exerpts from the novel
The Electronic Windmill
By Pete McKinley
Chapter VIII
When Pilar arrived at Borgia’s private parlour, it was apparent that the party had been under way for some time. Mario, the head waiter, led her through the plush dining area to the quiet elegance of the small room reserved for intimate dinner parties. The elegance was still there, but the quiet was being shattered.
“The crabs from right down on the wharf,” Giuseppe was waving his arms, “are the best from any place on the Coast.”
“I don’t know about that,” Kang objected, “Some of those northwest crabs are pretty good, especially Dungeness.”
“Have you ever had Florida rock crab?” Larry wanted to know.
“Hell, I’m talking about any coast. They’re tender and sweeter than Alaska King crab, too.”
Kang had switched back to Cole. “Statistics don’t prove crap. There’s no way to tell who was the best; Ruth, Mays, or Aaron.”
Cole took a drink of punch and eyed Kang. “I don’t know a damn thing about baseball, but you take your pick of the three, and I’ll prove you’re wrong.”
“How the hell are you going to prove I’m wrong when you just admitted and I agree, you don’t know a damn thing about baseball.”
“O.K., O.K., who’s your pick?” Cole said stubbornly.
“What’s the use. I just told you statistics don’t mean anything. There’s no way you can prove who was best.”
“All right, if you won’t pick, we’ll have Giuseppe decide. Hey Giuseppe, you’re a baseball nut.”
Giuseppe turned slowly from his argument on shellfish.
“That’s a damn lie. I’m a smart baseball fan.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Cole hastily. “Who was the best ball player of all time, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays or Hank Aaron?”
“That’s easy.” Giuseppe looked knowledgeable.
“O.K., Giuseppe, if it’s so easy, why don’t you pick?” Cole demanded.
Giuseppe turned slowly to Larry. “San Francisco shrimp are more tender and sweeter.” And then with calm dignity to Cole, “Joe DiMaggio.”
Cole looked slightly stunned. “Jesus Christ, that wasn’t even the question. You better lay off the grappa.” Noticing Pilar by the door he yelled, “Pilar, come on in. You’re just in time.”
“Really, I feel as though I must have missed something,” she said.
Lucretia’s strong voice rose above the babel, “The ducks come out of the oven in five minutes. Giuseppe, bring the vino. Hello, Pilar, you look very beautiful.”
Everyone told Pilar how lovely she looked, then Cole remembering she had a date later that night, decided to have another picon punch.
The table was set with Borgia’s best napery, real silverware, and the finest china from Japan. Five minutes after Lucretia had made her announcement she came again from the kitchen followed by Mario and Tony carrying trays loaded with smoking golden ducks. No hors d’oeuvres had been served, no soup or fish, just succulent ducks, crisp and juicy, accompanied by a huge platter of buttered garden asparagus spears, a dish of mixed vegetables including fresh zucchini, spinach, and lima beans, and steaming baked potatoes seasoned with butter, salt and pepper. There were round flat loaves of sourdough bread and more butter.
The vino was a greenish yellow wine with just a hint of sweet tartness. It was volatile in its lightness and exuded a faint fragrance of nasturtiums. Giuseppe bought the total production of a vintner friend located in the Valley of the Moon; taking it from limestone caves when it reached its peak. It was the perfect embellishment for the duck.
Eleven brown birds were eaten, five bottles of wine drunk, twelve capuccinos sipped amidst stacatto and mostly incoherent conversation, before Virgent Eddington arrived to take Pilar away.
“Come in. Have a glass of wine,” Giuseppe shouted.
“I’ve got another duck warming.” Lucretia left through the swinging doors to the kitchen.
“I’ll bring a cappucino,” Mario said as he placed the third round on the table.
“Oh, no, please, thank you, I don’t care for a thing.” Virgent Eddington protested.
“You’ve gotta have something,” Giuseppe was firm.
Lucretia came back from the kitchen, “Duck will be ready in two minutes.” She smiled at Pilar and sat next to her.
“Well, if you insist, just a cup of coffee,” Virgent relented.
“With brandy,” yelled Giuseppe as Mario left for the bar.
“No. No brandy. I really don’t drink.”
“You’ll like it,” Giuseppe said. “Sit down. This brandy was made especially for me by my friend.”
Virgent Eddington sat uneasily and looked helplessly at Pilar.
After Kang shook hands, he said in surprise, “Hey, you’re Eddie Eddington, ‘Heady Eddie,’ the control pitcher.” He turned to everyone with his discovery. “Eddie pitched us to a conference championship.”
“I saw your picture in the paper a couple years after we graduated,” Larry remembered.
“Yes, I grew up in the Bay Area, and I remember seeing you and Mr. Rain play football and Mr. Shu-li play tennis,” Virgent admitted.
Mario placed coffee and brandy in front of Virgent, took the chair beside him and poured a water glass full of wine for himself.
“My, you are so handsome. Pilar told me you are a doctor. I want to lose weight. What should I eat?” Lucretia asked.
Pilar put her arm around Lucretia. “He’s a Doctor of Religious Philosophy, and you don’t need to lose weight; you have a perfect figure.”
“Baseball is much better than football or basketball,” Giuseppe said judiciously.
“That’s a crock,” Larry spoke for the first time in several minutes.
“I don’t know anything about baseball except it bores me. The rules should be changed to make it more exciting,” Cole insisted sententiously.
