Part 57 (1/2)
Tony was awash in debris. He was surrounded by books, magazines, expense vouchers, comics, ma.n.u.scripts, and opera records. He was writing a review. Claude peeked at the book's t.i.tle: _The Corpse's Delight_, by S. Orbital Ridges. Tony didn't like it. Feeling that he had been too harsh in his criticism, he concluded: ”Excellent sidelights on croquet playing in Wales.”
”There,” he sighed. ”Not always easy to be fair, you know? Taste is such a personal matter.
Now, what can I do for you?”
”We have come to make a deal,” Claude stated.
”Flatly incredible!” Tony groaned. His voice seemed to emerge from the depths of his chest. ”I had hoped for something more original. McComas and I--””Who is McComas?” Claude interjected.
Tony waved his manicured hand. ”I always begin sentences that way. Pay it no mind. Your proposition?”
Claude did not hesitate. He who hesitated, as he had often, observed, was lost. ”Do not mistake me for the callow youth I appear to be,” he warned. ”I am a man of no little experience.
”McComas and I understand that. Get on with it. I know you of old, Claude Adams.”
Claude felt a pardonable pride. His reputation, then, had preceded him. ”The essence of a good bargain,” he said, ”is that both sides profit from it.”
”I agree with that. It is, indeed a plat.i.tude.”
Claude was stung. ”I will keep it simple. You are too clever for tricky clauses. I will state my case in plain terms, man to Devil. You will then have no choice.”
”McComas and I,” Tony said s.h.i.+ftily, ”have many choices.”
Claude seized the horns, as it were. ”Try this one on for size. You are overworked and you are overcrowded. The commies are coming. They will try to organize everything, make you write reviews for the State--”
”McComas won't stand for it!”
”Perhaps, perhaps. But why face the problem at all? If you permit my companion and Ito leave, I will eliminate the difficulty! I am no slouch at population control, as you know, and I can manipulate culture patterns. It will be like old times. No fuss, no bother, you in your kerchief and me in my cap--”
Tony's face flushed. ”By gad, sir, you interest me! When McComas and I deal, we deal!”
Claude smiled slyly. ”There is--uh--a way out of here?”
”There is a way,” Tony a.s.sured him. ”A bargain, as you say, is a bargain. But it will not be easy.”
”It never is,” Claude observed. He managed to contain his elation. He knew what was coming. ”I am, I a.s.sure you, all ears.”
”Oh my,” said Tony in that distinctive deep voice of his. The Devil told Claude what he had to do. ”There is one teensy condition,” he concluded.
”Which is?”
”You must not look behind you on the journey. Remember that! Do not look back.”
”I will not forget,” Claude promised.
With his robed and hooded companion in tow, Claude took his leave.
The side-wheeler splashed through the miasmic murk of the River Styx. The river, of course, was full of stones.
A bewhiskered sailor leaned over the bow-rail, casting a long knotted line. ”Ma-a-a-rk Twai-i-i-in!” he bellowed.
At exactly the proper moment, neither too early nor too late, Claude rolled the dice of destiny.
He looked back.
There was a shudder of silence, a skip in the heartbeat of eternity. Then came a blinding flash.
Thunder boomed. It was like all the thunder there ever was, or ever could be, all wrapped up in the fireflies of an Illinois summer's twilight.
It rained strawberries.
Claude found the results quite gratifying. He stepped ash.o.r.e on an Earth of desolation. He was up to his armpits in corpses and rotting strawberries.
”Unhappy world,” he mused. ”The paradox of the Solor System. For rebirth, we require abortion. To live in glory, it is necessary to become one with the worm.”
”But what will we _do?_” quavered Cleve.
Claude gave no answer. He had been through this before. However, he was forced to concede that he was facing certain difficulties. He fingered his beanie. The Royal Atom-Arranger had done his work well. Lost and by the wind grieved .
Claude Adams was once more a white-maned old codger. Old, old and suffused with weariness.He noticed that his companion seemed dismayed.
”We must begin again,” he intoned finally. He had never been one to s.h.i.+rk his duty, no matter what the odds.
His companion brightened. ”It may be,” the shrouded figure whispered, ”that perhaps I can be of some a.s.sistance.”
The ta.s.seled robe fell to the shattered Earth. The hood was coyly slipped from golden curls.
Claude stared at her with surging fatigue. ”I should have known,” he sighed. ”Cleve! You are not Cleve, as advertised, but rather you stand before me as--”
”Eve,” she finished. She quivered expectantly.
”Not yet, child,” Claude temporized. ”Mercy, not yet. This had been a trying day, if day it was.”
”When?” Eve pressed.
Claude squared his worn shoulders. He took refuge in his ancient briar, firing up the s.h.a.g tobacco with the wooden stick match he always carried. There was great comfort in familiar things.
”Soon,” he puffed. ”In all the eons, I have never failed the Earth.”
With infinite tenderness, he took her arm.
Together, they soared as though on gossamer wings, touching the grandeur of the silvered Moon, while billions and billions of cosmic stars smiled on the miracle of Creation.
APPOINTMENT WITH EDDIE.