Stranger in a Strange Land Page 22

  “Okay, Boss. Anne says to come to the pool and have a bite before you eat.”

  “Can’t think of a better time. Shall we adjourn, gentlemen?”

  The party progressed liquidly, with bits of fish and other Scandinavian comestibles added to taste. At Jubal’s invitation Mike tried brandy. Mike found the result disquieting, so he analyzed his trouble, added oxygen to ethanol in an inner process of reverse fermentation and converted it to glucose and water.

  Jubal had been observing the effect of liquor on the Man from Mars—saw him become drunk, saw him sober up even more quickly. In an attempt to understand, Jubal urged more brandy on Mike—which he accepted since his water brother offered it. Mike sopped up an extravagant quantity before Jubal conceded that it was impossible to get him drunk.

  Such was not the case with Jubal, despite years of pickling; staying sociable with Mike during the experiment dulled his wits. So, when he asked Mike what he had done, Mike thought that he was inquiring about the raid by the S.S.—concerning which Mike felt latent guilt. He tried to explain and, if needed, receive Jubal’s pardon.

  Jubal interrupted when he realized what the boy was talking about. “Son, I don’t want to know. You did what was needed—just perfect. But—” He blinked owlishly. “—don’t tell me. Don’t ever tell anybody.”

  “Not?”

  “‘Not.’ Damnedest thing I’ve seen since my uncle with two heads debated free silver and refuted himself. An explanation would spoil it.”

  “I do not grok?”

  “Nor I. So let’s have another drink.”

  Reporters started arriving: Jubal received them with courtesy, invited them to eat, drink, and relax—but refrain from badgering himself or the Man from Mars.

  Those who failed to heed were tossed into the pool.

  Jubal kept Larry and Duke at flank to administer baptism. While some became angry, others added themselves to the dousing squad with the fanatic enthusiasm of proselytes—Jubal had to stop them from ducking the doyen lippmann of the New York Times a third time.

  Late in the evening Dorcas sought out Jubal and whispered: “Telephone, Boss.”

  “Take a message.”

  “You must answer, Boss.”

  “I’ll answer it with an ax! I’ve been intending to get rid of that Iron Maiden—and I’m in the mood. Duke, get me an ax.”

  “Boss! It’s the man you spoke to for a long time this afternoon.”

  “Oh. Why didn’t you say so?” Jubal lumbered upstairs, bolted his door, went to the phone. Another of Douglas’s acolytes was on screen but was replaced by Douglas. “It took you long enough to answer your phone.”

  “It’s my phone, Mr. Secretary. Sometimes I don’t answer it at all.”

  “So it seems. Why didn’t you tell me Caxton is an alcoholic?”

  “Is he?”

  “He certainly is! He’s been on a bender. He was sleeping it off in a fleabag in Sonora.”

  “I’m glad to hear he has been found. Thank you, sir.”

  “He’s been picked up for ‘vagrancy.’ The charge won’t be pressed—we are releasing him to you.”

  “I am in your debt, sir.”

  “Oh, it’s not entirely a favor! I’m having him delivered as he was found—filthy, unshaven, and, I understand, smelling like a brewery. I want you to see what a tramp he is.”

  “Very well, sir. When may I expect him?”

  “A courier left Nogales some time ago. At Mach four it should be overhead soon. The pilot will deliver him and get a receipt.”

  “He shall have it.”

  “Now, Counsellor, I wash my hands of it. I expect you and your client to appear whether you bring that drunken libeller or not.”

  “Agreed. When?”

  “Tomorrow at ten?”

  “ ‘ ’Twere best done quickly.’ Agreed.”

  Jubal went downstairs and outside. “Jill! Come here, child.”

  “Yes, Jubal.” She trotted toward him, a reporter with her.

  Jubal waved him back. “Private,” he said firmly. “Family matter.”

  “Whose family?”

  “A death in yours. Scat!” The newsman grinned and left. Jubal leaned over and said softly, “He’s safe.”

  “Ben?”

  “Yes. He’ll be here soon.”

  “Oh, Jubal!” She started to bawl.

