“Now, you take the Ely tapestry. We waited for years, going back and checking, until we were quite sure that it was finally lost. We knew it was going to be lost, you understand. But we couldn’t touch it until it was lost for good. Then we h’isted it.” He waved a hand. “I talk too much. I am boring you.”
“Mr. Spencer, sir,” protested Cabell, “talk like yours could never bore me. This is something I have dreamed of. I can’t tell you how happy …”
Spencer raised a hand to stop him. “Not so fast. You aren’t hired yet.”
“But Mr. Jensen down in Personnel …”
“I know what Jensen said. But the final word is mine.”
“What have I done wrong?” asked Cabell.
“You have done nothing wrong. Come back this afternoon.”
“But, Mr. Spencer, if only you could tell me …”
“I want to think about you. See me after lunch.”
Cabell unfolded upward from his chair and he was ill at ease.
“That man who was in ahead of me …”
“Yes. What about him?”
“He seemed quite angry, sir. As if he might be thinking of making trouble for you.”
Spencer said angrily. “And that’s none of your damn business!”
Cabell stood his ground. “I was only going to say, sir, that I recognized him.”
“So?”
“If he did try to cause you trouble, sir, it might be worth your while to investigate his association with a stripper down at the Golden Hour. Her name is Silver Starr.”
Spencer stared at Cabell without saying anything.
The man edged toward the door.
He put out his hand to grasp the knob, then turned back to Spencer. “Perhaps that’s not actually her name, but it’s fine for advertising—Silver Starr at the Golden Hour. The Golden Hour is located at …”
“Mr. Cabell,” Spencer said, “I’ve been at the Golden Hour.”
The impudent punk! What did he figure he was doing—buying his way in?
He sat quietly for a moment after Cabell had gone out, cooling down a bit, wondering about the man. There had been something about him that had been disturbing. That look in his eyes, for one thing. And the awkwardness and shyness didn’t ring quite true. As if it had been an act of some sort. But why, in the name of God, should anyone put on such an act when it would be quite clearly to his disadvantage?
You’re psycho, Spencer told himself. You’re getting so you jump at every shadow, sight a lurking figure behind every bush.
Two down, he thought, and another one to see—that is, if more had not piled into the office and were out there waiting for him.
He reached out his hand to press the buzzer. But before his finger touched it, the back door of the office suddenly burst open. A wild-eyed man came stumbling through it. He had something white and wriggly clutched within his arms. He dumped the white and wriggly thing on Hallock Spencer’s desk and unhappily stepped back.
It was a rabbit—a white rabbit with a great pink ribbon tied around its neck in a fancy bow.
Spencer glanced up, startled, at the man who’d brought the rabbit.
“Ackermann,” he shouted. “For Chrissake, Ackermann, what is the matter with you? It isn’t Easter yet!”
Ackermann worked his mouth in a painful manner and his Adam’s apple went bobbing up and down. But he made no words come out.
“Come on, man! What is it?”
Ackermann got his voice back. “It’s Nickerson!” he blurted.
“O.K., so Nickerson brought a rabbit back …”
“He didn’t bring it back, sir. It came all by itself!”
“And Nickerson?”
Ackermann shook his head. “There was just the rabbit.”
Spencer had started to get up from the chair. Now he sat back down again, harder than intended.
“There’s an envelope, sir, tied to the rabbit’s bow.”
“So I see,” said Spencer, absently. But he felt the coldness running through him.
The rabbit hoisted itself around until it was face to face with Spencer. It flapped an ear, wiggled its pink nose at him, put its head carefully to one side and lifted a deliberate hind leg to scratch a flea.
He pivoted in his chair and watched the operator sidle through the door. Three men lost in the last ten days. And now there was a fourth.
But this time, at least, he’d got back the carrier. The rabbit had brought back the carrier. Any living thing, once the mechanism had been rigged, by its very presence would have brought back the carrier. It need not be a man.
But Nickerson! Nickerson was one of the best there were. If a man could not depend on Nickerson, there was no one that he could.
He turned back to the desk and reached for the rabbit. It didn’t try to get away. He slipped out the folded sheet of paper and broke the blob of sealing wax. The paper was so stiff and heavy that it crackled as he smoothed it.
The ink was dead black and the script cramped. No fountain pen, thought Spencer—nothing but a goose quill.
The letter was addressed to him. It said:
Dear Hal: I have no logical excuse and I’ll attempt no explanation. I have found a sense of springtime and cannot compel myself to leave it. You have your carrier and that is better than any of the others ever did for you. The rabbit will not mind. A rabbit knows no time. Be kind to him—for he is no coarse, wild hare of the briery fields, but a loving pet. Nick.
Inadequate, thought Spencer, staring at the note, with the scrawly black more like a cabalistic pattern than a communication.
He had found a sense of springtime. What did he mean by that? A springtime of the heart? A springtime of the spirit? That might well be it, for Nickerson had gone to Italy in the early Renaissance. A springtime of the spirit and the sense of great beginnings. And perhaps that wasn’t all of it. Would there be as well a certain sense of spiritual security in that smaller world—a world that tinkered with no time, that reached toward no stars?
