I Will Fear No Evil (54 page)

“Oh, no, you mustn’t change your face.”

“No, you’re right; I must not change this face. It’s Eunice’s; I’m only its custodian. If I changed it, Joe would not like it—nor several other people. (Starting with
me
, Boss.) (I won’t change your lovely face, sweetheart. I’ll cherish it.) “I’ll keep it as it is—but I have to keep it veiled. It’s been on video too much, photographed and printed too many million times. But there’s
some
way to tackle it.”

Joan Eunice looked at the nearly finished painting almost with awe. She knew what a beautiful body she had inherited; she knew that Gigi was a beauty of another sort; she could see that these “Grecian damsels” were herself and Gigi and she could not see any detail in which the painting was not a perfect likeness of each.

Yet Joe Branca’s “realism” was fantasy. These two nymphs in a glade were voluptuous, sensuous, enticing in a way that she
knew
that she and Gigi had not been—sprawled on a platform of boards and gossiping about everything from an alcoholic to dirty dishes.

“What do you think?” Gigi asked. “Say what you like; Joe doesn’t give a hoot about any opinion but his own.”

Joan took a deep breath, sighed. “How does he do it? Here I am with my nipples tight just from looking at it—and yet it’s you and me, and we lay there talking for
hours
and never got in a sweat about it. Discussed everything
but
Topic ‘A’—wasn’t even a cuddle because we had to hold still. Yet this paint-and-canvas reaches out and grabs you by the gonads and
squeezes
. I’m certain it would have just as much effect on a man.”

From behind them Joe said, “Fool-the-eye.”

Joan answered, “Fool-the-eye, hell, Joe. My eyes are not fooled, I’m enchanted. I want to buy it!”

“No.”

“Huh? Oh, kark. You planned to sell it to some old butch. God knows ninety-five is old—and I feel butch enough to qualify when I look at the painting.”

“Yours.”

“Huh? Joe, you can’t do this to me. You intended to sell it, you said so. Gigi, back me up.”

Gigi chose not to answer. Joe said stubbornly, “Yours, Joan. You want it, you take it.”

“Joe, you are the most stubborn man I’ve ever met and I don’t see how Gigi puts up with you. If you
give
me that painting, I’m going to destroy it at once—”

Gigi gasped. “Oh, no!”

Joe shrugged. “Your ache. Not mine.”

“—but if you’ll
sell
it to me at your going rates, I’ll take it with me and give it to Jake Salomon to hang at the end of his bed so he’ll wake up happy each morning.” (You bombed him, twin! Now swing back and strafe the survivors.) “That’s the choice, Joe.
Give
it to me and I’ll chop it into shreds. But
sell
it to me—and Jake Salomon gets it. Oh, you could welch, then hang it for sale—and put me to the trouble of hiring detectives to follow it to where you hang it so that I can buy it through an agent. What I do with it then, I won’t tell. Or you could even keep it for your own jollies; it’s quite a job.”

Gigi said, “Quit being stubborn, Joe; you know you’d like Jake to have it.”

“Gigi, what does Joe charge for a painting like that?”

“Oh, I set the prices. Mostly I sell them by the yard. By size.”

“So? How much is this size?”

“Well, I try to get two hundred and fifty for that size.”

“Ridiculous!”

“Really, Joan, considering that it took both my time and Joe’s all yesterday evening and today—not to mention your time, but you’re buying it, so I didn’t add on for the second figure in it—considering all that and the commission we pay, it’s not very much—”

“Darling, I meant ‘ridiculously’
low
. I haven’t bought much art the last twenty years but I do know that is not less than a thousand-dollar picture—then up like a kite to whatever the traffic will bear. I can tell you this: When Jake dies and that painting is auctioned off, it won’t go for as little as a thousand . . . and it might be much higher because I’m certain to be at that auction and in no mood to let it get out of the family. But I’m not raising the price now; I never do that. You named a price of two-fifty; I accept. It’s a sale.”

“Joan, you never did let me finish.”

“Oh. Sorry, hon.”

