When available, a photo was included. There might or might not be “below-the-line” data, i.e. information which had been researched rather than learned directly by Bonforte. It depended on the political importance of the person. In some cases the “below-the-line” part was a formal biography running to thousands of words.
Both Penny and Bonforte himself carried minicorders powered by theft body heat. If Bonforte was alone he would dictate into his own when opportunity offered-in rest rooms, while riding, etc.; if Penny went along she would take it down in hers, which was disguised to look like a wrist watch. Penny could not possibly do the transcribing and microfilming; two of Jimmie Washington’s girls did little else.
When Penny showed me the Farleyfile, showed me the very bulk of it-and it was bulky, even at ten thousand words or more to the spool-and then told me that this represented personal information about Mr. Bonforte’s acquaintances, I scroaned (which is a scream and groan done together, with intense feeling). “God’s mercy, child! I tried to tell you this job could not be done. How could anyone memorize all that?”
“Why, you can’t, of course.”
“You just said that this was what he remembered about his friends and acquaintances.”
“Not quite. I said that this is what he wanted to remember. But since he can’t, not possibly, this is how he does it. Don’t worry; you don’t have to memorize anything. I just want you to know that it is available. It is my job to see that he has at least a minute or two to study the appropriate Farleyfile before anybody gets in to see him. If the need turns up, I can protect you with the same service.”
I looked at the typical file she had projected on the desk reader.
A Mr. Saunders of Pretoria, South Africa, I believe it was. He had a bulldog named Snuffles Bullyboy, several assorted uninteresting offspring, and he liked a twist of lime in his whisky and splash.
“Penny, do you mean to tell me that Mr. B. pretends to remember minutiae like that? It strikes me as rather phony.”
Instead of getting angry at the slur on her idol Penny nodded soberly. “I thought so once. But you don’t look at it correctly, Chief. Do you ever write down the telephone number of a friend?”
“Eh? Of course.”
“Is it dishonest? Do you apologize to your friend for caring so little about him that you can’t simply remember his number?”
“Eh? All right, I give up. You’ve sold me.”
“These are things he would like to remember if his memory were perfect. Since it isn’t, it is no more phony to do it this way than it is to use a tickler file in order not to forget a friend’s birthday-that’s what it is: a giant tickler file, to cover anything. But there is more to it. Did you ever meet a really important person?”
I tried to think. Penny did not mean the greats of the theatrical profession; she hardly knew they existed. “I once met President Warfield. I was a kid of ten or eleven.”
“Do you remember the details?”
“Why, certainly. He said, ‘How did you break that arm, son?’ and I said, ‘Riding a bicycle, sir,’ and he said, ‘Did the same thing myself, only it was a collarbone.'”
“Do you think he would remember it if he were still alive?”
“Why, no.”
“He might-he may have had you Farleyfiled. This Farleyfile includes boys of that age, because boys grow up and become men. The point is that top-level men like President Warfield meet many more people than they can remember. Each one of that faceless throng remembers his own meeting with the famous man and remembers it in detail. But the supremely important person in anyone’s life is himself-and a politician must never forget that. So it is polite and friendly and warmhearted for the politician to have a way to be able to remember about other people the sort of little things that they are likely to remember about him. It is also essential-in politics.”
I had Penny display the Farleyfile on King Willem. It was rather short, which dismayed me at first, until I concluded that it meant that Bonforte did not know the Emperor well and had met him only on a few official occasions-Bonforte’s first service as Supreme Minister had been before old Emperor Frederick’s death. There was no biography below the line, but just a notation, “See House of Orange.” I didn’t-there simply wasn’t time to plow through a few million words of Empire and pre-Empire history and, anyhow, I got fair-to-excellent marks in history when I was in school. All I wanted to know about the Emperor was what Bonforte knew about him that other people did not.