“Life gets worse every day. In the High Court in California, they’ve stopped sentencing their criminals to death — they sentence them to life instead. Like the man said, there’s no innocence any more, just undetected crime. In the State of Illinois alone, there were enough sex murders last month to make you all realize how vicarious your position is.
“The future outlook for the race is black, and that’s not just a pigment of my imagination. There were two sex criminals talking over business in Chicago the other day. Butch said, ‘Say, Sammy, which do you like best, murdering a woman or thinking about murdering a woman?’ ‘Shucks, I don’t know, Butch, which do you prefer?’ ‘Thinking about murdering a woman, every time!’ ‘Why’s that, then? ‘That way you get a more romantic type of woman.’”
For some minutes more the baby-faced little man stood there under the spot in his slept-in suit, making his slept-in jokes. Then the light cut off, he disappeared, and the house lights rose to applause.
“More drinks,” Pilbeam said.
“But he was awful!” Martha exclaimed. “Just blue!”
“Ah, you have to hear him half a dozen times to appreciate him — that’s the secret of his success,” Pilbeam said. “He’s the voice of the age.”
“Did you enjoy him?” Martha asked the green-eyed girl.
“Well, yes, I guess I did. I mean, well, he kind of made me feel at home.”
Twice a week, they went over to a small room in the Pentagon, where a blond young major taught them how to programme and service a POLYAC computer. These new pocket-sized computers would be fitted in all DOUCH recording trucks.
Timberlane was setting out for one of the POLYAC sessions when he found a letter from his mother awaiting him in his mail. Patricia Timberlane wrote irregularly. This letter, like most of them, was mainly filled with domestic woes, and Timberlane scanned it without a great deal of patience as his taxi carried him over the Potomac. Near the end, he found something of more interest.
“It’s nice for you to have Martha over there in Washington with you. I suppose you will marry her — which is romantic, because it is not often people marry their childhood sweethearts. But do make sure. I mean you’re old enough to know that I made a great mistake marrying your step-father. Keith has his good points, but he’s terribly faithless, sometimes I wish I was dead. I won’t go into details.
“He blames it on the times, but that’s a too easy get-out. He says there’s going to be a revolution here. I dread to think of it. As if we haven’t gone through enough, what with the Accident and this awful war, revolution I dread. There’s never been one in this country, whatever other countries have done. Really it’s like living in a perpetual earthquake.”
It was a telling phrase, Timberlane thought soberly. In Washington, the perpetual earthquake ground on day and night, and would grind, until all was reduced to dust, if the gloomy DOUCH predictions were fulfilled. It revealed itself not only in the constant economic upheavals, the soup queues down-town, and the crazy sales as the detritus of fallen financial empires was thrown on to the market, but in the wave of murders and sexual crimes which the law found itself unable to check. This wave rose to engulf Martha and Timberlane.
The morning after the letter from Patricia Timberlane arrived, Martha appeared early in Timberlane’s room. Clothes lay scattered over the carpet — they had been out late on the previous evening, attending a wild party thrown by an Air Strike buddy of Bill Dyson’s.
Wearing his pyjama trousers, Timberlane stood shaving himself in semi-gloom. Martha went over to the window, pulled the curtains back, and turned to face him. She told him about the flowers that had been delivered to her at the hostel.
He squinted at her and said, “And you say you got some yesterday morning, too?”
“Yes, just as many — crates full of orchids, the same as this morning. They must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.” He clicked off the spiteful buzz of his razor and looked at her. His eyes were dull and his face pale.
“Kind of slouch, eh? I didn’t send them to you.”
“I know that, Algy. You couldn’t afford them. I have looked at the price of flowers in the shops — they’re dear in the first place, and they carry state tax, entry tax, purchase tax, and what the hostel matron calls GDT, General Discouragement Tax, and goodness knows what else. That’s why I destroyed yesterday’s lot — I mean, I knew they weren’t from you, so I burnt them and meant to say no more about it.”
“You burnt them? How? I’ve not seen a naked flame on anything bigger than a cigar lighter since I got here.”
“Don’t be so dumb, darling. I pushed them all down the disposal chute, and anything that goes down there gets burnt in the basement of the hostel. Now this morning, another lot, again with no message.”
“Maybe the same lot, with love from the fellow in the basement.”
“For God’s sake, don’t go slouch on me, Algy!”
They laughed. But next morning, another bank of flowers arrived at the hostel for Miss Martha Broughton. Timberlane, Pilbeam, and Martha’s matron came to look at them.
“Orchids, roses, chincherinchees, violets, summer crocus — whoever he is, he can afford to get very sentimental,” Pilbeam said. “Let me assure you, Algy, old man, I didn’t send these to your girl friend. Orchids is one thing you can’t slap on a DOUCH expense account.”
“I am frankly worried, Miss Broughton, honey,” the matron said. “You must take care of yourself, especially as you are a stranger to this country. Remember now, there are no more girls about under twenty. That was the age older men used to go for. Now it’s the twenties-thirties group must watch out. Those older men, who are the rich men, have always been used to — well, to making hay while the sun shines. Now that the sun is going down — they will be more anxious to get at the last of the hay. Do you take my meaning?”
“Dusty Dykes himself couldn’t have put it better. Thanks for the warning, Matron. I’ll watch my step.”
“Meanwhile, I’ll phone a florist,” Pilbeam said. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t pick up a cool couple of thousand from this slob’s amorousness. Small change is mighty useful.” Pilbeam was due to leave Washington the next day. The order had come through Dyson for him to go to another theatre of war — this time, central Sarawak. As he put it himself, he could do with the rest. During the afternoon, he was down in town collecting more kit and an inoculation when the Fat Choy alert sounded. He phoned through to Timberlane, who was then attending a lecture on propaganda and public delusion.
“Thought I’d tell you I’m likely to be delayed by this raid, Algy,” Pilbeam. said. “You and Martha better go on to the Thesaurus without me and get the drinks moving, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. We can eat there if we have to, though the Babe Lincoln down the block gives you less synthetics.”
“It’s chiefly calorie intake I’m having to watch,” Timberlane said, patting his waist line.
“See how your sensuality output reacts this evening — I’ve met a real scorcher here, Algy, name of Coriander and as plastic as funny putty.”
“I can’t wait. Is she married or single?”
“With her energy and talent, could be both.”
They winked at each other’s images in the vision screens and cut off.
Timberlane and Martha caught a prowling taxi-cab into town after dark. The enemy attack consisted of two missiles, one of which broke into suitcases over the now almost derelict slaughter and marshalling yards, while the other, causing more damage, broke over the thickly populated Cleveland Park suburb. On the sidewalks, police uniforms seemed to predominate over service uniforms; the Choy had served to make a lot of people stay at home, and as a result the streets were clearer than usual.