Crisis!

by James Gunn

  “There's another floor below this,” Sally said. “It holds service equipment, supplies—enough food for months—rooms for the guards, and the arsenal."

  “The arsenal?” Johnson repeated.

  She nodded as if every house she had worked in had an arsenal.

  “And the floor below that?” Johnson asked. “There isn't any,” she said.

  Johnson did not ask about the purpose of the fourth button on the panel.

  “Thanks,” Johnson said.

  “If you need anything else,” she said, smiling prettily, “my room is just down the hall. Number six.” As she turned away, she looked back at him as if to discover if he understood. He smiled to show that he did.

  His room was not much larger than the room at the old hotel in which he had awakened, but it was sanitized-clean. It held a twin bed, a chair upholstered in serviceable brown plastic, a reading lamp, a small wooden desk and chair, a chest of drawers, and a closet. His suitcase had already been delivered and unpacked, perhaps by the delicate white hands of Sally herself, but new clothing had been hung in the closet as if to suggest that he should put on the gray slacks, white shirt, and navy blazer.

  The bathroom was small but serviceable. A woman apparently had occupied the room just before him, for the cabinet behind the bathroom mirror still held hairspray, shampoo, and makeup items. Johnson did not remove them. He took a shower and changed into the new clothes in the closet. As he finished buttoning the shirt, he turned toward the door. It was open. A young woman was standing in the doorway.

  She was not much more than an adolescent, but she had the mature figure of a woman. She was dark-haired and dark-browed, and she leaned against the doorframe, ducking her head and looking up at him through her luxuriant eyelashes as she pressed her body toward him as if to make available the curves she had recently acquired.

  “Hi,” she said in an imitation of a sultry voice. “I'm Angel."

  “You must be Miss King,” Johnson said. “I'm—"

  “I know who you are,” she said, pouting, as if sulking because Johnson had recognized her. “You're Daddy's new assistant. I can tell you what happened to the last one."

  “No thanks,” Johnson said.

  “It's really tough,” she said in her child's voice, “trying to compete with all the free stuff that's floating around here."

  “I don't think I understand,” Johnson said.

  “Oh, you understand, all right,” Angel said, her eyes studying him insolently.

  “Angel!” a sharp voice said from the corridor.

  Angel turned toward the voice with irritating slowness.

  “You know your father doesn't like you to come down to the employees’ levels,” the voice said.

  “Daddy doesn't care what I do,” Angel said. “You're the only one who cares. And you aren't my mother.” But she slouched away, her pose as an enchantress broken now and then by the unconscious bounce of youth.

  “Thank God for that!” the voice said. As Johnson moved toward the doorway, the owner of the voice came into view in the corridor. She was a woman of natural blondness and fair-skinned beauty who would have been stunningly attractive if her mouth had not been pinched with the apparent effort to keep her temper in check. “You're the new assistant, aren't you?” she asked, smiling and changing her appearance and even the lines of her slender body at the same time.

  “Bill Johnson,” he said.

  “I'm Evangeline. Mrs. King. Please call me Evangeline."

  “I've been instructed to call you Mrs. King."

  “By Jessica, no doubt. Well, you can call me Mrs. King when Jessica is around but Evangeline when we're alone. And I hope we will be alone often.” She smiled again. It was a friendly smile with just a touch of sensuality as if to say, “I would never consider any kind of relationship that was anything but proper—but for you I might make an exception."

  Angel passed going in the other direction. “You see what I mean?” she said viciously.

  Evangeline's mouth pinched again. “I have to apologize for Angel. She thinks any new man—"

  But Johnson did not discover what Angel thought about new men, because just then a buzzer sounded above the bed. As he turned toward it, Evangeline said, “That's the summons of the master. You'll get used to it. I'll show you the way.” She opened the door of the elevator and stood so close to the entrance that he had to brush against her as he entered. “I'd better not go up with you,” she said. “Just press the top button."

  He pressed the top button. The closing door shut off his view of the beautiful woman who was not Angel's mother but the present Mrs. King, whatever number that was.

  When the elevator door opened in front of Johnson, it revealed a bedroom as big as a small house. Its spaciousness dwarfed even the carved walnut custom-made bed against the far wall. The west wall was glass. Open drapes revealed a large swimming pool filled with blue water and surrounded by smooth paving. The pool was set about with chairs and tables and colorful umbrellas. Beyond the white paving was close-cropped green grass. Reflections from the pool rippled across the ceiling of the room.

  The carpet was a soft beige deep pile. On it was an assortment of upholstered chairs and sofas along with lamps and tables, a small desk, and a bar with a liberally stocked cabinet behind it. Arthur King stood at the bar in shiny yellow swimming trunks and an open terrycloth jacket. His body and face were lean and tanned and youthful, and his white hair made them seem even more spectacularly young and vital. He turned from fixing himself a drink as the elevator door opened.

  “You're Bill Johnson,” he said warmly, striding forward and extending his right hand. “I hope we're going to be friends."

  King's hand was warm and dry and strong. “I certainly hope so, Mr. King. I don't remember having any friends."

  “Please.” King said and smiled. “All my friends call me Art."

