If the old man could be revived, he could direct his granddaughter; even though legally and physically dead, he could continue to manage his complex economic and political sphere, to some extent. But right now this was simply not working out, and the old man had planned on being revived at once, certainly before the Democratic-Republican Convention. Louis certainly knew—or rather had known—what sort of person he was willing his holdings to. Without help she surely could not function. And, Johnny thought, there’s little I can do for her. Claude St. Cyr could have, but by the terms of the will he’s out of the picture entirely. So what is left? We must keep trying to revive old Louis, even if we have to visit every mortuary in the United States, Cuba and Russia.
“You’re thinking confused thoughts,” Sarah Belle said. “I can tell by your expression.” She turned on the small lamp by the bed, and was now reaching for her robe. “Don’t try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.”
This must be how half-life feels, he thought groggily. He shook his head, trying to clear it, to wake up fully.
The next morning he parked his car in the underground garage of the Beverely and ascended by elevator to the lobby and the front desk where he was greeted by the smiling day clerk. It was not much of a hotel, Johnny decided. Clean, however; a respectable family hotel which probably rented many of its units by the month, some no doubt to elderly retired people. Evidently Kathy was accustomed to living modestly.
In answer to his query, the clerk pointed to the adjoining coffee shop. “You’ll find her in there, eating breakfast. She said you might be calling, Mr. Barefoot.”
In the coffee shop he found a good number of people having breakfast; he stopped short, wondering which was Kathy. The dark-haired girl with the stilted, frozen features, over in the far corner out of the way? He walked toward her. Her hair, he decided, was dyed. Without makeup she looked unnaturally pale; her skin had a stark quality, as if she had known a good deal of suffering, and not the sort that taught or informed one, made one into a “better” person. It had been pure pain, with no redemptive aspects, he decided as he studied her.
“Kathy?” he asked.
The girl turned her head. Her eyes, empty; her expression totally flattened. In a little voice she said, “Yes. Are you John Barefoot?” As he came up to the booth and seated himself opposite her she watched as if she imagined he would spring at her, hurl himself on her and—God forbid—sexually assault her. It’s as if she’s nothing more than a lone, small animal, he thought. Backed into a corner to face the entire world.
The color, or rather lack of it, could stem from the drug addiction, he decided. But that did not explain the flatness of her tone, and her utter lack of facial expression. And yet—she was pretty. She had delicate, regular features… animated, they would have been interesting. And perhaps they had been, once. Years ago.
“I have only five dollars left,” Kathy said. “After I paid for my one-way ticket and my hotel and my breakfast. Could you—” She hesitated. “I’m not sure exactly what to do. Could you tell me… do I own anything yet? Anything that was my grandfather’s? That I could borrow against?”
Johnny said, “I’ll write you a personal check for one hundred dollars and you can pay me back sometime.” He got out his checkbook.
“Really?” She looked stunned, and now, faintly, she smiled. “How trusting of you. Or are you trying to impress me? You were my grandfather’s public relations man, weren’t you? How were you dealt with in the will? I can’t remember; it’s all happened so fast, it’s been so blurred.”
“Well,” he said, “I wasn’t fired, as was Claude St. Cyr.”
“Then you’re staying on.” That seemed to relieve her mind. “I wonder… would it be correct to say you’re now working for me?”
“You could say that,” Johnny said. “Assuming you feel you need a P.R. man. Maybe you don’t. Louis wasn’t sure, half the time.”
“Tell me what efforts have been made to resurrect him.”
He explained to her, briefly, what he had done.
“And this is not generally known?” she asked.
“Definitely not. I know it, a mortuary owner with the unnatural name of Herb Schoenheit von Vogelsang knows it, and possibly news has trickled to a few high people in the drayage business, such as Phil Harvey. Even Claude St. Cyr may know it, by now. Of course, as time goes on and Louis has nothing to say, no political pronouncements for the press—”
“We’ll have to make them up,” Kathy said. “And pretend they’re from him. That will be your job, Mr. Funnyfoot.” She smiled once more. “Press-releases by my grandfather, until he’s finally revived or we give up. Do you think we’ll have to give up?” After a pause she said softly, “I’d like to see him. If I may. If you think it’s all right.”
