He picked up another letter. It was written on plain white expensive paper with no letterhead.

"Mr. Cromwell," Notestein read. "We have watched your efforts to restrict the import of Italian prunes with very real gratitude. As you know the livelihood of many hundreds of Californians is dependent upon a healthy prune industry. It occurs to us that we might best reward your fine efforts by making a contribution to some charity or other activity of your choosing." Notestein paused and said, "The 'other activity' is underlined. That means political contributions." He went on reading from the letter. "We hope that you will see fit to oppose H.S. Bill 7320 which is now pending before a House Committee in Washington. This bill would allow importations of fruits in years when our native crops fall below a certain level, but it overlooks the fact that we already have a surplus of dried and canned fruit which should be disposed of. This un-American attempt to flood our markets with . . . and so forth."

Notestein picked up a handful of the letters and thumbed through them, only glancing at the letterheads. Hank walked over and stood behind him. Some of the letters could be identified by the objects pictured on the letterhead: briar pipes, a tanker moving through the sea, an orange tree in bloom, a bottle of wine, a tiny bicycle. Others were written on plain parchment paper and bore the heavy uniform type of an electric typewriter. Others were written in longhand. Some were from patriotic societies, chambers of commerce, political-action groups. Notestein shuffled them as if they were cards, muttering under his breath.

Suddenly he snapped the letters straight, neatly arranged them in a pile and dropped them on the floor.

He looked quickly at Mike and then threw his cigar butt into an ash tray. He took out a fresh cigar.

"Very good, Mike," he said when he had the cigar lit. His mouth and lips were bored, but through the cloud of smoke his eyes glittered with interest. "But don't kid yourself. It's not enough to win an election."

"It is enough to win an election," Mike said. "We've made calculations. We know how many people those letters represent. Our figures indicate that with the right kind of a campaign after the primary Cromwell would win."

"May I see those figures?" Notestein asked. "My friends would be interested."

"No. You can't see the figures," Mike said and smiled.

Notestein sighed and leaned back in his chair. He nodded his head.

"I know, Mike, I know," he said. "I just thought I'd ask."

Hank noticed that Notestein's language had changed as he spoke. At first he sounded like a newly arrived, harried, nervous Jewish refugee. But gradually the accent and the nervousness had dropped away. Hank realized suddenly that Notestein spoke poorly on purpose. He deliberately played the role of a nervous, grasping, outlandish Jew. He was a kind of antic, overdressed person who would do the difficult and dirty things for his clients that they would not do for themselves. His rich and vulgar clothes were a badge of his competence to do the unsavory things that a gentile executive could not do.

"Mike, my friends will be impressed," Notestein said after a moment of silence. He smiled. "Maybe, even, they will support Cromwell. Not publicly of course, you wouldn't want that. But they would want reassurance on one thing. Just one thing."

"What's that, Terence?" Mike asked.

Notestein looked at Mike and then around at Hank. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if what he were going to say was foolish; he shared his sense of preposterousness with them. He was the picture of the pacifier, the middle man, the compromiser.

"The Communist thing, Mike," he said. "They're crazy on that. They worry, worry, worry about that. If Cromwell could just make a little anti-Communist statement. Nothing big or dramatic, just a little thing. They'd feel better." He spoke with no trace of accent.

He stood up and walked to the door. He shrugged in his suit, swaggered slightly. He twisted the big and expensive hat in his hands.

"We'll think about it, Terence," Mike said.

Notestein went out the door. The room was silent for a minute.

"So that's how it's done?" Hank said softly. "So that's how you get a governor elected?"

"I don't know if anyone else does it this way, but this is the way I'm going to do it," Mike said and grinned. "Usually they do it the way those people are doing it down in the convention hall. I'm trying a different way."

"Mike, you're crazy," Hank said. "When Notestein reports back to those oil-and utility people, they'll just laugh. You haven't got a chance. Why, my God, you haven't even got the Democratic endorsement yet. And nobody knows Cromwell. They won't give money to an unknown person. And those old-age peoplel Mike, they'll slaughter you. You scared the hell out of them. They'll fight Cromwell like he's poison. I think I'd better go get my bottle of bourbon and start relaxing."

Mike drank the rest of the beer from his glass. He walked over to a drawer and took out a fresh shirt. He peeled off the damp shirt and draped it over a chair. He put the fresh shirt on. He opened the door. The booming sound of applause drifted down the corridor.

"Cutler must be giving his speech," Mike said. He closed the door and leaned against it. He grinned at Hank. "Hank, you're just about fifty years too late. You're like all those people down in the hall. They all think that politics is being nice to people; giving them pensions and cocktails and placards and sugary speeches and never offending anybody."

"You think that the American voter likes to have a candidate that sends a little shiver of fear down his backbone?" Hank asked. "Well, I can tell you he doesn't. He likes a glad-hander, a Jim Farley, a candidate that's old-shoe."

Georgia licked her lips and then spoke slowly.

"Hank's right, Mike," she said. "You scared those pension people. They'll fight you."

Mike buttoned his shirt and began to knot his tie. They saw his grin in the mirror.

"Maybe so, but I doubt it," he said. "Maybe people don't really vote for the guy they like the best. Maybe they vote for the guy they're a little afraid of . . . someone like F.D.R. who was cool and artistocratic. Or Teddy Roosevelt who despised them. Do you think the voters liked Lincoln or Woodrow Wilson or Washington? Were they glad-handers? Don't kid yourselves. They were cold fish. Just a little awesome; not a lot, but a little."

"You're nuts, Mike," Hank said. "For a while you really had me worried. But now I think you're nuts. You'll see when we get down on that convention floor. They'll ruin you. But you're all right, Mike. Now how about buying me that quart of bourbon?"

"Right away," Mike said. "Let's go down to Cromwell's room for a minute. I have to talk to him. You can call room service from there and have them send up a bottle. Get the best."

When they went in Cromwell's room, Clara was sitting on the sofa. Cromwell was leaning against the bureau. He had a glass in his hand. The room smelled faintly of good sour-mash whisky.

"Hail, the big fixer arrives," Cromwell said. "The mastermind comes to announce the terms of defeat."

"Go easy on the bourbon, John," Mike said. "You have to make a speech this afternoon."

"Not me, Mike. The will of the Democratic Pre-Primary Convention has been plumbed and I have been found wanting," Cromwell said. "Alas, they have gone for Cutler."

Mike walked over and picked up the bottle of sour-mash. He held it up to the window. It was a quarter full.

"Don't give him a lecture on drinking," Clara said. She stared angrily at Mike.

"Not with the whole damned convention marching around and cheering for Cutler, don't give me a lecture on abstinence," Cromwell said. "Now that it's all over, don't start to lecture, Mike." Cromwell hesitated and looked down in the glass. He looked up bewildered. "God, Mike, they're all for Cutler. Tell me, how did you ever think we'd win?"

"Calm down, John," Mike said. "Cutler's made his play early and it's a good one. He oiled everyone up with free liquor and steaks and confetti. But the votes haven't been cast yet. You're still in the running."

"Don't kid me, Mike," Cromwell said. "It's all over. Cutler's got the convention sewed up. I don't feel badly. It's all right. But I just wonder how you ever thought we had a chance. Come on, Mike. Let us in on the secret."

"Clara, call up room service and get some coffee," Mike said. "Look, John, Cutler's trying to do it one way. But there are other ways."

"Don't kid yourself," Cromwell said and his face worked. "I'm a good loser. I know when it's all over. And it's all over." He repeated it, softly, unbelieving. "All over."

"Look, John, you're going to be nominated this afternoon," Mike said. "And you're going to give the speech we worked out. With just one alteration. You're going to attack the Communists."

Cromwell laughed. He looked around for the bottle. It was in Mike's hand. He licked his lips, but he did not reach for it.

"It's all over, Mike," Cromwell said. "Even if it wasn't, I wouldn't attack the Communist Party. I believe in all parties having a right to put their program before the people."

"You're not going to attack the Communist Party," Mike said. "You're going to attack a Communist."

"I don't know any Communists."

"I'll tell you about one. You're going to attack him in your speech after you've been nominated."

"I thought you said it wasn't smart to alienate the Communist Party," Hank said. "You said you wanted to keep them neutral."

"It's all in how you do it," Mike said. "Pick the right Communist and even the Communist Party won't care if you attack him. I'll pick the right one." He turned and looked at Cromwell. When he spoke his voice was hard. "O.K., John, snap out of it. You haven't got all day. Right after lunch you'll be nominated and you'll win the nomination. I'm going to give you one more shot of whisky to steady you down. Then you're going to drink some black coffee. Then I'll brief you for the floor. You have to play it just the way I say, understand?"

Cromwell took the bottle and splashed an inch of whisky in his glass. Over the rim of the glass he stared at Mike, his face gray, his nicotine-stained lips biting the edge of the glass. Hope washed across his face. He barely tasted the whisky and put the glass down. He stood up and faced Mike.

"Is there still a chance on the nomination, Mike?" he asked.

Mike nodded.

"What if I don't mention the Communist?"

"You don't have a chance," Mike said.

Cromwell looked at Clara and then at Mike. He stood very still, as if he were listening for a signal. His mouth opened slightly and his eyes watered.

They knew what he was thinking. He was thinking of the years that led to this day. The meetings he had addressed, the countless petty letters, the phone calls, the anonymous hands he had shaken, the innumerable commitments he had made, the thousands of faces that had looked up at him as he spoke. All of this was telescoped into a small, heavy recollection. And he thought of the bottles of grappa he had drunk, the empty bourbon bottles he had dumped into hotel wastebaskets, the fashionable martinis he had drunk on the Peninsula and in Beverly Hills and La Jolla, the endless meals of pizza and fried chicken and potato salad he had eaten before he could speak. Aspirin, dirty sheets, midnight caucuses, newspaper stories, telephones, political throw-aways, radio microphones, stacks of precinct lists, ditto machines, billboards . . . he thought of the debris of politics and how much of that debris he had created. He thought of the hangovers, county fairs, trotting races, finance committee meetings, county central committees, endorsements, meeting in hot hotel rooms.

And today was the result. Like a tiny clear drop pressed out of a vast, dirty, heaped-up, chaotic harvest this was the result: this day. The drop trembled before him. He had to move it or it would fall, be gone forever.

He licked his lips.

"What is the Communist's name, Mike?" Cromwell said.

"I'll write it down for you on a piece of paper," Mike said. His voice was empty of exultation or relief, as if he had known what the decision would be. "Now all of you clear out. I have to talk to John about his speech. He has to take a shower, brush his hair, put on a clean shirt. They'll start the afternoon session in a few minutes.".

As they went out the waiter arrived with a pitcher of coffee.





CHAPTER 24

"As Men Grow More Alike . . ."

The chairwoman called the meeting to order. Her orchid was wired and only the throat of the flower was still purple. Her suit was stained with sweat. The delegates fell silent.

Mike was sitting with Hank and Georgia in the rear row. Behind Mike two men were leaning against the wall. Cutler was sitting near the front of the hall. Cromwell sat in the middle of the auditorium, in a little island of empty seats. He bent forward with his chin on his hands and looked somberly out over the crowd.

"You will recall that the name of Richard Cutler was put in nomination this morning," the chairwoman said.

A wave of applause started. Cutler's head came up out of the crowd and he half stood. He grinned and then, at a loss, made a V-sign with his fingers. The applause deepened.

Cromwell rubbed his eyes and then buried his face in his hands.

The chairwoman raised her hand. The applause died. "The chair now declares the floor open to receive any further nominations for endorsement by the Democratic Party for governor," she said.

There was a sudden silence in the hall. Then a man raised his hand and stood up. He was a short man with a round mouth.

"Madam Chairman, I am Jim Bellows from San Bernardino County," the man said. "The purpose of a political meeting is to ascertain the will and desire of the delegates. It is my feeling that this meeting has reached unanimity. I saw that we are agreed that Dick Cutler is the man we want for governor. I move that the nominations be closed and Dick Cutler be made the unanimous choice of this convention."

The hall was very quiet. The delegates looked up at the chairwoman. The chairwoman stared at Bellows for a moment. Then a look of relief crossed her face. At once the uncertainty vanished from the faces of the delegates.

A roar went up from the delegates. A few of them stood up in their seats. The Cutler posters began to wave above the crowd. The delegates along the aisles spilled out of their seats. The round prosperous faces opened and shouted. A serpentine formed and began to circle the hall. It grew thicker as people spilled out of their seats. Noisemakers appeared and long bright streams of confetti floated loosely above the crowd. At once the temperature in the hall rose and the faces of the delegates began to sweat. The serpentine grew and thickened and the noise rose to a bellowing din. Someone began to sing "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here" and the identical mouths opened and roared out the song. Hands reached out from the serpentine and pulled people into the stamping, shuffling crowd.

A woman darted from the crowd and leaned over Mike. Her face was perspiring and excited. She shouted something and he shook his head. At once her face went flat with suspicion and anger. She turned and threw herself into the crowd; was swallowed up, disappeared.

Mr. Appleton and his group of old people sat in their seats, staring stonily at the stage. Notestein was slumped down in a seat, studying the tip of his cigar. Cromwell had his head on his arms. The rest of the delegates were in the serpentine or milling around Cutler.

The chairwoman smiled down damply on the crowd.

"Mike, they can't do that," Georgia said: "They haven't even heard Cromwell speak yet. It's not fair."

Mike was slumped down in his seat. He shrugged.

"They can do whatever they want," he said. "That's democracy. Whatever the majority wants they can have."

"For Christ's sake, Mike, stop them," Hank said. "These people are on a jag. They don't know what they're doing. Go up and tell the chairwoman. that they have to listen to Cromwell."

"I'm not a delegate," Mike said. "I can't."

"I'm going up and tell her to stop it," Hank said. "This is rotten."

Georgia looked up at him. His thin face was pale. "Do something, Mike," she said. "If you don't do something, Cutler's won. And they haven't even heard Cromwell yet. They won't even listen to him."

Mike looked at her. There was a pitiless, angry tear in each of her eyes. Her jaw was hard. Mike reached up and pulled Hank down by the coat tails.

"Sit down," he said. "Don't do anything rash. The chairwoman wgn't listen to you anyway. She's one of Cutler's people. She didn't expect the motion for unanimous nomination, but she was glad to hear it. She won't listen to you. Why should she? This is pure democracy, Hankus. The will of the people is being expressed."

"Knock that crap off, Mike," Hank said. "This makes me sick. I hope they clobber Cromwell, but they ought to listen to him first. God damn it, Mike, you can make her stop it. Talk to her."

"Not me. Not when the will of the people is being expressed."

"Mike, look at Cromwell," Georgia said. "This is killing him. You've got to do something."

The empty seats around Cromwell had grown. Somehow he looked smaller; crouched antlike in his seat, remote and protective, trying to shut out the sound of the crowd.

The chairwoman spoke into the microphone. Her words boomed out over the hall, shattered against the crowd and were unheard. Her voice became more shrill. The screaming voice pleaded in enormous sharp sounds and, finally, pried a few groups loose from the serpentine. They stood, their faces flushed, staring up at her. Gradually the serpentine broke up; like a segmented collective animal it broke down. The shouting began to die away. There was a moment when the serpentine trembled and then, in an instant, the noise was gone and the people were all individuals again; separate and personal. Reluctantly they began to walk back toward their seats, their faces still tense with excitement.

"It has been moved that the nomination be closed and this convention unanimously endorse Richard Cutler as Democratic candidate for governor," the chairwoman said. "Is there a second to that motion?"

Several voices shouted "Second" from the floor.

"The motion is now open to discussion," the chairwoman said.

On the far right a tall thin man stood up. He wore a dark suit and a white clerical collar. He had a sharp face and the wide cruel eyes of a child.

"The chair recognizes the Reverend John Seaton from Altadena," the chairwoman said.

Mike turned and signaled to one of the two men standing against the wall. The man bent forward and Mike whispered something to him. The man started down the left aisle.

Seaton stood for a long moment without speaking. His eyes ran over the crowd, stopped briefly on groups that were talking and waited them into silence. When the entire hall was quiet he spoke. The words fell from his lips without changing the severe expression on his face.

"I am-curious to see how immoral a political assemblage can become without being aware of the fact," he said bitterly. "We have gathered to hear the various people who wish to represent the Democratic Party at the polls. As I understand it, it is our task to hear all of the candidates and then to select the one we feel best qualified."

He paused briefly and looked at the chairwoman. The delegates stirred in their seats and a murmur of voices protested. There was a brittle hostility in the air.

"We have been given a task to do by a large number of party members," he went on. "That they selected us as delegates indicated their faith in our judgment." He paused and went on in a voice that was suddenly thundering. "And we have betrayed their trust. We have not listened to all of the candidates. We have no way of knowing whether we might not make a better selection. We have acted like excitable children; wild with emotion, swept off our feet. Is this what we were selected to do?"

The delegates were silent. They stared at the Reverend Seaton with an odd intensity. It was the women who reacted first. Female hands flicked at clothes that had become disarranged in the demonstration; elbows were neatly tucked back against bodies; the women sat up straighter. Pieces of Kleenex were passed over moist faces; handkerchiefs were pressed against foreheads. The men watched Reverend Seaton stubbornly, bull-like, impatiently.

"Friends, I do not care who you select as our candidate today," Reverend Seaton said. "We have an abundance of excellent candidates. I have no objection to the name that has been put in nomination. I know it is the name of an honest and God-fearing man. But, friends, we have a duty. And we are not doing that duty. We are indulging in an emotional binge . . . " and he smiled wryly, tolerantly, " . . . and we shall have to suffer an emotional hangover."

There was a sigh of laughter.

The men looked aimlessly around the hall. They looked at the chairwoman, their eyes searched for Cutler, and finally came back to the tall figure of Reverend Seaton. Most of the men shifted in their seats, looked down at their hands, fingered the badges on their lapels. They were impatient to make the nomination; they were angry with the minister.

Reverend Seaton finished. He stood for a moment and looked at the crowd. His lips moved as if he were praying. Then he sat down. The hall was quiet. A hand went into the air.

"The chair recognizes Mr. Bellows from San Bernardino County," the chairwoman said.

Bellows' face was solemn. He turned and looked in the direction of Reverend Seaton.

"Madam Chairman, I have been deeply moved by what the Reverend Seaton has said," Bellows said. "I now believe that I was mistaken in my motion. We should instead hear everyone. That is our clear duty. I was swept off my feet, carried away. I apologize to this group. With the consent of the person who seconded my motion, I shall withdraw my motion."

The crowd stirred. Several people said they would withdraw their second, The chairwoman looked confused.

"That's it," Mike whispered. "Cutler's through. The thing a crowd like this hates worse than anything else is to be foolish. And they feel foolish now. And Cutler did it. All they needed was a preacher to tell them and they all start writhing."

