Doris arose. “I’ll tell him you’re too busy. You’ll have to see about it later.”
Relieved, he let her go with that story. No decision seemed possible right now, on any topic. Small or large, his problems revolved on an olympian level; they couldn’t be hauled down to earth.
At least the police hadn’t traced him. He was reasonably sure that Mrs. Birmingham’s juvenile lacked information on the Park episode. Tomorrow, at nine a.m., he’d find out. But he wasn’t worried. The idea of police barging in to arrest and deport him was absurd. His real worry was the job—and himself.
He had told the girl he needed help, and he did. Not because he had japed the statue, but because he had japed it without understanding why. Odd that the brain could function on its own, without acquainting him with its purposes, its reasons. But the brain was an organ, like the spleen, heart, kidneys. And they went about their private activities. So why not the brain? Reasoned out that way, the bizarre quality evaporated.
But he still had to find out what was happening.
Reaching into his wallet he got out the slip of paper. On it, in a woman’s neat hand, were four words.
Health Resort
Gretchen Malparto.
So the girl’s name was Gretchen. And, as he had inferred, she was roaming around in the night soliciting for the Mental Health Resort, in violation of law.
The Health Resort, the last refuge for deserters and misfits, had reached out and put its hand on his shoulder.
He felt weak. He felt very morbid and shaky, as if he were running a fever: a low current of somewhat moist energy that could not be shaken off.
“Mr. Purcell,” Doris’ voice came through the open door. “There’s a return call in for you. The phone is taking it right now.”
“Okay, Doris,” he said. With effort he roused himself from his thoughts and reached to snap on the phone. The tape obligingly skipped back and restarted itself, spewing the recorded call.
“Ten-o-five. Click. Zeeeeeeeeeeeee! Mr. Purcell.” Now a smooth, urbane female voice appeared. With further pessimism he recognized it. “This is Mrs. Sue Frost, answering your call of earlier this morning. I’m sorry I was not in when you called, Mr. Purcell.” A pause. “I am fully sympathetic with your situation. I can easily understand the position you’re in.” Another pause, this one somewhat longer. “Of course, Mr. Purcell, you surely must realize that the offer of the directorship was predicated on the assumption that you were available for the job.”
The mechanism jumped to its next thirty-second segment.
“Ten-o-six. Click. Zeeeeeeeeeeeee! To go on.” Mrs. Frost cleared her throat. “It strikes us that a week is rather a long time, in view of the difficult status of Telemedia. There is no acting Director, since, as you’re aware, Mr. Mavis has already resigned. We hesitate to request a postponement of that resignation, but perhaps it will be necessary. Our suggestion is that you take until Saturday at the latest to decide. Understand, we’re fully sympathetic with your situation, and we don’t wish to rush you. But Telemedia is a vital trust, and it would be in the public interest that your decision come as quickly as possible. I’ll expect to hear from you, then.”
Click, the mechanism went. The rest of the tape was blank.
From the tone of Mrs. Frost’s message Allen inferred that he had got an official statement of the Committee’s position. He could imagine the tape being played back at an inquiry. It was for the record, and then some. Four point five days, he thought. Four point five days to decide what he was and what he ought to be.
Picking up the phone, he started to dial, then changed his mind. Calling from the Agency was too risky. Instead, he left the office.
“Going out again, Mr. Purcell?” Doris asked, at her own desk.
“I’ll be back shortly. Going over to the commissary for some supplies.” He tapped his coat pocket. “Things Janet asked me to pick up.”
As soon as he was out of the Mogentlock Building he stepped into a public phone booth. Staring vacantly, he dialed.
“Mental Health Resort,” a bureaucratic, but friendly voice answered in his ear.
“Is there a Gretchen Malparto there?”
Time passed. “Miss Malparto has left the Resort temporarily. Would you like to speak to Doctor Malparto?”
Obscurely nettled, Allen said: “Her husband?”
“Doctor Malparto is Miss Malparto’s brother. Who is calling, please?”
“I want an appointment,” Allen said. “Business problems.”
