Seconds (3 page)

“I'm sorry, Mr. Wilson. You're going just a tiny bit afield from a career résumé.”

“Oh. Well. Ah, as for banking. It's been my professional life, that's all. I don't suppose you want the names of the banks or my positions as of certain dates?”

“No.”

“Well, that doesn't leave much. I've been in banking for twenty-six years, come next February, and while I've shown no extraordinary gifts for it, nevertheless I've done well in every sense. I'm earning a substantial salary, I've built a home and have a summer place, I own a boat and two cars, I've put my daughter through private schools and college, and on top of that, I have every reason to believe that in another few years, by the time I'm well along in my fifties, I will be president of my bank, which is a sizable one.” He paused, uncertainly. “Is that enough?”

“Yes, unless you want to go on.”

“I don't think I do. It doesn't interest me much right now, and I can't see how it would interest you. Why is such a résumé necessary, anyway?”

Joliffe moved slowly around the desk to the chair behind it and stood with his fingertips drumming lightly on the leather surface of the back. “It isn't necessary, but it's useful, as a reminder to our clients of the context of their problems.”

“I'm not a client yet.”

Joliffe responded only with a slight smile.

“As for reminding me of my problems,” Wilson continued, “you may have a point there. I have this sensation of remoteness.” As he spoke, however, he was aware that this sensation—actually, an absence of sensation—was showing signs of erosion. A tremor of anxiety was evident in his mid-section; he glanced down, as if expecting it to be registered visibly, like a spot of gravy on his shirt. “I'm not a client,” he repeated.

Joliffe eased himself into the chair. “Tell me, Mr. Wilson, when did you first hear of our service?”

“A week ago. One night I got a call from a man who said he was Charley—”

“Avoid last names, please.”

“Well, he gave this name, the name of my college roommate, a man I'd known all my life. One of my very best friends, in fact.”

“But it wasn't really your friend on the phone?”

“I knew it couldn't have been.”

“Why not?”

“Because Charley killed himself last year.” Wilson glanced directly at Joliffe and cocked his head quizzically.

“Killed himself. Well,” said Joliffe, impassively. “And what did this imposter tell you, then?”

“He started talking about college days, trying to prove he
was
Charley, although I kept threatening to hang up on him. He told me things that—shocked me.”

“What kind of things?”

“Nothing, really. I mean, just little things from our college days. But they were things that only Charley would have known, you see. Not just one or two, but a dozen. And then some other things, too. For instance, once when Charley and I were young fellows and working for the same bank, we went out and got pretty tight, and on the way back, as a kind of joke, we talked about switching wives for the night—just a joke, you know—and then we thought it would be funny to announce this to the ladies, too, pretending to be serious. So we stopped at Charley's house first, to pull the gag on Sue, and damned if when we got there we didn't see some man sneaking out the rear door, and it wasn't a burglar, either . . . I mention this merely to illustrate my point. This voice on the phone told me things that only Charley could have told me.”

“How about the voice?”

“Oh, it sounded like Charley, all right. But then, he had an ordinary kind of voice.”

“Well, who was it, then?”

Wilson laughed softly. “Oh, it was Charley, I guess. He kept talking. Pretty soon I stopped saying I was going to hang up. I was a little frightened, I suppose. Charley had been a good friend, but I had gotten used to the idea he was dead—and then to have him come back suddenly, as a voice in my telephone receiver . . . it was a jolt, I can tell you.”

“Yes, I can imagine. But how was he supposed to have killed himself? With a gun?”

“It was in all the papers. Quite a dramatic incident. He leaped into an active volcano.”

Joliffe raised his eyebrows. “Remarkable.”

“A hundred people saw it—from a distance. Naturally the body was not recovered.”

“So it was Charley's ghost that telephoned you. Well, what did he say?”

“He told me about the services your firm offered, in a vague sort of way. He was very excited. He urged me to consider applying to you as a client. He said it would be . . . a rebirth.” Wilson stared down thoughtfully at the carpet. It was a rich rust-brown. “A rebirth, that's what he called it, and Charley was not the kind of man to use hyperbole. He was a trust specialist, if that means anything to you. Well, he went on like this for quite a while, and I, you see, was in an extraordinary mental state, trying to grasp the fact of his existence, so that I suppose I was unusually receptive to his words. That is, I was attempting with all my strength to believe it was really Charley, and so what he said to me about your services seemed to drive right into my mind, as if all of my usual defenses and reservations against anything new and strange had been shattered . . .”

He shook his head in a puzzled way and looked at the window. It was growing late. The last great streak of sunset gleamed on the horizon.

“I was in a daze,” he went on, quietly. “That's what it was. A state almost of hypnosis . . . I don't remember hanging up the receiver. I suppose I did. I just wandered through the foyer and into my study and sat down there in the first chair I came to, and Charley's words kept running in my mind, over and over again. Especially the word ‘rebirth.' I thought in a confused way of how it would be if I myself were reborn, and I wondered if I would be a man and an infant at the same time, something innocent but also knowing . . . It's impossible to explain it clearly, but I was terribly moved. I think I wept for a while, all huddled up in that chair, and I fell asleep, so that when my wife finally found me—it was past midnight then—my confusion was all the greater, because although I distinctly remembered the telephone call, I wondered if it hadn't been a dream.”

“Did you tell your wife about it?”

“Lord, no.”

“What happened after that?”

“Well, the following night I had an unusual feeling, a premonition that everything was going to be repeated. That is, I knew that the telephone would ring, that I would answer it, and that it would be Charley's voice again . . . and that my sensation of shock would recur. You see, if an impossible thing happens once, well, it may be a dream or a hallucination or some misunderstanding, even; the kind of thing that . . . well, that couldn't happen twice. But I knew it would happen again. I was afraid it would and yet I wanted it to. I remembered something Charley had said the night before. He mentioned the business about the volcano, and joked about it a little, and then he said that he'd really jumped into a volcano . . .”

