The Tomorrow File Page 12

  “Then, for you, the orgasm is momentary pleasure, but the surrender is happiness?”

  He was silent.

  “Surrender implies mastery,” I said. “Therefore you find happiness in submitting?”

  Still he was silent.

  “Surrender, or submission, means the recognition of a power greater than your own. Since I am obviously not coercing you by physical force or threat, you submit voluntarily, to obtain happiness. That’s why you accept me as your master.”

  “Oh?” Paul said. “Is that what you think?”

  I spent a few hours the next morning scanning and initialing monthly reports from Field Offices of the Division of Research & Development. These FO’s, now scattered all over the country and soon to be established beyond the mainland US, had their origins as the National Institutes of Health which, as recently as 1980, were centered in Bethesda, Maryland. At one time, the eleven Institutes, plus several other divisions and units, constituted the world’s finest biomedical research organization. They had perished.

  They had simply been phased out of existence, budgets strangulated, because of their directors’ intransigence in dealing with Washington. The scientists refused to face political realities.

  Their epitaph was delivered in 1979 during a Senate committee hearing on a proposed NIH budget. The committee listened to the stubborn demands of the scientists. Then Senator R. Vachel Krum-baugh (R-Oklahoma) gave his reaction to the press.

  “A bunch of goddamn Joan of Arcs,” he snorted. “We can’t burn ’em, but we can sure as heil fire ’em.”

  Sometimes idealism can be a terminal virtue.

  At 1030 I left the office, left the compound, and rode up to Forty-second Street on the Seventh Avenue IRT. I hadn’t been in the subway for years. The air-conditioned cars were on rubber-tired wheels; the ride was quiet, fast, endurable. But the graffiti hadn’t improved.

  It wasn’t difficult to find 983 West Forty-second Street; it would have been difficult to miss it. The six-story obso studio building stood alone on one side of a block-square area that had been leveled, then excavated for the foundation of an enormous office-apartment-theater complex. Why 983 still stood, I did not know; perhaps the owner was holding out for more love, or fighting eminent domain through the courts.

  In any event, the exterior sidewalls of 983 were ancient brick, showing scars and ruptures where supporting buildings had been ripped away. In front, some of the wide windows had been covered with tin. The stone stoop was littered with garbage, I looked up at what had once been a graceful façade, curlicued and embellished with carvings. On the third floor, on a dusty glass window, was painted a gigantic gilt eye and the legend: LEON MANSFIELD—PEACE OF MIND.

  I picked my way up the steps, into the dark interior. It smelled of urine, boiled cabbage, damp wood. The office directory, hanging crazily from a single nail, showed a violin repair shop; a wedding photographer; a wigmaker; an association to liberate Latvia; a personality development school; a union of kosher butchers; and Leon Mansfield, Peace of Mind, Inc. I climbed the creaking stairs and followed a scuttling cockroach to Mansfield’s door.

  I listened a moment, my ear close to the wood. I heard feet shuffling rapidly, harsh breathing, a muffled cry. I knocked firmly.

  The man who flung open the door had eyes the color and consistency of phlegm, and a nose that went on and on. He held a rusty fencing mask under one arm; a bent foil dangled from his fingers. The cuffs of his soiled trousers were snugged with bicycle clips. He stared at me.

  “Mr. Mansfield?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Nicholas Flair.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to speak to you.”

  “On a professional matter?”

  I nodded.

  “Come in, come in.”

  He closed and locked the door behind me. He came close to me. I am hypersensitive to personal odors. His was musty. It wasn’t the building; it was him.

  “Nicholas,” he said. “From the Greek. Meaning ‘victorious army.’ ”

  I must have shown my surprise.

  “Names are a hobby with me,” he explained. “My own name, for instance. Leon Means lion. I’m like a lion. Know what a good name for a Chinese gangster would? Tony Kimona. Sit down.”

  He removed two wooden dumbbells from a cracked leather chair, dusted the seat with a blood-stained handkerchief. I sat down and looked around.

