Robert Silverberg - The Second Trip

“Is he expecting you, sir?”

“I don’t think so. But he’ll see me.”

“Your name?”

Hamlin faltered at that. Macy picked up the scathing tides of chagrin. A dilemma, yes. After a moment Hamlin said, “My name is Macy, Paul Macy.” With a meaningful glance at the Rehab badge in his lapel. “Tell him I used to be Nat Hamlin, though.”

“Oh.” A little gasp. A flutter of confusion; a pretty spasm of embarrassment that turned the girl scarlet down to her fashionably exposed breasts. A quick recovery. Jeweled finger to the intercom. “Mr. Macy to see you, Mr. Gargan. Paul Macy. Formerly Mr. Nat Hamlin.”

From some inner office, a bellow of surprise that needed no amplification. Hamlin was speedily ushered in. A spherical room, dense mossy black carpet installed 360°-wise everywhere, a man of implausible corpulence lolling along the curved left wall with a meaty hand held languidly over a control panel bristling with jeweled switches. Not rising when Hamlin entered. An ocean of blubber; flesh hanging in folds over folds of flesh. The features barely discernible within that mass: piggy little eyes, puggy little nose, narrow pinched puritan lips. Out of the vastness a thin man’s piping voice: “God’s own cock, what are you doing here? You aren’t supposed to be coming here, Nat!”

“Do you mind?”

“Do I mind? Do I mind? You know I love you. Only I don’t follow this at all. They took you in for Rehab; I thought that was the end of you. When did you get out, anyway?”

“Early in May. I would have seen you before this but there were problems.”

“You look okay. You sound okay. Just like your old self. But you’ve got the badge. You’re somebody else now, right? What’s your new name?”

“Macy. Paul Macy.”

“Don’t like it. It’s a name without any balls.”

“I didn’t pick it, Gargantua.”

The fat man tugged at his dewlaps. “Am I supposed to call you Nat or Paul?”

“You better call me Paul.”

“Paul. Paul. Well, I’ll try. Sit down, Paul. Jesus, what a fruity name! Sit down, anyway.” Hamlin sat Macy, a helpless spectator within him, sat also. Listening to every word of the conversation but unable to speak. As though watching it on a screen. He had seen this fat man, this gallery owner, before, drifting around in the debris of Hamlin’s memory; but he seemed much fatter now. This man and Hamlin had grown rich together on the proceeds of Hamlin’s genius. Now Hamlin stretched out voluptuously. In full command of his recaptured body. The black carpeting seemed to be a foot thick: bouncy, lush. Gargan touched one of the switches on the panel in front of him and the room silently revolved, changing its axis by some 15°. Hamlin’s side of the sphere went up and Gargan’s descended. Macy experienced some vertigo. The fat man lay pleasantly sprawled, kneading his belly. Shortly he belched and said, “How do you like the setup here? Or don’t you remember the old one?”

“I remember. This is tremendous, Gargantua. Like a fucking Babylonian palace. A gallery for sybarites, eh?”

“We get a good clientele here.”

“You’re prospering. And you’ve gained some weight, haven’t you? Unless I’m mistaken, quite a lot of weight.”

“Quite. Two or three hundred pounds since you last saw me.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“I think so.”

“How the crap do you have the patience to eat so much, though?”

“Oh, I don’t waste time overeating,” Gargan said. “I’ve had my lipostat surgically adjusted. My whole body-fat-and-glucose equation has been changed. I burn slowly, my friend, I burn very slowly. The eating it takes to give you an ounce gives me a pound. And I grow lovely, eh, more lovely every day. I want to weigh a thousand pounds, Nat! Paul. I must call you Paul.”

“Paul, yes.”

“But none of this makes any sense.” Gargan stirred ever so slightly, craning his neck. “How can you remember me? Why didn’t Rehab wipe you out?”

“It did.”

“But you sound just like—”

“I’m a special case. Don’t ask too many questions.”

“I follow you, Nat.”

“Paul.”

“Paul.”

“Be more careful about my name, will you? I’m a brand-new man. The loathsome countersocial rapist who did such grievous damage to so many innocent women has been humanely destroyed, Gargantua, and will never walk the earth again.”

“I follow. Where are you living?”

“Way uptown. A temporary place. You can have the address if you want.”

“Please. And the phone.”

“I won’t be there long. As soon as I’ve got some cash together I’ll find something a little more suitable.”

“Are you working yet?”

“As a holovision commentator,” Hamlin said. “Maybe you’ve seen me. The late news.”

“I mean working. ”

“No. I have no equipment, no studio. I haven’t even had a chance to think about work in a serious way.”

“But soon?”

“Soon, yes.” Macy felt Hamlin’s lips curve into a sly, malicious smile. “Would you like to represent me when I get started again, Gargantua?”

“Why ask? You know we have a contract.”

“We don’t,” said Hamlin.

“I could show it to you. Wait, let me punch the retrieve.” Gargan’s meaty fingers hovered over the console buttons. As he started to stab a stud Hamlin reached out and stopped him.

“You had a contract with Nat Hamlin,” Hamlin said. “Hamlin’s dead. You can’t represent his ghost. My name is Paul Macy, and I’m looking for a dealer. You interested?”

Gargan’s face looked puffier. “You know I am.”

“Fifteen percent.”

“The old contract said thirty.”

“The old contract was signed twenty years ago. The situation then doesn’t apply now. Fifteen.”

Lengthy tugging at dewlaps. “I never take less than thirty.”

“You will if you want me to come back to you.” The voice very flat now. “All Hamlin’s contracts were legally dissolved when his personality underwent deconstruct. I’m not bound by anything. Also I’m without assets and I need to rebuild my capital in a hurry. Fifteen. Take it or leave it.”

In Gargan’s eyes a countervailing slyness. “Nat Hamlin was an established master with a line of museum credits longer than my cock. Paul—what is it, Macy?—Paul Macy is a nobody. I had a waiting list for Hamlins, for anything he’d turn out. Why should people buy you?”

“Because I’m as good as Hamlin.”

“How do I know that?”

“Because I tell you so. Business may be slow at first until the word-of-mouth starts, but when the public realizes that Macy is as good as Hamlin, even better than Hamlin because he’s been through an extra hell and knows how to make use of it, the public will come around and clean you out. You’ll cover your nut with plenty to spare. Do we have a deal at fifteen or don’t we?”

“I want to see some of Paul Macy’s work,” Gargan said slowly, “before I offer a contract.”

“Contract first or you don’t see a thing.”

A tut and a tut from the narrow lips. “Artists aren’t supposed to be rapacious. That’s why they need dealers, to be sons of bitches on their behalf.”

“I can be my own son of a bitch,” Hamlin said. “Look, Gargantua, don’t waltz around with me. You know who I am and you know how good I am. I’ve had a rough time and I need money, and anyway at this stage of my career it’s crazy for me to be cutting my dealer in for thirty. Give me a contract and advance me ten thousand so I can set up a studio, and let’s not crap around any more.”

“And if I don’t?”

“There are two dozen dealers within five blocks of here.”

“Who would jump at the chance of taking on somebody named Paul Macy, I suppose?”