Seconds (17 page)

“It doesn't work that way, Wilson. It's not on a list basis.”

“Well, how long was Parker here, for instance?”

“A week.”

“And Walsh?”

“Oh, about four months.”

“But it doesn't seem fair for Parker to get such quick service, when there must be dozens of others who've been waiting longer.”

“I don't suppose they really mind.”

“Well, it's a pretty passive bunch, I must say. What about you, Charley? Aren't you anxious to be called?”

“Sometimes.” However, Charley seemed disinclined to pursue the subject further, and rose from his chair. “You never know, from day to day,” he added, “and it helps if you don't much care when it is.”

“You mean that you could have been called today?”

Charley shrugged. “Yes, I guess so.”

“But—”

“Time for me to get back to my albums, Wilson. See you around.”

T
he days passed slowly. Each was exactly like any other. In the mornings, the clients rose and dressed, and straggled out of their cubicles and along the corridor to the enormous room, where they picked up trays and helped themselves to breakfast dishes that were contained in a large mobile serving table, which attendants wheeled in at mealtimes. Then the men returned to their desks to eat in solitary fashion, following which they resumed their various occupations.

Even the daily sounding of the bell and the appearance of the doctor and orderlies began to take on, in Wilson's mind, a routine aspect. No one else seemed to be awaiting this portentous event with any particular interest; there were no eager, hopeful glances toward the door in anticipation of the bell, and similarly, after the medical party had come and departed with the surgical nominees of the day; there was no babble of commentary among the men who had failed to be chosen. Wilson decided that this apparent lack of interest was a quiet sensible self-discipline, for clearly it would do no good for the clients to become overly concerned about the matter—for example, to the point of organizing a committee to demand that a definite list be followed, to place the system on a basis of strict fairness—because obviously the company would not countenance any changes in an arrangement that was undoubtedly established for excellent reasons. And besides, he found that he himself was falling readily into the mood of the group; he did not especially care about the bell, or the orderlies, or even the doctor. His project of sorting out and matching properly the pieces of the jigsaw puzzles seemed to be far more important than the question of who was called away to surgery, and who arrived as newcomers—and there were two or three each day—to take the vacated places.

He visited Charley's desk occasionally, but found that his old friend seemed to have no concern other than his stamp collection, which Wilson thought boring, certainly when compared to his own effort to straighten out the jigsaw situation, and so, as if by a tacit consent, they came to have little to do with each other.

Once Wilson asked him: “I suppose they give us tranquilizers, don't you think? In the food?”

“Well, if they do, then it's probably for our own good.”

“I don't mean to disagree,” Wilson said. “After all, you can't have a large group of men living in close quarters like this without something of that sort.”

“Probably not. Um, would you mind moving your hand a bit, Wilson? You're on my Southern Rhodesian page, and there are some pretty expensive items there . . .”

Only once did anything out of the ordinary occur, and this was treated by everyone as being the kind of embarrassment that would quickly be forgotten, if acknowledgment were sternly refused. One of the men called by the doctor did not rise, but remained at his desk working on his project, the construction of a sailing ship inside a glass bottle, and when the name was repeated, in a louder voice, he glanced up in annoyance, muttering something. Being called a third time, he did leave his desk, but carried the bottle with him, and when the doctor advised him that he must leave it behind, he became suddenly enraged, smashed the bottle on the floor, and burst inexplicably into tears. The orderlies quickly hustled him from the room, while the doctor surveyed the seated clients with a watchful and sardonic gaze until he was satisfied that this outrageous behavior had been, quite properly, ignored.

A
week to the day after Wilson had arrived, he was led away by an attendant for what Charley had termed his briefing. At first Wilson had awaited this event with impatience, for he assumed it was a necessary preliminary to his being summoned to the surgery, but when the time came and he actually was being conducted down a series of passageways toward the briefing rooms, he found that he was rather irked to have his work on the puzzles interrupted for some bureaucratic procedure which, in all likelihood, was not absolutely necessary.

