him all paralysed from the waist up was it? Or down? Just who does this Doc Sam think he…’
‘Oh it wasn’t him, it was that other nigger one that’s been living in sin with Ma Wood, Violetta saw them… and anyway a man that wears a skirt and don’t like girls…’
‘Jake told me the Wood boy’s gone black, didn’t he used to be paralysed himself? Bobby Wood, used to be so paralysed they had to wheel him around in a little tank or…’
‘Jake’ll say anything, told me the kid was a two-headed robot, but listen before Doreen gets me under that drier and I can’t hear a thing, guess who asked Doc Sam to
‘Robots, shit we got enough damn robots out at the factory, Jap robots, German robots, reckon the machines is taking over all right, makes you wonder who won the damn war…’
‘Makes you wonder if these here Lewdites ain’t got something there, least they know the difference between a man and a god-durned wheel, but listen, my old lady says some nigger robot stuck a knife in Father O’Bride…’
‘Bob Wood? Yeah I heard that, same asshole knifed Father Warren a few months back ain’t it? Sure it is, hell they get away with murder these days… Not that I like Catlicks, only you let a bunch wild niggers run around with knives…’
‘Machines is taking over, hell they even got machines’ lib, no shit, my wife’s going to the Ladies’ Guild to hear one of ’em, makes you wonder who won… three beers here, Charlie?’
‘Trouble-maker from way back, remember when he was at the public school here, wrecked the damn computer, just went berserk and wrecked…’
‘Somebody oughta wreck him, you know? Somebody oughta teach that little shit a lesson.’
‘I blame his home background I mean what do you expect? I think I liked the other ones better dear, the uh pink frames with rhinestones? What do you expect? Ma and Pa Wood aren’t exactly, well I mean they’re communists for one thing, atheistic communists, dressing that kid of theirs up in that porno get-up for the Christmas play, no wonder he scared poor old Sister Martha to death… only what do you expect, anybody sets a big
‘Remember how she tried to poison Jake Mcllvaney? Cookies with ground glass and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was behind this gingerbread…’
‘Oh she was, didn’t you know? They had a big police raid there, the FBI took away all her ginger to test for poison too bad they didn’t take her away at the same…’
‘And she’s been playing house with a black man ever since poor Pa, probably poisoned him too! And she’s a witch, everybody knows…’
‘Well the boy always was a trouble-maker, ask anybody, didn’t his teacher Miz Beek commit sui…?’
‘Mrs Feeney says he’s like he’s got the devil in him, you know he actually stabbed one of the priests?’
‘I blame his background. My Chauncey never would…’
‘Well, somebody better teach him a lesson.’
Roderick was at the dining-table, covering page after page with cipher calculations. Ma paused to kiss the top of his head.
‘That’s a good boy. Now I’m just going out to the Guild, be back in time to give Pa his supper. But if he wants anything meanwhile will you stick around?’
‘Sure, sure.’ It wasn’t polyalphabetic with a repeating key, it wasn’t a multifid, it wasn’t Playfair or a substitution followed by a grille transposition… was it even a cipher?
It had to be. Something in the world had to make sense. Ma would say it all did make sense, only you had to be on the astral plane to perceive it. Pa would say nothing made any sense at all, only we have to make our own sense out of it.
He gave up on the cipher and wandered into Pa’s workshop. There was the radio, still faintly murmuring music for its own easy listenin’ enjoyment. There was the box of inventions. There was the photo of Rex Reason, the cards hand-lettered by Miss Violetta Stubbs: ‘OVER THE HILL doesn’t mean DOWN AND OUT…’
The lettering was the same as on the piece of cloth. Sure, it was part of a hand-lettered tie: not remember wit fun, but
printed sideways so the mourners could read it. Sure, so…
After a moment, Roderick took down the green key from its nail below Rex and left the house with it.
At twilight the giant letters SLUMBERTITE NEVER SLEEPS suddenly flared up like curious trees bursting into flame. The low slab of windowless factory supporting their neon splendour now seemed lower, less significant. The two tiny figures climbing out of their microscopic Rolls-Royce seemed nothing at all.
‘God, I love this place, bub. Almost makes me wish I was a religious guy… I don’t know, if I… if God…’ Mr Kratt recovered quickly. ‘Come on, let’s get inside, can’t stand around with your finger up your rectum all evening.’
He strode off across the perfect lawn, leaving Ben behind. ‘Come on, come on.’
‘Yes sir. I was just, I was just thinking…’
‘Too damn much thinking, your thinking got us into this mess, bub. Trouble with you artsy-fartsy academics, can’t see anything clearly, everything’s got too many sides to it. We had a good goddamn thing going there with Jinjur-Boy, only you had to go and spill your guts to the FDA the minute they came sniffing—’
‘It wasn’t like that at all, Mr Kratt I, all I said was—’
‘Was enough! Mercury batteries, why the hell admit a thing like that, you know what it’s gonna cost to fix this up? Hell of a lot more than you’re worth. Thing gets this far you can’t just grease a few palms you know. Gotta fix up a whole publicity campaign, pictures of a coupla senators and their kids eating the damn things, the works. And we gotta move fast before we get every hick consumer group in the country after us, look what they did to Buckingham cigarettes…’
‘I never heard of them.’
‘See what I mean? One minute they got fifty quacks on the payroll telling everybody how their natural blackstrap molasses-filter traps everything nasty, the next minute they’re wiped out. Dead!’
‘Dead,’ said Ben faintly. ‘But what do we do about these dead kids, eighteen of them now, eighteen…’
‘Look, stop moaning, will you? Our lawyers are already fixing all that up with the families, get each of ’em to sign an affidavit their kids never ate our product in return for an
‘No but it’s just that sometimes I think we, all we can do is create death Even when we try to make life it comes out death, death is there all the time. In the program somewhere… it’s, I don’t know, almost as if we brought a gingerbread boy to life and all he wanted was to die…’
‘Goddamnit, pull yourself together, industrial accidental pollution, happens all the time! All the time, you can’t get all personal about this, Jesus you think every oil company executive pisses his pants every time he hears a pollution story? I mean sure if you want to go on playing fancy academic games writing little titbits for the
‘Well I… yes, I guess… yessir I do.’
‘Fine. Then goddamnit, bub, start running it. And for Christ’s sake stop looking like a pall-bearer, give this Welby guy a big smile. Must be him waiting by the door.’
Ben Franklin managed a weak smile for Dr Welby while Kratt unlocked the plain steel door.
‘Really an honour Mr Kratt, if you don’t mind my saying so, been reading about you everywhere, newsletters,
