A fabulous headache was fully conscious before Cris was. He saw it clearly before it moved around behind his eyes. He was lying where he had fallen. A rangy youth with long narrow eyes was squatting ten feet away. He held a ready shotgun under his arm and on his wrist, while he deftly went through Cris’s wallet.
“Hey,” said Cris.
The man closed the wallet and threw it on the ground by Cris’s throbbing head. “So you’re Crisley Post,” said the man, in a disgusted tone of voice.
Cris sat up and groaned. “You’re—you’re not Sig Weiss?”
“I’m not?” asked the man pugnaciously.
“Okay, okay,” said Cris tiredly. He picked up his wallet and put it away and, with the aid of the tree trunk, got to his feet. Weiss made no move to help him, but watchfully rose with him. Cris asked, “Why the artillery?”
“I got a permit,” said Weiss. “This is my land. Why not? Don’t go blaming me because you ran into a tree. What do you want?”
“I just wanted to talk to you. I came a long way to do it. If I’d known you’d welcome me like this, I wouldn’t’ve come.”
“I didn’t ask you to come.”
“I’m not going to talk sense if I get sore,” said Cris quietly. “Can’t we go inside? My head hurts.”
Weiss seemed to ponder this for a moment. Then he turned on his heel, grunted, “Come,” and strode toward the house. Cris followed painfully.
A gray cat slid across the path and crouched in the long grass. Weiss appeared to ignore it, but as he stepped by, his right leg lashed out sidewise and lifted the yowling animal into the air. It struck a tree trunk and fell, to lie dazed. Cris let out an indignant shout and went to it. The cat cowered away from him, gained its feet and fled into the woods, terrified.
“Your cat?” asked Weiss coldly.
“No, but damn if—”
“If it isn’t your cat, why worry?” Weiss walked steadily on toward the house.
Cris stood a moment, shock and fury roiling in and about his headache, and then followed. Standing there or going away would accomplish nothing.
The house was old, small, and solid. It was built of fieldstone, and the ceilings were low and heavy beamed. Overlooking the mountainside was an enormous window, bringing in a breathtaking view of row after row of distant hills. The furniture was rustic and built to be used. There was a fireplace with a crane, also more than ornamental. There were no drapes, no couch covers or flamboyant upholstery. There was comfort, but austerity was the keynote.
“May I sit down?” Cris asked caustically.
“Go ahead,” said Weiss. “You can breathe, too, if you want to.”
Cris sat in a large split-twig chair that was infinitely more comfortable than it looked. “What’s the matter with you, Weiss?”
“Nothing the matter with me.”
“What makes you like this? Why the chip on your shoulder? Why this shoot-first-ask-questions-afterward attitude? What’s it get you?”
“Gets me a life of my own. Nobody bothers me but once. They don’t come back. You won’t.”
“That’s for sure,” said Cris fervently, “but I wish I knew what’s eating you. No normal human being acts like you do.”
“That’s enough,” said Weiss very gently, and Cris knew how seriously he meant it. “What I do and why is none of your business. What do you want here, anyhow?”
“I came to find out why you’re not writing. That’s my business. You’re my client, remember?”
“You’re my agent,” he said. “I like the sound of it better that way.”
Cris made an Olympian effort and ignored the remark. “The Traveling Crag churned up quite a stir. You made yourself a nice piece of change. Write more, you’ll make more. Don’t you like money?”
“Who doesn’t? You got no complaints out of me.”
“Fine. Then what about some more copy?”
“You’ll get it when I’m good and ready.”
“Which is how soon?”
“How do I know?” Weiss barked. “When I feel like it, whenever that is.”
Cris talked, then, at some length. He told Weiss some of the ins and outs of publishing. He explained how phenomenal it was that a pulp sale should have created such a turmoil, and pointed out what could be expected in the slicks and Hollywood. “I don’t know how you’ve done it, but you’ve found a short line to the heavy sugar. But the only way you’ll ever touch it is to write more.”
