Pat Frank - Mr. Adam

Pumphrey sagged like a toy balloon from which enough air has escaped so that it is no longer round and shining. “Very well,” he sighed. “I’ll send the release round to your office, Colonel, as soon as I get a chance to dictate and sign it.”

“Thank you,” said Phelps-Smythe, and left. I could have sworn he clicked his heels.

Immediately Klutz turned to Pumphrey. “I’d better find Nate,” he said. “This looks like trouble.”

It turned out that Nate was Gableman, the Assistant Director for Public Relations, a dark and cadaverous young man with his hair two inches longer than the barber ordinarily allows, and fingernails that matched his hair, both in length and color. His eyes ran over me in quick speculation and appraisal, he listened to Pumphrey’s account of what had happened thus far, and he said, “I should have been cut in on this right away. What do you think a Public Relations man is for?”

“I’m sorry, Nate,” Pumphrey said. “But it happened so fast.”

“You haven’t written that memorandum for Phelps-Smythe yet?”

“Oh, no. He just left.”

Gableman’s dark eyes came alive behind his spectacles. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll move in a hurry. I’ll get out a special press release right away. You hold that memorandum until I’m ready. We’ll get our story out first.”

“What is our story, Nate?” Pumphrey asked.

“Why, it’s very simple. Abel Pumphrey, Director of the National Re-fertilization Project, today announced that N.R.P. had taken over complete personal control of Mr. Adam from the War Department, at the President’s request. You see, that puts the onus on the War Department. They can’t buck the President. He’s Commander in Chief. Then we say that Mr. Adam wasn’t getting sufficient personal freedom under present conditions. He should have all the rights and freedoms of every other American. That gets us in good with the Liberals. Then we say that Steve Smith here has been appointed a Special Assistant to Mr. Pumphrey and entrusted with the safety of Adam. Smith and Adam are personal friends—you are, aren’t you?”

“Hardly old friends,” I said.

“Well, anyway, personal friends. That shows we have Adam’s best interests at heart.”

I could see that Gableman was a pretty smooth customer around the edges. He may have learned all his newspapering as a government press agent, but he was an expert in mimeograph warfare. “We might also hint,” he went on, “just to get in a dig at the War Department, that Adam hasn’t been doing so hot under the previous arrangement.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that!” Pumphrey protested. “It might bounce back on us as well as the War Department.”

“I should say not,” said Klutz.

“It could start rumors,” said Pumphrey. “It could start a panic. Why you ought to see the letters I get from really big businessmen—I mean the very biggest—on the importance of Adam. Do you know what would happen if anything happened to Adam? Why the insurance companies would go bust. The effect on the market—inconceivable—”

“Okay,” Gableman agreed. “I hadn’t considered that angle. I’ll get to work.”

Klutz wanted me to take a look at my office, complete with secretary, but I insisted on seeing Adam immediately. Pumphrey told me there would be plenty of room for me in Adam’s suite. There would be plenty of room for a company of Marines, I gathered from the description.

This was correct. The Army hadn’t yet withdrawn its security patrols when I arrived at the Shoreham. There was an armored car, and two weapon carriers mounting .50 calibre machine guns, strategically placed in the hotel’s driveway. It turned out that Adam occupied the entire fifth floor of F wing. I had some trouble getting up there, because there were MP’s posted in all the hallways and at the elevators, but the captain in charge had been informed I was on the way, and he finally agreed to let me go up a few minutes before six, when the Army’s Operation Adam officially ended.

I found Adam in the living room customarily given over to the Duke of Windsor, visiting Indian rajahs, and presidents from the banana republics. For a hotel it is quite a room, gaudy with modern paintings, cream-colored furniture, and silky white rugs. Magazines and newspapers were tossed about it, however, so that at this moment it resembled the picnic grounds in Central Park at the end of a summer Sunday. On a folding serving table was an enormous tray loaded with lobster salad, shrimp, hors d’oeuvres, and pastries, all resting in untouched and pristine glory on heavy silver. A stuffed shirt of a voice, which sounded like Kaltenborn, boomed out of a wall radio like a muffled drum.

I saw a mop of red hair protruding over the back of an armchair. It was Adam. He was not asleep, nor could he be classified as being awake. He appeared to be in a half-comatose state, slumped in upon himself like a daddy longlegs at rest, his eyes glazed, and his mouth slack and open. Then he saw me, wobbled to his feet, and held out his hand. I admit I was shocked. He looked like one of those walking skeletons after seven years in Dachau. He said, “Steve! You finally got here. Jesus, I’m glad to see a human face!”

I tried to conceal my surprise at his wretched appearance. “Take it easy,” I said. “From now on things are going to change. Let’s have a drink.”

“Oh, I’m not allowed to drink,” said Homer. “Nothing but eggnogs. I get sick when I think of eggnogs. I’ll never be able to look a hen in the face again.”

“From now on,” I told him, “you can have anything you damn well please—anything at all.”

“Really?” he said. “Honest to God?” It was pretty pathetic. His hands were shaking, and tears had started into his eyes.

“You’re damn right.” I picked up a telephone, called room service, and ordered a case of rye. If ever a bundle of nerves needed alcoholic relaxation, it was Homer Adam.

He began to tell me the tale. “They treated me like a prize puppy dog. They wouldn’t let me off this floor, except when they came to put me on exhibit. Then they’d dress me up, and lead me around to a party where I didn’t know anybody, and show me off like I deserved the blue ribbon. I’m not a freak! I’m a normal human being.”

“I’ll say,” I agreed.

“They’d discuss me like I was a stud horse—right in front of my face. How long I could be expected to produce, and whether they should inject testosterone, and stuff like that. It was embarrassing. You don’t wonder I’ve been off my feed?”

“No, I don’t wonder at all.”

The rye arrived, and I poured Homer a big slug. He kept on talking, and I encouraged him. I’m no psychologist, but it was apparent there was a lot he had to get off his chest. It was part of the cure.

Finally he said, “I don’t mind doing what I can. I suppose it’s my duty. But they’ve got no right to keep me away from my family.” His eyes misted again, like the eyes of a child who has been needlessly and wantonly injured. “I don’t know if I ought to talk about it. It’s sort of personal, Steve.”

“You go ahead and talk, Homer,” I said. “You tell me every little tiny thing. I’m here to listen.”

“Well, it’s me and Mary Ellen. She’s the only girl I ever had. Know what I mean?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh.” I didn’t smile.

Homer poured himself a drink. I could see that what he had to say needed priming. I didn’t try to hurry him. “When I say I never had a girl except Mary Ellen I mean it literally,” he continued finally. “I mean she’s the only woman I’ve ever been with—slept with. I always thought I was funny-looking, because when I was a kid girls laughed at me on account of I was so tall and thin. I guess I was funny-looking. Anyway, I never had the guts to make a pass at a girl—never in all my life.”