by Gene Wolfe
Jay said, “They ran advertisements, as I understand it, and included it in a lot of their news broadcasts. I was at a friend’s house and saw one. My rifle’s broken, and I need a new ax and—” For a moment, her expression silenced him. “And other things. You don’t care about that, do you?”
“Not really.”
“So I wrote a letter and my friend emailed it, with some pictures of me and my cabin. They said that if I’d come here and talk to them, they might give me the money.”
“A hundred thousand.”
“Yes, one hundred thousand. I borrowed money for bus fare, and I came. And they talked to me and gave it to me.”
“No, they didn’t.” The woman in the orange jumpsuit looked sincere and somewhat troubled; she leaned toward Jay as she spoke. “They couldn’t, you see. It didn’t belong to them. All money belongs to the Federal Government, Jay. People—people who own small businesses, particularly—speak of making money. Quite often they use those exact words. But if you’ll think about it, you’ll see that they are not true. All money is made by Government, and so all money belongs to Government, which allows citizens like you and me to have some, sometimes, so we can buy the things we need. But Government keeps title to all of it, and by the very nature of things it can’t lose title to any of it. I’ve most of last month’s pay on me right now.” She paused, extracting a hard plastic portemoney from an interior pocket of her jumpsuit.
“You’re saying that what they paid isn’t mine at all.”
“Correct. Because no money really belongs to anyone except Government, which issued it.” The woman in the orange jumpsuit opened her portemoney, took out bills and fanned them. “Here’s mine. You see? Eleven five-hundreds, three one-hundreds, and some twenties, tens, fives, and singles. This is what our Government lets me have, because my taxes were already deducted from my check.”
The other woman said, “Except sales tax.”
“Correct, although sales tax is actually paid by the seller. There’s a pretense that the buyer pays, but we needn’t get into that. The point is that I have this money, although it’s not mine, and I’m showing it to you. This is what I’ve got, Jay. Now will you, in an act of good faith, show what you have to me?”
“No,” Jay said.
“I’m sorry to hear that, very sorry.” The woman in the orange jumpsuit paused as though expecting her expression of regret to change his answer. He said nothing more; neither did the other woman.
“There’s an easy, painless way to handle this,” the woman in the orange jumpsuit said. “You could turn the money over to me now. I’d count it and give you a receipt for it that would be backed by the full faith and credit of the Federal Government. When the Government had decided how much should be returned to you, it would be sent to you. I’m sure there would be enough for a new ax. Not for a rifle, though. The danger a rifle would pose to you and your family would far outweigh any possible benefit to you.”
“They’re against the law,” the other woman remarked a little dryly.
“Yes, they are, for that very reason.” The woman in the orange jumpsuit spoke to Jay again. “You wouldn’t have to do prison time. I think I can promise you that. There probably wouldn’t even be a trial. Won’t you please hand that money—the Government’s money—to me to count? Now?”
He shook his head.
“You want to think it over. I understand.” The woman in the orange jumpsuit tapped the other woman’s shoulder. “Where are we? Ninety-fifth? You can let me out now. Just stop anywhere.”
The vanette stopped, causing several vehicles behind it to blow their horns, and the woman in the orange jumpsuit opened its sliding door and stepped out. “You’ve got my card, Jay. Call anytime.”
He nodded and shut the door, the vanette lurched forward, and the woman driving it said, “Thank you for appearing on our show tonight.”
Jay nodded, although he could not be sure she was looking at him. “That was for the holovid, wasn’t it? She was so pretty.”
“Prettier than me?” There was a half-humorous challenge in the question.
“I don’t know,” Jay told her. “You don’t want me to look at you.”
“Well, she was, and she wasn’t just pretty, she was beautiful, the way the Government wants you to think all the Feds look, beautiful women and good-looking men. She’ll make the next news for sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if they run everything she said. You still want to see it?”
“Yes,” he said. “Certainly.”