“I try to get two hundred and fifty for that size when I hang it in a shop. But half of that goes to the owner of the shop; that’s the only way I can get space. So the price to you is a hundred and twenty-five.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Just ‘No’ the way Joe said it to me. As good business practice you should never undercut your retailer. I think he’s robbing you; the commission should be twenty-five percent, no more. But don’t undercut the price you want
him
to ask—that’s no way to stay in business. I don’t know much about art . . . but I know one hell of a lot about business. Cash, or check?”

“Cash is fine. If you have that much with you. Or pay when you feel like it.”

“I want to pay now and get a receipt so that it will be legally mine—before your stubborn husband can thwart me again. Shall I write the receipt for you, Gigi girl?”

“Oh, I’ve got Woolworth’s printed forms for that, and I can write numbers and sign my chop. No huhu.”

“Good. But I want something else.”

“What, Joan?”

“I want to be kissed. I’ve been a good girl and posed all day and haven’t even been kissed for it. So I want Joe to kiss me for being so stinky difficult—and I want to kiss you for helping me with him. Joe, will you kiss me?”

“Yes.”

“That’s better. Joe, will you escort two nice girls—me and Gigi, I mean, and no smart cracks—down to the supermarket? If Gigi will buy us a steak to celebrate, I want to prove I can broil it. Will you buy us a steak, Gigi?”

“Sure! Beef, or horse?”

“Uh . . . hon, I’m forced to admit that I haven’t shopped for groceries in years. What do you think?”

“Well . . . it had better be horse.”

“Whatever you say. As long as they don’t sell us the harness.”

25

In the United Nations the Burmese delegation charged that the so-called Lunar Colonies were a cover-up for a conspiracy by China and the United States to build military bases on the Moon. The Secretary of Conservation and Pollution Control denied a report that deer in Yosemite National Park were “dying in hordes from polluted water and emphysema.” He stated that a healthy ecological rebalancing was taking place—no need for alarm—and the new herd would be stronger than ever.

The Reverend Dr. Montgomery Chang, D.D., Most Humble Supreme Leader of The Way, Inc., testified before the Subcommittee on Unwritten Law of the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of the pending bill to require Federal licensing of teachers of Zen Buddhism and related disciplines as “therapists de facto et de jure:” “These bootleg gurus are giving rational mysticism a bad name. A man should no more be allowed to teach meditation, asanas, or transcendental philosophy without strict control by a licensing board than he should be allowed to ski, or to surf, or to frame a picture without passing an examination. The idea that this bill would abridge the sacred guarantees of the First Amendment is the sheerest nonsense; it protects and frees them.” Under questioning he stated that he would be humbly willing to serve as chairman of such a board if such sacrifice were asked of him. Survivors of Hurricane Hilda were still being rescued and the known death toll now stood at 1908.

The Department of Internal Defense placed a temporary exception on interstate transmittal of intelligence concerning public disorders involving more than three persons, then placed a second exception with strict penalties on the publicizing of the first censorship order. The Secretary reported to the President that news services and video nets were cooperating voluntarily in the interests of the general welfare. In re the matter of identity of Conglom Tycoon Johann S. B. Smith the Supreme Court, in a declaratory relief opinion made notable only by Mr. Justice Handy waking up in the middle of its reading, slapping the desk and roaring, “Divorce granted!” then going back to sleep, ruled seven to two to sustain a lower court in expanding and clarifying the principle originally set forth in
Estate of Henry M. Parsons v. Rhode Island
. Four of the majority and one dissenting justice ruled also that a legal sex change was involved in the matter; two justices thought otherwise; one justice (Mr. Handy) used twenty pages to prove that such a composite of sexes was contrary to public interest and to the laws of God and that both Johann Smith and Eunice Branca were legally dead and that the resultant monster had no legal existence of any sort; the ninth justice, in a one-sentence separate assent, opined that sex was irrelevant in the entire matter; one of the majority, in another separate assenting opinion, stated that the donor body should have been sterilized surgically in the public interest and that the Congress would do well to make such sterilization mandatory in any future similar situation. No mention was made by any justice of thirteen
amici-curiae
briefs and one petition filed with the Court. In an opinion issued the same day (
Illinois v. Sam J. Roberts
) conviction was set aside on the grounds that the householder (deceased) had not advised Roberts of his rights before attempting to place him under citizen’s arrest.

