“Are you crazy!” yelled the senator. “You can’t pass that kind of law. You can’t even think about it.”
“And while you’re at it, dream up a substitute for money.”
The senator sputtered without making any words.
“Because,” I said, “the way it is, the aliens are buying up the Earth. If you leave it as it is, they will own the Earth.”
The senator got his voice back.
“Parker,” he yelled, “you are off your rocker. I have never heard such damn foolishness as this in all my life and I’ve heard a lot of it.”
“If you don’t believe me, go and ask the Dog.”
“What the hell has a dog got to do with this? What dog?”
“The one down at the White House. Waiting to get in and see the President.”
“Parker,” he snapped, “don’t call me again. I have enough on my mind without listening to you I don’t know what you’re trying to do. But don’t call me again. If this is a joke—”
“It’s not a joke,” I said.
“Good-bye, Parker,” said the senator.
“Good-bye, Senator,” I said.
I hung up the receiver and stood in the little cubicle, trying to think.
It all was utterly hopeless, I knew. The senator had been, from the start, the only hope I had. He was the only man I knew in public office who had imagination, but I guess not enough imagination to listen to what I had to tell him.
I had done my best, I thought, and it had been no good. Perhaps if I’d done it differently, if I’d gone about it differently, it might have worked out better. But a man could say that about anything he did. And there was no way of knowing. It was done now and there was no way of knowing.
There was nothing now that could stop what the aliens had begun. And it apparently was coming sooner than I thought. Monday morning would bring a panic in Wall Street and the economy would start to fall apart. The first crack in our financial structure would begin on the trading floor and would go fast from there. In the space of one week’s time, the world would be in chaos.
And more than likely, I thought, with a cold chill down my spine, the aliens knew what I had done. It was inconceivable that they’d not be somehow tied in with the communications systems. They would know I’d called the senator even as I was supposed to be considering their offer.
It was something I’d not thought of. There were too many things to think of. But even if I’d thought of t, I still probably would have put in the call.
Perhaps it would make no great difference to them. Maybe they had expected that I’d flounder around a bit before I agreed to take the job they’d offered. And thus the call, by once again demonstrating to me the impossibility of what I was trying to accomplish, might, to their way of thinking, bind me closer to them, convinced finally that there was no way in which one might resist them.
Were there other things to do? Other approaches that a man might take? Was there anything a man could do at all?
I could call the President, or I could try to call him. I didn’t kid myself. I knew how little chance there’d be for me to talk with him. Especially at a time like this, when the President had the greatest burden any man in office had faced since the beginning of the nation.
See the Dog, I’d tell him, when and if I got him on the line. See the Dog that’s waiting out there for you.
It wouldn’t work. There was no way to make it work.
I was beat, hands down. I’d never had a . chance. There’d be no one who had a chance.
I found a dime and fed it into the slot.
I dialed the office and asked for Joy.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
“Everything’s just fine. When are you coming home?”
“I don’t know,” she said angrily. “This damn Gavin, he finds more things to do.”
“Just walk out on him.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Well, all right, then. Where do you want to eat tonight? Think of an expensive place. I’m loaded.”
“How come you are loaded? I have your check right here. I picked it up for you.”
“Joy, believe me, I have wads of cash. Where do you want to eat?”
“Let’s not go out,” she said. “Let us cook a meal. The restaurants are so crowded.”
“Steaks? What else? I’ll go out and get it.,’
She told me what else.
I went out to get it.
I came back to the car, packing one of those oversize grocery bags filled with all the stuff Joy had ticked off for me.
The car was far down the line in the supermarket parking lot and the bag was heavy and packed rather sloppily and there were a couple of cans, one of corn and another one of peaches, that had started to tear a hole in the bottom of the bag and were trying to get out.
I padded across the lot, walking carefully so as not to joggle the bag more than necessary, clutching it desperately with both hands in an earnest attempt to keep it from breaking up entirely.
I reached the car without disaster but on the very verge of it. By a process of contortionist acrobatics I got the front door open and dumped the bag onto the seat. It came apart then, spilling all the groceries into a jumbled heap. I used both hands to shove the mess to the other side so I could get underneath the wheel.
I suppose that if I’d not been having so much trouble with the bag of groceries, I’d have noticed it at once, but I didn’t see it until I had gotten in and was reaching out to insert the key in the ignition lock.
And there it was, a sheet of paper, folded to make a tent and propped above the instrument panel and against the windshield. Across the sheet had been printed in large block letters the single word “STINKER!”
I had leaned forward to put the key into the lock and I stayed leaning forward, staring at the paper and its one-word message.
I didn’t even have to guess who might have put it there. There was no doubt in my mind. It was almost as if I knew, as if I’d seen them put it there—some pseudo- human, some agglomeration of the bowling balls that had made themselves into a human form, telling me they knew I had called the senator, telling me they knew I would double-cross them if I had the chance. Not angry with me, perhaps, not particularly disturbed at what I’d done, but disgusted with me, perhaps—perhaps disappointed in me. Something just to let me know they were on to me and that I was not getting away with anything.
I shoved the key into the lock and started the engine. I reached out and got the paper and crumpled it into a ball and tossed it out the window. If they were watching me, and I figured that they were, that would let them know what I thought of them.
Childish? Sure, it was. I just didn’t give a damn. There was nothing left to give a damn about.
Three blocks down the street, I noticed the car. It was just an ordinary car, black and medium-priced. I don’t know why I noticed it. There was nothing unusual about it. It was the kind of car, the age, the make, the color you saw a hundred times a day.
Perhaps the answer is that I would have noticed any car that pulled in behind me.
I went two more blocks and it still trailed f along behind. I made a couple of turns and it still was there.
There was little question that it was tailing me, and a clumsy job of tailing. I headed out of town and it followed still, half a block behind. Not caring, I thought, not even trying to hide the fact that it was following. Wanting me to know perhaps, that I was being followed, just keeping on the pressure.
I wondered, as I drove, whether I should even bother to shake this follower. There didn’t seem to be any particular reason that I should. Even if I shook him, it might make little difference. There wasn’t much, I told myself, to be gained by it. They had monitored my call to the senator. More than likely they knew my base of operations, if you could so dignify it. Without much question, they knew exactly where to find me if they ever wanted me.