“Okay, we will. I’ve got a place a couple of blocks from here.”
“What about my carbine? I’d like to buy it tonight.”
“He’s got to get it from wherever he’s got it stashed. Ammo, too. I said fifty rounds.”
“More,” Jay told her. He considered. “Five hundred, if he has them.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him.” The vanette pulled into an alley and the laptop returned to the steering wheel. When the woman who sold guns had closed it again, she said, “Ten years ago I could have stood up to her. I was a knockout. You don’t have to believe me, but I was.”
He said he believed her.
“But I had two kids. I put on some weight then and I’ve never got it off, and I quit taking care of my complexion for a while. You haven’t been looking at me.”
“No,” he said.
“That’s good, but now don’t look at anything else either, okay? I want you to shut your eyes and keep them shut. Just lean back and relax.”
He nodded, closed his eyes, and leaned back as she had suggested, discovering that he was very tired.
As if it were in another room, her fingers tapped the instrument panel. Softly she said, “Hey you. Open your sunroof.”
Cold poured over him like water, and he shivered. She grunted, the vanette shook, and the seat he had shared with her sagged; after a little thought, he decided that she was standing on it with her head and shoulders thrust up through the open sunroof.
Sometime after that, the sunroof closed again and she left the vanette, got into the rear seat, and rummaged among her possessions there.
“Okay,” she said. “Only don’t open your eyes.”
He said that he would not.
“I figured she might have planted some sort of bug, you know? Something to tell the Feds where we went. Only it would have to be on the roof or in back, and I couldn’t find it, so probably they figure you’re all the bug they need. We’re going to drive around some now, and I want you to keep your eyes shut the whole time. We’ll be turning corners and doubling back and all that, but don’t look.”
They “drove around” for what seemed an hour; but though there were indeed a number of turns, Jay got the impression that the point at which they stopped was miles from the one at which he had closed his eyes.
“All right.” She tapped the instrument panel. “No lights.” The engine died; the soft snick he heard was presumably the ignition key backing out. It rattled against other keys as she removed it and dropped it into her purse. “You can look around. Just don’t look at me.”
He did. “It’s dark.”
“Yeah. Well, it gets dark early this time of year. But it’s about eight o‘clock. You don’t have a watch.”
“No,” he said.
“Me neither. There’s the dash clock if I’m driving, and the holovid will give it if I’m inside. Come on.”
There was no doorman, but the lobby into which she led him was fairly clean. He said, “You don’t really live here.”
“Hell no. But sometimes I sleep here, and I’m going to sleep here tonight. We both are.”
He wondered whether she meant together. Aloud, he said, “You don’t really live in Greentree Gardens, either. That’s what you told me.”
“Nope.”
“I would think it would be horribly expensive to rent so many places.”
The doors of an elevator shook and groaned, and at last rattled open. They stepped inside.
“It cost
s, but not nearly as much as you’d think. These old twentiethcentury buildings are all rent-controlled.”
He said, “I didn’t know that.”
“So what it is, is the grease you’ve got to pay the agent to get in. That can be quite a chunk. You don’t understand grease, do you?”
“No,” he said.
“I could see you didn’t. It’s under-the-counter money, money the agent can put in his pocket and not pay taxes on. Money’s like three, four times more without taxes.”
The elevator ground to a halt, and they got out.
“So I pay that—I’ve got to—and the first month’s rent. I buy used furniture, not very much, and move in. Then I don’t pay anything else for as long as I can get by with it.”
The keys were out again, jangling in her hand.
“That could be six months. It could be a year. When I get the feeling they’re about ready to take me to court, I pay another month, maybe, or half a month. It’s rent-controlled, like I said, so it’s not much.”
She opened a door that had long ago been damaged by water. “My utility bills aren’t much because I’m hardly ever here, and I don’t complain or cause trouble. See? And they know if they go to court the judge will find out I just paid something and tell them to give me more time. So they don’t. You want to turn that thing on? It’s almost time for the nine o‘clock.”
