The message ended. Arnie put the reel on his encoder, seated himself at the mike, and answered.
“Scott, you did good. Thanks. I trust we’ve heard the last from that guy, and I approve your confiscating his stock; we can use it all. Drop by some evening and have a drink.” He stopped the mechanism, then, and rewound the reel.
From the kitchen came the insistent, muffled sound of Heliogabalus reading aloud to Manfred Steiner. Hearing it, Arnie felt irritation, and then his resentment toward the Bleekman surged up. Why’d you let me get mixed up with Jack Bohlen when you could read the kid’s mind? he demanded. Why didn’t you speak up?
He felt outright hatred for Heliogabalus. You betrayed me, too, he said to himself. Like the rest of them, Anne and Jack and Doreen; all of them.
Going to the kitchen door he yelled in, “You getting results, or aren’t you?”
Heliogabalus lowered his book and said, “Mister, this requires time and effort.”
“Time!” Arnie said. “Hell, that’s the whole problem. Send him back into the past, say two years ago, and have him buy the Henry Wallace in my name–can you do that?”
There was no answer. The question, to Heliogabalus, was too absurd even to consider. Flushing, Arnie slammed the kitchen door shut and stalked back into the living room.
Then have him send me back into the past, Arnie said to himself. This time-travel ability must be worth something; why can’t I get the kind of results I want? What’s the matter with everyone?
They’re making me wait just to annoy me, he said to himself.
And, he decided, I’m not going to wait much longer.
By one o’clock in the afternoon still no service calls had come in from the Yee Company. Jack Bohlen, waiting by the phone in Doreen Anderton’s apartment, knew that something was wrong.
At one-thirty he phoned Mr. Yee.
“I assumed that Mr. Kott would inform you, Jack,” Mr. Yee said in his prosaic manner. “You are no longer my employee, Jack; you are his. Thank you for your fine service record.”
Demoralized by the news, Jack said, “Kott bought my contract?”
“That is the case, Jack.”
Jack hung up the phone.
“What did he say?” Doreen asked, watching him wideeyed.
“I’m Arnie’s.”
“What’s he going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I better call him and find out. It doesn’t look as if he’s going to call me.” Playing with me, he thought. Sadistic games . . . enjoying himself, perhaps.
“There’s no use telephoning him,” Doreen said. “He never says anything on the phone. We’ll have to go over to his place. I want to go along; please let me.”
“O.K.,” he said, going to the closet to get his coat. “Let’s go.” he said to her.
14
At two o’clock in the afternoon Otto Zitte poked his head out the side door of the Bohlen house and ascertained that no one was watching. He could leave safely, Silvia Bohlen realized, as she saw what he was doing.
What have I done? she asked herself as she stood in the middle of the bedroom clumsily buttoning her blouse. How can I expect to keep it secret? Even if Mrs. Steiner doesn’t see him, he’ll surely tell that June Henessy, and she’ll blab it to everybody along the William Butler Yeats; she loves gossip. I know Jack will find out. And Leo might have come home early–
But it was too late now. Over and done with. Otto was gathering up his suitcases, preparing to depart.
I wish I was dead, she said to herself.
“Goodbye, Silvia,” Otto said hurriedly as he started toward the front door, “I will call you.”
She did not answer; she concentrated on putting on her shoes.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” he asked, pausing at the bedroom door.
Shooting a glance at him she said, “No. And get out of here. Don’t ever come back–I hate you, I really do.”
He shrugged. “Why?”
“Because,” she said, with perfect logic, “you’re a horrible person. I never had anything to do with a person like you before. I must be out of my mind, it must be the loneliness.”
He seemed genuinely hurt. Flushed red, he hung around at the doorway of the bedroom. “It was as much your idea as mine,” he mumbled finally, glaring at her.
“Go away,” she said, turning her back to him.
At last the front door opened and shut. He had gone.
Never, never again, Silvia said to herself. She went to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and got down her bottle of phenobarbital; hastily pouring herself a glass of water, she took 150 milligrams, gulping them down and gasping.
I shouldn’t have been so mean to him, she realized in a flash of conscience. It wasn’t fair; it wasn’t really his fault, it was mine. If I’m no good, why blame him? If it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else, sooner or later.
She thought, _Will he ever come back?_ Or have I driven him off forever? Already she felt lonely, unhappy and completely at a loss once more, as if she were doomed to drift in a hopeless vacuum for ever and ever.
He was actually very nice, she decided. Gentle and considerate. I could have done a lot worse.
Going into the kitchen, she seated herself at the table, picked up the telephone, and dialed June Henessy’s number.
Presently June’s voice sounded in her ear. “Hello?”
Silvia said, “Guess what.”
“Tell me.”
“Wait’ll I light a cigarette.” Silvia Bohlen lit a cigarette, got an ashtray, moved her chair so that she was comfortable, and then, with an infinitude of detail, plus a little essential invention at critical points, she told her.
To her surprise she found the telling to be as enjoyable as the experience itself.
Perhaps even a bit more so.
Flying back across the desert to his base in the F.D.R. Mountains, Otto Zitte ruminated on his assignation with Mrs. Bohlen and congratulated himself; he was in a good mood, despite Silvia’s not unnatural fit of remorse and accusation just as he was leaving.
You have to expect that, he advised himself.
It had happened before; true, it always upset him, but that was one of the odd little tricks typical of a woman’s mind: there always came a point when they had to sidestep reality and start casting blame in all directions, toward anyone and anything handy.
He did not much care; nothing could rob him of the memory of the happy time which the two of them had engaged in.
So now what? Back to the field to have lunch, rest up, shave, shower and change his clothes. . . . There would still be time enough to start out once more on an authentic selling trip with nothing else in mind this time but pure business itself.
Already, he could see the ragged peaks of the mountains ahead; he would soon be there.
It seemed to him that he saw a plume of ugly gray smoke drifting up from the mountains directly ahead.
Frightened, he stepped up the velocity of the ‘copter. No doubt of it; the smoke rose at or near his field. They found me! he said to himself with a sob. The UN–they wiped me out and they’re waiting for me. But he went on anyhow; he had to know for sure.
Below lay the remains of his field. A smoking, rubblestrewn ruin. He circled aimlessly, crying openly, tears spilling down his cheeks. There was no sign of the UN, however, no military vehicles or soldiers.
Could an incoming rocket have exploded?
Quickly, Otto landed the ‘copter; on foot he ran across the hot ground, toward the debris that had been his storage shed.
As he reached the signal tower of the field he saw, pinned to it, a square of cardboard.
ARNIE KOTT DOESN’T LIKE WHAT YOU STAND FOR
Again and again he read it, trying to understand it. Arnie Kott–he was just getting ready to call on him–Arnie had been Norb’s best customer. What did this mean? Had he already provided poor service to Arnie, or how else had he made Arnie mad? It didn’t make sense–what had he done to Arnie Kott to deserve this?
Why? Otto asked. What did I do to you? Why have you destroyed me?
Presently he made his way over to the shed, hoping beyond hope that some of the stocks could be salvaged, hoping to find something among the remains. .
There were no remains. The stock had been taken; he saw no single can, glass jar, package, or bag. The litter of the building itself, yes, but only that. Then they–those who had dropped the bomb–had come in first and pilfered the stock.
You bombed me, Arnie Kott, and you stole my goods, Otto said, as he wandered in a circle, clenching and unclenching his fists and darting glances of rage and frenzy up at the sky.