Easy and Hard Ways Out (29 page)

Regarding the “Pythagoras” situation: this individual is believed to be the same person who wrote the anonymous letter accusing H. Brank. In a short while, personality profiles of all company personnel will be fed to
EPICAC
for identification of likely suspects. The program for this analysis is being written by V. Fish and N. Klapholtz.

Very truly yours,

S. Brine               

I KNOW YOUR LANGUAGE WELL

Surprisingly, about halfway there, Kinsella said, “This is the worst part of all, the walking. I can't stand the walking.”

Buchfarer liked him much better then. It was peculiar how people crystallized in your mind; he'd always filed Kinsella under “wise-aleck kid,” just as Chaplin was “gung-ho career man,” and Reed, “opportunist.” But here Kinsella hated the walking. Probably because like Buchfarer, like all of them, he was drowning in adrenalin just now, an anxious, eager, frightened boy. The F24BZs stood ready near the squadron line, each sixty-six feet long and seventeen feet high, aggressively bristling with rockets, bombs, and napalm tanks, sixty-nine thousand pounds of intimidating technological triumph.

Buchfarer found his plane and circled it, checking for leaks, then climbed up into the cockpit as a lineman immediately clambered alongside and began to strap him in.

“How're you this evening, Captain?” asked the lineman.

“Oh, I'm wonderful,” said Buchfarer. “Can't think of anything I'd rather be doing.”

He began to hum to himself as the lineman helped fit the hard hat on his head. Old rock-and-roll songs mostly, the slow ones, the ones he used to dance to in high school and college. Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, the Platters. The lineman wiped off his visor, patted him on the helmet, said something. Buchfarer hummed.

He checked the ashtray to make sure it was empty. Too often he'd had the plane upside down only to be showered with ashes from the loony who'd been there before him. Smoking was the least of the crazy things guys did in planes. Mapes, in the Jolly Rogers squadron, actually carried a light machine gun with him in the hope that he'd be shot down and could get to use it. Insufficient feelings of participation, thought Buchfarer. The psychiatric texts must have a name for it. The Auxiliary Power Unit was plugged into his craft, and on his instrument panel a dozen meter needles trembled gently in their bearings, a hundred red eyes winked dully open. The monster had awakened.

A low whine overwhelmed Buchfarer's humming as the Start Unit was plugged in to assist the jet engines. Buchfarer brought his power lever around the horn, and the whine bloomed into an intense, windy howl. Bloated cylinders of flame poured out the back, and the exhaust-gas temperature gauge rose steadily. He saw the APU rolled back from Chaplin's craft, saw Chaplin begin to slowly taxi out toward the duty runway.

“And that concludes our pre-game show for today,” he said into his microphone as he prepared to follow.

Actually, he continued his pre-flight tests even as he was taxiing, his feet lightly tapping the brakes, his fingers flicking up one guarded switch after another. He continued to hum, his mind functioning on four levels at once. Fire detection circuit? O.K. EGT warning light? O.K. AC power failure light? O.K. He thought of being taken prisoner, marched for days without food or water by North Vietnamese soldiers who needed dental work and who prodded him in the ribs with AK47s. Engine guide vane anti-ice switch? O.K. Standby instrument inverter switch? O.K. Finally he is marched through a disgusting village made of mud and straw huts where, weak and trembling, he is brought before a dapper, Richard Loo—type interrogator.

“Re-lax, Captain,” says Loo, offering a box of Whitman Samplers.

“You—you—you speak English,” stammers Buchfarer, pushing away the box. “Sorry, I prefer Barricini's.”

“Oh, yes,” says Loo. “I know your language well.”

“I'd forgotten,” says Buchfarer, “you went to UCLA before the war.”

“CCNY,” says Loo. “I felt they were stronger in the humanities, and besides, there was the tuition problem.”

“My name is Mitchell Buchfarer. Captain, U.S. Air Force, Serial—”

“Let us skip the amenities,” says Loo. “You are in a very difficult position, Captain.”

“Geneva Convention,” says Buchfarer.

“We missed that one,” says Loo.

“Military code between warring nations.”

“Your nation is not at war. Technically, you are a spy. I could have you shot. Now how do you like those apples, Yank?”