  He took her shoulders. “Stop it. Go inside until you get control.”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  “Go cry in your pillow, then wash your face.” He went out to the pool. “Quiet everybody! I have an announcement. We’ve enjoyed having you—but the party is over.”

  “Boo!”

  “Toss him in the pool. I’m an old man and need my rest. And so does my family. Duke, cork those bottles. Girls, clear the food away.”

  There was grumbling, the more responsible quieted their colleagues. In ten minutes they were alone.

  In twenty minutes Caxton arrived. The S.S. officer commanding the car accepted Harshaw’s signature and print on a prepared receipt, left while Jill sobbed on Ben’s shoulder.

  Jubal looked him over. “Ben, I hear you’ve been drunk for a week.”

  Ben cursed, while continuing to pat Jill’s back. “ ’M drunk, awri’—but haven’t had a drink.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’ know. I don’t know!”

  An hour later Ben’s stomach had been pumped; Jubal had given him shots to offset alcohol and barbiturates; he was bathed, shaved, dressed in borrowed clothes, had met the Man from Mars, and was sketchily brought up to date, while ingesting milk and food.

  But he was unable to bring them up to date. For Ben, the week had not happened—he had become unconscious in Washington; had been shaken into wakefulness in Mexico. “Of course I know what happened. They kept me doped and in a dark room . . . and wrung me out. But I can’t prove anything. And there’s the village Jefe and the madman of this dive—plus, I’m sure, other witnesses—to swear how this gringo spent his time. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Then don’t,” Jubal advised. “Relax and be happy.”

  “The hell I will! I’ll get that—”

  “Tut, tut! Ben, you’re alive . . . which I would have given long odds against. And Douglas is going to do exactly what we want him to—and like it.”

  “I want to talk about that. I think—”

  “I think you’re going to bed. With a glass of warm milk to conceal Old Doc Harshaw’s Secret Ingredient for secret drinkers.”

  Soon Caxton was snoring. Jubal was heading for bed and encountered Anne in the upper hall. He shook his head tiredly. “Quite a day, lass.”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t have missed it and don’t want to repeat it. Go to bed, Boss.”

  “In a moment. Anne? What’s so special about the way that lad kisses?”

  Anne looked dreamy, then dimpled. “You should have tried it.”

  “I’m too old to change. But I’m interested in everything about the boy. Is this something different?”

  Anne pondered it. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Mike gives a kiss his whole attention.”

  “Oh, rats! I do myself. Or did.”

  Anne shook her head. “No. I’ve been kissed by men who did a very good job. But they don’t give kissing their whole attention. They can’t. No matter how hard they try parts of their minds are on something else. Missing the last bus—or their chances of making the gal—or their own techniques in kissing—or maybe worry about jobs, or money, or will husband or papa or the neighbors catch on. Mike doesn’t have technique . . . but when Mike kisses you he isn’t doing anything else. You’re his whole universe . . . and the moment is eternal because he doesn’t have any plans and isn’t going anywhere. Just kissing you.” She shivered. “It’s overwhelming.”

  “Hmm—”

  “Don’t ‘Hmm’ at me, you old lecher! You don’t understand.”

  “No. I’m sorry to say I never will. Wel
l, goodnight—and, by the way . . . I told Mike to bolt his door.”

  She made a face at him. “Spoilsport!”

  “He’s learning fast enough. Mustn’t rush him.”

  XVIII.

  THE CONFERENCE was postponed twenty-four hours, which gave Caxton time to recuperate, to hear about his missing week, and to “grow closer” with the Man from Mars—for Mike grokked that Jill and Ben were “water brothers,” consulted Jill, and solemnly offered water to Ben.

  Ben had been briefed by Jill. It caused him much soul searching. Ben was bothered by an uneasy feeling: he felt irked at the closeness between Mike and Jill. His bachelor attitudes had been changed by a week of undead oblivion; he proposed to Jill again, as soon as he got her alone.

  Jill looked away. “Please, Ben.”

  “Why not? I’ve got a steady job, I’m in good health—or will be, as soon as I get their ‘truth’ drugs out of my system . . . and since I haven’t, I feel a compulsion to tell the truth. I love you. I want to marry you and rub your poor tired feet. Am I too old? Or are you planning to marry somebody else?”