“How can you say that?” Larry looked injured. “I like a really tense ball game, nothing to nothing in the last half of the seventh, a runner on second, two out and the league’s leading hitter coming to bat. An explosive confrontation like that gives me a chance to go to the john and on the way back pick up a hot dog and a cold beer. Of course, you miss the four balls thrown a yard and a half outside the plate, but if you hurry, you might see the batting champ trot to first base. Man, what a relief a situation like that gives me.”
“The rules of baseball have been tested over the years,” Virgent explained a little stiffly, “and they formulate a method for playing the most perfect game man has ever conceived. I do know something about baseball, and I wouldn’t change any of its physical characteristics, nor revise any of the rules governing it.”
“We wouldn’t change the rules very much,” Cole said, winding up from Larry’s encouragement. “But why negate the greatest hitters in the league? Let’s give the pitcher and batter both something to think about before and after four balls are issued for an automatic walk.”
“That seems like an excellent suggestion,” Virgent acknowledged from his eminence as a star of the game, “but how would you accomplish all that with just a small rule change?”
“Make it this way.” Cole was ready now. “When a batter gets four balls he can take first base, or he can insist on being pitched to. If he decides to hit he’s got a new count: four balls and one strike, say. If the pitcher gives up four more balls the batter can take second, or he could refuse second and still insist on being pitched to. As you can see, pretty soon you got a hell of a lot of problems cropping up.
“Maybe he’s got eight balls and two strikes now. O.K. What inning is it? The last of the ninth or just the third? Anyway, when he gets up to sixteen balls and two strikes it’s a home run.”
“That’s a great idea,” Kang enthused, then shook his head. “The only problem, Larry might have to sit through nine exciting innings without a relief.”
“What do you think, Eddie?” Larry approved.
“Well, I can see some merit in the change. It might be an expedient to add a temporary quality of freshness to one or two minor league games, but I can’t understand why you’d want to change a sport that is classical in its concept; that has survived and grown for a hundred years and, especially, to obliterate the meaning of certain statistics that have been compiled over those hundred years.”
“One of the reasons might be that baseball has competitors who aren’t afraid of change to get more excitement,” Cole explained. “But maybe the best reason is that if it doesn’t change, baseball will become a volume of statistics. But then the baseball nut can read statistics for enjoyment.”
“I think you’re exaggerating the importance of the hitter,” Virgent fought back. “What’s wrong with a great hitter setting an all-time record for the greatest number of intentional walks?”
Larry looked stunned. “That’s really a good question,” he said, “and I don’t think it’s possible to explain what’s wrong with it, unless maybe it’s one of those ‘self-evident’ things.”
Cole broke in now that he had unexpected support. “All we’re suggesting is that a great pitcher and a great batter be given a chance to do their thing.”
“Hell, Cole, you’ve been studying baseball,” Kang said. “That’s a rule change that would make sense. What do you think, Eddie?”
Virgent wrinkled his brow, thought deeply and finally admitted he might enjoy a game encompassing such a rule change. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up, saying he and Pilar would have to leave if they were to catch the last half of the concert. Pilar seemed slightly annoyed as she accepted her wrap from Kang.
Lucretia and Giuseppe followed the two through the restaurant and waited while the attendant brought Virgent’s car. When they returned to the private dining room, Lucretia was enthusiastic about the lovely couple.
“He looks like a television actor and Pilar looks like an angel.” She couldn’t bring herself to compare Pilar to an ordinary television star.
“I go to only one college baseball game and he was the pitcher. Why didn’t he play professional baseball?” Giuseppe asked.
“I guess he wanted to be a philosopher more,” Kang said.
Mario came from the bar with a tray full of green chartreuse.
Larry took one and sipped the throat-burning liquid eyeing Cole. “What did you think of him, Cole? He seemed like a pretty intelligent guy to me.”
Cole gulped the green fire and gasped, “There’s no question about it the guy’s handsome, intelligent, has religious convictions, doesn’t drink, smoke or swear. But,” he paused looking at the last green drop in the bottom of the glass, “he’s just not my kind of people, I think he’s an ass.”
Kang gave it some thought; Mario laughed aloud; Larry smiled knowingly; Giuseppe was delighted; but Lucretia was confused, then slowly she turned a smile of approval on Cole.
Chapter IX
Pilar Jones wakened slowly. A frown creased her brow as she thought of the night before. The night should have ended when they left Borgias’. The concert was a bore; Virgent Eddington was a bore. What was that silly story that his car wouldn’t start and he’d insisted that even if they spent the night together in the queen-sized bed, sans nightclothes, she would be completely safe in his care. Something about not contaminating her spiritual soul with thoughts or suggestions of sin. Anyway on the second try the car had started. He thought perhaps some force greater than they understood had caused the engine to fail the first time. How could he be a doctor of philosophy and such a little boy? she wondered. She was sure Cole would have taken her in his arms and carried her to bed. But why hadn’t Cole ever?
Yawning and stretching, she moved her body in a slow twisting roll, emerging to stand on a small rose-red carpet. Shaking the pillow, she fluffed and placed it deftly under the counterpane, making adjustments to match the undisturbed two-thirds of the bed. The bath carried through the color theme, including a mirrored dressing table topped with Italian rose marble. Pilar showered, washed her hair, dried body and hair with a giant pink towel, combed her curls in place, brushed her teeth vigorously, gargled mouthwash, selected clothes for the day and dressed in fifteen minutes. She left the apartment, walked to the small foreign car and headed for the center of the city to breakfast with Cole.