  “I couldn't do that."

  King released Johnson's hand and turned to the bar. The smile slipped unnoticed from his face, like the refrigerator light that goes out when the door is closed. “Don't mind Jessica. She lets the demands of her job overwhelm her humanity. Here,” he said, picking up a glass and handing it to Johnson, “you can start by fixing me some scotch on the rocks.” As Johnson took the glass and put ice cubes into it and then began pouring scotch over them, King went on. “What's this about your memory? Obviously you didn't forget how to talk or eat or how to do things like fixing a drink."

  Johnson held out the glass to King. “Just personal matters. As if I had made a turn into another reality where my memories of who I was or what I have done don't belong. Or as if I was reborn into another world, full-grown but without any memories of how I got here."

  “Has it happened before?"

  Johnson smiled. “I don't remember. But there is some evidence that it has."

  “Then it might happen again."

  Johnson nodded. “If it does, I hope you will be patient with me."

  “Have you tried to retrace your past?"

  Johnson shook his head. “It isn't as if I have fugitive memories waiting to be restimulated. I have no memories at all. Meeting people I had known before would be like meeting strangers. I have the feeling that I might as well build a new life."

  King sat down on the edge of the desk and raised his glass as if to toast Johnson's unusual condition. “So. It's just like starting with a blank slate. You can write anything you want.” Johnson nodded. “I like that,” King said. His face seemed almost wistful. “Sometimes I wish I could do it.” Then his face firmed into its customary appearance of resolution, and he looked once more like the richest man in the world. “But not for long.” He took a long sip from his glass.

  “I wouldn't think so,” Johnson said. “You're doing something important."

  King looked up a bit too quickly. “What's that? Oh, you mean putting people back to work."

  “And everybody is grateful."

  King shook his head. “They'll soon fo
rget. Gratitude is the emotion of the hour; love is for the day. Hatred lasts all life long.” He looked appraisingly at Johnson. “But if anyone has the means to help these days, he ought to do it."

  “Not everybody feels that way."

  “They should,” King said. “They should. Anyway, it's only a beginning. After we get to know each other better, maybe I'll tell you the rest of it. It's hard to find somebody to talk to, you know. Almost everybody wants something from you or wants you to do something."

  The door to the hallway opened and Angel entered the room. She was wearing a white bathing suit with lace around the top and bottom, and she carried a white terrycloth robe. She walked like a little girl now and spoke in a little girl's voice. “Hello, Daddy. Ready for our swim?"

  “Is it that time already? Angel, this is Bill Johnson."

  Angel smiled at Johnson coquettishly. “We've already met."

  “I'll bet you have,” King said. He spoke to Johnson as if Angel weren't present. “My daughter is like many girls deprived of their fathers by divorce or death or the demands of a career."

  “Daddy!” Angel said.

  King went on. “She wants the attention of every man she meets, and she's willing to do anything to get it. Anything."

  “Daddy!” Angel said, close to tears.

  “My friends and associates know this,” King said, reaching out to pull his daughter close to him, “and give her the attention she craves without making her pay the price."

  Johnson nodded as if to acknowledge the words without necessarily agreeing with them.

  The door into the next bedroom opened, and Evangeline stood in the doorway looking coolly beautiful in a pale green summer dress.

  “My wife,” King said, “on the other hand, knows that she is the center of attention wherever she goes, but she likes the effect she has on men and the effect their attentions have on me. And she likes to prove to Angel that beside her mature charms Angel's adolescent whoring doesn't stand a chance."

  “Oh, Daddy!” Angel said despairingly, but she hugged her father tightly around the waist.

  King turned. “Come on, Angel,” he said with rough affection, and slapped her on the bottom as he turned toward the patio door. “Let's have our swim."

  Evangeline looked after them with a trace of a smile on her beautiful lips. “Welcome to our happy family, Mr. Johnson,” she said.

  * * * *

  The next few days settled into a routine in which Johnson was slipped into the King family life like a precision-ground gear, meshing smoothly with everyone else, making the whole machine work. Angel and Evangeline attempted to recruit him, each in her own way, in the no-holds-barred battle for King's favor. But Johnson indicated that he not only was neutral but, as far as they were concerned, neuter as well. King seemed to enjoy the competition, as if it were a game he played to take his mind off a more important competition elsewhere, and he even incited them to greater efforts. With Johnson, on the other hand, he was always charismatic, as if Johnson's opinion mattered because he had no involvements.

  With Jessica, King behaved differently. When he spoke to her he used short, brisk sentences without emotion, as if this were the businessman who had accumulated a monumental fortune. Every morning after an early swim and breakfast while he read newspapers beside the pool, he spent a couple of hours in the study with Jessica. Johnson was never present, but occasionally he would see them together behind the desk, studying the computer, participating in a televised conference, or discussing weighty matters in hushed voices.

