Alien Accounts (21 page)

Pocketing his wooden gun, Stoat said slyly, ‘I want you to follow someone in connection with this crisis. My number one suspect.’

Not again, thought Bob, but he kept his expression interested. The
‘number one suspect’ was always the same: Stoat’s wife Anne.

‘I want you to go to this address,’ he said coyly. ‘Follow this red-haired woman.’ He gave him a picture from his billfold. ‘And
stay with her
.’

‘Yes sir.’

Stoat unwrapped a small but distinguished smile and tried it on. ‘Good luck, son, and be careful.’

Bob lobbed a grenade into the office as he left, and shut the door quickly behind him.

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Gen. Max Heiliger (Ret.) was a tall, emaciated African with good-luck scars on both cheeks. As head of Operations at Drum Inc., he developed company strategy along unusual lines, using sophisticated mathematics and Dr Gibbel’s ‘surprise’ computer. He had a summit meeting with Mr Murd almost daily, but whenever reporters from the house organ,
The Drum Call
, asked him what was going on, he would reply with something vague about Marshall McLuhan and the global village, or quote Tarzan on the necessity for intercommunication between man and other species.

Why are they all trying to get me, Max wondered. The FBI thinks I’m a Black Panther. The CIA thinks I’m a Panafrican revolutionist. The KKK thinks I’m a Negro. The American Nazi, Party thinks I’m a Jew. The Zionists think I’m an ex-Nazi. Mr Murd thinks I spy for Bell, Bell wonders if I’m not an East German spy. The DAR thinks I’m a cannibal, someone keeps writing anonymous letters to
The Drum Call
saying I’m an extraterrestrial of superior intellect, and my barber thinks I’m a vivisectionist. Snip, snip, snip. ‘What do you do all day, over there in that windowless blockhouse? Cut up small animals, ha ha?’ The scissors poised to shear off an ear.

In any other story I’d be the hero. I don’t know what’s gone wrong. It’s the good-luck scars, that’s it. Dad’s idea. As always, the younger, audiotactile generation is left in a mess by the older, visual generation. So now everyone thinks maybe I used to wear a bone through the nose. It’s a bone through the nose to them, that’s all. They think I dine on missionaries cooked up in a big iron pot. What a disgusting idea, a cooked missionary with hairy legs. I’m just a cartoon figure, bone through the nose. Whenever I see one of those cartoons, I’ll point it out to them and ask them one simple question:
Who supplied the big iron pots?

(From
The Drum Call
)

Well, team, we’re sorry to report the accident rate is up once again. The department with the highest a.r. is Cable Accounts, who now have lost the safety pennant to the typing pool by a score of 3-0. Nice going, girls, and keep it up! And of course we hope the ‘cabies’ will try extra hard next month, and maybe win back their title!

The most serious accident in Cable Accounts was Ray GaIt’s, and a darned shame it was. Ray, in case you don’t know him, is the young one-armed janitor with the big smile. Everyone seems to miss his cheery ‘Hello!’ each morning, and we sincerely hope he’ll be back with the gang soon!

The mishap was just one of those things, and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Because there have been wedding bells tinkling around the Cable Accounts office, mainly in connection with Ray and Dot Hanson, the file clerk with the famous dimples. They say that whenever Ray had a window in the department to wash, Dot would soap a little note to him on the glass – certainly original in their love-letters, aren’t they?

Maybe Ray was reading one of these, or just thinking about that little vine-covered cottage for two, but anyway yesterday while mopping the hall, Ray somehow caught his good arm in the elevator doors. Talk about tough luck! The hospital says he may lose his good arm, but we know he’ll never lose his good humour.

Our newest employee in Cable Accounts, Eric Bland, will be taking care of the fruit n’ flower fund. And so, on behalf of the staff and management, may we wish Ray a speedy recovery, and hope he’ll be back on his feet in no time.

(Radio-TV Advertisement)

Everyone likes to have Fun,

But no one likes to miss out on the Fun;

When everyone is having a good time,

Don’t
you
be the one left out.

You’ll
have
more Fun if you
get
more Fun,

And you’ll
get
more Fun – today!

(Magazine Advertisement)

(Headline)

We’re really sorry, but we’re only human.

(Copy)

You’re human, too, of course. Like us. Everyone is.

