"You threw him out, I take it."
"Not a bit of it," Watney said. "I never toss people out the door. People are human beings. They're creatures of infinite capacity. They have immortal souls they do. No, I followed the usual procedure and sent a small sample of his wares by courier back to ground zero for analysis. Back to our clandestine waterfront laboratory somewhere in the center of Birmingham. Back to our first-rate technical lads in their white smocks and high-heeled, shoes. I speak in riddles, of course. I reveal only the salient findings."
"Which were?"
"Let's see then. A volunteer took a poke in the arm. Since then all he does is dribble and whine. Our technical lads did their clever tests at first. But the results were vague. So they called a volunteer out of the line and gave him a poke. Our biggest problem comes from volunteers queuing up on the sidewalk in broad daylight. So bloody eager they are to serve the cause of science. Let's see then. The drug attacks a particular region in the left hemisphere of the brain. That's the verbal hemisphere, it seems. Where the words are kept. The boy's been reduced to chronic dribbling. Naturally when I got the report I informed your Hanes person that we wanted no part of his vicious product. Christ, ethics do exist. I told the technical lads they should have used a bloody cat. They pointed to the fact that cats don't speak in the first place. Thus small value in injecting a cat. Little did I know when sweeping into your flat with my accustomed grandiosity that I'd already had my hands on the much-sought-after product."
"Do you know where you left the bubble gum cards?" I said.
"The airline bag, is it? Is that where my man left it? Did he leave it with you? Blessy's truly dim, you know. It's not just a game we play. He wants watching, that one does. I shall have to rake him over the electric coals for this. Shall have to instruct that boy in the wages of sin. He claimed the driver of the limousine drove off with it. No harm done. But sets a nasty precedent."
"If it's not an unfair question, why do you travel around with bubble gum cards?"
"Not a bad likeness of me, is it? Taken some years back. All done up in blue velvet I was. A childhood dream come true. My own bubble gum card. They're magic cards, Bucky. Very hush-hush. Promise not to breathe a word."
"Okay."
"Truly promise. Put heart and soul into it. A soldier's oath. The vow of a pristine nun. Second thought, not much sense of obligation left in those quarters anymore. Give me a blacker oath. The kind they take in shabby inner offices. Narcotics agent. Postal inspector. Customs official. Give me an oath with blood on it."
"Brothers," I said.
"I take hundreds of bubble gum cards everywhere I go. The Watney bubble gum card. Hard-to-get item. Rarer than a pair of blue suede shoes in Tierra del Fuego. I've virtually cornered the market, you see. I've established a virtual monopoly. Sometimes two or three of the cards in my luggage are different from all the rest. These are the magic cards, a direct offspring of our own Industrial Revolution. Buy British, I always say. The magic cards are constructed in such a way that they can be sealed and resealed a number of times with our own private sealing agent. The tiniest sample of this or that item can be placed inside a miniature casing of anodized metal, which in turn is fitted into a given card and taken to a given place. Card unsealed. Item tested. We carried samples of microdot LSD in from Malta with Watney bubble gum cards. Thoroughly enjoy carrying the things about. Wonderful at parties. One's own bubble gum card. Good fun to flash on unsuspecting fellow passengers aboard a great jetliner streaking across the heavens. I enplane at point A. I deplane at point B. Blowing metaphorical bubbles all the way. Just ordinary cards in the bag Blessy left at your flat. None of the magics there. The magics were in the luggage proper. The heavy luggage. The real thing. The baggage. Sets a bad precedent however. Shall have to get grim with that boy."
"I'm. going back out on tour. What do you think? Do you think I'm crazy? I feel I have to do it. Time's up. Have to make the move."
"Back out, is it? Back into the pits and dung troughs. Best provide for all contingencies, old Bucky. Prepare an overdose for the critical minutes. Have it sitting on the dresser. Ancient bitch of the road. Best do it, old friend. You don't want to drop apart gradually. Bad for the image. You're required to go all at once. Excess. That's the number under your name. I could never match the genius of your excess. I was too artificial. Had to make it all up and shake it all down. That was my critical failing. I failed to embody true and honest excess. I was just a wad of chewing gum on your shoe. So stick to the image, old Bucky. Prepare a careful OD and flame yourself away. Be deliberate about it. Be as thorough as humanly possible. Don't forget to lick the spoon."
"I want to become a dream," I said. "I'm tired of my body. I want to be a dream, their dream. I want to flow right through them."
"You have to die first."
"I knew I'd left something out."
"You have to die all at once. None of this gradual wasting away of the middle classes. You have to burst into flame. It's all a worthless gesture, of course. Sorry to be the one who has to bear this depressing message. But true, it's all worthless. One's death must be equal to one's power. The OD or assassination is esthetically lovely but in point of fact means little unless it reverberates to the sound of power. The powerful man who achieves a gorgeous death automatically becomes a national hero and saint of all churches. No power, the thing falls flat Bucky, you have no power. You have the illusion of power. I know this firsthand. I learned this in lesson after lesson and city after city. Nothing truly moves to your sound. Nothing is shaken or bent. You're a bloody artist you are. Less than four ounces on the meat scale. You're soft, not hard. You're above ground, not under. The true underground is the place where power flows. That's the best-kept secret of our time. You're not the underground. Your people aren't underground people.
The presidents and prime ministers are the ones who make the underground deals and speak the true underground idiom. The corporations. The military. The banks. This is the underground network. This is where it happens. Power flows under the surface, far beneath the level you and I live on. This is where the laws are broken, way down under, far beneath the speed freaks and cutters of smack. You're not insulated or unaccountable the way a corporate force is. Your audience is not the relevant audience. It doesn't make anything. It doesn't sell to others. Your life consumes itself. Chomp. I hear it across three thousand miles of gray ocean. Chomp, chomp. I know illusions I do. Illusions forced me to change my life. I remember the end of my last regular tour in the music business. Broken man I was. Victim of illusion. No sorrier figure in all the realm. Shall I tell you how I tried to cope? Where I went and how I got there? It's a sad tale, it is. Promise you won't breathe a word. Have I got your oath in blood?"
"Sure," I said.
"Promised like a true friend. Truly promised. Shall I tell you then? Shall I tell you what I did?"
"Sure."
"I took a walk down Lonely Street to Heartbreak Hotel."
24
Her name came back to me the moment before he spoke it. He opened a bottle of warm champagne and we gathered together, at angles of caricatured intimacy, huddled all three in the room's lone dollop of sunlight. Globke passed out the drinks in paper cups he had brought along, suspecting unsanitary conditions in the native glassware. Seated in my bowl-shaped chair, knees above my belly, I drank to the health of the mountain tapes.
"Bucky, you remember Michelle."
"Definitely."
"You had dinner with us over at our place about a year ago, right after we just moved in."
"I remember."
"We had roast leg of lamb and two kinds of wine. Michelle made those fantastic Hindu vegetable things she makes. We listened to highlights from Madame Butterfly. We sipped our wine in the candlelight."