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On the basis of evidence submitted by the Chinese delegation the U.N.A.E.C. eased the tolerance levels for strontium-90 for whole milk. The Reverend Thomas Barker of Long Beach, California, in an Equal-Time-for-God videosermonette declared that the World had ended at midnight December 31st 1999 PCT, and that all since that time was “illusion of the Devil, without form, substance, or reality.”

Miss Smith greeted O’Neil and asked him to have Dabrowski and Fred fetch upstairs with her two big flat packages, one so large that it had to be tilted to get it through the door of the lift. When packages, mobile guards, and she herself were fitted inside, she locked the door and pressed the “Hold” touchplate without signaling a floor, then dropped her cape. “Let me kiss you thank-you-good-bye, boys, but for Heaven’s sake don’t get paint on you or muss it. Better just hold my face in your hands—but no need to hurry.”

Shortly thereafter she looked at herself in the lift’s mirror, decided that makeup and hairdo had suffered only minor wear and tear, let Dabrowski lay her cape around her, then punched for her floor and fastened, all the cape’s frogs so that she was again fully covered. When the lift stopped she hooked up her veil.

“These go in your boudoir, Miss? Or your lounge?”

“First let’s see if Mr. Salomon is receiving.” They followed her down the long hall to the Green Suite. Joan noted that the please-don’t-disturb ruby light was not burning over the door of Jake’s lounge, so she touched the door signal.

The speaker above it bellowed, “Come in!” The door opened; she went in. “Put them inside and that will be all.”

“Very good, Miss.”

As they left and the door closed Jake came out of his bedroom, looking tousled. He stopped abruptly. “Well! Where the hell have you been?”

“Out.”

“Hrrrmph! Five days. Five
whole
days!”

“So? Chickens fed? Hogs slopped? Cows milked?”

“That’s not the point. I—”

“That
is
the point, Jake. Nothing has been neglected through my being away. You won’t marry me, so I am not answerable to you when I come and go. Though as a courtesy I
did
leave a note with Cunningham telling you where I had gone. Did you receive it?

“Yes, but—”

“Then you knew I was safe—and in emergency could have sent me a message. Or joined me; you would have been welcome. You
know
Joe would have made you welcome—and Gigi is friendly as a puppy.”

“ ‘Gigi’?”

“You know her. You’ve met her, I mean. Mrs. Joe Branca.”

“
What?
”

“Why the surprise, Jake? People do remarry—especially if an earlier marriage was happy. Joe’s was, and now he has, and I’m happy for him—and certain that Eunice is happy for him, too.” (Sure I am, Boss. But let’s not be too ‘noble.’ Being ‘noble’ is a male prerogative. So
they
think.)

“I can’t believe it.”

“What’s odd about a widower remarrying?”

“I can’t imagine anyone who had been married to Eunice ever marrying some other woman.” (My fan! Twin, we’re going to be especially nice to Jake tonight.) (If he doesn’t start being nice to
me
, he’s going to sleep alone tonight! But
I
shan’t. I wonder if Anton and Fred have left the house?) (Calm down, Boss. And get Jake calmed down.) (Not yet, I won’t! He’s wrong and I’m right.) (Twin honey, how long is it going to take you to learn that being ‘right’ has nothing to do with getting along with a man? Men aren’t logical, their minds don’t work that way. But it’s ‘the only game in town,’ so when a man is wrong and you are right, it’s time to apologize. Tell him you’re sorry—and
mean
it. Om Mani Padme Hum.)

(Om Mani Padme Hum—sometimes I find being a woman just too frimping difficult. If it weren’t so darned much fun. Okay, sweetheart, watch me take him.) “Jake dearest, I’m sorry it upsets you that Joe has remarried—but why not wait before deciding that he has made a mistake? Joe
needs
a wife—even if she’s not Eunice. And I’m terribly sorry that I worried you by not being here when you got home . . . and sorry on my own account; I expected to welcome you—with open arms and a happy smile. But I didn’t expect you to be away less than a week and I had an impression that you expected it to take longer—possibly much longer.”