Speaking in the most vigorous terms, the spokesman for the corporation stated emphatically that Pan-American has the utmost confidence in this hemisphere's capacity for unending expansion. The corporation's temporary action, he stated, is necessitated for a brief time by the increase of business inventories. He further stated that when these inventories are depleted somewhat, the corporation will embark on a credit policy even greater than in the past.
Hale returned the paper, smiling. How long would it take him to understand his enemy? What else could he expect from Johnson but a subtle attempt to demoralize him? But Lucifer, the supreme cheat, reduced to this pitiful wile! "What about it?" he demanded evenly.
"Splendid, William! One of my first tenets is never to appear other than a mere human being; always to seem to participate in the dominant human emotion of the moment."
"Come on, get to the point!"
Johnson looked uncertainly toward the highway entrance. "Have you brought the car?"
Hale nodded and started toward the door, but Gloria seized his arm. She had unwrapped her parcel. "Oh, look!" she squealed, holding up a golden looped cross. "What is it? It's gorgeous!"
Hale felt contempt for Johnson. Did Johnson think the object would scare him? A silly trick!
"The ankh," Johnson explained, guiding the Hales toward a door. "An excellent reproduction of one made for me by a superb Egyptian artisan ... let me see ... about four thousand years ago. The original was too valuable to keep. I acquired it very cheaply; the goldsmith was a fugitive — political trouble, you know, even in that time. A private collector paid me an exceedingly handsome price. Though yours were made by a modern Hindu craftsman, after a similar time you should also get a large price for yours —"
"But what is it?" Gloria insisted.
"The Egyptian symbol of eternal life."
"Oo!" Gloria quickly kissed Johnson's pudgy cheek. That was too much for Hale. Following them silently, he resolved that if Gloria wanted him to kiss her she'd have to scrub her mouth.
JOHNSON PLOPPED into the soft seat, leaned forward, and closed the glass screen separating them from the chauffeur. The car started.
Hale said: "You don't have to pull that stuff on me. That article doesn't mean a thing! Sure, we have surpluses. people can't go on buying like maniacs all their lives. But as soon as Europe's settled, we'll have all we can do supplying them."
Johnson patted Hale's knee approvingly. "Excellent, William. However, I'm not a mortal who needs persuasion. We both know very well that at the moment munitions aren't being accepted as a medium of exchange. And really, there is nothing else the former autocracies could offer. The dictators performed the most extraordinary feat. They plundered their nations of everything. Literally everything! You can't sell to people who have nothing to offer in exchange."
"We'll get out of it, all right," Hale said confidently. "We'll give credits to the rest of the world."
"You're testing me, aren't you, William?" Johnson's grin looked quite sincere, to Hale's irritation. "I'm afraid it isn't necessary. I understand your strategy quite well. But I won't spoil your fun." He lit a cigar with his usual gestures. "I will admit that you've introduced into Hell a factor that I hadn't thought of. William, I must confess I am astonished at you. You seem to be a perfectly nice boy, and still you are capable of devising such utterly diabolical torments!
"I should never have been cunning enough — now, I mean; you can realize how one's mind grows dull with the passing millennia — to contrive it. Now, I must inform you, I haven't much longer to live. There is no need for both of us, since you have proved yourself a worthy successor."
Hale swallowed. Johnson went on, as if Hale had interrupted with a protest of modesty: "Yes, you probably don't consider yourself worthy. But you have tormented an entire hemisphere more efficiently than I have done in centuries; and soon the whole world will be involved, tortured more by their incomprehensible difficulties than even a war could have tormented them. Ah, William, you have done a beautiful job indeed! If I couldn't match it with a comparable accomplishment of my own — quite an old one, I confess; roughly five thousand years old — I should be inclined to envy you."
"Oh, cut it out!" snapped Hale. "I've defeated you, and you know it. Don't try to wiggle out of it."
"I try to wiggle out of it?" Johnson looked shocked. "Why, William, that's the last thing in the world I want to do. In a sense you have defeated me. Actually, though, you have shown yourself capable of succeeding me ... as Lucifer!"
"What's the gag?" Hale fought to keep his temper.
"Now, boys," said Gloria, "don't quarrel!"
Johnson tapped the ash off his cigar with irritating composure. "Nothing of the sort, my dear.
"You see, William, my predecessor invented the instinct of self-preservation, thereby showing his ability. My own accomplishment was the discovery of hope. Both of these have increased the misery of Hell.
"But with your invention-blind, senseless confidence — there is almost no torment imaginable that can further augment man's suffering.
"He will continue producing to the limit of his endurance, regardless of the mounting surplus. He counts on extending credit to plundered nations, when you and I know that the Pan-American Credit Corporation hasn't a penny to lend them —"
"What? Don't be an ass! It has all the future to draw on. There's no limit to its credit!"
JOHNSON BOBBED his white head admiringly. "Sinister, William, most sinister indeed! You showed far greater ingenuity than mine when you planted that insane confidence in their minds. They will believe in the limitless credit of the future, and never admit that the future has already been exhausted. There is no more credit, and we know why, eh, William? Though we'll never convince your subjects."
"Yeah? Why?"
Johnson wagged a finger. "Don't pretend innocence! Everybody owes everybody else, and in turn is owed by everybody. Consequently it will be impossible to collect, which erases the possibility of credit. Incidentally, money will, I fear, be destroyed as a medium of exchange. That I regret, for I had an inordinate fondness for the pretty stuff; but as I shall go on to my reward soon, that is your concern. When money debts become uncollectible, money will have to be abandoned; and my opinion is that a highly industrialized, more impractical form of barter will complicate matters for the damned even further."
Hale sat quietly, chilled. "They can slow down production —"
"Ah, but they can't!" Johnson gazed at Hale with frank respect. "There you showed your astounding artfulness. They will never, never believe that their system of anarchic, geometrically increasing production is unworkable! Furthermore, you have adroitly removed all the natural checks on such insensate production. Formerly an employer could reduce his expenses and wait for his inventory to diminish. But now every man is his own employer. He can't very well throw himself out of work, can he?"
"He can stop producing for a while and live on his savings."
"He has no savings. At any rate he won't when the system collapses under the weight of its surpluses, which should be some time this week. I'm glad I shall be here to see the crash; it will make the Battle of Troyes look like a back-yard squabble."
Hale opened his mouth to protest some more. But what could he say? Johnson's statements appeared to add up. And then he went on: "By proving yourself a worthy successor, William, you allow me to go on to my next existence. What it will be I don't know. But it can't help being more pleasant than this one, since this is Hell.