John Brunner - The Squares of the City

And then they gave a sort of credit line to those who had helped in this brave hunting-down of a desperate killer— unquote. In among the rest they dragged my name.

I felt a sort of dull resentment harden within me. Hell, maybe Brown had laid this Jaliscos girl, in spite of all his denials; if he hadn’t, maybe he had pushed her out of a window; if he hadn’t done that, either, it was sure—I myself had seen—that he had it in mind to kill Angers. All granted, all granted. He wasn’t a desperate killer; he was an honest man on the wrong side. And I wasn’t going to have any part of posthumous attempts to convict him without trial.

Maybe it was a sort of habit, conditioned into me by my work; up to now, I’d been passive, reacting, absorbing, accepting, just as when I started a new job I had to spend a long time acquiring facts and feelings. Now I was past that stage. I was going to start saying what I thought and doing what I believed to be right. And I could start by raising a little hell at the TV studios.

I went out to my car and drove there as soon as the program ended.

Rioco, the producer of the program, was on the point of leaving the building. He seemed very tired; at first he failed to recognize me, and when he did, he hardly seemed to be taking in what I said.

As I was starting to repeat myself, however, he brushed his hand impatiently across his eyes. “Yes, yes,” he muttered. “I did hear what you said. But what can I do? This is a policy question—you must take your complaints to Dr. Mayor.”

“Why? What’s it got to do with him?”

He snapped at me. “You don’t think I decide what goes out on our programs, do you? The most important ones we broadcast? If you want your name kept out of our reports, you’ll have to tell Mayor, because he handed down an order to play up your part in the affair at seven-thirty this evening. If we’d had time, we’d have come down and got you to give an interview, like Angers.”

“You would not!” I said when I could draw breath again— the sheer presumption of the remark staggered me momentarily. “All right, if I have to see Mayor, I see Mayor. Where do I find him?”

“Maybe in his office—on the first floor.” Rioco gave a savage grin. “I wouldn’t tackle him now if I were you. He’s not in the best of moods—”

“What kind of a mood do you think I’m in after all the lying trash you’ve been putting out about me?” I could feel my nerves fraying as if Rioco’s voice were sawing them on the sharp corner of a block of sandstone; I stamped past him and went up the stairs two at a time to the next floor.

Mayor’s office was well guarded; there was a receptionist, male, muscular, as well as a receptionist, female, pretty. I walked past both of them while they were still putting on their “good evening we recognize you of course” smiles and threw open the door to Mayor’s sanctum.

For a moment everything was silent. I had expected Mayor to erupt, but he did nothing of the sort—he showed astonishment for a second and then mastered it. His visitor, who had been talking to him, broke off and swung around on his chair. I recognized, of all people, Dalban.

I was at a loss for a moment, and Mayor recovered his composure altogether. He sat back, settling his glasses on his nose with a fingertouch, and spoke with ponderous humor.

“Your business is obviously urgent, Senor Hakluyt. What is it?”

I ignored him and addressed Dalban. I could hear bitterness and rage struggling in my voice. “You’ll be delighted to know, senor, that what your threats and bribes couldn’t achieve is being successfully accomplished by this—this Mayor here. Minister of Misinformation and Accusations, so I understand.”

It was at this point that I first realized I was very drunk indeed.

I stood back inside my head and allowed myself to go on talking—I couldn’t do anything else. I said, “They say the bigger the lie the better the chance of people believing it. He’s been telling the whole of Aguazul this evening that I was right-hand man to hero-boy Angers in the rounding up of a dangerous killer called Fats Brown. That’s a hell of a big lie, and probably a hell of a lot of people believe it. Well, I don’t —and after all, I was only there. What I saw was murder. I’m telling you that straight. I’ve stood practically every kind of pushing around this pretty-in-theory, stinking-in-practice government of yours can dish out, Mayor, and I’m saying now that this last lie makes me want to vomit on your nice clean desk!”

On the last three words I beat my fist on that desk, each time harder, until the last time the two phones jumped in their cradles.

Mayor had heard me out without expression. Now he moved plumply in his chair. He said in his surprisingly mellow voice, “Senor Hakluyt, you are excited. I well understand the shock you have suffered; this is not the first violent death to which you have been a witness since arriving here. But it is our duty to present facts to the public.”

I said, “Facts! Facts! Lies aren’t facts!”

“It’s a fact that this slum under the monorail central is a place where a suspected murderer can hide, isn’t it? Or do you deny that self-evident truth?”

“Suspected! He wasn’t condemned or even tried, except in the minds of the people who believe your falsehoods, and now he never can be tried. That’s a fact—and you haven’t given that to the public, have you? You and your ‘most governed country,’ Mayor—let’s face it, you’ve degraded yourself into a mouthpiece for government propaganda, and this television service you’ve created is no more than a megaphone for an arrogant dictator, with hypnotic attachments! ‘Know the truth and the truth shall make you free’—hide the truth and you get what you’re after: a country where everyone believes what they’re told and never gets an inkling of the dirty truth behind the pretty lies!”

Mayor’s face was purpling; before he could speak and before I could formulate the climactic insult I needed to finish my tirade, Dalban’s rich voice cut across the room.

“Senor Hakluyt, I here and now apologize to you. To bribe or threaten you was ill-judged. I believe you are an honest man. I have often desired to say exactly what you have said to this corrupt barrel-of-wind Mayor. But even with my not inconsiderable prestige I have dared do little more than remonstrate—as I came here to remonstrate tonight. Now I do not care any more. I think you are perfectly correct. I think Mayor is a dangerous megalomaniac, and Ciudad de Vados is an unhealthy town in which to live so long as he is forcing his perverted propaganda on our citizens. He and the professor of so-called social sciences Cortes who foists the same predigested pap on our intelligent young students to stop them from saving themselves would be better—off—dead.”

I felt vaguely embarrassed; maybe it was the drink. Or it was the unmistakable sincerity in Dalban’s tone, which made me feel that I had been looking at him up to now through some officially issued dark glasses.

“I do not any longer think we need speak of your leaving Aguazul,” Dalban continued thoughtfully. “Dr. Mayor, you have heard what I said; now you have heard what Senor Hakluyt said. Are you prepared to undo the effects of your vicious lies?”

Mayor sat very still; we looked at him. I was vaguely aware that the receptionist, male, muscular, was standing in the doorway with a helpless expression, as if waiting for a command to remove us both. I thought at first Mayor might yield, for sweat pricked out on his forehead and two bright red spots burned high on his cheekbones.

But when he at last spoke, his voice was hard and firm. “My broadcasting service is the organ of our government,” he said. “It is not to be controlled by the whim of private individuals. Senor Hakluyt, you are a distinguished visitor doing a valuable service for our city; you are likewise a stranger, and at the moment you are very drunk. We—and when I say we, I speak for the cabinet—we can overlook this breach of manners. You are fortunate in your privileged position. But I will not withdraw anything that has been said.”