Грэм Мастертон - Famine

Ed stared at him. ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘you’ve got your head in the right place. You’re damn right that’s the only way that anybody could do it. All the time I’ve been trying to think of surreptitious ways somebody could have poisoned the crops – night spraying, or flying the stuff in on kites – and all the time they did it right out in the open. Or could have done, anyway. You’re sure they’re not legitimate?’

‘I called their number at Salina. The operator told me they were gone. Then I called the agency in charge of leasing hangars, and they said that Your Spread From The Sky, Inc. had operated out of Salina for three months and then moved out. All rent paid up to date, everything cleaned up, and no forwarding address. They had a telephone number in Chicopee, Massachusetts, but when I called it this afternoon, it turned out to be the College of Our Lady of the Elms.’

‘Have you told anyone else about this? Dr Benson?’

‘Not yet, Ed. I wanted to talk to you first. And I didn’t like to make too much of a song and dance about it, in case I turned out to be wrong. I did call Walter Klugman, though, at Penalosa; and John Cafferty, out at Ninnescah Creek; and they’ve both had aerial pictures taken by the same people. All straight, all efficient, everybody got their photographs and everybody was satisfied. Whoever set it up was a real professional.’

Ed rubbed his chin. He had shaved in a hurry that morning, and it was rough with stubble. ‘Keep this to yourself for the moment. Jack,’ he said. ‘But do me a favour and call the Wheat Growers’ Association in North Dakota tomorrow. See if they’ll give you the names and telephone numbers of a couple of farmers up there, and check whether they’ve had aerial photographs taken or not. And you could do the same for a couple of corn and soybean farmers in Iowa while you’re at it.’

‘You’re not going to try playing detective?’ asked Jack. ‘I mean – once we’re fairly certain, I think we ought to turn this all over to the Department of Agriculture, don’t you?’

‘In time,’ nodded Ed. ‘But right at this moment. I’m just finding out one or two things about the Department of Agriculture, and I think I’d like to wait a while before we blithely hand them everything we know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not sure. But I can’t quite make up my mind what Senator Shearson Jones is up to. I can’t believe he’s organising this appeal fund for our benefit alone. Not just a few Kansas farmers with the seats out of their pants. And why has he played down this blight so much to the media? I can look out there tomorrow, when the sun comes up, and see nothing but ten miles of blackened fields. It’s the same all over Kansas, and it’s probably just as bad everywhere else. How come nobody seems to be excited? How come Shearson Jones can talk about a shortfall as low as eight per cent? The wheat harvest’s dead, Jack, in the space of a few days, and in my book that’s one hundred per cent shortfall. That’s disaster.’

Jack nodded towards the house. ‘You think this Mrs McIntosh is going to tell you anything?’

‘I don’t know. She’s an Oklahoma lady, so maybe she might.’

‘Good luck,’ said Jack, tipping his hat in semi-serious respect. ‘From the looks of her, I think you may need it.’

Over dinner, Ursula Hardesty warmed to Della McIntosh very quickly. Ursula had been a farmer’s wife, after all, and she liked plain speaking and she liked to talk about the land. She even found that she and Della had friends in common – remote friends, the Shaughnessys of Kansas City – but friends all the same.

Ursula wore a powder-blue dress with silver stitching – a dress about which Season had always said, ‘It’s terrific taste if you’re planning on taking a time machine back to nineteen fifty-eight.’ Della had taken her suitcase up to the wide back-bedroom which overlooked the meadow where they usually landed the helicopter, and she had changed into a simple low-cut dress of bottle-green satin. She had bought the dress especially for this week-end, to impress Shearson.

Perhaps Ursula wasn’t aware of Della’s shining red hair and her big, firm breasts. Perhaps she wasn’t aware of the way Della’s lips glistened moistly in the candlelight, and the way that she spoke to Edward in such a careful, modulated voice. But Ed doubted it. He knew that his mother liked Della a lot. She was a country girl, for all her involvement in Washington; and South Burlington Farm, in Ursula’s opinion, badly lacked the attention of a country girl.

At nine-thirty, Ursula declared her intention of going to bed. She was going to return to her house in Independence in the morning, and ‘leave Edward in peace.’ Ed had never seen her retire so early, or in such good humour. He kissed her evasively, and said, ‘Good night, Mother,’ and she smiled at him as she left the room.

‘You want a brandy?’ he asked Della, as he led her into the living-room. ‘It’s quite a civilised label. I didn’t distil it myself.’

‘I’d love one,’ she said, and watched him as he went to the drinks cabinet to pour it. ‘This is a very attractive house, you know. Dignified but friendly.’

‘Well, that’s us Hardestys all over,’ smiled Ed, handing Della her drink. He sat down beside her on the sofa.

‘Shearson Jones seems to be very taken with you,’ said Della. ‘He thinks you’ll make an excellent figurehead for this Blight Crisis Appeal.’

‘He does? And what do you think?’

‘I think he’s right. Now I’ve seen you, I can vouch for his intuition. He was a little worried you might look like Quasimodo, but since you clearly don’t – well, I think you’re just the man.’

‘What are his plans?’ asked Ed, sipping brandy, and looking at Della over the shining rim of his glass.

‘He wants you to make a live TV broadcast from Fall River on Saturday afternoon. As far as I know they’ve written the script already. It won’t be anything ridiculous or schmaltzy. All they’ll ask you to say is that you’re a young Kansas wheat farmer, that you’ve dedicated your life to cultivating your farm, and that through no fault of your own you’ve now found yourself flat busted. That’s it.’ Ed sat back. ‘That sounds simple enough. Is it going to be networked?’

‘Coast-to-coast, as far as we know.’

Ed nodded. ‘That sounds okay.’

There was a silence, and then he said: ‘What’s a pretty girl like you doing with a character like Shearson Jones anyway? He’s a major-league heavy, isn’t he? And not just politically, either. From what I’ve seen of him on television, he’s not exactly the world’s skinniest man. How come you’re working for someone like that?’

‘I wasn’t, until Wednesday.’

‘But why? I don’t know much about him, but from what I’ve heard he’s pretty hard to g. t near. The only way I got through to him in the first place was because my daddy helped him with some wheat-dumping deal. I don’t understand why you’re hanging around a man like that.’

Della shrugged. ‘It’s the power, I guess. The influence. It’s very intoxicating.’

‘Even more intoxicating than good country air?’

She looked up at him. ‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want it to mean.’

‘You’re a married man, aren’t you?’ she reminded him. ‘A married man with a young daughter of six.’

‘You want to talk about families?’

Della held her glass of brandy up to the light. An amber reflection curved across her cheek. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not particularly.’

They sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes and then Ed said, ‘What does Shearson Jones want out of this fund? Can you tell me that?’