Part 14 (2/2)
I could at that point have run away. But it is not in my nature to spurn friendly conversation.
”I heard that about you big-city types.”
”So,” he said. ”You've got a keen and patient interest in Mr. Baxter's Tower. I have been watching you from the window of my room since lunchtime. I have watched mystics meditating on the empty throne of the Silver City or counting the innumerable coils of the World Serpent and few of them have the staying-power you exhibit. What could possibly account for it? Are you just seeing the sights? Or looking for work?”
”I have work, I think. On Swing Street.”
He raised one eyebrow. I don't know if I mentioned his eyebrows before but they were as impressive in their own way as the mustache. Throughout our conversation they bristled and flattened as he spoke so that they could express good humor at one moment, curiosity the next, fulminating wrath when necessary. Sometimes I felt I was conversing with the eyebrows and he was merely taking notes.
”It's not what I expected,” I said, ”but it's better than nothing.”
”They let you spend all day staring at Mr. Baxter's Tower?”
”Theater-folk keep irregular hours.”
”They do,” he said. ”That's very true.”
He lit another cigarette.
”So,” he said. ”Maybe your fascination with the Baxter Trust stems from anger. The Smilers will tell you anger is bad for the soul but I disagree- sometimes a good spell of anger is just what this d.a.m.n awful world calls for and there's no alternative. Maybe the Trust foreclosed on your farm or maybe they dammed your river up-stream-or maybe it's political, maybe you've come all the way here from out West for reasons of politics?”
He leaned back against the rail, stretching out an arm to toy with one of its little wrought-iron spearheads.
”I don't even know what you mean by politics, sir. I make it a rule to stay out of that stuff. It does n.o.body any good. Maybe I'm just seeing the sights, like you said.”
”Uh-huh, uh-huh. What kind of revenge, though? You're not carrying a bomb. You don't have a gun- do you? No, I didn't think so and that look on your face confirms it. I mean no offense- a lot of crazy people come to town these days. But you don't look crazy, not in the ordinary way. I've been watching you for a while and I can't figure you out. Something tells me it's worth the effort, and my instincts are rarely wrong.”
”Let's get one thing clear, friend- I said I don't want revenge, and I meant it. So if that's all you wanted to know-”
He held up a hand.
”Maybe there's some confusion here- I get used to being recognized. Fame, son, it gets into your head, never pursue it. I'm not a policeman, if that's what you're thinking, and I don't work for Mr. Baxter, fortune forfend that the day should I ever come I should be reduced to that. My name's Elmer Merrial Carson.”
”Hal Rawlins,” I said, cautiously taking his hand.
”I won't take offense that you don't know my name. I guess you are new in town.”
Of course I have learned since then that Mr. Carson was somewhat famous in Jasper City and throughout the Tri-City Territory, as the writer, reporter and sometime publisher of the Jasper City Evening Post. He was known in particular for his broadsides in support of Liberationism and the five-day week and the re-apportionment of the Senate, and against the cruel conditions in the Yards for labor and livestock, and against the meddling of the Line in Jasper City affairs. He was also known for his pen-portraits of Jasper City's ceaseless influx of eccentrics and immigrants, portraits that were sometimes comical, sometimes pitiable, sometimes inspiring, sometimes alarming, sometimes all of these things at once. When I met him he had mounted seventy-seven such heads on his wall, so to speak, and I was to be- he said- his seventy-eighth.
”Are you hungry? You look hungry- don't deny it.”
”I travel a lot,” I said. ”On business. You get used to irregular meals.”
”The same is true of the journalism racket, Mr. Rawlins. Well, it's decided then. I'm going to buy the both of us dinner, and you're going to tell me what brings you to Jasper, and what brings you to stand outside Mr. Baxter's Tower all d.a.m.n day, and how come I heard you tell those policemen that you are a writer for the Jasper City Evening Post, which I know you are not, on account of I am Big Chief editor and part-owner of the Post and I don't know your face, son.”
He pushed himself off from the rail, pointed down the street with his cigarette like an officer directing his men once more unto the breach, then set off walking.
Of course I had no intention of telling him what brought me to Mr. Baxter's Tower. But I was very curious as to why he had been watching Baxter's Tower all day, until he had been distracted by watching me.* And besides I had heard about the extraordinary example of Jasper City's financial magic that was the expense-account, and I was eager to experience it for myself.
