Part 1 (2/2)

”Oh,” said Archer. ”Let's skip it, then.”

”The sponsor said he'd like to talk to you.”

”Any time from nine to five,” Archer said. ”Tell the sponsor I'm an unpredictable artist after business hours.”

”OK,” said O'Neill, visibly controlling his temper. ”I'll tell him you've got a headache.”

”Lies,” said Archer, ”are the foundation of all decent social relations. You'll make somebody a wonderful hostess some day, Emmet.”

O'Neill didn't answer. He was staring at Archer, his dark blue eyes baffled and friendly. He reminded Archer of a bulldog struggling to communicate with the human race, walled in by the lack of language.

”I'm sorry, Emmet,” Archer said. ”But I promised Vic.”

”Sure,” O'Neill nodded vigorously. ”Don't worry about it. Will you drop into the office tomorrow? There're a couple of things I have to talk to you about.”

Archer sighed. ”Friday's my day of rest, Emmet,” he said. ”Can't it wait?”

”Not really. It's important. Say eleven o'clock ...”

”Eleven-thirty. I expect to be sleepy tomorrow morning.”

”Eleven-thirty,” O'Neill said, putting on his hat. ”And don't call me up and say you can't make it.”

”O'Neill, you're an exploiter of labor.” Archer peered at O'Neill curiously. ”What's so important about it?”

”I'll tell you tomorrow.” O'Neill waved and went out without saying good night to Herres or Atlas.

The sound man sat at the piano and worked at a complicated arrangement of ”Some Enchanted Evening.” He made it sound mournful, as though every time he had been in love he had been jilted.

Archer shook his head, dismissing O'Neill and his problems until eleven-thirty the next morning. He picked up his hat and coat and went over to Herres, who had taken all of Atlas' quarters by now and was reading a newspaper, waiting.

”OK,” Archer said, ”the barroom detail is ready for action.”

”Mercy killing is the question of the day,” Herres said, tapping the newspaper. He got into his coat and they started out of the studio, waving good-bye to Atlas, who was waiting for a friend. ”Doctors with airbubbles, husbands with breadknives, daughters with police revolvers. You never saw such violent mercy in all your days. It opens up completely new fields of saintliness. At the trial of the war criminals after the next war, the euthanasia society will conduct the defense. The hydrogen bomb was dropped in a temporary access of pity. Saved whole populations from the pains of cancer and living in general. Air tight. What jury would convict?”

Archer grinned. ”I knew that finally somebody would prove how dangerous air can be,” he said. ”Memo to all radio executives-treat air with caution.”

They got into the elevator and plunged twenty stories in a low howl of wind.

Outside the building, New York was deceptively clean and shop windows glowed down the dark avenue. Taxis swept past in the light traffic and you could almost taste fine crystals of salt from the rivers in the air. It was still early and Archer felt that there was a great deal that might be done with the evening.

He started walking uptown, with Herres striding beside him. They were both tall men, and although Archer was almost ten years older than Herres, he walked briskly, with a healthy, solid way of planting his feet. Their heels echoed in rhythm against the shut buildings and they had the street to themselves as they went north, into the wind.

They walked in silence for a block. Then Herres said, ”What's wrong with O'Neill? He looked as though he'd been bitten in the a.s.s by an ingenue.”

Archer grinned. You had to be very careful with Victor. He didn't seem to be noticing anything, but he took everything in, and was barometer-sensitive to the slightest changes in the emotional climate.

”I don't know,” Archer said. ”Maybe the sponsor sneezed during the commercials. Maybe a hatcheck girl rubbed his mink the wrong way.”

”Mink,” said Herres. ”The Cla.s.s A uniform. To be worn for parades, court-martials and when leaving the post. Do you think O'Neill'll vote Republican now that he's so warmly dressed?”

”I doubt it,” Archer said gravely. ”The entire O'Neill family suffers from tennis elbow from pulling so hard and so long on the Democratic levers on the voting machines of a dozen a.s.sembly districts.”

”For he's a jolly good fellow,” Herres said, ”with his b.a.l.l.s in a sponsor's sling.”

Archer smiled, but he felt the click of criticism in his brain. Ever since Herres had come back from the war he had salted his speech constantly with barracks images, no matter who was listening. Archer, who felt uneasy when he heard profanity, had protested once, mildly, and Herres had grinned and said, ”You must excuse me, Professor. I'm a dirty man, but I got my vocabulary in the service of my country. Patriotism is a four-letter word. Anyway, I never say anything you can't find in any good circulating library.”

This was true. It was also true that most of the people Archer knew spoke loosely, in the modern manner, and Archer always had an uncomfortable sense of being spinsterish and old-fas.h.i.+oned when his inner censor made these private objections. But he had an undefined sense that when Herres spoke in front of him in the tones of a sergeant's mess, a hidden flaw in their friends.h.i.+p was being momentarily exposed.

Archer shook his head, impatient with his reflections. Probably, he thought, it's some hangover from the schoolroom, the inextinguishable core of schoolteacher in him, everlastingly herding phantom students into proper channels of deportment. Consciously, he resolved not to allow himself to be annoyed the next time.

”I had a thought,” Archer said, ”while watching you tonight, Victor.”

”Name it,” said Herres. ”Name the thought.”

”I thought you were a very good actor.”

”Mention me in dispatches,” Herres said, grinning, ”the next time you go up to Division.”

”Too good for radio.”

”Treason,” Herres said gravely. ”Biting the hand that murders you.”

”You never have to extend yourself,” Archer went on seriously, looking into a bookstore window. The window had a display of books from the French, all celebrating despair in bright, attractive covers. Collaboration, guilt and torture, imported especially for Madison Avenue, at three dollars a copy. ”Everything's so easy for you, you win every race under wraps.”

”Good blood lines,” Herres said. ”My sire was a well-known stud in Midwestern stables. His get took many firsts. In the sprints at second-cla.s.s meetings.”

”Aren't you curious to see what you could do against tougher compet.i.tion?”

Herres looked thoughtfully down a side street. ”Why?” he asked. ”Are you?”

”Yes,” Archer said. ”On the stage. Where you could be fully used. You're a good type. You're still young-looking. And you've got a simple, open face, with the necessary touch of brutality in it for the older trade.”

Herres chuckled. ”Hamlet, 1950,” he said, ”wearing his major H.”

”Listening to you reading Barbante's silly lines,” Archer said, ”I get a sense of waste. Like seeing a pile driver used for thumbtacks.”

Herres smiled. ”Think how comfortable it is,” he said, ”for the pile driver to be asked only to handle thumbtacks. Last forever and be as good as new a hundred years from date of sale.”

”Think about it, dear boy,” Archer said, as they turned down Fifty-sixth Street.

”Dear boy,” said Herres. ”I won't.”

<script>