Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (21 page)

The initial negotiations were crisp. Strapp Associates replied that John Strapp’s fee was Cr. 100,000 plus 1 percent of the voting stock of Bruxton Biotics. Take it or leave it. Bruxton Biotics took it with pleasure.

The second step was more complicated. John Strapp was very much in demand. He was scheduled for Decisions at the rate of two a week straight through the first of the year. Could Bruxton wait that long for an appointment? Bruxton could not. Bruxton was TT’d a list of John Strapp’s future appointments and told to arrange a swap with any of the clients as best he could. Bruxton bargained, bribed, blackmailed and arranged a trade. John Strapp was to appear at the Alcor central plant on Monday, June 29, at noon precisely.

Then the mystery began. At nine o’clock that Monday morning, Aldous Fisher, the acidulous liaison man for Strapp, appeared at Bruxton’s offices. After a brief conference with Old Man Bruxton himself, the following announcement was broadcast through the plant:
ATTENTION
!
ATTENTION
!
URGENT
!
URGENT
!
ALL MALE PERSONNEL NAMED KRUGER REPORT TO CENTRAL
.
REPEAT
.
ALL MALE PERSONNEL NAMED KRUGER REPORT TO CENTRAL
.
URGENT
.
REPEAT
.
URGENT
!

Forty-seven men named Kruger reported to Central and were sent home with strict instructions to stay at home until further notice. The plant police organized a hasty winnowing and, goaded by the irascible Fisher, checked the identification cards of all employees they could reach. Nobody named Kruger should remain in the plant, but it was impossible to comb out 2,500 men in three hours. Fisher burned and fumed like nitric acid.

By eleven-thirty, Bruxton Biotics was running a fever. Why send home all the Krugers? What did it have to do with the legendary John Strapp? What kind of man was Strapp? What did he look like? How did he act? He earned Cr. 10 millions a year. He owned 1 percent of the world. He was so close to God in the minds of the personnel that they expected angels and golden trumpets and a giant bearded creature of infinite wisdom and compassion.

At eleven-forty Strapp’s personal bodyguard arrived—a security squad of ten men in plainclothes who checked doors and halls and cul-de-sacs with icy efficiency. They gave orders. This had to be removed. That had to be locked. Such and such had to be done. It was done. No one argued with John Strapp. The security squad took up positions and waited. Bruxton Biotics held its breath.

Noon struck, and a silver mote appeared in the sky. It approached with a high whine and landed with agonizing speed and precision before the main gate. The door of the ship snapped open. Two burly men stepped out alertly, their eyes busy. The chief of the security squad made a sign. Out of the ship came two secretaries, brunette and redheaded, striking, chic, efficient. After them came a thin, fortyish clerk in a baggy suit with papers stuffed in his side pockets, wearing horn-rimmed spectacles and a harassed air. After him came a magnificent creature, tall, majestic, clean-shaven but of infinite wisdom and compassion.

The burly men closed in on the beautiful man and escorted him up the steps and through the main door. Bruxton Biotics sighed happily. John Strapp was no disappointment. He was indeed God, and it was a pleasure to have 1 percent of yourself owned by him. The visitors marched down the main hall to Old Man Bruxton’s office and entered. Bruxton had waited for them, poised majestically behind his desk. Now he leaped to his feet and ran forward. He grasped the magnificent man’s hand fervently and exclaimed, “Mr. Strapp, sir, on behalf of my entire organization, I welcome you.”

The clerk closed the door and said, “I’m Strapp.” He nodded to his decoy, who sat down quietly in a corner. “Where’s your data?”

Old Man Bruxton pointed faintly to his desk. Strapp sat down behind it, picked up the fat folders and began to read. A thin man. A harassed man. A fortyish man. Straight black hair. China-blue eyes. A good mouth. Good bones under the skin. One quality stood out—a complete lack of self-consciousness. But when he spoke there was a hysterical undercurrent in his voice that showed something violent and possessed deep inside him.

After two hours of breakneck reading and muttered comments to his secretaries, who made cryptic notes in Whitehead symbols, Strapp said, “I want to see the plant.”

“Why?” Bruxton asked.

“To feel it,” Strapp answered. “There’s always the nuance involved in a Decision. It’s the most important factor.”