Nevertheless, he made no complaint, but went into the briefing office and sat patiently waiting while the officer in charge thumbed through a small stack of files, sharpened some pencils, and otherwise completed his little preparations for the briefing.

“My name is Dr. Redfield,” the officer remarked at length, in a pleasant voice. “Ph.D.,” he added, with a deprecatory chuckle, smoothing his tie, and giving Wilson a disarming glance of modesty. “In history,” he went on cheerfully, as if this were essential for Wilson to know.

Wilson smiled politely.

“Now,” Dr. Redfield declared, “first of all, let me ask you whether you're in any position to recommend and sponsor a new client.”

“A new client?”

“Yes. Someone in your acquaintance outside who you feel would benefit by the company's services. You yourself were sponsored, you know.”

“Yes, of course. I see.” Wilson frowned down at his hands, trying to think of someone who might be a candidate. “Excuse me,” he asked, “but if I did sponsor someone, would that possibly delay my own trip to surgery? In the event I were needed from time to time to advise him, say?”

“Quite right,” said Dr. Redfield briskly. “That indeed would be possible.” He chuckled. “That'd give you some extra time to finish that little puzzle project of yours, now wouldn't it?”

Wilson managed to smile, but he decided all at once that he did not particularly care for Dr. Redfield. The man's head was too large and too bald, for one thing, and he kept fiddling with his spectacles—swinging them on one finger, polishing them carelessly on his sleeve—which was most distracting. And besides, it was none of Dr. Redfield's business how Wilson occupied his time.

“Well, I'm sorry,” Wilson replied, finally. “I don't seem to be able to think of a single soul.”

Dr. Redfield gave him a sharp glance, somewhat at variance with his previous manner of good humor. “Well, Mr. Wilson, that's too bad. That's a shame.” He clapped his glasses on his nose and folded his hands firmly. “But perhaps you'll be able to think of someone a bit later on, eh? I mean, names have a way of springing out of thin air, don't they? A business associate, perhaps. Someone who lives down the street, maybe. You don't have to be intimately acquainted with a man, Wilson, to realize that he would be receptive—highly receptive—to the sort of opportunity we offer.” He squinted at Wilson severely, as though to suggest that Wilson was deliberately withholding a whole roster of potential clients. “Things may not have worked out to full satisfaction in your case, Wilson,” he went on, “but a man must be able to view the situation objectively. By which I mean to say that your own example should not blind you to the fact that others may succeed where you—if you don't mind blunt talk, Wilson—where you have failed.” He pressed a button set in a panel on the top of the desk. “As you can imagine,” he continued, almost grumpily, “the vast bulk of our new business is acquired through present clients. It's a word-of-mouth operation, Wilson. You don't suppose,” he interjected with a hint of sarcasm, “that we can advertise in the magazines and newspapers, do you?”

Two orderlies entered the room and stood awaiting instructions. Dr. Redfield acknowledged their arrival with a petulant wave of one plump hand.

“So I say, Wilson, you'll have time to review your list of friends and acquaintances, and I daresay you'll come up with something, eh?” He grunted, evidently attempting to recapture his original attitude of joviality. “You don't want the company to suffer any further on your account, do you now? Be a good fellow, Wilson, and give us a hand,” he persisted, as the orderlies moved a bit closer.

“I'll do my best,” Wilson muttered, unable to overcome his aversion to Dr. Redfield. But, thinking it best to conclude their conversation on a more cordial note, he asked: “I'd be interested in knowing what your historical period might be, Doctor.”

“The fall of Rome,” Dr. Redfield said shortly. “All right,” he told the orderlies, “ready for the next stage,” and as Wilson compliantly rose and left with the orderlies, the briefing officer tugged off the spectacles again and shouted after him. “Remember, Wilson. One name is better than none at all!”

