Though he wanted desperately to be home, Hale asked: "Want me to drive you to the pier?"
"No, thank you William." Johnson was performing the major task of getting into his overcoat. To reach around to find the armholes made him puff and turn red. He placed a derby squarely on his innocent-looking white head, and teased: "I appreciate your offer, but you don't want to stay away from your bride too long, do you?"
Hale at once understood what was the matter with him. His desire to go home had become an overwhelming fixation. He rationalized that, since he had been married, he had not been away from his wife for more than a few minutes at a time. So it was natural for him to want to get back to her. But that didn't explain his preposterous unhappiness at being separated from her. Going down in the elevator he could think of nothing else.
Johnson got into a taxi with elephantine exertion. He said: "Good-by, William. Do whatever you think best in the way of supervision of the business. You'll hear from me at intervals, and I'll be back in a few months. But remember this: "Anything you do, no matter what it is, will increase the misery and torments of the people, because that is how Hell is constructed."
"Yeah," mumbled Hale unhearingly. "I get it. Good-by." Even before the taxi started, he was sprinting to his roadster. Only when he was racing recklessly uptown did he think of a question he had meant to ask Johnson. But he told himself it wasn't important. What difference did it make how long Johnson and Banner had known each other? What of it if Johnson hadn't mentioned it? There was no reason why he should.
Long before he'd started on his campaign to blackmail Lucifer, Hale had seen Gloria's picture in the papers, and had put marriage to her on his list of objectives. So there couldn't be any connection between his marriage and Johnson.
He could still have caught Johnson at the pier, but he didn't think it was necessary. The truth was that even the swift elevator was too slow in bringing him to Gloria. He couldn't wait to take her in his arms.
Chapter XV
He hesitated a long time before writing. Then, rather than dictate the letter to his secretary, he borrowed a typewriter and wrote it himself.
Dear Johnson: I seem to have put myself into a little difficulty. Maybe you can help me.
He stopped there, his eyes straying to Gloria. She was sitting erect and knitting a sweater with great concentration. Tenderly he watched the smooth skin between her eyes pucker as she solved an intricate problem of knitting, and then relax placidly. It amused her now, being at his office, he thought. Later she mightn't find it so nice.
The night Gloria and I got engaged, I was feeling pretty romantic, naturally, and I said something about us that I guess I didn't phrase properly. Now it seems to have taken hold like a spell of some kind.
I said something to the effect that we'd never be happy apart. Offhand you would think that would imply only a sort of negative unhappiness. But it isn't like that. When we're separated, we suffer miserably. We feel empty, lost, filled with the most intense psychological pain. We want to be together the next possible instant, no matter how difficult or inconvenient getting together would be.
He reread the last sentences, feeling naked at exposing his emotions so completely to Johnson. But this was no time for stoicism. He went on:
I know it was my fault. I should have been more careful, though I didn't know I was casting a spell, and I had no idea our spells were so damned literal. I should have said something to the effect that we'd be happier together than apart. Tell me how to modify the terms of the spell so it will have that effect.
Please answer immediately, air mail, special delivery. I've done all I can to lift the spell, but nothing seems to work. The situation is becoming most uncomfortable.
"Unbearable" would have been closer to the truth, but he sent the letter as it was.
"Come on, darling. Let's go."
"I thought you had a lot of work."
"Not much," he evaded. "It's finished."
It was or it wasn't; he didn't know which. Johnson would certainly have found plenty to do, moving this or that pawn or setting in motion some vast project that would affect the lives of millions of people.
On the few mornings when he came to the office — more out of desperation for something to do than from any taste for diabolical plotting — his secretary brought in reports, clippings, and graphs, and stood around waiting for him to say something. He never could think of anything intelligent. Yet he could see Johnson's plan move to its climax.
The country was divided into three factions: True isolationists, who wanted no European entanglements of any kind; democratic sympathizers, who wanted intervention against the aggressors; and admirers of the dictatorships, who were split into two bodies — a very small group of advocates of intervention on the side of the aggressors, and a larger group who disguised their sympathies behind pleas for isolation. He could see that, by lobbies, whispering campaigns, and inspired articles. Johnson would keep the three-cornered fight stirred up until every element of torment had been wrung from it, before allowing it to be settled by an actual struggle for power.
The plan seemed overwhelmingly huge and detailed to Hale. It made him feel baffled and frustrated. Johnson would always know what to do. He could pick up the telephone, and the next morning armies would or would not march, millions of people would or would not eat, anything might or might not happen, depending on which pawn he moved. It was like finding the correct switch out of millions. Johnson could reach out negligently and find it; Hale would have to throw most of them before anything would happen. The point was, he wasn't Lucifer.
In short, he felt the way you would feel if your job were to cause the most misery to the most people in the most efficient manner possible. He accepted the philosophy of Hell. He had to, seeing the minute amount of happiness and the cosmic amount of pain and torment in the world, and hence being less subject to qualms than unrealistic outsiders. He wanted to do his job of running the hemisphere properly, but he couldn't. Experimentally he could goad one pawn to sudden success, or harry another to destruction. But he would have to ignore everything else while he did it, like an inexperienced corporation sending all its salesmen to grab one small order.
"Come on, Gloria!" he cried. "Let's get out of here before I go nuts!"
"Just let me finish this line," she said, and began knitting with frantic haste.
"Oh, please —"
"It'll take me only a second." She dropped a stitch. "Oh, darn!" When he stepped forward angrily: "Just this line, Billie-willie —"
He snatched it away; the next instant he was sorry. He pulled her to her feet and kissed her. "I'm sorry, darling. I'm getting jittery." She smiled forgivingly. "Where do you want to go?" he asked.
She squeezed his arm. "I don't care, I'm happy just being with you."
Yeah, he thought dejectedly, what a spell he'd laid! The idea had been all right, but he should have defined his terms more fully. They certainly weren't happy apart. But that didn't mean that they were happy together. "Oh, nuts!" he hissed. Who could have figured out in advance how that idiotically literal spell would work out?
She was staring at him, her eyes brimming. "What's the matter now?" he demanded.