We Can Build You (17 page)

Presently Maury said softly, “I never would have thought of that.”

Pris said, “I—don’t agree. MASA shouldn’t be turned over to the Rosen family; that’s out of the question. And Stanton won’t buy an offer like that.”

“Yes he will,” Maury said. My father was nodding and I nodded, too. “We’ll make him a big man in our organization—why not? He has the ability. My good god, he can probably turn us into a million-dollar business inside a year.”

The Lincoln said gently, “You will not regret placing your trust, and your business, in Mr. Stanton’s hands.”

We filed back into the office. Barrows and his people awaited us expectantly.

“Here is what we have to say,” Maury said, clearing his throat. “Uh, we’ve sold MASA to Mr. Jerome Rosen.” He indicated my father. “For one dollar.”

Blinking, Barrows said, “Have you? Interesting.” He glanced at Blunk, who threw up his hands in a gesture of rueful, wry resignation.

The Lincoln said to the Stanton, “Edwin, Mr. Rock and the two Mr. Rosens wish you to join their newly-formed corporation as Chairman of its Board of Directors.”

The sour, embittered, harsh features of the Stanton simulacrum faltered; emotions appeared, disappeared. “Is that the actual fact of the matter?” it said questioningly to the group of us.

“Yes sir,” Maury said. ‘That’s a firm offer. We can use a man of your ability; we’re willing to step down to make way for you.”

“Right,” I said.

My father said, “This I agree to, Mr. Stanton. And I can speak for my other son, Chester. We are sincere.”

Seating himself at one of MASA’s old Underwood electric typewriters, Maury inserted a sheet of paper and began to type. “We’ll put it in writing; we can sign it right now and get the barge towed out into the river.”

Pris said in a low, cold voice, “I consider this a deceitful betrayal of not only Mr. Barrows but everything we’ve striven for.”

Staring at her, Maury said in a shocked voice, “Shut up.”

“I won’t go along with this because it’s wrong,” Pris said. Her voice was absolutely under control; she might have been ordering clothes over the telephone from Macy’s. “Mr. Barrows and Mr. Blunk, if you want me to come along with you, I will.”

We—including Barrows and Blunk—could not believe our ears.

However, Barrows recovered quickly. “You, ah, helped build the two simulacra. You could build another, then?” He eyed her.

“No she couldn’t,” Maury said. “All she did was draw the face. What does she know about the electronic part? Nothing!” He continued to stare at his daughter.

Pris said, “Bob Bundy will go with me.”

“Why?” I said. My voice wavered. “Him, too?” I said. “You and Bundy have been—” I couldn’t finish.

“Bob is fond of me,” Pris said remotely.

Reaching into his coat pocket, Barrows brought out his billfold. “I’ll give you money for the flight,” he said to Pris. “You can follow us. So there won’t be any legal complications … we’ll travel separately.”

“Good enough,” Pris said. “I’ll be in Seattle in a day or so. But keep the money; I have my own.”

Nodding to Dave Blunk, Barrows said, “Well, we’ve concluded our business here. We might as well get started back.” To Stanton, he said, “We’ll leave you here, Stanton; is that your decision?”

In a grating voice the Stanton simulacrum said, “It is, sir.”

“Good day,” Barrows said to all of us. Blunk waved at us in a cordial fashion. Mrs. Nild turned to follow Barrows—and they were gone.

“Pris,” I said, “you’re insane.”

“That’s a value judgment,” Pris said in a faraway voice.

“Did you mean that?” Maury asked her, ashen-faced. “About going over to Barrows? Flying to Seattle to join him?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get the cops,” Maury said, “and restrain you. You’re just a minor. Nothing but a child. I’ll get the mental health people in on this; I’ll get them to put you back in Kasanin.”

“No, you won’t,” Pris said. “I can do it, and the Barrows organization will help me. The mental health people can’t hold me unless I go back in voluntarily, which I won’t, or unless I’m psychotic, which I’m not. I’m managing my affairs very ably. So don’t go into one of your emotional tantrums; it won’t do any good.”

Maury licked his lip, stammered, then became mute. No doubt she was right; it could all be successfully arranged. And the Barrows people would see that there were no legal loopholes; they had the know-how and they had a lot to gain.