  A fencing foil fixed to the wall, pointing out into the room. A kitchenette in a small alcove with a sinkful of dishes rimmed with the golden halos of synthetic egg mix. A chess game laid out on a table. Obso books and magazines and newspapers everywhere. A brittle theatrical poster for a performance of Ah, Wilderness! tacked to the wall. A clipped ad from a defunct magazine pinned to the lampshade: a plump beauty pouting a crimson sheath, her eyes dark with unrequited love. Beneath, the legend: “My constipation worries are over.”

  And dust clinging to everything like a wet sheet.

  He dropped his fencing mask and foil onto the floor, removed the bicycle clips from his ankles. He folded into a swivel chair behind the desk, began biting furiously at the hard skin around his thumbnail. His eyes never left mine. I guessed him to be forty to forty-five, in that range.

  “Doesn’t look much like a detective’s office, does it?” he said, speaking rapidly, spitting out bits of skin.

  “I’ve never been in a detective’s office before,” I said. “I can’t judge.”

  “I’m not a detective,” he said, almost angrily. “I’m a social investigator.”

  I was almost ready to rise and walk out.

  “Who sent you to me?” he demanded.

  “Angela Berri,” I said.

  I was staring into his eyes. When I spoke Angela’s name, the pupils of his eyes contracted. I was certain he had done it consciously. Whether he was a student of biofeedback or whether it was a natural gift, I did not know. But it changed his appearance. Before, his face had been thin, bony, hard: whacked from a block of walnut by a hasty sculptor. But in those slanted planes, deep and stubbled hollows, crisscrossed ridges and lines, had been a kind of obso charm. Then his pupils contracted, and the stricken face became. . . .

  “Angela Berri,” he said in a toneless voice.

  He unfolded abruptly, strode over to the chessboard, moved a pawn.

  “You play chess?” he asked, studying the board. “I have a theory about it. Sex is sublimation for chess. Everyone wants to be a great chess player, but most lack the ability, the drive, the passion. So they substitute for it by using. Defend, attack, checkmate. Sex imitates chess.” '

  “You’re joking?” I asked.

  “Joking?” he cried. “Mr. Nicholas Flair, I never joke. Life is a tragic thing. Know what a good name for an English farmer would be? Lester Square. What did Angela Berri tell you about me?” “Nothing. Only that you might be able to help me.”

  “What’s your problem.”

  “My user.”

  “Ef or em?”

  “Ef.”

  “Cheating?”

  “I think so.”

  “Evidence?”

  “You mean likeletters?“ I asked him. “Or suspicious behavior? No, nothing like that. Just a feeling I have.”

  “A feeling.” He nodded. “And you want me to find out if this feeling is right or wrong?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I want to know the truth.”

  “Oh-ho,” he said. “The truth. Oh-ho. Believe me, Mr. Nicholas Flair, you wouldn’t like it—the truth. But find out about your user I can. You want her followed?”

  “No.” I said. “I want her apartment shared.”

  He went back behind the desk again, sat down heavily in the wooden swivel chair.

  “Would you wish for a drink?” he asked formally. “I have something special.”

  “All right. Thank you.”

  He took two mismatched empty petrojelly jars from a desk drawer, blew into them. Something flew out. Then he r
emoved a bottle from a bottom drawer, placed it gently on the desk. I leaned forward to examine the faded label. Slivovitz. Obviously quite old. He poured us each a small drink, recorked the bottle carefully. We raised glasses to each other, then sipped. He looked at me. “Well!” he said.

  “I must tell you, Mr. Mansfield, it tastes exactly likepetronac.” A small sound came out of him. It may have been a laugh. “Well ... it is petronac. ’’ He sighed. “But the bottle—that’s something special. No?”

  I nodded and finished my drink.

  “Angela Berri” he said dreamily. “How is the dear lady?”

  “Fine. ”

  “This ef of yours—you want her apartment shared?”

  “Yes.”

  “She live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of a building?”

  “Old townhouse on West End Avenue, near Ninetieth Street. Nine other apartments. I think all or most of the tenants serve during the day.”

  “And this user of yours—she serves during the day?”

  “Yes, from 0900 to 1500.”

  “You have keys?”

