Donald Westlake - Smoke

34

It was Tuesday morning when Mordon Leethe put in his request for more invisibles; the rest of Tuesday, how those phones and faxes flew. Documents were drawn up, sent, revised, sent, argued over, sent, signed, and sent. Meanwhile, the vast machinery of NAABOR was grinding through who knew what contortions to select, approve, and induce the two volunteers. At last, at ten minutes past six that evening, in the lab, long after Shanana had left for the day and Bradley's last contractual nit had been picked, David put down a retort and answered the telephone himself, to hear someone say, "This is Ms. Clarkson from Personnel, wishing to speak to either—"

"I beg your pardon?"

"— Dr. Loo — I say, this is Ms. Clarkson from Personnel, and I wish to speak—"

"What personnel? I don't know what you mean."

"Is this the Loomis—"

"Heimhocker, yes."

"I'd like to speak to—"

"This is Dr. Loomis."

"— either Doctor Loo — oh. You're Dr. Loomis."

"I know who I am," David said. "Who are you ?"

"Ms. Clarkson of Personnel, as I believe I said before."

From across the lab, Peter said, "Who is it, David?"

"I'm trying to find out," David told him, and into the phone he said, "I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about. What is personnel?"

"The department I'm in!"

"Department? Macy's?" Away from the phone: "Peter? Did we order anything from Macy's?"

"The department of NAABOR !" screamed the woman.

"I don't think so," Peter said.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," David told the phone. "Why didn't you say so?"

"I thought I had." The woman seemed to be panting now.

"Well, you didn't," David said.

There was a little silence down the phone line then, which David didn't intrude on, having nothing to say — she was the one who'd made the call, after all — and then, in a much more controlled manner, she said, "May I speak to Dr. Heimhocker, please."

"Of course," David said, and held the phone out toward Peter, saying, "It's for you."

Peter approached, hand out. "Who is it?"

"Somebody from NAABOR. It's you she wants to talk to."

"Huh." Peter took the phone, spoke briefly into it, wrote a couple of things on the pad near the phone, then said, "Fine. Thank you very much. Good-bye," and hung up.

David said, "What was that all about?"

"Our volunteers. They'll be here at nine tomorrow morning."

"Oh, the volunteers!" David clapped his hands. "Peter, it's actually going to happen!"

"It would seem so."

David gave him a look. "Peter," he said, "I know we're both being calm and collected about all this, but in fact, it is very exciting."

"I suppose it is," Peter said. "And especially for" — he added, looking at the names he'd written on the pad — "Michael Prendergast and George Clapp."

George Clapp was black, but that wasn't the surprise. The surprise was that Michael Prendergast was a woman. And a beautiful woman at that, astonishingly beautiful in her flowered summer dress, a tanned and healthy blonde of about twenty-five, the Playmate of the decade, with bright blue eyes and delicious cheekbones and a body as strokable as a kitten's.

George Clapp on the other hand was probably forty years of age and barely five feet tall. A skinny gnarly sort of guy, he wore a shiny black suit, thin black tie, white shirt, and big black river-barge shoes. His skin was a dull brown. Two thick ropes of old scar tissue angled across his face, from just under his right eye down his right cheek, across his chin and on down to the side of his neck under his left ear.

Beforehand, Peter and David had decided to speed the process by each doing the preliminary interview with one subject. Peter had drawn Michael, so he took her up to the sitting room that Mordon Leethe craved so much. As they sat facing one another on the sofas there, Peter took her through her medical history, and he simply couldn't find anything wrong. Not a junkie, no history of mental problems, no serious or chronic illnesses. Married twice, divorced twice, never pregnant. Healthy siblings, healthy parents, healthy grandparents. Finishing, Peter said, "This is not a question on the form, but I feel I have to ask it, anyway."

"Why, you mean," she said.

"Yes. You do understand what the idea is here, don't you?"

"Perfectly," she said. "I am a willing volunteer in a medical experiment, at the end of which I either will or will not be invisible." She smiled briefly, a dazzling sight. "My guess is that I will not be," she said, "but I don't want to spoil anybody's fun."

"Thank you."

"The corporation I work for is paying me a great deal of money over my remaining lifetime, no matter what happens with the experiment. If it turns out I am invisible, they'll have other well-paying uses for me."

"So you're doing it for money," Peter said. He felt vaguely disappointed.

"Not entirely," she said. "Dr. Heimhocker, would you say I'm attractive?"

"Anybody would say you're attractive," Peter told her. "You're probably the most beautiful woman I've ever been in the same room with. You understand you aren't my type—"

She smiled, and nodded.

"— but I certainly recognize beauty when I see it. Which is really why I'm asking the question. Why risk what — why risk anything?"

"Doctor," she said, "I am a nuclear physicist and a theoretical mathematician. I was third in my class at MIT, but when I left school I simply could not find a job to match my capabilities. My record was enough to get me many interviews, but that was always the end of it. Women hate me. Men find it impossible to think when I'm around. Today I am a drudge in the statistical section of the American Tobacco Research Institute, bending the cancer numbers. It's the equivalent of you being a janitor in a hospital."

"Surely," Peter said, "it can't be—"

"As bad as that? Which of us is living my life, Doctor?"

"You are," Peter said.

"Nobody has ever seen me," she said. "Seen me. Neither of my husbands ever saw me; they both felt cheated whenever that trophy on the shelf acted as though it were an actual living creature. The last time my looks gave me pleasure I was probably nine years old. I can't scar myself deliberately, that would be stupid. But this? Why not? No one can see me anyway, so why not be invisible? Make the rest of my life a phone-in? With pleasure." That dazzling smile had something too shiny in it. "Let's hope your invention is a success, Dr. Heimhocker," she said.

Meantime, in the conference room downstairs, David was having a very different conversation with George Clapp, who didn't so much have a medical history as a medical anthology. He had been shot, he had been stabbed, many of his bones had been broken in accidents and fights. He had been an alcoholic and drug addict, but had been clean — he swore — for six years. "After thirty-five, man," he said, "either it's killed you, or you get tired of it. I got tired of it."

"Any diseases?" David asked.

"Name it," George said.

David did, and George had at one time or another suffered from just about every nonfatal disease known to man, but was now passably healthy. He was a chauffeur with NAABOR, had been for the last four years, and when David asked him what had decided him to volunteer for this experiment George said, "This just between us?"

"Oh, of course," David said, and put down his pen.

"Couple states, they still got paper out on me," George explained. "Texas and Florida, you know, they're these death-penalty places, they like to kill people. Now, I'm not saying I done what they say, but the way I look at it, we leave them there sleeping dogs lie, we ain't gonna get bit. You see what I mean?"