Hank looked at Mike, startled. He glanced around at the crowd. Most of the women were staring at Cutler with hostility. The men looked dazed and resentful. Cutler started to stand, saw the faces of the delegates, and slowly sat down.

"The floor is open for further nominations," the chairwoman said.

Reverend Seaton's arm rose.

"I am going to put a name in nomination," he said. "I am going to put this person in nomination, not because I know him or because I am his special advocate. I am going to put him in nomination because he has been much discussed at this convention. There are many of us who would like to hear him. We must judge his qualifications as we must judge the qualifications of all who ask our endorsement. For that reason, and no other, I put in nomination the name of Mr. John Cromwell."

The hall was silent. The delegates carefully avoided looking at one another. The Reverend Seaton waited, but no one seconded the nomination. He looked over the hall and there was a fluttering of heads, a bobbing away, a refusal to meet his eye.

Bellows seconded the nomination.

The delegates turned toward the empty seats surrounding Cromwell. Cromwell's head was still in his hands.

"Mr. Cromwell?" the chairwoman said in a strained voice.

Cromwell lifted his head. He looked coldly at the delegates. His lip curled. He stared for a moment at the chairwoman and she flushed. Her fingers reached for the wilted orchid, slowly picked off small pieces of the flower and dropped them to the floor. Absently one of her feet scratched her leg. Cromwell's big, unruly head swung once more over the crowd. He stood up slowly.

Even in a fresh suit he looked disheveled. As he walked down the aisle, his Congress suspenders showed. The cuffs of his shirt stuck out from his suit. They were frayed. His vest pockets were crowded with pens, pencils, bits of paper, cigars. When he came to the stairs, he paused for a moment. He put his hands on his hips and then slowly climbed the stairs. He walked across the stage, turned and grasped the lectern with his big knobby hands.

He looked out over the crowd with contempt and disbelief. He rubbed his hand across his neck.

"There are some things more important than the Democratic Party," Cromwell said in a tired voice. "One thing that is more important than the Democratic Party is common honesty. Another thing is common sense. Common honesty would not let us come to this convention already committed to a candidate." He seemed bored, idly removed. "For the purpose of this convention is to select a candidate. Each of you represents a huge voiceless mass of voters. They have asked you to search out a candidate for them. They have given you a trust. In common honesty you must, I feel, listen to all candidates."

A reflex, a shiver of tension went across the crowd. Cromwell moved his big hands to the front of the lectern, pulled himself forward. He looked unkempt, old-fashioned, pedantic, scornful. They watched him with a queer resisting attention, as if they did not want to hear, but knew they must.

Hank watched the confusion vanish from the faces of the prosperous middie-aged men.

"Common sense would have told you that you had fallen victim to a clever campaign . . . so cleverly planned that you parade around with placards that were printed months ago, glut yourselves on free cocktails and canapés, and then persuade yourselves that your foolishness is spontaneity and enthusiasm," Cromwell said. "I do not care that you are manipulated by people who have laid a clever plot for you. But I am disappointed that your common sense was not outraged."

Heads turned toward Cutler, tense with antagonism. The men, finally, had found a common look and posture: they were angry. A voice cut harshly across the silence.

"Come on, Cromwell. Tell us your program. We don't want a sermon. We can go to church tomorrow," the voice said.

It was the second man who had stood behind Mike. He was now sitting in the middle aisle.

Cromwell waited until the gasp from the crowd had died.

"Friend, you are acting for another candidate," Cromwell said. "That is as it should be. Heckling is part of the American tradition. But tonight I am tired and, I confess, somewhat sick at heart. I feel that this assembly has already expressed its opinion. I do not wish to detract from your unanimity. If your mind is made up, I shall step down and most energetically support your selection."

A man stood up. It was Mr. Appleton. He was neat, brushed, and orderly.

"I am not a delegate to this meeting," Mr. Appleton said. "I have no legal right to speak. But I represent a large number of senior citizens from Southern California. I came to this convention as an observer. However; I feel compelled to speak out. I must tell you that the senior citizens of California will be outraged when they hear this. They will be shocked when they discover that a great political party did not listen to all of the candidates. They will be shocked when they discover the amount of money that has been expended on liquor and gaudy buttons at this convention. I say to you that a man like Mr. Cromwell, who has honestly and modestly tried to put his name before you, deserves your attention." He paused and shook his head. "I hope that none of you will feel committed by the free liquor you have consumed or the free meals you have eaten."

Cromwell nodded at Mr. Appleton. He looked over his shoulder at the chairwoman. He was tired.

"Easy now, John," Mike whispered. He watched Cromwell. "Very gently now."

"I don't know, Madam Chairman, whether it is any use for me to speak," Cromwell said. "Perhaps the convention has made up its mind in favor of another person. Perhaps, to save time, I should sit down now."

He locked his hands together on the lectern, in full view of the audience. The long fingers twisted together until the knuckles were white. The chairwoman looked at Cutler and then at the delegates. She tried to read the sentiment in the hall and the confusion showed on her face.

"Why, that's very considerate of you, Mr. Cromwell," the chairwoman said. "The agenda is rather crowded and . . ."

"Railroad, railroad," someone screamed. "Cromwell's being railroaded. Give him a chance to speak. The chairwoman is Cutler's person. Let Cromwell speak. "Railroad."

The man who shouted was one of the men Mike had spoken to a few minutes before.

The chairwoman stood paralyzed. Another person jumped up and shouted "Railroad.". Suddenly the whole auditorium was on its feet shouting at the chairwoman. "Let him speak. Railroad."

The delegates began to boo. Cutler stood up and the boos deepened. Cutler sat down. The delegates began to stamp their feet.

"Mr. Cromwell will give his speech," the chairwoman shouted into the microphone.

Her voice was heard, but the delegates continued to boo, as if the offense called for further punishment. When Cromwell raised his hands they finally fell silent.

"The first thing I shall do as governor is quite simple," Cromwell said. His voice was still cold, but it was no longer condemning. "I shall end the Communist menace in this state. Oh, I know. Everyone is against Communists these days. But one must do more than merely be against Communists. Words are cheap," and his voice was softly loathing. "But actions are hard. And I intend to act. I intend to do very specific and concrete things."

The delegates were rapt.

"I am going to start with one Communist professor who is infecting the youth of one of our great universities," he said. He reached into his vest pocket and spilled some papers on the lectern. He shuffled among them and the thin rustle of papers came over the microphone. He selected one paper from many. He held the paper up. "On this paper I have the name of a Communist professor. I am not alleging this or suggesting this or hinting this. I am telling you flatly and categorically that this professor is a Communist. And he is teaching the youth of this state." Cromwell paused, bent forward and spoke in a whisper into the microphone. "And I shall give you his name."

He paused and there was a vast exhalation in the hall. He moved the paper and the eyes of the delegates jerked.

"The professor's name is Professor E.T. Moon." There was a slow collective sigh from the delegates. They did not know Moon, but they knew a decision had been made. They were at the end of one kind of confusion. They clapped and stood up on their seats.

"And this is only the beginning," Cromwell said.

The delegates howled. Someone pressed something into Georgia's hand. It was a cheap white card. Scribbled on it with a pencil were the words "Cromwell for Governor." It was carelessly and quickly printed. It looked spontaneous. Stuck in one corner of the card was a pin. She pinned on the card and noticed that all over the auditorium people were taking off the Cutler buttons and putting on the white Cromwell cards.

The delegates beat one another on the back, pointed at the crude cards, felt somehow that the person next to them had produced the cards.

Once a small group started a serpentine, but Cromwell stared at them and they saw his unsmiling face and abandoned the attempt. They got back on their chairs and applauded.

"All right," Mike said. "Let's get out of here. It's all over. Cromwell will give his speech, but he can say anything. It won't matter. He's won the endorsement."

Mike started to push up the aisle. Hank reached out and grabbed his arm.

"Just a minute, Mike," Hank said. He stepped close to Mike. "Seaton was your man, wasn't he, Mike? You arranged it, didn't you?"

"Sure. That's right."

Hank looked at Mike for a moment. Then he smiled. He reached back and took Georgia's hand and led her through the crowd.

Outside in the corridor, Clara was leaning against the wall. She was smiling, but when she saw Mike her eyes hardened like splintered agates. She put the scarred side of her face against the wall. Mike walked over to her.

"Well, we did it," Mike said.

"Sure. You did it. You son of a bitch," Clara whispered.

"Stay away from him today, Clara," Mike said. "Cutler might make trouble. Might try to block John's nomination on grounds of moral turpitude. Stay away."

Through the cigarette smoke her splintered agate eyes looked at Mike. She turned and walked for the elevator.

Mike watched her walk away. He turned and grinned at Hank.

"I'll tell you something else, Hankus," Mike said. "Remember Bellows, the delegate from Satt Bernardino who made the motion to make Cutler the unanimous choice? Well, he was our man, too."

"And so was the guy who started to yell 'railroad,'" Hank said. "He was your man too, wasn't he?"

"That's right," Mike said. "We needed that little touch to persuade the delegates that Cutler and the chairwoman were trying to take something away from them. Funny thing, Hank, try and take something away from people and all of a sudden that's the thing they want."

Hank looked from Mike to Georgia. For some reason he felt an intense anger with Georgia. He was angered by the blank, unknowing way in which she looked at Mike. He wanted, very badly, to shatter the look; to make her share his sense of outrage.

"And the little cards and pins with Cromwell's name on them?" Hank asked. "Those were your idea too. That's what all those clerks were doing in that room. They were printing out those little cards with soft pencils so that they would look real spontaneous and homemade."

"That's right," Mike said. "The delegates had to feel that Cromwell was their man. The cards helped."

The look on Georgia's face did not change. Hank felt his stomach tighten. Inside the hall Cromwell was speaking and the strong, harsh inflection of his voice carried into the corridor although the words were lost and garbled.

"I'm going to go get my bottle now," Hank said. "I'll see you in the morning."

Georgia started to say something, but he had already turned and was walking away. He did not turn around.





CHAPTER 25

Two Calm Men

Robert Grover, head political reporter for the 'Los Angeles Post,' walked down the inner quadrangle of Stanford University. He was forty-two years old, proud of his leanness and tended to dress in very severe double-breasted suits. He was also proud of the fact that no one ever took him to be a reporter. On the city desk they said it was one of his great advantages; that he looked like a bank clerk. No cigars, no hat with a press card stuck in the band, no fast talk, no soft lead pencil and wad of yellow paper, no boozy last-minute reporting. He carried a big old Sheaffer pen in the inner breast pocket of his suit. When he took notes he wrote them in a small black loose-leaf notebook and he took them in shorthand.

Not good to leave Fresno before the convention is over, he thought, but this story is worth it. Mike Freesmith had told him what Cromwell would say in his speech so it didn't matter if he was there or not. This Moon business would be the big story of the convention anyway.

Still, he hated to be away from the convention. He liked the rich environment of political conventions. He liked to stand in a crowded room, a glass of ginger ale in his hand, and listen to the boozy loud talk of the politicians and the would-be politicians and the fixers and the people that thought they were fixers.

Because he was completely trustworthy, he usually knew more about what was happening at a political meeting than any single participant. One of the keenest thrills, the thing that made the job worthwhile, was to listen to the boastful, extravagant talk of a politician who did not yet know that his throat had been secretly cut by more powerful people. The fact that he was privy to such information, that he knew who was dangling and who was solid, was the reason that Robert Grover liked political reporting.

He came to a door with "Classics Department" printed on it in faded gold letters. He went into a corridor and saw several closed doors. Each of them had a card thumbtacked to it. He found Professor Moon's office and knocked. There was a rustle of paper from inside the room, the sound of a chair scraping and then a voice called softly, "Come in."

Grover liked Professor Moon at once. He liked the neatness of the office, the absence of ashtrays and cigarette butts, the neat piles of lecture notes on the shelf, the orderliness of card catalogues. He liked the simple black suit that Professor Moon wore. He even liked the way Professor Moon's eyes swam uncertainly behind thick glasses.

"Professor Moon, my name is Robert Grover, political reporter for the 'Los Angeles Post,'" Grover said. He shook Moon's cool small hand and sat down in the chair that Moon pushed forward.

"You can smoke if you want to," Professor Moon said and he took an ashtray from a drawer and put it at Grover's elbow.

"No thanks. I don't smoke," Grover said.

Professor Moon nodded his head with approval and they smiled at one another with understanding.

"What does the 'Post' want of someone like me?" Professor Moon asked. He smiled deprecatingly, but his eyes focused behind the thick lenses and peered sharply at Grover. "I'm just a professor of classics you know. No political expert."

"Just a background story," Grover said. "A sort of think piece. We understand that you are doing some interesting work and the city desk thought it might work up into a good article."

"A political-article?" Professor Moon asked. "I don't see how . . ."

"Well, you've done some research on communism and religion and art, haven't you? That sort of thing?"

"Yes, but it doesn't have much to do with modern politics. I don't really think your readers would be interested in my sort of thing."

"Just tell me a little about it," Grover said. "Just describe the work generally."

Professor Moon smiled. He shook his head modestly, deprecatingiy, but Grover could see he was flattered. Professor Moon reached in a drawer and took out a thin typewritten manuscript.

"These are the first few chapters of a large work I intend to do on the subject," Pr6fessor Moon said. He glanced shyly at Grover. "It's very slow work, you know. There is a tremendous amount of material. These few chapters are based on thousands of pages of notes. The whole work won't be finished for years, I'm afraid. Very difficult subject."

"Why don't you just describe it to me?" Grover said. "In simple language, of course. Just as simply as you can."

"All right, in simple language," Professor Moon said. He was pleased. He leaned back in the chair and held the manuscript in his hand. "I got interested in the subject of property relations through my study of art. I discovered that whenever you have a good and free art you have communal ownership . . . communism, you might call it. And when you have good art and communism you also have a strong religious faith. In the time of the Torah, for example, which regulated the life of the ancient Jews, you find communist ownership and very good art and strong religion. And in primitive Catholicism, in the early days of the church you find that natural law, good art and communal ownership all emerged at the same time. Then I found that whenever private ownership emerges, art starts to decay and then, almost inevitably, the religious faith starts to crumble. Now that's it. Put much too simply of course."

"Would that mean that Christianity, primitive Christianity that is, was communistic?" Grover asked.

"That's right," Professor Moon said enthusiastically. "You've caught it. And whenever private ownership emerges the religious faith diminishes."

"What about modern Christianity, Professor Moon? Is it communistic?"

"Not yet," Professor Moon said. He leaned forward, laid the manuscript on the table, smoothed it out. "But it's becoming more communistic. Just look at the Social Encyclicals of Pope Leo the Eleventh. Why they're just full of communist notions of ownership and social relations. And Protestant theology is the same way. It's leaning more and more toward communal ownership. And the more it does the deeper the religious faith."

"Do you think that Communism and Christianity are compatible then?" Grover asked.

Grover took out his notebook. He unscrewed his Sheaffer pen and made a few quick notes in shorthand.

"I've always wished I had learned shorthand," Professor Moon said. "It would save so much time taking notes in the library. Especially from the rare books which you can't remove from the library."

Grover smiled at Professor Moon and nodded.

"I was asking if you thought that modern Communism and Christianity are compatible?" Grover said.

"Oh, yes. Sorry. I don't really know much about modern communism, you know," Professor Moon said doubtfully. "But just speaking off the cuff I'd say that Christianity and communism are having an effect on one another; they tend to soften one another. Maybe if it continues we'll find that the simplicity of the primitive Christians will return and adopt some of the ideas of communism. I never thought about it much . . . the problem of modern-day relations between them."

"Could you tell me your best opinion though?" Grover asked.

"Well, I think they are compatible," Professor Moon said. "Communism and Christianity will probably come together and each adopt the best features of the other and we'll have something like what we had after the fall of the Roman Empire: communist ideas of property, religious enthusiasm and good art."

"Would you say, Professor Moon, that you are a Communist?"

"Of course. I'm a communist. Just as I'm a Catholic. Part Catholic and part communist. That's what I tell my classes," he said. He looked at Grover and then leaned forward confidentially. "It rather shocks them at first. They find it difficult to deal with antinomies."

Grover made notations with his pen. He filled one page with sharp angular marks and turned the notebook over. Just as he looked up again there was a knock on the door.

A young man pushed through the door. He was breathing hard. He stood spraddle-legged. There was a press card stuck in the brim of his hat.

"Is one of you Moon?" the young man asked.

Grover closed his notebook and screwed his pen shut. He stood up.

"I'm Norton from the United Press," the young man said. "John Cromwell has just been endorsed by the Democratic Pre-Primary Convention for governor. In a speech he made this afternoon he stated that you were a Communist."

"Me?" Professor Moon asked.

Professor Moon looked at Grover and his eyes diffused completely behind his glasses. His lips trembled and he seemed to be asking Grover for instructions.

"Yes, you," the United Press man said.

"I don't know who Cromwell is," Professor Moon said. "I've never heard of him."

"What difference does' that make?" the United Press man said. "Are you a Communist?"

Professor Moon looked around for Grover, but he was already in the doorway, his hat in his hand. Professor Moon was suddenly defenseless.

"I guess I am a communist," he said. "But a very special kind. A kind of scholarly interest led me . . . "

"Professor Moon, I have to leave," Grover said. "Thank you for your time."

As Grover walked across the Quad, two men came loping across the asphalt. He knew they were reporters. He hurried to find a phone.





CHAPTER 26

A Monday Morning Ride

On Monday morning Hank and Georgia drove back to Los Angeles alone. Mike flew to San Francisco from Fresno. He was meeting with some members of the State Central Committee to talk over Cromwell's campaign.

Georgia was driving. Hank was asleep. When they were just outside of Bakersfield, Hank groaned once and turned over.

"Do you want something to eat, Hank?" she said.

"Sure. What I need is some chili," Hank said. His eyes were bloodshot. He was hung over. They had already stopped three times so that Hank could eat. Each time he wolfed down a sandwich or a piece of pie ŕ la mode and walked back to the car and promptly went to sleep.

"I'll pull in at the next restaurant," Georgia said. "You're the first person I ever saw who wanted to eat when he had a hangovers. Most people just want black coffee." Hank said nothing; he stared out at the fields, watched a truck load of pickers jog across a corduroy road. "Where did you go last night?"

"Out. Someplace in Fresno," Hank said. "A couple of bars and then a dance hall. God, I haven't danced for years. I must have danced thirty dances last night. I think I had a good time. I feel good now. As if I had a good time. Maybe I did."

"You're sure you want something to eat?" Georgia asked.