“I don’t believe Bob Bundy will leave us on your account,” I said to her. But I could tell by her expression that he would. She knew. It was one of those things. How long had it been that way between them? No way to tell. It was Pris’s secret; we had to believe it. To the Lincoln I said, “You didn’t expect this, did you?”

It shook its head no.

Maury said brokenly, “Anyhow we got rid of them. We kept MASA ASSOCIATES. We kept the Stanton. They won’t be back. I don’t give a damn about Pris and Bob
Bundy; if the two of them want to go join them, good luck to them.” He glared at her wretchedly. Pris returned his glare with the same dispassion as before; nothing ruffled her. In a crisis she was even colder, more efficient, more in command, than ever.

Maybe, I said bitterly to myself, we’re lucky she’s leaving. We would not have been able to cope with her, finally—at least not me. Can Barrows? Perhaps he may be able to use her, exploit her … or she may damage, even destroy him. Or both. But then they also have Bundy. And between Pris and Bundy they can build a simulacrum with no trouble. They don’t need Maury and they certainly don’t need me.

Leaning toward me the Lincoln said in a sympathetic voice, “You will benefit from Mr. Stanton’s ability to make firm decisions. He, with his enormous energy, will assist your enterprise almost at once.”

The Stanton grumbled, “My health isn’t as good as it ought to be.” But it looked confident and pleased nonetheless. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Sorry about your daughter,” I said to my partner.

“Christ,” he muttered, “how could she do it?”

“She will come back,” my dad said, patting him on the arm. “They do; the Kindern always do.”

“I don’t want her back,” Maury said. But obviously he did.

I said, “Let’s go downstairs and across the street and have a cup of coffee.” There was a good breakfast-type cafe, there.

“You go ahead,” Pris said. “I think I’ll drive on home; I have a good deal to get done. Can I take the Jaguar?”

“No,” Maury said.

She shrugged, picked up her purse, and left the office. The door closed after her. She was gone, then and there.

As we sat in the cafe having our coffee I thought to myself, The Lincoln did us plenty of good, back there with Barrows. It found a way to get us off the hook. And after all, it wasn’t its fault that events wound up as they did … there was no
way for it to know how Pris would jump. Nor could it know about her and Bundy, that she had our engineer in the palm of her hand by the use of her age-old equipment. I hadn’t guessed and Maury hadn’t either.

The waitress had been gazing at us and now she came over. “This is that window dummy of Abraham Lincoln, isn’t it?”

“No, actually it’s a window dummy of W.C. Fields,” I said. “But it has a costume on, a Lincoln costume.”

“We, my boyfriend and I, saw it demonstrating the other day. It’s sure real-looking. Can I touch it?”

“Sure,” I said.

She reached out cautiously and touched the Lincoln’s hand. “Ooh, it’s even warm!” she exclaimed. “And jeez, it’s drinking coffee!”

We got her to go off, finally, and were able to resume our melancholy discussion. I said to the simulacrum, “You certainly have made a profound adjustment to this society. Better than some of us.”

In a brusque tone the Stanton spoke up. “Mr. Lincoln has always been able to come to terms with everyone and everything—by the one stale method of telling a joke.”

The Lincoln smiled as it sipped its coffee.

“I wonder what Pris is doing now,” Maury said. “Packing, maybe. It seems awful, her not here with us. Part of the team.”

We lost a lot of people back there in the office, I realized. We got rid of Barrows, Dave Blunk, Mrs. Nild, and to our surprise, Pris Frauenzimmer and our vital sole engineer, Bob Bundy. I wonder if we’ll ever see Barrows again. I wonder if we’ll ever see Bob Bundy again. I wonder if we’ll ever see Pris again, and if we do, will she be changed?

“How could she sell us out like that?” Maury wondered aloud. “Going over to the other side—that clinic and that Doctor Horstowski did nothing, exactly nothing, for all that time and money. What loyalty did she show? I mean, I want all that money back I’ve shelled out. But her; I don’t care if I ever see her again—I’m through with her. I mean it.”

To change the subject I said to the Lincoln, “Do you have any other advice for us, sir? As to what we should do?”

“I fear I did not help you as much as I had hoped to,” the Lincoln said. “With a woman there is no prediction; fate enters in a capricious form … however, I suggest you retain me as your legal counsel. As they retain Mr. Blunk.”

“A terrific idea,” I said, getting out my checkbook. “How much do you require as a retainer?”