As she pressed the button for the Skyroom elevator, Cole whipped around a corner, turned all smiles when he saw her.
“How the hell can you look like that so early in the morning?” he wanted to know.
Pilar’s head came up and she said rather haughtily, “No one looks their best at this time of day.”
“That’s what I meant,” Cole laughed. “How can you look so perfect at seven-thirty in the morning?”
Pilar was silent but her pleasure came through loud and clear.
At the top floor the maitre d’ led them to a window table overlooking the patchy-fogged bay. The sun was breaking through dissipating the stringy wisps.
“Before we talk business, what time does the birthday party start tomorrow?” Pilar asked. Larry’s nephew and Pilar’s niece had seventh birthdays four days apart. R.C.S.&J., Inc. had volunteered a joint celebration with a day at the park, picnic, games, and maybe the zoo.
“Ten o’clock. Larry’s bringing Larry II with him,” Cole said. “I’m sorry this is a little disorganized but I assumed you’d bring Erica at the same time. Since they’re both getting new rackets they can bat the ball around while we play doubles. I thought you’d scheduled the picnic for two o’clock.”
“I did, and that’s fine with me. Erica will be happy, but what time is Kang’s match?”
“It was his suggestion we start at ten to give him a warmup before he plays at noon. He shouldn’t have any trouble winning his first match by one-thirty at the latest.”
“He’s seeded three?”
“That’s right.”
When the four of them first started doubles play, they’d switched partners after each set but eventually Kang and Pilar paired against Larry and Cole.
It was still an unequal situation. Kang was the top player and Pilar was probably next in all-around ability. Cole and Larry played an aggressive game and could often overpower Pilar’s more fluid but less violent returns. Kang and Pilar had generally won, but recently Cole and Larry had been playing a psych game trying to at least break even.
“It should be a great day,” Cole said seriously as they waited to order. “I’ve been working on my backhand and I’m really getting a little afraid of it; it’s carrying a lot of top-spin and has an almost vicious take-off after it hits the court. Maybe you ought to concentrate more on my forehand. I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt - especially a girl.”
“Yes, I’ll warn Kang to be careful too,” Pilar said. “But we came to breakfast to eat and discuss whether I should accept my new offer.”
“I don’t like the order you put things in,” Cole said. “Maybe we should discuss your new job first and then we’ll know whether or not we should eat. I was merely cautioning you on the tennis thing,” he shrugged and shifted to the reason for their breakfast date. “As I understand it, you’re being asked to help develop a gun that will make one man equal in destructive power to an old-fashioned broadside of eighteen-inchers.”
The waiter stood with poised pencil until Cole finished and then they ordered breakfast. While they waited Pilar explained the request for her services.
She had met a classmate in the ceramic laboratory at McWhorter Brown. Cecil Glass had the highest achievement record in design engineering at the University. He and Pilar had completed one joint project: reconstructing support crutches for disabled veterans. These crutches were unique in that they could be motivated by the muscles of the upper arm and shoulders exclusively, leaving the lower arms and hands free. Legless veterans with artificial limbs who had used these crutches had learned to play games requiring standing and moving and the free use of both arms and hands. A side benefit had accrued to blind cripples enabling them to hold a leash in one hand and a tap-cane with the other.
When she had met Glass again at McWhorter Brown, he had not given Pilar much detailed information as to what he was doing. She had learned that ceramics, metallurgy and nuclear physics had something to do with it, and that he was commissioned to design a light weapon that could deliver a nuclear missile. The weapon would be held and directed by one man, but it was necessary that his arms and hands be free, and it was in this area that Pilar’s help was needed.
Cole, as the head of R.C.S.&J. Corporation, had been given security clearance, she explained, since she wouldn’t accept the work without the corporation’s sanction. She had met with Glass several times and now knew all she needed to know to make a decision. The firing piece would weigh approximately ten pounds and would be strapped to the shoulders above the chest’s normal movement. It could be pointed by sight, using electronically absorbed light waves completely enclosed and reflected within a binocular-like gadget affixed to the eyes and wired to the gun. With this device the head was moveable in any direction, but the vision within the electronic binoculars would always be a wide-angled panoramic view along the barrel of the piece and through an egg-shaped and hairline-crossed sight.
The target would be pinned at the intersection of the hairlines by body adjustment for direct visual firing. The shell case and nuclear bullet, the complete cartridge, weighed slightly over six ounces. It would be propelled from the muzzle of the gun in the usual manner, but, within a minimal measurement of time after firing, the energy from the slowed fission of a new atom-structured rocket fuel would be released to impart the real force propelling the nuclear bullet as much as fifty thousand yards in an unerring path. This micronuclear shell could be adjusted to explode on impact, set to release within a time-distance factor, or, equipped with a miniscule sensor device, it could be dialed to follow and expend its terrifying energy within a predetermined proximity of a target mass.
These methods of triggering its nuclear explosive power would make the weapon effective not only against visual objects but also those unseen dangers known by various technologies to exist beyond the contours of the earth or high within the earth’s thinning atmosphere. By using the time-difference setting, the bullet could be exploded above the ground target and by dialing the following and proximity sensor, it would be cataclysmically effective against aircraft or fleets of aircraft.