Buchfarer feels the Air Force training slipping away, the hysteria begin to rise in his throat. “Listen, wait a minute, wait. I used to know guys from CCNY. I—”

“Just sign this paper,” says Loo, producing a document written in Vietnamese. “It's merely a statement of fact, nothing more. It just says you were bombing hospitals and orphanages, but now you've seen the error of your ways and wish to repent. A harmless placebo, obviously mere propaganda. Sign this, and then we can notify your parents and wife that you're safe and sound. How is Michelle, by the way?”

Altimeter check? O.K. IFF circuits? O.K. Fire and overhead warning lights? O.K. That's why they wore no rings, carried no pictures of relatives, no indication of religion. The enemy interrogators knew everything already, even names of buddies back home; no sense giving them any more.

Kinsella's voice filled his headphones. “I thought I saw a flicker in the ECM checkout. How about a backup run-through on your end?”

“Okay,” said Buchfarer. “I'll get right on it.”

He flicked the switch that activated a redundant, computer-controlled test procedure on the electronic countermeasures system. A green light came on.

“Checks out fine here.”

“Okay,” said Kinsella. “It must be just a loose bulb or something.”

“I hope that's all that's loose,” said Buchfarer.

They approached the duty runways. Buchfarer thought of his friend Oringer, captured three months before. Where was he now? What terrible degradation and suffering was he enduring? In real life there'd be no Whitman Samplers.

“Tower, this is Dragon-one,” said Chaplin's voice in his headphones. “Taxi two for takeoff.”

“Roger, Dragon-one, taxi duty runway three. Wind one-four-zero degrees, eight knots. Altimeter, three-zero-niner-two, steady. Time, zero-two-one-three and three-quarters. And runway temperature seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit. You're cleared to taxi. Call for takeoff.”

“Dragon-one, copy.”

Buchfarer gripped his power lever in his left hand and briefly tested his afterburners. The jets screamed like wounded prehistoric behemoths.

“Dragon-two, this is Dragon-one. Ready to go?”

“Okay,” said Buchfarer, “as well as Roger.”

He heard Kinsella snicker in the intercom, listened as Chaplin received takeoff clearance, and watched as his plane sailed smoothly down the runway. In the distance, he saw it lift off and leave a thin, white scar in the night. I've lost the point of all this, Buchfarer thought, but even as he thought it, the old feelings of incalculable power at his fingertips began to get the better of him—the singing, ecstatic feeling of being able to hurtle through the air twice as fast as sound, the reasons he flew in the first place, and bore the consequences, the reasons any of them did. He
liked
it, loved it,
loved
to fly. The psychiatric texts must have a name for it, he thought, and heard the tower officer say, “You're cleared for takeoff, Dragon-two.”

Buchfarer resumed his humming. The Del Satins, the Dubs, the Penguins. Briefly, incongruously, thoughts of his father intruded (they'd become more frequent lately, more disturbing). Seeing a Cardinal game together the night the old man got laid off from McDonnell-Douglas, the seats way back in right field, the crushed, speechless ride home afterward. The old man's funeral, the insouciant gravediggers sitting cross-legged on the pile of dirt, five people total attendance, three from Martin Marietta, no tears. His father giving him the standard death explanation at age five (Adam's apple bobbing, breathing): God liked Mommy so much that he took her up to heaven, etc., etc. And Mitch asking whether she'd be back by the evening, and to make sure to tell her to kiss him goodnight. And earlier still, dimly, age two, a new fire engine, summer, Daddy pushing it and Mitch ringing the bell, over and over, ringing the …

… fucking bell. The engines whistled and the ground began to roll up under him. In the distance, matchstick shadow-trees began to move together and blur. He passed the runway marker indicating 3,000 feet left. The air speed indicator read 90 knots. Inexorable forces of physics jammed him back in his seat, the engines shrieked with manic power. Two thousand feet remaining, the scenery was gone except for the blackness. The air speed indicator jerked past 140 knots. Buchfarer's right hand pulled the stick backward, his left reached for the lever that would retract the landing gear. He gained altitude rapidly, climbing at a steep, confident angle.

I'm up, he telepathed his wife, when he rendezvoused with Chaplin several moments later. Above, a narrow rind of moon gave off a poisonous, metallic sheen.

