I took her arm in one hand and with the other I pointed out across the lake.
“What can you see?” I asked.
“I can see the Nebula of Andromeda,” she said. “It’s a pity it’s lying on its side. The top view is much more exciting.”
“Oh, I don’t mean way out there. I mean just on the other side of the lake.”
“I can see Mr. Stettheimer’s party. There’s a man, apart from the others, sitting on the balustrade.”
“Can you see what he’s thinking?” I asked.
“Why yes, as a matter of fact, I can. Can you?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s trying to figure out how much he could get for a Rubens from the Art Institute of Chicago.”
She laughed softly.
“Darling,” she whispered. “Why don’t you and I take a little walk in the dunes?”
“Let me tie up the boat first,” I said.
There was a large piece of driftwood at our feet. I got down on my knees and started to dig in the sand under the driftwood so I could get the rope around it.
“Do you know,” she said suddenly, “there’s a very attractive man in a uniform watching us. He’s just on the top of the rise. Who do you think he is? Do you mind if I go over and talk to him?”
Before I could answer she had gone.
PARKY
by David Rome
David Rome is another new writer, whose work has appeared only in the past year in the two British magazines. New Worlds and Science Fantasy. This is his first American publication.
Drop Parky into a crowd anywhere and he’d stand out like a Roman nose in Basutoland. Tall and excessively thin, with eyes like twin tail-lights — that was Parky. But get him alone, start a conversation, and he’d seem to shrink a foot. His voice was high-pitched, like a woman’s; his baby-white hands never stopped moving.
He was a seer, and I owned him. Leastways, I owned an hour of his time Mondays to Saturdays when he’d sit up there on his rostrum and drone through his act.
Sundays, Parky was free; but he never went anywhere. He’d loll around my caravan drinking warm beer, telling me I should be paying him double his wage. His red eyes would glow and his fingers would tap out a melancholy tune on the side of the can.
‘Listen,’ I said once. ‘Your act is deader than Dodo.’
Dodo was a highwire, no-net, artist I once had.
So Parky would tell me then that because I wasn’t paying him enough he wasn’t getting enough to eat.
‘Reading the future takes energy, Charlie.’
Then he’d finish his beer, poke around in the fridge until he found a leg of chicken, and start chewing it for its energy.
‘Look, Parky,’ I said. ‘You read the future, eh? Well, read it now. See any raise in the ether? Any big money about to materialise?’
He didn’t, and I knew it. His act wasn’t worth half what I was paying him now. I opened another can and avoided his eyes.
‘I could always go elsewhere,’ he said.
Like hell he could. I’d tried to shuffle him out of my hand months ago, but nobody else was having any.
‘Don’t make me laugh,’ I said. ‘And have a beer.’
He took the huff at that. He grabbed the can I was holding out to him, mumbled a word or two under his breath, and off he went. I never saw him again that day. I wrote up my accounts, put the books away in my safe, and started out on my Sunday check of the fairground.
I was halfway around, with two kids and a stray dog to my credit, when I first saw the little guy with yellow hair. Just a glimpse. There, then gone. I changed my direction and went after him.
Rounding a tent, I caught sight of him again. He was walking towards Parky’s pitch, his bright hair shining like a halo under the afternoon sun.
‘Hey!’ I called out.
He turned slowly. Neatly pressed suit; collar-and-tie. He was well dressed. He waited until I was closer, then he said, ‘Yes?’
Funny that. I’d thought he was little; when he spoke, though, he seemed taller than I was.
‘Look,’ I said carefully. ‘I don’t want to be unpleasant.’
An up-and-down line creased his brow. He stared at me.
‘The fact is — ah — the fairground is closed.’
Silence.
‘Sunday, you know.’
He spoke then, very softly, without malice. ‘I’m not certain I understood your first remark.’
Peculiar accent he had. Some kind of foreigner. I retrospected. First remark? ‘I don’t want to be…’
‘Unpleasant?’ The question came sharply.
‘That’s right.’
He sighed gently. ‘Ahhh!’ Then he said frankly, ‘I like your system down here.’
My heart warmed suddenly. ‘Like it?’ I turned in a slow circle, taking in the tents and caravans under a blue sky. ‘Yes I suppose it’s not a bad layout. You’re in the entertainment world, then?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Government.’
Well, you can understand that this rocked me a little. I mustered up my talking-to-big-brass tone and said politely, ‘Local MP?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘IGC. Inter-Galaxy.’
Some kind of European was my guess. Anyway, I was beginning to wonder about something else. The main gate had been locked, so how had he got in? I looked at his immaculate suit. Kids crawl through the holes, and performers have their own keys. He wasn’t a performer, and he hadn’t been doing any crawling.
‘How — ’
He cut me short. ‘I’m looking for Ephraim Parkinson,’ he said.
For Ephraim Parkinson. That stumped me for a moment. But sometime in the past I had seen that name scratched out on a contract.
‘For Parky?’ I said.
‘Yes — for Ephraim Parkinson. You can direct me?’
Well, I was able to direct him all right. I pointed out Parky’s pitch to him, and off he went. It wasn’t until he was yards away that I remembered to ask him how he’d got in.
He turned when I called out the question.
He smiled brightly.
‘Oh, I came over the gate,’ he said.
In my business you don’t let anything worry you. There are funnymen in every walk of life, and if they’re from the government I leave them alone.
I finished my rounds without further incident and went back to my caravan. I had a drink, read the papers, turned on the radio, turned it off. Then I went to sleep.
If Parky was in trouble it was his lookout.
Next morning I was up at ten. I was shaving when Parky came in. He didn’t say anything. He sat down in one of my chairs and watched me scraping the razor around my face.
‘That’s a fine, well-fed face you’ve got, Charlie,’ he said finally.
I wiped the razor, rinsed my face, and mopped it dry.
‘Thanks, Parky,’ I said.
He watched me, eyes blinking slowly.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘I once weighed a hundred and ninety.’
‘Too much,’ I said. But I knew he was getting at something. As I pulled my shirt over my head I said, ‘What’s eating you today?’
His long fingers were picking at his sleeves.
‘We’ve been together a long time, Charlie.’
This I knew.
‘But I’ve never had a raise, Charlie.’
I knotted my tie and watched him in the mirror.
‘You’ve never had a wage-cut either, Parky.’
I saw his red eyes spark. Suddenly he seemed to reach a decision in his own mind. He got to his feet.
‘Charlie — I’ve got to ask you for a raise. If you can’t give me a raise I’ll be — ’ He hesitated, then said it:
‘I’ll be leaving.’
I didn’t move a muscle. ‘Leaving?’