congress as a “standard by which civilian banking could be judged.” A lot of kaka, of course. Lewisohn realized that, with more than five million adult servers, the government was missing a good bet in not establishing a bank to cater to their financial needs. The ANB offered a full range of services. How would you like to be a banker with five million depositors?
I handed over my BIN and told the server how much love I wanted. Checks were obsolete, it was paperless banking. A computer checked my account, okayed the transaction, made the debit, and I was handed my 200 new dollars. Fast and painless. I didn’t like to think of what would happen if the people fiddling the Satrat computer decided to fiddle bank computers. Instant chaos.
I walked back to my office slowly, wondering if there was any possible way to obtain a printout of Angela Berri’s bank account. I Was still pondering her use of a beachhouse owned by a foundation financed by corporations to whom we sold licenses and, on occasion, gave invaluable free assistance. It might be interesting to compare the dates of her deposits, for instance, with the dates of contract grants to Walker & Clarke Chemicals.
But even if I could obtain her bank record, I couldn’t believe that intelligent, ambitious ef would be stupid enough to deposit any more than a reasonable percentage of her rank-rate in the American National Bank. If she was on the suck, she was hiding the love somewhere else. There were many ways to do it. I could compute a few original methods myself.
I omitted lunch and devoted the afternoon to catching up on my “correspondence.” It went swiftly, since practically all communication was done by minicassettes. The dictation machine could make an original tape and up to five copies simultaneously, in case of multiple mailings. I usually made only an original and one copy for filing.
I rejected, as politely as possible, practically all the invitations I received to address conventions of professional associations, contribute to scientific journals, take part in symposia, engage in televised debates, etc. I accepted a few speaking engagements, offered by prestigious commercial and academic groups. Not solely for the personal prestige but because of the esteem my Division enjoyed. It was important, politically, to hyperactivate our image.
I got back to my apartment about 1730, stripped down, went into the kitchen, and mixed a tall vodka-and-Smack. It was petrovod— but with Smack you couldn’t taste the difference.
Of course, the day wasn’t over yet.
I took a bath. Something I rarely do, preferring to shower. But as a PS-3, I rated a tub. It seemed silly not to take advantage of it occasionally.
I dressed with more care than usual. A two-piece suit of the light blue metallic (the jacket collarless), and a turtleneck sweater of white plastisilk, woven with black bugle beads. I wore formal hoshoes of black nylon and black plastikid. My makeup, as usual, was minimal. I did wear a silver brooch studded with lapis lazuli. It had been given to me by Mother. She said it had belonged to her mother. It was pleasantly obso.
I was on my second vodka-and-Smack when Paul arrived.
Unfortunately, he was not very prepossessing, physically, but he
did very well with what he had. I noticed first the sequined eyeshadow and lip rouge, and a small, star-shaped beauty mark at one side of his chin. He was wearing a plum-colored velvet suit with a ruffled blouse of puce lace.
“What would you like?” I asked.
“You,” he said.
“To drink.”
“Vodka, please. By itself. Chilled.”
We slumped at opposite ends of the couch, sipping our drinks.
“I have something good for the Tomorrow File,” I said lazily, “but I don’t want to discuss it now. Let’s just relax.”
“Nervous?” he said.
I laughed. “You’re hyper.”
“It is important.”
“I suppose so. Have you ever met DIROB?”
“No. Never.”
“Meet him tonight. Introduce yourself. You’ve got to start meeting the movers and shakers.”
“What’s he like?”
“Pleasant enough. Dry palm-stroke. He smiles too much. And a gloss to him. Like all upper-rank pols. Hair, suit, eyes, skin—he shines. Not science-conditioned. He came up through social engineering. But don’t take him lightly. He’s survived. He smells the wind.”
Paul nodded. “I’ll be ever so worshipful. By the way, Mary Bergstrom hit the national lottery for a thousand.”
“Good for Mary,” I said. “Finished? Let’s go.”
Last year her apartment had been transformed into a fin de siecle Parisian bordello, all red velvet, black lace, and frolicking plaster cupids. This year her decorator had opted for a jungle village, with natural plants in tubs.
Angela Teresa Berri moved through the undergrowth smiling, white teeth gleaming against a skin dyed a tawny brown. She wore a sleeveless gown that appeared to be aluminum foil with a bonded surface of stretch plastic. It came high on her thorax, cleaved to her body, ended in a hemline of points halfway down her hard thighs.
If anyone doubted she wore nothing beneath, it was only necessary to view her from the back. She was almost completely exposed, low enough to display the Y-division of her buttocks. She wore no shoes, but leather thongs ringed her toes and wound tightly to her knees. She had a golden serpent thrice encircling her left bicep. The snake’s eyes were rubies.
Only she could have worn such a costume and made it believable. She was more than an ef, more than human. She was a primitive power. A force. It radiated from her. It went beyond sexuality.
