The Simulacra (11 page)

Kongrosian stammered. “C-can you see me?”

“I can see everybody,” the salesman said. “Given time enough.” And he left the office with Strikerock, then.

“Calm yourself,” the papoola said, within Kongrosian’s mind; it had remained in the office evidently to keep him company. “All is well. Mr. Miller will take good care of you and very, very sooooon.” It crooned to him, lulling him. “Allll is welllll,” it intoned.

Suddenly the customer, Mr. Strikerock, re-entered the office. To Kongrosian he said, “Now I remember who you are! You’re the famous concert pianist who’s always playing for Nicole at the White House; you’re Richard Kongrosian.”

“Yes,” Kongrosian admitted, pleased to be recognized. Just to be on the safe side, however, he moved carefully back from Strikerock, so as not to offend him. “I’m amazed,” he said, “that you can see me; just recently I’ve become invisible . . . in fact that’s what I was discussing with Egon Superb on the phone. Currently, I’m seeking rebirth. That’s why I’m going to emigrate; there’s no hope for me here on Earth, obviously.”

“I know how you feel,” Strikerock said, nodding. “Just recently I quit my job; I’ve got no ties to anyone here, anymore, not to my brother nor to—” He paused, his face dark. “To anyone. I’m leaving alone, with no one.”

“Listen,” Kongrosian said, on impulse. “Why don’t we emigrate together? Or—does my phobic body odor offend you too much?”

Strikerock did not seem to know what he meant. “Emigrate together? You mean go in for a land-stake as partners?”

“I have plenty of money,” Kongrosian said. “From my concert appearances; I can finance both of us easily.” Money was certainly the least of his worries. And maybe he could help this Mr. Strikerock, who, after all, had just quite his job.

“Maybe we could work something out,” Strikerock said thoughtfully, nodding slowly up and down. “It’s going to be lonely as hell on Mars; we wouldn’t have any neighbors except perhaps simulacra. And I’ve seen enough of them as it is to last me the rest of my life.”

The salesman, Mr. Miller, returned to the office, looking a trifle perturbed.

“We need only one jalopy between us,” Strikerock said to him. “Kongrosian and I are emigrating together, as partners.”

Shrugging philosophically, Mr. Miller said, “I’ll show you two a slightly larger model, then. A family-sized model.” He held the door of the office open and Kongrosian and Chic Strikerock stepped out onto the lot. “You two know each other?” he asked.

“Not before now,” Strikerock said. “But we both have the same problem; we’re invisible, here on Earth. So to speak.”

“That’s right,” Kongrosian put in. “I’ve become totally invisible to the human eye; obviously it’s time to emigrate.”

“Yes, if that’s the case I would say so,” Mr. Miller agreed tartly.

The man on the telephone said, “My name is Merrill Judd, of A.G. Chemie. I’m sorry to bother you—”

“Go ahead,” Janet Raimer said, seating herself at her neat, small, idiosyncratically-arranged desk. She nodded to her secretary, who at once shut the office door, cutting out the noises from the White House corridor outside. “You say this has to do with Richard Kongrosian.”

“That’s right.” On the screen, Merrill Judd’s miniature face-image nodded. “And for that reason it occurred to me to contact you, because of the close ties between Kongrosian and the White House. It seemed reasonable to me that you’d want to know. I tried, about half an hour ago, to visit Kongrosian at Franklin Aimes Neuropsychiatric Hospital in San Francisco. He was gone. The staff there couldn’t locate him.”

“I see,” Janet Raimer said.

“Evidently he’s quite ill. From what he said to me—”

“Yes,” Janet said, “he’s quite ill. Do you have any other information for us? If not, I’d like to get started on this right away.”

The A.G. Chemie psych-chemist had no other information. He rang off, and Janet dialed an inside line, trying several White House stations until at last she managed to reach her nominal superior, Harold Slezak.

“Kongrosian has left the hospital and vanished. God knows where he may have gone, possibly back to Jenner—we should check that, of course. Frankly, I think the NP should be brought in; Kongrosian is vital.”

“‘Vital,’” Slezak echoed, wrinkling his nose. “Well, let’s say rather that we like him. We’d prefer not to have to make do without him. I’ll obtain Nicole’s permission to involve the police; I think you’re right in your estimate of the situation.” Slezak, with no amenities, rang off then. Janet hung up the phone.

She had done all she could do; it was now out of her hands.

