“Yes, sir.”
“Miss Dvorak,” he asked, “wasn’t that appointment for ten o’clock?”
“Yes, Mr. Pelazi. Mr. O’Donnell is here now, sir.”
“And the rest?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“All right, show O’Donnell in.”
“Yes, sir.”
He leaned back in his chair, his fingers idly stroking the black spade-beard that covered his chin. He wondered how O’Donnell would react to his idea. Probably violently. O’Donnell was a stiff-necked turtle if ever there was one, as bad in his own way as the worst Vicarion. The door slid open abruptly, and Miss Dvorak entered. She wore a loose business suit, buttoned to beneath her chin. A frill of lace protruded from above the collar of the suit, and her flat-soled shoes slapped against the bare wooden floor of the office.
“Mr. O’Donnell, sir,” she announced.
Sean O’Donnell stepped into the room behind her. He bobbed his head in thanks and then walked toward the desk. Miss Dvorak closed the door manually, and O’Donnell extended a large, square hand.
“Dino! Good to see you again.”
“Come in, Sean. Have a seat.”
O’Donnell nodded affably, the hang of his fleshy chin touching the high, stiff edge of his collar. “Something big on your mind, Dino?” He sat quickly, making himself comfortable.
“Yes,” Pelazi said. “I think so.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. O’Donnell’s fingers crawled to the knot of his tie, straightened it, and then slithered down the coarse front of his jacket to rest like a sand crab in his lap.
“I saw the review you gave the new Vike paback,” he said. “You really devastated it.”
“You really think so, do you?” Pelazi fastened studious brown eyes on O’Donnell’s face, and O’Donnell wriggled uncomfortably.
“Well... yes. Yes, I do. I mean, you... you hit it quite hard. Quite hard.”
“Not hard enough,” Pelazi said. “That’s one of the things I wanted to discuss.” He glanced at his wrist chronometer. “The others should be here soon.”
He lifted the lid of the cigarette box, took out a smoke and put it between his lips. “Cigarette, Sean?”
O’Donnell’s eyes widened slightly. “I... I didn’t know you smoked, Dino. I mean...”
“Smoking is the least of the Vicarion Movement’s vices. You, my friend, are an ultra-Realist. Your habit, supreme realism, is as bad as the drug habit of a Vicarion.”
“Now see here, Dino...”
“Shut up, Sean. Your life is your own. I take it you won’t retch if I have a smoke?”
“Not at all. That is...”
“Thank you.” Pelazi lighted the cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. “I happen to feel that a Realist is also entitled to a little relaxation. Besides, I’ve been doing a good deal of thinking on this whole setup. I think I’ve found the answer; that’s what I wanted to discuss with you and the others.”
O’Donnell leaned forward like an anxious cocker spaniel. “An answer, Dino? You mean... an answer to the Vikes?”
Pelazi sighed in exasperation. “No, I mean an answer to the uncurbed dog problem.”
“No need for sarcasm, Dino. I was just...”
“I’m sorry, Sean; I’m a little on edge. What I’ve stumbled on is so fantastically simple that I’ve been persecuting myself for not having thought of it sooner.”
“And you think...”
The buzzer on Pelazi’s desk sounded, and O’Donnell swallowed his own voice and shifted uncomfortably in the chair.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Corona and Mr. Schultz are here, sir.”
“Ask them to come in, please. And bring in your pad, Miss Dvorak. I’ll want you to take all this down.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pelazi nodded briefly and rubbed his hands together. He stood, walked to the window, and watched the dissipating cigarette slogan, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor.
“Well! Dino, Sean!” a voice from the door boomed. “By God, you’re both getting fat!”
Pelazi turned to take the hand of Herman Schultz. Schultz was short and squat, with a round, open face, and guileless blue eyes. A gold watch chain stretched across the straining front of his vest. Pelazi reflected that he was hardly the person to be bandying corpulency about.
“Have a seat, Herman,” Pelazi said. He extended his hand to Corona. “Al, you too.”
Corona shook Pelazi’s hand firmly. “Hello, Dino,” he said in a soft voice. “I understand you’ve something important to discuss.”
“Yes, yes,” Pelazi answered. He liked Corona. He had often wondered if this was because of the attorney’s Italian background, so much like his own. He had put this aside when he’d tallied Corona’s obvious virtues: his mild manner, his shrewd intelligence, his quick wit. And he was thin. Unconsciously, Pelazi favored lean people, attributing them with the same restless energy he possessed — though this was not always the case.
“Smoke, anyone? Drink?” Pelazi asked. He was beginning to feel excited.
Schultz and O’Donnell exchanged glances.
“Didn’t know you were going Vike, Dino,” Schultz said guardedly.
“Don’t be an egghead, Herman,” Pelazi said angrily. He passed his hand over his snow-white mane of hair. “More Rees smoke and drink than you can count on your...”
“Do you want me to take all this down, sir?” Miss Dvorak interrupted.
“No. Yes. I don’t care. Yes, you’d better.”
“I’ll have a drink, Dino,” Corona said. “If no one else minds.”
Good old Al, Pelazi thought. Good old true-blue Al. I don’t know what I’d do without you, friend.
“Rye? Scotch? I’m all out of gin, Al.”
“Rye is fine. Straight, please.”
“I really don’t feel this should be encouraged, Dino,” Schultz said. “If it should get out that one of the leaders of the Realist...”
“It won’t get out,” Pelazi snapped. “And if it does, the hell with it. We’re not going to crack the Vikes by pretending we’re robots.”
“But drinking,” O’Donnell protested. “After all, Dino, let’s be sensible.”
“Do you know the latest figures on all this, Sean?”
“On all what?”
“On alcohol consumption in Realist homes?”
O’Donnell cleared his throat. “Well, no; I can’t say that I do.”
Pelazi moved to the bar, quickly poured a good three fingers of rye into a water tumbler. “Then let me enlighten you. I haven’t exactly been sitting in my rocker, you know. There’s been plenty wrong with our whole approach to the Vikes, and I decided that the best way to find out just what, would be to find out what was wrong with the Rees first.” He walked to Corona, handed him the glass. Corona nodded in thanks.
“Twenty-three percent of the Realist population,” Pelazi said, “have never tasted alcohol.”
Schultz nodded his approval, letting the group know he was one of that twenty-three percent.
“Thirty-seven point seven percent drink socially,” Pelazi went on. “That means a drink or two at parties, gatherings, on the way home, what-have-you.”
“I had no idea it was so prevalent,” O’Donnell said.
“Then you’d better get a good grip on your chair. Because the rest of the Ree population — some thirty-nine point three percent — are what can be considered habitual alcoholics.”
“What!” Schultz exploded. “That’s nonsense, sheer nonsense. By God, Dino, if you’re joking...”
“I’m not joking, Herman. These are facts, cold, hard facts. Do you want to look over the figures yourself?”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary,” Schultz said quickly. He cleared his throat and smoothed the front of his vest.
“Perhaps you’d rather I didn’t touch this,” Corona said, indicating the whiskey.
“Drink, drink,” Schultz said irritably.