  “No, neither one! Dear Ben . . . Ben, I love you. But don’t ask me this now, I have . . . responsibilities.”

  He could not budge her.

  He finally realized that the Man from Mars wasn’t a rival—he was Jill’s patient—and a man who marries a nurse must accept the fact that nurses feel maternal toward their charges—accept it and like it, for if Gillian had not had the character that made her a nurse, he would not love her. It was not the figure-eight in which her pert fanny moved when she walked, nor the lush view from the other direction—he was not the infantile type, interested solely in the size of mammary glands! No, it was herself he loved.

  Since what she was would make it necessary for him to take second place to patients who needed her, then he was bloody-be-damned not going to be jealous! Mike was a nice kid—as innocent and guileless as Jill had described him.

  And he wasn’t offering Jill a bed of roses; the wife of a newspaperman had things to put up with. He might be gone for weeks at times and his hours were always irregular. He wouldn’t like it if Jill bitched. But Jill wouldn’t.

  Having reached this summing up, Ben accepted water from Mike whole-heartedly.

  Jubal needed the extra day to plan. “Ben, when you dumped this in my lap I told Gillian that I would not lift a finger to get this boy his so-called ‘rights.’ I’ve changed my mind. We’re not going to let the government have the swag.”

  “Certainly not this administration!”

  “Nor any, the next will be worse. Ben, you undervalue Joe Douglas.”

  “He’s a cheap politician, with morals to match!”

  “Yes. And ignorant to six decimal places. But he is also a fairly conscientious world chief—better than we deserve. I would enjoy poker with him . . . he wouldn’t cheat and he would pay up with a smile. Oh, he’s an S.O.B.—but that reads ‘Swell Old Boy,’ too. He’s middlin’ decent.”

  “Jubal, I’m damned if I understand you. You told me that you had been fairly certain that Douglas had had me killed . . . and it wasn’t far from it! You juggled eggs to get me out alive and God knows I’m grateful! But do you expect me to forget that Douglas was behind it? It’s none of his doing that I’m alive—he would rather see me dead.”

  “I suppose he would. But, yup, just that—forget it.”

  “I’m damned if I will!”

  “You’ll be silly not to. You can’t prove anything. And there’s no call to be grateful to me and I won’t let you lay this burden on me. I didn’t do it for you.”

  “Huh?”

  “I did it for a little girl who was about to go charging out and maybe get herself killed. I did it because she was my guest and I stood in loco parentis. I did it because she was all guts and gallantry but too ignorant to monkey with such a buzz saw. But you, my cynical and sin-stained chum, know all about buzz saws. If your carelessness causes you to back into one, who am I to tamper with your karma?”

  “Mmm . . . Okay, Jubal, you can go to hell—for monkeying with my karma. If I have one.”

  “A moot point. The predestinationers and free-willers were tied in the fourth quarter, last I heard. Either way, I have no wish to disturb a man sleeping in a gutter. Do-gooding is like treating hemophilia—the real cure is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death . . . before they breed more hemophiliacs.”

  “You could sterilize them.”

  “You would have me play God? But we’re off the subject. Douglas didn’t try to have you assassinated.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says the infallible Jubal Harshaw, speaking ex cathedra from his belly button. Son, if a deputy sheriff beats a prisoner to death, it’s sweepstakes odds that the county commissioners wouldn’t have permitted it had they known. At worst they shut their eyes—afterwards—rather than upset applecarts. Assassination has never been a policy in this country.”

  “I’ll show you backgrounds of a number of deaths I’ve looked into.”

  Jubal waved it aside. “I said it wasn’t a policy. We’ve always had assassination—from prominent ones like Huey Long to men beaten to death with hardly a page-eight story. But it’s never been a policy and the reason you are alive is that it is not Joe Douglas’s policy. They snatched you clean, they squeezed you dry and they could have disposed of you as quietly as flushing a dead mouse down a toilet. But their boss doesn’t like them to play that rough and if he became convinced that they had, it would cost their jobs if not their necks.”