The next thing she knew, an NP man was in her office, notebook in hand. Wilder Pembroke—she had run into him many times when he had held lesser positions—seated himself across from her and began to take notes. “I’ve already checked with Franklin Aimes.” The NP Commissioner regarded her thoughtfully. “It seems that Kongrosian made a phone call to Dr. Egon Superb—you know who he is: the sole remaining psychoanalyst. He left not much after that. To your knowledge, was Kongrosian seeing Superb?”

“Yes of course,” Janet said. “For some time.”

“Where do you think he would go?”

“Except for Jenner—”

“He’s not there. We’ve got somebody in the area, now.”

“Then I don’t know. Ask Superb.”

“We’re doing that,” Pembroke said.

She laughed. “Maybe he’s joined Bertold Goltz.”

The Commissioner, not amused, his flat face hard, said, “We’ll look into that of course. And there’s always the possibility he ran into one of those Loony Luke lots, those fly-by-night jalopy jungles. They seem somehow to show up at the appropriate time and place. God knows how they manage it but they do, somehow. Of all the possibilities—” Pembroke was speaking half to himself; he seemed quite agitated. “As far as I’m concerned that’s the very worst.”

“Kongrosian would never go to Mars,” Janet said. “There’s no market for his talents, there; they don’t need concert pianists. And underneath his eccentric, artistic exterior, Richard is shrewd. He would be aware of that.”

“Maybe he’s given up playing,” Pembroke said. “For something better.”

“I wonder what sort of farmer a psychokinetic would make.”

Pembroke said, “Maybe that’s exactly what Kongrosian is wondering at this moment, too.”

“I—would think he’d want to take his wife and son.”

“Perhaps not. Maybe that’s the entire point. Have you seen the boy? The offspring? Do you know about the Jenner area and what’s happened, there?”

“Yes,” she said tightly.

“Then you understand.”

They were both silent.

Ian Duncan was just seating himself in the comfortable leather-covered chair across from Dr. Egon Superb when the squad of NP men burst into the office.

“You’ll have to disburse your healing a little later,” the young, sharp-chimed NP squad leader said as he briefly showed Dr. Superb his credentials. “Richard Kongrosian has disappeared from Franklin Aimes and we are trying to locate him. Has he contacted you?”

“Not since leaving the hospital,” Dr. Superb said. “He called me earlier while he was still—”

“We know about that.” The NP man eyed Superb. “What do you think are the chances that Kongrosian has joined the Sons of Job?”

Superb said at once, “None whatsoever.”

“All right.” The NP man noted that. “In your opinion, is there any chance he might have approached the Loony Luke people? Emigrated, or be attempting to emigrate, by means of a jalopy?”

After a long pause Dr. Superb said, “I think the chances are excellent. He needs—seeks perpetually—isolation.”

The NP leader closed his notebook, turned to his squad and said, “Then that’s it. The lots will have to be closed.” Into his portable com-system he said, “Dr. Superb concurs with the lot idea but not with the Sons of Job. I think we should go along with him; the doctor seems to be certain. Check at once in the San Francisco area, see if a lot has shown up there. Thanks.” He rang off, then said to Dr. Superb, “We appreciate your help. If he does contact you, notify us.” He laid his card on Dr. Superb’s desk.

“Don’t—be rough on him,” Dr. Superb said. “If you do find him. He’s very, very ill.”

The NP man glanced at him, smiled slightly, and then the squad of them left the office; the door shut after them. Ian Duncan and Dr. Superb were again alone.

In a peculiar, hoarse voice Ian Duncan said, “I’ll have to consult with you some other time.” He rose unsteadily to his feet. “Goodbye.”

“What’s wrong?” Dr. Superb said, also rising.

“I’ve got to go.”
Ian Duncan plucked at the door, managed to open it, disappeared; the door slammed.

Strange, Dr. Superb thought. The man—Duncan, was it?— didn’t even have an opportunity to begin discussing his problem with me. Why did the appearance of the NP upset him so?

Pondering, but finding no answer, Dr. Superb reseated himself and buzzed Amanda Conners to send in the next patient; a whole waiting room full of them waited outside, the men all surreptitiously (and many of the women, too) watching Amanda and every move she made.

“Yes, doctor,” Amanda’s sweet voice came, cheering up Dr. Superb more than a little.

As soon as he was out of the doctor’s office Ian Duncan searched frantically for an auto-cab. Al was here in San Francisco; he knew that. Al had given him a schedule of the Number Three Lot’s pattern of appearances. They would get Al. It was the end of Duncan & Miller, Classic Jugs.

A sleek, modern auto-cab called to him, “KinIhelpya, fella?”

