“Why?”
“The TV tower, Doc.”
“What?” I screw up an eye.
“We had to have the transmitter, Chuck,” says Uru almost patiently.
“And there you setting under it, Doc.” The pity of it comes over Victor. “How come you didn’t move in with Miss Marva?”
“Then the shootings were to frighten me away?”
Uru looks at Victor.
“What about the kidnappings?” I ask.
Victor shrugs. “That was just insurance. We just going to keep the little ladies out in Honey Island till y’all sign the papers with us. Ain’t nobody going to harm those little ladies, Doc! In fact, my other auntee out there looking after them right now. She raised half of them, like Miss Ruthie and Miss Ella Stone.”
“I don’t know,” says Uru to Gene Sarazen. “I just don’t know. They told me about coming down here.” He shakes himself and looks at me with an effort. “Victor is right, Chuck. That’s all we wanted in the beginning. But now it looks like all the chucks and dudes have moved out. So: we can use the houses.”
“It won’t work. How long do you think you can hold the place?”
“Just as long as you value your womenfolk.”
I am wondering: does he mean the moms and does he know the Kaydettes were not taken?
The chair legs hit the floor again. Uru looks straight at me.
“I’m going to tell you exactly how it is, Doctor. You chucks had your turn and you didn’t do right. You did bad, Doc, and now you’re through. It’s our turn now and we are going to show you. As Victor says, we sho going to move your ass out.”
“I didn’t say no such of a thing,” says Victor. “I don’t talk nasty.”
“It won’t work,” I say.
“Doc, you don’t know who all we got out there,” says Victor. “And we holding enough folks so nobody’s going to give us any trouble.”
“That’s not what he means,” says Uru grimly. “Is it, Doctor?”
I am silent.
“What he means, Victor, is that even if we win, it won’t work. Isn’t that right, Doctor?” Uru has a light in his eye.
I keep silent.
“He means we don’t have what it takes, Victor. Oh, he likes you and your auntee. You’re good and faithful and he’ll he’p you. Right Doctor? You don’t really think we got what it takes, do you?” Uru taps his temple.
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Doctor, tell us the truth.”
“Doc always tell the truth!”
“Shut up, Victor. Doctor?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Do you always tell the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell it now.”
“All right.”
“You don’t really think we’re any good, do you?”
“How do you mean, good?”
“I’m talking about greatness, Doctor. Or what you call greatness. I’m talking about the Fifth Symphony, the Principia Mathematica, the Uranus guidance system. You know very well what I’m talking about.”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Well, you—”
“And don’t tell me about music and rhythm and all.”
“All right.” I fall silent.
“Let me put it this way, Doctor. You know what we’re going to do. We’re going to build a new society right here. Right? Only you don’t think we can do it do you?”
I shrug.
“What does that mean?”
“Well — you haven’t.”
“Haven’t what, Doctor?”
“You haven’t done very well so far.”
“Go on. Let’s hear what you mean.”
“I think you know what I mean.”
“You’re not talking to Victor now. You’re talking to a Ph.D. in political science. Only I didn’t choose to be a black-ass pipe-smoking professor.”
“Didn’t you used to play split-end for Detroit?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Aren’t you Elijah Washington?”
“We have no Jew-Christian names, least of all Washington. I’m Uru. You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“About us not doing very well.”
“You’ve had Liberia a long time.”
“So?”
“Look at Liberia. You’ve had Haiti even longer.”
“So?”
“Look at Haiti.”
“You know something, Chuck. You got a smart mouth. We’re liable to do to you what you did to the Indians.”
“Do you mind if I have a drink?”
“We don’t use it.”
“I’ll fix you a drink, Doc,” says Victor.
“No, you won’t,” says Uru, showing anger for the first time. “You’re not his goddamn houseboy.”
“You know, my name’s Washington too,” Victor tells Uru. “After George Washington Carver.”
“Jesus Christ,” says Uru to Gene Sarazen.
“Blessed be Jesus,” says Victor.
“Look what you done to him,” Uru says to me.
“What he done to me!” cries Victor.
“You did a good job, Doctor. It took you four hundred years but you really did a good job. Let me ask you something.”
“All right.”
“What would you do about it if you were me? I mean what with the four hundred years and Victor here.”
“What’s wrong with Victor?”
“You know what I mean. What would you do about the four hundred years?”
“I’d stop worrying about it and get on with it. To tell you the truth, I’m tired of hearing about the four hundred years.”
“You are.”
“Yes.”
“And if it were up to you?”
“If it were up to me, I’d get on with it. I could do better than Haiti.”
“That’s what we’re going to do, Doctor,” says Uru in a changed voice. He picks up his rifle and rises.
Victor grabs my arm. “I’ll take care of him, Uru. Like you asked.” He gives me a yank, pulls me close. “Goddamn, Doc, ain’t you got any sense?”
Uru seems to keep on getting up. He is at least six feet nine. “All right, Chuck. Let’s go.”
“Very well, but please let me tell you one thing.”
Quickly I tell them about my invention, about its falling into the wrong hands and the likelihood of a catastrophe. I describe the danger signs. “So even though your pigment may protect you to a degree, I’d advise you to take cover if you should sight such a cloud.”
Uru laughs for the first time. “Doctor, Victor’s right. You something all right. What you telling us is the atom bomb is going to fall and we better get our black asses back to the swamp?”
“Doc is not humbugging,” says Victor.
Uru takes a step forward. “Take him, Victor. If you don’t, I will.”
“Let’s go, Doc.”
“Where’re we going?”
“To headquarters.”
“Man, don’t answer his questions,” says Uru furiously. “When did he answer your questions? He knows what he going to get.”
Again Victor pulls me close. “Don’t worry, Doc. We holding you for ransom. Ain’t that right, Elij—, I mean Uru?”
The two look at each other a long moment. “Doc’s worth a lot to us, Uru.”
Uru nods ironically. “Very well. But I’m coming with you. I wouldn’t put it past you to turn him loose — after fixing him a toddy.”
“I ain’t fixing Doc nothing, but I might pick me up a 286 bottle,” says Victor, disappearing into the hall. I look after him in surprise. Victor doesn’t drink.
Uru waves me ahead of him with his rifle.
Victor is waiting for us at the armored Cushman cart. He’s got a bottle under his arm. In the golf bag behind him, among the irons, are two gun barrels, his — and mine! Victor doesn’t look at me. Uru pays no attention.