  King would emerge from the study looking grim to eat lunch with his daughter or his wife, sometimes both. Frequently he would ask Johnson to join them and Johnson would be a spectator at the baiting that constituted their principle mode of intercourse. In the afternoon King read a mystery novel or spy thriller, swam for half an hour, napped in the big bed, rising refreshed for several scotches in the living room before dinner, bantering with his wife and daughter, chatting with Johnson, and eating dinner formally in the big dining room with his family and Jessica. Johnson was not invited to join them for dinner, but afterward King watched a film in the study, where one panel rolled down to expose a screen and another panel opened to expose a projector, with whoever wanted to watch invited, including Johnson. He was in bed by eleven.

  Twice the routine was disturbed by the arrival of a young man, a different one each time, each admitted in the late afternoon and spending more than an hour in the study with King and Jessica. One of them had hurried away immediately afterward, but the other stayed for the social hour and dinner.

  King introduced him as Doug France.

  “And this,” Doug said, raising his glass to King, “is the next President of the United States."

  “That's enough!” Jessica said in her most peremptory tone of command.

  King grinned. “Now, Doug, you know I'm going to turn it down.” He looked boyishly modest and at the same time a man of wisdom and mature judgment.

  “All the same,” Doug said stubbornly, “you're what this country needs—and the world, too."

  Johnson turned to King. “Are you thinking of running for President, Mr. King?"

  “That's none of your business!” Jessica snapped.

  “Now, Jessica,” King said. “Bill is one of the family."

  “You must not have been watching television,” Evangeline said lightly. “It's been on all the news. Both party conventions are coming up in the next couple of weeks, and party leaders on both sides have talked of nominating Art as their candidate."

  King laughed. He seemed to be enjoying the discussion. “That's because I've been smart enough never to become involved in politics, and when I've made contributions to candidates I've always given equal amounts to each side."

  “Gee, Daddy,” Angel said, “would you be the first candidate ever nominated by both parties?"

  “Eisenhower might have had it if he hadn't identified himself as a Republican before the conventions,” King said. “But he was a war hero."

  “It's better to be a peace hero, darling,” Evangeline said.

  “No man is a hero to his valet,” King said ironically, smiling at Johnson. “Nor to his wife,” he added, looking at Evangeline. “Or to his daughter,” he continued, turning his gaze toward Angel.

  Each of them looked injured but unwilling to admit it by protesting their admiration for King, as if by restraining their natural impulses they could deny his power to hurt them.

  “In any case,” King went on, looking at Doug, “it's all academic. Politics is not for me. Campaigning, promises, compromises, concessions...."

  “To the good old days!” Doug said, raising his glass again.

  “What days were those?” Johnson asked.

  “You know—when things were done properly—” Doug began.

  “Shut up, Doug!” Jessica said.

  “Bill doesn't remember the good old days,” King said. “Nor any old days, for that matter. That is his charm...."

  For once, Johnson was invited to join the family for dinner, perhaps to make up, with Doug, an even table. The conversation was a strange mixture of overtones and undertones, with political talk mingling with King's customary teasing of his wife and daughter. King's cruelty to them contrasted oddly with his kindness to Johnson and his careful directness with Jessica. Doug he treated as a subordinate to be ordered about. The political discussions, on the other hand, though they seemed to be about other candidates, appeared to carry innuendos that Johnson was not supposed to understand.

  At one point when the others were engrossed in a conversation of their own, Evangeline, seated next to him, leaned over and said softly, “Art really would like to be President, you know."

  “Why?"

  She looked at her husband at the far end of the table with a mixture of pride, love, and bewilderment. “He has so much to give, so many things this world needs—leadership, direction....” Her voice trailed off.

  “What direction?"
<
br />   “I don't know,” she said. “He doesn't talk about such things with me."

  “Darling,” King said lightly from the other end of the table, “there's no use in your trying to seduce Bill. He's already proved himself impervious to your charms."

  Evangeline looked pained and her jaw tightened as if she were holding in a reply.

  “Anyway,” King continued, “think how damaging it would be to your self-esteem to make love to a man who doesn't remember you afterward.” He chuckled, and the others joined in the laughter as if to deny the cruel edge to his remarks.

  Afterward, with the others gone, King turned to Johnson in the bedroom as Johnson was pulling the drapes to shut out the night. “The world's in a sorry mess,” he said, clinking ice cubes in his glass.

  “Yes, sir,” Johnson replied. “I guess there's a lot of things wrong."

  “It's not just the economy,” King went on, almost as if he were talking to himself. “That's just one of the symptoms. It's politics, cynicism, loss of faith, confusion of values. ‘Things fall apart,'” he quoted.

  “'The center cannot hold,'” Johnson continued.

  “You remember that?” King asked.

  “I've been doing some reading in my room,” Johnson said. “I've borrowed a few books from your library. I hope you don't mind."

  King waved his hand as if he had already forgotten. “There are times when the world is served best by weak government that allows natural leaders to build and develop, the economy to grow, the people to prosper. But there are times when strong leadership is crucial. When competing theories of history try to guide the world into the future along one channel or another."

  “But what can we do?"

  “We need a leader who is willing to meet force with greater force, to call people to the service of something greater than themselves, to be firm, strong, confident, bold. And all we have is little men without vision or purpose, seeking little advantages for themselves or their constituents while they let the great issues pass them by without blinking."

  “What about you, sir?” Johnson asked.