“Yes,” Ian Duncan gasped, and started out into traffic to meet it.

This gives me a chance, he said to himself as the auto-cab streaked for the destination he had given it. But they’ll get there first. Or will they? The police would have to comb virtually the entire city, and block by block; whereas he knew, and was heading for, the exact spot where Lot Number Three could be found. So perhaps he had a chance—a slim one—after all.

If they get you, Al,
he said to himself,
it’s the end of me, too.
I can’t go on alone. I’ll join Goltz or die, something dreadful like that. It doesn’t matter what.

The auto-cab hurtled across town, on its way to Loony Luke’s Jalopy Jungle Number Three.

ELEVEN

Nat Flieger wondered, idly, if the chuppers had any ethnic music. EME was, in its impartial way, always interested. But still, that was not their task, here; ahead now lay the home of Richard Kongrosian, a pale green wooden frame building, three story, with—incredibly—an ancient, brown, untrimmed, ragged palm tree growing in the front yard.

But Goltz had said—

“We’ve arrived,” Molly murmured.

The antique auto-cab slowed, gave forth a grating, indecisive racket, and then shut itself entirely off. It coasted to a stop and then there was silence. Nat listened to the far-off wind moving through the trees, and the faint spattering rhythm of the mist-like rain as it fell everywhere, on the cab and the foliage, the unkempt old wooden house with its tar-papered sun deck and many small, square windows, several of which were broken.

Jim Planck lit a Corina
corona
and said, “No signs of life.”

It was true. So evidently Goltz had been correct.

“I think,” Molly said presently, “we’ve come on a wild goose chase.” She opened the door of the auto-cab and hopped gingerly out. The soil, under her feet, sank squashily. She made a face.

“The chuppers,” Nat said. “We can always record the music of the chuppers. If they have any.” He, too, climbed out; he stood beside Molly and they both gazed at the big old house, neither of them speaking.

It was a melancholy scene; no doubt of that. Hands in his pockets, Nat walked toward the house. He came up onto a gravel path which passed between elderly fuchsia and camellia bushes. Presently Molly followed. Jim Planck remained in the car.

“Let’s get it over with and then let’s get out of here,” Molly said, and shivered, terribly cold in her bright cotton blouse and shorts.

Nat put his arm around her.

“What’s that for?” she demanded.

“Nothing in particular. I just felt fond of you, all of a sudden. I’d be fond of anything, right now, that wasn’t damp and squishy.” He hugged her briefly. “Don’t I make you feel a little better?”

“No,” Molly said. “Or maybe yes; I don’t know.” She sounded irritable. “Go on up onto the porch, for chrissakes, and knock!” Pulling away from him she gave him a push forward.

Nat ascended the sagging wooden steps, onto the porch, and rang the doorbell.

“I feel sick,” Molly said. “Why is that?”

“The humidity.” Nat found it overwhelming, oppressive; he could hardly breathe. He wondered what the weather would do to the Ganymedean life form which was his recording apparatus; it liked moisture and so perhaps it would flourish, here. Perhaps the Ampek F-a2 could even live here on its own, survive in the rain forest indefinitely. This environment, he realized, is more alien to us than Mars would be. It was a sobering thought. Mars and Tijuana . . . closer than Jenner and Tijuana. Ecologically speaking.

The door opened. A woman wearing a pale yellow smock faced him, stood blocking the entrance and regarding him quietly, her brown eyes calm but oddly wary.

“Mrs. Kongrosian?” he said. Beth Kongrosian was not bad looking. Her hair, tied back with a ribbon, was light brown, long; she might have been in her late twenties or early thirties. In any case she was slender and she stood well. He found himself studying her with respect and interest.

“You’re from the recording studio?” Her voice, low, had a toneless quality, a peculiar lack of affect. “Mr. Dondoldo phoned and said you were on your way. It’s a shame. You can come inside if you want, but Richard isn’t here.” She held the door wide, then. “Richard is in the hospital, down in San Francisco.”

Christ, he thought. What lousy, miserable luck. He turned to Molly and they exchanged glances mutely.

“Please come in,” Beth Kongrosian said. “Let me fix you coffee or dinner or something before you turn around and start back; it’s such a long way.”

Nat said to Molly, “Go back and tell Jim. I’d like to take Mrs. Kongrosian up on her offer; I could use a cup of coffee.”

Turning, Molly started back down the steps.

