“No. Save all the trouble for the new place—after opening day we’ll be important enough to be able to handle it. And you’ll be on Morning with Marigold. Are you certain about this overtones business, Baque? You really could be projecting emotions, you know. Not that it makes any difference in the restaurant, but on visiscope—”
“I’m certain. How soon can we open?”
“I got three shifts remodeling the place. We’ll seat twelve hundred and still have room for a nice dance floor. Should be ready in two weeks. Baque, I’m not sure this visiscope thing is wise.”
“I want to do it.”
Lankey went back to the bar and got a drink for himself. “All right. You do it. If your stuff comes over, all hell is going to break loose, and I might as well start getting ready for it.” He grinned. “Damned if it won’t be good for business!”
MARIGOLD MANNING HAD changed her hair styling to a spiraled creation by Zann of Hong Kong, and she dallied for ten minutes in deciding which profile she would present to the cameras. Baque waited patiently, his awkward feeling wholly derived from the fact that his dress suit was the most expensive clothing he had ever owned. He kept telling himself to stop wondering if perhaps he really did project emotions.
“I’ll have it this way,” Marigold said finally, waving a hand screen in front of her face for a last, searching look. “And you, Mr. Baque? What shall we do with you?”
“Just put me at the multichord,” Baque said.
“But you can’t just play. You’ll have to say something. I’ve been announcing this every day for a week, and we’ll have the biggest audience in years, and you’ll just have to say something.”
“Gladly,” Baque said, “if I can talk about Lankey’s.”
“But of course, you silly man. That’s why you’re here. You talk about Lankey’s, and I’ll talk about Erlin Baque.”
“Five minutes,” a voice announced crisply.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “I’m always so nervous just before.”
“Be happy you’re not nervous during,” Baque said.
“That’s so right. Jimmy makes fun of me, but it takes an artist to understand another artist. Do you get nervous?”
“When I’m playing, I’m much too busy.”
“That’s just the way it is with me. Once my program starts, I’m much too busy.”
“Four minutes.”
“Oh, bother!” She seized the hand screen again. “Maybe I would be better the other way.”
Baque seated himself at the multichord. “You’re perfect the way you are.”
“Do you really think so? It’s a nice thing to say, anyway. I wonder if Jimmy will take the time to watch.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“Three minutes.”
Baque switched on the power and sounded a chord. Now he was nervous. He had no idea what he would play. He’d intentionally refrained from preparing anything because it was his improvisations that affected people so strangely. The one thing he had to avoid was the Sex Music. Lankey had been emphatic about that.
He lost himself in thought, failed to hear the final warning, and looked up startled at Marigold’s cheerful, “Good morning, everyone. It’s Morning with Marigold!”
Her bright voice wandered on and on. Erlin Baque. His career as a tunesmith. Her amazing discovery of him playing in the Lankey-Pank Out. She asked the engineers to run the Tamper Cheese Com. Finally she finished her remarks and risked the distortion of her lovely profile to glance in his direction. “Ladies and gentlemen, with admiration, with pride, with pleasure, I give you a Marigold Exclusive, Erlin Baque!”
Baque grinned nervously and tapped out a scale with one finger. “This is my first speech. Probably it’ll be my last. The new restaurant opens tonight. Lankey’s, on Broadway. Unfortunately I can’t invite you to join us, because thanks to Miss Manning’s generous comments this past week all space is reserved for the next two months. After that we’ll be setting aside a limited number of reservations for visitors from distant places. Jet over and see us!
“You’ll find something different at Lankey’s. There is no visiscope screen. Maybe you’ve heard about that. We have attractive young ladies to sing for you. I play the multichord. We know you’ll enjoy our music. We know you’ll enjoy it because you’ll hear no Coms at Lankey’s. Remember that—no Coms at Lankey’s. No soap with your soup. No air cars with your steaks. No shirts with your desserts. No Coms! Just good food, with good music played exclusively for your enjoyment—like this.”
He brought his hands down onto the keyboard.
Immediately he knew that something was wrong. He’d always had a throng of faces to watch, he’d paced his playing according to their reactions. Now he had only Miss Manning and the visiscope engineers, and he was suddenly apprehensive that his success had been wholly due to his audiences. People were listening throughout the Western Hemisphere. Would they clap and stomp, would they think awesomely, “So that’s how music sounds without words, without Coms!” Or would they turn away in boredom?
Baque caught a glimpse of Marigold’s pale face, of the engineers watching with mouths agape, and thought perhaps everything was all right. He lost himself in the music and played fervently.
He continued to play even after the pilot screen went blank. Miss Manning leaped to her feet and hurried toward him, and the engineers were moving about confusedly. Finally Baque brought his playing to a halt.
“We were cut off,” Miss Manning said tearfully. “Who would do such a thing to me? Never, never, in all the time I’ve been on visiscope—George, who cut us off?”
“Orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“My orders!” James Denton strode toward them, lips tight, face pale, eyes gleaming violence and sudden death. He spat words at Baque. “I don’t know how you worked that trick, but no man fools James Denton more than once. Now you’ve made yourself a nuisance that has to be eliminated.”
“Jimmy!” Miss Manning wailed. “My program—cut off. How could you?”
“Shut up, damn it! I just passed the word, Baque. Lankey’s doesn’t open tonight. Not that it’ll make any difference to you.”
Baque smiled gently. “I think you’ve lost, Denton. I think enough music got through to beat you. By tomorrow you’ll have a million complaints. So will the government, and then you’ll find out who really runs Visiscope International.”
“I run Visiscope International.”
“No, Denton. It belongs to the people. They’ve let things slide for a long time, and they’ve taken anything you’d give them. But if they know what they want, they’ll get it. I gave them at least three minutes of what they want. That was more than I’d hoped for.”
“How’d you work that trick in my office?”
“That wasn’t my trick, Denton—it was yours. You transmitted the music on a voice intercom. It didn’t carry the overtones, the upper frequencies, so the multichord sounded dead to the men in the other room. Visiscope has the full frequency range of live sound.”
Denton nodded. “I’ll have the heads of some scientists for that. I’ll also have your head, though I regret the waste. If you’d played square with me I’d have made you a live billionaire. The only alternative is a dead musician.”
He stalked away, and as the automatic door closed behind him, Marigold Manning clutched Baque’s arm. “Quick! Follow me!” Baque hesitated, and she hissed, “Don’t stand there like an idiot! He’s going to have you killed!”