Auxiliary lightweight equipment would consist of a tripod for stabilizing the piece and a circular canister to insert in the magazine for rapid fire. New and old concepts would prevail in this modern weapon, but the predominate change would be the destructive and coercive power such a weapon would give one man. The terror in a simple little single six-ounce bullet would be equivalent to the potential holocaust trapped in a hundred tons of TNT. Pilar concluded by saying that, “For closer work bullets of less destructive power could be fashioned.”
“That’s very interesting, even if it does sound like the last weapon one that will not only transform an enemy into glowing vapor, but could simultaneously atomize the user.” Cole pondered a moment longer. “It seems like a sort of senseless piece of equipment for a nation to want but if you’re asking me should you go ahead and help in its design, I’d say, ‘yes’.”
“You know, just talking about it scares me.” Pilar was grave. “I’m not sure that I should get involved in something so final. Do you really think I should?”
“It’s your decision and it should be made on what you think you should do, not what I think. But you haven’t thought about it yet; you’ve merely expressed fear and uncertainty based on feelings. I’ll help you think your decision if you wish.”
“Go right ahead. Where do we start thinking?”
“Well, the weapon is already a fact. Your knowledge and skill will help it to become more efficient, but withholding them won’t nullify its existence. If you don’t help, someone else will; admittedly this someone doesn’t have to be you. You don’t have to burden your conscience but, again, and this is the real question, how does salving your conscience solve anything?” Cole took a quick sip of water and when Pilar didn’t respond continued, “To put it in perspective, this is merely one more weapon in the arsenal. We know the bad uses to which it can be put. How do we know it won’t be put to a good use, or be used defensively for our own or mankind’s protection, if you want to call that a good use.” Cole paused then felt compelled to go on. “Was it bad when prehistoric man picked up a rock or a club and used it against his predators? If he hadn’t discovered the club, the spear, the bow and arrow, it’s probable we wouldn’t be here. Anyway, here’s the food, and it’s for damn sure we need the energy to think up all these craziest things.”
It was apparent that Pilar was not convinced completely but still without comment she turned to the food.
There was crisp bacon and soft, fluffy scrambled eggs, sourdough muffins toasted and hot with dripping butter, and a choice of orange marmalade, strawberry preserves or red-raspberry jam. Cole ordered coffee and Pilar milk. She loaded a warm buttered muffin with orange marmalade, strawberry preserves and red raspberry jam and took a bite as Cole shuddered. Then she washed it all down with half the milk, saying, “Man needed weapons to survive his early environment, but damn it these weapons were turned against other men. You don’t believe man killing man is necessary, do you?”
“I believe we will someday live without resorting to violence, but we haven’t learned to do this yet.”
“You talk as though it’s a learning process. Why wouldn’t an international law against war be the starting point?”
“Sorry, I over-simplified it. It isn’t only learning, it’s also a matter of genetics. Legislation against violence, as against any other human frailty, is worse than useless if mankind instinctively or with reason, right or wrong, believes that violence will secure for it whatever it seeks.”
“Then you’d add controlled breeding along with education as a substitute for legislation?” Pilar asked with incisive analysis, keeping her comments to kquinimum so as not to disturb her breakfast.
“Let’s leave breeding to the vagaries of natural selection, and I’m all for unrestricted vagaries.” Pilar ignored the ribald remark but secretly thought it funny. “Right, education is better than legislation, except that too often propaganda is substituted for truth. Everybody is being stuffed with all kinds of bull, so intelligent sifting of fact from fiction, true knowledge from propaganda, is a must. Too many so-called educated people are merely repositories of accumulated propaganda, some facts and some fiction dispensed by our educational institutions. Contrary to popular belief, only a very few people have the intelligence, plus the desire, to think creatively and go beyond the junk knowledge they’ve stored. We should at the very least try to add just a little to the world’s true cache of information.” Watching Pilar eat, Cole began to think some more about natural selection. “Damnit, you consume food so effortlessly that I was distracted from the point I was going to make.”
Pilar spread more jam, etc. on her muffin and Cole, fascinated, watched, then took a bite of scrambled eggs and a swallow of coffee. “We were thinking about the weapon,” he said slowly. “There are those who believe that the preservation, and ‘preservation’ is the key word, of their ideological or religious views, or of their economic well-being, is worthy of killing. These are just the mild people who only wish to defend. They have a less violent nature than some others; they merely have a self-preservation instinct to kill. You and I are probably included in this number two group. The really tough-minded killers are the number one group, those who aren’t secure without imposing, remember ‘imposing’ their ideology, their religion, or their economic prerogatives on the rest of us. I don’t know which group is more numerous but these number one bastards have so far been the most potent even though they haven’t always won. History records almost exclusively the conflicts between these two groups. Their affinity for conflict separates them from the third group: this is the bunch that will supposedly inherit the earth. They are not only mild, they are meek, and assumedly they will eventually supplant ‘the age of force’ with ‘the age of reason.’ So far, historians have practically ignored them, either because their numbers are so small or because they have accomplished so little.”
“Then I’ll add to their number,” Pilar said firmly, “I’m resigning from group two and applying for membership in group three.”
“But you can’t resign, any more than you can resign from the human race and become an antelope, - I almost said a tigress,” he grinned, “but that wouldn’t fit the allegory of meekness.”
