Hale discovered that he preferred even a slinking, melodramatic Lucifer to this chubby, jovial Satan who perpetually orated on none but the largest and dullest issues. Superficially there was little difference between Johnson and his fellow club members, who used the meetings for rhetoric inviting everybody to get together and push, because nothing could stop us if all worked together instead of against each other.
When Hale was exceptionally unlucky, Johnson tagged along to plays and concerts. He was lousy company. At any moment he ignored stares and hushings to address Hale in a clear, round voice about social, political or economic movements here and abroad. It was maddeningly boring, and Hale stared straight ahead, raging silently, whenever Johnson spoke.
But Johnson had to be used. So, although Hale dreaded being alone with him for so long, he let him invite himself along on the first cruise when title to the yacht was cleared.
Chapter IX
It was a beauty. There were other yachts in the basin, but Hale saw only the long, slim white ship with polished brass shining in the spring sun. Even when Johnson said, "It cost you only forty-six thousand, my boy," Hale scarcely heard him.
"She's mine!" he breathed.
"Feels pretty good, eh?"
That wasn't exactly the word for it. But Hale couldn't find the word for it, either, so he kept silent. There was no thrill like it. The yacht was just what he needed to make him happy. Even when a sailor handed him down into a sleek launch and they sped toward the gangway, he was grinning vacantly. The ship expanded almost to liner proportions.
"Hundred and eighty feet long," said Johnson.
"Boy!" said Hale.
They climbed. The crew and officers were on deck, saluting sharply.
"Welcome to your ship, sir," said the captain.
Hale gulped and looked around helplessly at Johnson, who was still climbing.
"Where away, sir?"
"What? Oh, I don't know. I hadn't thought —"
The captain smiled tolerantly. "Might I suggest, sir, considering the cold weather —"
"Of course," Johnson broke in, panting. "South toward Hatteras for a day, then back. What do you say, William?"
Hale agreed quickly. The crew saluted again and fell out. Hale rested his hands sensuously on the cold, polished rail and watched trunks and suitcases come aboard. For a while the captain and Johnson stood quietly beside him, evidently respecting his thrill of ownership.
Then the captain asked: "Would you care to inspect the ship, sir?"
Everything filtered through Hale's consciousness through a haze of delight. The fact that the ship had Diesel motors, that it was seaworthy enough for a round-the-world cruise, and so on, contributed very little to his enjoyment. The only fact he could comprehend was that the whole beautiful ship was his.
"Not bad, eh?" said Johnson.
And Hale, lingering in his gorgeous stateroom, grinned blindly at his partner. Johnson seemed to have acquired the habit of slapping him on the back and saying: "Feels pretty good, eh, William? And to think it set you back only forty-six thousand dollars!" Somehow it didn't irritate Hale. And even Hamilton's frozen expression showed traces of a sympathetic smile.
The engines throbbed. Hale stood on the bridge happily watching the New York and New Jersey shores slide past. The fixed smile seemed to have become a permanent fixture. In a dazed sort of way he was running over his possessions in his mind. Only recently he had seemed doomed to a forty-a-week job for life — well, perhaps sixty if he behaved himself — an utterly glamourless wife, and all the other trimmings. More recently he had been ill in a flophouse.
But now!
The yacht nosed out of the Narrows into the deep swells —
Down, with a swift rush, into the troughs —
Up, laboriously, over the caps —
He swallowed desperately and hung on. It became impossible. He clutched for support and staggered below. When he told Hamilton to leave the stateroom, he seriously thought he was hiding all outward signs of seasickness. Hamilton got him to the bathroom just in time.
While he lay flat, with his eyes strained wide, he could just barely tolerate the downward rush of the ship. But his eyes ached and his heart raced painfully. When he tried closing his eyes to rest them, his sudden nausea made it the logical moment to think about death. He felt nothing remote and impersonal about the subject just then. If he didn't die of seasickness, he was sure a storm would sink the ship, or it would hit a submerged object.
He sat up, sweating, and instantly fell back. His heart was stopping! Be sure of it.
So that was the idea! He cursed. Lucifer probably strutted around the deck, gloating pompously, boasting about the number of people this small coup would affect.
But Johnson was standing quietly at his side. "Do you want the lights on, William?" he asked solicitously.
Hale managed to shake his head. As he did so, several old-fashioned cannon balls that seemed to have gotten loose inside his skull went slamming around it.
"Do you want anything at all — some lemons, perhaps? I understand they're very good for seasickness."
Hale groaned. "No ... I don't mind —"
"What is it then, my boy?" Johnson dragged up a chair and plumped fatly into it. "Are you having mental disturbances, too?"
"You know, don't you?" Hale cried. "You did it, damn you — you flabby devil! You tricked me into it! Very neatly, too?"
"Whatever are you talking about, William?"
Hale lay and glowered impotently in the dusk. "You know damned well what I mean. When I was poor, I didn't even think about dying. When I did, there was nothing terrible about the idea. I wouldn't be giving up much — lousy little job, two-by-four home, the subway whenever I wanted to travel —"
Johnson interrupted thoughtfully: "The slave doesn't fear death."
"Right, you slimy double-crosser! Sure, you gave me the partnership and all that goes with it — except one thing."
"I'm sorry you feel that way, William. The partnership was your idea, you know. You forced me into it. Haven't I kept my part of the bargain?"
"Yes, you have. But the more you gave me, the more I stood to lose. For the first time in my life I have something to live for: money, cars, a horse, and power. That's what hurts most." He pulled at Johnson's sleeve. "You can't kid me into thinking it's a long way off yet. I probably won't die tonight; but you'll go on, immortal, and I'll kick off in a few years!"
Johnson put his hands on his knees and looked at Hale for a while. At last he asked gently: "Are you suggesting that I make you immortal, William? Is that it?"
"Huh?" Hale sat up, heedless of the stab of pain in his head. "You mean you could? You would?"
"I have no objection to doing so, if you want it sufficiently, and you've thought of its consequences."
"What do you mean, consequences? It's easy for you to be cool about it. You're not going to die, so you can afford to weigh the advantages and disadvantages, if any."
"But, William, there are disadvantages, you know. I have often been able to sense your hostility to me when we attended the theater. Why do you think I'm not interested in those affairs? To me there's no such thing as a new joke or a new plot. As for music, I've heard every old masterpiece a thousand times, and all the new music I find to be merely a slightly different aspect of the old. Times change, new generations arise, but it's always the same in a different guise. I get new problems, but somehow the old methods of solving them still work very efficiently.