Billion-Dollar Brain (19 page)

The prowl-car boys handed me downstairs and gave me the hands-flat-against-the-roof-of-the-car routine while they frisked me. I stared into the blinding glare of the revolving light. Behind me I heard Harvey’s voice say, ‘Hello, Bernie,’ and the
voice of the detective said, ‘Hi, Harv.’ They were both being very relaxed. A bumper sticker on the police car said, ‘Your safety: our business.’

Harvey said, ‘This is one of our boys, Bernie. The General wants me to send him to New York tonight.’

The cop finished frisking me and said, ‘Get in the car.’

The detective said, ‘If the General’s gonna be responsible for him…see I might wanna see him again.’

‘Sure sure sure,’ said Harvey. ‘Listen, I’ve been with him for nearly three hours, Bern.’

‘OK,’ said the detective. ‘But you are kinda running up a backlog in my favour account.’

‘Yeah, I know, Bernie. I’ll talk to the General ’bout that.’

‘Do that,’ said the detective. I was glad that it was so near election time. He shouted to the two cops to turn me over to Harvey.

‘Come back and finish your frijoles,’ said Harvey. ‘That’s how people get indigestion, jumping around like that in the middle of the meal.’

‘It isn’t indigestion I’m frightened of,’ I said.

Hey diddle dinkety, poppety, pet, The merchants of London they wear scarlet, Silk in the collar and gold in the hem, So merrily march the merchant men.

NURSERY RHYME

Five o’clock in the morning. Manhattan was blue with cold. In the hot lushness of southern Texas it had been easy to imagine that summer had arrived, but thirty seconds in New York City corrected that illusion. I was moving through midtown Manhattan in General Midwinter’s chauffeur-driven Cadillac—the one with leopard-skin seats. Five o’clock is the top dead centre of the Manhattan night. Just for one hour the city is inert. The hearses have been brought up to the doors of the city hospitals but they haven’t yet begun to load. The last cinema on Forty-Second Street has closed and even the billiard rooms have racked the cues and shut down. The cabs have vanished but the office cleaners haven’t appeared. The fancy restaurants are closed but the coffee counters aren’t open. The last wino has curled into newspaper and stretched out on the last bench in Battery Park. Down in Washington Produce Market they are huddled round the oil-drum fires.
The news desks have released their radio cars, it’s so cold even muggers have stayed at home, to the regret of patrolmen longing to thaw their ears in the precinct house. The city’s seventy thousand wild cats have pounced upon pigeons in Riverside Park or Norwegian wharf rats in Washington Market and now they too are asleep under the long line of still cars. Even the Spanish-speaking radio stations are subdued. The only movement is compressed steam roaring along at three hundred miles an hour under the roadways, escaping now and again with a spectral puff, and the shuffle of wet newspapers as far as the eye can see down the long, long streets to the bloodshot dawn.

The car followed Broadway all the way to Wall Street, stopping outside a glass cliff that reflected the smaller buildings as though they were trapped inside it. A thin, shirtless man with a pistol and squeaky shoes unlocked the glass door, relocked it and led the way to a bank of lifts that were labelled ‘Express 41 to 50 only’. The man with the pistol chewed gum meditatively and spoke quietly as people do at night. ‘It’s wonderful ain’t it,’ he said. ‘Modern Science.’ He pushed the lift button for the third time.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s just a matter of time before the machines are pressing buttons to call people.’

He repeated that to himself as the doors closed him out of sight. The lift moved fast enough to make my ears pop and the numbers flicked like Bingo results. It arrived with a ding. A man stood
there in white trousers and a sweat shirt that said ‘Midwinter Mining Athletic Team’ across the front of it. ‘S’way feller,’ he said, and walked down the corridor making cracking noises by flicking a white towel against the air. At the end of the corridor there was a gymnasium. In the exact centre of it, cycling methodically, was General Midwinter. ‘Come here boy,’ he called. He was wearing a large pair of white shorts, a white singlet and white cotton gloves. ‘You made good time.’ He said it as if speaking to a packing case, pleased by the efficiency of his organization and transport. ‘I hear you felt the strain a little on my Active Course.’ He looked at me and winked. ‘I’m cycling from New York to Houston,’ he said.

‘Five and three-quarters,’ said the man from the Midwinter Mining Athletic Team. Midwinter pedalled in silence for a moment or two, then he said, ‘Keep yourself fit boy. Healthy mind in a healthy body. Get rid of that surplus weight.’

‘I’m happy the way I am,’ I said. Midwinter stared at his handlebars. ‘Self-indulgence goes hand in hand with titillation and pornography. Makes a country soft. These are weapons of Communism.’ His forehead was moist with his exertions.

‘The Russians hate pornography,’ I said.

