"Halfback?" interrupted Remo.
Halfback, continued Larry Garrand. He smiled.
He was thin then and fast. Real fast. But he didn't want to make it running. He wanted to make Iit another way. He wanted to show the white folks that Negroes could cut the mustard in every way. Decent Negroes.
It was a whole new scene at Madison. First of all, his freshman year saw him in the lower third of his class. He had been first in elementary school. He knew what the whites were thinking. His father saw the report card and didn't say a word. What his father was really saying was that they weren't as good as whites, so why try? Larry Garrand tried. He read his lessons twice. He pretended, in front of the whites, that he didn't work hard. But he studied ten hours a day. During mid-term recesses, he would begin reading for the next semester. Larry Garrand invented his own speed reading.
It was the time of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Larry Garrand thought they were both wrong. When the whites saw how really top notch Negroes could be, they would change their minds and not one second sooner. Larry Garrand won a scholarship to Harvard. He graduated magna cum laude despite severe headaches every two weeks. He went to many doctors, but none could cure him.
He had been approached by many white women but refused their offers. He wanted to show that black men—it had changed from Negro by then—weren't just interested in white pussy.
One night, the police made a dragnet pickup in Roxbury, the black section. They picked up Larry Garrand but when he showed who he was, they let him go. After all, he wasn't a nigger. Not all blacks were niggers and whites were beginning to realize that.
When Afros first came out, Larry Garrand secretly died inside. They looked so stupid. So niggerish, if you want to know the truth.
Larry Garrand got a master's and then a doctorate, not in sociology or the other plush easy courses that attracted most blacks. He got it in physics. The headaches got worse. But he had almost made it.
Dr. Lawrence Garrand went to work for the United States government's Atomic Energy Commission and he was Dr. Garrand and the secretaries called him sir, He attended a cocktail party at the White House. In one discovery he was noted in a national news magazine, his opinion sought by U.S. senators. Where he worked it was Dr. Garrand this and Dr. Garrand that and Dr. Garrand will not be able to meet with you this week, Congressman, perhaps next.
When Dr. Garrand knew that he had become the world's foremost authority on atomic waste disposal, then he felt he could allow himself to indulge a secret boyhood wish. He bought himself a gold coloured Cadillac convertible. After all, for the foremost authority on atomic waste disposal, this was an eccentricity. Do you know that the foremost authority on atomic waste disposal drives a gold Cadillac?
He even indulged in a modified Afro, cut neat every week of course. And well, since it was in, he bought a dashiki. The foremost authority on atomic waste disposal drives a gold Cadillac, wears an Afro and a dashiki. Dr. Garrand was the one really helping the Afro-American's cause, not the shouters.
One evening, while driving to New York City, not in Mobile or Biloxi or Little Rock, but in Jersey City, N.J., the world's foremost authority on atomic waste disposal was stopped by a motorcycle policeman. Not for speeding. Not for passing a red light or making an improper turn.
"Just for a check, buddy. Let me see your license and registration. Yeah, yeah, sure. You're the foremost authority on everything. You know it all."
"I was just trying to explain who I am."
"You're Mr. Wonderful. Keep your hands up on the wheel where I can see them."
"I'll have your badge, officer."
The motorcycle patrolman shined his flashlight directly into Dr. Garrand's eyes.
"I've had ail I'm going to take from you. You shut up. Now open your hood."
Dr. Garrand pressed the hidden hood release, taking joy in his own anger, anticipating the glorious revenge when the patrolman was dressed down by his superior, who was dressed down from Washington.
Dr. Garrand heard noises as the policeman's head disappeared under the hood.
"Okay, follow me," said the patrolman, handing back the registration and license.
"Is there anything wrong?" asked Dr.Garrand.
"Just follow me. There will be a patrol car right behind us."
That night the world's foremost authority on atomic waste was booked at the Greenville Precinct, for incorrect registration of an auto. The motor mount number and the registration did not match. Dr. Garrand, if that was his name, was allowed one phone call. Since he did not know a politician, other than a President and some senators, he called the head of the Atomic Energy Commission.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Larry, he isn't home. They're booking you for what?"
"Incorrect registration or something."
"That's incredible, Larry. Tell them to send you a letter. I'll tell him as soon as he gets home."
And that was Dr. Lawrence Garrand's phone call before he was placed in a cell block with a pimp who hadn't paid off, a drunk and disorderly, and a breaking and entry. All black.
He spent the night with the niggers and just as red was coming into the gloomy cold gray which he could see through the small mesh-covered window, he realized something that made his headache go away.
There weren't three niggers and Dr. Lawrence Garrand in the cell. There were four niggers, one of whom claimed to be the world's foremost authority on atomic waste disposal.
And for some crazy reason, all he could think about was all the white pussy he had passed up.
The Atomic Energy Commission, of course, complained to the Jersey City cops. But Larry Garrand didn't care anymore. He was still called sir, still sought by senators, but Larry Garrand didn't care anymore. Because Dr. Lawrence Garrand, world's foremost authority on atomic waste, knew that when push came to shove, when you're driving alone at night in Jersey City, you, Larry Garrand, are a nigger.