"Yes. I'm sure. I like to eat when I'm hung. Also I like to talk. I've been sleeping so I wouldn't talk. I get boring. It's funny, I feel miserable physically, but inside I feel sort of weak and purged. Like after you take a cathartic. It makes me want to talk. Just tell me to stop if I get boring or euphoric."

Georgia pulled over and parked by a small restaurant. They went in and Hank ordered a bowl of chili beans. Georgia had a cup of coffee. Hank gulped down the beans and ate three cellophane packets of crackers. He picked up a half dozen packets of the crackers when he left. Georgia continued to drive. Hank munched on the crackers.

"Mike told me that you were going to specialize in psychiatry, but you switched to surgery," Georgia said.

"That's right. There's more money in psychiatry, but I decided that surgery was more interesting."

"Really? I would think psychiatry would be very interesting."

Hank opened another packet of crackers. He ate them before he replied, "I was lying. It is more interesting than surgery. I've never talked it over with anyone, not even Mike. But I don't care now. I went into surgery because I couldn't stand psychiatry."

"Do you really want to talk about it?"

"Sure I want to talk about it," Hank said. He leaned back in the corner of the seat, closed his eyes and talked through the crackers. "I spent three years studying psychiatry, why shouldn't I talk about it? I was the hottest psychiatry intern they had. A real whiz. Superego, id, ego, narcissism, insulin shock, Rohrschach test, T.A.T., hydrotherapy, Méničre's Syndrome, hypertonia, ataxia, stuttering, paranoia, negativism, regression, metrazol, hypnogogic reverie, oneirosis . . . Jesus, I knew everything. I was going to be the boy wonder of psychiatry. I was going to save a tortured world . . . ole Hank Moore, all by himself."

He opened his eyes, reached for another packet of crackers. He opened the packet and put two crackers in his mouth.

"Then they gave me my first case," Hank said. "Jesus, I went at it carefully. She was thirty-five years old, married, four kids, a Catholic. I found out everything about her, just the way I'd been taught. Not forcing her, but letting her bring it out. She complained of headaches, walked with a limp, had occasional tinnitus and almost constant scintillating scotoma . . . "

"What's that?" Georgia asked. "Scintillating scotoma?"

"Bright spots before the eyes," Hank said and laughed. "Silly, eh? But she had more, much more than that. And I put it all down, the way you're supposed to. Neatly in a notebook. Subject was one of six siblings. Cruel, dominant father. Beat the kids on Saturday night before he went out and got drunk. Retiring mother. Subject had great fear of sex during menarche. Didn't know where babies came from until she was three months' pregnant. Married a shy linoleum salesman. Never experienced orgasm. Associated sex with pain, rape, bleeding. Subject suffered from intense depression, pains in abdomen, and fear of high places. That's just part of it, just a fraction. I got it all down, worked it over, slaved on it, consulted with experts, went through the books, listened endlessly to this fat whining woman talk and put down every single thing she said."

"What was wrong with her?" Georgia asked.

"I never found out. I gave her the most thorough physical that any person ever had. Blood count, urinalysis, regular X-rays, barium meal X-rays, spinal tap, Stanford-Binet I.Q. test, an ataxigraph, campimeter... there Was nothing I didn't do to that lady. I thought she might have Méničre's Syndrome so I tested for sludging of the blood in the labyrinth of the ear. No results. I discovered she had an enormous amount of water in her body and she said she ate salt in quantities . . . half a cupful a day. She heaped it on meat, eggs and potatoes. So I rushed to Freud and read about the symbolic meaning of salt arid concluded that she was suffering from a suppressed desire for immortality. She was literally trying to pickle herself, make a brine out of her blood and lymph. So that she could keep that defective, hulking, worn-out body of hers forever. The notebook got bigger and bigger. They gave me a secretary to transcribe the notes. Everyone thought it was going to be one of those epic cases; go down in all the textbooks. Moore's Syndrome they would call it."

"Did you cure her?" Georgia asked.

"Let me finish, Hank said. "I put her on a salt-free diet and nothing happened except she lost thirty pounds. She just liked salt. She didn't protest when I put her on the diet. She said the food was a little flat, but that was all. Matter of fact she didn't mind anything. She'd sit there, smiling a little anxiously, trying to be co-operative. She said her headaches were worse at certain times. It took me a month to discover that she had them worse in intercourse. Whenever she felt her husband tighten up and knew he was having orgasm, the headache would hit; flash through her head like a bullet. So back to the books I went; Reik, Freud, Carveth, Alexander. Hatred and revenge on Father, I concluded. Suppressed and emerged physically in the form of a crashing, instantaneous headache whenever she knew that any man was experiencing pleasure with her body.

"I was sure of the diagnosis, but she didn't respond well to treatment. I probed her about her feelings during intercourse, tried to get her to admit that she hated it. But she would just blush and say, no, she really liked intercourse. In fact she was after her husband all the time for a little extra piece.

"I gave a long wordy diagnosis and everyone smiled and agreed that ole Hank Moore was on his way. Then she jumped off the Arroyo Seco Bridge in Pasadena. I never did find out what was wrong with her. And I gave up psychiatry."

"Why? Every intern must make mistakes at first," Georgia said. "That's what internships are for. So you make your mistakes under supervision."

"I wasn't afraid of making mistakes," Hank said. "But later, after she had committed suicide, I went over my notes. And it all became clear. There was nothing wrong with the woman; not at first. She just wanted to talk to the nice young doctor and it didn't cost her anything and it kept her out of the house. It gave her a nice break. She kept changing the symptoms on me, just to keep my interest up. But at some point the whole thing changed. The more I talked the more she became apprehensive and frightened. And in the end I drove her to the bridge."

"Oh, Hank, that's silly. She must have been way off base before she ever came to you."

"But she wasn't," Hank said. "She just wanted a chance to get out of the house for a few hours a week and she liked to have someone to talk to. But at some point I got the thin end of the wedge into her brain. And every word I said drove it in farther. See, I really drove her to suicide. She was just a normal, whining, fat, bored housewife. And I, Hank the wonder intern, was clever enough to drive her nuts; I got her so worked up that she committed suicide."

"Is surgery better?" Georgia asked.

Hank sat up. He rolled down the window and spat a mouthful of crackers out onto the highway. He rolled the window up.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm talking too much. Also I'm trying to be smart and flip. I don't feel that way about it. Really I liked psychiatry, but I just couldn't do it. Too chancy."

"Too chancy?"

"Yes. Too chancy. Too much guesswork. Too much opinion. Too much wild imagination. Too much of something that I don't have."

"Are you a good surgeon?"

"No. Just average, but I'll get better."

"Well, why did you pick surgery then?"

"Because it's sure. Absolutely, positively sure. If you're a surgeon, a cancer specialist brings in a patient and tells you that he's got a patient with a cancer in the cortex of the brain. He makes the diagnosis. It's all his responsibility. All the surgeon does is operate. The other guy takes all the responsibility."

"But that's part of being a doctor," Georgia protested. "You have to be willing to make a diagnosis."

"Not if you're a surgeon. They bring the patient in with the diagnosis already made. All you have to do is operate. They bring him in with his head shaved so close that it gleams like brass. You caliper off the distance, make a mark on the skull . . . it's all exact, precise, with instruments that measure the same thing on every person. No guesswork. You sponge off the skull with alcohol that kills the same kind of germs on every kind of head. You take a scalpel and cut and elevate and reflect a flap of skin. Same size on every head; same place; same problem. You clamp off the blood vessels. They're always in the same position in every person's head. Once in a while one vessel bleeds a little more than most and then you just electrocoagulate it. That's the only difference. Then you cut through the skullbone with a trephine; five holes, each exactly the same. You cut between them with a special stainless-steel wire saw. You elevate the flap of dura and gently explore the brain. And either it's there or it's not. Either you see a little yellow growth spreading across the surface, sending tiny ramifications into the healthy tissue, crowding against the sulci and causing the memory lapse and gradually killing the patient -- it's either there or it isn't. If it isn't you back out of the skull, sew the skin back over and the internist was wrong. Not you."

"And if he was right?"

"Then the operating nurse slaps an electric knife in your hand and slowly, gently, holding your breath, sweating, you cut it out. The curious little piece of flesh falls away from the brain, the electric knife seals off the blood vessels and, finally, it's just lying there . . . an ounce or two of crazy flesh. You pick the growth up with a forceps and start backing out. And you feel as good as if you'd done something really important. And no responsibility."

"But somebody has to do the diagnosis, someone has to take the risk."

Hank opened his eyes a slit, glanced down the long shiny hood of the car, down the rushing strip of black asphalt, saw dimly the beetlelike rush of the other cars, the green foliage alongside the highway. He smiled and closed his eyes.

"Sure. Someone has to do it. Let someone do it that likes to take a chance, that likes guessing. I don't like it."

Georgia drove a few more-miles without speaking and Hank almost fell asleep.

"Is it worthwhile studying surgery, Hank, if you're not very good at it?"

"Good question. First, I'm not bad at it. I'm just not gifted in the fingers the way some of the surgeons are. But you can improve yourself by practice and so I do that. When I was at medical school I used to practice on old cadavers; the ones that were so sliced up they were about to send them away to wherever they send used-up cadavers. Sometimes I practiced on beef. I never told anyone about that. I'd get a big roast of beef, take it to my apartment, lay out the instruments and practice. Practice at tying knots with two fingers in a deep bloody cut; practice at feeling things with the tips of my fingers; practice at thin cuts . . . so thin that a hundred of them wouldn't cut through more than a quarter inch of flesh." Hank waved his hand in the air. "Don't worry. I'm good enough and I'm getting better. I'll be one of the best someday. Not right away, but someday."

Hank opened his eyes again, looked sideways at Georgia. She was looking straight ahead, sitting easily in the seat. The speedometer held exactly at 60, not falling or rising a hair.

"The only thing I saved from psychiatry is a name for what I'm feeling right now," Hank said. "Parorexia."

"What's that?" Georgia asked, laughing.

"Perverted appetite," Hank said. "I'm hungry for something else. Fried eggs. Stop at the next restaurant."

They stopped and Hank ate four fried eggs and some toast. When they got back in the car, they drove through the mountain meadows -- on top of the Ridge Route. The lupin was turning brown and great patches of the flower marched over the hillsides. In a few places, deep gullies and ravines, there were still streaks of brown winter snow. Trucks crawled up the grade, their wheels barely turning, the diesel smoke hanging motionless in the air.

"You were mad at Mike during the convention, weren't you?" Georgia asked.

"For a little while. Then I got over it. I was really mad about him giving Moon's name to Cromwell. That was a hell of a thing. But last night when I was out on the town I thought it all out. I'm not sore anymore."

"I'm glad. I wouldn't feel good if you were mad at Mike."

"Well, I'm not mad anymore. I figured it doesn't make any difference. The Moon thing won't amount to anything. It'll just blow over. If I really thought that it would hurt Moon any, I'd have really given Mike hell . . . made Cromwell retract the statement or something. But it won't matter. Everyone will just forget it. Think it's a political attack and forget it."

"Isn't Professor Moon a Communist?"

"He's not a member of the Communist Party. He's one of those oddballs who likes to startle his students, and he's convinced himself that he believes in some special obscure aspects of primitive communism. But he's not a member of the Party. I'll bet he doesn't even know that there is a Communist Party."

"I'm not so sure that everyone is going to forget it, Hank. People are worked up these days about Communism. What if the newspapers pick it up?"

"They won't. Everyone knows that it was just politics. They'll forget about it." Hank leaned back in the seat and yawned. He rubbed his hands across his eyes. "That was a neat job that Mike pulled on the convention. I wonder if any of them realize what happened?"

"What did he do to them, Hank?" Georgia asked. "Why did they all switch so easily from Gutler to Cromwell?"

"Because they were a middle-class crowd," Hank said. "All clever, well-educated people. They all knew about mob psychology and emotionalism and they know it's not nice for respectable people to get too excited. They're stiff with respectability; really proper people. But they all thought that a political convention is different. There you can get excited and yell and parade around and it's all right. You're doing it in the interest of good government, for the state. But then Mike pulled a switch on them. After they had paraded around and acted foolish, they sat down; all feeling righteous and spent. And then the minister stands up and gives them hell. Suddenly they're all embarrassed sick. They hated the minister and Cromwell for reminding them of how foolish they'd been. Hell hath no fury like an embarrassed respectable person."

"If they hated the minister and Cromwell, why did they go along with them?" Georgia asked.

"Because they couldn't admit they hated the people that scotded them," Hank said. "They had to turn their hatred on the guy that made fools out of them . . . and that guy was Cutler. And the cards helped. They looked spontaneous, homemade, crude. Not like Cutler's slick, high-powered buttons and posters and photographs. Everyone thought the person next to him had scribbled out the cards. So they turned on Cutler, tore off his buttons and put on the hand-written cards for Cromwell. That was pretty clever of Mike. Really clever."

"Mike was right," Georgia said. "The problem is not so much to get them to like your candidate as to persuade them to hate the other candidate."

"Sure, he was right for a little group like a convention," Hank said. "But it's just a trick. You couldn't pull it on the whole voting public."

Georgia glanced at Hank and her face was relieved; almost smiling.

"But why can't Mike work a couple of tricks and win the election?"

"Because you can't manipulate five million people the way you manipulate a few hundred people that are all gathered together in one hall. The mass of voters is just too big. That's their protection from people like Mike. Just their great big bulk makes them difficult to persuade and handle. Wait until Mike starts trying to manipulate five million people. Then you'll see. He'll get smothered. And it's a damn good thing."

"That's funny, Hank, I just don't see Mike being wrong on this. I'd like to see him lose. But I don't think he will."

The relief was still there on her face, but she wanted more assurance.

"Well, he's going to lose the primary. If the Republicans run Daigh, he will take both nominations in the primary. My God, Georgia, nobody even knows who Cromwell is. He's just a man with some inherited money who likes to talk to people. He's good at it. In a way he's superb. But he'll never be governor."

They came to the Santa Paula cutoff. A huge gas station glittered at the intersection. A single great truck came powerfully down Highway 126 and swung into the traffic. From the hills above Chatsworth, they could see an occasional glimpse of the sprawling geometry of Los Angeles.

"But Mike's so sure he can do it," Georgia said.

"He could be sure and still be wrong," Hank said.

"Maybe," Georgia said.

They came to Sepulveda and swung right. They went past the glittering expanse of the reservoir and then, far ahead of them, the first traffic light blinked red. The flicking, fast-moving, atomized cars slowed down, formed into bunches. Tamely, they moved into Los Angeles.

Hank waited for a few moments. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the corner of the seat.

"Georgia, why do you hang around with Mike?" he asked and his voice was tough and determined. "Nothing can come out of it. There's nothing in it for you."

The car spurted forward, whined down the road. Hank had a brief flash of memory: he remembered the time when he was taking the pulse of a man after a long diagnosis. Hank told the man he had incurable cancer and at once the pulse grew thick, enormous, thudding; as if the artery would burst under his fingers. "Why do you hang around Mike?" Georgia asked.

"Because I've known him for a long time and I like him," Hank said. "I don't know why, but I do. I like him and there's something curious, attractive about him. I keep thinking if I hang around I'll find out some answer that will make the whole thing sensible." How can I tell her, he thought? He felt dull, used up. "With you it's different. You want something he can't give."

"I'm not sure, Hank," Georgia said and her voice was only a whisper; almost frightened. "At first I thought it was because he was so certain; always sure of everything. No doubts. No hesitations. But now I've changed. It's different. I think I make it too complicated. Maybe it's just as simple as the fact that I . . . " She paused. "Just as simple as . . . "

"Don't talk about it," Hank said harshly, quickly. He was suddenly desperate. not to have her say it. He wanted, with a dead anxiousness, not to have her uncover herself; to speak the final words. "Shut up."

He opened his eyes. She was looking straight down the highway, her eyes distended. On her arms the flesh was puckered and he realized that she was shivering slightly; almost invisibly.





CHAPTER 27

Election Year

The California gold had been there for ages. It was washed down out of the hills in shining flakes that gathered at the bottom of river beds. Sometimes it came down in dull and tiny pieces as big as peas. Once or twice, no one knows how, it stayed in the hills in chunks as big as a boulder; heavy enough to make a man's arms strain when he tried to lift it. And heavy enough to make him scream with joy when he hefted it.

They took it out first with iron pans. Three handfuls of black sand, wash it with river water, let the black silt sluice over the edges. Then tilt and tip, wash again and again and again. And finally the streak at the bottom: thin, yellow and heavy. Scrape it, along with the black mud, into the leather bag and to assay.

Later came surface diggings, wet diggings, crude flumes, cradles, riffles, tailings, leads, coyotes, and each of them took some gold and left the land unchanged.

But then they came with hydraulic gear. They came into the counties of Plumas and Placer and Eldorado with the big squat pumps, the long lengths of pipe, and the sharp lawyers who bought "hosing rights." From the end of the monitor came a hard bright gush of water. The water hissed against the startled land, It cut around rocks, chewed up adobe, lacerated hills, chewed through roots and old lava. The land resisted for a few hours. And then it turned into thin coffee-colored slop and poured slowly down the hillsides, into the ravines, down to the river beds and finally into the mouth of the big machines.

The sharp young mountains were worn smooth. They turned into brown hills, laced with gullies and ravines. And the hills became mounds of soft leached-out dirt. And if the gold persisted, the mountain became a hole in the ground.

The dredges came last. They were huge, ugly, black and created their own world. The dredges floated on water. The continuous belt of scoops dug up the earth in front of the dredge and threw the exhausted and goldless waste out behind. Each dredge moved its pond across the countryside, ignoring the old stream beds, chewing into pastures, flat land, through small hills, up valleys. The land they moved was ruined, covered with smooth round rocks that had been underground for a million years. After the dredge nothing could grow or did. Highways were built across the desolation, but that was all.

When the gold was gone the dredges died. They died where the gold ended; the barges rotting in the artificial lakes, the pipes turning red with rust, the scoops hanging like useless claws on an iron dinosaur. The incongruous, unbelievable wreck took only ten years to rot and disappear, but the land behind them was gone forever.

"What we need is reforestation," they said. And they said it in Nevada City, Eldorado, Yankee Jim's, Grass Valley, Gold Run, Sierra City and elsewhere. "And the state should pay for it."

At first only the resort owners and lumbermen said it and they said it for the purposes of simple greed. Then the rotary clubs and chambers of commerce and the bankers said it. And pretty soon the Catholic priests, the Protestant ministers, the Grange and, newspaper editors began to say it.

One day it had a slogan: "Restore the Land."

And that day it became political and a bill was introduced named "No. 1090: A Bill to Provide for Reforestation in Certain Counties of Northern California." And soon after it became a political plank in the party platforms.



