Dr. Bloodmoney (23 page)

Hoppy said, “I’ll introduce you to Gill; that’s what I’ll do for you. I’m a good friend of his, naturally.”

Nodding, Stuart said, “Fine. I’d appreciate that.”

“And don’t you do anything, you hear?” The phoce heard his voice rise shrilly; he could not control it. “Don’t you nap or do any other crime, or terrible things will happen to you—understand?”

The Negro nodded somberly. But he did not appear to be frightened; he did not cringe, and the phoce felt more and more apprehensive. I wish you would go, the phoce thought to himself. Get out of here; don’t make trouble for me. I wish I didn’t know you; I wish I didn’t know anyone from outside, from before the Emergency. I don’t want even to think about that.

“I hid in the sidewalk,” Stuart said suddenly. “When the first big bomb fell. I got down through the grating; it was a real good shelter.”

“Why do you bring up that?” the phoce squealed.

“I don’t know. I thought you’d be interested.”

“I’m not,” the phoce squealed; he clapped his manual extensors over his ears. “I don’t want to hear or think any more about those times.”

“Well,” Stuart said, plucking meditatively at his lower lip, “then let’s go see this Andrew Gill.”

“If you knew what I could do to you,” the phoce said, “you’d be afraid. I can do—” He broke off; he had been about to mention Eldon Blaine the glasses man. “I can move things,” he said. “From a long way off. It’s a form of magic; I’m a magician!”

Stuart said, “That’s not magic.” His voice was toneless. “We call that
freak-tapping
.” He smiled.

“N-no,” Hoppy stammered. “What’s that mean? ‘Freak-tapping,’ I never heard that word. Like table-tapping?”

“Yes, but with freaks. With funny people.”

He’s not afraid of me, Hoppy realized. It’s because he knew me in the old days when I wasn’t anything. It was hopeless; the Negro was too stupid to understand that everything had changed—he was almost as he had been before, seven years ago, when Hoppy had last seen him. He was inert, like a rock.

Hoppy thought of the satellite, then. “You wait,” he said breathlessly to Stuart. “Pretty soon even you city people will know about me; everyone in the world will, just like they do around here. It won’t be long now; I’m almost ready!”

Grinning tolerantly, Stuart said, “First impress me by introducing me to the tobacco man.”

“You know what I could do?” Hoppy said. “I could whisk Andrew Gill’s formula right out of his safe or wherever he keeps it and plunk it down in your hands. What do you say to that?” He laughed.

“Just let me meet him,” Stuart repeated. “That’s all I want; I’m not interested in his tobacco-formula.” He looked weary.

Trembling with anxiety and rage, the phoce turned his ’mobile in the direction of Andrew Gill’s little factory and led the way.

Andrew Gill glanced up from his task of rolling cigarettes to see Hoppy Harrington—whom he did not like—entering the factory with a Negro—whom he did not know. At once Gill felt uneasy. He set down his tobacco paper and rose to his feet. Beside him at the long bench the other rollers, his employees, continued at their work.

He employed, in all, eight men, and this was in the tobacco division alone. The distillery, which produced brandy, employed another twelve men, but they were north, in Sonoma County. They were not local people. His was the largest commercial enterprise in West Marin, not counting the farming interests such as Orion Stroud or Jack Tree’s sheep ranch, and he sold his products all over Northern California; his cigarettes traveled, in slow stages, from one town to another and a few, he understood, had even gotten back to the East Coast and were known there.

“Yes?” he said to Hoppy. He placed himself in front of the phoce’s cart, halting him at a distance from the work-area. Once, this had been the town’s bakery; being made of cement, it had survived the bomb blasts and made an ideal place for him. And of course he paid his employees almost nothing; they were glad to have jobs at any salary.

Hoppy stammered, “This m-man came up from Berkeley to see you, Mr. Gill; he’s an important businessman, he says. Isn’t that right?” The phoce turned toward the Negro. “That’s what you said to me, isn’t it?”