He did, fumbling with the controls until he found the right control.
“It’s an old one,” she said apologetically.
A shimmering beach half filled the stale air of the dingy room; on it, young women with spectacular figures tossed a multicolored ball, at last throwing it into the ocean and swimming out to retrieve it.
“You were expecting voice control, right? I got it at the Salvation Army store. They fixed it up so it would work again.”
He nodded. A brunet with flashing eyes had gotten the ball. She threw it to a blonde, tracing a high arc of red, green, and yellow against the clear blue sky.
“This’s a commercial,” the woman who sold guns told him. “See how their makeup stays on and their hair stays nice even in the water? That’s what you’re supposed to be looking at.”
He nodded again.
An elderly sofa groaned as she sat down. “You want the sound? It’s the next knob up, only they’re going to be talking about hair spray and stuff.”
He shook his head.
“Fine with me. Only we better turn it on when the news comes on.”
He did, and by the time he had taken a seat next to her, a handsome black man and a beautiful Chinese woman faced them across a polished double desk. Both smiled in friendly fashion. “Thank you for inviting us into your living room,” the black man said.
The Chinese woman added, “There’s a lot of news tonight. What do you say we get to it, Phil?”
Phil nodded, abruptly serious. “There certainly is, Lee-Anne. Johns Hopkins has a new artificial heart so small you can have it implanted before your present heart gives out.”
Lee-Anne said, “There’s the cat in the mayor’s Christmas tree, too. I like that story. The firemen way up on their little ladders look like ornaments.”
Phil smiled. “You’re right, they do. We’ve got a review of the new Edward Spake film, too. The Trinidad Communiqué. It got raves at Cannes.”
“Aunt Betsy’s going to show us how to make cranberry flan for the holidays.”
“Almost live coverage of the big parade in Orlando.”
“And a peek in on the Hundred Thousand Man. He’s had a little visit from FR&SS.”
“That’s you,” the woman who sold guns told Jay. “It’s going to be a while before they get to you, though. You want something to eat?”
“Yes.” He had not realized how hungry he was.
“I don’t keep much besides beer in these places. Usually I just phone out. Pizza okay?”
He had not eaten pizza since college. He said it was.
“You’ve got to get out of here,’cause I’ll have to give the address. Why don’t you go in the kitchen?”
A plastic model of a large artery enclosing a very small artificial heart stood in the middle of the room. He nodded and went into the kitchen.
“Bring me a beer, okay?”
The refrigerator was white, as his mother’s had been; he knew vaguely that no one had white refrigerators now, though he did not know why. It held beer in squat plastic bulbs and a deli container of potato salad. He opened a bulb over the small and dirty sink, afraid that the foam might overflow the bulb. When he could no longer hear her voice, he called, “Can I come back in?”
“Sure.”
He brought her the beer, and she said, “Pepperoni, hot peppers, and onions, okay? You can have a beer too.”
He shook his head. “Not until the food gets here.”
“Don’t you think it’s coming?”
It had not even occurred to him. He said, “Of course it is,” and returned to the kitchen to get a beer for himself.
“I need to make another call. I got to call my babysitter and tell her I won’t be back tonight. But I’ll wait till we see you.”
He nodded, careful not to look at her. A towering Christmas tree, shrunken by distance, disappeared into the ceiling. Little firemen in yellow coveralls and Day-Glo red helmets clambered over it like elves.
“I turned off the sound so I could call. All right?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Maybe you’d better turn it back on now.”
He did, getting it too loud then scaling it back. Reduced to the size of a child’s battery-powered CUV, an immense float trundled through the room, appearing at one wall and disappearing into the other while dollsized women feigned to conceal their nakedness with bouquets from which they tossed flowers to the onlookers. Lee-Anne’s voice said, “ … la tourista fiesta queen and her court, Phil. They say the fiesta is worth about three hundred million to the city of Orlando.”