It is a long low building built of concrete and covered with gray paint. It is surrounded by shrubs and neat lawns and behind the building is a farm with cows and barns and pigs. The land in front of the building drops slowly to the sea and in the far distance one can see the faint smudged outline of Point Buchon, the sandy spits over which the Pacific breaks, the deep green lines of windbreak eucalyptus trees.

From the building no one watches the view, for it is an insane asylum and everyone inside is too busy. A middle-aged woman sits rigidly on a stool, her jaw tight, her eyes abstracted, passionately busy defending a dark inner privicy, locked in a catatonic rigidity which absorbs all her energy. She is oblivious even when her mouth is opened, the rubber tube is stuck in, and the warm soup funneled into her stomach.

In a small room a man masturbates endlessly, childlessly, fondly. Once his hands were strapped so that he could not touch himself and with an infantile ingenuity he rubbed himself with the heel of his right foot and when this was strapped tight he rubbed the inside of his thighs together and they saw it was hopeless and freed his hands.

In a common room a thin bony man talks fervently to a large, fattish, slack-jawed man.

"And just when I had the well ready to come in and the oil people were making offers from New York, they framed me and stuck me in here," the thin man says, his eyes gleaming with paranoia, black with suspicion.

"Shame, awful shame," the fat man says. He shakes his head and the skin of his jaw, pebbled by paresis, trembles.

"And under that well is the god damnedest, biggest pool of oil ever seen. Reaches for miles, big and shiny, biggest pool in the world," the thin man says. Then suddenly crafty. "But I've got a plan. Can't keep a good man down."

They smile at one another; a tiny community of two; isolated against the rest of the asylum; perfectly matched by their diseases; their afflictions enfolded and complemented within one another.

The less afflicted work on the farm. With nightmarish slowness they pitch hay, watching each yellow curl of hay fall on the pile, turning with scarecrow awkwardness. They stumble across the barnyard, smiling dimly, doing the rote and hard-learned tasks with a minute precision. The overalls hang from them, shred on nails and boards, and the naked skin shows through and they still continue the convoluted, elaborate ritual of the farm. Occasionally, very occasionally, through the dullness comes a sense of outrage and there are fights. Slow, shambling fights; like drowning bears fighting under water; hands pawing one another; teeth biting fingers; a pulling of ears and a welling of tears in the eyes.

The Visiting Committee comes once a year. Three psychiatrists, two educators, three businessmen, one housewife and a retired army officer. They inspect the kitchen, made bright for the occasion. The housewife tastes the spaghetti and meat balls and, as the superintendent hangs nervously on the fringes of the group, she asks how much milk the inmates get per day.

The Committee walks through the wards and rooms. They look at hydrocephalics, microcephalics, paranoiacs, schizophrenics, paretics and Mongolian idiots. They watch a fifteen-year-old girl snap her fingers, slap her right fist into her left fist, pause fifteen seconds and repeat the gesture. Her fingers are covered with thick callouses from the snapping and the palm of her left fist is a huge swollen pad of callous.

They came to the large common room, reserved for the good and sober cases, for the patients who are cooperative. They paused and smiled out over the room and a few fragmented, disorderly, crooked smiles came back at them.

Then the housewife sees it: the dark, shiny tendril of blood flowing across the floor. They rush forward and see that it comes from a rocking chair in which the body of the middle-aged catatonic woman rests.

A paranoiac cheerfully reconstructed it for them. The woman had suddenly, after years of immobility, moved her head, peered shrewdly around the room and walked over to a desk. She picked up a pencil, walked back to the rocking chair and sat down. As a few of the interested patients watched, she hacked her wrist open with the pencil, chopping fiercely at the tendons and flesh and then, when she had opened an artery, sat back with a smile in the chair. They had watched passively as the blood flowed from her hand, gathered in a pool and ran across the floor and the smile on the woman's face went thinner and tighter until at last it was a thin pale snarl and the woman was dead.

"She should have been in a private isolated room. By herself," the housewife said and looked with horror at the superintendent.

So the Visiting Committee recommended that the legislature appropriate an additional $26,000 for the asylum. The budget read:

For construction of six private rooms.. $23,500 For one FTE, hospital attendant ....... 2,500

The legislative auditor recommended that the request be denied. The Budget Committee of the legilature concurred. The two lines were stricken from the budget.

But the housewife on the Visiting Committee was the wife of the publisher of the 'San Francisco Dispatch,' a great crusading paper. Pictures appeared in the 'Dispatch' of the inmates huddling in common rooms. Stories were written by reporters. And, as a result, the official Democratic Party platform included, "Adequate budgetary provision for the care and rehabilitation of patients in State mental institutions."



The State of California has an agency that makes building loans to veterans. Under the provisions of the original act, the state will make a loan, at a low rate of interest, to a veteran to construct a home.

In Sacramento the applications for veteran loans are processed by machines, almost entirely. But not entirely. For at some point humans look over the forms, check them for accuracy and either approve or disapprove on the basis of the calculations which the machines have made. The individuals fix their initials to the lower left-hand corner of the forms, just below their decision. It is as neat and mechanical an operation as one could hope for.

One of the persons who affixed his initials to the bottom of the application forms was Michael Garrity. Fifty-four years old, a Republican, a Catholic, two years of work at Santa Clara University, before he flunked out, a high blood pressure, five kids, a longing for beer; a flaccid wife, an eater of chocolates, the owner of three shiny-pants suits, a tic in his jowl, that, mostly, was Michael Garrity.

One day Michael Garrity received a case of Old Taylor whisky and five cases of Budweiser beer from Sharp's Liquor Store. They were delivered to his door and he thought it was a marvelous mistake and drank all of the beer and half of the whisky in two weeks. Shrewdly, sharply, primitively, he reasoned that he had done nothing criminal . . . any man could drink up booze delivered to his door . . . he hadn't done anything wrong. For two weeks he enjoyed his hangovers, made sweeter by the knowledge that they were acquired at someone else's expense.

Then Mr. Dante Ignazio appeared at his desk. Mr. Ignazio had gone to Santa Clara with Michael Garrity, but Mr. Ignazio had gone on to graduate and then went into big-scale contracting in Santa Clara Valley. He tore down prune trees and put up houses and he prospered exceedingly. He prospered until the spring of Election Year when the recession set in. Then, maddeningly, surprisingly, malignantly, buyers no longer had the down payment or did not want to put it down. They did not have enough money to qualify for the FHA loans and too few of them were veterans.

For three weeks Mr. Ignazio's fortunes dangled in the balance. The houses did not sell; the liens poured in; the blank-faced men from the banks walked curiously about the empty project. Then Mr. Ignazio went to see his classmate, Michael Garrity.

"Here are fifty applications of people who want to buy houses on my Santa Clara tract," Mr. Ignazio said. "That is, they will buy them if they can qualify for the veterans' loan and avoid the big down payment they have to make on FHA ordinary bank loans. Christ, Mike, why does the government jack up the down so high?"

Michael grinned sympathetically. They both looked out the windows, down the tree-lined streets of Sacramento glittering in the sunlight.

"Sure, Iggy," Michael said. "I'll expedite them. If they're veterans we'll get them through."

"But that's the point, Mike," Mr. Ignazio said softly. "They're not veterans."

"Then it's hopeless, Iggy. Really hopeless."

"Nothing's hopeless, Mike," Mr. Ignazio said, and his voice turned regretful, but under the voice, lost in its Italian softness was a hint of steel. "I thought, Mike, when I sent you that case of Old Taylor and the beer that you understood that. Didn't you read the note? If you read the note and didn't send the liquor back, Mike, I think it's a little dishonest."

"What note?" Michael Garrity asked.

He looked across at Mr. Ignazio and he knew that they both understood that there was no note with the liquor. But he also knew that it did not matter. The Old Taylor was floating in his blood stream, had gone to fat around his middle. He had belched the Budweiser for two weeks, had floated euphorically on the windfall of booze, had gotten fat on the whole mess of it. Dimly Michael Garrity perceived that he had been bribed and that he had accepted; that literally the bribe had become a part of his body. Metaphysically, he was one with it; there was no way he could ever rid himself of it again. Bitterly he recalled the lectures by Brother Cooley at Santa Clara on the nature of sin and willfulness and gluttony. He knew that he had sinned; that the initialing of the forms would be a lesser sin and that, dimly, inarticulately, dumbly, he knew that the larger sin authorized the lesser.

He looked up at Mr. Ignazio, suddenly shy with the enormity of what he was doing.

"All right, lggy, I'll do it," he said.

And that night Mr. Ignazio had Sharp's Liquor Store send Michael Garrity three more cases of Budweiser and another case of Old Taylor. The head clerk at Sharp's was a lean and very sharp Mexican boy, who was passionately devoted to the Democratic Party and he thought for a few days about the probity of a private contractor sending liquor to a state employee in the housing division. Then he went to the office of a lawyer who was high in the councils of the Democratic Party and told his story. The lawyer's eyes gleamed, he patted the Mexican on the back and lifted his phone.

Three days later the newspapers carried headlines. "Graft Charged in State Housing," "Housing Official Says Bribe Charges 'Politics,'" "Attorney General Says Indictments Will Issue," "Democrats Charge Corruption in Veterans Housing."

Michael Garrity left his five children and his flaccid wife and his beery tastes and began an elaborate habituation of jails and lockups that ended finally when he was sentenced to five years in San Quentin.

That spring the matter of graft in state offices became a political issue.



And in these ways, and many others, the issues of Election Year unfolded. They were known by manifestoes, resolutions, newspaper editorials, handbills, polls and television and radio.

The issues were made public by the leaders of the Spanish vote, the German vote, the Italian vote, the realtors vote, the Japanese vote, the oil vote, the orange vote, the lemon vote, the walnut vote, the radical vote, the conservative vote, the socialist vote, the golf-club vote, the Montgomery Street vote, the Spring Street vote, the South of Market vote, the Negro vote, the rural vote, the urban vote, and others. And nobody listened.

The political parties went into dull, self-conscious action. Like a common, harmless, little-noticed weed the party apparatus worked throughout the state. At the ends of the apparatus, like tiny hairlike projections, were the precinct clubs. The weed stirred and held teas, rallies, debates, fund-raising bazaars, and issued statements. Some of the branches of the weed were tobacco stained and bourbon nourished, and flourished. Some were bright with summer chiffon dresses and warm bosoms and were nourished on tea and Scotch shortbread and operated in Beverly Hills and the Marina. Some of the hairlike projections were stiff with doctrine and lived in an atmosphere of books, lectures, crew cuts and undergraduate enthusiasm at UCLA, Stanford and Berkeley. The swaying, barely moving tips of the weed were linked by thicker branches to the clubs, county committees and the higher branches.

The political weed stirred in the state, unnoticed and quiet. It talked to itseft and ate itself and influenced no one.



And in the interstices of the weed, in the black private earth between the growth, never public, were the things that nourished the weed and kept it barely alive.

There was, for example, Ben Adams, a coffee-colored Negro, with a knobby head, neat small ears and a voice smooth and unctuous from singing in the Baptist choir. In his eighteenth year he walked down Central Avenue in Los Angeles and listened to a speaker standing on the back of a big red Chevvy truck. The speaker reminded the audience of what the Democrats and F.D.R. had done for the Negro and the Democratic platform for an FEPC, and his voice soared with enthusiasm for the natural identity between the Negro and the Democratic Party. And as Ben Adams looked at the black, brown, creamy, brown and tan faces and as he watched them nod agreement, somewhere inside his head a tiny worm of hatred stirred, a feeling that he was not like them, a wish to be unlike them and different. And quietly, very privately, Ben Adams became a Republican and when he was twenty-one he voted Republican. Of course, without telling anyone and belonging all the time to the Central Avenue Young Democratic Club and even selling tickets to the barbecues and dances.

And there was Joe Wilson of Burlingame, San Francisco Peninsula, who was once Jere Wilzweski of Pittsburgh. He had come from Pittsburgh to demonstrate a new puddling process at the Bethlehem plant in South San Francisco. He had stayed and been promoted and one day even gotten a white-collar job and then, during the expansion of the war, he became an executive. The Wilzweskis moved down the Peninsula to Burlingame, and one of the things they discovered was that everyone in the block, all of the barbecue-pit owners, the mechanical-lawnmower owners, the Chrysler and Mercury owners, the commuters, the Peninsulates, the Fortune-reading people, were Republican. And so the Wilzweskis quietly changed their registration and put a Dewey sticker on their car and eagerly said harsh things about Truman and, finally, even began to reconstruct their memory of Roosevelt and remembered him as socialist, father of much-marrying children, fomenter of discontent, upsetter of the peace, and heard and believed that Eleanor had never loved him.

And there was Enos Deer, father of three, milk-truck driver, Mason, champion bowler in the Dairy-Bakery-Poultry League, owner of a Ford, a vacationer at Yosemite Park for two weeks of each year, a twenty-year resident of San Bernardino. He had never known a politician and he hated them all. He voted Democratic because his father had once winked at him and said, "Can't tell, Enos, what would happen if you stepped inside the booth, pulled the curtain behind you, and voted for a Republican. You, son, you vote Democratic." And Enos did.

And there was Alden Ethridge, chief clerk at Pacific Mutual Life Insurance in Los Angeles. He was a Christian Scientist, had never taken a drink in his life, wore cheap clothes that looked somehow like those tailor-made for insurance executives, subscribed to the 'Saturday Review,' married Esther who was thin and faintly aristocratic looking because of her leanness, had no children, started fourteen International Correspondence School courses and never finished one, read books on "Salesmanship," drove a Plymouth, was a seaman in the Navy in World War II for three months and then obtained a medical discharge because of asthma, belonged to Book-of-the-Month. When he was first employed by Pacific Mutual he heard a vice-president say, "If we ever get him out, him and Harry Hopkins and Ickes and the rest of those socialist bastards, if we do that we'll have prosperity in this country again. We'll have businessmen in power. We'll have common sense in Washington. But we won't because too many of the common people vote Democratic."

And Alden Ethridge squared his thin shoulders, put a determined tough grin on his sallow city pale face and voted Republican and never again thought of politics. Except when it occurred to him that he was most uncommon.



The billboards went up throughout the state. Big red and white signs with men ten feet tall on them and, occasionally, the faces of their families. Each billboard cost $80 a month. The throwaways, costing only three for a penny, began to circulate. The mailing pieces went out. Newspaper space was bought. Television time was purchased for $450 per half hour. From parts of the political weed rumors and information flowed and died before they got far.

And nobody listened. Dimly, vaguely, offhandedly they made up their minds. In a casual or antic or sullen or irritated or happy or euphoric mood they arose and went to vote. Five million of them. Their moods and intentions collided, coincided, reciprocated, canceled out and strengthened. Mysteriously, intuitively, by some strange combative instinct, they divided almost equally. With a rubber stamp and ballot they waged primitive war on one another and themselves. Although they could give reasons and words why they did what they did, they did not really know. But the liquor stores closed, the flags waved in front of fire houses and schools, the precinct lists were nailed to trees and the voting was done.



John Cromwell won the Democratic nomination for governor in the May primary. He was little known and Daigh, the Republican, was famous. Cromwell did not wage a big and public campaign. There was some little surprise when Cromwell won the nomination by 102,000 votes. Some gamblers had taken odds that Daigh would win both nominations in the primary.

Mike was not one of those who was surprised. He had told Georgia that Cromwell would win by at least 100,0000 votes and less than 112,000.

The betting odds were four to one, however, that Daigh would beat Cromwell in the general election in November.

Ten days before the primary election, Professor Moon resigned from Stanford University. The university officials did not force him out; no official reprimand was made. But he felt soiled; unpleasantly contemporary; somehow ruined.





CHAPTER 28

Talk in a Delicatessen

County Hospital is built on a low hill. Originally it had been surrounded by stockyards and meat packing plants. Outside of the ring of meat packing buildings there was a welter of cheap apartment houses. In these houses lived Negroes and mixed families: Filipinos married to white girls, Negro women married to white men, brown men married to light brown women and combinations that found it difficult to find housing in other parts of the city. Also, the area was thick with butchers, itinerant farm laborers, railwaymen's hotels and miscellaneous unemployed. It was productive of cripples, syphilitics, amputations, industrial accidents, maimings, tuberculosis, stab wounds, drunkenness, flea infestations, pink eye, and all manner of contagious disease. The civic fathers had thought it wise to put the hospital close to the source of its patients.

In recent years the stockyards had moved out. The long sleek lines of the freeways cut across and above the area, not disturbing the buildings. Below the curving perfection of the freeways, the apartment houses grew grimmer, more populated and older.

Georgia turned the Jaguar off the Pasadena Freeway and started down into the tangle of streets that surrounded County Hospital.

As she parked in front of the hospital, an ambulance came down a ramp, its siren clanging. A young intern, a cigarette in his mouth, smiled at her as the ambulance went by. Georgia walked into the reception room of the hospital.

"I'd like to talk to Dr. Moore," she told the receptionist.

"Dr. Henry Moore," the girl said, and her fingers plugged in a phone line.

In five minutes Hank walked into the reception room. He was wearing a tight white skullcap and a long white apron. His arms were bare to the elbow. In ihe exact middle of the apron there was a spot of fresh blood, the size of a quarter.

"Hello, Hank," Georgia said. "I'm sorry to disturb you at the hospital. Mike wanted you to have lunch with us. He has to meet Notestein to talk over the election and he thought you'd be interested. He said he'd give you a good lunch."

"I'm not sure I can get away," Hank said. "I'm just finishing surgery and I've got a few more ward cases."

She noticed that he held his arms in front of his body, away from the apron, the fingers drooping. His fingers were white and scrubbed looking. They gave off a faint aseptic odor.

"Don't come if it's too much trouble," she said. "There's always another day."

"Oh, hell. I can ask Johnson to take the ward cases. I've put in three eighteen-hour days in a row. I could stand a break. And a good lunch. I'll be back in ten minutes."

A half hour later they were driving out the Hollywood Freeway. Hank drove and he slid the car easily from one gear to another, watching the RPM indicator.

The freeway clogged up with cars, and as the r.p.m.'s dropped Hank slid the shift silently into third. With a growl the car slowed down twenty miles an hour and started to feel its way through the other cars.

"What did you think of the primary?" Georgia asked.

"I didn't like it."

"Did you vote for Cromwell?"

Hank looked across at her and his face was puzzled, uncertain. "No. I voted for Daigh."

"Did you think Cromwell could win the Democratic nomination?"

"I thought he was going to be smothered," Hank said. "I thought Daigh would win both nominations. I still don't understand how Cromwell won."

"Maybe Mike's right, Hank," Georgia said. "Maybe he's right and we're just sentimental."

