Chapter X (1)

    Nine o'clock the next morning, Roy Audibon left Gracie Hospital and took a cab down to the network. His ribs were taped, his face was bruised, his teeth were clenched in a dazzling smile that was sure to hurt someone else worse than it hurt him.
    He rode the exclusive executives' elevator up to the twentieth floor, strode through the three anterooms guarding the holy of holies, and entered his office. It was rather ascetic compared to the conventional top-level decor. It contained a very large English desk paneled with gold-tooled leather, three Queen Anne armchairs covered with brocade, two red leather library chairs, a walnut breakfront displaying Dresden China and a brass microscope, a French stick barometer, a framed illuminated transparency of M-31, the Andromeda Nebula, and a constrained water color of Fire Island Beach signed: Valentine.
    Audibon examined the picture for a moment, then went to his desk, thrust aside the mountain of predigested mail, and picked up the phone. To his secretary he said: "Get me Grabinett and Bleutcher."
    "Yes, Mr. Audibon. What Bleutcher is that, please?"
    "Tom Bleutcher of Mode Shoes. Brockton, Mass. Check the 'Who He?' file." Audibon licked his lips. "Everybody on my team is expected to know the name and number of every player. This advice will be of value to you in your next job which will start at the end of this week."
    The secretary gasped. "I'm sorry, Mr. Audibon. I—"
    "Accounting will arrange your severance pay," Audibon interrupted and hung up. He examined the water color again, remembering a dark girl in striped clam-diggers and an old shirt knotted under her bosom, sitting cross-legged on a blazing dune ... a drawing board before her, tilted on the bleached remains of a driftwood chair ... the tinkle of a brush washed in a jar of water.
    "Never," Audibon said.
    The phone rang. He picked it up. "Yes?"
    "Mr. Grabinett cannot be reached in his office," the secretary reported in a suppressed voice that soothed Audibon. "Mr. Bleutcher cannot be contacted in Brockton. I left word that you called."
    "Word is too little and too late. Keep trying for both."
    "Yes, Mr. Audibon. John Macro is waiting to see you."
    "Macro? By appointment?"
    "Yes, Mr. Audibon. You told me to—"
    "Send him in."
    For a man who was not in the business, John Macro was the most hated man in the business. He was a Maryland manufacturer who had taken it upon himself to cleanse radio and television of subversive artists. To this he devoted his patriotic heart and ample bank account. Once a month Mr. Macro came to The Rock and purged. He was in no way equipped for the job, intellectually or otherwise. In normal times his impertinent intrusions would have been brushed as contemptuously as Mr. Macro himself would have brushed any unqualified intruder attempting to tell him how to do his own thinking; but these were not normal times.
    Honest John came to The Rock and studied the reports of his researchers who were mostly free-lance trade journal writers playing detective. He learned that so-and-so had once signed a petition. He ferreted out the fact that a certain man was known to have supported a particular drive; that this woman had lent her name to such-and-such a cause. Mr. Macro judged and accused, and such was the hysteria of the times that mere accusation was enough to make the world draw aside the hem of its garment in terror and hound the victim out of the business.
    Mr. Macro was a good man and a sincere man. Unfortunately he was also a Square. He believed he was doing his duty as a citizen. Actually, he was a child playing with a gun. He entered Audibon's office with the air of a Roman Tribune. He was very bald, very handsome, with a leaden complexion and kindly features. He carried an alligator portfolio which he unlocked ceremoniously after he shook hands with Audibon. He withdrew a short list of names.
    "For these," he said melodiously, "I have proof positive." He produced a dossier of stapled sheets, handed it to Audibon and then seated himself in a Queen Anne chair and waited majestically.
    Audibon read the list of names and then the proof positive. He smiled at Macro without liking.
    "This isn't proof," he said, "and it isn't positive."
    "Every organization cited there has been listed by the Attorney General's office, Mr. Audibon."
    Audibon shook his head. "But it's not prima facie-type evidence."
    "Straws show how the wind blows."
    "God help us if we're judged by straws like this."
    "Good Heavens! I'm not judging, Mr. Audibon. Far be it from me to judge my fellow citizens. Let the evidence speak for itself. If I'm wrong, as I sincerely hope I am, these persons can easily clear themselves."