  “No.”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. When do you want me to start?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Give me the address, name, and apartment number... I’ll go up today. How will I contact you?”

  “I’ll flash you.”

  “No, no,” he said quickly. “I have no flasher. I’ll call you from outside, from a phone, not a flasher.”

  I thought a moment. I wasn’t pleased with the idea.

  “I’ll give you my apartment number,” I said finally. “Call me there if you have to. Identify yourself as ‘Chess Player. ’ Just tell me where I can meet you. Don’t say anything more. Don’t repeat anything. I have a good memory.”

  He nodded, as if such clandestine arrangements were the most natural thing in the world. As perhaps they were.

  I opened my purse. I gave him the slip of paper I had prepared with Lydia Ann Ferguson’s name, address',"and apartment number. I added my flasher number. I was still holding my wallet. I looked at him, about to speak. . . .

  “Angela Berri told you a hundred new dollars?” he said. “Yes.”

  He nodded. “The dear lady. All right—a hundred. To start.” I handed over the love, stood up, started for the door.

  “Mr. Nicholas Flair,” he said, voice dead.

  I turned. He was staring at me.

  “I don’t carry a gun,” he said. “Never touch them.”

  I looked at him in astonishment.

  “Why should I be interested in that?”

  “Just thought you should know.”

  I was halfway out the door when he stopped me again.

  ‘ ‘Know what a good name for a brawny Scotsman would be ? ” he said. “Jock Strap.”

  I went back to my office and popped an Elavil. I don't know why that meeting with Leon Mansfield had depressed me so much. The physical surroundings, of course: decay, destruction, must. But also the em himself, with his quick alterations of antic wit and . . .

  I called the commissary for a bottle of Smack and a package of probisks. That would hold me until my dinner with Lydia Ann Ferguson. I went back to scanning the monthly Field Office reports.

  I had some excellent objects serving me. Young, talented, innovative. I was proud of them and, as far as possible, kept my hands off and let them run. Many of them could have made much more love on the outside. But they wouldn’t have the freedom. What corporation, for instance, would finance a team of ten genetic biologists to investigate color blindness? Everyone knew it was caused by a defective gene in the X chromosome. Where was the love in that?

  But the corporations would be intensely interested if they knew the results of that team’s work: Manipulation of the defective gene that could quite possibly lead to manipulation of a similarly defective gene that caused baldness. Genetic engineering sometimes led to chemotherapy for symptoms of the genetic variance. “Bald? Take Shaggy!” We could license that drug for zillions.

  I went back to my apartment and took a one-hour Somnorific. I arose at 1830, showered, dressed carefully. I decided to wear a new wig I had purchased recently, a “King Arthur,” down to my shoulders, silver-blond. As I tootied up, I rehearsed how best to play my role as a Public Servant malcontent, looking for a cause to which I might totally dedicate my energy, talent, and sacred honor.

  I had my hand on the doorknob when the flasher chimed. I went over and flicked the switch, but no image came on. Flashers could receive voice calls from conventional phones.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Hello?” a voice said. “Who’s this?”

  “Whom are you calling?”

  “This is Chess Player.”

  “Oh. This is Nicholas Flair.”

  “There’s a Mess Hall on Seventh Avenue between Eighteenth and Nineteenth. In half an hour.”

  He clicked off. I looked at my digiwatch. If the meeting didn’t take too long, I could still be on time. And even if I was a few minutes late. . . . Lydia was a patient, sweet-tempered ef.

  The chain of popular Mess Hall restaurants had been started in 1989 as one answer to the rising prices of restaurant meals. An ingenious entrepreneur—an ex-nightclub publicist—had bought up a supply of Army surplus compartmented steel trays. They were the key to the low-cost fast-service Mess Hall operation. Meals were served cafeteria style, only one selection a day; no menu, no substitutions, no seconds. The day’s choice was posted in the window; Monday, beef stew; Tuesday, hamburger; Wednesday, fried chicken; and so forth. If you didn’t like the main course offered that day, you didn’t eat there; nothing else was available.