“How do you know I couldn’t be mild and meek?”
“You may already be mild and meek. I merely said you couldn’t become it if you weren’t. Search yourself for the truth. If your Erica were threatened with kidnapping and a life of drugs and prostitution, even though she herself might enjoy such a life, would you kill if you were sure this was the only way to prevent it?”
“She wouldn’t enjoy it, and there might be other ways of preventing it.” Pilar slowed her eating perceptibly.
“Damn it. We’ve already established the facts; there is no other way.” Cole frowned. “You can’t with reason learn about yourself if you’re unwilling to accept mental suppositions. It is true that Erica can’t be saved without your intervention, and remember, she might not want to be saved. What are you going to do with the cocked and loaded pistol in your hand? Will you save her from a life of drugs and prostitution and save her even from herself?”
Pilar sat rigidly for a moment and then with a slight tremor in her voice said, “I’d shoot the son-of-a-bitch.”
“That’s what I thought, you’re in group two, if we can still classify you as only mildly violent. But don’t worry about it. You’re probably in tune with most people and they aren’t always aware of their savage nature.”
Pilar was merely picking at her food now.
“But to go on with the gun,” Cole said. “How do we know the creation of this ultimate weapon for one man will product more aggressive violence? Hell, maybe its very existence will render it uselessness. To exaggerate a point, you’ve already tacitly agreed that prehistoric man picking up a club and attaching a rock to the end of it for protection probably made a good invention. At least it worked for his survival in a savage world of naturally better-equipped carnivors. His brain and mechanical skill created this first weapon and gave him the means to proliferate and conquer. When he turned his weapens against his own kind, you say this was bad, without knowing what his alternatives were. You could be right, but to continue thinking about it, maybe our natural enemies haven’t changed that much even though man himself is the only premeditated violent killer of man. Nature sometimes kills violently but without premeditation. Perhaps weather is our major natural violent killer. But maybe today we need to most intelligently control nature’s subtle side that may be killing us a hell of a lot faster than its catastrophies. O.K., we’ve been talking about earthly things of which we have some knowledge, but how do we know our final violent enemy has been overcome? Are we sure there are no other forces in the universe to obstruct our existence? Let’s assume we’re aware of all the dangers that exist on earth, although we haven’t investigated every crevice and peak and all the depths of every ocean. We still can’t be sure that our questing for an ultimate weapon won’t eventually save us from an enemy outside of our small world. Nor again can we be sure that the very ludicrousness of this gun’s incredible power of obliteration in the hands of one man won’t help the user to gain ‘the age of reason’.”
Pilar looked up brightly, “You know, I’d like another muffin and another glass of milk.”
Cole was uncomprehending for a moment, bent forward with the thrust of his argument. Then shrugging his shoulders, he signaled the waiter.
“I take it you think I should go ahead and work with Cecil on this ultimate weapon in case we’re invaded from outer space?”
“What I said was that you should think about it before you decide for yourself. I was merely giving examples of thinking, which might or might not coincide with yours.” Cole shook his head and adjusted his eyes. “How the hell can you eat so much and still keep your shape?”
“I actually eat very little,” Pilar said, finishing the last muffin. Then she insisted on paying her share of the bill. Cole accepted, splitting the bill in half and charging her a dollar more for the extras she’d ordered. As they left the restaurant, it was decided to leave Pilar’s car for servicing and a wash. They picked up Cole’s car and headed for Number 10 Black Pearl Road. Cole maneuvered through a section of the city where many of the buildings were being demolished to make room for sterile structures of concrete, steel and aluminum. The narrow streets were clogged with trucks and stacked building materials. The early morning motor and pedestrian traffic was slow. Cole missed people, trucks, and stacks a hair closer than Pilar had experienced and at the same time watched the construction in progress and the girls clumping to work.
Pilar was diverted only by the people; their dress, the personal animation or lack of it in mobile or slack faces, the body movements and the gestures. A girl waiting at the curb squeezed a lighter, lit a cigarette, expelled smoke from her nostrils, released her thumb extinguishing the flame, and dropped the cold metal in her purse. “How does it happen you’ve never smoked?” Pilar asked suddenly.
Cole tore his eyes from the bouncing bubbles and undulating hips weaving their fantasies and with some astonishment asked, “What?”
“I was just wondering why you never smoked.”
“What gave you the idea I never smoked? I used to smoke but I quit.”
“Were you worried about your health?”
“Not particularly.”
Pilar waited a moment. “I’d really like to know. Why did you quit?”
“I quit when I found I couldn’t get along without them.”
She thought for a moment, “Is that supposed to make sense?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well go on.”
“One time in the mountains I ran out of cigarettes. I worried a day and a half before I got back where I could buy some. You know, just feeling that thick, fat, slick pack gave me a sensuous pleasure. I opened the damn thing and smelled for maybe five minutes. Then threw them away.” He didn’t say any more and Pilar waited.
Finally she said, “But you still haven’t explained why you threw them away and quit.”
“I didn’t want to be controlled,” he said. Cole wondered why she’d asked that particular question at this particular moment; her mind was becoming more complex, instead of less, with his greater exposure.
Pilar thought: he’s revealed in small inconsequential things, but that isn’t exactly true; he thinks and talks too far away from the present. Maybe I don’t understand because he’s too direct and too detailed about objects and too terse about himself. ‘I quit when I found I couldn’t get along without them.’
