The coffee had a bitter, acrid, foreign taste to it, and he had to set the cup back down at once. I suppose the kid imagines all the time he’s being poisoned, Arnie thought in desperation. Is that it? I got to find myself eating awful-tasting food because of his delusions? God, he thought; that’s terrible.
Best thing for me, he decided, is to get my task here done as fast as possible and then get back to the present.
Unlocking the bottom drawer of his desk, Arnie got out the little battery-powered encoding dictation machine and set it up for use. Into it he said, “Scott, I got a terribly important item here to transmit to you. I insist you act on this at once. What I want to do is buy into the F.D.R. Mountains because the UN is going to establish a gigantic housing tract area there, specifically around the Henry Wallace Canyon. Now you transfer enough Union funds, in my name of course, to insure that I get title to all that, because in about two weeks speculators from–”
He broke off, for the encoding machine had groaned to a stop. He poked at it, and the reels turned slowly and then once more settled back into silence.
Thought it was fixed, Arnie thought angrily. Didn’t that Jack Bohlen work on it? And then he remembered that this was back in the past before Jack Bohlen had been called in; of course it didn’t work.
I’ve got to dictate it to the secretary-creature, he realized. He started to press the button on his desk that would summon her, but drew back. How can I let that back in here? he asked himself. But there was no alternative. He pressed the button.
The door opened and she came in. “I knew you would want me, Arnie,” she said, hurrying toward him, strutting and urgent.
“Listen,” he said, with authority in his voice. “Don’t get too close to me, I can’t stand it when people get too close.” But even as he spoke he recognized his fears for what they were; it was a basic fear of the schizophrenic that people might get too close to him, might encroach into his space. Nearness fear, it was called; it was due to the schizophrenic’s sensing hostility in everyone around him. That’s what I’m doing, Arnie thought. And yet, even knowing this, he could not endure having the girl come close to him; he got abruptly to his feet and walked away, back once more to the window.
“Anything you say, Arnie,” the girl said, in a tone that was insatiable, and despite what she said she crept toward him until, as before, she was almost touching him. He found himself hearing the noises of her breathing, smelling her, the sour body scent, her breath, which was thick and unpleasant. . . . He felt choked, unable to get enough air into his lungs.
“I’m going to dictate to you now,” he said, walking away from her, keeping distance between the two of them. “This is to Scott Temple, and should go in code so they can’t read it.” They, he thought. Well, that had always been his fear; he couldn’t blame that on the boy. “I got a terribly important item here,” he dictated. “Act on it at once; it means plenty, it’s a real inside tip. The UN’s going to buy a huge hunk of land in the F.D.R. Mountains–”
On and on he dictated, and even as he talked a fear assailed him, an obsessive fear that grew each moment. Suppose she was just writing down those gubble-gubble words? I just got to look, he told himself; I got to walk over close to her and see. But he shrank from it, the closeness.
“Listen, miss,” he said, interrupting himself. “Give me that pad of yours; I want to see what you’re writing.”
“Arnie,” she said in her rough, dragging voice. “you can’t tell anything by looking at it.”
“W-what?” he demanded in fright.
“It’s in shorthand.” She smiled at him, coldly, with what seemed to him palpable malevolence.
“O.K.,” he said, giving up. He went on and completed his dictation, then told her to get it into code and off to Scott at once.
“And what then?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You know, Arnie,” she said, and the tone in which she said it made him cringe with dismay and pure physical disgust.
“Nothing after that,” he said. “Just get out; don’t come back.” Following after her, he slammed the door shut behind her.
I guess, he decided, I’ll have to contact Scott direct; I can’t trust her. Seating himself at the desk he picked up the telephone and dialed.
Presently the line was ringing. But it rang in vain; there was no response. Why? he wondered. Has he run out on me? Is he against me? Working with them? I can’t trust him; I can’t trust anybody. And then, all at once, a voice said, “Hello. Scott Temple speaking.” And he realized that only a few seconds and a few rings had actually gone by; all those thoughts of betrayal, of doom, had flitted through his mind in an instant.
“This is Arnie.”
“Hi, Arnie. What’s up? I can tell by your tone something’s cooking. Spill it.”
My sense of time is fouled up, Arnie realized. It seemed to me the phone rang for half an hour, but it wasn’t at all.
“Arnie,” Scott was saying. “Speak up. Arnie, you there?”
It’s the schizophrenic confusion, Arnie realized. It’s basically a breakdown in time-sense. Now I’m getting it because that kid has it.
“Chrissake!” Scott said, outraged.
With difficulty, Arnie broke his chain of thought and said, “Uh, Scott. Listen. I got an inside scoop; we have to act on this right now, you understand?” In detail, he told Scott about the UN and the F.D.R. Mountains. “So you can see,” he wound up, “it’s worth it to us to buy in with all we got, and pronto. You agree?”
“You’re sure of this scoop?” Scott said.
“Yeah, I am! I am!”
“How come? Frankly, Arnie, I like you, but I know you get crazy schemes, you’re always flying off at a tangent. I’d hate to get stuck with that dog’s breakfast F.D.R. land.”
Arnie said, “Take my word for it.”
“I can’t.”
He could not believe his ears. ‘We been working together for years, and it’s always been on a word-of-mouth confidence basis,” he choked. “What’s going on, Scott?”
“That’s what I’m asking you,” Scott said calmly. “How come a man of your business experience could bite on this phony nothing so-called scoop? The scoop is that the F.D.R. range is worthless, and you know it; I know you know it. Everybody knows it. So what are you up to?”
“You don’t _trust_ me?”
“Why should I _trust_ you? _Prove_ you got real inside scoop stuff here, and not just your usual hot air.”
With difficulty, Arnie said, “Hell, man, if I could prove it, you wouldn’t have to trust me; it wouldn’t involve trust. O.K. I’ll go into this alone, and when you find out what you missed, blame yourself, not me.” He slammed down the phone, shaking with rage and despair. What a thing to happen! He couldn’t believe it; Scott Temple, the one person in the world he could do business with over the phone. The rest of them you could throw in the ocean, they were such crooks. . . .
It’s a misunderstanding, he told himself. But based on a deep, fundamental, insidious distrust. A schizophrenic distrust.
A collapse, he realized, of the ability to communicate.
Standing up, he said aloud, “I guess I got to go to Pax Grove myself and see the abstract people. Put in my claim.” And then he remembered. He would have to first stake his claim, actually go to the site, in the F.D.R. Mountains. And everything in him shrieked out in rebellion at that. At that hideous place, where the building would one day appear.
Well, there was no way out. First have a stake made for him in one of the Union shops, then take a ‘copter and head for the Henry Wallace.
It seemed, thinking about it, an agonizingly difficult series of actions to accomplish. How could he do all that? First he would have to find some Union metal worker who could engrave his name for him on the stake; that might take days. Who did he know in the shops here in Lewistown who could do it for him? And if he didn’t know the guy, how could he trust him?
At last, as if swimming against an intolerable current, he managed to lift the receiver from the hook and place the call to the shop.
I’m so tired I can hardly move, he realized. Why? What have I done so far today? His body felt crushed flat with fatigue. _If only I could get some rest, he thought to himself. If only I could sleep_.