“All right, all right,” Weiss said at last. “You’ve sold me. You’ll get your story. Is that what you wanted?”
“Not quite.” Cris rose. He felt better, and he could allow himself to be angry now that the business was taken care of. “I still want to know how a guy like you could have written The Traveling Crag in a place like this.”
“Why not?”
Cris looked out at the rolling blue distance. “That story had more sheer humanity in it than anything I’ve ever read. It was sensitive and—damn it—it was a kind story. I can usually visualize who writes the stuff I read; I spend all my time with writing and writers. That story wasn’t written in a place like this. And it wasn’t written by a man like you.”
“Where was it written?” asked Weiss in his very quiet voice. “And who wrote it?”
“Aw, put your dukes down,” said Cris tiredly, and with such contempt that he apparently astonished Weiss. “If you’re going to jump salty over every little thing that happens, what are you going to do when something big comes along and you’ve already shot your bolt?”
Weiss did not answer, and Cris went on: “I’m not saying you didn’t write it. All I’m saying is that it reads like something dreamed up in some quiet place that smelled like flowers and good clean sweat … Some place where everything was right and nothing was sick or off balance. And whoever wrote it suited that kind of a place. It was probably you, but you sure have changed since.”
“You know a hell of a lot, don’t you?” The soft growl was not completely insulting, and Cris felt that in some obscure way he had scored. Then Weiss said, “Now get the hell out.”
“Real glad to,” said Cris. At the door, he said, “Thanks for the drink.”
When he reached the cutbank he looked back. Weiss was standing by the corner of the house, staring after him.
Cris trudged back to the crossroads called Turnville and stopped in at the general store. “Shay,” said the proprietor. “Looks like a tree reached down and whopped ye. Heh!”
“Heh!” said Cris. “One did. I called it a son of a beech.”
The proprietor slapped his knee and wheezed. “Shay, thet’s a good ‘un. Come out back, young feller, while I put some snake oil on your head. Like some cold beer?”
Cris blessed him noisily. The snake oil turned out to be a benzocaine ointment that took the pain out instantly, and the beer was a transfusion. He looked at the old man with new respect.
“Had a bad time up on the hill?” asked the oldster.
“No worse’n sharing an undershirt with a black widow spider,” said Cris. “What’s the matter with that character?”
“Nobuddy rightly knows,” said the proprietor. “Came up here about eight years ago. Always been thet way. Some say the war did it to him, but I knew him before he went overseas and he was the same. He jest don’t like people, is all. Old Tom Sackett, drives the RFD wagon, he says Weiss was weaned off a gallbladder to a bottle of vinegar. Heh!”
“Heh!” said Cris. “How’s he live?”
“Gits a check every month. Some trust company. I cash ’em. Not much, but enough. He don’t dew nahthin. Hunts a bit, roams these hills a hull lot. Reads. Heh! He’s no trouble, though. Stays on his own reservation. Just don’t want folks barrelin’ in on him. Here comes yer bus.”
“My God!” said Naome.
“You’re addressing me?” he asked.
She ignored him. “Listen to this:
Jets blasting, Bat Durston came screeching down through the atmosphere of Bbllzznaj, a t
iny planet seven billion light years from Sol. He cut out his super-hyper-drive for the landing … and at that point a tall, lean spaceman stepped out of the tail assembly, proton gun-blaster in a space-tanned hand.
‘Get back from those controls, Bat Durston,’ the tall stranger lipped thinly. ‘You don’t know it, but this is your last space trip.’ ”
She looked up at him dazedly. “That’s Sig Weiss?”
“That’s Sig Weiss.”
“The same Sig Weiss?”
“The very same. Leaf through that thing, Naome. Nine bloody thousand words of it, and it’s all like that. Go on—read it.”
“No,” she said. It was not a refusal, but an exclamation. “Are you going to send it out?”
