She said coolly, “How good to hear from you again, Charles. You look well.”
“That’s a polite lie. I look terrible, and you can feel free to let me know about it.”
Her lips quirked impatiently. “Is something the matter? Are you all right?”
Noyes took a deep breath and said, “I need a tiny favor, Gloria.”
Chapter 4
The building housing the soul bank rose in stunning tiers from a broad plaza three superblocks in area. The site had been chosen with an eye toward deliberate ostentation, at Manhattan’s southern tip in an area thick with historic associations. Here, Peter Minuit had haggled with Indian braves and bought a world for a handful of beads; here, Pegleg Stuyvesant had tromped in choleric efficiency; Washington had walked these streets, as had J. P. Morgan, Jay Gould, Thomas Edison, Bet-a-Million Gates, Joseph P. Kennedy, Paul Kaufmann, and Helmut Scheffing, along with others. Few traces of that history remained. A block of eighteenth-century buildings had been preserved as a sort of museum; the seventeenth-century New York was gone, as was the nineteenth, and all that survived of the twentieth in this neighborhood were a few scruffy, faded curtain-wall skyscrapers put up by the big banks during the boom of the midcentury, shortly before the panic. Serene, isolated, set apart from its neighbors by thousands of priceless square feet of pink noctilucent tile, rose the glowing shaft of the Scheffing Institute tower: eighty stories, then a setback and forty stories more, and a twenty-story cap tipped with black granite. The tower was easily visible from Brooklyn, from Queens, from Staten Island, from New Jersey, and especially from Jubilisle, the floating pleasure dome in New York harbor. One looked up from the sins and gaming tables of Jubilisle to see the reassuring bulk of the Scheffing Institute at the edge of land, offering the promise of rebirth beyond rebirth, and it was comforting. The architects had taken all that into account when planning the building.
To the Scheffing Institute that Friday morning came Mark Kaufmann to renew his lease on life. His small hopter landed as programed on the flight deck at the tower’s first setback, and waiting guards hustled him inside to see Santoliquido. The morning was cool; he had chosen a thick-fibered tunic that sparkled with dark brown and red highlights.
Francesco Santoliquido’s office was deep, high, consciously impressive. In one corner stood a sonic sculpture, the work of Anton Kozak: a beautiful piece, all flowing lines and delicate rhythms, emitting a gentle white hiss that swiftly infiltrated itself into one’s consciousness and became rooted there. Kaufmann’s pleasure in the lovely work was marred by his awareness that Anton Kozak, who had died nine years ago, had returned to the corporate form as one of the implanted personae of John Roditis.
Santoliquido’s desk split obediently and the administrator came through the sections to greet Kaufmann. He was a bulky man, heavier than the fashion prescribed, but he carried himself well. His thick fingers glittered with the rings that betrayed Santoliquido’s innocent predisposition toward vanity. At his throat hung a cluster of small beady-eyed crustaceans, violet and green and azure, within a crystal container: products of the mutagenetic art, elaborate little baroques that moved through their prison in an unending stately dance. Santoliquido’s shirt was green, his epaulets vermilion. In the blaze of color his white, slicked-back hair took on a compelling vividness.
The two men touched hands. Santoliquido returned to his desk, extended a tray of drinks, took part with Kaufmann in the moment of pleasure. Shafts of sunlight danced across the room. The window, a vaulted arch, was wholly transparent. From where he stood Kaufmann enjoyed a superb view of the harbor, and peering down into gay Jubilisle from this height was like staring into a prismatic image from some unimaginable protonic subuniverse.
“Well,” said Santoliquido, “we had the pleasure of your lovely daughter’s company here yesterday. She seems hard to please, though. We unrolled our best carpets for her, but there was no deal.”
“Not yet. She’ll be back.”
“Yes, certainly. Next Tuesday. She’s choosing among three interesting alternatives.”
“I’d like to scan them,” said Kaufmann. “That would be a little irregular.”
“I know.” Santoliquido smiled elegantly. Kaufmann had always had a good working relationship with this man; they had participated in several joint ventures, most notably a power scheme in the Antarctic, and always Santoliquido had come out of them with his considerable fortunes considerably enhanced. Reciprocal favors were not impossible.
The pitch of the Kozak piece altered perceptively, growing more definite, more passionate. Once Kaufmann had had several Kozaks. After Roditis had received the sculptor’s persona, Kaufmann had found occasions to bestow the works on delighted friends.
Kaufmann said, “Nothing new on Uncle Paul since Wednesday?”
“Nothing new. “I’d like to see him, too.”
“Really?”
“You’ll satisfy my curiosity, won’t you?” Kaufmann leaned forward at the waist and fingered an amber rubbing stone on Santoliquido’s desk. “There’s a therapeutic reason. I find it hard to believe that the old man’s really dead. You know, he rose above the whole family like such a colossus—
“So that when you see him taped and carded, you’ll finally accept that he’s gone?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve heard something like that Mark.” Santoliquido clasped his hands over his belly and laughed. “Paul was quite the titan, wasn’t he? I’ll admit I ran his persona off myself, after the funeral, just to get some feel for the man. And I was awed. Let me tell you, Mark, I don’t awe easily, but I was awed.”
“Toying with the idea of taking him on yourself?” Santoliquido looked displeased, and even the crustaceans at his throat rapidly changed hues, as if somehow attuned to the flavor of his thoughts. “I have no desire whatever to have that terrible old man mixing in my nervous system,” said Santoliquido firmly. “And in any event, considering the demand for his persona, it would be a grave breach of trust if I were to appropriate him for my own use. Yes?”
“Of course. Of course.” The look of affability returned. “Anyone who wants your uncle’s persona is welcome to it, so far as I care personally. What a powerhouse! He’d overwhelm nine out of ten who took him on.”
“Just as he overwhelmed us all in life,” said Kaufmann. “He reduced my father to a hollow shell, an errand-boy. Me he had a harder time with, but he gave me twenty years of hell before he’d recognize me as a worthy heir. And the others! Of course, we all loved him. He was simply too dynamic to hate. But when he died, Frank, I felt as though a hand had been removed from my throat.”
“I can understand that.”
“One more thing. None of us could accept the news, when he had the stroke. I mean, he was still a young man, hardly past seventy. We assumed he’d be around at least fifty more years. But his own vitality must have burned him out.”
“He’ll be back among us all soon enough,” said Santoliquido. “As a persona, yes. That’s not quite the same as having Uncle Paul striding through the rooms booming out orders.”