“Yes?”

“And—and he said it was beautiful there.”

“Beautiful.”

Wilson nodded. “A figure of speech. He referred to his sense of rebirth, as a result of your firm's services.”

“Well, did he call again?”

“Yes. He gave me instructions this time. They were quite simple. He said that in a few days—he didn't know when, exactly—someone would give me a piece of paper with an address written on it, and that I would be expected there a little after twelve noon of that day.”

“Is that all he said?”

“No. He said I was to use the name Wilson, and—that once I had begun the process, there would be no turning back. In the sense, I suppose, that the opportunity would not be offered a second time.”

Joliffe said nothing.

“And he explained that it would mean just . . .” Wilson shrugged “ . . . just walking away from everything. But he assured me that no one would be hurt by what I did, and that my affairs would be handled on a strict and fair basis, which I did find reassuring, in view of Charley's professional experience in trust management. I mean, a man of his standing could hardly be mistaken on such a point . . . Well, the whole idea now appeared to me to have a powerful logic. I didn't need to be persuaded, and Charley was very matter-of-fact this time, as if it were only a question of clearing up details in a transaction already agreed on. It was like—well, like talking with a travel agent about the exact itinerary of a vacation trip, and yet . . . Let me put it this way. Part of me was convinced that I would do precisely what Charley suggested, and that it was as germane to my future as, say, the promotion to senior vice president which I am due to obtain in a year or two; and at the same time, another part of me was incredulous, in a quiet way, that I should entertain any such notions for a moment. But still, the part that wanted to follow Charley seemed to be a little more in control.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I'd been living as a matter of habit for so long that the routine had lost its force. Does that make any sense? The grooves had worn down, so to speak, and the slightest nudge was enough to send me off in a different direction, with all of the old instincts of habit still spinning away, like the wheels of a trolley that's jumped its tracks. Oh, I don't mean that just any sort of push would have been enough. For example, I'm sure that I wouldn't have suddenly run off to Philadelphia to spend a weekend with some blonde. No, my habits were able to foresee that kind of thing, I think, and I would have been proof against a specific temptation. But Charley's call—this was impossible to predict. There was no set of defenses against that.”

“To put it another way, you were ready for such a call.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Ready. That's the word. I was ready. Suppose I'd dreamed those calls. It wouldn't have made any difference. But they weren't dreams, of course. This morning, as I was walking the last block to the bank, right in the middle of the crowd, someone—a youngish man, I think—he came up beside me and he said, ‘Mr. Wilson?' and he handed me the scrap of paper. Then he turned off to one side and I lost him. So I knew it was all real.”

“Were you excited?”

“No, not in the least. I felt mildly anxious, and disturbed, not being sure just what I would ultimately do. My mind was divided, you see. I was being drawn in some peculiar way, but my habitual self acted as a kind of brake . . . perhaps pretending that it would permit the process to begin, simply as a means of humoring a wild impulse. And that's about the way I feel right now—divided. . . . Strange, I've never spoken to anyone this way before. Is that the effect of the drug you gave me?”

Joliffe switched on the desk lamp, for the room had darkened considerably. He glanced at his watch.

“You must be hungry, Mr. Wilson.” He touched a button on the communications box. “We'll have a tray up here in a few minutes.” He stood up and put his spectacles carefully into their case. “My own part is over, Mr. Wilson, but if you'll just make yourself at home here, some staff people will be in shortly to do the detailed processing.”

“I haven't agreed to be a client.”

Joliffe smiled. “But you're curious to see the rest of it, I should imagine. You've gone this far. Why not find out more, eh?” He drew a cigar from his pocket, clipped it with a tiny pair of scissors, and lighted it. “Just remember, Mr. Wilson,” he continued, blowing out a perfect circle of smoke, “you're in the middle of a remarkable experience. You may have some doubts about it—most of our clients do, to be frank—but I would suspect that already it's had a definite cathartic value to you. Don't you feel better?”

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Fine. That's really the essence of our function, you know. To make our clients feel better.” Joliffe seemed so satisfied with the situation that Wilson felt it would be a discourtesy to protest any further at that point, although his sensations of anxiety were still mounting.

“So, just relax, sir,” Joliffe went on, as he took his hat from the coat-tree. “The food will be up shortly, and then, by the time you finish, the staff people will be in to see you.” He paused at the door. “Good luck, Mr. Wilson.”

“Thank you.”

After Joliffe left, Wilson remained seated on the couch, thinking of nothing in particular, and gazing passively at the window. It was fully dark now. The lights in the buildings outside formed a pattern which was in a constant process of change, for as some were switched off with the departure of the last office workers, others were turned on, presumably by janitors and scrubwomen, and all the tiny winking lights together seemed to be spread across the face of a single giant structure. Wilson found the sight quite interesting. He watched it for some time. Whenever a light appeared, he felt oddly cheered, thinking of the minute pulse of energy that it had drawn from the central electrical system, and each time one vanished, it vaguely depressed him, for he had come to imagine the lights almost as little living things, and himself as someone who for the moment had been empowered to observe their world, to rejoice in their radiance, and to sorrow when they were so abruptly extinguished. Thus he studied the night scene of the city as he might have watched, by the hour, a colony of ants under glass, or a beehive, or an aquarium containing miniature sea creatures, and while it occurred to him that he should instead be actively pondering his present situation, he felt no particular urgency to do so. His anxiety, steadily increasing, seemed to be centered not on himself but on the lights. Surely, he thought, they would not all be turned off. Surely some would survive through the night.

Someone entered the room: a servant with a tray.

“Your supper, sir.”

“Ah . . . thank you, very much.”