Philip Dick - THE MAN WHO JAPED

Gates was appalled. "But Ulysses is worth a hundred bills!"

"Give it to him." Sugermann sank into a growling, acrid stupor. "He should have it."

Allen said: "I can't take it; it's worth too much." And, he realized, he couldn't pay for it. He didn't have ten thousand dollars. And, he also realized, he wanted the book.

Sugermann glared at him for a long, disconcerting time. "Morec," he muttered at last. "No gift-giving. Okay, Allen. I'm sorry." He roused himself and went into the next room. "How about a glass of sherry?"

"That's good stuff," Gates said. "From Spain. The real thing."

Re-emerging with the half-empty bottle, Sugermann found three glasses and filled them. "Drink up, Purcell. To Goodness, Truth, and—" He considered. "Morality."

They drank.

Malparto made a final note and then signalled his tech- nicians. The office lights came on as the trellis was wheeled away.

On the table the patient blinked, stirred, moved feebly.

"And then you came back?" Malparto asked.

"Yes," Mr. Coates said. "I drank three glasses of sherry and then I flew back to Newer York."

"And nothing else happened?"

Mr. Coates, with an effort, sat up. "I came back, parked the sliver, got the tools and bucket of red paint, and japed the statue. I left the empty paint can on a bench and walked home."

The first session was over and Malparto had learned absolutely nothing. Nothing had happened to his patient either before or at Hokkaido; he had met some boys, tried to buy a fifth of Scotch, had seen a book. That was all. It was senseless.

"Have you ever been Psi-tested?" Malparto asked.

"No." His patient squinted with pain. "Those drugs of yours gave me a headache."

"I have a few routine tests I'd like to give you. Perhaps next time; it's a trifle late, today." He had decided to cease the recall-therapy. There was no value in bringing to the surface past incidents and forgotten experiences. From now on he would work with the mind of Mr. Coates, not with its contents.

"Learn anything?" Mr. Coates asked, rising stiffly to his feet.

"A few things. One question. I'm curious to know the effect of this japery. In your opinion—"

"It gets me into trouble."

"I don't mean on you. I mean on the Morec Society."

Mr. Coates considered. "None. Except that it gives the police something to do. And the newspapers have something to print."

"How about the people who see the japed statue?"

"Nobody sees it; they've got it boarded up." Mr. Coates rubbed his jaw. "Your sister saw it. And some of the Cohorts saw it; they were rounded up to guard it."

Malparto made a note af that.

"Gretchen said that some of the Cohorts laughed. It was japed in an odd way; I suppose you've heard."

"I've heard," Malparto said. Later, he could get the facts from his sister. "So they laughed. Interesting."

"Why?"

"Well, the Cohorts are the storm-troopers of the Morec Society. They go out and do the dirty work. They're the teeth, the vigilantes. And they don't usually laugh."

At the office door Mr. Coates had paused. "I don't see the point."

Doctor Malparto was thinking: precognition. The ability to anticipate the future. "I'll see you Monday," he said, getting out his appointment book. "At nine. Will that be satisfactory?"

Mr. Coates said that it was satisfactory, and then he set off glumly for work.

As he entered his office at the Agency, Doris appeared and said: "Mr. Purcell, something has happened. Harry Priar wants to tell you." Priar, who headed the Agency's art department, was his pro-tem assistant, taking Fred Luddy's place.

Priar materialized, looking somber. "It's about Luddy."

"Isn't he gone?" Allen said, removing his coat. Malparto's drugs still affected him; his head ached and he felt dulled.

"He's gone," Priar said. "Gone to Blake-Moffet. We got a tip from T-M this morning, before you showed up." Allen groaned.

"He knows everything we've got on tap," Priar continued. "All the new packets, all the current ideas. That means Blake-Moffet has them."

"Make an inventory," Allen said. "See what he took." He settled drearily down at his desk. "Let me know as soon as you're finished."

A whole day was consumed by inventory-taking. At five the information was in and on his desk.

"Picked us clean," Priar said. He admiringly shook his head. "Must have spent hours. Of course we can attach the material, try to get it back through the claims court."

"Blake-Moffet will fight for years," Allen said, fooling with the long yellow pad. "By the time we get the packets back they'll be obsolete. We'll have to dream up new ones. Better ones."

"This really tough is," Priar said. "Nothing like this ever happened before. We've had Blake-Moffet pirate stuff; we've lost stuff; we've been beaten to ideas. But we never had anybody at top level go over bag and baggage."

"We never fired anybody before," Allen reminded him. He was thinking how much Luddy resented the firing. "They can do us real harm. And with Luddy there they probably will. Grudge stuff. We've never run into that before. The personal element. Bitter, to-the-death tangling."

After Priar left, Allen got up and paced around his office. Tomorrow was Friday, his last full day to decide about the directorship of T-M. The statue problem would still be with him the rest of the week; as Malparto said, therapy would drag on indefinitely.

Either he went into T-M as he was now or he declined the job. On Saturday he would still be the same elusive personality, with the same switches to be pulled from deep within.

It was depressing to consider how little practical help the Health Resort had given him. Doctor Malparto was off in the clouds, thinking in terms of a lifetime of test-giving, reaction-measuring. And meanwhile the practical situation floundered. He had to make a decision, and without Malparto's help. Without, in effect, anybody's help. He was back where he started before Gretchen gave him the folded slip.

Picking up the phone he called his apartment.

"Hello," Janet's voice came, laden with dread.

"This is the Mortuary League," Allen said. "It is my duty to inform you that your husband was sucked into the manifold of an autofac ship and never heard from again." He examined his watch. "At precisely five-fifteen."

A terrible hushed silence, and then Janet said: "But that's now."

"If you listen," Allen said, "you can hear him breathing. He's not gone yet, but he's pretty far down."

Janet said: "You inhuman monster."

"What I want to find out," Allen said, "is what are we doing this evening?"

"I'm taking Lena's kids to the history museum." Lena was his wife's married sister. "You're not doing anything."

"I'll tag along," he decided. "I want to discuss something with you."

"Discuss what?" she asked instantly.

"Same old thing." The history museum would make as good a place as any; so many people passed through that no juvenile would single them out. "I'll be home around six. What's for dinner?"

"How about ‘steak'?"

"Fine," he said, and hung up.

After dinner they walked over to Lena's and picked up the two kids. Ned was eight and Pat was seven, and they scurried excitedly along the twilight lane and up the steps of the museum. Allen and his wife came more slowly, hand in hand, saying little. For once the evening was pleasant. The sky was cloud-scattered but mild, and many people were out to enjoy themselves in the few ways open to them.

"Museums," Allen said. "And art exhibits. And concerts. And lectures. And discussions of public affairs." He thought of Gates' phonograph playing "I Can't Get Started," the taste of sherry, and, beyond everything else, the litter of the twentieth century that had focalized in the water-soaked copy of Ulysses. "And there's always Juggle."