And that was the story. The room was silent.
Florissa pointed out that Dr. Garrand was allowing whites to define his terms of reference. The CIA man suggested emigration to Africa. Someone else suggested that overeating was no compensation, to which Dr. Lawrence Garrand answered that he had his own compensation which was none of anyone's business. And Dr. Forrester did not push him to explain.
Then Chiun spoke.
"In the world there are hundreds of flowers that bloom, each with its own beauty. Yet not one depends on the other's admission of it. Beauty is beauty and one should accept the beauty that is his. For it is only his and no one else's."
Everyone thought that was a beautiful sentiment.
Remo whispered to Chiun: "Why don't you tell him about the clay that God burned too long? He'd love that one."
The group wanted to know what Remo was whispering and he advised one and all to blow it out their ears. This was considered hostile.
Florissa thought it was the most hostile, particularly now when she had almost forgiven Remo for not wanting to make love to her.
The class retired to womb-touching, a floating-around in a pool nude and leaning on people. Dr. Forrester was not present. Chiun sat fully robed on the pool's edge. He explained that to enter the pool nude was a violation of his cultural habits.
Remo tried the same thing. He was accused of having hangups. He explained that getting undressed in front of strangers was an American cultural thing too. It was decided loudly that American cultural things didn't count.
Remo stripped and climbed into the pool and everyone agreed that he managed to save the man who had gotten everyone to agree that American cultural things didn't count. It seemed Remo's hand accidentally slapped the man's face into the water and the man had trouble resurfacing. Then Remo helped him recover by special artificial respiration. "It only looks like I'm punching him in the stomach," Remo said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The first sign that France would bid—yes, definitely bid—came when France began converting paper into gold in countries around the world
.
First, it was South Africa from which France demanded, and got, $73 million in gold. And then France's top fiscal officer called the Secretary of the Treasury and told him that because of certain internal problems, France found it necessary to shore up the value of the franc with more gold. Well, the internal problems were of a secret nature and no, unfortunately, he could not speak about them but the Secretary of the Treasury would understand. Yes, it was just a temporary thing. The secretary need not worry that France was making any effort to undermine the American dollar. The integrity of the franc was all that was being considered at this moment. He could not say any more, which was true for a very good reason: he did not know any more. All he knew were his instructions to begin accumulating more gold.
And soon, two hundred million more in gold was on its way to France's national bank.
The Secretary of the Treasury was perplexed. Ordinarily, governments conduct business much as bookies do with habitual gamblers—by telephone. and pieces of paper and record-keeping—but only rarely by actual exchanges of money. Yet, in the emerging world, France was an ally and allies must be kept happy.
The signs of what France was doing were immediately evident to Mr. Amadeus Rentzel of the House of Rapfenberg, but he was still not happy. On the international scene, France was a putz, epitomized by de Gaulle's anguished question: "How can one govern a country that produces 117 different kinds of cheese?" On the mind of Mr. Amadeus Rentzel were Great Britain and Russia, which had not yet indicated any real interest in bidding.
It simply would not do to have even one country fail to bid after having been invited, because that country might just alert the United States to what was happening—and that could be disastrous to their plan.
That day, Rentzel began to make discreet inquiries. The answers were quick in coming. England and Russia might indeed be interested in bidding. Yes, the nuclear bomber thing was interesting. So were the revelations by the CIA man. But, after all, they were really in the nature of parlour hicks. What about sea power? What kind of guarantee was there that the package would include control of the U.S. Navy operations? True to its history and its habits, Great Britain looked for control of U.S. Navy strength. And true to its history of seeking sea power and sea ports, Russia wanted to know the same things.
That night, Mr. Amadeus Rentzel, Swiss banker, spoke long distance to a private telephone in the United States.
"John Bull and Ivan are the only holdouts. They won't bid until we show them something involving the Navy."
The bored, languid voice answered: "How much do they expect us to show. We've gone through the Air Force and the CIA already."
"I know," Rentzel said. "I've explained that. But they won't budge."
There was a pause, then the long sigh of a person much used to being put upon by the world. "All right. We'll try to do something quickly. The other countries are in line?"
"Yessir. Literally itching to go ahead. I'm sure you've noticed the money movements in the financial pages?"
"Yes, yes, of course. All right. We'll give them something with the Navy."
Dr. Lithia Forrester sat in her domed tenth floor office at the Human Awareness Laboratories pondering a difficult question. Remo Donaldson must go. But how?
The end button on her telephone began to blink on and off, splashing a spray of light onto the darkened desk. She picked up the telephone rapidly.
"Yes?"
"Do something with the Navy."
"Such as?"
"Such as anything you want, bitch. Just do it big and do it fast. It's important."
"Yes, dear, of course." She paused. "Will I see you tonight?"
"I think we might be doing better on our plans if you thought less about sex and more about our project."
"That's not fair," she said. "I've done everything I could do. Everything you wanted me to."