‘For themselves,’ said Midwinter. He was puffing a little now. ‘For themselves,’ he said again and waggled a finger at me. It was about this time that I realized that Midwinter’s winks were nervous
twitches. He said, ‘They used to build ships of wood and men of iron. Now they build ships of iron and men of wood.’

‘The Russians?’

‘No, not the Russians,’ said Midwinter.

The man in the athletic-team vest said, ‘Six miles exactly, General Midwinter.’ Midwinter climbed off the exercise machine, careful not to give away an extra inch. He reached behind him for a towel without looking to see if it was there. The man in the athletic-team vest made sure it was there, then he put a rubber glove over Midwinter’s cotton-clad false hand. Midwinter walked across to the locker room and disappeared into the showers. There was a noise of the water and Midwinter’s loud voice said, ‘There are only two sorts of mind left today. Either you are going to have everything done for you by the Government, like you are some sort of invalid. Either you are going to have everything from diapers to Derbys made in some state factory and your body’ll wind up on some dump where they make fertilizer…’

I said, ‘Spending my afterlife as fertilizer is the least of my problems.’ Either Midwinter didn’t hear or didn’t choose to. His voice went on, ‘…or you believe that everyone is free to fight for what he believes is right.’ The sound of the water stopped but Midwinter didn’t quieten his voice. ‘That’s what I believe. Luckily there’s an awakening in this country of ours and a lot of other people are declaring that’s what they believe too.’
There was a silence, and when Midwinter appeared again he was in a white bath-robe. He stripped the rubber glove from his cotton-clad hand with a sucking sound, and threw it to the floor.

‘I’m interested in facts,’ Midwinter said.

‘Are you? Not many people are nowadays.’

Midwinter spoke in a soft voice as though he was cutting me in on a very special deal. ‘A Gallup Poll found that eighty-one per cent of Americans preferred nuclear war to Communism. In Britain only twenty-one per cent felt that way. Red-blooded Americans are rallying to anti-Communist leaders; no time now for internal arguments. The USA must double its spending on armaments. We must get an effective military satellite into orbit and the Russkies had better know we’ll use it—we mustn’t fritter away the lead as we did with the atomic bomb—
we must double our expenditure right away.
’ He looked at me and did that nervous twitch with his eye. ‘Got me?’

‘I get you,’ I said. ‘It’s that same America that broke away from George the Third because sixty thousand pounds was too much to pay towards the cost of the military. But even if what you suggest is a good idea, won’t the USSR just go ahead and double her arms budget too?’

Midwinter patted me on the arm. ‘Maybe. But we spend ten per cent of our gross national product at present. We could double that without suffering; but the USSR already spends twenty per cent of her gross national product. If she doubles
that, boy, she will crack. Get me: she’ll crack. Europe’s got to stop hiding behind Uncle Sam’s nuclear power. Get some of those teddy boys into uniform; get tough. Close ranks, hit them hard. Get me?’

‘From where I’m sitting it sounds dangerous,’ I said.

‘It is dangerous,’ said Midwinter. ‘Between 1945 and 1950 the Reds expanded at the rate of sixty square miles per hour. Retreat brings the threat of war closer because finally we’re going to hit them, and I say the sooner the better.’

I said, ‘I’m as keen on facts as you are, but facts are no substitute for intelligence. You think that the best way to contribute to a dangerous situation is to raise a private army out of your profits on cans of oil and beans, frozen orange juice and advertising, and to operate your own undeclared war against the Russians.’

He waved his good hand in the air; the large emerald ring flashed in the cold morning light. ‘That’s right son. Khrushchev once said that he would support all interior wars against colonialism because he said quote they are in the nature of popular uprisings unquote. Well that’s what I’m going to do in the territory the Reds occupy. Get me?’

I said, ‘That’s the sort of decision only governments should make.’

‘I believe that a man is free to fight for what he believes is right.’ Midwinter’s eye twitched again.

‘Perhaps he is,’ I said. ‘But it’s not you that does the fighting. It’s poor little sods like Harvey Newbegin.’

‘Ease down son,’ said Midwinter. ‘You’re on rich mixture.’

I looked at Midwinter and regretted trying to argue with him. I was weary of war and sick of hate. I was tired, and frightened of Midwinter because he wasn’t tired. He was brave and powerful and determined. Politics were simple black- and-white toughness—like a TV Western—and diplomacy was just a matter of demonstrating that toughness. Midwinter was formidable, he moved like a flyweight levitated by his confidence, he had all the brains that money could buy and he didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know that plenty of Americans were marching behind him with sidedrum, fife and nuclear big stick. But a good agent should have a fast brain and a slow mouth, so I took it slowly. I said, ‘Is this your way of protecting America, employing second-rate hoodlums in Riga? Subsidizing violence and crime in the USSR? All that does is strengthen police and governmental power there.’