    "Your frame of reference is unrealistic, Mr. Macro. It's impossible for any man to clear himself today. These things are chain-reactive." Audibon flung down the dossier and began to pace energetically. "Touch the American pulse and what do you find? The systole and diastole of paranoia. Do you know cybernetics ... the science of minds and machines? There's a cybernetic feed-back in the American nervous system today. The average American is synaptically inhibited. He can't believe in the innocence of a man once he's been accused. He can't believe in guiltlessness even after acquittal."
    Macro stared at Audibon.
    "Apart from the issue of freedom of conscience," Audibon went on passionately, "there's the quanta of Popular Villainism. Literature went through an Industrial Revolution in this country and was transformed from an art-form into a story business. The political thinking was metamorphised the same way. You don't find people weighing political factors and extrapolating for valued judgements. Savanarola died in vain. No, our people turn every political issue into Cops And Robbers ... Boy Meets Girl ... Peter And The Wolf, you should excuse the expression."
    "I'm afraid I don't follow you, Mr. Audibon."
    "Peter And The Wolf. Written by a Russian composer named Tchaikovsky," Audibon explained patiently. "A musico-political joke."
    "But this isn't a question of Russian aliens, Mr. Audibon. It's simply—"
    "It's a question of the write-in habit," Audibon interrupted. "The basic mistake radio made. Radio tried to bring entertainment into the home. Then the problem of audience response arose and we had to encourage the write-in habit for purposes of analysis on a broad consumer basis. From writing in about products, the public has taken to writing in about politics. This is one mistake television will not make. We're not going to bring the show into the home. We're going to bring the home to the show."
    "About these people, Mr. Audibon...."
    "I know them all, Mr. Macro. They're artists, all of them; not necessarily talentwise, but because they have magic. Talent died with Goethe. These people have theatricality and mesmerization, not intelligence. Three quarters of them probably did what they did out of Gestalt ... out of emotions. How can we judge them on the cybernetic level?"
    "Mr. Audibon," Macro said in exasperation. "I'm a business man. Let's get down to cases. Is your network prepared to suspend the employment of these subversives, or must I call the attention of our sponsors' organization to your—"
    "This network has never approved of a blacklist, Mr. Macro, and it never will. If you've come here looking for an official blacklist, you don't know the temper of our organization. However ... I see no reason why the artists investigated by you shouldn't be given plenty of free time to prepare their defense."
    Macro looked hard at Audibon. "Then you're prepared to—"
    "As good citizens, Mr. Macro, we're not prepared to endorse an official blacklist. That's final. However, I suggest you monitor our network shows. If, in the future, you see any of the people on this list associated in any capacity with any of our shows, you can start a rhubarb. But until then, as good citizens, we very politely tell you to go to hell."
    Macro flushed and stared at Audibon. Then, as abruptly, he smiled and nodded. "I think I understand. You have no official blacklist, of course."
    "Of course."
    Macro stood up. As he closed his portfolio and was about to lock it, he hesitated. Then he withdrew a small slip of paper and consulted it.
    "Is there a person named Valentine connected with your network?" he asked.
    "Valentine?" Audibon stiffened. "What Valentine?"
    "A Miss Gabrielle Valentine. A note here says she might be working in your art department."
    "What about Gabrielle Valentine?"
    "My researchers have come across the name quite often. A suspiciously active person. If she's connected with your organization I should advise you to have her—"
    "She doesn't work for us," Audibon said emphatically. "But we'd hire her at any time. I happen to know the young woman rather well."
    "Oh?"
    "I know for a fact that she has clean hands."
    "There seems to be evidence to the contrary, Mr. Audibon." Macro waggled the slip of paper.
    "You know I don't spitball off the cuff, Mr. Macro. Take my word for it. You'll be making a great mistake if you mother-hen any ideas about Gabrielle Valentine."
    Macro looked dubious.
    Audibon smiled dazzlingly. "The lady is my wife," he said.
    "Good Heavens, Mr. Audibon! I never—The idea is ridiculous, of course." Macro crumpled the slip and tossed it into a gilt wastepaper basket.
    Audibon took a breath. "But here's a replacement for the name," he said. "I suggest you touch a piece of litmus paper to a writer named Lennox, Jordan Lennox. My hunch is it'll turn a bright red."
    "Jordan Lennox," Macro repeated, carefully printing the name on a small pad. He locked the portfolio, shook hands and departed. Audibon picked the crumpled wad of paper out of the basket, smoothed it and tried to decipher the symbols and abbreviations following Gabby's name. Then he placed it inside his wallet. His day was made. He picked up his phone.