The buzzer sounded softly.
Spencer tipped up the lever on the intercom. “Yes, Miss Crane?”
“Mr. Garside on the phone.”
The rabbit was nibbling at the phone cord. Spencer pushed him to one side. “Yes, Chris.”
The gray, clipped voice said: “Hal, what’s with you and Ravenholt? He gave me a bad half hour.”
“It was Project God.”
“Yes, he told me that. He threatened to raise a howl about the ethics of our magazine project.”
“He can’t do that,” protested Spencer. “He’d have no grounds at all. That one is clean. It has the green light from Legal and from Ethics and the review board gave its blessing. It’s simply historical reporting. Eyewitness from the battle of Gettysburg, fashion notes on the spot from the time of Queen Victoria—it’s the biggest thing we’ve tackled. Its promotional value alone, aside from the money we’ll make …”
“Yes, I know,” said Garside, tiredly. “All of that is true. But I don’t want to get into a hassle with anyone—particularly not with Ravenholt. We have too many irons in the fire right now for anything unfavorable to pop. And Ravenholt can be a terribly dirty fighter.”
“Look, Chris. I can take care of Ravenholt.”
“I knew you would. What is more, you’d better.”
“And,” demanded Spencer, bristling, “what do you mean by that?”
“Well, frankly, Hal, your record doesn’t look too good. You’ve been having trouble …”
“You mean the men we’ve lost.”
“And the machines,” said Garside. “You’re all the time forgetting—a machine costs a quarter million.”
“And the men?” asked Spencer bitterly. “Perhaps you think they’re comparatively cheap.”
“I don’t suppose,” said Garside blan
dly, “That you can place an actual value on a human life.”
“We lost another one today,” said Spencer. “I imagine you’ll be happy to know that he was loyal behind the call of duty. He sent a rabbit back and the machine is safe and sound.”
“Hal,” said Garside, sternly, “this is something we can discuss at some later time. Right now I’m concerned with Ravenholt. If you’d go and apologize to him and try to fix things up …”
“Apologize!” exploded Spencer. “I know a better way than that. He’s been shacking with a stripper down at the Golden Hour. By the time I get through …”
“Hal!” yelled Garside. “You can’t do a thing like that! You can’t involve Past, Inc., in anything like that! Why, it isn’t decent!”
“You mean it’s dirty,” Spencer said. “No dirtier that Ravenholt. Who is he fronting for?”
“It makes no difference. Young man …”
“Don’t young man me,” yelled Spencer. “I’ve got troubles enough without being patronized.”
“Perhaps your troubles are too much for you,” said Garside, speaking very gray and clipped. “Perhaps we ought to find another man.”
“Do it then!” yelled Spencer. “Don’t just sit there shooting off your face. Come on down and fire me!”
He slammed the receiver down into its cradle and sat shivering with rage.
Damn Garside, he thought. To hell with Past, Inc. He’d taken all he could!
Still, it was a lousy way to end after fifteen years. It was a stinking thing to happen. Maybe he ought to have kept his mouth shut, kept his temper down, played it sweet and smooth.
Perhaps, he could have done it differently. He could have assured Garside he’d take care of Ravenholt without saying anything about Silver Starr. And why had he grabbed hold so trustfully of what Cabell had told him that moment before leaving? What could Cabell know about it? In just a little while now he’d have to check if there were anyone by the name of Silver Starr down at the Golden Hour.
Meanwhile there was work to do. Hudson now, he thought.
He reached for the buzzer.
But his finger never touched it. Once more the back door burst open with a smashing rattle and a man came tearing in. it was Douglas Marshall, operator for E.J.’s machine.
“Hal,” he gasped, “you’d better come. E.J.’s really tore it!”
VI
Spencer didn’t ask a question. One look at Doug’s face was quite enough to tell him the news was very bad. He bounced out of his chair and rushed through the door, close on the operator’s heels.
They tore down the corridor and turned left into Operations, with the rows of bulgy, bulky carriers lined against the wall.
Down at the far end a small circle of operators and mechanics formed a ragged circle and from the center of the circle came the sound of ribald song. The words were not intelligible.
Spencer strode forward angrily and pushed through the circle. There, in the center of it, was E.J. and another person—a filthy, bearded, boisterous barbarian wrapped in a mangy bearskin and with a tremendous sword strapped about his middle.
The barbarian had a smallish keg tilted to his mouth. The keg was gurgling; he was drinking from it, but he was missing some as well, for steams of pale, brown liquid were running down his front.
“E.J.!” yelled Spencer.
At the shout, the barbarian jerked the keg down from his face and tucked it hurriedly underneath an arm. With a big and dirty hand, he mopped the whiskers adjacent to his mouth.
E.J. stumbled forward and threw his arms around Spencer’s neck, laughing all the while.
Spencer jerked E.J. loose and pushed him, stumbling, backwards.
“E.J.!” he yelled. “What is so damn funny?”
