Philip Dick - Humpty Dumpty in Oakland

“They had a deal,” Harman went on. “A very calm, direct one. I played along.” His voice now seemed to shake. “I acted as if I had no idea what they were talking about. You see? So it misfired.” Again he grimaced; it was almost a tic. “I’m still tense thinking back to it,” he said. He sipped the rest of his drink. “Anyhow,” he said, “they had hold of some factor they thought they could use to make their entry; we’d have to come to terms. Then they could absorb us. And run us.”

“That’ll be the day,” Bob Ross said.

Harman shrugged. “You never know,” he said. “They’ve got a lot they can bring to bear. Time will tell. Up to this point they’ve soft-pedaled it. Maybe they’re groping around in the dark a little, too.”

“Or maybe they’re letting us dangle,” Ross murmured, “to get more kicks out of it.”

“It’s a dirty business they’re in,” Harman said. “Blackmail. A dirty approach to the market.” He became silent.

“Why Negroes?” Al said.

“It goes back a long way,” Harman said. “There was a particular Negro folk-singer; we were operating on a shoestring, back around 1940. Just before the War, in San Francisco.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Someday when we have the time I’ll tell it to you, the whole story.”

“But we’ve got a job to do right now,” Ross said, rising to his feet and setting down his glass. “We’ve got a trip ahead.”

“I wonder if he’s still alive,” Harman said.

“Who?” Ross said.

“Shoeless Lacy Conkway. Five-string banjo. He was in the same prison as Leadbetter—Leadbelly, as you know him. I met Leadbelly a number of times, before his death. In fact, we did a couple of Leadbelly albums.”

Ross said, “And a Shoeless Lacy Conkway album.”

The two man glanced at each other somberly.

“You mean this raccoon banjo player is after you?” Al said. “All this time?” It was the call from Tootie Dolittle, all right. They had imagined it was someone else, for obvious good reason. “Why don’t you have him plugged?” he demanded.

They both laughed, Ross and Harman. And then Harman, in a slow, introspective voice, said, “Al, they may be after me, but we will get to them first. As you suggest. Don’t kid yourself on that score. There’s too much at stake.”

The door from the house opened, and a woman came out onto the patio, a stately gray-haired woman whom Al Miller identified at once as Mrs. Harman. Going up to her husband, she said, “Chris, there’s a man to see you who’s waiting in the living room now. But he’s acting very strangely.” Her voice had a tense quality; she smiled briefly at Ross and then at Al. “Maybe you’d better—” She leaned down to confer with Harman, and her voice become blurred.

“All right,” Harman said, getting to his feet. “What kind of man?” He glanced at Ross. “Have you ever seen him before?”

Ross said, “Maybe we’d better not take off just yet.” He shot a glance at Al.

“I’ve never seen him before,” Mrs. Harman said.

“This is Al Miller,” Harman explained to her, indicating Al. “He’s working for us currently. This is Mrs. Harman, Al.” Rubbing his chin he said. “What did he come for? What did he say?”

“There’s something wrong with him, I think,” Mrs. Harman said to Bob Ross. “It may be that he’s drunk.” She added, “An older man. About sixty.”

Harman started into the house. But at the door he paused and turned to say something more to Al. “You’ll see a lot,” he said. “From now on. It’ll be good experience. You’ll see what I mean. About the problems we were discussing. The problems the organization faces and has to keep so constantly in mind.”

“We’ll come inside with you,” Ross said.

“I wish you would,” Mrs. Harman said.

The four of them walked through the house, to the living room. It was a beautiful house, and Al’s attention was caught by first one aspect of it and then another. He trailed behind and was the last to arrive in the living room; he had to peer past the others to see.

There, seated on the couch, wearing a suit and tie, with a cup and saucer on his knee, smiling straight ahead of him, sat Jim Fergesson. He did not seem aware of them; he continued to stare fixedly ahead. His suit, Al saw, had mud on it. And his face was inflamed and streaked with sweat.

At once, seeing him, Harman began booming out cordially, “Jim. I’ll be God damned.” He made a motion, and Mrs. Harman at once withdrew. Ross moved off to one side, to become inconspicuous.

The old man turned his head and saw Harman. With tremulous slow care he set down his coffee cup and saucer; they clinked together. He rose to his feet and came a couple of steps toward Harman. Holding out his hand, he said in a hoarse voice, “Hello there, Harman.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Al said. “You here?” He was taken completely by surprise.

The old man made out Al. He pointed his finger at him and began to laugh. His face, red and puffy, lit up as he laughed; he tried to speak but seemed unable to. He continued to point at Al, his finger wavering, as if there was something he kept wanting to put across, but the harder he tried to express it the further it eluded him.

“I’ll be God damned,” the old man managed at last. Spitting, wiping his mouth, he again broke into laughter, mostly convulsions of his face, with very little sound. “Listen,” he said, moving toward Al. “Did you write that letter?”

“What letter?” Al said.

“That—” He paused, choking. “That anonymous letter.”

“Hell no,” Al said. “I don’t know anything about any letter.”

Harman, in a pleasant, conversational voice, said, “Was there an anonymous letter, Jim? Concerning me?”

“Yes,” Fergesson said.

Ross said something unintelligible and began pacing around, off by himself, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Well,” Harman said. He continued to smile. “But why should it have been written by Al, here?”

“It wasn’t,” the old man said. “I knew it wasn’t. I was just ribbing him.” He dug Al with his elbow; his hot, wet breath blew into Al’s face, stunning him. It had a dreadful clammy quality and he retreated reflexively.

Indicating the couch, Harman said to the old man. “Sit down again. Please.”

As he reseated himself, Fergesson said, “I can’t get over old Al Miller being here.” He shook his head, still with the fixed grin on his face, the laughter that he could not seem to control.

Harman, also seating himself, said, “Al’s working for the organization, Jim.”

The old man’s eyes flew wide open and bulged. “No,” he said. He seemed overcome with wonder and delight.

Al said, “That’s the way the ball bounces. I mean it’s all the same. It’s in the game.”

“Hey,” the old man said. Again he lumbered to his feet and made his way over to Al; nudging him again, he said in a loud voice, “We’re all part of the same bunch.” He looked around at them all.

“Yes,” Harman said, smiling. “I guess we are.” He had a genial, tolerant expression on his face.

“Listen,” the old man said to Harman, going up to him and taking him by the sleeve. “Harman, you know, Al and me weren’t speaking for a while; you know that?”

“I didn’t know that,” Harman said.

“I was really sore at him,” the old man said. “But I’m not anymore. He really let me down, but I don’t care. I went by his lot, and it was hard for me to get over it, but I did. He was in pretty thick with my wife; they’re a pair, the two of them.” He went on, but Al lost the sense of it; the words became jumbled. But anyhow they were not directed to him. The old man was confiding to Harman, standing close to him muttering away in a wet, sputtering monotone.