Atlas Shrugged (212 page)

Three floors of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel had been evacuated and transformed into an armed camp. Guards with machine guns stood at every turn of the long, velvet-carpeted corridors. Sentinels with bayonets stood on the landings of the fire-stairways. The elevator doors of the fifty-ninth, sixtieth and sixty-first floors were padlocked; a single door and one elevator were left as sole means of access, guarded by soldiers in full battle regalia. Peculiar-looking men loitered in the lobbies, restaurants and shops of the ground floor: their clothes were too new and too expensive, in unsuccessful imitation of the hotel’s usual patrons, a camouflage impaired by the fact that the clothes were badly fitted to their wearers’ husky figures and were further distorted by bulges in places where the garments of businessmen have no cause to bulge, but the garments of gunmen have. Groups of guards with Tommy guns were posted at every entrance and exit of the hotel, as well as at strategic windows of the adjoining streets.

In the center of this camp, on the sixtieth floor, in what was known as the royal suite of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, amidst satin drapes, crystal candelabra and sculptured garlands of flowers, John Gait, dressed in slacks and shirt, sat in a brocaded armchair, one leg stretched out on a velvet hassock, his hands crossed behind his head, looking at the ceiling.

This was the posture in which Mr. Thompson found him, when the four guards, who had stood outside the door of the royal suite since five A.M., opened it at eleven A.M. to admit Mr. Thompson, and locked it again.

Mr. Thompson experienced a brief flash of uneasiness when the click of the lock cut off his escape and left him alone with the prisoner. But he remembered the newspaper headlines and the radio voices, which had been announcing to the country since dawn: “John Galt is found!—John Gait is in New York!-John Galt has joined the people’s cause!—John Galt is in conference with the country’s leaders, working for a speedy solution of all our problems!”—and he made himself feel that he believed it.

“Well, well, well!” he said brightly, marching up to the armchair. “So you’re the young fellow who’s started all the trouble—Oh,” he said suddenly, as he got a closer look at the dark green eyes watching him. “Well, I ... I’m tickled pink to meet you, Mr. Galt, just tickled pink.” He added, “I’m Mr. Thompson, you know.”

“How do you do,” said Galt.

Mr. Thompson thudded down on a chair, the brusqueness of the movement suggesting a cheerily businesslike attitude. “Now don’t go imagining that you’re under arrest or some such nonsense.” He pointed at the room. “This is no jail, as you can see. You can see that we’ll treat you right. You’re a big person, a very big person—and we know it. Just make yourself at home. Ask for anything you please. Fire any flunky that doesn’t obey you. And if you take a dislike to any of the army boys outside, just breathe the word—and we’ll send another one to replace him.”

He paused expectantly. He received no answer.

“The only reason we brought you here is just that we wanted to talk to you. We wouldn’t have done it this way, but you left us no choice. You kept hiding. And all we wanted was a chance to tell you that you got us all wrong.”

He spread his hands out, palms up, with a disarming smile. Galt’s eyes were watching him, without answer.

“That was some speech you made. Boy, are you an orator! You’ve done something to the country—I don’t know what or why, but you have. People seem to want something you’ve got. But you thought we’d be dead set against it? That’s where you’re wrong. We’re not. Personally, I think there was plenty in that speech that made sense. Yes, sir, I do. Of course, I don’t agree with every word you said—but what the hell, you don’t expect us to agree with everything, do you? Differences of opinion—that’s what makes horse racing. Me, I’m always willing to change my mind. I’m open to any argument.”

He leaned forward invitingly. He obtained no answer.

“The world is in a hell of a mess. Just as you said. There, I agree with you. We have a point in common. We can start from that. Something’s got to be done about it. All I wanted was—Look,” he cried suddenly, “why don’t you let me talk to you?”

“You are talking to me.”

“I ... well, that is ... well, you know what I mean.”

“Fully.”

“Well? ... Well, what have you got to say?”

“Nothing.”

.“Huh?!”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, come now!”

“I didn’t seek to talk to you.”