  I saw Leon Mansfield from the sidewalk. He was seated at a table near the plate glass window. His steel tray was empty. He had pushed it away and was playing a chess game on a small pocket set. I went inside. I took the chair opposite him. He didn’t look up.

  “Nice perfume,” he,said.

  “Thank you. Please make this fast.”

  “I put in two,” he said. “One in the flasher in her living room, one behind the dresser in her bedroom. Transceivers. I’ll pick up in a white van marked ‘Kleen-Eeez Laundry.’ Sound-activated recorders, so I don’t have to be there.”

  “You have any problems?”

  He finally raised his eyes from the chessboard and looked at me.

  “Problems? No, I have no problems. But you—you got a problem.”

  “Oh? What is that?”

  “Her place was already shared when I got in.”

  I thought about that for a moment.

  “How many?” I asked.

  “One. Under the slipcover on the side of the armchair in the living room. Butcher’s work. A straight mike. The wire goes down through the floor.”

  '“Into the apartment below?”

  “It goes through the floor. That’s as far as I could trace it. I left it there.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Give my best to Angela Berri,” he said. “The dear lady.”

  I met Lydia, on time, at an east-side Italian restaurant. The place was half-empty. With the love they charged, that was understandable. But they knew me. I think the wine they served me was made from grapes.

  “You must be very wealthy. ” Lydia smiled, studying the menu.

  “Not on my rank-rate,” I said. “But occasionally I have to get out and unwind.”

  “Let off pressure?”

  “Exactly. How about the veal? And peppers. And spaghetti. And a bottle of red wine.”

  Frank Lawson Harris’ last meal. Her expression didn’t change.

  “Sounds marvelous,” she said.

  She looked quite profitable. Not tooty—but then she didn’t have the body for it. Wide shoulders, heavy bosom, thick hips. She was smart enough to wear a loose, flowing shift. It tightened across her nipples, then draped straight to her knees. Seductive without being obvious.

/>   Her face was broad, too. High, clear brow. Wide cheekbones. Rather Slavic. Her neck was soft, almost puffy. Her eyes were large, slightly protuberant. I wondered if she might not be suffering from occult hyperthyroidism. Probably not. Her mind was certainly not dulled, and I could detect no signs of irritability. She seemed as serene and self-possessed as ever. A very pleasant ef.

  I asked her questions about her service as we dined. She was quite open about it. She was currently analyzing and coding essay answers to the question: “Do you approve of, disapprove of, or have no opinion on televised transvestite beauty pageants?”

  “Did objects know what a transvestite is?” I asked.

  “Interviewers were instructed to explain only when asked. Most of them knew. Even children. Some of the replies we received were hilarious.”

  She quoted some of the essays. I didn’t think they were particularly hilarious. But I smiled or laughed each time she paused expectantly in her recital.

  “What do you think about them?” she asked suddenly. “And televised bullfights and executions?”

  I shrugged.

  “Why does the government allow it?” she demanded.

  For the first time I caught a glimpse of an anger behind her placidity. In bed she was a wanton. Now I saw a hint of an emotional (if not intellectual) passion that might equal the physical.

  “The government allow it?” I laughed. “Lydia, you are naive. The government encourages it!”

  “But why?'

  “For very practical reasons. Psychological studies have proved that violence and sex on TV act as a catharsis, a visual safety valve for hostility and aggression.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said sharply.

  “In any event, it’s not the main reason why—”

  I was silent then while the waitress removed our emptied dinner plates. She brought us a pot of espresso (mostly chicory) and, proudly, fresh apples (two). They were huge, bright, red. And mealy and tasteless. But Lydia appeared to be delighted with hers. I watched her large, strong teeth chonk into the fruit. When she swallowed, her entire soft throat convulsed. It was oddly exciting to watch.

  “What is the main reason that the government encourages permissiveness on TV?” she asked finally.

  “Well, in the media industry there are two main cartels: print media and electronic media. They claim to be complementary. In a few insignificant ways they are. But actually they are quite competitive, especially in obtaining advertising revenues. Now the government cannot license print media. The last time they tried it, in 1990, the result was catastrophic.