Hank nosed the Jaguar up to within a few inches of the car ahead, pressed down on the accelerator and turned to the outer lane. The car poured into a narrow space, roared by the other cars and was in the clear. A mile ahead was another covey of cars and Hank bore down on them doing seventy miles an hour.

"It was just an accident, a fluke," Hank said. "Mike had nothing to do with it. You can't manipulate five million people. Anyway, Cromwell will get licked in the general election."

"But what if he's right? What if people really do vote out of fear and hatred?" Georgia said, and her voice was urgent, she pressed Hank for an answer.

"Georgia, don't make it more complicated than it is," Hank said slowly. "There are some things you don't do even if you know they'll work. Let me tell you about an experiment they do in rat psychology. You put the rat on a grid floor that you can charge with electricity by tripping a switch. You start out by giving the rat a hell of a shock. He's so scared his eyes bulge out of his head. Then you start to make him do a lot of things a rat doesn't do naturally: walk on his hind legs, drink too much water, eat until he ruptures his stomach, copulate between satiation. Each time he hesitates, you give him a shock. Pretty soon you can get him to do anything . . . he just sees you reaching for the switch and he'll do anything, unnatural things, things that hurt. He'll walk on his hind legs, drink until he vomits, copulate until he's unconscious, doing everything like a mad animal."

"Well, maybe Mike's right then," Georgia said. "If a rat acts that way out of fear, maybe . . . " She licked her lips.

"No. He's wrong. Christ, of course he can get people to act like the rats . . . and just out of fear. But you shouldn't do it. Because after a while the rat stops being a rat. He becomes a sub-rat, pure muscle, raw reflex, brute reactions. And humans would become the same way: hysterical with fear, trying to anticipate when the shock is coming, bundles of raw protective muscle. But they wouldn't be human anymore. They'd be something else." He paused. He shook his head in confusion. His voice was tired when he spoke. "And you can't do that to people. I don't know why, but you can't. If it's possible, you shouldn't do it. Because it makes them something less than human. It's just that simple. That's the only reason I know."

"What you're saying is that there are some things you shouldn't do even if it's possible to do them," Georgia said, her voice questioning. "But why does Mike do them, then?"

"Because he's got certitude," Hank said. "He's absolutely sure of himself; completely confident; utterly assured. I don't know how he got that way, but he did. And when that happens, some barrier is gone. Everybody else knows there's a line you can't cross, but not Mike."

"If he would just be wrong once," Georgia said. "Just once. Just one mistake." She pounded the door of the car with frantic, soft blows.

Hank looked at her and did not speak again until they reached the delicatessen.

Mike and Notestein were sitting in one of the booths. Mike had a turkey leg and a heap of stuffed eggs on his plate. Notestein had an untouched pastrami sandwich on his plate. They were boih drinking German beer.

"Terence, you remember Dr. Moore and Miss Blenner from Fresno," Mike said.

Notestein stood up and shook hands. He was wearing an outlandish sport coat The shoulders were overstuffed and it dropped to a narrow waist. It was only when Notestein sat down that Hank realized that the material was an exquisite Shetland fabric; soft and handwoven.

"Tell the waitress what you want," Mike said. "We had to start. Terence has got an appointment with his friends. Have some chopped chicken livers and turkey. That's the best here. The stuffed eggs are terrible, they've got anchovies in them. But I like anchovies . . . You won't.".

Hank and Georgia ordered.

"What did you think of the primary?" Hank asked Notestein.

"Me? Me, I liked it. Big victory for my friend Mike," Notestein said. "Good things for my friends delight me. I'm happy when my friends are happy."

"His business friends didn't like it, though," Mike said and grinned. "They thought it was a fluke. They tell Terence Cromwell won't win in the general. They tell him Cromwell will get clobbered."

"No, no, Mike, they don't say it like that," Notestein said. His face was pained. "They're interested. They think Cromwell made a nice race in the primary. But they have some doubts." He looked quickly at Hank and then signaled to the waitress. "Cocktails for everyone, miss. Everyone deserves a good drink."

"He's trying to get you liquored up," Mike said. "That's part of his job. Get people drunk before you give them the bad news."

Notestein smiled grimly. Nobody ordered a drink, except Notestein. He ordered a double martini. He waited until the waitress left and turned to Mike.

"You've got it all wrong, Mike," he said. "They like your campaign. But they're just not sure Cromwell can win."

"I've got a theory about your friends," Mike said. "My theory is . . . "

"You and your theories," Hank said. "You have to be careful about theories, Mike. When I was in high school I lived at a boardinghouse and the father of the landlady was blind. He said he was blinded in the war, but his daughter said he had been born blind. Anyway he had cataract growths over his eyes, white as eggshells. He used to sit on the front porch and talk to people as he heard them walk by. He had a theory that he could tell what job a person had by the way he smelled. He'd say you could tell a woman was a librarian because of the smell of book varnish, paste and dust. Or a schoolteacher because of the chalk-dust smell. He could even smell out a plasterer on Sunday because the lime and mortar hung around him."

He paused while the waitress put the double martini on the table. Notestein was watching Hank attentively. He took his eyes away for a second and drank off the martini.

"Go on. Tell us the rest," Notestein said.

"This blind man used to bet he could identify the passersby. He even said he could tell an old maid because she didn't smell of a man. But one day he bet five bucks and sniffed the next guy that walked by and said he was a bank clerk. But the guy was a carpenter who just happened to spill some d his wife's cologne on his suit before he left," Hank said.

"And there's a moral to the story," Mike said.

"Damned right," Hank said. "Don't believe your theory absolutely, the next smell may be a mistake."

"But if you were blind it would be better than no theory at all, wouldn't it?" Mike asked.

Hank smiled.

"You win," he said. "Wait till I eat my turkey leg."

Notestein had not eaten anything from his plate.

"Now that was a very good story. It reminds me of something," Notestein said. He hesitated, looked quickly around the restaurant, and then went on. "I was a Hungarian Jew, see? But my family lived in Gemany. Everything got mixed up and we wound up in a ghetto. Every few weeks they'd call us into a big auditorium to listen to the latest orders from Berlin. I was young at the time; twenty-five maybe. This Nazi would come in the auditorium to give us the orders. He was short, fat. Looked friendly. But the second he walked in the auditorium you could smell him. It was a funny smell. He'd look down at us and smile, but you knew he didn't mean it because of the smell. It was like there was too much pressure inside of him. Like it popped out and congealed on his skin; a sort of beery, acid smell. Like he hated us so much, despised us so deeply, that he smelled of it. And pretty soon all of us would be sniffing, like dogs when there's danger in the air. Then when he left there would be a new smell. But that would be us. That would be the smell of all of us afraid, our skin crawling, trying to make out what the orders meant, wondering if they applied to us."

Notestein held his finger alongside his nose in a strange European gesture. He looked around him, his eyes wide, watering slightly from the martini. Then his fingers touched the soft material of his sport coat, he looked down suddenly and was embarrassed. He grinned at them. But there was a tough, self-sufficient look on his face.

He's got guts, Hank thought. He's been through the mill. Mike can't scare him. Suddenly, Hank felt better.

"Terence, tell Hank and Georgia what your friends think about the election," Mike said.

Notestein put down his fork.

"Mike misunderstands them," he said. "He thinks they're not friendly. But they're businessmen. They have to calculate. They just can't pour money down a rathole. They don't think Cromwell can beat Daigh. They say Daigh is better known. They say he's got a reputation. They believe that California voters vote for a big reputation, a name, and Daigh's got the name."

"So they don't want to contribute to Cromwell's campaign," Mike added. He grinned.

"They can't, Mike," Notestein said. "They're responsible to a board of directors. They have to account for every penny. They just can't throw money away."

"And they're right," Hank said suddenly. "Cromwell hasn't got a chance. Your friends are smart."

Notestein smiled at Hank. Hank felt a surge of confidence; or relief.

"Well, everyone's in agreement," Mike said. "What about you, Georgia? What do you think?"

"I don't know," she said. "I haven't made up my mind."

"Look, Mike, be reasonable," Notestein said. "Settle for what you've got. You've managed Cromwell very well. People won't forget it. It will help your law practice. Don't ask anything more than that."

Mike picked up a salad egg that was flecked with bits of anchovy. He bit it in half, chewed slowly and then put the other half in his mouth. He took a swallow of beer.

"You don't deserve to know, Terence," Mike said. "You don't really deserve to know how Cromwell will win, but I'll tell you. See, we know a few things about the undecided voters. And they're the ones that will decide the election . . . like always. We know that they're the people who are worried about something. So they hold off, don't make up their mind, keep trying to decide."

"So what, Mike?" Notestein said. "That's old stuff. But how are you going to find the undecided votes? And what do you do when you find them?"

"First, you find big groups of people that are worried," Mike said. "You don't worry about isolated individuals; big clots of worried people."

"Like the old-age people in the primary," Georgia said. "Tell them about that, Mike."

Mike looked at her and smiled.

"O.K.," Mike said. "You brought it up, so we'll tell Terence about it. Remember, Terence, in the primary we didn't run much of a campaign. We did that deliberately. We didn't want a lot of excitement. We just wanted a slow, average primary. Because that brings out an almost equal number of Democrats and Republicans. Normally they would tend to favor Daigh because he's better known, and if we hadn't done anything he probably would have won both nominations. But we did something. We talked to Mr. Appleton, one of the old-age leaders who, for some reason, seems dedicated to Cromwell. And very quietly, with no fanfare, we sent each person in the state over sixty years of age a letter."

"Tell them what the letter said, Mike," Georgia said. She looked at Hank as she spoke.

"Scared people don't vote for something, they vote against something or somebody," Mike said. "They vote their fears. So the letter, which was signed by Mr. Appleton, didn't even mention Cromwell. It just reviewed Daigh's voting record. In the last paragraph it just raised a doubt . . . a little tiny subtle fear that Daigh might not be for old-age pensions. That's all. And that's the only thing we did during the primary campaign. The only thing."

"How do you know the letter did any good?" Hank asked. "People might have voted against Daigh for a thousand reasons."

"Good question," Notestein said. "How do you know the letters worked, Mike?" He looked over the edge of his glass at Mike.

"Because we had a polling service take a sampling of all people over sixty in the state and see how they voted," Mike said. He grinned. "They voted eight to one for Cromwell. And the letter didn't even mention him. It just raised a doubt about Daigh. That's all it did. Raised a doubt that he might not give them a bigger pension or might reduce the pension they're already getting."

Unaccountably, for no reason that he understood, Hank felt a tiny gush of terror somewhere in his mind. Mike had just described a simple political trick and suddenly, inexplicably, the leakage of terror started in Hank's mind. For a wild second he tried to reason the matter out. But it did not make sense. Then he looked at Notestein. Notestein was holding the martini glass against his lip and faintly, almost inaudibly, his teeth were chattering against the glass.

Hank looked down at the white scraped turkey bones on his plate. He turned them over with a fork. Notestein had felt it, too. The terror flowed evenly across Hank's mind; was almost beyond control.

Then it came to Hank. Mike had just proved that he could do it; he had supplied the final piece of evidence. He had proved the point.

"That's not enough," Hank said, without thinking, blindly. "You need more than just the old-age vote. You have to pick up five hundred thousand votes to win in the general."

"That's right," Mike said, and his voice was hard and flat. "And up in an office on the top floor of the Golden State Building, we've got a research staff picking out every group, every locality, every organization that's got something to worry about this year."

"For example?" Notestein said. His eyes were bright and he had taken the glass away from his teeth.

"For example, Buellton," Mike said, "The little town of Buellton. A few restaurants, half dozen motels, a few giftshops. Five hundred people of voting age. They all make their living off the traffic that goes past on Highway 101. It runs right through the town. But the state engineers have a plan to bypass Buellton. Make a new freeway that runs a mile south of the town. Every person in Buellton thinks it will ruin the town if the highway is moved. So you suggest to them that Daigh wouldn't object if the highway was moved. You don't have to say what Cromwell would do. You just let them know that Daigh favors moving the highway. That's enough. They won't care what Cromwell stands for. They'll vote against Daigh. And the only person they can vote for is Cromwell."

"How are you going to let them know?" Hank asked.

He was hoping that Mike would not have the answer. But he knew that Mike would. His fingers were trembling and he put them under the table.

"Lots of ways," Mike said. "Maybe you send a liquor salesman into Buellton. You have him mention in a few liquor stores and bars that Daigh is tied up with the asphalt interests and they want the new highway to swing around the town."

"What if Daigh doesn't have an interest in the asphalt business?" Hank asked.

"You think I'm going to say that the liquor salesman should say it, anyway," Mike said. "Well, you're wrong. Because what he says has to be plausible. The people in Buellton might check around. So if Daigh doesn't have an interest in the asphalt industry you look around until you find something he has done or said that indicates he would favor the new highway. Like a vote he cast for a highway appropriations bill four years ago that authorized a highway that bypassed a few towns. There's always something. And you have the liquor salesman say that. That's all you do."

"This takes a lot of money, doesn't it, Mike?" Notestein asked. "To find all these groups and localities with a grievance?"

"That's right. It takes a big research staff. A lot of college graduates in sociology and agriculture and city and regional planning. You don't have to pay them much, but you need a lot of them. About a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth. And your friends, Terence, haven't contributed a cent toward that fund. Not a cent."

Notestein smiled and it was the same, identical smile, except for one thing: it was fawning.

Hank suddenly had to move. He shifted in his seat and still felt stiff with tension. He saw the waitress pass.

"Bring me some pie," he said. "Apple pie. A la mode. Vanilla ice cream."

When she brought the pie, he scooped the entire ball of ice cream into his mouth. It was creamy and sweet. It gushed past his teeth, chilled his throat. It drove back the leakage of terror; his fingers stopped trembling. He looked at Georgia. She was watching Mike.

"That's a lot of money. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars," Notestein said.

"Not when you're sure your man is going to win," Mike said. "Then it's very cheap indeed." Mike grinned at Notestein. It was a grin that Hank recognized. It was a grin in which Mike's teeth stayed together and the lines around his eyes did not crinkle. It was a grin without humor.

All right, Notestein, Hank thought. Stand-by for a ram. Here comes your turn. See how tough you are. You're a big-time operator, you deal with this kind of thing every day. So get ready. Stand by.

"Terence, you're going to have to give your friends an opinion," Mike said. "You're going to have to tell them who's going to be governor."

Notestein put the beer glass down. He reached for his lapels, carefully straightened the coat around his shoulders. He smiled carefully.

"I know, Mike. I know that."

"It's a hell of a job, being an adviser in politics," Mike said. "Guess wrong once and you're through. I know that, Terence. I sympathize."

Notestein's eyes dropped, he hunched forward protectively. Hank felt his stomach tighten. He looked at Mike's strong face, the brown planes of his skin and bone, the white teeth, the familiar hands. Mostly he watched the grin.

"It's always tough, Mike," Notestein said. "I'm used to it."

"Your friends have got a lot at stake," Mike said. "Taxes, offshore oil, railway fares, utility rates. They can't miss. Not even once. And it would be tough for you, Terence. You being a Hungarian and a Jew. They'd say you didn't understand American politics. If Cromwell wins they'd say they made a mistake trusting your judgment."

"But I do understand politics," Notestein said. His voice was wheedling.

Hank watched as Notestein seemed to shrink inside the bulk of his sport coat. Almost as if he were going backward in time, to an older and safer level of existence. Notestein wrung his hands together. He smiled slyly at Mike. His accent thickened and the old European gestures asserted themselves.

"One thing I really understand is politics," Notestein said. He picked his nose. His fingers flicked across his chin as if he were caressing a beard. He cocked his head. His eyes were wide and unfocused with anxiety.

"Sure you do, Terence," Mike said. "But it would still be tough to be wrong on the next governor. You don't have your final papers, Terence. Don't be out of a job when they come up for approval. You have to be self-supporting, remember that."

"But, Mike, what do you give?" Notestein asked and his voice was shrill, feminine, foreign. "They should the money give and you nothing? That's honest? I'd spit, but it's not polite. They need the guarantee. That much money, Mike. That is a lot." He paused and was suddenly abashed. "Spit? That I wouldn't do. Forget that, Mike. As a friend forget that. But what could you give in return for that much money?"

"Nothing, Terence."

"Nothing? Crazy, you've gone crazy."

"I don't care what they do. Tell them whatever you want. If they don't put up the money someone else will."

"Don't rush. I didn't say they would not put up the money. Keep calm," Notestein said. His voice went thin and sharp, scratched at Mike's assurance. "Just something to tell them, Mike. Just something to let them know that much money is well spent. Come on. As a friend. What can I tell them?"

"Tell them that I'll know where the money came from," Mike said. "That's all, Terence."

Notestein stared at Mike for a moment. He slid out of the booth. He started to walk toward the door, shrunken in his suit, the collar pressing against his ears, muttering to himself. He was almost to the door when he turned suddenly. He dashed back and picked up the check. "My treat," he said. "I treat everybody. Notestein's treat, understand?"

He grinned at them as he took a bill from his wallet and dropped it on the table. He turned and hurried out of the restaurant. Hank watched him through the plate-glass window.

Notestein stood on the curb, watching the traffic pour down Wilshire Boulevard. He moved crabbedly into the traffic. For a moment he was caught in the middle of the street, surrounded by the thundering, swift cars. He looked from side to side and once over his shoulder. His face was white and strained.

Somehow the traffic, the flashing senseless rushing cars reminded Hank of a mob. And something about Notestein's hunched shoulders reminded him d something else. He felt a stab of memory: slight, passing, quickly gone. Something about Notestein reminded him of a day long ago when he had walked beside someone who had an accent. They had walked down an empty street, but it was threatening -- and behind them was a menace. He remembered that the person had black, frightened eyes, and he had muttered in German and behind them had been the sound of ominous, tramping feet. They had escaped somehow . . . but that was all he could remember. Then the memory slipped away.

Notestein bolted across the street. He stood for a moment at the edge of a large glittering gas station. He was small and hunched, defensive and ludicrous. Then he saw the green phone booth and he scurried toward it. He closed the green folding door behind him and put his hand in his pocket. It came out full of coins that fell from his hands and glittered as they fell. He lifted the receiver and his fingers shoved a dime in the coin slot.

Hank looked away.





CHAPTER 29

The Dream

She watched him on the bed. It was dark and cool in the motel room, but his body was glistening with sweat. The motel was built on an expensive curve on Santa Monica Boulevard and as the cars came into the turn, their headlights threw hard bands of light into the room for a brief moment. In the flashes of light she could see him, curled up, knees under his chin. Georgia sat in a chair, in the dark, and watched him sleep.