‘I’m talking about…’ Midwinter said in a loud voice, but this time my voice carried through.

‘OK. Inside America you are doing even more to assist the Russians. You spread false accusations and false fears through the land. You smear your Congress. You smear your Supreme Court. You even smear the Presidency. What you don’t like
about Communism is that you’re not giving the orders. Well I prefer America with ballot boxes and I prefer my orders to come out of a face instead of a telephone. You can’t look a telephone in the eyes to see if it’s lying.’

I turned away from them and the sole survivor of the Midwinter Mining Athletic Team stared at me.

Midwinter moved fast. His good hand clenched my arm. ‘You’ll stay,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You’ll hear me out.’ I pulled away from him, but the big man in the sweat shirt put himself between me and the door. ‘Tell him, Caroni,’ said Midwinter. ‘Tell him he’s going nowhere till he hears me out.’ We stared at each other.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Now let go of my arm, you’re creasing my only good suit.’

‘You’re tired,’ said Midwinter. ‘You’re on edge.’ His face moved from phase one: threat, to phase two: conciliation. ‘Caroni,’ he shouted, ‘get this feller a winter-weight suit, shoes, shirt and stuff. Take him along to my shower. And Caroni, give him a work-out. He’s been on a plane all night. Get him spruce. We’ll have breakfast an hour from now.’

‘OK General,’ said Caroni without expression.

Midwinter said, ‘I’ll stay here, Caroni. I’ll do another three miles on the machine. That’ll bring me to the Tennessee State line.’

I had a shower and Caroni put me on a slab and punched hell out of my surplus fats while explaining some of the finer points of coronary heart disease. A suit—Dacron and worsted herringbone—
came along as if by magic in one of those blue Brooks Brothers’ boxes. By the time I was ushered up into Midwinter’s private apartment at the top of his office block, I looked like I’d come to sell him insurance.

There was a table set with Scandinavian silverware and bright yellow linen. Unlike his uptown mansion this apartment was full of stainless steel, modern abstract paintings and the sort of chairs that have to be designed by architects. Midwinter was sitting under a Mathieu in a strange wiry throne that made him look like an actor in a bad film about space ships. He had a pair of 10 × 50s glued to his face and was staring out of the window.

‘Know what I’m watching?’ he said. From here the view was magnificent: there was the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and, scarcely visible in the mist, the tip of Staten. The waves of the bay were cold and grey and each one was flecked with dirty spume. Half a dozen tugs lurched towards the Hudson River and the Staten Island ferry was beginning to pack the commuters tight.

‘One of the big boats coming in?’ I asked.

‘I’m watching hawks, three foot across, peregrine falcons; they eat small birds.’ He put the binoculars down. ‘They live in those ornamented buildings. Gothic church towers they like especially. I watch them hunting most mornings. Real speed. Real style.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Say…’ he said suddenly very loud. ‘That suit looks great. Did Caroni get that for you?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Well I’ll have him get me one just the same.’

‘Look, Mr Midwinter,’ I said, ‘I appreciate compliments from rich busy men, especially insincere ones because they don’t have to butter up anyone if they don’t want to. But sometimes it makes me uneasy, so if it’s all the same to you I’d rather hear what you want right now.’

‘You are a direct young man,’ said Midwinter. ‘I like that. Americans like a little preamble before business. A little how’s-your-lovely-wife-and-beautiful-children—before soliciting the order. You British don’t do that, huh?’

‘I wouldn’t want to mislead you, Mr Midwinter,’ I said; ‘a lot of them do.’

Midwinter put the binoculars on the table and poured coffee for both of us. He was well into the scrambled eggs on toast before he spoke again and then it was only to inquire if I was enjoying it. The last morsel disappeared and Midwinter fidgeted with his lips and patted them with a napkin while staring at me. He said, ‘Your friend Harvey Newbegin has deserted.’

‘Deserted?’

‘Deserted.’

‘With my vocabulary you only desert from armies. Do you mean he has left your employ?’

‘I mean he has left the country.’ He watched me carefully. ‘Surprised eh? I had his sweet little wife on the phone during the night. He went across the border—the Mexican border—right after he left
you last night. We figure he’s going over to the Russians.’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘You disagree?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Ah,’ shouted Midwinter. ‘You agree eh? Sure son. He set you up for that beating you took. If those Russian cops hadn’t moved in you’d be dead. To tell you the truth, I’d sooner have you dead and my boys still free but that doesn’t change the fact that Harvey had them give you the treatment. Then after the Communist cops had you in captivity they suddenly take you to witness an arrest. Why do you think they did that?’

‘I’d say they took me there so that I should come back soiled.’

‘Right,’ said Midwinter. ‘Why?’