"Never ?" asked the President for Life.
The blade came down with a swish and then the thunk of a cantaloupe being macheted in half. The neck had gone first, then the throat, which was why most executioners put the victim's head facing down, so that the blade would hit bone first at the strongest part of its stroke. The boy's head rolled.
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Well, thought Pruel, his wretched life is over at least. To live in this kingdom is to live too long.
Maybe he had lived too long. He had been mightily depressed since Paldor had lost Ernest Walgreen. Ernie had been with the Secret Service also. That house in Sun Valley had been safe. He was sure of it. And yet he could not stem the nagging torturous thought that he had led the former agent to his death. He had put him in that house as surely as if he had put him on top of a bomb.
It was a stupid move. You led people to safe exits and hideaways, not to bombs. He had brooded about this for weeks in the Paldor offices until the chairman of Paldor, the only member of the top-ranking staff who had never been with the Secret Service, called him in and said:
"Pruel. We got two kinds of people. Those who sell Paldor and those who don't work here anymore. Now I'm not having a mope around here anymore because no business needs a mope. We need sell. That's S-E-L-L, sell, and by toozit's dustwhumpher I mean sell."
Which was how Sylvester Montrofort talked. And when Mr. Montrofort talked, people listened. He had taken the dispirited band of Secret Service men after Kennedy's death and put them all on salary, which he paid himself, and talked to them and nursed them along until they all were wealthy businessmen. He had given them pride again. Motivation again. He had convinced them they had something worth selling and they should now get a good price for it. And they did. Les Pruel couldn't remember when he'd looked on the right side of a menu at the prices. Now he only looked at what might please him.
"Difference between rich and poor ain't in the
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head, Pruel," Mr. Montrofort had once said. "It's in the hard honest dollars. That's the difference. Don't let anybody anytime tell you you're poor 'cause you think poor. You're poor 'cause you don't have two clinking nickels to rub together. That's poor. Rich is folding money, lots of it, and enough for whatever you want. Poor's not getting what you want. Eich is. That's the difference. All this stuff about what you think isn't worth the fuzz on a ten-year-old tennis ball. Shoot, if thinking was all that made you rich, damned hypnotists would be the richest ditwallers in the whole world. And they ain't. I ought to know. I know about that stuff."
Nobody ever really argued with Sylvester Montrofort. He had no legs and his back humped up in some spinal deformity, yet he could convey such enthusiasm that he could convince you that you and he could be a relay team in the Olympics.
So in the depression that set in after they lost Ernie Walgreen, Mr. Montrofort not only did not share the sadness but said it was time when good salesmen showed their stuff. Anyone could sell an oil well to a gas company, he said. But try selling a dry hole. Now, that's a salesman.
Les Pruel couldn't break the slump so Mr. Montrofort had shipped him off to Umbassa.
"Sell the gadgets. They love gadgets. Shiny gadgets," Mr. Montrofort had said.
"They can't use them."
"Shoot. If they want 'em, sell 'em. You can't sell training anymore. They know they got people who can't even use their thumbs. Sell gadgets. Radar."
"Radar is only good for airplanes."
"Tell him some other jungle bunny is going to
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bomb him. I'll sell a couple of planes to his neighbor. Go ahead."
And he was in Umbassa. And the President for Life of The Peoples' Democratic Republic of Umbassa wanted radar. Lots of radar. The radar with the shiny buttons. So he could shoot down airplanes in the sky all over the world.
Les Pruel had to explain that radar didn't shoot down planes. It just showed you where they were so they could not sneak up on you and kill you while you slept in your palace, surrounded by your faithful field marshals and generals and supreme generals and commanders for eternity. That's what radar was for.
The President for Life wanted the kind of radar that shot down planes all over the world.
There was no such thing, said Pruel.
"The Russians will sell it to me," said the President for Life.
"Oh," said Pruel. "You mean the destabilizer. That's the one where you can never be killed by a bomb dropped from above. But it has its problems."
"What problems?" asked the President.
"It is used to save only one person. The entire network can save only one person in a country. Do you have such a person, who must be saved, even though the whole country should perish?" asked Pruel.
They did have such a person.
It was the President for Life, of course. And Pruel set up the phony system next to the planes that Umbassa pilots could not fly. It was $440 worth of old hifi and television equipment, polished to a glistening shine. There was an old Zenith radio grid. Paldor craftsmen cut out the
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form of a bomb from sheet metal. They put a tiny battery under it and a bulb in it. The bulb was red. It blinked.
The President for Life was supposed to keep the tiny protective device in his pocket all the time and he would never be hit by a bomb. It cost $2,300,000. Less than even one of the cheap Russian planes.
The President for Life promptly told an American reporter how he had, through technological ingenuity, purchased an air defense system cheaper than a single plane. But it was a military secret and he would not tell the reporter what it was, only that he could never be hit by a bomb. He kept his hand in his pocket all through the interview.
In gratitude, the President of Life gave Leg Pruel a sword. But he would not think of giving it to him unblooded, for that was an insult. So he ordered the sword and someone brought the boy who dragged his foot and Les Pruel watched the head roll and he knew then that he was not going to work for Paldor anymore. He had become one of Sylvester Montrofort's salesmen and he didn't like it in himself. He didn't like the product, if and when a real product existed. He didn't like the customers. He didn't like himself.
"You look unhappy," said the President for Life. "You do not understand. It is a fine sword. We have many young boys and that one was useless. We are moving in giant steps to technology and therefore they become even more useless."
"They, who?" asked Pruel. He thought of Ernie Walgreen.
"The children who will grow up to join workers' brigades. We sell them if yoa want to buy
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them, although in your country, you cannot do that with your capitalist laws."
Les Pruel forced a smile and thanked the President for Life and declined an offer to try the sword himself. It was wrapped in velvet by facile black hands. Pruel didn't want to look at eyes anymore. He watched the hands.
"Paldor wishes his excellency, President for Life, a long and safe life."
"Better than Russian radar," said the President for Life, patting his pocket. "Now we do not have to shoot down planes because they can do us no harm. Let them drop atomic bombs. We are safe. Safe from the world. Safe from the crazed hateful Zionist hordes who wish to enslave the world."
"Yes. An honored client of Paldor," said Pruel. "Do you have something that could make me safe from bullets?"
"No," said Pruel, for he knew the President for Life would try it out on another young boy.
"I would test this wonderful device but it might get lost in someone else's pocket. Two million dollars is too much to entrust to anyone but me, yes ?"
By evening, Les Pruel was on an Air Umbassa jet. It was made by McDonnell Douglas, flown by French pilots, serviced by West German mechanics. Umbassa's three female college graduates were the stewardesses. Thy could read instructions with only a little help.