“If a person should resist doing things that might control him,” she said, “then I don’t agree with producing nuclear weapons that might control me. Why should I help to develop this one? And also isn’t it inconsistent with our corporate purpose?”
“I don’t think so. We’re supposed to meld and learn; to be positive and constructive; to win while playing within the rules of the game. Hell, if you can force everybody to play by your rules, then you can change the rules around and make yourself a winner by tailoring them to fit your weaknesses. Remember the difference. We don’t know as much about this new weapon as I know about smoking cigarettes. At the moment we know very little. If the government is developing a nuclear gun to be operated by one man then I think they’re making a hell of a mistake, maybe the last big mistake. This whole thing seems illogical, but we don’t know enough about it. If it is as we understand it, then perhaps the politicians, the generals and bureaucrats don’t foresee the danger of such an individual weapon, but remember the ‘if’.” He paused and looked at her. “What good would it do us not to participate, or for you as an individual not to lend your services? You might feel better morally, but how would this affect the gun’s eventual being? Einstein was that super but he too had no idea where his creative thinking, his new math would lead. Should his thoughts have been repressed? I’ll bet the future will record benefits far in excess of the harm made possible by his theories. But to your problem: if you withhold your services, maybe the weapon won’t be as excellently balanced, but it will be just as deadly. Sometimes we intellectuals - excuse me, I didn’t mean to include myself - you scientific-intellectuals believe that by withdrawing your individual knowledge and creative ability, you can change man’s aggressive nature, his selfishness and greed. That’s just not true. His nature hasn’t changed yet and all we can hope for is that he will eventually begin to reason that wholesale killing in the nuclear age could engulf him. Probably for that reason the bomb has only been used to end the one war. But the threat of the big one hasn’t stopped little wars, maybe this small baby will. It’s yet to be determined if world wars are obsolete but everybody seems a little more cautious. If Einstein was the indirect cause for the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then he was the indirect cause for ending the war and the probable reduction of over-all killing. Again, remember it’s all merely speculation, and so far only death is positive. Our short life has almost no positive pegs; it consists of probables and if you don’t learn early to accept a life of probabilities then you’re eligible for a sick head. Too many people blow their minds because they insist upon an exact past, a perfect present, and a known and secure future. Forget it. It doesn’t exist except in the minds of dangerous fanatics or your average man looking for a place to hide. Look askance at the positive view; it’s the one to consider longest, to question most fully. Really, the laws of probability are much more appealing than the fanatic’s advocacy and selling of the one true religion, the postulated economic system, the axiomatic government or the triple-A rated blue chip stock. The only thing you can be sure of is that all things are changing and that your next breath will be somewhat different from your last; in fact, it may be your last.”
Pilar shuddered. “I like to be sure of things; then I can forget them and go on to something else. It’s a good feeling to know the sun will rise in the morning.”
“What do you think the odds are that the sun won’t come up tomorrow? A million, a billion, a trillion to one? The odds just have to be established. The sun might explode before morning, not very likely according to our best astronomers, or a stellar collision, or what about the earth’s rotation being altered by some stupidity of man? The great probability is that the sun will come up tomorrow, but there isn’t any real doubt that someday it won’t. Think of the money you could make if you could predict the sun’s failure to rise tomorrow.” Cole gave a short laugh thinking of all that money in a gelid blue world or in a vaporized red-purple glow or maybe even in a solid black hole with compressed matter at tens of thousands of tons per cubic inch.
“What are you thinking about?” Pilar asked.
“I was just thinking that it’s your decision and I’m sure whatever you decide will be O.K. with Kang and Larry. Sorry, I should have said I’ll give you a hundred to one they’ll agree.”
“Then there is some doubt in your mind; they may not agree?”
“Right. They may not. Do you want the odds?”
“No, I just wondered if you’d back with cold cash the odds you pulled out of the air. Knowing you would, I too am sure they’l1 go along with whatever I decide.”
They parked the car, unlocked the door at No. 10 Black Pearl Road, climbed to the second floor, and were alone in the silent outer room. They didn’t go to their offices but sat lonely in the stillness and then ordered coffee from the restaurant below to occupy the waiting for Kang and Larry.
When the coffee arrived, Pilar brought it on an enameled tray donated by Kang. She poured a cup, added cream and set it on the low table before Cole. He wasn’t too conscious of the burn when he swallowed. He was watching as she sat opposite and filled her own cup. The crossing of sinuous legs reminded him of a beautiful boa constrictor he had once seen winding along the smooth branch of a tropical tree. She no sooner became comfortable than she untwined them and fountained up to go to the bar for sugar. He wasn’t sure, but had the impression of seeing pubic hair beneath the flowing material molding her thighs. He wondered what she wore under. Moving away from him the curve and crease of her rounded rear rippled and the burning coffee he drank had even less effect. On her return, carrying the sugar, he was positive that the two points moving with each stride under the thin cloth couldn’t possibly be entrapped in a brassiere. It was only after her question was repeated the third time that Cole became aware of the sound of her voice.
“I’m not too sure about that,” he said vaguely, and when he noticed that she expected him to go on, he continued with more force, “I’d have to think about it for a while.”
Pilar stirred a half teaspoon of sugar into her coffee and then a little worriedly asked, “Are you feeling well? You sound like something’s bothering you.”
“No, I feel great - nothings bothering me. Why do you ask?” There she goes again.