"Then let your sense of accomplishment serve as your sexual gratification. Just get started. Do something with the Navy."
The phone clicked off in Lithia Forrester's ear. She slowly replaced the receiver on the stand. Then she leaned back in her glove-leather chair and looked up at the dome, out at the night sky, the free nights ky of America… the sky which, if they had their way, would not be free much longer.
Only three more days, she thought, until the bidding was held. It must be important to be required on such short notice.
Something with the Navy. Something big and fast. But what?
And what of her other problem? Remo Donaldson.
Perhaps something to take care of two birds with one stone?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dr. Lithia Forrester did not attend the next morning's encounter session.
And while Remo Williams sat there, enduring the baleful looks of the black behemoth, Dr. Lawrence Garrand, and tried to tune out his ears to the verbal assaults dictated by Florissa's sexual insecurity, he made a decision.
Chiun and he had been at the Human Awareness Laboratories for thirty-six hours and nothing had happened. Remo had laid it out to Lithia Forrester in that first interview, telling her he was going to kill her, inviting her to move against him. But she had done nothing and he could wait no longer. This day, he would get to Lithia Forrester, and he would break her. And if need be, he would kill her.
That prospect disquieted him. He told himself he was only being professional. There was too much he did not know about the scheme; too many things to find out first. He could not kill her until he found out.
But the picture of Lithia Forrester kept edging into his mind, the tall, elegant, beautiful blondness of her. And he realized his decision not to kill her had nothing to do with being professional.
All right, he would kill her. But first he would make love to her.
As a professional, Remo feared, he was a zero. He had found out nothing, had seen nothing suspicious. He had not learned anything that would tie in to Bannon or to the Special Forces colonel or to the pilot that bombed St. Louis or to the CIA man, Barrett.
He felt a discontent rising in him—not at himself for ineptitude, but at Smith for sending him here on a detective's mission. If they needed information, why not send Gray, that new guy at the FBI, or Henry Kissinger or, even, bore Jack Anderson? Why Remo? It didn't matter; the others might be already compromised.
Remo was deep in his thoughts when he felt the movement of the group and realized they were rising from their cushions, the session over. Then they headed to the door, Chiun leading the group, gesticulating with his hands on the need to bury one's aggressions and to learn to accept the world for what it was.
The group jammed into the hall doorway, Remo slowly trailing behind, still thinking. And then he heard it again. That song. Someone in the group was humming and he realized it was that song that Bannon had hummed, the same one that had been hummed in Remo's face by the colonel he had killed on the golf course. Remo snapped to full alertness; his eyes searched the encounter group's members, looking for the musician.
But then the sound stopped, and as hard as Remo looked, he could find no trace of whom it had come from.
Lithia Forrester had missed the encounter session that morning because she was not at the Human Awareness Laboratories. She was in a Washington hotel room, explaining something very important to Admiral James Benton Crust.
Admiral Crust had not forgotten the woman he had met several nights before at the party in the French ambassador's home. If the truth be told, he had thought of little else but her in the four days since, for a strange stirring that he had not felt for years had awakened his loins.
So when she had phoned him that morning in his office at the Pentagon, he had, of course, remembered her. And he had been only too happy to meet her, any place she suggested, and when she suggested a room in an out-of-the-way hotel because of "the nature" of their meeting, he had agreed very formally and then, after hanging up the telephone, had done a very uncharacteristic war whoop in his office.
On the way to the
hotel, Admiral Crust did another uncharacteristic thing. He had his chauffeur stop at a liquor store and buy a fifth of bourbon—the best bourbon—and he felt somehow wicked and school-boyish as he carefully placed the bottle into his large leather attaché case.
When the admiral entered the hotel room, Lithia Forrester was already there. She stood at the window, looking out over the busy noon-time streets of Washington, D.C. She wore a thin, silk paisley dress; the daylight pouring through the window silhouetted her body under the clothes as if she were naked. Crust could see she wore no undergarments; when she turned to greet him her breasts bobbed under the thin fabric, and he again felt that tinge that, for years, he had thought was beyond feeling.
The sunlight pouring into the room competed with her smile for the honour of lighting up the room. The sunlight lost. She smiled with her mouth, with her eyes and with her body, and she came forward to greet him with her arms extended.
"Jim, I'm so glad you're all right," she said.
Suddenly, Admiral Crust felt foolish at the thought of the bottle of bourbon in the attaché case and he set it down beside the door. For a moment, he was afraid to meet her eyes, lest she read in his what he had been thinking about in the car on the way over. Then he said, gruffly, "Lithia. How are you, my dear?"
She took his elbows in her hands, kissed him on the cheek, then took his hand and led him to the sofa, steering him gently to sit on it. She pulled a fabric-covered chair over close to the couch and sat facing him across a formica-topped coffee table.
"Jim. I know how busy you must be and I'm sorry to disturb you." He waved away any idea of disturbance and he noticed how the sunlight still shone through her dress as she changed position in the chair and how golden her hair was in the clear rays coming into the room. She smelled of rare jasmine. She went on, "but I think your life's in danger."
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