  Jubal paused for a swig. “Those thugs are just a tool; they aren’t a Praetorian Guard that picks the Caesar. So whom do you want for Caesar? Courthouse Joe whose indoctrination goes back to when this country was a nation and not a satrapy in a polyglot empire. . . Douglas, who can’t stomach assassination? Or do you want to toss him out—we can, just by double-crossing him—toss him out and put in a Secretary General from a land where life is cheap and assassination a tradition? If you do, Ben—what happens to the next snoopy newsman who walks down a dark alley?”

  Caxton didn’t answer.

  “As I said, the S.S. is just a tool. Men are always for hire who like dirty work. How dirty will that work become if you nudge Douglas out of his majority?”

  “Jubal, are you saying I ought not to criticize the administration?”

  “Nope. Gadflies are necessary. But it’s well to look at the new rascals before you turn your present rascals out. Democracy is a poor system; the only thing that can be said for it is that it’s eight times as good as any other method. Its worst fault is that its leaders reflect their constituents—a low level, but what can you expect? So look at Douglas and ponder that, in his ignorance, stupidity, and self-seeking, he resembles his fellow Americans but is a notch or two above average. Then look at the man who will replace him if his government topples.”

  “There’s little difference.”

  “There’s always a difference! This is between ‘bad’ and ‘worse’—which is much sharper than between ‘good’ and ‘better.’ ”

  “Well? What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing,” Harshaw answered. “I’ll run this show myself. I expect you to refrain from chewing out Joe Douglas over this coming settlement—maybe praise him for ‘statesmanlike restraint—’ ”

  “You’re making me vomit!”

  “Use your hat. I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do. The first principle in riding a tiger is to hang on tight to its ears.”

  “Quit being pompous. What’s the deal?”

  “Quit being obtuse and listen. Mike has the misfortune to be heir to more wealth than Croesus dreamed of . . . plus a claim to political power under a politico-judicial precedent unparalleled in jug-headedness since Secretary Fall was convicted of receiving a bribe that Doheny was acquitted of paying. I have no interest in ‘True Prince’ nonsense. Nor do I regard that wealth as ‘his’; he didn’t produce it. Even if he had earned it, ‘property’ is not the
natural and obvious concept that most people think it is.”

  “Come again?”

  “Ownership is a sophisticated abstraction, a mystical relationship. God knows our legal theorists make this mystery complicated—but I didn’t dream how subtle it was until I got the Martian slant. Martians don’t own anything . . . not even their bodies.”

  “Wait a minute, Jubal. Even animals have property. And the Martians aren’t animals; they’re a civilization, with cities and all sorts of things.”

  “Yes. ‘Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests.’ Nobody understands ‘meus-et-tuus’ better than a watch dog. But not Martians. Unless you regard joint ownership of everything by millions or billions of senior citizens—‘ghosts’ to you, my friend—as ‘property.’ ”

  “Say, Jubal, how about these ‘Old Ones’?”

  “You want the official version?”

  “No. Your opinion.”

  “I think it is pious poppycock, suitable for enriching lawns—superstition burned into the boy’s brain so early that he stands no chance of breaking loose.”

  “Jill talks as if she believed it.”

  “You will hear me talk as if I did, too. Ordinary politeness. One of my most valued friends believes in astrology; I would never offend her by telling her what I think. The capacity of humans to believe in what seems to me highly improbable—from table tapping to the superiority of their children—has never been plumbed. Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness but Mike’s faith in his ‘Old Ones’ is no more irrational than a conviction that the dynamics of the universe can be set aside through prayers for rain.”

  “Mmm, Jubal, I confess to a suspicion that immortality is a fact—but I’m glad my grandfather’s ghost doesn’t boss me. He was a cranky old devil.”

  “And so was mine. And so am I. But is there any reason why a citizen’s franchise should be voided simply because he is dead? The precinct I was raised in had a large graveyard vote—almost Martian. As may be, our lad Mike can’t own anything because the ‘Old Ones’ already own everything. So I have trouble explaining to him that he owns over a million shares of Lunar Enterprises, plus the Lyle Drive, plus assorted chattels and securities. It doesn’t help that the original owners are dead; that makes them ‘Old Ones’—Mike never would stick his nose into the business of ‘Old Ones.’ ”