E.J. managed to stop stumbling backwards. He tried to pull himself together, but he couldn’t because he still was laughing hard.
The barbarian stepped forward and thrust the keg into Spencer’s hands, shouting something at him in a convivial tone of voice and pantomiming with his hands that the keg had stuff to drink.
E.J. made an exaggerated thumb at the gent in bearskin. “Hal, it wasn’t any Roman officer!” Then he went off into gales of laughter once again.
The barbarian started to laugh, too, uproariously, throwing back his head and bellowing in great peals of laughter that shook the very room.
E.J. staggered over and they fell into one another’s arms, guffawing happily and pounding one another on the back. Somehow they got tangled up. They lost their balance. They fell down on the floor and sat there, the two of them, looking up at the men around them.
“Now!” Spencer roared at E.J.
E.J. clapped the man in bearskin a resounding whack upon his hairy shoulder. “Just bringing back the Wrightson-Graves her far-removed grand-pappy. I can’t wait to see her face when I take him up there!”
“Oh, my God!” said Spencer. He turned around and thrust the dripping keg into someone’s hands.
He snapped, “Don’t let them get away. Put them someplace where they can sleep it off.”
A hand grabbed him by the arm and there was Douglas Marshall, sweating. “We got to send him back, Chief,” said Doug. “E.J.’s got to take him back.”
Spencer shook his head. “I don’t know if we can. I’ll put it up to Legal. Just keep them here, and tell the boys. Tell them if one of them so much as whispers …”
“I’ll do my best,” said Doug. “But I don’t know. They’re a bunch of blabbermouths.”
Spencer jerked away and sprinted for the corridor.
What a day, he thought. What a loused-up day!
He charged down the corridor and saw that the door marked Private was closed. He skidded almost to a halt, reaching for the knob, when the door flew open. Miss Crane came tearing out.
She slammed into him head-on. Both of the bounced back, Miss Crane’s spectacles knocked at a crazy angle by the impact.
“Mr. Spencer,” she wailed. “Mr. Spencer, something awful’s happened! Remember Mr. Hudson?”
She stepped back out of his way. He sprang inside and slammed the door behind him. “As if I ever could forget him,” he said bitterly.
Said Miss Crane, “Mr. Hudson’s dead!”
Spencer stood stricken.
Miss Crane raged, “If only you had seen him when I wanted you to! If you hadn’t kept him waiting out there …”
“Now, look here—”
“He got up finally,” said Miss Crane, “and his face was red. He was angry. I don’t blame him, Mr. Spencer.”
“You mean he died right here?”
“He said to me, ‘Tell your Mr. Spencer—’ and that’s as far as he ever got. He sort of lurched and caught with his hand at the edge of the desk to support himself, but his hand slipped off and he folded up and …”
Spencer waited for no more. He went in three quick steps across the office and out into the reception room.
There was Mr. Hudson, huddled on the carpet.
He looked startlingly like a limp ragdoll. One blue-veined hand was stretched out ahead of him. The portfolio that it had held lay just beyond the fingertips, as if even in his death Mr. Hudson might be stretching out his hand to it. His jacket was hunched across the shoulders. The collar of his white shirt, Spencer saw, was ragged.
Spencer went slowly across the floor and knelt down beside the man. He put his ear down on the body.
There was no sound at all.
“Mr. Spencer.” Miss Crane was standing in the doorway, still terrified but enjoying it a lot. Not in all her years of being secretary had anything like this happened. Not in all her life. It would keep her supplied with conversation for many, many years.
“Lock the door,” said Spencer, “so no one can come strolling in. Then phone the police.”
“The police!”
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“Miss Crane,” said Spencer, sharply.
She walked around him and the body on the floor, edging close against the wall.
“Call Legal, too,” said Spencer.
He stayed squatting on the floor, staring at the man who lay there and wondering how it had happened. Heart attack, most likely. Miss Crane had said that he looked ill—and had urged that he see him first, ahead of the other two.
And if one were looking for a man to blame for what had happened here, Spencer told himself, they might have but little trouble fastening it on him.
If Hudson had not had to wait, growing angrier and more upset as the time slipped past, this might not have happened.
Hudson had waited in this room, a sick and impatient man, and finally an angry one—and what had he waited for?
Spencer studied the ragdoll of a man slumped upon the carpet, the thinning hair atop his head, the thick-lensed spectacles bent and twisted in the fall, the bony, blue-veined hands. He wondered what such a man might have expected from Past, Inc.
Spencer started to get up and lost his balance as he did, his left hand going out behind him to prop himself erect.
And beneath the spread-out palm there was something cool and smooth. Without looking, he knew what it was. Hudson’s portfolio!
The answer might be there!
Miss Crane was at the door, locking it. There was no one else.
With a swift sweep of his hand, Spencer skidded the portfolio in the direction of the doorway that led into his office.
He got smoothly to his feet and turned. The portfolio lay halfway through the doorway. In one quick stride he reached it and nudged it with his foot, inside and out of sight.
He heard the snick of the lock falling home and Miss Crane turned around.
I Am Crying All Inside and Other Stories Page 19