The next stage proved to be a medical examination. Wilson was required to remove all of his clothing and submit to the most minute inspection of a fussy young medical technician, who made careful notes and followed what happeared to be an almost interminable checklist. Wilson was poked, prodded, and measured, and then on top of that he was photographed in the nude from a dozen different angles, so that at the end of a half-hour of this kind of treatment, he felt he had the right to ask some questions.

“Excuse me, but I don't quite understand why this is necessary.”

“Oh, it's necessary, all right,” mumbled the technician, jotting down more notes.

“But I mean as part of a briefing.”

“Well, the word ‘briefing' may not be too precise, actually. No, not too precise.”

“Is this a preliminary to surgery, then?”

“In a sense,” replied the technician, still busy with his notes. “For example, to take an extreme case, suppose you'd lost a finger recently. Or a toe. That would be a serious thing.”

“Unpleasant, no doubt,” said Wilson. “But it wouldn't make all that difference, would it?”

“No difference?” The technician lifted his eyes from his notes in amazement. “Well, I should think it would. How many clients do you think walk in here who'd also be missing a finger or a toe? And what would be the chances that it would be the
same
finger or toe, hmmm? But of course,” he added, returning to his notes, “in your case you have had no such substantial loss since we did our original work on you; merely a few minor changes such as a little fatty tissue here and there, nothing important, but, as you can imagine, everything must be observed and checked and noted down.”

“But look here,” said Wilson, feeling ill at ease in his nudity beneath the brilliant lights of the examining room, “what have other clients got to do with me? Suppose I had lost a toe. That would be my misfortune, wouldn't it? It wouldn't affect my status with respect to surgery, as far as I can see.”

The technician merely shrugged his shoulders, as if he had wasted too much valuable time talking already, and attended even more industriously to his notes.

Wilson was finding the lights almost unbearable. His skin appeared bluish beneath them, and because of the heat, his arms and shoulders were covered with a thin film of moisture. The two muscular young orderlies stood silently behind him, which made him feel even more exposed and uncomfortable. In addition, there was a certain implication in what the technician had said which he did not care for in the slightest.

“I'm sorry to keep repeating myself,” he said, as much to break the silence as to obtain information from what quite probably would prove to be an unreliable source, “but this business about fingers and toes is a complete mystery to me. Would you mind explaining it?”

“That's not my job,” muttered the technician.

“And what about this tranquilizer dosage? You don't need to pretend it's not a fact,” said Wilson, who was beginning to feel decidedly untranquil himself. “What's the purpose of doping us up like cattle, I'd like to know?”

“It avoids unpleasantness,” said the technician, at last switching off the powerful photographic lamps and closing up his file folder. He motioned to the orderlies. “Next stage, please.”

“What kind of unpleasantness?” asked Wilson anxiously, but the technician had turned away and at the same time the orderlies were gently urging him into his clothing. “We've got to hurry, sir,” one of them said. “We don't want to get off schedule.” He helped Wilson into the shirt. “There are other gentlemen waiting, you see,” he added respectfully.

“Waiting for what?” Wilson grumbled, putting on his slippers, but of course he realized that the orderlies would not be permitted to tell him, even if they wished to do so. “Well, all right,” he said. “I'm ready.”

He was ushered out of the examining room and into a small adjoining office, where a slender gentleman dressed in a black clerical suit sat composedly behind a desk which was bare except for a prayer book and a statuette of the crucifixion.

“Sit down, please,” said the clerical gentleman, rising to indicate a chair on the other side of the desk, and gently dismissing the orderlies. He smiled in a friendly way at Wilson. “You're Parker, I believe.”

“Wilson.”

“Oh, yes. Parker was last week. But there is a resemblance.”

“Excuse me,” said Wilson, determinedly, “but I have some questions I'd like—”

“To be sure,” said the other man. “That's what I'm here for. Questions.” He patted his fingertips benignly together and introduced himself as Dr. Morris. “Let me ask you first, Mr. Wilson, as to your religious preference.”