“Yes. To Sig Weiss. I’m going to tell him to roll it and stuff it up his shotgun. Honey, we have a one-shot on our hands.”
“That is—it’s impossible!” she blazed. “Cris, you can’t give him up just like that. Maybe the next one … maybe you can … maybe you’re right at that,” she finished, glancing back at the manuscript.
He said tiredly, “Let’s go eat.”
“No. You have a lunch.”
“I have?”
“With a Miss Tillie Moroney. You’re quite safe. She’s the Average American Miss. I mean it. She was picked out as such by pollsters last year. She’s five-five, has had 2.3 years of college, is 24 years old, brown hair, blue eyes, and so on.”
“How much does she weigh?”
“34B,” said Naome, with instant understanding, “and presents a united front like a Victorian.”
He laughed. “And what have I to do with Miss Tillie Moroney?”
“She’s got money. I told you about her—that personals ad in the Saturday Review—remember? ‘Does basic character ever change? $1000 for authentic case of devil into saint.’ ”
“Oh my gosh yes. You had this bright idea of calling her in after I told you about getting the Weiss treatment in Turnville.” He waved at the manuscript. “Doesn’t that change your plans any? You might make a case out of The Traveling Crag versus the cat-kicking of Mr. Weiss, if you use that old man’s testimony that he’s been kicking cats and people for some years. But from my experience,” he touched his forehead, which was almost healed, “I’d say it was saint into devil.”
“Her ad didn’t mention temporary or permanent changes,” Naome pointed out. “There may be a buck in it. You can handle her.”
“Thanks just the same, but let me see what she looks like before I do any such thing. Personally, I think she’s a crank. A mystic maybe. Do you know here?”
“Spoke to her on the phone. Saw her picture last year. The Average American Miss is permitted to be a screwball. That’s what makes this country great.”
“You and your Machiavellian syndrome. Can’t I get out of it?”
“You cannot. What are you making such a fuss about? You’ve wined and dined uglier chicks than this.”
“I know it. Do you think I’d have a chance to see her if I acted eager?”
“I despise you,” said Naome. “Straighten your tie and go comb your hair. Oh, Cris, I know it sounds wacky. But what doesn’t, in this business? What’ll you lose? The price of a lunch!”
“I might lose my honor.”
“Authors’ agents have no honor.”
“As my friend in the general store is wont to remark: Heh! What protects you, little one?”
“My honor,” replied Naome.
The brown hair was neat and so was the tailored brown suit that matched it so well. The blue eyes were extremely dark. The rest well befit her Average Miss title, except for her voice, which had the pitch of a husky one while being clear as tropical shoals. Her general air was one of poised shyness. Cris pulled out a restaurant chair for her, which was a tribute; he felt impelled to do that about one time in seven.
“You think I’m a crank,” she said when they were settled with a drink.
“Do I?”
“You do,” she said positively. He did, too.
“Well,” he said, “your ad did make it a little difficult to suspend judgment.”
She smiled with him. She had good teeth. “I can’t blame you, or the eight hundred-odd other people who answered. Why is it a thousand dollars is so much more appealing than such an incredible thought as a change from basic character?”
“I guess because most people would rather see the change from a thousand dollars.”
He was pleased to find she had the rare quality of being able to talk coherently while she laughed. She said, “You are right. One of them wanted to marry me so I could change his character. He assured me that he was a regular devil. But—tell me about this case of yours.”
He did, in detail: Sig Weiss’s incredible short story, its wide impact, its deep call on everything that is fine and generous in everyone who read it. And then he described the man who had written it.
“In this business, you run into all kinds of flukes,” he said. “A superficial, tone-deaf, materialistic character will sit down and write something that positively sings. You read the story, you know the guy, and you say he couldn’t have written it. But you know he did. I’ve seen that time after time, and all it proves is that there are more facets to a man than you see at first—not that there’s any real change in him. But Weiss—I’ll admit that in his case the theory has got to be stretched to explain it. I’ll swear a man like him simply could not contain the emotions and convictions that made The Traveling Crag what it is.”