“Ten dollars is sufficient,” the Lincoln said. So I wrote the check out for that amount; he accepted it and thanked me.

Maury, deep in his brooding, glanced up to say, “The going retainer is at least two hundred these days; the dollar isn’t worth what it used to be.”

“Ten will do,” the Lincoln said. “And I will begin to draw up the papers of sale of MASA ASSOCIATES to your piano factory at Boise. As to ownership. I suggest that a limited corporation be formed, much like Mr. Barrows suggested, and I will look into the law these days to see how the stock should be distributed. It will take me time to do research, I fear, so you must be patient.”

“That’s okay,” I said. The loss of Pris had certainly deeply affected us, especially Maury. Loss instead of gain; that was how we had fared at Barrows’ hands. And yet—was there any way we could have escaped? The Lincoln was right. It was the unpredictable at work in our lives; Barrows had been as surprised as we were.

“Can we build simulacra without her?” I asked Maury.

“Yeah. But not without Bob Bundy.”

“You can get somebody to replace him,” I said.

But Maury did not care about Bundy; he was still thinking only about his daughter. “I’ll tell you what wrecked her,” he said. “That goddam book
Marjorie Morningstar.”

“Why?” I said. It was terrible to see Maury slipping away like this, into these random, pointless expostulations. It resembled senility. The shock had been that great.

“That book,” Maury said, “gave Pris the idea she could meet someone rich and famous and handsome. Like you
know who. Like Sam K. Barrows. It’s an old-country idea about marriage. Cold-blooded, marrying because it’s to your advantage. The kids in this country marry for love, and maybe that’s sappy, but at least it’s not calculating. When she read that book she began to get calculating about love. The only thing that could have saved Pris—if she had fallen head over heels in love with some boy. And now she’s gone.” His voice broke. “Let’s face it; this isn’t a business only. I mean, it’s a business all right. But not the simulacrum business. She wants to sell herself to him and get something back; you know what I mean, Louis.” He shook his head, gazing at me hopelessly. “And he can give her what she wants. And she knows it.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I should never have let him come near her. But I don’t blame him; it’s her fault. Anything that happens to her now is her fault. Whatever she does and becomes around him. We better watch the newspapers, Louis. You know how they always write up what Barrows does. We can find out about Pris from the goddam newspapers.” He turned his head away and drank noisily from his coffee cup, not letting us see his face.

We were all embarrassed. We all hung our heads.

After a time the Stanton simulacrum said, “When do I assume my new duties as Chairman of the Board?”

“Any time you want,” Maury said.

“Is that agreeable with you other gentlemen?” the Stanton asked us. My dad and I nodded; so did the Lincoln. “Then I will take it that I hold that post now, gentlemen.” It cleared its throat, blew its nose, fussed for a time with its whiskers. “We must begin the work ahead of us. A merger of the two companies will bring about a new period of activity. I have given thought to the product which we shall manufacture. I do not believe it would be wise to bring into existence more Lincoln simulacra, nor more—” It reflected, and a caustic, sardonic grimace passed over its features. “More Stantons, for that matter. One of each is enough. For the future let us
bring forth something more simple. It will ameliorate our mechanical problems, as well; will it not? I must examine the workmen and equipment and see if all is as it ought to be … nevertheless, even now I am confident that our enterprise can produce some simple, worthy product desired by all, some simulacra not unique or complex and yet needed. Perhaps workers who can themselves produce more simulacra.”

It was a good—but frightening—idea, I thought.

“In my opinion,” the Stanton said, “we should design, execute, and begin to build at once a standard, uniform item. It will be the first official simulacrum produced by our enterprise, and long before Mr. Barrows has made use of Miss Frauenzimmer’s knowledge and talents we will have it on the market and fully advertised.”

We all nodded.

“I suggest specifically,” the Stanton said, “a simulacrum which does one simple task for the home, and on that basis sell it: a babysitter. And we should relieve the complexity of it so that it may sell for as low a figure as possible. For example, forty dollars.”

We glanced at each other; it wasn’t a bad idea at all.

“I have had the opportunity of seeing this need,” the Stanton continued, “and I know that if it were adequate to mind the children of a family at all times, it would be an instantly salable item, and we would have in the future no problems of a financial nature. So I shall ask for a vote as to that proposal. All those favoring it say ‘Aye.’”

I said, “Aye.”