“Well, nothing in particular, except I asked you three times if you wanted sugar in your coffee and you said you weren’t sure, you’d have to think about it for a while. I just thought a simple yes or no would have been more like you.”
Cole recovered fairly rapidly. “There are many questions that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. I didn’t want any sugar in my coffee, but at the moment I was thinking very positively about something, and I just didn’t feel like giving a negative answer. I didn’t even feel like maybe. All I wanted to do was think about it for a while. What have you got against thinking? That’s just what we’ve been talking about.”
Pilar’s perplexed expression was changing to an amused smile but he was saved further explanation by the noise of Larry and Kang coming up the stairs. Cole got up. “Hi, I’ve got some mail to look at. Pilar wants to talk to you two. If you want me for anything, I’ll be in my office.” He walked stiffly to the door, entered, and closed it softly.
There was a small stack of mail on his desk. He riffled through the envelopes and selected one to read. He slit it open, and a card attached to a form letter dropped out. He glanced at it briefly, noting the contents and getting the gist of the communication before he picked up the mike and buzzed Joanne at the Service Center. Joanne’s husky purr brought back visions of Pilar, but Cole didn’t want to get into that mood again so he said quickly, “Hi, Joanne, I’m in kind of a hurry. Could you take a letter for me right away?”
“Certainly, Cole,” Joanne cooed this time. “Just a moment, I’ll get my equipment together.”
He could see her throwing her arms back, stretching the tight sweater across bulging boobs as she casually reached for pencil and pad. He jerked his mind away from the image, asking, “All set?”
“Yes, of course, Cole. Go right ahead whenever you’re ready. I certainly am.”
He thought for a moment about the machined letter and the computerized bill that he had paid almost a year ago.
“This will be another letter to the Ace Corporation - you have copies of all the correspondence?”
“Oh, yes.”
Cole dictated:
Dear Mac:
Hello, there. I hope I won’t offend you by using the familiar but after our eleven months of correspondence, I feel I know you well enough. But to get right to business. You were quite correct in rejecting this check for sixteen dollars and thirty-eight cents. This check is a copy of the one I sent in full payment of the bill, and on the reverse side, it shows that the original check was cashed by Ace Corporation. I had a hard time finding this cancelled check as my personal files aren’t too well kept. It was submitted to you as incontrovertible evidence of payment. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure the problems we’ve had for almost a year now haven’t been caused by you.
It’s those pin-headed sons-of-bitches that you work for that have been stuffing you full of a bunch of god damned lies about me. Perhaps your sensors aren’t set for you to scan the back of checks so that you can see they have been cashed-in and the bill has been paid.
Anyway, I’m going to return the copy of this cancelled check once more and stress the fact that it isn’t the real thing only a copy and it serves as good evidence that the Ace Corporation has received all the money that’s coming to them. If this is finally accepted as proof of payment by the knot-headed bastards you work for, I trust it won’t prevent us from keeping in touch. I recall, the only thing that really bugged you in our long relationship was when you accused me of mutilating one of your cards. As I explained at the time, all I can say is that I read your instructions very carefully about not folding, bending or spindling, and if the card wasn’t in perfect shape when you received it, it was either the fault of the United States Post Office, or those mealy-mouthed moronic mothers at Ace.
As I say, if this thing finally gets settled, let’s not lose touch. We’ve spent too much time, thought, electrical energy and money on postage to just forget.
I shall be looking forward to hearing from you without the sixteen dollar and thirty-eight cent bill coloring our relationship and I will remain your friendly correspondent, but piss on the Ace Corporation.
Happy punch-card.
Cole Rain
“Thanks, Joanne, I’ll talk to you later,” Cole said with relief and hung up.
Disregarding the rest of the mail he went back to the living room lounge. He wasn’t surprised to learn that Pilar’s participation in the development of the controversial nuclear gun had been sanctioned by Larry and Kang, but hit a low point when he was told she had left to keep an appointment with Cecil Glass. They suggested Borgia’s later for lunch but he wanted to get away and excused himself to go look at sail boats. For some time he had been considering buying a boat so he could sail along the Coast and explore the remote beaches of Baja California. Just before he left, Larry handed him a note from Pilar.
Cole -
Your Aunt Hester phoned and I assumed she wished to talk with you, but it came about that I was the object of her call and have been invited to tea Sunday afternoon - just the two of us - so we can have ‘girl talk’. She’s such a dear and she did talk about you! She said you’d be home for dinner tonight and were staying in your old rooms at least half the time. I’ll give you a big boost as though you need it with her. I’m looking forward to Sunday tea.
P.
Why the hell would Aunt Hester be telling Pilar his business. If they wanted girl talk, fine with him. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Kang called from the top. He climbed back up and went into Kang’s office.
“I thought I’d go look at a boat,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I just got a phone call from a girl,” Kang explained.
“Congratulations, I was sure sooner or later girls would start calling a handsome, intelligent tennis player.”
“It was the tennis that did it. Otherwise she would have talked to you.”
“I’m going to start playing more,” Cole vowed.
“Do you want to know about the call?” Kang asked.
“Yes, what does she think of your forehand?”
“It was from someone who knows what you were doing on the SS Crescent Moon.”
“What do you mean knows what I was doing?”
“That’s it. They know or, at least, think they know.”
“Tell me about it.”
