‘Only for him it wasn’t like that. They had to burn out more pink and blue lights I guess. Jesus they fried him right back into diapers. I mean, whatever lights he had going for him, they sure as hell went out for good.’
Someone proposed a toast to the happy couple; Jim and the Dean of Persons looked pleased and bashful. The toast was only slightly marred by a shrill voice saying, ‘Yas, Rodin. Don’t you just love his Thinker?’
Lyle said, ‘Maybe he’ll get better, though. He won’t stay in diapers—’
‘Oh, he’s better already. They let him out weekends to work his job, even. Fact he’s right over there in that glass box, our esteemed disc-jockey.’
‘No kidding? That’s good, isn’t it? He can—’
‘He can find the hole in the middle of each record, sure. He can even talk, you notice? Every now and then he says, “Here’s another record.”’
XXVI
Roderick awoke in jail again, watching Sheriff Benson watch Top Dollar. Dr De’Ath was sitting in a captain’s chair watching him. Ma was sitting in another watching everything.
‘I wouldn’t have believed it,’ said the doctor. ‘Really amazing. Course, I nearly flunked medical electronics myself, never could learn to make a good solder joint — but this is really amazing. Mind if I test him?’
‘Ask him,’ Ma said. ‘Son, how are you?’
‘Fine I guess.’ Roderick allowed the doctor to look into his eyes and ears, to tap his knee and hold up fingers for him to count. ‘Guess you’re okay too, Doc?’
‘Shh!’ said the Sheriff. ‘Just gettin’ to the end of The Marriage Stakes. Already missed Big Spender and Heap or Weep.’ When the commercial break came on, Dr De’Ath explained:
‘Pretty lucky there. After they hanged you some of the boys got so excited — well, Jake Mcllvaney shot himself in the foot. You know how Doc Welby is about coming out on call, so they had to let me take care of him. Got him in an intensive care unit now, over at Buford.’
‘Intensive care?’
‘Yup, and there he stays until he runs up a nice fat bill. Anyway I fooled around with him until the highway patrol came and broke things up.’
‘Lay it on the Line is next,’ the sheriff explained. ‘But on Channel 18 they got Big Game, followed by Grabopoly. Kind of a hard choice there.’
‘They probably wouldn’t have done anything to me anyway,’ said the doctor, when he had swallowed a handful of bright pills. ‘Nope, not after you. Kinda put them off the whole idea, seeing your head come off like that.’
‘My head came off?’
Ma nodded. ‘I managed to get you home and fixed up.’
De’Ath said, ‘Amazing work. Boy if I could do that for a real patient — well, some day. Your Ma is a wonder, boy.’
Ma cleared his throat. ‘I did have some help. Er, asked one of the maintenance men from the factory to give me a hand with the tricky parts.’ He held up a mirror for Roderick. ‘What do you think?’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine, is that all?’
‘Well it’s — very symmetrical — aw heck, Ma, you know I don’t know how to talk about art. It’s — it’s a very symmetrical head. I like it fine.’
They sat and talked as the sky beyond the Venetian blinds began to turn grey, then orange, and as the sheriff watched Beat the House, Chance in a Million, Take the Spoils, Up for Grabs and Cash or Crash.
‘Guess I’ll drive over to Buford and see my patient,’ said the doctor, after taking his own blood-pressure. ‘On my way home, anyway.’
‘You’re leaving?’
‘Got everything I need, now. Airtight case against Katrat Fun Foods. Well. Uh, good luck, boy.’ He offered Roderick his hand.
‘Good luck to you too, Doctor.’
‘I’m glad I did that, shook your hand. You know?’
Roderick didn’t know.
‘Well it’s just that I — last night when your head came off and I saw all the wires — I was really pissed off. The idea of being strung up in the company of a sonofabitching machine — I mean it just seemed like adding a last insult to a last — you know?’
Roderick nodded, feeling stiffness in his new neck. ‘That’s okay. See I’m not so crazy about human beings, either. But good luck anyway, Doc.’
‘Wish you boys would pipe down,’ said Benson. ‘This here is the one I been waiting for, Bust the Bank.’ He watched that, and Dig for Treasure, Wealthy and Wise, Family Fortune, Filthy Rich, Fakeout and Beggar Your Neighbor before he was again interrupted, by a call from the highway patrol.
The two agents were driving very fast away from the burning wreck.
‘Can’t go back now, the highway patrol’s all over the place. If you had any doubts, why the hell didn’t you say something before we torched it?’
‘All I said was, he’s black. How come they never said he was black?’
‘What are you implying, we finalized the wrong guy? What, some black car-thief or what?’
‘I’m not implying nothing.’
‘Well you sure as hell sound like you’re implying something. Listen, you got his licence, is his name Death or isn’t it?’
‘Sure but—’
‘Is he an MD or isn’t he?’
‘Sure but—’
‘And did the receptionist at Buford City Hospital point him out to us as Dr Death or didn’t she?’
‘Sure. Sure.’
‘Well then what’s the prob? Study the orders, he has to be the asshole who invented this robot for testing artificial hearts. Dr Sheldon Death, right? The asshole Orinoco wants finalized, right?’
‘I don’t know. Because on the licence it says DOG EASY APOSTROPHE ABLE but on the orders we got DOG APOSTROPHE EASY—’
‘So?’
‘And he’s not Sheldon neither, he’s Samuel.’
After a silence. ‘So what are you implying? We finalized the wrong customer?’
‘I’m not implying nothing.’
Ma and Roderick sat thinking about Doc De’Ath while the sheriff settled down for Royal Flush and Play for Keeps. Finally Ma said, ‘So. You don’t like people much. I didn’t know.’
‘I like you and Pa.’ After a pause, he added, ‘And almost anybody else — only one at a time. But when you get them all together, people are so — weird, Ma.’
‘You’ll get used to them.’ He handed Roderick a ticket. ‘Now your bus leaves at three-twenty. So you be sure and be out front of the Newer Home Cafe a little early. You need a recharge or anything before you go? Oil change?’
‘I just had one. Ma, don’t worry. I guess you got problems enough of your own.’
‘Pshaw! Your Pa and I will be all right. Of course they’re foreclosing on our home, and Mr Swann is suing us for his fees, not to mention Dr Welby and the others — but on the other hand, all the debts we owe are now in the hands of the Bangfield Trust Bank.’
‘Is that good?’
‘Good? It’s perfect, son. You see, the bank computer has been sabotaged. I don’t know how — guess someone somewhere phoned them up, drew out several million and then covered it by — I guess by changing all the plus signs to minus signs — something like that.’
‘So does that mean—?’
‘Bangfield Trust now owes us a whole lot of money.’ Ma winked. ‘Of course we won’t try to collect. Only numbers, after all. On the astral plane, pluses and minuses are all the same anyway. Now we can just settle down and live—’