He's not an easy sleeper, she thought. He grinds his teeth when he sleeps. And that curled-up position is not the way a child sleeps. It was the position a boxer might take when he was felled; unconsciously protective, hands knotted into fists, his breath coming heavily through his nose.

She would not go to sleep for hours now. She never did. She got up from the chair and walked over to the bureau. She fumbled for a cigarette. In the flashing, uncertain darkness she could see her naked body reflected in the mirror. It was a black reflection with only the curves of her hips occasionally turning white as the light shattered into the room.

I wonder if he loves me? she thought. If it weren't for the polio I'd know. I keep thinking I'm awkward; that he sees me limp. Once he said he liked the limp.

She sighed and walked back to the chair by the window. She looked down Santa Monica Boulevard, saw the headlights aim for the window, grow from tiny dots of light to great roaring circles of brightness that veered away into the curve just before they hit the motel. She put the full pack of cigarettes on the arm of her chair. Now that she had started, she knew that she would go through the whole pattern, think it all through again.

First, she thought about Mike's wife. Once, months ago, she had worried about Connie. She had never seen Connie and Mike never mentioned her. But Georgia was aware of her; waiting for Mike to come home; waiting with the children. At first she had wondered what Connie would be thinking and doing; wondered whether she was anxious.

And then she came to really disbelieve that Connie existed. Because Mike never mentioned her and because he was never home and because he did not carry a picture of Connie and the children in his wallet; because of all these things, Connie faded in outline and importance until finally she was only a name; not a name that really stood for a person, but merely a name.

But Georgia did not forget the name. For Connie stood for something. She stood for the fact that Mike could utterly, completely, without reservation, put a person out of his memory. Connie meant that Mike could forget you, could draw away and without the slightest loss to himself leave you abandoned. Connie stood for a puzzled look in Mike's eye that meant that he quite literally did not remember you; that he could, without malice or design, simply force a person below the surface of importance and recognition and remembrance. And once below the surface, Georgia sensed that a person could never drive above it again. Mike did not hate Connie, he was not bored with her, he was not cruel to her. He simply had forgotten that she existed. Georgia wondered, dimly, how Connie existed. And whenever she thought of it she shivered; not for Connie, but for the isolation that was more ominous and frightening than anything that could happen to Connie.

Maybe the important question is whether or not I love him, Georgia thought. Maybe you can never know if he loves you, so the important thing is to know if you love him.

It would be a hard thing to know, she thought. Mike was like a stone; an attractive, magnetic, powerful stone. A stone that was vaguely translucent; that you could see into for a few inches and then it went milky and inscrutable. And around the stone, all the little iron filings gathered, people like herself who did not see anything in the stone, but could not resist it. When the stone moved they rearranged themselves, shifted positions, made an intricate complex maneuver to get closer to the stone.

Once she had said this to Mike. They were walking through Yosemite Park and they saw a tall white tree with spiky branches beside a huge hulking rock. It was the first windy day of autumn and they saw the tree rub against the rock and the stubby branches splintered off their summer's growth against the flint-hard surface. On the side of the tree that was toward the rock, the limbs were stunted, raw, splintered.

"That's us," she said and pointed at the rock and the tree. "I keep splintering against you and I never even scratch your surface. And wherever I touch you I'm all splintered. Look at the rock. There isn't even a scratch on it."

Mike looked at the rock and then at the tree. He nodded and they continued the walk. He did not understand.

Part of the process, part of the inevitable thing that kept her awake, was comparing Mike to the other men she knew. He was not like Morrie. Morrie was like a sponge, a big soft sponge with a diamond-hard core. Mike was not like Harry Amsterdam, her second cousin who had come out from New York one Christmas and taken her to five night clubs, gotten her drunk on champagne, seduced her and then put his head on her lap and cried desperately. And Mike was not like Father. At first she had thought they were alike. They were both calm and decisive and that had deceived her. But as she came to know Mike, she realized that her father was a balance of tensions, that his surface calm was due to a careful calculation of pressures, a determination to appear a certain way. With Mike the appearance was the reality: he was not under tension.

No, that was not completely right, she thought. Mike was under tensions. But he did not calculate or worry or scheme. The pressures were from the inside, not from she outside. They were Mike's pressures, his own.

A covey of MG's came down the boulevard. There was a boy and girl in each roadster and a little flag was fastened to the rear of each car. They whirred past, jockeying for position. From a few of the cars came wind-shattered laughs.

Mike woke up and rolled over on his back.

"I was dreaming," he said.

"I didn't know you dreamed."

"I do. For years, ever since the war, it's been the same dream. Exactly and precisely the same dream. I know it like I know the palm of my hand."

"Tell me about it, Mike."

"Why would you want to know about a dream?" he asked sleepily. "That's funny about women. A woman is curious about a man. She wants to pull out everything private, see everything inside of him. And when she does she loves him; when his privacy is gone she loves him. Doesn't matter. I'll tell you about the dream."

He pulled the pillow under his head.

"The dream has no color," he said. "Everything is gray. There is a landscape. Somehow I know it's round and limited, has boundaries. At the edge of the landscape are hills, sharp, angular hills, studded with rocks. On the tops of the hills are trees. The trees are huge and tough like no trees I've ever seen. They're the boundary. In between the hills is a valley and I always walk through that.

"The whole thing, the whole landscape, is held together somehow. It trembles as if it might come apart. The whole thing is like one of those airplane wings that engineers test under stress. When the strain gets great enough the wing starts to vibrate, and finally a single little rivet goes or a pucker appears in the foil and the whole thing twists itself to pieces. The landscape is like that: under stress and barely holding itself together.

"I walk through the valley and come onto a street. It's a regular city street. There are dried palm trees hanging over the street and they make a gray thin shade. In front of some of the lots there are 'For Sale' signs. In the scorched grass two cats are fighting. I can hear them hiss, but can't see them. Then one cat backs out of the grass, arched and walking on its nails, spitting into the grass. The other cat comes after it in long oily leaps. They circle around for a few minutes and then one turns and runs.

"The nails of one of them scratch the surface of the landscape. I can see it very clearly . . . a long, very thin rent. Through the rent I can see something whirling and turning, like the circle of burning gas you see around a planet.

"The landscape starts to tremble, wrinkles run out from the tiny rent. Somewhere, far away, up in one of the hills, a tree crashes down and I know that if I don't stop it the whole thing will crumple up, twist, tear itself to pieces. So I run to the rent and patch it together. The material is tough and hard, like a ripped open tin can. My fingers bleed as I try to get it back together. The cats come back, terrified at what they have done. They crouch down and watch me, pleading with their eyes for me to fix the rent. And finally I get it back together. The trembling stops, everything steadies down. And I wake up."

"That's all?" Georgia asked.

"That's all," Mike said. "Not very exciting, is it?"

He looked at her for a moment. He turned over and at once he was asleep. In a few moments his teeth began to grind softly together.

Georgia thought of Hank. Hank never became angry with Mike, but the things that Mike said upset him.

Why did it upset Hank so much? she thought. Mike never forced his ideas on anyone. He just believed some unpleasant things and acted on his beliefs. It was one of the attractive things about Mike. He didn't try to be fashionable or popular or easy. He said just what he thought. Hank exaggerates things, she thought. He worries too much. He's like me.

The next day Georgia asked Morrie the name of a good psychoanalyst. She made an appointment. The psychoanalyst was a German and he was very gentle. He spoke with a very thick accent. She told him Mike's dream. Once or twice he asked her to repeat episodea in the dream, very slowly.

"Are those the same words, the identical words, that your friend used?" he asked her.

Exactly," she said.

He nodded and she went on. He asked her some questions about Mike's age and his occupation and his family.

"No. It's hopeless," he said. "Oh, I could tell you a few things. A lot of technical things about the dream and what the trees and the hills and the cats mean. But without knowing the man, without having him here, it would not mean anything. I'm sorry."

Georgia thanked him. She handed him an envelope that contained a hundred-dollar bill,

"It is not necessary to pay for such advice," he said. She knew he meant it. She took the envelope back.

"Thank you for your time," she said.

"It's all right," he said.

He led her to the door. As he opened the door to let her pass, he put up his hand.

"Just one thing, Miss' Blenner," he said. "Just one remark that is really an intuition, a guess, a hunch. Do not attach much weight to it; Do not figure it as important. But I feel that this man is a very powerful person and that he is not disturbed. He sounds like a man who is balanced. Almost, although it is very vague, I feel that he is a good person."

"Good?"

"Don't ask what I mean by good. I do not know. Only that I feel it. This person does not have evil intentions. He is independent. Maybe he hurts people, but not deliberately. But do not take this seriously. It is just a guess."

Georgia thanked him and walked out into the street.





CHAPTER 30

"A Power Absolute, Minute, Regular, Provident, and Mild"

"What happens today?" Hank said to Georgia.

She was driving and they had hardly spoken since she picked him up at the hospital. They were driving through Seal Beach and along the highway the old oil derricks were black and ancient. Underneath the derricks, almost invisible, were small, well-kept engines that turned the pumping arms and took a steady trickle of oil out of the ground.

"Mike's meeting with Notesteln's friends," Georgia said. "These are men from the companies that pay Notestein for his political advice. Mike says they won't be the real powerful men . . . they don't like to mess with politics. They'll be bright young executives; men who've handled some rough labor negotiation cases. That sort of person."

"They're crazy," Hank said. 'They ought to send out their heavyweights. They send out their lightweights and the champ will just clean up on them." His voice was bitter.

Georgia picked up speed. They drove along the wide strip of beach that rum from Seal Beach to Balboa. The beach was broad, dirty and untended. Thousands of beer bottles and beer cans stuck up out of the sand and there were blackened holes where wiener-bake fires had been built. They passed the first shack. It was built around an old Buick. Stakes had been driven into the ground and then paper boxes, plywood, newspapers and blankets had been hammered to the stakes. The rear of the Buick stuck out of the shack, like a beast that had been caught in some unsubstantial and improbable trap. A spiral of smoke came out of the shack, was caught by the breeze and blown flat across the highway. Three Mexican children crawled on the hood of the car. At a water hydrant beside the highway an old Mexican woman was filling quart beer cans with water. A little girl staggered back and forth from the hydrant to the shack, a beer bottle in each hand. At the edge of the beach, the waves came in fresh and blue and were corroded instantly by tar, seaweed, discarded papers and bits of firewood.

"Morrie says that these people will be tough," Georgia said. "He says they'll probably lick Mike. They're used to dealing with hard people."

Hank snorted. He sat with his head bent forward, held up by his hands. His face was thinner; almost bony.

The road curved away from the beach and suddenly they left the dirty beach and the greasy smoke and the beer cans behind. They came into Balboa and it was bright with high masts, flags, sleek shops, the polished glass of expensive shops.

They picked Mike up at a restaurant and then drove on to Balboa Island. They parked behind a long fence. A sign over the gate said "Sea and Sand."

"It's one of those houses that big corporations buy for their executives for recreation," Mike said. "It's deductible as a business expense. Nice way to give your executives a free vacation."

They walked through the gate. The house was set well back from the white beach that ran down to the bay. It was a long, low modern house with blue-tinted windows in front and a wide porch covered with a bright blue canvas awning. A short pier ran out from the beach and a forty-five-foot sloop was moored there. A barefoot man was polishing brass around the binnacle.

In the middle of the beach a group of women were stretched out around a big umbrella. One of the women saw Mike and she said something. The women rolled over and watched them.

The women were all between thirty-five and forty years old. Most of them had loose pebbled skin around their thighs as if they had dieted recently. The sand around them was dotted with bottles of sun lotion. Their flesh was pink and glistened with oil.

Mike walked toward the porch of the house, and Hank and Georgia followed him. A group of men were sitting on the porch. They stood up as Mike approached. He stepped onto the porch.

"I'm Mike Freesmith," he said.

He stood stolidly, his legs apart, somber and citified in his suit. Sand poured in little streams from his shoes and cuffs and fell on the hemp flooring. The men watched him uncertainly and then a man with a mustache stepped forward.

"Yes, yes, yes," he said. "We've been expecting you. This is a great pleasure. We didn't know you were bringing friends."

He raised his hand, anticipating an apology from Mike and ready to wave it away. Mike did not apologize. He did not say anything.

The man with the mustache flushed and then stepped up to Mike.

"My name's Matthieson," he said. "Why don't we go inside and talk? The glare is bad out here."

Mike did not introduce him to Georgia and Hank. They walked in and sat down in a room full of rattan chairs and couches. In one corner was a bar and a Filipino boy in a white jacket. Matthieson put Mike in front of a low table that held a box of Bering cigars, a large ashtray, and a box of matches.

The other men walked in from the porch and sat down. There were eight of them. Matthieson did not introduce them to Mike. Most of them wore hula shirts decorated with flowers, sharks, leis and surfboards. Some of them had on denim pants and some wore shorts. All of them had rounded, but not prominent bellies. Their fat was well controlled.

"How about a drink?" Matthieson asked. Mike took a gin and tonic. Matthieson picked up the box of cigars. "And a cigar."

The box was completely full. Mike looked down at it for a moment. Then he grinned up at Matthieson.

"Can't talk politics without a smoke-filled room, eh?" he said. Matthieson flushed again. He jabbed at the cigars to loosen them. "O.K., I'll take one." Mike took a cigar and lit it.

Matthieson raised his eybrows in the direction of the other men. Obediently three of them stepped forward and took cigars. They sat down and inexpertly began to light them. In a few minutes the room was blue with smoke.

"It was very good of you to come down here to talk to us about California politics, Mr. Freesmith," Matthieson said. Hank had a feeling that Matthieson was the most prominent man in the room, the most promising. He was so promising that he could afford the eccentricity of a mustache. He was that sure of a vice-presidency. "After all, our companies have to live and grow and make a profit ]n California. So we're interested in everything about California. And especially politics, became this is an election year."

"I didn't come to give you a lecture on California politics," Mike said without taking the cigar from his mouth. "I came to talk to you about John Cromwell's campaign for governor."

His voice was rude and sharp. He looked straight ahead.

Here it comes, Hank thought. You well-nourished, successful, ambitious young executives have got your fingers in the wringer now. You'll come out flattened; squashed out flat.

Hank took a gin and tonic from the Filipino and sat back in his chair. His stomach was tight. He looked around at the young executives. With a quick shock of excitement Hank realized that most of them were smiling. The three who had been dutifully smoking cigars reached forward and ground them out, as if Mike's rudeness had released them from a courtesy. The tentative look was gone from their faces.

They're tough, Hank thought. These boys are really tough. Under those silly hula shirts and Bermuda shorts are some very tough characters. These boys are on the make. Maybe they can handle Mike.

"O.K., tell us about Cromwell's campaign," Matthieson said. "Can he win?"

"I thought Notestein told you that already," Mike said. "I told him how we were going to win."

"Who's Notestein?" a man with sunburned knees said. His face was blank. He looked at Matthieson.

"Oh, he was a sort of consultant to some of the vice-presidents interested in this political situation," Matthieson said in a low, quick voice.

"What do you mean 'was'?" Mike asked.

"They let him go a few days ago," Matthieson said. "The senior vice-presidents felt that his judgment wasn't all that it should be in this sort of thing. You know, he's a foreigner. A Geman Jew, something like that. He really doesn't understand California politics too well."

That's two, Hank thought. First Moon and now Notestein. He remembered Notestein's hurried, frenzied, panicked scurry across Santa Monica Boulevard; his shoulders hunched, his body shrunken in the sport coat. Notestein knew it would happen then; knew he was caught.

Matthieson's face was not apologetic or defensive. And Hank pushed away the memory of Notestein's bunched and fearful body and hoped that Matthieson's face would not change.

"That was a mistake," Mike said. "Notestein was a good person. He understood California politics."

"That was a decision that our people felt competent to make," Matthieson said. He changed the subject. "Maybe you could tell us what you told Mr. Notestein."

"No. I won't tell you that," Mike said. "I told Notestein and he told your bosses. They decided to fire him because they didn't believe what he said." Mike paused and grinned at them. "So if you go back and tell them the same thing maybe they'll fire you."

Matthieson smiled, There was no humor in his smile and no fear.

"Maybe you should just tell us what Cromwell wants to do if he becomes governor," Matthieson said.

Mike looked around the room at the young executives. He moved the cigar into the corner of his mouth; a quick expert motion of strong teeth and lips. He bit the cigar hard and for a few seconds he did not speak. He just looked at the men.

He's sore, Hank thought, He's angry because they fired Notestein.

"Cromwell will do what's necessary to stay in office," Mike said.

"That's no help, friend," the man with the sunburned knees said, "That could mean anything."

Mike turned his head and stared at the man. Then he grinned.

"Well, take your case, just as an example," Mike said. "Your name is Johnstone and you're public relations director for Cortez Agriculture Corporation. Twelve thousand acres in Imperial, seven thousand in San Joaquin, a few ranches around Salinas. Lettuce, sugar beets, some cotton, lots of beef. You're a subsidiary of a New Jersey holding corporation and you pay wages that are eight cents an hour less than most other big farming outfits."

"That's right, friend," the man said, "You've got me tagged."

But he's not scared, Hank thought and he felt assured. This is different from Fresno. This is different from a scared Hungarian Jew. This is power, money, experience. This is organization.

"And every trade union and agricultural worker in California hates your guts," Mike said. "So maybe Cromwell introduces a bill making the minimum wage for agricultural workers one buck an hour." He took the cigar out of his mouth, looked at the moist end. "Or maybe he introduces a bill saying that corporations owned by out-of-state people have to pay a special tax . . . say five dollars a year for every person they employ."

"We'd block it in the legislature," Johnstone said, "We've gotfriends there."

"So the bill would lose," Mike said very softly. The Filipino had stopped stirring a pitcher of martinis, as if he had received a signal. "The bill would lose the first time Cromwell submitted it. But just by submitting it, just by attacking Cortez Corporation, he'd pick up a hundred thousand votes among agricultural workers."

Johnstone smiled and leaned back in his chair.

"But most agricultural workers don't vote," Johnstone said. "They move around the state too much to establish the minimum time for residence requirements."

"You're so stupid," Mike said. "Don~t you see the next step? Do I have to tell you? Cromwell would introduce a bill providing that agricultural workers didn't have to meet the residence requirements. That if they lived all year round in California that, would be enough." He stuck the cigar in his teeth, clamped down on it and spoke harshly. "And the legislature would have to pass that. Because it's democratic, it extends suffrage, it would be popular. And then, Johnstone, Cromwell would have you by the short hair."

Johnstone stopped smiling. He leaned forward and put his hands over his sunburned knees. He looked at Matthieson.

"There's no sense getting emotional," Matthieson said quickly. "A hundred thousand votes isn't going to get Cromwell in office or keep him there. You know that."