They left the office and the parade began: the security squad, the burly men, the secretaries, the clerk, the acidulous Fisher, and the magnificent decoy. They marched everywhere. They saw everything. The “clerk” did most of the legwork for “Strapp.” He spoke to workers, foremen, technicians, high, low, and middle brass. He asked names, gossiped, introduced them to the great man, talked about their families, working conditions, ambitions. He explored, smelled and felt. After four exhausting hours they returned to Bruxton’s office. The “clerk” closed the door. The decoy stepped aside.

“Well?” Bruxton asked. “Yes or No?”

“Wait,” Strapp said.

He glanced through his secretary’s notes, absorbed them, closed his eyes and stood still and silent in the middle of the office like a man straining to hear a distant whisper.

“Yes,” he Decided, and was Cr. 100,000 and 1 percent of the voting stock of Bruxton Biotics richer. In return, Bruxton had an 87 percent assurance that the Decision was correct. Strapp opened the door again, the parade reassembled and marched out of the plant. Personnel grabbed its last chance to take photos and touch the great man. The clerk helped promote public relations with eager affability. He asked names, introduced, and amused. The sound of voices and laughter increased as they reached the ship. Then the incredible happened.

“You!” the clerk cried suddenly. His voice screeched horribly. “You sonofabitch! You goddamned lousy murdering bastard! I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve waited ten years!” He pulled a flat gun from his inside pocket and shot a man through the forehead.

Time stood still. It took hours for the brains and blood to burst out of the back of the head and for the body to crumple. Then the Strapp staff leaped into action. They hurled the clerk into the ship. The secretaries followed, then the decoy. The two burly men leaped after them and slammed the door. The ship took off and disappeared with a fading whine. The ten men in the plainclothes quietly drifted off and vanished. Only Fisher, the Strapp liaison man, was left alongside the body in the center of the horrified crowd.

“Check his identification,” Fisher snapped.

Someone pulled the dead man’s wallet out and opened it.

“William F. Kruger, biomechanic.”

“The damned fool!” Fisher said savagely. “We warned him. We warned all the Krugers. All right. Call the police.”

That was John Strapp’s sixth murder. It cost exactly Cr. 500,000 to fix. The other five had cost the same, and half the amount usually went to a man desperate enough to substitute for the killer and plead temporary insanity. The other half went to the heirs of the deceased. There were six of these substitutes languishing in various penitentiaries, serving from twenty to fifty years, their families Cr. 250,000 richer.

In their suite in the Alcor Splendide, the Strapp staff consulted gloomily.

“Six in six years,” Aldous Fisher said bitterly. “We can’t keep it quiet much longer. Sooner or later somebody’s going to ask why John Strapp always hires crazy clerks.”

“Then we fix him too,” the redheaded secretary said. “Strapp can afford it.”

“He can afford a murder a month,” the magnificent decoy murmured.

“No.” Fisher shook his head sharply. “You can fix so far and no further. You reach a saturation point. We’ve reached it now. What are we going to do?”

“What the hell’s the matter with Strapp anyway?” one of the burly men inquired.

“Who knows?” Fisher exclaimed in exasperation. “He’s got a Kruger fixation. He meets a man named Kruger—any man named Kruger. He screams. He curses. He murders. Don’t ask me why. It’s something buried in his past.”

“Haven’t you asked him?”

“How can I? It’s like an epileptic fit. He never knows it happened.”

“Take him to a pschoanalyst,” the decoy suggested.

“Out of the question.”

“Why?”

“You’re new,” Fisher said. “You don’t understand.”

“Make me understand.”

“I’ll make an analogy. Back in the nineteen hundreds, people played card games with fifty-two cards in the deck. Those were simple times. Today everything’s more complex. We’re playing with fifty-two hundred in the deck. Understand?”

“I’ll go along with it.”

“A mind can figure fifty-two cards. It can make decisions on that total. They had it easy in the nineteen hundreds. But no mind is big enough to figure fifty-two hundred—no mind except Strapp’s.”

“We’ve got computers.”