“You look tired,” Beth Kongrosian said. “Are you Mr. Flieger? I wrote the name down; Mr. Dondoldo gave it to me. I know Richard would have been glad to record for you, if he were here; that’s why it’s all such a shame.” She led him into the living room. It was dark and cool, crowded with wicker furniture, but at least dry. “A drink,” she said. “What about gin and tonic? Or I have Scotch. What about Scotch on the rocks?”

“Just coffee,” Nat said. “Thanks.” He inspected a photograph on the wall; it showed him a scene in which a man swung on a tall metal swing a small baby. “Is this your son?” The woman, however, had gone.

He looked closer. The baby in the photograph had the chupper jaw.

Behind him, Molly and Jim Planck appeared. He waved them over, and they both examined the picture.

“Music,” Nat said. “I wonder if they have any music.”

“They can’t sing,” Molly said. “How could they sing if they can’t talk?” She walked away from the picture and stood with her arms folded, looking through the living room window at the palm tree outside. “What an ugly tree.” She turned to Nat. “Don’t you agree?”

“I think,” he said, “that there’s room in the world for life of every kind.”

Jim Planck said quietly, “I agree.”

Returning to the living room, Beth Kongrosian said to Jim Planck and Molly, “What would you two like? Coffee? A drink? Something to eat?”

They conferred.

At his office in the Administration Building of Karp u. Sohnen Werke, Detroit Branch, Vince Strikerock received a phone call from his wife—or rather his ex-wife—Julie. Now Julia Applequist again, as she had been when he first met her.

Looking lovely but worried and wildly distracted, Julie said, “Vince, that goddam brother of yours—
he’s gone
.” Wide-eyed, she gazed at him beseechingly. “I don’t know what to do.”

He said in a deliberate, calming voice, “Gone where, Julie?”

“I think—” She choked over the words. “Vince, he left me to emigrate; we talked about emigrating and I didn’t want to, and I know he’s gone ahead alone. He was determined to; I realize that now. I just didn’t take it seriously enough.” Tears filled her eyes.

Behind Vince, his superior appeared. “Herr Anton Karp wants to see you in Suite Four. As soon as possible.” He glared at the screen, recognizing this as a personal call.

“Julie,” Vince said clumsily, “I have to get off the line.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “But do something for me. Find Chic. Won’t you please? I’ll never ask you for anything else again. I promise. I just have to have him back.”

I knew it wouldn’t work out between you two, Vince said to himself. He experienced grim relish. Too bad, dear, he thought. Tough! You made a mistake; I know Chic and I know that women like you petrify him. You scared him into running, and he’ll never stop or look back, now that he’s begun. Because it’s a one-way trip.

Aloud, he said, “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thanks, Vince,” she breathed tearfully. “Even if I don’t actively love you anymore I still—”

“Goodbye,” he said, and rang off.

A moment later he was ascending by elevator to Suite Four.

As soon as Anton Karp spied him Karp said, “Herr Strikerock, I understand that your brother is employed by a miserably-tiny firm by the name of Frauenzimmer Associates. Is that correct?” Karp’s heavy, somber face was twisted with tension.

“Yes,” Vince said slowly, with great caution. “But—” He hesitated. Obviously if Chic was emigrating he would be leaving his job; he could hardly take it with him.
What did Karp want?
Better to be on the safe side and not say anything unnecessary. “But, um . . .”

Karp said, “Can he get you in there?”

Blinking, Vince said, “Y-you mean on the premises? As a visitor? Or do you mean—” He could feel apprehension mounting inside him as the cold blue eyes of the middle-aged German ersatz industrialist bored into him. “I don’t quite understand, Herr Karp,” he mumbled.

“Today,” Karp said in a brisk, harsh staccato, “the government let the simulacrum contract to Herr Frauenzimmer. We have studied the situation and our response is dictated by the circumstances themselves. Because of this order, Frauenzimmer will expand; he will take on new employees. I want you, through your brother, to go to work for them, as soon as you can arrange it. Possibly today.”

Vince stared at him.

“What’s the matter?” Karp said.

“I’m—surprised,” Vince managed to say.

“As soon as Frauenzimmer’s taken you on, inform me direct; don’t talk to anyone else but me.” Karp paced about the large carpeted room, scratching his nose vigorously. “We’ll tell you what to do next. That’s all for now, Herr Strikerock.”

“Does it matter what I do there?” Vince asked weakly. “I mean, is it important exactly what my job is?”

“No,” Karp said.

Vince left the suite; the door at once slid shut after him. He stood alone in the corridor, trying to reassemble his scattered, disorganized faculties. My god, he thought. They want me to throw my sabots into Frauenzimmer’s assembly line; I know it. Sabotage or spying, one or the other; anyhow something illegal, something that’ll bring the NP down on me—me, not the Karps.