“I’ll take you there, to the Blessed Brethren Mortuary. I have to go there within the hour anyhow.”
Nodding, Kathy resumed eating her breakfast.
As Johnny Barefoot stood beside the girl, who gazed intently at the transparent casket, he thought bizarrely, Maybe she’ll rap on the glass and say, “Grandfather, you wake up.” And, he thought, maybe that will accomplish it. Certainly nothing else has.
Wringing his hands, Herb Schoenheit von Vogelsang burbled miserably, “I just don’t understand it, Mr. Barefoot. We worked all night, in relays, and we just aren’t getting a single spark. And yet we ran an electrocephalograph and the ‘gram shows faint but unmistakable cerebral activity. So the after-life is there, but we can’t seem to contact it. We’ve got probes at every part of the skull, now, as you can see.” He pointed to the maze of hair-wires connecting the dead man’s head to the amplifying equipment surrounding the casket. “I don’t know what else we can do, sir.”
“Is there measurable brain metabolism?” Johnny asked.
“Yes sir. We called in outside experts and they detected it; it’s a normal amount, too, just what you’d expect, immediately after death.”
Kathy said calmly, “I know it’s hopeless. He’s too big a man for this. This is for aged relatives. For grandmothers, to be trotted out once a year on Resurrection Day.” She turned away from the casket. “Let’s go,” she said to Johnny.
Together, he and the girl walked along the sidewalk from the mortuary, neither speaking. It was a mild spring day, and the trees here and there at the curb had small pink flowers. Cherry trees, Johnny decided.
“Death,” Kathy murmured, at last. “And rebirth. A technological miracle. Maybe when Louis saw what it was like on the other side he changed his mind about coming back… maybe he just doesn’t want to return.”
“Well,” Johnny said, “the electrical spark is there; he’s inside there, thinking something.” He let Kathy take his arm as they crossed the street. “Someone told me,” he said quietly, “that you’re interested in religion.”
“Yes, I am,” Kathy said quietly. “You see, when I was a narcotics addict I took an overdose—never mind of what—and as a result my heart action ceased. I was officially, medically, dead for several minutes; they brought me back by open-chest heart massage and electroshock… you know. During that time I had an experience, probably much like what those who go into half-life have experienced.”
“Was it better than here?”
“No,” she said. “But it was different. It was—dreamlike. I don’t mean vague or unreal. I mean the logic, the weightlessness; you see, that’s the main difference. You’re free of gravity. It’s hard to realize how important that is, but just think how many of the characteristics of the dream derive from that one fact.”
Johnny said, “And it changed you.”
“I managed to overcome the oral addictive aspects of my personality, if that’s what you mean. I learned to control my appetites. My greed.” At a newspaper stand Kathy halted to read the headlines. “Look,” she said.
Voice from Outer Space Baffles Scientists
“Interesting,” Johnny said.
Kathy, picking up th
e newspaper, read the article which accompanied the headline. “How strange,” she said. “They’ve picked up a sentient, living entity… here, you can read it, too.” She passed the newspaper to him. “I did that, when I died… I drifted out, free of the solar system, first planetary gravity then the sun’s. I wonder who it is.” Taking the newspaper back she reread the article.
“Ten cents, sir or madam,” the robot vender said, suddenly.
Johnny tossed it the dime.
“Do you think it’s my grandfather?” Kathy asked.
“Hardly,” Johnny said.
“I think it is,” Kathy said, staring past him, deep in thought. “I know it is; look, it began one week after his death, and it’s one light-week out. The time fits, and here’s the transcript of what it’s saying.” She pointed to the column. “All about you, Johnny, and about me and about Claude St. Cyr, that lawyer he fired, and the Convention; it’s all there, but garbled. That’s the way your thoughts run, when you’re dead; all compressed, instead of in sequence.” She smiled up at Johnny. “So we’ve got a terrible problem. We can hear him, by use of the radio telescope at Kennedy Slough. But he can’t hear us.”