“But ... but look! ... we have things to discuss!”

.“I haven’t.”

“Look,” said Mr. Thompson, after a pause, “you’re a man of action. A practical man. Boy, are you a practical man! Whatever else I don’t quite get about you, I’m sure of that. Now aren’t you?”

“Practical? Yes.”

“Well, so am I. We can talk straight. We can put our cards on the table. Whatever it is you’re after, I’m offering you a deal.”

“I’m always open to a deal.”

“I knew it!” cried Mr. Thompson triumphantly, slamming his fist down on his own knee. “I told them so—all those fool intellectual theorizers, like Wesley!”

“I’m always open to a deal—with anyone who has a value to offer me.”

Mr. Thompson could not tell what made him miss a beat before he answered, “Well, write your own ticket, brother! Write your own ticket!”

“What have you got to offer me?”

“Why—anything.”

“Such as?”

“Anything you name. Have you heard our short-wave broadcasts to you?”

“Yes.”

“We said we’ll meet your terms, any terms. We meant it.”

“Have you heard me say on the radio that I have no terms to bargain about? I meant it.”

“Oh, but look, you misunderstood us! You thought we’d fight you. But we won’t. We’re not that rigid. We’re willing to consider any idea. Why didn’t you answer our calls and come to a conference?”

“Why should I?”

“Because ... because we wanted to speak to you in the name of the country.”

“I don’t recognize your right to speak in the name of the country.”

“Now look here, I’m not used to ... Well, okay, won’t you just give me a hearing? Won’t you listen?”

“I’m listening.”

“The country is in a terrible state. People are starving and giving up, the economy is falling to pieces, nobody is producing any longer. We don’t know what to do about it. You do. You know how to make things work. Okay, we’re ready to give in. We want you to tell us what to do.”

“I told you what to do.”

“What?”

“Get out of the way.”

“That’s impossible! That’s fantastic! That’s out of the question!”

“You see? I told you we had nothing to discuss.”

“Now, wait! Wait! Don’t go to extremes! There’s always a middle ground. You can’t have everything. We aren’t ... people aren’t ready for it. You can’t expect us to ditch the machinery of State. We’ve got to preserve the system. But we’re willing to amend it. We’ll modify it any way you wish. We’re not stubborn, theoretical dogma-lists—we’ re flexible. We’ll do anything you say. We’ll give you a free hand. We’ll co-operate. We’ll compromise. We’ll split fifty-fifty. We’ll keep the sphere of politics and give you total power over the sphere of economics. We’ll turn the production of the country over to you, we’ll make you a present of the entire economy. You’ll run it any way you wish, you’ll give the orders, you’ll issue the directives—and you’ll have the organized power of the State at your command to enforce your decisions. We’ll stand ready to obey you, all of us, from me on down. In the field of production, we’ll do whatever you say. You’ll be—you’ll be the Economic Dictator of the nation!”

Galt burst out laughing.

It was the simple amusement of the laughter that shocked Mr. Thompson. “What’s the matter with you?”

“So that’s your idea of a compromise, is it?”

“What’s the ... ? Don’t sit there grinning like that! ... I don’t think you understood me. I’m offering you
Wesley Mouch’s
job—and there’s nothing bigger that anyone could offer you! ... You’ll be free to do anything you wish. If you don’t like controls—repeal them. If you want higher profits and lower wages—decree them. If you want special privileges for the big tycoons—grant them. If you don’t like labor unions—dissolve them. If you want a free economy—order people to be free! Play it any way you please. But get things going. Get the country organized. Make people work again. Make them produce. Bring back your own men—the men of brains. Lead us to a peaceful, scientific, industrial age and to prosperity.”

“At the point of a gun?”

“Now look, I ... Now what’s so damn funny about it?”

“Will you tell me just one thing: if you’re able to pretend that you haven’t heard a word I said on the radio, what makes you think I’d be willing to pretend that I haven’t said it?”

“I don’t know what you mean! I—”

“Skip it. It was just a rhetorical question. The first part of it answers the second.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t play your kind of games, brother—if you want a translation.”