“After I tell you, you’ll say it’s a small world,” Kang said. “Anyway, it was a girl that was in one of my volunteer tennis clinics. I don’t know her or at least I can’t remember what she looks like. Maybe when I see her. She’s got something to tell that her sister thinks might be a big help to you.”
“Who’s her sister?”
“That’s what I was going to ask you.”
“Letha?”
“Could be,” Kang said.
“But what’s she got? What else did she tell you?”
“Not really anything, except she lives in one of those communes. I said we’d come to see her and she said she’d like to meet you but she only wanted to talk to me. That’s the mystic connection between teacher and student. It’s got to be Saturday and I told her we’d be in the park. It seems she lives out that way. A lot of them do. She wouldn’t give me her address, said she’d meet us there in the late afternoon after our party is over.”
“How’s she going to find us?”
“I told her the area we’d be in. She says she knows her way around and she’d find us. If she doesn’t remember me any better than I remember her, I just hope there aren’t too many Chinese tennis players in the park.”
“That’s not true that they all look alike,” Cole said. “You look a lot like the late Rudolf Valentino. I saw him on the late, late show.”
“Well, what do you think?” Kang said.
“Fine, let’s meet her, coach. I’ll be glad to get any information she’s got.” Cole thought for a moment shaking his head. “She sounds like she might be afraid, though.”
“Maybe,” Kang admitted. “She didn’t want us to know where she lived and she can only make it late Saturday afternoon.”
“Thanks, Kang, I appreciate your help. I think I’ll go find a boat.”
The tall bare poles crossed with smaller sticks near their top and with lines streaming to the decks below rocked gently at the boat’s mooring and sometimes in unison. Cole shuffled along a floating boardwalk admiring the sleek little boats, coveting each one he saw and thinking of the neglected opportunities to become a sailor he’d wasted in a misspent youth. Coming to the end of the floating dock, he retraced his steps, always examining more closely the boats on the left. The one he liked best was white with a clean scrubbed teak deck and varnished rails. He paused to look her over and then saw a man kneeling and leaning over the side lettering a name on her bows upside down. He moved along a little further to get a better view. As soon as the man finished the letter C, he looked up and saw Cole. “Hi! We decided to change her name.”
“It’s a beautiful boat,” Cole said admiringly, “I’d like to have one just like her.”
“Oh, she ain’t mine,” he explained, “I’m just dressin’ her up for the owner. Would you care to come aboard and take a look around?”
“Yes, I would - if it’s O.K.”
“It’s all right. I live aboard most of the time. The owner only uses her once or twice a month, mostly when there’s a race.” The man got up and moved back to the stern and Cole hopped over the low gunnel to the deck.
“What are you looking for?” the painter inquired.
“I don’t know,” Cole admitted. “Something that one person can handle - or maybe two. I want to be able to sail her in the open sea, but mainly to explore along the Pacific Coast.” He hesitated. “I don’t know what kind of ship that would be.”
The man laughed and said, “She won’t be a ship; she’ll be a boat. But there ain’t many around that’ll do all the things you want her to.”
“I guess not,” Cole said. “I’ve wanted a boat for a long time, but now I’m not really sure about it.”
The man got busy cleaning his paint brush and finished by wiping it dry on a much-daubed but otherwise clean piece of cloth. “This ain’t the boat for you,” he said, “but let’s look her over. You’ll find a lot of things on her that should be on any good boat.”
They toured the little craft and Cotton Hawke explained to Cole the ordinary parts of a sailboat as well as the unusual features of the “Lindmac.” Cotton, whose hair looked like a curly ball of the stuff, suggested a cold beer as they completed their inspection of the cabin. Cole sat at a small table and watched the bottles being opened.
“I can always tell a prospective boat buyer,” Cotton said as he edged into the seat opposite and placed the two bottles in front of them, “and it’d be my guess that you’ve got the fever.”
“How can you tell?” Cole went along.
“Well, one thing struck me right off. You were real interested in seeing everything, then you got that far-away look in your eye and sort of stared out over the bay, looking right through the Gate to some place and beyond. That’s a surer sign than just being interested in the boat because it’s what you see out there, all the places she can take you, that brings a man and a boat together.” He drank from his bottle and gave Cole an understanding look. “What are you goin’ to call her?” he asked.
“Rocinante II,” Cole said.
“The name ain’t the important thing, it’s that you’ve already decided on one,” he paused. “That’s a new one on me, but then boats have some strange ones. Was there a Rocinante number one?”
“No, I never had a boat.”
“I was just wonderin’ about the II,” Cotton explained.
“It was the name of a horse once,” Cole said, “but that was a long time ago.”
Cotton considered this and then predicted, “I figure you’ll have your boat in a couple of weeks.”
“Do you know where I can find what I need?”
“Not right off, but when a man’s decided on the name, he’ll find the boat to fit it. If I run into anything that’ll take you where you want to go, I’ll let you know. I know most of the boats around and I’ll be sure and keep a weather eye out.”
Cole finished his beer, thanked Cotton, left his name, address and phone number and then made his way through the gently rocking boats to his car. When he reached the street he almost turned back towards Borgia’s for lunch. But thinking about Aunt Hester’s stuffed port chops, baked beans and homemade cherry pie, he decided to save up. She was the only female who ever really understood and appreciated him, and he felt the same way about her.
He turned toward Golden Gate Bridge, going someplace and beyond.