Everyone in the Section with a rank of PS-4 and higher had been invited and was there. In addition, three other Deputy Directors were present, and a party of five had flown up from Washington, D.C.: DIROB Ferguson and his staff. All five were ems; none was accompanied by his wife. The Chief Director, it was rumored, had been invited but had sent his regrets. Something about another famine in Bangladesh.
No attempt was made at formal introductions. I slipped sideways through the crowd, carrying my sweetish petrorum punch in a plastic coconut shell, greeting familiar friends and acquaintances, sliding palms with two of Ferguson’s assistants I had not met before. Both had the gloss I had mentioned to Paul: the polish that increases in brilliance as you move up in Public Service, like a waxed surface drying to a hard shine.
Finally I came face to face with the Great Man himself, Franklin L. Ferguson, Director of Bliss.
“Good evening, sir,” I said. “Nice to see you again.”
We stroked palms automatically while his glazed eyes sought to focus.
“Flair!” he finally burst out, with a politician’s memory for names. “Nicholas Flair!”
“Right, sir.”
He smiled proudly. “Never forget a name. Let’s see—you’re a scientist, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I met Einstein once. When I was a youngster.”
“Did you, sir?”
“Sure did. As nice a guy as you’d want to meet.”
We went through this routine every time we met. It no longer annoyed me.
“See m’daughter?” he said.
“No, sir.”
“Around here somewhere,” he said vaguely.
A chubby ef from the Division of Law & Enforcement was thrust tightly up against him by the press of the throng. She giggled.
“Well there!” he said, and slid an arm about her waist. I left them to their rapture.
It was better out on the terrace. Too chilly for most of the guests. The air quality for the day had been deemed “Unsatisfactory,” but at least it smelled all right. You could see stars. In an hour, if I waited, I’d see Skylab No. 14 flash high overhead, southwest to northeast. There were efs and ems up there, serving, snoring in a Somnorific sleep, or watching Circus au Natural on TV. I wondered how my father’s contortionist was doing.
I was staring down in the brightly lit compound, watching a two-em security patrol saunter along the chainlink fence, flechette guns slung over their shoulders, when I became aware of someone standing at my side. Blond ef. Approximately twenty. About 165 cm. I supposed the object was Lydia Ann Ferguson, and Angela had suggested she slip out onto the terrace. “Say hello to that very handsome em over there by himself.”
She, too, was staring down at the chainlink barrier around the compound.
“Outside, the animals,” she said.
I turned to her. “What an odd thing to say.”
“The fence is to keep the animals out, isn’t it?”
“No. I serve here. The fence is to keep the animals in.”
She laughed at that.
“Nicholas Bennington Flair,” I said.
“Lydia Ann Ferguson,” she said.
We stroked palms.
“Your father is Director of Bliss, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said. “He is.”
“He rules me,” I said. “If you get a chance to talk to him—a deep, close, personal daughter-to-father communication—would you mind mentioning that the new PS-3 zipsuit doesn’t have any inside breast pocket, and I, for one, object?”
She laughed again. She laughed very easily.
My first response was negative. I was not usually attracted to very feminine efs with a soft serenity and an air of self-assurance. I could not endure sympathy and suffocating charm. I always thought they must smell of lavender and suffer from primary dyspareunia.
“Hungry?” I asked. “I can get a big dish of food and bring it out here. Save you from fighting the animals.”
“I’d like that.” “I think it’s pseudo-native slop,” I said. “Shredded coconut, rice balls, papaya, poi, roast pork, raw fish—things like that.” “Sounds good.”
“It does? What kind of food do you really like?”
“I like all kinds. I enjoy eating.”
Good-bye, Sherlock Holmes.
“Grab a table for us,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I was returning through the mob with a heaped platter, moving cautiously to avoid sliding a chunk of pickled octopus down an ef’s bodice, when Angela Berri caught my eye. She raised her brows in question. I nodded.
Lydia and I chatted casually while we sampled Angela’s “native delicacies.” Some had a surprisingly pungent flavor, to epithelial end organs atrophied by a constant diet of petroleum-based synthetics. The raw fish was especially good.
I asked Lydia where she served. She said she analyzed and coded essay-type questionnaires for Pub-Op, Inc. She asked me what my duties were. I was as brief as possible.
“Sounds fascinating,” she said.
“Not really. Just routine. Most of the Division’s responsibilities concern testing and approving or rejecting new commercial products: drugs, prosthetic devices, foods, toys, paints—things of that sort.”
“But don’t you do original research and development?”
“Oh, yes. A limited amount.”
“You have Fred, don’t you?”
“Yes, we have Fred.”
“What are you interested in mostly, Nick? I mean you, personally?”
“Me? Oh ... I don’t know. I guess my main interest is in procreation research and genetic engineering.”
She nodded, without speaking, and we resumed our nibbling. We talked of several inconsequential things, a pleasant enough conversation but hardly significant. She was patting her lips with a plas-tinap when, quite unexpectedly, she asked; “How is Hyman Lewisohn?”