AUERBACH LABORATORIES

Inter-Office Memorandum
12/10/66

From: S. Brine

To: File

Subject: Computer suspect identification

After processing the multiple choice forms of the KronkenSchvoch personality tests administered at hiring to all Labs personnel,
EPICAC
has identified two suspects in the “Pythagoras” anonymous letter case. The suspects are H. Ardway and S. Rupp.
IBM
has been called to examine the computer to locate the malfunction.

A PETITION IS JUST A MOB ON PAPER

a. The Vanishing American

They were supposed to meet in the Microwave lab at four o'clock, and LoParino had not shown up. Brank had looked in the Electronics lab; except for that brief encounter with Coletti, no one had seen him since the morning. Brank had dialed LoParino's home phone; no one answered. Brank had paged LoParino (his first legitimate page in half a year); of course, no one responded. LoParino was gone.

Brank tried to blank out his mind on the way to LoParino's apartment. No point in conjecturing; with LoParino all possibilities were admissible. The facts were that he had the other half of the petition, the other half of the signatures, and more than half of the will power to go through with the entire business. Sooner or later, Brank reasoned, LoParino would get back to his apartment, or his wife would, or somebody there would know where he was. Or perhaps he was there already and not answering the phone. Or the phone company had discovered his tapping into his neighbor's line and disconnected him. All possibilities.

Brank avoided the Expressway, instead took the Northern State Parkway into Queens, switching frequently to side roads to move around stalled traffic, the snow flurries bothering him almost as much as his failure to obtain Brundage's signature. In Queens, he drove through the streets for fifteen minutes before coming to an old apartment building in Jackson Heights. He parked two blocks away, walked back (Hey, the snow was sticking!), took a squealing elevator to the fourth floor. Inside, a sign: Maximum capacity, 2800 lbs., Insp. by J. Roth, July, 1966. What if J. Roth were an idiot, thought Brank. What if the elevator cables were even now half sheared away, stretching, reduced to a few screeching strands? What if J. Roth had marital troubles, or was a dope addict, or was bribed or … Brank bounded out of the car, breathless, glad to escape in one piece after Roth's insidious attempt on his life.

The hall tiles were vinyl asbestos, gray; a large paper bag and some newspapers lay crumpled in a corner;
Johnny M. eats
—something half-erased scrawled in wide blue letters on one wall. Brank rang LoParino's bell (no answer), pounded feverishly the printed L
O
P
ARINO
under the lookout hole (no answer). LoParino was not at home or not answering. Brank took the stairs down to the lobby, avoided the pools of urine, the condoms, the feces, rang the bell at a door marked “Superintendent,” and asked the short, wiry, mustachioed man who answered if he knew LoParino's whereabouts.

“No sair,” said the super, a Hungarian specially selected by the management for his inability to communicate. “No say. Just him one second here, next he taking, mmm, fairniture down in elevator, few things, his wife too. Why, you know him?”

“Apparently not very well,” said Brank.

“I tell you, we got every type this building, Jewish, colored, I like every wan, get along every wan. But him, not only he breaking lease but in basement he fool around, he touch, mmm, electric, phone, everything he should know better. Landlord already he getting lawyers. Your friend be in plenty warm water.”

“I don't think he's my friend anymore,” said Brank.

“Bestard,” said the super. “I get along every kind, but he not tip nothing, thet wan. I tell landlord, no let micks and kikes in building.”

“He's a guinea,” corrected Brank as the super abruptly closed the door.

Brank walked through the lobby and out into the snow. Not tip nothing, thet wan, he thought. But in some manner, they'd managed to get to him, scared him or bought him; either way, he was gone. Two things occurred to Brank simultaneously: that the Labs was prepared to go to considerable lengths to suppress problems, and that, with LoParino not there, there was no longer any real need to persevere.

He got back to his car, started it (to his surprise) rather easily. He felt aimless and irresponsible, a bit lightheaded. He could go home now. After all, he'd done
his
part. Tried everything any reasonable person could. He wondered what they had done to LoParino. Probably offered him something, rather than attempted to scare him. You couldn't scare a crazy person. And the offer must have been instant, and huge, and LoParino hadn't even thought about it, had snapped it up. Brank won't carry this through on his own, he most likely had told them. And then they probably all sniggered and shook hands, and someone must've said, “I'll bet he'll be surprised as hell,” and a great roar of laughter would've followed.