And we humans have a lot in common, don’t we? Sure,

some of us like to bowl, while others like to take it

easy with a cold beer. But we’re still a lot alike,

we humans.

Or are we? Maybe we’re a lot different, too. We

don’t pretend to know the answer to that one.

We haven’t got all the answers. Yet.

Mr Kravon read
The Drum Call
. ‘I’d like to kill that son of a bitch,’ he said. ‘Here I thought we had the pennant sewed up. I thought we’d grab the yearly safety plaque, too. Well, he’s washed up now. Out of the company he goes. Or stick him out in a factory somewhere, where they don’t give a god damn about accidents anyhow.’

To put the upsetting incident out of his mind, he leafed slowly and with pleasure through a new brochure of watertight caskets and vaults.

RULES FOR WRITING LOVE-LETTERS

1. Be neat.

2. Get the name right – that’s important!

3. If you must criticise, praise first.

4. Make words work for you:

Use analogies.

Use short words.

5. Remember the ‘We/you/I’ formula.

6. Put in plenty of ‘curiosity value’.

7. Keep it short.

Holding hands, Eric and Dot watched the replacement janitor scrub the hall window, cleansing away Dot’s last message to Ray:

Dear Ray Darlin … asy to … especially since you’ve been so… eet, but.., met someone els… feel I re … e for, and so you see how it … dn’t possibly … u while my heart belo … nother. En … lly wonderful, and I’m so hap … st working near… esk, and the only flaw in my ha … knowing th … ke you feel bad. But dar … n’t be. I’m su … ind someone else. In fact, Eric… gested and old … end of his, Marilyn Hartso … ks in the typing poo … Anyhow, we … ix you up … ll always think of you as a …

It was signed ‘.’

Why are they all trying to get me, Max wondered. Jane and Jean and Jane and Janet, my four girl-friends, June my wife, Jeanne and Joan my lovely wanton mistresses, all trying to get me. Not to mention Mr Murd, who fears my sable splendor, and my secretary, Jeanette. I wonder what that new girl at the office thinks of me?

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It seemed to make no difference when Travers stopped sending people into the company and decided to start ‘interviewing them outwards’. He was a component, that’s all, with a single YES/NO decision to make in each case.

‘And tell me, Ray, why is it you want to leave Drum?’

‘Well sir, I’ve always wanted to work somewhere else, somewhere with a solid base salary, some big-bracket benefits, security and plenty of room for advancement. And that’s about the size of it.’

‘That’s it in a nutshell, eh? Now I want you to think about those benefits a moment,
vis-à-vis
your – ah – disability.’ Travers’s putty-colored fingers moved lightly over the braille copy of Ray’s application. He leaned forward to give Ray a good look at his hump, straining against the garish fabric of his suit. The boy gulped.

‘Well sir, you see – I mean …’

‘I don’t
see
, as you jokingly put it. And you’re not here to play jokes on a blind man, you cruel, intolerant young bastard! You – excuse me.’

An alarm was ringing in a drawer. Travers shut it off, then fished out a syringe and a small bottle. ‘If you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my insulin.’ He gave himself an injection of water, all the time studying Ray through the dark glasses, noting with approval that he was hanging his head and blushing.

‘Well, excuse me for flying off the handle like that. We each have our own problems. But tell me this: Where in hell do you expect to get group insurance, after you’ve had two
major
accidents?

‘I’m no plaster saint to lecture you about anything, Ray. In fact, besides being blind, hunchbacked, and a diabetic, I have this drinking problem … But even so, I at least am entitled to group insurance – which means I’m entitled to leave Drum Inc. for a greener pasture.’

The head on the armless trunk still hung down, and tears fell from it to the carpet. Travers wondered if the carpet would be stained.

‘Tell you what. I’ll hang on to your application for a few months, see what happens. You go back to work, I think this time at the factory. I can’t be fairer than that, OK?

‘And now we’d like to have you take a few more tests.’ Travers
marked him down for the Müller-Fokker Insecurity Rating. ‘OK? Well, it’s been real swell talking to you, Ray. Stop in again, like I say, in a year or so.’

Ray stood up and gulped back a large egg of air. Since he could not shake hands with the interviewer, he bent and kissed his ring.

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