“You don’t actually—”
“Oh, I do,” she said matter-of-factly. “I knew he wouldn’t settle for half-life; this is a whole, entire life he’s leading now, out in space, there, beyond the last planet of our system. And there isn’t going to be any way we can interfere with him; whatever it is he’s doing—” She began to walk on, once more; Johnny followed. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be at least as much as he did when he was alive here on Terra. You can be sure of that. Are you afraid?”
“Hell,” Johnny protested, “I’m not even convinced, let alone afraid.” And yet—perhaps she was right. She seemed so certain about it. He could not help being a little impressed, a little convinced.
“You should be afraid,” Kathy said. “He may be very strong, out there. He may be able to do a lot. Affect a lot… affect us, what we do and say and believe. Even without the radio telescope—he may be reaching us, even now. Subliminally.”
“I don’t believe it,” Johnny said. But he did, in spite of himself. She was right; it was just what Louis Sarapis would do.
Kathy said, “We’ll know more when the Convention begins, because that’s what he cares about. He failed to get Gam elected last time, and that was one of the few times in his life that he was beaten.”
“Gam!” Johnny echoed, amazed. “That has-been? Is he even still in existence? Why, he completely disappeared, four years ago—”
“My grandfather won’t give up with him,” Kathy said meditatively. “And he is alive; he’s a turkey farmer or some such thing, on Io. Perhaps it’s ducks. Anyhow, he’s there. Waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
Kathy said, “For my grandfather to contact him again. As he did before, four years ago, at the Convention then.”
“No one would vote for Gam again!” Repelled, he gazed at her.
Smiling, Kathy said nothing. But she squeezed his arm, hugging him. As if, he thought, she were afraid again, as she had been in the night, when he had talked to her. Perhaps even more so.
III
The handsome, dapper, middle-aged man wearing vest and narrow, old-fashioned necktie, rose to his feet as Claude St. Cyr entered the outer office of St. Cyr and Faine, on his way to court. “Mr. St. Cyr—”
Glancing at him, St. Cyr murmured, “I’m in a rush; you’ll have to make an appointment with my secretary.” And then he recognized the man. He was talking to Alfonse Gam.
“I have a telegram,” Gam said. “From Louis Sarapis.” He reached into his coat pocket.
“Sorry,” St. Cyr said stiffly. “I’m associated with Mr. Phil Harvey now; my business relationship with Mr. Sarapis was terminated several weeks ago.” But he paused, curious. He had met Gam before; at the time of the national campaign, four years ago, he had seen a good deal of the man—in fact, he had represented Gam in several libel suits, one with Gam as the plaintiff, the other as defendant. He did not like the man.
Gam said, “This wire arrived the day before yesterday.”
“But Sarapis has been—” Claude St. Cyr broke off. “Let me see it.” He held out his hand, and Gam passed him the wire.
It was a statement from Louis Sarapis to Gam, assuring Gam of Louis’s utter and absolute support in the forthcoming struggle at the Convention. And Gam was correct; the wire was dated only three days before. It did not make sense.
“I can’t explain it, Mr. St. Cyr,” Gam said dryly. “But it sounds like Louis. He wants me to run again. As you can see. It never occurred to me; as far as I’m concerned I’m out of politics and in the guinea-fowl business. I thought you might know something about this, who sent it and why.” He added, “Assuming that old Louis didn’t.”
St. Cyr said, “How could Louis have sent it?”
“I mean, written it before his death and had someone send it just the other day. Yourself, perhaps.” Gam shrugged. “Evidently it wasn’t you. Perhaps Mr. Barefoot, then.” He reached out for his wire.
“Do you actually intend to run again?” St. Cyr asked.
“If Louis wants me to.”
“And lose again? Drag the party to defeat again, just because of one stubborn, vindictive old man—” St. Cyr broke off. “Go back to raising guinea fowl. Forget politics. You’re a loser, Gam. Everyone in the party knows it. Everyone in America, in fact.”
“How can I contact Mr. Barefoot?”
St. Cyr said, “I have no idea.” He started on.
“I’ll need legal help,” Gam said.