My own brother’s outfit, too, he said to himself.

He felt utterly impotent. They could make him do anything they wanted; all the Karps had to do was lift their little finger.

And I’ll give in, he realized.

He returned to his own office, shakily seated himself with the door shut; alone, he sat silently at his desk, smoking an ersatz-tobacco cigar and pondering. His hands, he discovered, were numb.

I’ve got to get out of here,
he told himself.
I’m not going to be a
petty, minuscule, cipher-type minion for the Karp Werke—it’ll kill
me.
He crushed his non-tobacco cigar out. Where can I go? he asked himself.
Where?
I need help. Who can I get it from?

There was that doctor. That he and Chic had been going to see.

Picking up the phone he signaled Karp’s switchboard operator. “Get me Dr. Egon Superb,” he instructed her, “that one analyst that’s left.”

After that he sat miserably at his desk, the phone against his ear. Waiting.

Nicole Thibodeaux thought, I’ve got too much to do. I’m attempting to conduct delicate, tricky negotiations with Hermann Goering, I’ve instructed Garth McRae to let the new der Alte contract to a small firm and not to Karp, I have to decide what to do if Richard Kongrosian is ever found again, there’s the McPhearson Bill and that last analyst, Dr. Superb, and now this. Now the NP’s hasty decision—made without even attempting to consult me or notify me in advance—to move in on Loony Luke’s jalopy lots in dead earnest.

Unhappily, she studied the police order which had gone out to every NP unit throughout the USEA.
This isn’t in our interest,
she decided. I can’t afford to attack Luke because I simply can’t get at him. We’ll only look absurd.

And—we’ll look like a totalitarian society. Kept in existence only by our enormous military and police establishments.

Glancing up swiftly at Wilder Pembroke, Nicole said, “Have you actually found the lot, yet? The one in San Francisco where you imagine—merely imagine—Richard is?”

“No. We haven’t found it yet.” Pembroke mopped his forehead nervously; quite clearly he was under heavy strain. “If there had been time of course I would have consulted you. But once he takes off for Mars—”

“Better to lose him than to move prematurely against Luke!” She had a good deal of respect for Luke; she had known him, and his operations, for a good long time. She had seen him easily evade the city police.

“I have an interesting report from the Karp Werke.” Obviously Pembroke was now desperately trying to switch the topic under discussion. “They’ve decided to penetrate the Frauenzimmer organization in order to—”

“Later.” Nicole scowled at him. “You know now you’ve made a mistake. Really, down underneath, I enjoy those jalopy jungles; they’re amusing. You simply can’t fathom that; you’ve got a cop’s mind. Call your San Francisco unit and tell them to release the lot if they’ve found it. And if they haven’t found it, tell them to give up. Bring them back in and forget about it; when the time arrives to proceed against Luke
I’ll tell you
.”

“Harold Slezak agreed—”

“Slezak doesn’t make policy. I’m surprised you didn’t get Rudi Kalbfleisch’s approval on this. That would have been even more like you NP people. I really don’t like you—I find you unsavory.” She stared at him until he shrank back. “Well?” she said. “Say something.”

With dignity, Pembroke said, “They haven’t found the lot, so no harm has been done.” He flicked on his com system. “Give up on the lots,” he said into it. At this moment he did not look very imposing; he was still perspiring freely. “Forget the whole damn thing. Yes, that’s right.” He clicked the system off and raised his head to face Nicole.

“You should be busted,” Nicole said.

“Anything else, Mrs. Thibodeaux?” Pembroke’s voice was wooden.

“No. Scram.”

Pembroke, with measured, stiff steps, departed.

Looking at her wristwatch, Nicole saw that the time was eight P.M. And what had been planned for this evening? Shortly she would be going on TV with another Visit to the White House, the seventy-fifth of the year. Had Janet lined up anything and if so had Slezak managed to bumble through to an adequate schedule?

Probably not.

She walked through the White House to Janet Raimer’s tidy office. “Do you have anything spectacular coming along?” she demanded.

Rattling her notes, Janet frowned and said, “One act I’d call truly astonishing—a jug act. Classical. Duncan & Miller; I watched them at The Abraham Lincoln and they’re terrific.” She smiled hopefully.

Nicole groaned.

“They really are quite good.” Janet’s voice was insistent, now. Commanding. “It’s relaxing; I’d like you to please give it a try. That’s either for tonight or tomorrow, I’m not certain which Slezak scheduled it for.”