“You won’t come back. Either of you.”
“Maybe we will.”
“Want to bet?”
I bet him ten bucks. That was all I could do; there was no use making him a promise which I probably could not–and would not–keep.
“It’ll wreck R & R ASSOCIATES,” Maury said.
“Maybe so, but I still have to go.”
That night I began packing my clothes. I made a reservation on a TWA Boeing 900 rocket flight for Seattle; it left the following morning at ten-forty. Now there was no stopping me; I did not even bother to telephone Maury and tell him anything more. Why waste my time? He could do nothing. Could I? That remained to be seen.
My Service .45 was too large, so instead of it I packed a smaller pistol, a .38, wrapped in a towel with a box of shells. I had never been much of a shot but I could hit another human being within the confines of an ordinary-sized room, and possibly across the space of a public hall such as a nightclub or theater. And if worst came to worst I could use it on myself; surely I could hit that–my own head.
There being nothing else to do until the next morning I settled down with a copy of _Marjorie Morningstar_ which Maury had loaned me. It was his own, and quite possibly it was the identical copy which Pris had read years ago. By reading it I hoped to get more of an insight into Pris; I was not reading it for pleasure.
The next morning I rose early, shaved and washed, ate a light breakfast, and started for Boise and the airfield.
13
If you wonder what San Francisco would have looked like had there been no earthquake and fire, you can find out by going to Seattle. It’s an old seaport town built on hills, with windy, canyon type streets; nothing is modern except the public library, and in the slum part you’ll see cobblestone and red brick, like parts of Pocatello, Idaho. The slums extend for miles and are rat-infested. In the center of Seattle there is a prosperous genuine city-like shopping area built near one or two great old hotels such as the Olympus. The wind blows in from Canada, and when the Boeing 900 sets down at the Sea-Tac Airfield you catch a glimpse of the mountains of origin. They’re frightening.
I took a limousine into Seattle proper from the airport, since it cost only five dollars. The lady driver crept at snail’s pace through traffic for miles until at last we had reached the Olympus Hotel. It’s much like any good big-city hotel, with its arcade of shops below ground level; it has all services which a hotel must have, and the service is excellent. There’re several dining rooms; in fact you’re in a dark, yellow-lit world of your own at a big city hotel, a world made up of carpets and ancient varnished wood, people well-dressed and always talking, corridors and elevators, plus maids cleaning constantly.
In my room I turned on the wired music in preference to the TV set, peeped out the window at the street far below, adjusted the ventilation and the heat, took off my shoes and padded kbout on the wall-to-wall carpeting, then opened my suitcase and began to unpack. Only an hour ago I had been in Boise; now here I was on the West Coast almost at the Canadian border. It beat driving. I had gone from one large city directly to another without having to endure the countryside in between. Nothing could have pleased me more.
You can tell a good hotel by the fact that when you have any sort of room service the hotel employee when he enters never looks at you. He looks down, through and beyond you; you stay invisible, which is what you want, even if you’re in your shorts or naked. The employee comes in very quietly, leaves your pressed shirt or your tray of food or newspaper or drink; you hand him the money, he makes a murmuring thank you noise, and he goes. It is almost Japanese, the way they don’t stare. You feel as if no one had been in your room ever, even the previous guest; it is absolutely yours, even when you meet up with cleaning women in the hall outside. They– the hotel people–have such absolute respect for your privacy it’s uncanny. Of course when it’s time to settle up at the desk at the end, you pay for all that. It costs you fifty dollars instead of twenty. But don’t ever let anyone tell you it isn’t worth it. A person on the brink of a psychotic breakdown could be restored by a few days in an authentic first-class hotel, with its twenty-four-hour room service and shops; believe me.
By the time I had been in my room at the Olympus for a couple of hours I wondered why I had ever felt agitated enough to make the trip in the first place. I felt as if I were on a well-deserved vacation and rest. I could have lived there, eating the hotel food, shaving and showering in my private bathroom, reading the paper, shopping in the shops, until my money ran out. But nonetheless I had come on business. That’s what’s so hard, to leave the hotel, to get out on those drafty, windy, cold, gray sidewalks and hobble along on your errand. That’s where the pain enters. You’re back in a world where no one holds the door for you; you stand on the corner with other people equal to yourself, all as good as you, waiting for the lights to change, and once again you’re an ordinary suffering individual, prey to any passing ailment. It’s a sort of birth trauma all over again, but at least you can finally scuttle back to the hotel, once your business is done.
And, by using the phone in the hotel room, you can conduct some of your business without stirring outside at all. You do as much as you can that way; it’s instinct to do that. In fact you try to get people to come and see you there, rather than the other way.
This time my business could not be conducted within the hotel, however; I did not bother to make the try. I simply put it off as long as I could: I spent the rest of the day in my room and at nightfall I went downstairs to the bar and then one of the dining rooms, and after that I strolled about the arcade and into the lobby and then back among the shops once more. I loitered wherever I could loiter without having to step outdoors into the cold, brisk, Canadian-type night.
All this time I had the .38 in my inside coat pocket.
It was strange, coming on an illegal errand. Perhaps I could have done it all legally, through Lincoln found a way of getting Pris out of Barrows’ hands. But on some deep level I enjoyed this, coming up here to Seattle with the gun in my suitcase and now in my coat. I liked the feeling of being alone, knowing no one, about to go out and confront Mr. Sam Barrows with no one to help me. It was like an epic or an old western TV play. I was the stranger in town, armed, and with a mission.
Meanwhile, I drank at the bar, went back up to my room, lay on the bed, read the newspapers, looked at TV, ordered hot coffee from the room service at midnight. I was on top of the world. If only it could last.
Tomorrow morning I’ll go look up Barrows, I said to myself. This must end. But not quite yet.
And then–it was about twelve-thirty at night and I was getting ready to go to bed–it occurred to me, Why don’t I phone Barrows right now? Wake him up, like the Gestapo used to? Not tell him where I am, just say _I’m coming, Sam_. Put a real scare in him; he’ll be able to tell by the nearness of my voice that I’m somewhere in town.
Neat!
I had had a couple of drinks; heck, I had had six or seven. I dialed and told the operator, “Get me Sam K. Barrows. I don’t know the number.” It was the hotel operator, and she did so.
Presently I heard Sam’s phone ringing.
To myself, I practiced what I was going to say. “Give Pris back to R & R ASSOCIATES,” I would tell him. “I hate her, but she belongs with us. She’s life itself, as far as we’re concerned.” The phone rang on and on; obviously no one was home, or no one was up and going to answer. Finally I hung up the receiver.
What a hell of a situation for grown men to be in, I said to myself as I roamed aimlessly around my hotel room. How could something on the order of Pris begin to represent life itself to us, as I was going to tell Sam Barrows? Are we that warped? Are we warped at all? Isn’t that nothing but an indication of the nature of life, not of ourselves? Yes, it’s not our fault life’s like that; we didn’t invent it. Or did we?