Джон Пристли - The Doomsday Men

“Where?” asked Jimmy, now with an old envelope and a pencil ready.

“Wait! I’ll get it. He’d scribbled down-now what was it?-Redondo Boulevard and Centinela-you know, the avenue, out towards Culver City. All right then-that’s how he’d started. Then he’d written something about this lot looking different from the other nutty religionists. More dangerous. Something really going on there, behind the ordinary crazy front they were putting up. Not just singing hymns and praying and telling each other how good they are. He was sure about that. And Phil was no fool, y’know, Jimmy.”

Jimmy agreed, and waited. So far he had put down nothing but the two streets. “Go on. That’s not all, is it?”

“No. I read this page a good many times. Hell!-it was the least I could do, wasn’t it? Then there were some queries-you know, the way a feller does when he’s trying to puzzle something out. One or two I couldn’t read. But I remember what I could read-that is, if I read ’em right. Tall man-Abram Lincoln with a squint-real leader?-don't think so. Who is Father John? Why Barstow-Granite Mountains-Death Valley? What are the -now, wait a minute, what was the word?-I was never sure about that-but might have been initiates -y’know, the inner circle-anyhow, we’ll say it was- What are the initiates really expecting? What duties are they taking turns at? Are you putting these down?”

“No. I can remember ’em, and anyhow they don’t seem to amount to much,” said Jimmy, rather sulkily. “I don’t see why Phil was bothering about ’em. Duties! They could be taking turns with the collection bag, couldn’t they?”

“Sure! But they might also be taking turns at putting nosey reporters out of the way. Use your imagination, Jimmy, for Pete’s sake.”

“Trouble is, you’ve got too much, Rushy. Is that all?”

“No, at the bottom of the page was something about a clock.”

“Oh!-clocks are coming into it now, are they? If you ask me, we might as well be doing a cross-word puzzle.”

“This is it. Question and answer. When does the clock strike? Then below, the answer: You won't hear it . Better put that down,

Jimmy.”

“I’ve got it down, though God knows why.” Jimmy looked at his scribbles in disgust. “ When does the clock strike? You won't hear it . Well, Rushy, I think we might just as well go out now and play Red Indians. We’re on the wrong track. I’ve thought so all along. Some dirty little down-town rat killed Phil and daren’t stay long enough afterwards even to snatch his wallet. You lost his notebook. And nobody’s been in this room except you-and I’m not sure even about you.” He was very contemptuous.

Rushy was annoyed. “Okay, Mr. Wise Guy, you know it all. But I’ll tell you again what I think-just because you are Phil Edlin’s brother-and then that lets me out. He was killed because he was getting to know too much, and I know for a fact that the only thing he was deep in was this Brotherhood of the Judgment story, because he told me so himself. He wasn’t a fool; he’d plenty of sense and he was a dead keen newspaperman; and he wasn’t playing at Red Indians when he went round with that notebook. I may be a fool, but I’m not such a goddamned fool that I don’t know where I left something important, like that notebook, or that I don’t know when somebody’s been and turned over every single thing I possess. Forget it-if you like. I’m not going to do anything, and I’ve told you why. But don’t come round again to me, Jimmy, to tell me you’re going to find out who killed Phil, because I’ll know you’re just talking big. And now that I am here, I might as well stay here. Want another drink?”

“No, thanks, Rushy.” Jimmy was a bit stiff but also vaguely apologetic. “I’ll get along. Sorry if I sounded too sharp and sure, but all that stuff just didn’t seem to fit in, that’s all.”

“We’d know better what fitted in and what didn’t, if we knew more about the whole cockeyed business here in this world than we do. I’m an old-timer, and I’ve seen plenty, and, believe me, Jimmy, most of it’s taken me by surprise. If somebody had told me ten years ago that Franklin D. Roosevelt would be the Czar of these states, I’d have had a good big laugh. And Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin weren’t exactly expected either. You don’t know what’s coming next. Well-I may be seeing you, Jimmy.”

Oddly enough, Jimmy, thinking it all over in his hotel that night, staring now and again at the envelope on which he had scribbled his notes, and remembering not only everything Rushy had told him but also the character of his brother Phil, was far less confident than he had been up in Rushy’s room. There might be nothing in it; but now he felt that at least it was his duty to make sure. If Phil had thought this Brotherhood of the Judgment was worth his time and attention-and Phil was not the fellow to chase wild geese, unless under orders-then he, Jimmy, with time on his hands and a brother’s death on his mind, could not afford to ignore completely this trail, broken, dim, fantastic though it might appear to be. No, the least he could do was to have a look at the Brotherhood, even though he still could not come near convincing himself that its members-probably a lot of idle women and retired Bible-reading farmers-were capable of house-breaking, robbery and murder.

He did not start at once, however, in the morning. He felt dubious, troubled, with an uneasy night behind him, and so, wearing nothing but shirt, pants and slippers, and puffing away at his pipe, he spent the morning painting from memory a scene he thought he remembered from the voyage, completely ignoring the golden, early October morning outside, which was flooding the whole wide city with its own heavy and hazy sunlight. Even among the world’s most mistakenly enthusiastic, untrained daubers, Jimmy could be considered unique. He was so bad that he was almost great. He neither knew nor cared much about drawing; what he liked to do was to lay on plenty of colour; but it was the quality of his colour that gave Jimmy’s efforts their astounding character. His blues and greens, pinks and purples, all seemed to have come out of some horrible chemical works; they looked like poisonous acids; they had a metallic sheen that set the teeth on edge; they suggested neuralgia in pigment; and when Jimmy had worked away with these nightmare hues, composing them into what looked like lumps of coloured cotton wool until at a closer inspection they revealed their full metallic hideousness, the result was downright terrifying. Canvases presented solemnly by him to wincing friends were to be found, after a hard search at the back of lumber-rooms, all over the world; for though Jimmy liked nothing better than to paint and then to look with pleasure at his creation, he was no hoarder of his pictures; he gave them away freely; and it is a tribute to his friendly soul that so many people had accepted them and even forced up a smile of welcome for the framed horrors. All this morning, then, he spent happily conjuring the Pacific into what appeared to be a dreadful vat of copper sulphate solution, and creating above it an electric-blue sky that instantly suggested a blinding headache. And he was able to finish this monstrous libel in time to give his widowed sister-in-law a farewell lunch.

Afterwards, strolling idly down Figeroa, deciding again to try and see what Phil had been after among the Brotherhood of the Judgment, he found himself regretting that he was alone; not just alone at that moment, but with no companion on this adventure-if it was to be an adventure, which he still doubted. Rushy Drew was clearly no use; even if he had not made it plain himself, Jimmy would have rejected him. Jimmy reflected that he knew at least a dozen fellows round the town, but not one of them could be considered a friend. He had made a great many friends, the real thing, on his various travels, for he was a companionable soul, as gregarious as a starling, but they were all thousands of miles away. A shame too, for some of them would have been useful at this sort of investigation, though Jimmy, who had never suffered from any sense of inferiority, considered that he was pretty good at it himself. It would not take him long to find out if there was anything in this Brotherhood nonsense. And he went over Phil’s queries again.