John Sladek - The Complete Roderick

Jim hadn’t told her she’d have to scream her speech of welcome over the roar of helicopter blades. But protocol demanded instant recognition:

‘Welcome to the University of Minnetonka! We hope that Your Royal Incomparability will take pleasure from our humble institution.’ Awkward stuff, translated by the Ruritanian consulate.

The Shah was not quite as tall or good-looking as his photographs had previewed. She might not have recognized him but for his splendid uniform: gold lame head to toe, with peacock-feather epaulets. Curtseying, she noticed that even his jackboots had been gilded.

When the mechanical roar died, he said: ‘Please, Dr Boag. Not too much of these ceremony. I hope you will treat me as any ordinary visitation, yes?’

‘Yes of course if your — if you — but this way to the elevator.’

Crowded in with the Shah, his secretary and five enormous bodyguards, she found conversation difficult. It was hard enough even to see him over a padded shoulder, and the smell of pomade (heavy with patchouli) took her breath. When she informed him that the weather was unusually mild and Springlike, not at all like last week’s, he simply beamed and said nothing. When she asked if he’d had a pleasant journey, he nodded. Did he understand? Did he speak English? Was it impolite to talk in elevators in Ruritania? Finally she gave up and consulted her card notes.

He would want to see the library, examine a Ruritanian manuscript, and visit the history department. Then –

He suddenly snatched the card from her hand. After examining it through his lorgnette, he passed it to the secretary, a tiny dark man with bad teeth.

‘It’s simply our itinerary,’ she began, but they were arguing in their exotic language. Or was it arguing? Whatever it was, it continued as they strolled out into the sunshine.

Finally the Shah beamed at her. ‘Forgive our ugly manners, Dr Boag. My secretary wishes me to follow to the letter this thoughtful itinerary you have for us provided. He worries, you see, for the security. I however have other tastes.’ He grimaced so on the word that she fell back a step.

‘I — see. I — well I had planned—’

‘Moment. I must confess that libraries leave me “cold”. And history was never my “strong” subject. But if you will forgive me, there are two things I should admire seeing. The horses’ barns, first of all. And the computers. I greatly admire the computers.’

‘Your Inc — the campus is of course at your disposal. I have a car waiting if you’ll—’

‘No,’ said a guard. He and the others, their faces expressionless behind sunglasses, herded the little party past the official car to another, a long Mercedes with gold fittings.

‘My car,’ said the Shah, and twirled his lorgnette. ‘I am sure you will find it greatly comfy, yes?’

‘Well yes of course, if—’

A guard slapped the door with a giant hand. ‘Is better,’ he threatened. ‘Bombproof.’

Not an auspicious start. She began to envy the committee.

Tarr slammed down the phone as Bud Aikin came in. ‘Great, just great. Tried calling Rogers and he’s off sick. Sick!’

‘You mean he won’t — ?’

‘—be there to steer our proposal through the committee. We’ve just wasted our time — what are you looking so pleased about?’

‘Well, the paper says—’

‘That’s not the worst of it. Only reason I called up Rogers was to get him to change the title on our proposal, too late now. They’ve got it, forty-six copies already in the committee room with that title staring them in the face, why didn’t somebody tell me? Why didn’t you point the acronym out to me, I have to think of everything around here — something amusing, Bud?’

‘No, just, did you see the paper? It says—’

‘Research into Psychically-Oriented Flock Flight, why do I have to do everything my, what paper?’

Aikin held up the Caribou. ‘You know how I predicted another body? A fourth body at the Student Union? Well here it is! Some freshman shot himself right on the steps, how’s that for precognition? Listen: “The body of Bill Hannah, 20…”’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘“…and Wesson .38… cassette suicide note in his pocket. Hannah blamed his failing Grade Point Average, .95 last… member of Digamma Upsilon Nu and son of Dr…” Anyway there it is, my prediction.’

Tarr began filling his pipe. ‘And frankly, Bud, I wonder if you know either.’

‘But you, you saw me do it, with the map, remember? And the p-p-p — the vibrating dangly thing, remember? You and Byron were witnesses!’

He lit his pipe and puffed out an ectoplasm of blue smoke. ‘Can’t say I remember that, no, hmm, hmm, hmm…’ After a moment he added, ‘But even if you did, so what? One swallow doesn’t make a flock.’

‘But—’

‘Kindly let me finish? Okay, what I think we have here is a political situation, Bud. No sooner do I tell you the committee will probably veto my proposal, than you want to back another horse. Maybe all you ever really cared about was your pendulum, eh?’

‘No, but—’

‘It’s okay, Bud. Really. I’m not hurt. Some people are capable of loyalty, some aren’t, I realize that. I don’t know, maybe you’re after my job in your own crazy way, I can accept that too. Just a humble scientist myself, I leave the politics to you slick guys with all the answers.’

Unanswered phones were ringing all over the place. A patrolman sat on his desk, trying to juggle two receivers and take down a message that would probably be just another flying saucer sighting. The dispatcher peered over her glass partition (a frosted look over frosted glass, he would write) letting the chief know she was peeved about missing her coffee break. The telex was ringing its bell and rattling out a yard of paper. The fat prisoner threw him a sulky look from the cage (‘…as if,’ he would write, ‘as if he thought someone else had crapped his drawers’).

Chief Dobbin went into his office and closed the door against all of them. But even here he had Sergeant Collar balancing an armload of reports and shouting into a phone:

‘Don’t ask me, that’s all. Just don’t ask me!’ The receiver banged down. ‘Been like this all fucking day, chief. Two more men down with flu, the coroner’s screaming for his paperwork on this suicide, not to mention—’

‘Shut up, Collar, and get outa my office. I need five minutes to get squared away here.’ Getting squared away meant sitting down with a clean legal pad and a handful of sharpened pencils, to work on his book. Dobbin wrote slowly and carefully, his tongue protruding at the corner of his mouth:

‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘Don’t you ever touch me again. Why was I ever dumb enough to marry a cop?’

Suddenly I felt big and awkward and very, very tired. ‘Look, I know it’s our anniversary, but this Delmore diamond case is ready to crack wide open—’

‘And then there’ll be some other case,’ she said, her mouth set hard. ‘Maybe when you give all you’ve got to your work, there’s just nothing left for me.’

She was near the window when it happened. Suddenly the glass blossomed into a spider-web pattern, with a hole in the middle the size of a .303 slug. There was a matching hole in Laura’s lovely throat. Even before she hit the floor, she was very, very—

‘What is it now, Collar? Can’t you handle it?’

‘Security problem, chief. With our visiting potentate. He’s visiting all the wrong places. In fact we can’t locate him.’

‘Terrific. Have Angie get him on the radio, and—’

‘No can do. He’s got the wrong car, too. I’m trying to get a VSU fix on him now, but nothing. Zilch. Maggie’s drawers.’