Mike grinned and did not answer. He puffed on the cigar.

Matthieson went on to say that wages were higher in California than in most other western states; that the workers were loyal to their companies; that everyone in business had to make a profit.

Mike said nothing. Hank felt the sharp pleasant edge of his gin and tonic vanish. He looked around at the young executives. He hoped the drink had dulled his perception. But he knew it had not. Their toughness was dissolving. Their faces suddenly were covert, protective, sly. The toughness was still there, but it was shattered.

Mike stood up, ignored Matthieson's words. He walked over to the big tinted window and looked across the channel. The room became quiet.

"Outside that window, right across the channel, Los Angeles County begins," Mike said. "Four million voters. Incompetent, restless, discontented. They're the political bosses. You'd like to think that F.D.R. was the political boss that punished the hell out of you for twenty years. But you're wrong. It was those people across the channel. He sensed what they would allow him to do. They gave him permission. And with ninety-five per cent of the newspapers against him, with all of the good and responsible people hating his guts, with all the big money against him he won . . . four times."

Matthieson cleared his throat. He looked confused; as if he did not know how the conversation had gotten sidetracked.

"What's that got to do with the governor of California?" Matthieson asked.

"Maybe a lot, maybe a lot," Mike said with satisfaction. "The boss is out there. In the big cities, towns, farms, trade union halls, beer parlors. Millions of him. But the governor is their executive and, if he's really good he can take all that antagonism and resentment out there and channel it through the legislature, the committees, commissions, research groups, the legislative auditor, federal bureaus and a thousand others. And he can make it expend itself that way. So that when it comes up to the surface again it's tamed and manageable. Or, if he wants, he can give the great big restless mass a kick in the ass. And when they turn around he can point his finger at you and say you did it. You, Wall Street, the big boys, the plutocrats. What you want, gentlemen, for governor, is a man that will not point the finger at you."

They saw what it had to do with the governor of California. They looked out the tinted windows, across the pink scented backs of their wives, through the rigging of the yacht, and beyond that was The City. And in The City were the People. Millions of them. On the faces of the young executives was the sudden knowledge of how slight was their protection against the People. The yacht, the beach house, the cool executive offices, the clean children, the maid, the second car, the precious incredibly wonderful sense of being "in" . . . all this was separated from the brutish, pawing, powerful hands of the masses by the thinnest, most translucent, most narrow of barriers. They had taken it all for granted, but now, by some subtle appreciation of Mike's words they realized how slight was their protection, how easily the barrier could be ripped aside and the People could come pouring in.

On their faces was a sudden wonderment that it had not happened before; that all of the things that separated them from the People had not maddened the People into action; had not teased the jealous, tortured, restless Masses into revenge. And when they looked away from the Balboa Hills that protected them from Los Angeles and glanced at Mike, they were different men. They knew he could push his finger against the barrier and it would open and let all of this pour in on them. And they wondered why it had not happened before.

"Assume that Cromwell could win," Matthieson said. "What would he want from us? If he thinks we're going to finance a whole damned campaign he's crazy, we won't."

Matthieson's voice was firm, under control, but Hank was not deceived. hey were defeated. Old habits of control and negotiating still remained; the retreat would be orderly; it would not be a rout. But Mike had won. No one in the room was in any doubt about that.

Inside of Hank something collapsed blackly and softly; formed a small hard knob of despair in his mind. Some insulating, protective illusion was gone and he knew that some sort of decision had been made. He knew the last defense had crumbled.

"Mike, I have to go," Hank said. He stood up. The men diminished, fell away into a tinted blue-green shadow, the gin and tonic roared in Hank's head. Then everything took shape again. They were gaping at him; not in surprise, but in relief. "Have an operation in the city. Just have time to make it back."

"I'll go with him," Georgia said. They stood up and walked out of the room. They heard Mike's voice rise, start to outline the terms.

As they went by the umbrella, the women looked up. Their faces were resentful, flushed, too pink. The talks had taken too long; it was late for lunch; and, dimly, they sensed that their husbands had lost. As if the smell of defeat had drifted across the porch, down the steps, delicately across the sand and to their sensitive nostrils. They watched Hank and Georgia dully.

Neither of them spoke as they drove out of Balboa Beach, past the dirty beer-can-studded beach, through Seal Beach and up onto the Harbor Freeway. Then Georgia spoke.

"I don't understand what he wants from them," she said. "Father said he would give all the money that was necessary: He said he would underwrite all the expenses. Then Cromwell wouldn't be obligated to a lot of other people."

The brakes on the car screeched. Hank pulled over to the side of the road, parked on the soft shoulder.

"Did your father really say that to Mike?" Hank asked.

"Yes. He's made arrangements for Mike to have all the money he needs."

"Are you sure Mike has plenty of money?" Hank asked. "Be sure, Georgia. Are you absolutely sure?"

"I'm absolutely sure. I checked it with Morrie. Mike has all the money he needs."

Hank licked his lips, his lean face seemed gaunt. He started the car and moved slowly with the traffic

"It means Mike's gone over the edge," Hank said. "He didn't talk to them because he needed money. He talked to them because he wanted them to know that Mike Freesmith was a big tough guy. That he had power. That he could beat them. He doesn't need their money, but he needs. their surrender . . . he needs to see that frightened look in their eyes. He'll win without their money. But because they resisted him he had to show them. He knew they were opposed to him; he knew they had power; they were tough. And so he went out and beat them. And he didn't have to."

He looked over at Georgia. For a moment she stared at him and then she knew he was right. Her lips worked as if she might laugh; her fine white teeth showed. But she did not laugh. An anguished sound came from her lips. She bit her knuckles to hold it back. In a few moments she could speak.

"That was the last chance, Hank," she said. "They were the last ones that could stop him. They were confident and they had power. I was sure they'd stop him. And he just had to be stopped once. Just once he had to be beat and then he could be resisted. But they couldn't," she said. She closed her eyes. "Hank, did you see the look on their faces when he talked? He made them feel that there were four million Mike Freesmiths out there in Los Angeles County; four million hard, tough people waiting to get at them. And they knew that Mike was the only person that stood between them and the four million. He broke them, Hank. Just as if he had picked them up and broken their backs across his knee." She opened her eyes and looked across her knuckles at Hank. "Now what happens, Hank?"

"I don't know," Hank said. "Now we try, I guess. Can you stop him?"

"I don't think so, Hank," she said. "He won't stop because of anything I do. If I threaten to leave him he'll laugh. Maybe a month ago if Father had withdrawn his money it would be a threat. But not now. Now he's past that. He doesn't need Father's money. See, Hank, it doesn't make any difference now whether Mike is right or not about how people act in politics. He's persuaded enough people that they act in a certain way . . . and now, they're acting the way he believes they do."

"I don't know if I can stop him, now," Hank said. "Maybe no one can."

He picked up speed. The car rushed down the freeway; like a corpuscle caught in a rushing, busy artery, swept along by thousands of other corpuscles, they rushed toward the great roaring viscera of the City.





CHAPTER 31

The Last Green Hump

The October storm waves came thundering in. In the far distance they were blue, heavy and innocent. But as each wave reached the shallows it turned green, its huge bulk rose into the air, it turned a concave face toward the beach. There was a moment when the wave seemed frozen, motionless. It stiffened and along its back appeared short, striated lines of power, like muscles tightened. It was sleek and smooth with force. Then a line of white spume, as solid as cream, appeared along the top of the wave and it curled forward. With a crash the whole wave broke. The green mass was gone and the wave disappeared and was replaced by a huge white seething wall of foam that roared in to the shore.

The waves piled in without pause. They were the edge of a storm that was thousands of miles away. They were huge. From the breaking point to the sand, the sea was foaming white, roiled with splintered waves, twisted by undertow, streaked with clouds of sand.

Hank took one board from the rack on top of his car and walked to the edge of the cliff above the cove. The place was deserted; the beach was empty. As he walked down the path he noticed that the ice plant was dried out and brown, waiting for the winter rains. The path was drifted over where the wind had gnawed into the soft soil of the cliff and made miniature landslides. He walked slowly, feeling his way carefully over the drifts, balancing the board on his shoulder. Halfway down he stopped and rested. Then he went the rest of the way.

The storm waves had narrowed the beach. It was only fifteen or twenty feet wide. Hank put the board down. For a moment he squatted in the sand and looked out to sea. Here, with his eye almost at water level, the long sweep of ocean to the horizon was invisible. He could see to the shallows but no farther. There his vision was blocked by the slow, regular, inevitable heaving of the ocean as the newest wave was formed. The waves reached into the sky, blotted out the sky and the Channel Islands.

The waves exhausted themselves just at Hank's feet. He reached down and touched the last thin edge of the waves. They hissed softly against the sand, turned it gray, and then slid backward.

Hank stood up. He started back up the cliff.

Ten minutes later he had the second board on the beach. He brushed them both off, set them carefully on their sides. He took his pants and shirt off and stretched out on the send in his shorts.

The early winter sun was very thin. The surface of the sand was warm, but not like the summer sand. Just below the surface the sand was chilled, slightly wet. And there were no sand fleas.

Once Hank opened his eyes and looked at the sun. It was yellow and pale. A thin corona, like a black line, traced its shape.

He thought of the summer sand, the deep swelling warmth that seemed to come from the interior of the earth. He rolled over on his stomach, laid his cheek against. the sand. The grains were instantly cool. He turned again on his back.

A gull came in from the sea, kaaing as it slid down a smooth layer of wind. Hank was looking straight up into the sky and saw it for a moment. Its white shape and the pink feet scarred the blueness of the sky and the yellow light between the sky and earth. It looked very small

He forgot how long he lay there, pulling the heat from the sky, feeling the coldness of the beach against his back. But finally he heard the sound of a car at the top of the cliff. He sat up. He saw Mike's head, and then Georgia's peer over the side of the cliff. Then they started down the path.

Hank picked up one of the boards and stepped to the edge of the water. He waded in until the water reached his ankles. In a well-remembered motion he swung the board into the water and forward and, at the same time, landed on the board while it still had motion. He squatted on the board and began to paddle.

The board chunked into the first shattered wave. It was a wall of foam only a few feet high. The board cut up through the foam, diced through empty air and then whipped flat. Hank eased his weight onto his arms, lifted his knees slightly from the board and when the board slapped against the water began paddling again.

The next three waves were easy because they were almost spent. But between the waves the water hissed and boiled in a way Hank had never seen. The water moved in quick senseless eddies, was checked by other pressures and tossed aimlessly. The board cut across the eddies, making a slicing neat sound that came minutely to his ear, cutting through the larger sounds.

The fourth wave was difficult. It came combing down on him, four feet of foam, laced through with green strands of water. He paddled hard, with his cheek flat on the board. As the nose of the board hit the wave, he slid his weight back to raise the board, and then, instantly, pushed forward. The board whiplashed into the foam; crashed into the wave with a motion that was arclike, but moving forward. The wave sucked at him, he lost way and then, almost as he stopped, it released him. His eyes were full of water but he was already paddling. He blinked his eyes clear and looked ahead.

This is the moment, he thought. The moment when you see the ocean's worst face, when you are most evenly matched.

Twenty yards in front of him a big wave was forming. It rose silently, steeply, without effort. The mound of water started to peak, to raise itself into the air.

Hank paddled in deep powerful strokes. His whole body was bowed into the effort. He stared at the wave, watched the line of spume suddenly thread along the top. The wave turned concave; became a huge forward-bending wall. He felt a pressure in his ears and knew the wave was about to break. He paddled savagely and just as the tons of water curled down, he shot into the concave green substance. He cut through the middle of the wave; he locked his arms around the board. He felt the wave crash down on his ankles; the board shivered for a moment, was almost dragged backward and he heard a great rumbling savage noise as the wave hit the surface of the ocean. Then he was released. He slid out past the surf line.

Hank swung into a squatting position and paddled slowly out for a few more yards. Here the skin of the ocean was flat and smooth and the waves looked harmless. Hank swung the board around and looked toward the shore.

Mike and Georgia were almost at the end of the path. Mike was wearing swimming shorts and was barefooted. They were standing still, watching him. Hank waved his hand and they came the rest of the way to the beach. They stood for a moment talking. They looked out to sea and then at the surfboard. Georgia spoke once, looked again at the waves and then, it seemed to Hank, she became silent. She put her hands in the pockets of her coat and leaned against a rock.

Mike walked to the edge of the water and put a foot in the next wave. He hopped back, pounding his hands across his chest and shouting something to Georgia. She did not reply. Mike picked up the surfboard and walked into the water. With the same skillful, swinging motion that Hank had used, he swung the board down and forward and while it was still moving he slid onto it. Then he disappeared as he entered the surf. Hank saw the tip of the board occasionally as it went up over a wave. Once he saw Mike clinging to the board as it whiplashed over a wave. Then as another hump of water gathered itself, heaved into the sky and narrowed out, its powerful green impeccable back was shattered as if a boulder had been thrown through it. It was Mike and his board. They shot through the body of the wave. They came like a sailfish, sharp and flashing, spray flying, cleanly slicing the wave. They slid past the surf line and out into the smooth water beyond.

Hank watched quietly, not moving from his squatting position except to straighten his board occasionally by putting his hand in the water. He felt withered, dried out. His mind was empty and blank. He was aware of the thin warmth of the sun, the swelling of the waves, the sound.of the surf and unconsciously he counted the waves and waited for a ninth wave.

Mike's board slid across the water.

"You sure picked a day for surfing," Mike said. "You don't go surfing for ten years and then you pick a day like this."

"You didn't have to come. I just told them at your office that I was going and if you wanted to come I'd have a board for you," Hank said.

"Don't get touchy. I wanted to come. Haven't been surfing for ten years. But this is some surf. I never remember it like this. There must be some hell of a storm somewhere."

"They're humping all right And they're getting bigger. There'll be a really big one along pretty soon."

"Old Hankus, the medicine man of the sea," Mike said. He brought his board close to Hank's. "Just like old days, eh?"

Hank looked down between his knees. The middle of the board was drying out, leaving a thin film of salt. It was cold. The breeze off the ocean was stronger than the sun. Hank looked up at Mike.

"Just like the old days, only a little bit different," Hank said.

"What's different?" Mike asked. He was grinning; the old, tough, confident, independent, knowing grin. "You're the same. I'm the same. Ocean's just the same; maybe the waves are bigger, but everything else is the same."

"You're not the same. You're different."

Hank did not know where his words came from. He did not think them with his mind or phrase them before he spoke. They seemed to be manufactured by his lungs and lips quite independently. In the withered, brown, desiccated interior of his head, Hank felt nothing; he was blank, waiting for some signal.

"You're wrong," Mike said. "I'm just the same. Hank, I haven't changed a bit since the last day we were out here on the boards. Maybe you have, but I haven't. Not the least little bit."

The boards rose on the swell of a wave, dropped into the trough. Hank saw that Georgia had climbed up onto a rock and was sitting with her hands clasped around her knees.

"I guess you haven't changed, Mike," Hank said. "You're just the same. But I didn't really know you before. And then maybe the world changed around you."

Some old long-forgotten sensitivities came alive in Hank. Because of the depth of the trough and the shape of the waves and impulses that came through the board, he knew a big hump was coming. He turned and looked over his shoulder.

They both saw it at the same time. It was a long dark blue line that blotted out the horizon. It rose so high above the other waves that it caught the wind and was laced with veins of white foam. Because of its bulk it seemed to move slowly, deliberately, reducing the waves in front of it and absorbing the waves that followed.

"My God," Mike whispered. "It's huge. It's the biggest I ever saw."

Hank backed his board toward the wave, sensing that it would break farther out than the other waves. The big hump was only four waves away when Hank stopped and waited. Mike was beside him.

They watched the color of the wave change. The deep blue faded and it became green and translucent. A delicate filigree of kelp was visible in the wave; the nodules black and solid, the strands as distinct as rope. To one side was a sting ray, caught in the wave. It was like a scarab; motionless, its wings spread, its ugly short tail straight out behind it. In the taut amber of the wave, the ray was entombed, harmless.

Then all the other waves were gone and the big hump was all that was left. They lay flat on their boards, looking over their shoulders. Deep in the wave they could see the sea grass trembling, the sharp tips reaching up from the bottom of the ocean and fluttering in the base of the wave. Then they heard the rumbling noise.

They started to paddle. Hank looked over at Mike.

"Don't take it, Mike," Hank called. "Let it go. It's too big for you. You can't ride it."

And Mike grinned. His arms kept pumping. They felt the sea rise beneath them, push against the boards, lift them high. Flecks of foam shot past their boards. Then, just at the tip of the wave, the mass of water gripped them and they started to shoot forward. For a split second they slid forward and upward as the wave continued to gather itself. The roar, the grinding, tearing, rumbling, fundamental sound, grew louder. They could see the tattered surf in front of them, the smaller, minor waves that had gone before and been ruined. They rose still higher and the drop seemed incredible, unbelievable, staggering.

Hank looked down at the beach and he could see Georgia's white face turned toward them. He felt the wave start to break and he looked at Mike.

Mike was getting to his feet. He grinned over at Hank. He was going to ride down the crash.

Numbly, with relief, Hank felt that he had received the signal; been given permission. He started to stand too.

And then the wave broke. The board was hurled forward and in the same instant it slid down the front of the wave. The foam rose around Hank's knees. The board chittered under his feet and his toes worked for a better grip. He looked over his shoulder and saw the mountain of foam and green tossing water behind them.

Hank pressed with his foot and his board angled across the foam, slid toward Mike. Mike saw him coming. Mike did not angle away, he did not look down. He watched Hank's slanting. Hank sensed that Mike knew what it was about; what had to happen; what was coming. And again the relief deepened and Hank felt reassured, decisive.

When his board was a few feet from Mike's he straightened it. Hank stared at Mike for a moment and then he dove at Mike's knees. He felt his ankles slap hard on Mike's board and then they were both in the water.

The broken wave snatched at them eagerly. It was the grip of the entire ocean: ancient, massive, stern. They were swept forward, but were held so tightly they could not move even their fingers. The wave threw them to the bottom and swept them through a patch of sea grass. The tough strands whipped at their bodies. They rolled over and smashed into a great slime-covered rock. The slime was rubbed off instantly and Hank felt the sharp edge of sea rock slice the flesh from his ribs. He was held against the rock and then drawn slowly across the cutting edges.

Then the pressure was gone and they swirled through the green water. Mike reached down and twisted Hank's middle finger loose. He bent it back, almost to the' breaking point. Then, quite deliberately, he let go of the finger. Hank tightened his grip.

Hank opened his eyes. Under the wave the world was filled with raging clouds of sand, the black shape of rocks, the twisting blades of sea grass. Closer, just before his eyes, was the solid muscle of Mike's leg. Digging into the flesh were his own fingers.