“I’ve read it,” she said. He hadn’t noticed her lower lip was so full. Perhaps it hadn’t been, a moment ago. “It was a beautiful thing.”
“Now, tell me about this ad of yours. Have you found such a basic change—devil into saint? Or do you just hope to?”
“I don’t know of any such case,” she admitted. “But I know it can happen.”
“How?”
She paused. She seemed to be listening. Then she said, “I can’t tell you. I … know something that can have that effect, that’s all. I’m trying to find out where it is.”
“I don’t understand that. You don’t think Sig Weiss was under such an influence, do you?”
“I’d like to ask him. I’d like to know if the effect was at all lasting.”
“Not so you’d notice it,” he said glumly. “He gave me that bouncing around after he wrote The Traveling Crag, not before. Not only that …” He told her about the latest story.
“Do you suppose he wrote that under the same circumstances as The Traveling Crag?”
“I don’t see why not. He’s a man of pretty regular habits. He probably—wait a minute! Just before I left, I said something to him … something about …” He drummed on his temples. “… Something about the Crag reading as if it had been written in a different place, by a different person. And he didn’t get sore. He looked at me as if I were a swami. Seems I hit the nail right on the thumb.”
The listening expression crossed her smooth face again. She looked up, startled. “Has he got any …” She closed her eyes, straining for something. “Has he a radio? I mean—a shortwave set—a transmitter—diathermy—a fever cabinet—any … uh … RF generator of any kind?”
“What in time made you ask that?”
She opened her eyes and smiled shyly at him. “It just came to me.”
“Saving your presence, Miss Moroney, but there are moments when you give me the creeps,” he blurted. “I’m sorry. I guess I shouldn’t have said that, but—”
“It’s all right,” she said warmly.
“You hear voices?” he asked.
She smiled. “What about the RF generator?”
“I don’t know.” He thought hard. “He has electricity. I imagine he has a receiver. About the rest, I really can’t say. He didn’t take me on a grand tour. Will you tell me what made you ask that?”
“No.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but when he saw her expression he closed it again. She asked, “What are y
ou going to do about Weiss?”
“Drop him. What else?”
“Oh, please don’t!” she cried. She put a hand on his sleeve. “Please!”
“What else to you expect me to do?” he asked in some annoyance. “A writer who sends in a piece of junk like that as a followup to something like the Crag is more than foolish. He’s stupid. I can’t use a client like that. I’m busy. I got troubles.
“Also, he gave you a bad time.”
“That hasn’t anyth—well, you’re right. If he behaved like a human being, maybe I would take a lot of trouble and analyze his trash and guide and urge and wipe his nose for him. But a guy like that—nah!”
“He has another story like the Crag in him.”
“You think he has?”
“I know he has.”
“You’re very positive. Your … voices tell you that?”
She nodded, with a small secret smile.
“I have the feeling you’re playing with me. You know this Weiss?”
“Oh, no! And I’m not playing with you. Truly. You’ve got to believe me!” She looked genuinely distressed.
“I don’t see why I should. This begins to look real haywire, Tillie Moroney. I think maybe we’d better get down to basics here.” She immediately looked so worried that he recognized an advantage. Not knowing exactly what she wanted of him, he knew she wanted something, and now he was prepared to use that to the hilt. “Tell me about it. What’s your interest in Weiss? What’s this personalityalteration gimmick? What are you after and what gave you your lead? And what do you expect me to do about it? That last question reads, ‘What’s in it for me?’ ”
“Y-you’re not always very nice, are you?”
He said, more gently, “That last wasn’t thrown in to be mean. It was an appeal to your good sense to appeal to my sincerity. You can always judge sincerity—your own or anyone else’s—by finding out what’s in it for the interested party. Altruism and real sincerity are mutually exclusive. Now, talk. I mean, talk, please.”
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