“And they’re perfect when only cards are involved. But when you have to figure fifty-two hundred cardplayers, too, their likes, dislikes, motives, inclinations, prospects, tendencies and so on—what Strapp calls the nuances—then Strapp can do what a machine can’t do. He’s unique, and we might destroy his uniqueness with psychoanalysis.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s an unconscious process in Strapp,” Fisher explained irritably. “He doesn’t know how he does it. If he did he’d be one hundred percent right instead of eighty-seven percent. It’s an unconscious process, and for all we know it may be linked up with the same abnormality that makes him murder Krugers. If we get rid of one, we may destroy the other. We can’t take the chance.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Protect our property,” Fisher said, looking around ominously. “Never forget that for a minute. We’ve put in too much work on Strapp to let it be destroyed. We protect our property!”

“I think he needs a friend,” the brunette said.

“Why?”

“We could find out what’s bothering him without destroying anything. People talk to their friends. Strapp might talk.”

“We’re his friends.”

“No, we’re not. We’re his associates.”

“Has he talked with you?”

“No.”

“You?” Fisher shot at the redhead.

She shook her head.

“He’s looking for something he never finds.”

“What?”

“A woman, I think. A special kind of woman.”

“A woman named Kruger?”

“I don’t know.”

“Damn it, it doesn’t make sense.” Fisher thought a moment. “All right. We’ll have to hire him a friend, and we’ll have to ease off the schedule to give the friend a chance to make Strapp talk. From now on we cut the program to one Decision a week.”

“My God!” the brunette exclaimed. “That’s cutting five million a year.”

“It’s got to be done,” Fisher said grimly. “It’s cut now or take a total loss later. We’re rich enough to stand it.”

“What are you going to do for a friend?” the decoy asked.

“I said we’d hire one. We’ll hire the best. Get Terra on the TT. Tell them to locate Frank Alceste and put him through urgent.”

“Frankie!” the redhead squealed. “I swoon.”

“Ooh! Frankie!” The brunette fanned herself.

“You mean Fatal Frank Alceste? The heavyweight champ?” the burly man asked in awe. “I saw him fight Lonzo Jordan. Oh, man!”

“He’s an actor now,” the decoy explained. “I worked with him once. He sings. He dances. He—”

“And he’s twice as fatal,” Fisher interrupted. “We’ll hire him. Make out a contract. He’ll be Strapp’s friend. As soon as Strapp meets him, he’ll—”

“Meets who?” Strapp appeared in the doorway of his bedroom, yawning, blinking in the light. He always slept deeply after his attacks. “Who am I going to meet?” He looked around, thin, graceful, but harassed and indubitably possessed.

“A man named Frank Alceste,” Fisher said. “He badgered us for an introduction, and we can’t hold him off any longer.”

“Frank Alceste?” Strapp murmured. “Never heard of him.”

Strapp could make Decisions; Alceste could make friends. He was a powerful man in his middle thirties, sandy-haired, freckle-faced, with a broken nose and deep-set grey eyes. His voice was high and soft. He moved with the athlete’s lazy poise that is almost feminine. He charmed you without knowing how he did it, or even wanting to do it. He charmed Strapp, but Strapp also charmed him. They became friends.

“No, it really is friends,” Alceste told Fisher when he returned the check that had been paid him. “I don’t need the money, and old Johnny needs me. Forget you hired me original-like. Tear up the contract. I’ll try to straighten Johnny out on my own.”

Alceste turned to leave the suite in the Rigel Splendide and passed the great-eyed secretaries. “If I wasn’t so busy, ladies,” he murmured, “I’d sure like to chase you a little.”

“Chase me, Frankie,” the brunette blurted.

The redhead looked caught.

And as Strapp Associates zigzagged in slow tempo from city to city and planet to planet, making the one Decision a week, Alceste and Strapp enjoyed themselves while the magnificent decoy gave interviews and posed for pictures. There were interruptions when Frankie had to return to Terra to make a picture, but in between they golfed, tennised, brubaged, bet on horses, dogs, and dowlens, and went to fights and routs. They hit the night spots and Alceste came back with a curious report.

“Me, I don’t know how close you folks been watching Johnny,” he told Fisher, “but if you think he’s been sleeping every night, safe in his little trundle, you better switch notions.”

“How’s that?” Fisher asked in surprise.

“Old Johnny, he’s been sneaking out nights all along when you folks thought he was getting his brain rest.”

“How do you know?”

“By his reputation,” Alceste told him sadly. “They know him everywhere. They know old Johnny in every bistro from here to Orion. And they know him the worst way.”

“By name?”

“By nickname. Wasteland, they call him.”