    "You're back on the payroll, love," he told his secretary. "Keep trying for Grabinett and Bleutcher. Call Program and notify them we're cancelling 'Who He?' as of the first of the year."
    On the way home from Gabby's studio, Lennox took a wide detour and stopped off at the Precinct where he found Fink in a small office that smelled of disinfectant. Fink was doing paper work at a scarred desk and looked more like a bank clerk than ever. Lennox sat down and told his story from Cooper's recognition of the handwriting to Aimee Driscoll's last words the night before. He handed over the page from his gimmick book that contained the hysterical scrawled message. Fink was neither impressed nor unimpressed. He listened carefully, smiling at the wrong times, then bobbed his head.
    "I was pretty sure it was you getting the letters," he said.
    "How?" Lennox blinked. "I didn't know myself."
    "You make the big fuss. You must have known somewhere inside your head."
    "You're quite a psychologist."
    "No. Strictly statistics. I wish I had a nickel for every guy in a jam who won't admit it. They make the big fuss and claim they're worried about somebody else. Turns out they're really stewing about theirselves."
    "I hate like hell to be a statistic, Bob."
    "We all are. There's hundreds of laws in the statute books, but cops depend on one law most of all. The law of averages."
    "Is this an average case?"
    "It's tough."
    "Does any of this stuff I gave you help?"
    "Maybe. We'll check. I like what this Cooper said best."
    "About having seen the writing before?"
    Fink nodded and smiled.
    "Why?"
    "I'm pretty sure someone on your program is writing the letters. That's why I like what this Cooper said best."
    "Someone on the show?"
    "Yeah. Ninety-nine out of a hundred it turns out like that. Someone in the office. Someone in the factory. Someone in the department store. We've been going over payroll vouchers and check endorsements on your program."
    "Law of averages again. And?"
    "We'll see." Fink smiled. "This Cooper is a good friend of yours, huh?"
    "We share an apartment. Why?"
    "How long?"
    "About a year."
    "How long's he been on your program?"
    "He's worked the show since it started. Over nine months. What is all this?"
    "You and this Cooper ever fight?"
    "Now wait a minute, Bob. I'm no fool. If you're headed in that direction, I don't buy any of it. Not Sam."
    "Funny, this Cooper not remembering where he saw the writing."
    "He's got troubles of his own to remember."
    "Sometimes a grudge lasts a long time."
    "What grudge?"
    "You tell me."
    "There's nothing to tell. The whole idea's for laughs."
    "Tough," Fink murmured.
    "Forget Sam, will you! If it has to be someone on the show, maybe it's a stagehand or a cameraman named Knott. Do we have a Knott on the payroll?"
    "No," Fink said. "That's what makes it tough."
    "Can you get me off the hook by Sunday?"
    The office door opened and a swarthy man entered briskly. Lennox saw at once that he was carrying the blue sheets and envelopes of the threatening letters from "Guess Who." They were stained and discolored and had been sprayed with a fixative that made them shine. As Lennox straightened in excitement, Fink spoke.
    "Mr. Salerno," he said, "this is Mr. Lennox. He just figured out he's getting these letters."
    Salerno grinned. Lennox was about to speak when suddenly he heard what Fink had just said. "Mister Salerno," he repeated. "Mister Lennox. That's the code, isn't it? You're warning him to be careful."
    "You see?" Fink said. "It doesn't make any difference if you know. We're protecting ourselves."
    "From me?"
    "Not necessarily." Fink stood up. "Now don't worry. We'll try to get you off the hook by Sunday." He took Lennox to the door and politely closed it in his face.
    Lennox departed, not at all comfortable in his mind, and went home to change. Cooper was there, in slacks and T-shirt, working feverishly at the piano. He had a pencil in his mouth, a sheet of manuscript paper on the music rack, and dozens more scattered around the piano bench. He was working his way painfully through a chord progression while he hummed to himself in the high composer's keen that only dogs can hear.
    "Fink's crazy," Lennox thought, and resolutely buried the suspicion in the deepest crevice of his mind.
    He tip-toed around the apartment. After he changed, he locked the Siamese upstairs in his office where they couldn't distract Cooper. He made fresh coffee and slid a cup against the left side of the music rack so as not to interfere with Cooper's writing hand. He intercepted the cleaning woman (this day was vacuum cleaner day for the living room) and told her to work upstairs first. Exiled from his own office, he got tools from the kitchen and settled down at the table before the garden windows to repair his gimmick book.
