It was the date. It showed their first interview as having occurred on Tuesday, when of course it had been only the day before yesterday—Wednesday.
The dumpy man was just stepping past the next application approaching Carr’s desk. Carr started to call him back and point out the discrepancy.
But before he could speak, his mind returned from the journey it had taken without waiting for his explicit bidding—a quick round-trip to last Sunday and back.
It brought numbing news.
Parts of Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and all of Thursday, were blanks.
Maybe today isn’t Friday. Maybe they’re all wrong. Maybe half of Chicago has made a mistake.
No, Mackay! That’s the way to shake your mind loose. That’s the super-highway to the insane asylum. You’ve got to face it.
But what were you doing, then, during those blank spells? What were you doing?
Steady! That’s a question that will have to be left unanswered for the present.
But what are you going to do now?
Go to a psychiatrist? Tell him about your “spells of amnesia”? Have him ask about your childhood, pull down the shade, shine lights in your eyes, work on your nerves—
No! You couldn’t stand that and you know it. That would shake your mind loose for sure.
But there is something you can do. Something that’ll at least keep the road open to sanity and safety. It isn’t spectacular, though it’ll take a sort of courage. You can simply keep doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Go through all the motions of your daily routine without varying them an iota. There’s safety in routine, Mackay. It keeps men going when nothing else will. You know, soldiers in battle, and all that. By following routine, you have the best chance of holding onto your mind.
You can start right now. Stand up—and did it ever occur to you, Mackay, that standing up is an interesting mechanical problem? Your bones are levers, your muscles are motors—you can feel the cables of sinew tighten smoothly. Smile—it gives you a crinkly feeling in your cheek, doesn’t it? Shake hands with the next applicant. Note the moisture. Also the quality of the grip. Vigorous but jerky—that’s a clue to character. Study his face—the smile, the gold fillings in his back teeth, the worried brown eyes yellow-flecked, the ripples of tension in the dusky skin around them, the alert nose, the eczema scars under the powder. That’s a face for you, Mackay, a face to remember.
Rejoice, Mackay! Here’s a new applicant—a whole new world for you to lose yourself in. I know it’s had, Mackay but in an hour and thirty-seven minutes it’ll be five o’clock. If you can hold on until then and do what’s expected of you, you can walk out of here with your mind intact and no one will have the faintest suspicion of what’s happened to you. You’ll be free, Mackay, free!
Chapter Ten
Time Out of Mind
Carr nudged his glass forward across the chromium surface.
The bartender reached for it. Carr turned toward Marcia. “Another?” he asked. “I’m one up on you.”
She smiled but kept hold of the stem of her glass. The bartender flicked up Carr’s and turned away.
“You want to have just the right amount of edge on you when you meet Keaton,” she said. “He goes a lot by first impressions.”
Carr nodded dutifully. Marcia looked very handsome tonight. Above the black dress her bare shoulders and neck were startling youthful. And on her face was that expression which Carr always found both exciting and disturbing—a look that incited daring, but threatened waspishness if the daring were not of just the right quality; a look that indicated she was intensely interested in you, but only in certain things about you.
Not, for instance, in your troubles. No matter how black.
“What’s the matter, Carr? You’re so silent.”
“Nothing.”
“One would almost think you weren’t looking forward to meeting Keaton.”
Carr finished his Manhattan. He touched his black tie. There was another uncomfortable silence. To break it, he started to talk at random.
“You remember Tom Elvested? He’s been pestering me to go out with some mysterious girl he insists is just my type.”
“Why don’t you?” Marcia said quickly. “It might be very amusing.”
Carr laughed. “I just mentioned it as an example of Tom’s bull-headedness. Once he gets an idea—”
“But why not?” Marcia pressed. “She might be young. That would be interesting for you.”
“Nonsense,” said Carr uncomfortably. “I gather she’s a wet blanket. Some sort of timid intellectual. I mentioned it as an example…”
His voice trailed off. He looked at his empty glass. Marcia looked at him.
“Time we were going,” she said.
In the taxicab she quickly turned and kissed him. Before he could respond she had moved away an was telling him the latest gossip of the publishing business. A few blocks and they were pulling up at the Pendletons’.
From the street, the bright lighted windows of the huge third floor apartment looked like the amusement deck of a medium-size ocean liner ploughing through the night. There were even the strains of music echoing down.
There was a flurry of movement in the street. Another taxicab drew behind theirs. A messenger boy with a cellophane box appeared from the opposite direction and ran up the walk. A large black dog, held on leash by a woman in furs, came snuffing toward Carr and he felt an abnormal twinge of fear. He and Marcia hurried up the walk. He held the door for her and for the couple which had emerged from the second taxi. The man thanked him with a slight bow. The girl, who had a delicately flushed British complexion, touched Marcia’s hand and they chatted.
As Carr followed their nicely filled stockings up the gray-carpeted stairs, he tried to think of something to say to the other man. But instead he found himself wondering what would happen if he had another attack of amnesia. That possibility hadn’t occurred strongly to him before, but now it obsessed his mind.
Was an amnesia attack like fainting, or like sleep? Would it hold off as long as you kept thinking about it? Presumably anything might set it off. Really he must see a psychiatrist in spite of everything.
A shrill laugh of greeting cam skirling down the stairs. He looked up and saw Katy Pendleton hanging over the landing like a fat doll with a face covered by tiny cracks. A fantastic green flower dripped from her hand.
“Look what Hugo sent,” she cried to them. “He can’t come. Detained at the consulate.” She waggled the orchid at Marcia and the British girl. “My dears, you look lovely. Come with me.” She handed the cellophane box to the messenger boy. “No reply.” Then quickly, to Carr and the other man, with a jolly grimace, “Mona will show you,” and sweeping back through the door she revealed a sharp-faced Negro maid she’d been eclipsing.
As Carr stepped inside he saw that the Pendletons’ apartment did have something of the layout of an ocean liner. Rooms opening to either side of two parallel central hallways. The big shadowy sun porch, its dark doors visible beyond dancing couples, might be the bridge. Next, the huge living room—main salon. Then a small stuffy-looking study hung with large, dark portraits—captain’s cabin. Then a library—second salon. Finally the luxurious staterooms. Dining salon and galley presumably at the stern.
The West Indian stewardess—Negro maid, rather—showed Carr a bed heaped with coats and hats, to which he added his own. Returning into the hall he saw Marcia talking earnestly to a small man who wore a soft white shirt under his tuxedo. Carr stopped short, feeling an uncomfortable coldness mounting inside him.