In the green uneven light he saw Mike's hand come down, grasp his finger and bend it. He threw his head back and there, inches away, was Mike's face. The face was softly distorted by the few inches of water. But Mike's eyes were open and the grin was clean and distinct. Hank closed his eyes.

The finger bent straight back from his hand, a sharp pain came from a great distance, sped down his arm and exploded in his brain. He screamed and bubbles slid from his mouth and floated away. Then, just before the finger broke, Mike let go.

He could have broken my grip, Hank thought. He could have gotten loose.

He made his mind blank, for this was temptation. He dug his fingers into Mike's legs and held more tightly.

They were swirled upward, almost to the surface and then whipped downward. They smashed into rocks again, swept across a layer of sand that quickly, in a few short licks, rubbed the skin from Hank's legs.

Suddenly Mike jerked his legs up and almost tore loose. Hank tightened his grip and with a peculiar distinctness felt the sharp wiry hairs of Mike's leg brush against his cheek.

The wave held them motionless for a moment and then brushed them flat against a shoal of barnacles. Hank felt the sharp, painless slice of the shells as they cut into his back. His lungs were hot and he knew that soon he would open his mouth and the salt water would pour into his throat. He opened his eyes and far away he saw the lively bouncing sunlit surface. Just above him a layer of green water was rushing swiftly past, pierced with beads of foam, flecked white. But, by some oceanic trick, they were held motionless, paralyzed by the great pressures into immobility. The shells sliced his flesh soundlessly.

It's not for you, Hank shouted in his mind. Not for all you stupid cloddish ignorant bastards, walking the face of the earth with plenty of air and sun and clouds. I'm doing it for myself. For selfish reasons. For my own reasons. Not for you.

And then the wave released them. They were lifted up and Mike jerked again, pulling them almost to the green foamy surface. It grew brighter, but at the edge of his vision a black circle was growing, narrowing the light to a contracting circle. Hank knew he was close to unconsciousness. He sobbed and took a mouthful of water down his throat. He clamped his mouth shut. The area of blackness grew.

The wave moved them forward and slammed them against a single rock. There was the sound of a crack, a dull unnatural muted crack. Mike went soft in Hank's arms, collapsed downward upon him. Mike's fingers slid down Hank's back, his head bounced limply from his shoulder. In the center of the tiny circle of vislon still remaining to him, Hank saw Mike's face. The eyes were open and staring.

Hank let go. He ran his hands over Mike's limp body. Hank pushed upward, very weakly.

His head broke through the surface, but only slightly. The surface was covered with leaping fleck and gobbets of foam. Hank gasped and got a mouthful of foam and some air and was pulled under again. He was pushed to his knees and swept forward, He pushed upward again and this time got more air.

He did not believe he could reach the shore and he did not want to, but he could not control his body. It fought toward the shallow water; weakly, grotesquely, without his help. He came to the surface, snatched a breath of air and swallowed it along with bitter foam. Then he was pulled under. He crawled over rough. rocks, patches of sand, the dead sharp bodies of crabs and old shells. Above him the water still rushed and tossed. He sobbed as he crawled and wondered, dully, with a black lassitude, how much his tears would salten the water. The sea rumbled at him; talked of death and oceanic peace and somehow it made him sob more. He got to his feet and found that he was in the shallows. But another wave smashed at him and he went under again, He slid along the bottom, helpless.

Then something caught him by the wrist, held firm, He staggered to his knees. The water was very shallow, He looked up. Georgia was standing in the water and holding him by the wrist. She pulled him to the edge of the water and rolled him on his back.

"Poor Hank," she whispered and her fingers ran over the cuts on his arms and chest, gently touched a long neat slice that was just starting to ooze bright red. "Poor, poor Hank."

Hank tried to speak, but salt water foamed between his lips. He spat. Then he could talk.

"He could have gotten loose," Hank said. "By breaking my fingers he could have gotten loose. But he didn't." He coughed and warm vomit and salt water spilled in a gush on his chest. He whispered, "Why didn't he, Georgia? Why didn't he break my fingers and free himself?"

"Poor, desperate Hank," she said.

His eyes blinked away the salt water. The sun now seemed bright and huge. He could see Georgia. Her face was tight with pity and despair, but also with understanding.

She put her arm around him and pulled him upright. He coughed again. She held him in a sitting position.

They sat there for a long time, waiting for Mike to drift in.





CHAPTER 32

Along the Shore

Hank and Georgia drove to La Jolla in Hank's Ford. They left in the early afternoon, just after Hank came from surgery. He smelled of alcohol and surgical soap. The odor hung about him like something not easily dispelled; tough, penetrating and clean. The odor was dissipated by the gas and oil smells of the Ford, however, by the time they reached Laguna Beach.

They did not talk during the drive. Most of the time Georgia slept. Hank drove very fast and carefully, picking his way in and out of the traffic.

The traffic thickened as they went through the Spanish buildings of Laguna Beach. They drove past the abandoned subdivisions on Dana Point. At San Onofre there was a circle of cars with surfboard racks on their roofs and neither of them looked toward the ocean. They went past the great sweeping emptiness of Camp Pendleton with the long barbed fences broken only by an occasional Marine sentry. On the dunes a few Alligators clawed their way, spewing sand behind in rhythmical spasms. Out to sea a dozen LCVP's circled slowly and helmeted heads showed sharply over the bulwarks. A jet plane slanted down from the sky, and a few hundred feet from the ocean it fired a signal rocket with a fierce sound and then banked sharply away. The LCVP's speeded up, formed a line and moved toward the shore, and the highway turned inland and the sea suddenly vanished.

It was a racing day at Del Mar, and as they swept past the track they could hear the diminutive mechanical cheering of the crowd. They saw the faraway tiny shapes of the horses for just a moment.

They turned off the highway at Torrey Pines and drove toward La Jolla. They went past the neat brushed homes of the retired admirals and colonels and generals and the elaborate Spanish homes of the San Diego rich. The buildings thinned out and then disappeared, and they went past the abandoned subdivisions. The hotel they were looking for was right on the ocean. Behind the hotel was one of the most recently abandoned subdivisions. The elaborate bronze street lamps hung over asphalt strips which had been laid down neatly across the sand. Ice plant, heavy with purple buds, crawled over the asphalt, reached almost to the middle of the road and there it was crushed to death by the passage of an occasional car. Lots were still marked by faded flags and stakes, and in the middle of the unfinished streets was a colorful little office which, on its windward side, had stopped a large heap of browned and dried out papers that reached almost to the roof.

The hotel was much older. Most of it reached out over the water and was supported by pier pilings. Thirty years before, in the warm millennial glow, the minarets had been bold. Now the stucco had peeled away and the laths and chicken wire showed in big ugly splotches. The sea air and salt water had gnawed patiently at the building and the damages had been repaired singly and over long intervals so that the building had a spotted, irregular look. Also the pilings had settled at different rates so that the hotel had a jerky roofline. Clotheslines hung between the minarets and held up bathing suits, yellowish towels, bras and shorts to a gray, flat sky. The clothes looked as if they had hung there for a very long time without drying.

In the lobby of the hotel was a large blackboard with the names of the guests and their room numbers. They found Cromwell's name and saw that his room was 213. They went up the stairs and down a corridor. The carpets in the hotel had once been a bright and vivid green, but they were now faded in the center to a rich yellow. The smell in the corridor was not unpleasant, but it seemed very ancient; as if each passing foot and towel and body had left a tiny fragment of itself behind to blend with other fragments and to form the odor of the corridor.

When they came to 213 they knocked. A voice sounded inside, muffled and indistinct. They opened the door and went in.

Cromwell was sitting by the window. He had a light blue blanket over his shoulders. He was smoking a cigar. Clara was sitting on the window seat with a robe over her knees.

"Hello," Cromwell said.

The four of them looked quietly at one another for a long moment. Cromwell blinked. Then he smiled and gestured.

"Sit down," he said.

The room was crowded. Along one wall was a line of old filing cabinets. The opposite wall was lined with stacks of books which were piled up carelessly on one another. Objects spilled into the center of the room: a drying starfish, an abalone iron, a bag of pencils, scratch paper, an old Dictaphone set with two containers of wax cylinders, a box of paper clips that glittered brightly on the carpet.

In the back of the room was a crude kitchen arrangement. There was a small icebox and a hot plate on a table. Waxed milk cartons, cans of pork and beans, ends of bread, a knife with a rusty edge and a cup of spoons were also on the table.

The smell of cigar smoke impregnated the room, as if it had been blended into the paint, soaked up by the books and debris. The ashtrays overflowed with cigar butts; the older ones dried and hard, the top ones still wet and soft.

Cromwell puffed quietly as he watched them.

"Sit down on the window seat," Cromwell said. "We're watching the tide come in. We watch it wash over the rocks."

They sat down and looked out the window. The beach was covered with smooth rounded rocks. Green water surged in among the rocks, reached up toward the hotel. Far down the beach two children ran across the rocks, back and forth, with the fall and rise of the waves. At that hour they were featureless, angular, somehow antic; like crabs shaken loose of their shells.

"Pretty soon the waves hit the pilings under the hotel," Clara said. "The whole place shakes and shivers. But you get used to it. We hardly notice it anymore. Sort of like it."

She turned and smiled at Georgia. For a moment Georgia was confused. Then she realized it was the first time Clara had ever looked at her directly, without attempting to shield the birthmark. Clara held her hands in her lap and the birthmark was turned toward the room. Georgia smiled back at Clara.

They watched the tide rise. The waves broke higher on the rocks. When the first wave reached the pilings the hotel shivered. The planks in the floor creaked and the doors rasped. A book slid sideways and coIlapsed in a small cloud of cigar ash.

"The hotel is really well built," Cromwell said. "The shaking doesn't mean that it's weak. It really rolls with the waves. It's been through dozens of storms. Stood up through all of them."

In a few moments Hank and Georgia were used to the shivering impact of the waves. Hank glanced at Cromwell and saw that he had a notebook in his lap. "I'm revising my book on Hobbes," he said, holding up the notebook. "The publishers say it finally sold out the first printing and they think maybe a new edition would go. So I'm working on that."

"How about a drink?" Clara said. "I'll make martinis. We don't drink a lot anymore, but we always have something around."

She went to one of the tables and began to pour gin and vermouth into a teapot. She opened the old wooden icebox and chipped off slivers of ice.

"I hear they buried Mike in the Veterans' Cemetery," Cromwell said. "The one out by Santa Monica."

"That's right," Hank said. "He asked for that in his will."

"How many people were there?"

"Two. Georgia and me."

"Just two?" Cromwell said and his voice was calm and steady. "That's funny. He almost had the state in his hand and when he died two people went to his funeral. He was just a little way, just the tiniest slice, from being the most powerful man in the state. Was his wife there?"

"No," Hank said. "She'd taken the kids and gone back to St. Helena. I drove her to the air terminal. She was wearing black and had a veil, but you could see she was relieved. She smiled under her veil when she thought I wasn't looking."

"I should have gone to the funeral," Cromwell said broodingly.

"It didn't matter," Hank said. Hank paused. "John, tell me why you made the speech about Moon just three days after Mike died? I still can't figure it out."

They were all silent. The only sound was the sharp tinkle of the ice splinters being destroyed in the teapot. Clara poured the martinis into water tumblers and passed them around. Cromwell took his glass, sniffed the martinls.

"It was funny having Mike die," Cromwell said softly. His voice was exploring, tentative, as if this were the first time he had formulated the thought in words. "The minute I heard about it, something started to go out of me. It was like a knife slit in one of those big circus balloons. Those big red and white and blue balloons with pictures and advertisements on the side. They float by a cable above the circus. The gas just started to hiss out. I could feel myself shrink. I couldn't believe it was happening. I believed all the wonderful words and pictures on the sides of the balloon. And then they all started to crumple; get wrinkled and crumple. At first I was scared. More than I'd ever been before in my life. For three days I sat in a hotel room and felt the pressure going out of me. I was emptied, crumpled, baggy. Then it was all over. All that was left was a hulk. The bright words and the wonderful pictures were all tiny and twisted. The hulk was drab and ugly. But I knew it was me."

Cromwell paused. He watched a wave foam in around the rocks. He lifted the glass and drank. Carelessly he pulled the blanket over his head so that it formed a cowl. He peered out at them.

"Go on, John," Clara said. "Tell us the rest"

"The three days were terrible," Cromwell said softly. "I kept trying to patch up the leak, to hold in the pressure. Actually I held my hand over my groin as if I had been ruptured; trying to hold everything together. And then at the end of three days it was all over. The pressure was gone. I was back to normal. I was a carcass that Mike had taken and blown up. Oh, he didn't do it against my will. I went along. I asked to have all the wrinkles taken out; to be blown up so tight. I wanted to sail up above the state and see all the faces looking up at me and their mouths gaping as they read the words and saw the pictures. I loved it. I didn't know what all the words were or just exactly what the people saw, but it was me. Do you understand that? It was me: John Cromwell. They could paint anything they wanted on the side. I didn't care. I was just grateful that I could free-float; that everybody could see me. Except it wasn't really me. It was Mike's balloon they were seeing."

"Part of it was you, John," Clara said. "Really it was."

"Maybe so, maybe so," Cromwell said. "Maybe a few of the words and a few of the pictures. But nobody would have seen them if it hadn't been for Mike Freesmith. He put the pressure in; he took the wrinkles out; he made me free floating. When the whole thing was collapsed I could see that. What was left after the pressure leaked out was old and familiar. Old, familiar, half-drunk John Cromwell. A kind of bum. A bum who had a trick: he could orate. A bum who had an itch to see people change when they listened to him. And when they changed, the itch became a great glorious sensation. The itch was just a minor affliction; without Mike the itch wouldn't have bothered more than a few hundred people in the state. But Mike made the itch something big."

"But why did you make the speech about Moon?" Hank asked again.

"Because when the three days was over, I was me again," Cromwell said. "I shrugged back into the old rubbery carcass and the wrinkles all fell in place. And I knew that one of the first things I had to do was to take Professor Moon off the hook. So I had the State Central Committee buy television time and I made the speech. I didn't consult anybody. I just made the speech and admitted that at Fresno I had been wrong about Moon and I apologized. You should have seen the State Committee. They were sitting in the broadcasting studio and they thought I'd gone crazy. They waved their hands, turned red, gave me body English, scribbled notes; anything to get me to stop."

"They think it lost the election for you," Hank said. "They think you might have won if you hadn't made that speech."

"That isn't why he lost," Clara said. "He lost because he didn't follow Mike's plan. John went down and fired all of Mike's research staff the day after he made the Moon speech. They thought he was crazy. They told him they could still win the election for him. But he fired them anyway. God, was I proud."

"She's right," Cromwell said. "The Moon speech didn't make any difference. I still got forty-five per cent d the vote. Just like Mike said I would . . . just by being a Democrat But I didn't pick up any of the undecided vote. For that you have to do something special. And I wouldn't do what Mike had planned."

"And Mike was right again," Georgia whispered. "He said if you were the Democrat you'd get forty-five per cent of the votes. Without doing a thing. And you didn't do a thing and you got just forty-five per cent."

No one spoke.

The tide passed high water. Its grip on the pilings was weaker. Over the ocean the clouds parted for a moment and a long narrow band of light fell on the water. The light caught a huge shifting clot of kelp. The kelp was blood red and delicate. It writhed as it was washed by the undertow and great swirls of the kelp boiled to the sudace and then were pulled down again. The rest of the ocean was smooth and gray, like poured lead.

"Mike was right about a lot of things," Hank said. He watched Cromwell. "He was right about the people being stupid and irrational. He was right about their being afraid."

Cromwell drank his glass empty. He held the glass up to the window, and watched the bluish film of gin gather into tendrils and slowly form a large drop in the bottom of the glass. He drank off the drop.

"Mike was right about that and lots more," Cromwell said. "They're stupid, frightened, panic-stricken. But they're also wise, courageous, steady. Sometimes they're vicious, sometimes they're generous. They're everything . . . and so they have to be what Mike said they were too. Play a tune well enough, Hank, and someone always comes forward to dance."

"But why did they always act one way for Mike?"

Hank asked. "Always the same. Always scared. Always fearful."

"Because he was certain," Cromwell said. "It's the one thing you can't fake. You have it or you don't. The people look up, sniff around . . . " His hands moved, formed and impressed the idea. "They smell out the man with certainty. And if you have it they'll believe you. They'll behave as you tell them."

"Because their own uncertainty is so great," Hank said bitterly. "They're so unsure."

"That's right. They'll believe because they don't have anything else. Or they believe in themselves too little."

"How did they ever protect themselves from the Mikes?" Hank asked.

His voice, thin with strain, asked for something.

"Because there are always some who disbelieve. At some point the disbelievers come together and fight the believer," Cromwell paused. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and instantly he looked very old. His voice came softly. "Sometimes the disbelievers fight alone. A lonely disbeliever who disbelieves so much . . . so much that you drowned him."

It was loose in the room. Georgia looked up sharply; Hank curled his fingers together into a large double fist and crushed it between his knees. He looked up slowly.

"You knew?" Hank asked.

"Yes. I knew," and from the shadow of the cloth Cromwell's lips hardly moved. "I knew when I read the story in the papers. When I read about you and Georgia waiting on the beach and about the surfboards coming in all broken up. And I knew when I read that you arried Mike up the cliff path. I knew then."

Outside the sea and sky reshaped. The band of light retreated across the ocean, flashed over the great sweep of water, caught an island for a moment and then was gone. The sea was gray and flat.

"Was I right, John?" Hank asked.

"I don't know, Hank," Cromwell said. "I'm not the one to judge."

"I had to do it," Hank said. "No one else was doing anything. So I had to."

"I can't judge it," Cromwell said again.

There was a moment of simple quiet No one breathed. And then they were all aware of the same thing. It was among them; strange and foreign, although they had made it. It was a curiously solid fragment; almost palpable: Hank would never be judged.

Cromwell and Georgia and Clara were aware of an unwelcome smugness, a relief from judgment. Hank looked at them and saw it. His eyes burned and sunk deeper into his skull. He looked, finally, at Georgia.

"We have to go, Hank," Georgia said. "It's late."

They shook hands with Cromwell and Clara. They walked back down the salt-smelling, moist, ancient hall. They climbed the steps to the roads. They looked at the abandoned tract; at the richness of the street lamps. They looked down the street as if the Ford were an impossible distance. In the sites across the street old tattered flags began to flutter as the wind rose.

Georgia took his hand. She looked at him. His eyes were narrowed, in the middle were thin blue crystals of sparkling agony.

"I'll help, Hank." Georgia whispered. "I'll help you."