    In some primitive cultures it is believed that a man's soul can be contained in an object ... an amulet, a bit of stone or wood, a fetish ... which is carefully concealed by the owner and earnestly sought after by his enemies. Destruction of the object means destruction of the man. Lennox would never admit it, but he felt exactly that way about his gimmick book. That was why he had become so panicky when it was lost and quarreled so unreasonably with Cooper. He spent hours at a time sewing it, mending it with scraps of leather and metal, until it was a patchwork quilt of the original. It never occurred to him that his soul might also be a patchwork of makeshift repairs.
    From tinkering with the notebook, he got to reading it, and presently a forgotten idea caught his attention. He thought about it and the idea took shape. Lennox got a yellow legal pad and soft pencils and began to block out a script, grunting and mumbling softly to himself in the low writer's grumble that only seismographs can record. Working away like that, Cooper and Lennox sounded like a duet between a peanut whistle and a cement mixer.
    For the rest of the morning there was peace in the room, the old kind of peace they hadn't known in the past week. Once Cooper murmured: "Virgil, which sounds better?" He played two indistinguishable phrases and Lennox rumbled appropriately. Once Lennox grunted: "Wolfgang, which sounds better?" He read two indistinguishable phrases and Cooper keened appropriately. This was the secret of their friendship and their deep need for each other.
    Creation is the loneliest work in the world, which is why most artists go stir-crazy. By some miracle of human chemistry, Cooper and Lennox were able to work together. Not only did they have companionship, a rare thing for working artists, but each was able to draw on the other's creative drive and enlarge his own. They never worked so well as when they worked together in the same room.
    At 11:15, Lennox grunted and mumbled his way to the kitchen for more coffee, only to meet Cooper coming out with two cups in his hand. Lennox took one and then forgot why. With his pencil he absently shaded a moustache on Cooper's lip while Sam stood with eyes shut and hummed, unaware of his disfigurement.
    "No!" Lennox exclaimed suddenly. "The whole point of the scene is that the ingénue pivots. More kissed against than kissing."
    Cooper nodded to this gibberish, handed the second cup to Lennox and went back to the piano still nodding like a porcelain mandarin. Lennox returned to his yellow pad. The duet continued.
    At 11:45 they met in the bathroom where Lennox added a goatee to the moustache.
    At 12:30 they met in the storage closet alongside Sam's room where the cigarette cartons and stationery were stashed.
    At 12:55, without a word or a sign to each other, they quit work simultaneously and became aware of themselves and the world around them. They were in the manic mood that always follows intense creative concentration.
    "Good morning," Cooper said. "You're new in this ward, aren't you?"
    "I was here before you," Lennox said in hot tones.
    "My good man, I was here before it was built. My name is Cornerstone."
    "The name is familiar," Lennox mused. "But I can't remember the face."
    "Ach! So. Und vhen did dis antikinetic facial phobia virst manifesdt idself, Mr. Lennox?"
    "I can't remember, Doctor," Lennox answered in a low voice.
    "You can't remember? Tausend Teufel! Vas it at your mutter's breast?"
    "I ... I don't remember."
    "You must remember, Mr. Lennox, or I send you back to dat freud, Dr. Quack."
    "Will you try that line again, please."
    "Oh. Sorry.... To dat quack, Dr. Freud."
    "Wouldn't 'kvack' be more authentic?"
    "Maybe, but I can't feel it, Mr. Sachs. There's a value missing."
    "That's because you've got your dialects mixed. I know Dr. Livingston wouldn't speak low Dutch. I have a talent for never being wrong."
    "Livingston? I thought we were doing Pasteur. Cue, please."
    "You see, Dr. Livingston, bosoms are my problem."
    "Proceed, Mr. Stanley."
    "They ... I know this sounds silly ... but they all look alike. And there's always two. Two! Two! Two! Why can't there ever be an odd number? Sometimes I think I'll go mad, do you hear? Mad! Mad! Mad!"
    "Steady on, old man.... (Pipe business).... Pity you haven't read my monograph on Trichinopoly ashes and busts. I can distinguish twenty-four varieties by their action."
    "Amazing!"
    "Elementary. There's the plainbeat bust, the backfall bust, the double backfall, the springer, the shaked elevation, the turn, the battery, the double relish...."
    "Sam!" Lennox interrupted in delight. "Where did you find those ever-lovin' words?"