“Do you mean that you’re refusing my offer?”

“I am.”

“But why?”

“It took me three hours on the radio to tell you why.”

“Oh, that’s just theory! I’m talking business. I’m offering you the greatest job in the world. Will you tell me what’s wrong with it?”

“What I told you, in three hours, was that it won’t work.”

“You can make it work.”

“How?”

Mr. Thompson spread his hands out. “I don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t come to you. It’s for you to figure out. You’re the industrial genius. You can solve anything.”

“I said it can’t be done.”

“You
could do it.”

“How?”

“Somehow.” He heard Galt’s chuckle, and added, “Why not? Just tell me why not?”

“Okay, I’ll tell you. You want me to be the Economic Dictator?”

“Yes!”

“And you’ll obey any order I give?”

“Implicitly!”

“Then start by abolishing all income taxes.”

“Oh, no!” screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. “We couldn’t do that! That’s ... that’s not the field of production. That’s the field of distribution. How would we pay government employees?”

“Fire your government employees.”

“Oh, no!
That’s
politics! That’s not economics! You can’t interfere with politics! You can’t have everything!”

Galt crossed his legs on the hassock, stretching himself more comfortably in the brocaded armchair. “Want to continue the discussion? Or do you get the point?”

“I only—” He stopped.

“Are you satisfied that I got the point?”

“Look,” said Mr. Thompson placatingly, resuming the edge of his seat. “I don’t want to argue. I’m no good at debates. I’m a man of action. Time is short. All I know is that you’ve got a mind. Just the sort of mind we need. You can do anything. You could make things work if you
wanted
to.”

“All right, put it your own way: I don’t want to. I don’t want to be an Economic Dictator, not even long enough to issue that order for people to be free—which any rational human being would throw back in my face, because he’d know that his rights are not to be held, given or received by your permission or mine.”

“Tell me,” said Mr. Thompson, looking at him reflectively, “what is it you’re after?”

“I told you on the radio.”

“I don’t get it. You said that you’re out for your own selfish interest -and that, I can understand. But what can you possibly want in the future that you couldn’t get right now, from us, handed down to you on a platter? I thought you were an egoist—and a practical man. I offer you a blank check on anything you wish—and you tell me that you don’t want it. Why?”

“Because there are no funds behind your blank check.”

“Because you have no value to offer me.”

“I can offer you anything you can ask. Just name it.”

“You name it.”

“Well, you talked a lot about wealth. If it’s money that you want—you couldn’t make in three lifetimes what I can hand over to you in a minute, this minute, cash on the barrel. Want a billion dollars—a cool, neat billion dollars?”

“Which
I’ll
have to produce, for you to give me?”

“No, I mean straight out of the public treasury, in fresh, new bills ... or ... or even in gold, if you prefer.”

“What will it buy me?”

“Oh, look, when the country gets back on its feet—”

“When
I
put it back on its feet?”

“Well, if what you want is to run things your own way, if it’s power that you’re after, I’ll guarantee you that every man, woman and child in this country will obey your orders and do whatever you wish.”

“After
I
teach them to do it?”

“If you want anything for your own gang—for all those men who’ve disappeared—jobs, positions, authority, tax exemptions, any special favor at all—just name it and they’ll get it.”

“After
I
bring them back?”

“Well, what on earth
do
you want?”

“What on earth do I need
you
for?”

“Huh?”

“What have you got to offer me that I couldn’t get without you?”

There was a different look in Mr. Thompson’s eyes when he drew back, as if cornered, yet looked straight at Galt for the first time and said slowly, “Without me, you couldn’t get out of this room, right now.”

Galt smiled. “True.”

“You wouldn’t be able to produce anything. You could be left here to starve.”

“True.”

“Well, don’t you see?” The loudness of homey joviality came back into Mr. Thompson’s voice, as if the hint given and received were now to be safely evaded by means of humor. “What I’ve got to offer you is your life.”

“It’s not yours to offer, Mr. Thompson,” said Galt softly.