A Portrait of Mr. Carson I've remarked already on the great journalist's eyebrows. I will not attempt to describe him any further. How could I compete with the man himself? He publishes an autobiography every other year, and I bet he has published another since I last looked. You may purchase and read Early Attempts or Midstream or The Wildcats if you want to know more. If I'd read his books when I was a boy instead of Old Man Baxter's who knows how things might have turned out.**
*I had my suspicions, like everyone else. I thought I was on to a story about Mr. Baxter; I was half-right. The details hardly matter now. I have written about the Fall of Jasper elsewhere. I will let Mr. Ransom tell it here in his own way. -EMC **Maybe worse. I make no promises that my books are Improving Literature for little boys; they are true, for the most part, but that is not the same thing. -EMC I guess one day Mr. Carson may read this whole Autobiography, in which case I hope he will take my remarks regarding his eyebrows in the friendly spirit with which I meant them. History already judges me too harshly and I do not need any more enemies, especially not ones who can write.*
*Worse things have been said. -EMC When I returned to the Ormolu Amaryllis was in something of a panic, having convinced herself that I had decamped for a rival theater, like the Hamilton or the Horizon or &c. I a.s.sured her of my loyalty. She fussed over my head-wound and I told her I had fallen over. I told her I had met the famous Mr. Elmer Merrial Carson of the Evening Post and sung her praises to him and he had promised to write her up in his column, and though she did not believe me she seemed flattered that I had taken the trouble to lie to her.
In the morning I set to work in earnest. For a few days I was busy cleaning and polis.h.i.+ng and running errands and learning all the tricks and implements of the magic business. Stage-magic is a science as complex as the study of electricity or light or anything else. Sometimes I thought it would be easier to learn the genuine article. Most of the Great Rotollo's most treasured implements had been lost when the Damaris went down, and the truth is Amaryllis was at that date entertaining crowds mostly through sheer grit, and the novelty of her s.e.x.
I set to work reconstructing those lost devices, scavenging parts from sc.r.a.pyards and the sweepings of blacksmiths all over Hoo Lai. I learned through experimentation about clockwork and the confinement of pigeons and- but I could waste words on this forever, and it would do n.o.body any good. I gutted one of the Ormolu's broken-down old pianos, one which I thought Mr. Quantrill would not notice the absence of, and harvested wire. Slowly and cautiously I began to acquire the parts for the reconstruction of the Apparatus- I was developing a great many ideas about stage-lighting and illusion, and if I did not yet have the parts I could talk about them so well that Amaryllis almost believed they were real and even Mr. Quantrill was curious.
I pushed my plans to settle accounts with Baxter to the back of my mind- I was too busy to think of loitering outside his offices or pestering him with lawsuits or attempting an a.s.sa.s.sination. The newspapers reported that two men who'd claimed for the benefit of autograph-hunters to be Harry Ransom and John Creedmoor had opened fire with handguns on the Dryden Engine near the borders of the Territory, and been annihilated- I hardly noticed.
Two weeks after I arrived in Jasper I was the subject of one of Mr. Elmer Merrial Carson's famous newspaper pen-portraits-you may read it for yourself, if any copies survived the Battle of Jasper. He portrayed a series of amiably eccentric inventors, including the usual cast of rain-makers and virility-enhancers and lead-to-gold types and lastly a Mr. Rawlins of the Ormolu Theater, self-proclaimed survivor of the Damaris, and his wonderful- though, Mr. Carson implied, most likely imaginary- automated self-playing piano.
Despite my best efforts, and despite my promises to her, the Amazing Amaryllis was not mentioned by name. That caused her to sink into a mild depression. She had never believed me when I said that I had met Mr. Carson but as soon as she saw the column she became convinced that her hopes and dreams had depended on it ever since arriving in Jasper City. That night her performance was off- in fact she fouled the Gibson City Gaffle so badly there was jeering from the audience.
She was still in a state of mild depression some days later, when a member of the audience forced her way backstage through the curtain after her performance.
I thought this uninvited intruder meant to complain- it had been another bad show- and I attempted to intercept her.
I said, ”Now, miss, if you have anything to say, it's-”
She said, ”Are you Hal Rawlins?”
I acknowledged that I was.
”Ah-hah! So there you are.”
She was young, and short. She had black curling hair and brown eyes. She spoke in the slow and musical accent of the Deltas. She looked ragged and hungry and sleepless. I cannot say that I noticed immediately that she was pretty, maybe on account of the way she was glaring at me.
”How dare you- how dare you, sir, how- I am Adela Iermo, Adela Kotan Iermo. You know that name, sir, yes I can see that you do!”
I knew part of it. Kotan was the word etched into the uppermost winding-mechanism of the self-playing piano. Was this its first owner? Could this be its creator? If so, how many hours had I spent admiring the genius of this young woman!
”Did you think you would never face me?”
”I confess I never did- why, ma'am, I dreamed of-”
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