“For what? Who’s suing you now? You don’t need legal help, Mr. Gam; you need medical help, a psychiatrist to explain why you want to run again. Listen—” He leaned toward Gam. “If Louis alive couldn’t get you into office, Louis dead certainly can’t.” He went on, then, leaving Gam standing there.
“Wait,” Gam said.
Reluctantly, Claude St. Cyr turned around.
“This time I’m going to win,” Gam said. He sounded as if he meant it; his voice, instead of its usual reedy flutter, was firm.
Uneasy, St. Cyr said, “Well, good luck. To both you and Louis.”
“Then he is alive.” Gam’s eyes flickered.
“I didn’t say that; I was being ironic.”
Gam said thoughtfully, “But he is alive; I’m sure of it. I’d like to find him. I went to some of the mortuaries, but none of them had him, or if they did they wouldn’t admit it. I’ll keep looking; I want to confer with him.” He added, “That’s why I came here from Io.”
At that point, St. Cyr managed to break away and depart. What a nonentity, he said to himself. A cypher, nothing but a puppet of Louis’s. He shuddered. God protect us from such a fate: that man as our President.
Imagine us all becoming like Gam!
It was not a pleasant thought; it did not inspire him for the day ahead. And he had a good deal of work on his shoulders.
This was the day that he, as attorney for Phil Harvey, would make Mrs. Kathy Sharp—the former Kathy Egmont—an offer for Wilhelmina Securities. An exchange of stock would be involved; voting stock, redistributed in such a fashion that Harvey gained control of Wilhelmina. The worth of the corporation being almost impossible to calculate, Harvey was offering not money but real estate in exchange; he had enormous tracts of land on Ganymede, deeded to him by the Soviet Government a decade ago in exchange for technical assistance he had rendered it and its colonies.
The chance of Kathy accepting was nil.
And yet, the offer had to be made. The next step—he shrank from even thinking about it—involved a fracas to the death in the area of direct economic competition, between Harvey’s drayage firm and hers. And hers, he knew, was now in a state of decay; there had been union trouble since the old man’s death. The thing that Louis hated the most had started to take place: union organizers had begun to move in on Archimedean.
He him
self sympathized with the unions; it was about time they came onto the scene. Only the old man’s dirty tactics and his boundless energy, not to speak of his ruthless, eternal imagination, had kept them out. Kathy had none of these. And Johnny Barefoot—
What can you ask of a noncol? St. Cyr asked himself caustically. Brilliant strategy-purse out of the sow’s ear of mediocrity?
And Barefoot had his hands full building up Kathy’s image before the public; he had barely begun to succeed in that when the union squabbles broke out. An ex-narcotics addict and religious nut, a woman who had a criminal record… Johnny had his work cut out for him.
Where he had been productive lay in the area of the woman’s physical appearance. She looked sweet, even gentle and pure; almost saintly. And Johnny had seized on this. Instead of quoting her in the press he had photographed her, a thousand wholesome poses: with dogs, children, at county fairs, at hospitals, involved in charity drives—the whole business.
But unfortunately Kathy had spoiled the image he had created, spoiled it in a rather unusual way.
Kathy maintained—simply—that she was in communication with her grandfather. That it was he who lay a light-week out in space, picked up by Kennedy Slough. She heard him, as the rest of the world did… and by some miracle he heard her, too.
St. Cyr, riding the self-service elevator up to the ‘copter port on the roof, laughed aloud. Her religious crankery couldn’t be kept from the gossip columnists… Kathy had said too much in public places, in restaurants and small, famous bars. And even with Johnny beside her. Even he couldn’t keep her quiet.
Also, there had been that incident at that party in which she had taken off her clothes, declaring the hour of purification to be momentarily arriving; she had daubed herself in certain spots with crimson nail polish, as well, a sort of ritual ceremony… of course she had been drinking.
And this is the woman, St. Cyr thought, who operates Archimedean.The woman we must oust, for our good and the public’s. It was, to him, practically a mandate in the name of the people. Virtually a public service to be performed, and the only one who did not see it that way was Johnny.
The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories tcsopkd-4 Page 37
