I had renewed scent-destroyer in a pay toilet, and my new face is good. True, Sharon had known me. But Sharon loved the memory of me, and saw my look of recognition before she ran to me. In Billy Kell (I must learn to call him William Keller) there was no recognition. He came solidly around the desk, shook hands, grandiosely tolerated Walker’s backslapping introduction, dismissed Walker with an eyebrow.
Keller didn’t spout ideology. He made me stiffly comfortable, and expected me to talk. I did. I used the lighter; I gabbled autobiography interlarded with Party catchwords. I couldn’t afford to be as crass as I had been with Walker. At length, contriving to be severe and yet respectful of my white hairs, he said: “I’m interested to know what brought you to us, Mr. Meisel. The Party’s greatest strength is among young people. We wake their crusading spirit, give them something to believe in — that’s why nothing can stop us. People with your background are more apt to be hostile. Or tired or discouraged. I’m happy you’re here, but tell me more about what made you come.”
I wondered: “What if I go around that desk and strangle you into telling all you know?” It was a moment of grueling loneliness, the full weight of nine bad years settling on me. I managed to say: “I think your Leader’s personality was a deciding factor, Mr. Keller. I’ve followed Joseph Max’s career — radio, television — and then, well, one morning I woke up wanting to do something…. I’ve studied his book….”
He nodded after stern reflection. “The bible of the movement. Can’t go wrong if you go by The Social Organism — it’s all there. And you do seem to have a grasp of the theory — actually not theory: plain social fact. What I want to be sure you understand: this is serious business. We don’t play at it, got no patience with dabblers, no time for ’em…. There are two types of Party membership: associate and sustaining. Associate membership is for anybody who cares to pay the dues and sign a card. Sustaining is something else again, given only after a period of study. And examination.”
“Seems reasonable. Don’t know if I could qualify for anything like that. But I do feel I belong at least among the rank and file of the” — I smiled most humbly — “of the Organites.”
He asked too softly: “Now where did you hear that word?”
“Why, Mr. Walker said it was to be used in the literature soon.”
“Oh….” His mask was cold as a funeral. “It happens he shouldn’t have said that.” Keller’s fingers drummed on the desk.
“Since he did, I’m obliged to tell you — that word is not going to be used. Some of the Leader’s minor advisers considered it at one time. Inappropriate, too open to ridicule. Naturally Max saw the objections at once. I suggest, Mr. Meisel, that you never heard it.”
Damn all calibrated jokes. These people are as humorless as the communazis. I stammered pathetically: “Well, of course — I didn’t realize—”
“Quite all right. You couldn’t know.”
“Mr. Keller, would it be possible for me to meet — Him?”
He watched secret meditations, shrugged, and nodded. He looked tired now, in almost a human, sympathy-stirring way. “Sure. Could be arranged. This evening if you’re free. Max — by the way, he avoids the Mister: just Max when you meet him the first time — Max has Thursday evening open house for friends of the Party. Take you up myself if you like.” He waved away thanks. “Glad to. Another thing — among other members of the Party he does like a certain formality. I think of it as a quirk of greatness. Don’t care a damn myself, but when we go there we call him Max and use the Mister for each other, you see?” I nodded reverently. “Drop by at my apartment about eight-thirty if you will. Green Tower Colony, last apartment building up the Esplanade short of the bridge. If you’re going back downtown now, a taxi on Eighth Lower Level is the best way to get back uptown to my place. Tell the driver to set the rob for Washington turnoff.” He reached for his telephone. “See you then.” As I left I heard him ask for Walker’s office.
I took wrong lanes among the clattering desks and ran into a snafu of dead ends from which I was rescued by a stenographer. It used up a few minutes. When I reached the lounge Walker was outside at the water cooler. His hyperthyroid gray eyes peered at me blindly, perhaps without recognition. Would a trifling error in the routine of Party terminology have made his big hand quiver so badly he couldn’t hold a paper cup?
I wanted to telephone Sharon. But after that interview with the cold and secret thing that used to be Billy Kell I was in a bad reaction, a foul temper. I would have snarled, and scared her, or said too much. I promised myself a talk with her after meeting Max, if it wasn’t too late in the evening. I ate a dull dinner alone, then trusted my fortunes and my sacred honor to a taxi driver who whisked me across town and into Eighth Lower Level. In a single-lane entrance radiant with white tile, the motor died of itself; the driver pressed a coin into a wall slot. A panel on his dashboard bloomed in orange light; he touched a tab on it marked W. The motor woke without his guidance and the taxi rolled into a mystery of humming and radiance. My driver lit a smoke with both hands off the wheel. “What the hell?”
“First time, bud? Never get used to it myself.” He slid to the right, to rest both arms on the back of the seat and face me companionably. By the speedometer, we were doing 120. “Uptown traffic ain’t heavy this time of evening. All done with this here Seeing Eye. It ain’t human. But you know, bud, it ain’t that I’m used to it, but I’m getting so all I think is, hell, here’s a chance to stretch. Got a little shocker on the wheel, don’t hurt, just reminds you to keep your hands off of it.” He yawned.
I watched a blur of lights and pillars. “Ever have any accidents?”
“Not a one, they say. It’s the scanner. Gives a once-over, the second you drop in your four bits. I got snagged that way once — points was bad, I hadn’t known it. Robbie shunted me over into the repair yard just inside the entrance. Repair man’s plenty human — cost me three bucks and you know what? My fare wouldn’t pay it. Sulked. Well, it was a dame with a date to meet. Funny thing, they still get a few folks that think the lower level will take any old car. Got a cop at each entrance to weed ’em out. Damn fool out-of-towners mostly…. Here comes the turnoff.”
“Already?”
He chortled. We hummed through a subterranean clover leaf and up to an exit, where he sighed and took over the wheel. “Thing of it is,” he said, “it ain’t human….”
Green Tower Colony is in soaring modern design. Whatever the surfacing material may be, the effect is of green jade with a muted shining. The tower dwarfs the uprights of the bridge, without diminishing the airy pride of a structure now thought of as very old. Keller’s apartment is on the fourteenth floor immediately above the twelfth.
Keller admitted me, absently friendly, tired but not relaxed. At his doorbell two other names were listed: Carl Nicholas and Abraham Brown.
As I entered the elaborate foyer I heard piano practice softened by closed doors. Someone was trying to make sense of the eighth Two-Part Invention of Bach, with fingers and brain by no means ready for it. The same left-hand blunder was repeated twice as Keller took my coat and steered me into a solemnly expensive living room. The player knew the error but hadn’t learned that only slow practice could correct it. Though muffled, it created a maddening background of frustration, impatience goaded to futility. “Scotch?” said Keller. “Still a bit too early to go up there.”