Lewisohn’s illness was not a secret. It had been announced on all the TV news programs and published in facsimile newspapers. Anyone who viewed or scanned knew he was suffering from leukemia and was under treatment at a government hospital. What was unusual was that she should ask me about his condition, as if my responsibility was common knowledge. It was not. Perhaps Daddy had been talking too much.
“His condition has stabilized,” I said
She said she thought she’d thank Angela and leave; she wanted to get home early. I told her that her chances of getting a cab after midnight were minimal and, if she’d allow me, I’d call the motor pool and see if I could requisition a car. If I could, I’d be happy to drive her. She hesitated a moment.
“All right,” she said finally. “Thank you.”
I went inside and made the call on the compound intercom in Angela’s bedroom. I noted with some amusement that all her closets and dresser drawers were fitted with locks, A secret ef. I finally got through to the schedule server. He promised me a sedan ! in half an hour.
I went back into the noisy living room. I found Lydia Ann Ferguson standing just inside the terrace door, looking with some distaste at the clamorous bacchanal swirling about her. I told her it would be a thirty-minute wait. It obviously distressed her.
“We could wait in my place,” I offered. “I live one floor down.
It’s quiet there.”
She had no fear. Daddy’s rank would protect her.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Thank you. Let’s go.”
In my apartment, she wandered about examining my library of TV cassettes. I handed her a drink and we sat at opposite ends of the couch, exactly where Paul and I had sat a few hours previously.
“Ballet and Greta Garbo.” She smiled. “You’re quite a contradiction.”
“I am? I don’t understand.”
“I thought all that interested you was science.”
“No. Other things interest me. Occasionally.”
“You’re a Renaissance man,” she said.
“Now you’re jerking me.” I smiled.
“No, really. I know your reputation.”
I could have made a smart answer to that, but let it pass.
After a moment she said, “Angela Berri is a beautiful ef. Don’t you think so?”
“Oh, yes. Very beautiful. She rules me, you know.”
"I wish you wouldn’t say that.”
“Would it be better if I said she was my boss? The Office of
Linguistic Truth tells us that words like boss, work, job, and labor have a pejorative meaning.”
“Like ‘love’?"
“Oh, that’s not pejorative. Just meaningless in the obso sense. ‘Profit’ is much better.”
“And ‘use’?”
“That’s economical,” I said solemnly. “Instead of a four-letter word, we now have a three-letter word.”
She didn’t change expression. I had the feeling I was being given a test and wondered if I was passing or failing.
She looked at her digiwatch.
“Another fifteen minutes,” I said. “Then we’ll leave.”
I’d be as relieved as she. I wasn’t enjoying this.
“That’s a profitable brooch you’re wearing.”
“Thank you.” I unpinned it and handed it to her. “Hammered silver and lapis lazuli. It belonged—”
“Damn!” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Stuck myself on the pin.” She sucked her thumb.
“Here,” I said, rising, “let me take a look.”
Good-bye, Sherlock Holmes. Hello, Lady Luck.
I squeezed her thumb. A small drop of dark red blood rose to the surface. I dabbed it away with my handkerchief.
“I’m a medical doctor, among other things,” I said. “Shall I treat you?”
She looked at me, puzzled.
“All better?” I asked.
She laughed. “You’re a very good doctor. Profitable bedside manner. I’ll recommend you to all my friends.”
“Thank you. I need the practice.”
It went over her head.
“Are you really a medical doctor?” she asked.
“Of sorts. I am many things, of sorts.”
She smiled mechanically.
“Let me get a fresh handkerchief,” I said. “Then we’ll leave.” In my bedroom, I folded the soiled handkerchief carefully and placed it in the top dresser drawer. Paul Bumford had analyzed perspiration on a towel in Frank Lawson Harris’ nest and found the type of IgA associated with blood type O-Rh negative. Not Harris’ type. We’d see, we’d see. . . .
She lived up on West End Avenue, near Ninetieth Street. It took us almost a half-hour to drive, and I don’t believe we exchanged a dozen words. I was certain I had failed.
We pulled up before an obso town house that must have been a hundred years old, converted into apartments. It had remarkable carved stone trim in a classical Greek pattern. I got out of the car and went around to her side. We stood a moment on the sidewalk. I looked up at the building. It needed cleaning, badly, but the lines and proportions were there.
“It was designed by Stanford White,” she said. “Do you know who he was?”
“Yes. American architect. Stopped by Harry K. Thaw at the original Madison Square Garden in 1906.”
She shook her head. “Do you know everything?”
“Everything.” I nodded. Something flickered across her face so quickly I couldn’t catch it.
We walked up the stone steps together. I waited while she found her key and unlocked the door. She stood a brief moment, her back to me, then turned suddenly.
“Come in,” she said.
It was as fast and unexpected as that.
X-8
Angela Berri, Paul Bumford, and I began meeting one or two times a week in my apartment, at about 1730. Angela welcomed this arrangement; she had an almost paranoiac fear that her apartment was being shared.
The first few meetings were devoted to planning and operations. We all contributed opinions and recommendations. Angela listened intently to Paul and me, but the final decision was hers. There was never any doubt about that.