Phil’s voice replied, “I don’t doubt it. And speaking of money, Lee-Anne, here’s a lady trying to collect some.”
A good-looking woman in a skintight orange jumpsuit rappelled down a mountain of air, bouncing and swaying. Jay said, “I didn’t see that.”
“They were shooting from a helicopter, probably,” the woman who sold guns told him.
It took about half a second for him to realize that by “shooting” she intended the taking of pictures; in that half second, the swaying woman on the rope became the helmetless woman he recalled, shaking out her hair in the rear seat of the vanette. “You have a great deal of money belonging to our Federal Government. One hundred thousand, if not more.”
The other woman said, “He thinks it belongs to him.” Then his own voice, just as he heard it when he spoke: “It was paid me by Globnet.”
Their conversation continued, but he paid little attention to what they said. He watched Hayfa Washington’s face, discovering that he had forgotten (or had never known) how beautiful she had been.
Too soon it was over, and a woman in a spotless gingham apron coalesced from light to talk about lemon custard. The woman who sold guns said, “You want to turn that off now?” and he did.
“I’m going to call my sitter, okay? You can stay, though. I won’t tell her where I am.”
“I’ll go anyway,” he said, and returned to the kitchen. Faintly, through the tiny dining nook and the door he had closed behind him, he heard her tell someone, “It’s me, Val. How are the kids?”
The card was in his shirt pocket, under the hunting coat he had been careful not to remove. “Captain H. Washington, Fifth Airborne Brigade.” He turned it over, and discovered that her picture was on the reverse, and that her soul was in her huge dark eyes.
“Hey!” the other woman called from the living room. “The pizza’s here. Bring out a couple more bulbs.”
He did, and opened hers for her while she opened the pizza box on the rickety coffee table, then returned to the kitchen for plastic knives and forks
, and paper napkins.
“If we eat in there we’ll have to sit facing,” she said. “So I figured in here. We can sit side by each, like in the car. It’ll be easier.”
He said that was fine, and asked about her children.
“Oh, they’re okay. My girlfriend is sitting them. She’s going to take them over to her house till I get back. Ron’s eight and Julie’s seven. I had them right together, like. Then we broke up, and he didn’t want any part of them. You know how that is.”
“No,” he said. “No, I don’t.”
“Haven’t you ever been married? Or lived with a woman?”
He shook his head.
“Well, why not?”
“I’ve never been rich, handsome, or exciting, that’s all.” He paused, thinking. “All right, I’m rich now, or at least have something like riches. But I never did before.”
“Neither was he, but he got me.”
Jay shrugged.
“He was nice, and he was fun to be with, and he had a pretty good job. Only after the divorce his company sent him overseas and he stopped paying support.”
“I’ve never had a job,” Jay said.
“Really?”
“Really. My friends call me a slacker.” He found that he was smiling. “Dad called me a woods bum. He’s dead now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I, in a way. We seldom got along, but well …” He shrugged and drank beer.
“I know.”
“He sent me to college. I thought I was a pretty good baseball player in those days, and a pretty good football player, but I didn’t make either team. I tried hard, but I didn’t make the cut.”
She spoke with her mouth full. “Tha’s too bad.”
“It was. If I had, it would have been different. I know it would. The way it was, I worked hard up until I was close to graduation.” The pizza was half gone. He picked up a square center piece that looked good, bit into it, and chewed and swallowed, tasting only the bitterness of empty years.
“What happened then?” she asked.
“When I was a senior? Nothing, really. It was just that I realized I had been working like a dog to acquire knowledge that nobody wanted. Not even me. That if I did everything right and aced my exams and got my master’s I’d end up teaching in the high school in the little Pennsylvania town where we lived, or someplace like it. I’d teach math and chemistry, and maybe coach the baseball team, and it would be kids who were going to work on farms or get factory jobs when they got out of school. I said to hell with it.”