“Yes sir.” The rustle of papers. “Your name, sir?”
He hesitated and then invented. “I’ll be in under the name Coates.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Coates.” There was no further questioning on that point. “Would tomorrow at nine a.m. be satisfactory?”
He started to agree, and then remembered the block meeting. “Better make it Thursday.”
“Thursday at nine,” the girl said briskly. “With Doctor Malparto. Thank you very much for calling.”
Feeling a little better, Allen returned to the Agency.
CHAPTER 7
In the highly moral society of 2114 A.D., the weekly block meetings operated on the stagger system. Wardens from surrounding housing units were able to sit at each, forming a board of which the indigenous warden was chairman. Since Mrs. Birmingham was the warden in the Purcells’ block, she, of the assembled middle-aged ladies, occupied the raised seat. Her compatriots, in flowered silk dresses, filled chairs on each side of her across the platform.
“I hate this room,” Janet said, pausing at the door.
Allen did, too. Down here on the first level of the housing unit, in this one large chamber, all the local Leagues, Committees, Clubs, Boards, Associations, and Orders met. The room smelled of stale sunlight, dust, and the infinite layers of paperwork that had piled up over the years. Here, official nosing and snooping originated. In this room a man’s business was everybody’s business. Centuries of Christian, confessional culminated when the block asembled [sic] to explore its members’ souls.
As always, there were more people than space. Many had to stand, and they filled the corners and aisles. The air conditioning system moaned and reshuffled the cloud of smoke. Allen was always puzzled by the smoke, since nobody seemed to have a cigarette and smoking was forbidden. But there it was. Perhaps it, like the shadow of purifying fire, was an accumulation from the past.
His attention fixed itself on the pack of juveniles. They were here, the earwig-like sleuths. Each juvenile was a foot and a half long. The species scuttled close to the ground—or up vertical surfaces—at ferocious speed, and they noticed everything. These juveniles were inactive. The wardens had unlocked the metal hulls and dug out the report tapes. The juveniles remained inert during the meeting, and then they were put back into service.
There was something sinister in these metal informers, but there was also something heartening. The juveniles did not accuse; they only reported what they heard and saw. They couldn’t color their information and they couldn’t make it up. Since the victim was indicted mechanically he was safe from hysterical hearsay, from malice and paranoia. But there could be no question of guilt; the evidence was already in. The issue to be settled here was merely the severity of moral lapse. The victim couldn’t protest that he had been unjustly accused; all he could protest was his bad luck at having been overheard.
On the platform Mrs. Birmingham held the agenda and looked to see if everybody had arrived. Failure to arrive was in itself a lapse. Apparently he and Janet completed the group; Mrs. Birmingham signalled, and the meeting began.
“I guess we don’t get to sit,” Janet murmured, as the door closed after them. Her face was pinched with anxiety; for her the weekly block meeting was a catastrophe which she met with hopelessness and despair. Each week she anticipated denouncement and downfall, but it never came. Years had gone by, and she had still not officially erred. But that only convinced her that doom was saving itself up for one grand spree.
“When they call me,” Allen said softly, “you keep your mouth shut. Don’t get in on either side. The less said the better chance I have.”
She glared at him with suffering. “They’ll tear you apart. Look at them.” She swept in the whole room. “They’re just waiting to get at somebody.”
“Most of them are bored and wish they were out.” As a matter of fact, several men were reading their morning newspapers. “So take it easy. If nobody leaps to defend me it’ll die down and maybe I’ll get off with a verbal reprimand.” Assuming, of course, that nothing was in about the statue.
“We will first undertake the case of Miss J.E.,” Mrs Birmingham stated. Miss J.E. was Julie Ebberley, and everybody in the room knew her. Julie had been up time and again, but somehow she managed to hang onto the lease willed her by her family. Scared and wide-eyed, she now mounted the defendant’s stage, a young blonde-haired girl with long legs and an intriguing bosom. Today she wore a modest print dress and low-heeled slippers. Her hair was tied back in a girlish knot.