Holding out his hand, the Negro said to Gill, “I represent the Hardy Homeostatic Vermin Trap Corporation of Berkeley, California. I’m here to acquaint you with an amazing proposition that could well mean tripling your profits with six months.” His dark eyes blazed.

There was silence.

Gill repressed the impulse to laugh aloud. “I see,” he said, nodding and putting his hands in his pockets; he assumed a serious stance. “Very interesting, Mr.—” He glanced questioningly at the Negro.

“Stuart McConchie,” the Negro said.

They shook hands.

“My employer, Mr. Hardy,” Stuart said, “has empowered me to describe to you in detail the design of a fully automated cigarette-making machine. We at Hardy Homeostatic are well aware that your cigarettes are rolled entirely in the old-fashioned way, by hand.” He pointed toward the employees working in the rear of the factory. “Such a method is a hundred years out of date, Mr. Gill. You’ve achieved superb quality in your special deluxe Gold Label cigarettes—”

“Which I intend to maintain,” Gill said quietly.

Mr. McConchie said, “Our automated electronic equipment will in no way sacrifice quality for quantity. In fact—”

“Wait,” Gill said. “I don’t want to discuss this now.” He glanced toward the phoce, who was parked close by, listening. The phoce flushed and at once spun his ’mobile away.

“I’m going,” Hoppy said. “This doesn’t interest me; goodbye.” He wheeled through the open door of the factory, out onto the street. The two of them watched him go until he disappeared.

“Our handy,” Gill said.

McConchie started to speak, then changed his mind, cleared his throat and strolled a few steps away, surveying the factory and the men at their work. “Nice place you have here, Gill. I want to state right now how much I admire your product; it’s first in its field, no doubt of that.”

I haven’t heard talk like that, Gill realized, in seven years. It was difficult to believe that it still existed in the world; so much had changed and yet here, in this man McConchie, it remained intact. Gill felt a glow of pleasure. It reminded him of happier times, this salesman’s line of chatter. He felt amiably inclined toward the man.

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. Perhaps the world, at last, was really beginning to regain some of its old forms, its civilities and customs and preoccupations, all that had gone into it to make it what it was. This, he thought, this talk by McConchie; it’s authentic. It’s a survival, not a simulation; this man has somehow managed to preserve his viewpoint, his enthusiasm, through all that has happened—he is still planning, cogitating, bullshitting … nothing can or will stop him.

He is, Gill realized, simply a good salesman. He has not let even a hydrogen war and the collapse of society dissuade him.

“How about a cup of coffee?” Gill said. “I’ll take a break for ten or fifteen minutes and you can tell me more about this automated machine or whatever it is.”

“Real coffee?” McConchie said, and the pleasant, optimistic mask slid for an instant from his face; he gaped at Gill with naked, eager hunger.

“Sorry,” Gill said. “It’s a substitute, but not bad; I think you’ll like it. Better than what’s sold in the city at those so-called ‘coffee’ stands.” He went to get the pot of water.

“Quite a place you have here,” McConchie said, as they waited for the coffee to heat. “Very impressive and industrious.”

“Thank you,” Gill said.

“Coming here is a long-time dream fulfilled,” McConchie went on. “It took me a week to make the trip and I’d been thinking about it ever since I smoked my first special deluxe Gold Label. It’s—” He groped for words to express his thought. “An island of civilization in these barbaric times.”

Gill said, “What do you think of the country, as such? A small town like this, compared to life in the city … it’s very different.”

“I just got here,” McConchie said. “I came straight to you; I didn’t take time to explore. My horse needed a new right front shoe and I left him at the first stable as you cross the little metal bridge.”

“Oh yes,” Gill said. “That belongs to Stroud; I know where you mean. His blacksmith’ll do a good job.”

McConchie said, “Life seems much more peaceful here. In the city if you leave your horse—well, a while ago I left my horse to go across the Bay and when I got back someone had eaten it, and it’s things like that that make you disgusted with the city and want to move on.”

“I know,” Gill said, nodding in agreement. “It’s brutal in the city because there’re still so many homeless and destitute people.”

“I really loved that horse,” McConchie said, looking doleful.

“Well,” Gill said, “in the country you’re faced constantly with the death of animals; that’s always been one of the basic unpleasant verities of rural life. When the bombs fell, thousands of animals up here were horribly injured; sheep and cattle … but that can’t compare of course to the injury to human life down where you come from. You must have seen a good deal of human misery, since E Day.”

The Negro nodded. “That and the sporting. The freaks both as regards animals and people. Now Hoppy—”

“Hoppy isn’t originally from this area,” Gill said. “He showed up here after the war in response to our advertising for a handyman. I’m not from here, either; I was traveling through the day the bomb fell, and I elected to remain.”

The coffee being ready, the two of them began to drink. Neither man spoke for a time.

“What sort of vermin trap does your company make?” Gill asked, presently.

“It’s not a passive type,” McConchie said. “Being homeostatic, that is, self-instructing, it follows for instance a rat— or a cat or dog—dawn into the network of burrows such as now underlie Berkeley … it pursues one rat after another, killing one and going on to the next—until it runs out of fuel or by chance a rat manages to destroy it. There are a few brilliant rats—you know, mutations that are higher on the evolutionary scale—that know how to lame a Hardy Homeostatic Vermin Trap. But not many can.”

“Impressive,” Gill murmured.

“Now, our proposed cigarette-rolling machine—”

“My friend,” Gill said, “I like you but—here’s the problem. I don’t have any money to buy your machine and I don’t have anything to trade you. And I don’t intend to let anyone enter my business as a partner. So what does that leave?” He smiled. “I have to continue as I am.”

“Wait,” McConchie said instantly. “There must be a solution. Maybe we could lease you a Hardy cigarette-rolling machine in exchange for x-number of cigarettes, your special deluxe Gold Label variety, of course, delivered each week for x-number of weeks.” His face glowed with animation. “The Hardy Corporation for instance could became sole licensed distributors of your cigarette; we could represent you everywhere, develop a systematic network of outlets up and down Northern California instead of the haphazard system you now appear to employ. What do you say to that?”

“Hmmmm,” Gill said. “I must admit it does sound interesting. I admit that distribution has not been my cup of tea … I’ve thought off and on for several years about the need of getting an organization going, especially with my factory being located in a rural spot, as it is. I’ve even thought about moving into the city, but the napping and vandalism is too great there. And I don’t want to move back to the city; this is my home, here.”

He did not say anything about Bonny Keller. That was his real reason for remaining in West Marin; his affair with her had ended years ago but he was more in love with her now than ever. He had watched her go from man to man, becoming more dissatisfied with each of them, and Gill believed in his own heart that someday he would get her back. And Bonny was the mother of his daughter; he was well aware that Edie Keller was his child.

“You’re sure,” he said suddenly, “that you didn’t come up here to steal the formula for my cigarettes?”

McConchie laughed.

“You laugh,” Gill said, “but you don’t answer.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here,” the Negro said. “We’re in the business of making electronic machines, not cigarettes.” But, it seemed to Gill, he had an evasive look on his face, and his voice was too full of confidence, too nonchalant. All at once Gill felt uneasy.

Or is it the rural mentality? he asked himself. The isolation getting the better of me; suspicion of all newcomers … of anything strange.

I had better be careful, though, he decided. I must not get carried away just because this man recalls for me the good old pre-war days. I must inspect this machine with great suspicion. After all, I could have gotten Hoppy to design and build such a machine; he seems quite capable in that direction. I could have done all these things proposed to me
entirely by myself
.

Perhaps I am lonely, he thought. That might be it; I am lonely for city people and their manner of thought. The country gets me down—Point Reyes with its
News & Views
filled up with mediocre gossip, and mimeographed!

“Since you’re just up from the city,” he said aloud, “I might as well ask you—is there any interesting national or international news, of late, that I might not have heard? We do get the satellite, but I’m frankly tired of disc jockey talk and music. And those endless readings.”