'Gene, good fellow! Got through the mob all right? Here, have a bit of brandy. No? Perhaps some Scotch?'
I said it was too early for me to drink. Shakily, I sat down. Paul laughed at the sight of us. 'You both look like the end of the world has come.'
'I'd always pictured the end as being quite orderly…' I began stuffily but Doctor Stokharin's loud entrance interrupted me. His spectacles were dangling from one ear and his tie had been pulled around from front to back quite neatly.
'No authority!' he bellowed, ignoring all of us. 'The absence of a traditional patriarch, the center of the tribe, has made them insecure. Only together do they feel warmth in great swarming hives!' His voice rose sharply and broke on the word 'hives' into a squeak. He took the proffered brandy and sat down, his clothes still disarranged.
'My hair,' said Clarissa grimly, 'may never come out right again today.' She put the mirror back into her purse which she closed with a loud snap. 'I don't see, Paul, why you didn't have the foresight to call the police in advance and demand protection.'
'I had no idea it would be like this. Believe me, Clarissa, it's not deliberate.' But from his excited chuckling, I could see that he was delighted with the confusion. The triumph of the publicist's dark art. I wondered if he might not have had a hand in it: it was a little reminiscent of the crowds of screaming women which in earlier decades, goaded by publicists, had howled and, as Stokharin would say,
Paul anticipated my suspicions. 'Didn't have a thing to do with it, I swear. Doctor, your tie is hanging down your back.'
'I don't mind,' said Stokharin disagreeably, but he did adjust his glasses.
'I'd a feeling we'd have a few people in to see us but no idea it would be like this.' He turned to me as the quietest, the least dangerous of the three. 'You wouldn't believe the response to last night's telecast if I told you.'
'Why don't you tell me?' The comic aspects were becoming apparent: Stokharin's assaulted dignity and the ruin of Clarissa's ingenious hair both seemed to me suddenly funny; I cleared my throat to obscure the tickling of a smile.
Paul named some stupendous figures with an air of triumph. 'And there are more coming all the time. Think of that!'
'Are they favorable?'
'Favorable? Who cares?' Paul was pacing the floor quickly, keyed to the breaking-point had he possessed the metabolism of a normal man. 'We'll have a breakdown over the weekend. Hired more people already. Whole lot working all the time. By the way, we're moving.'
'Not a moment too soon,' said Clarissa balefully. 'I suggest, in fact, we move now while there are even these few police to protect us. When they go home for lunch (they all eat enormous lunches, one can tell), that crowd is going to come in here and throw us out the window.'
'Or suffocate us with love,' said Paul.
Stokharin looked at Clarissa thoughtfully; with his turned-around necktie he had a sacerdotal look. 'Do you often think of falling from high places? of being pushed from windows or perhaps high trees?'
'Only when I'm on the top floor of the world's highest building surrounded by raving maniacs do such forebodings occur to me, doctor. Had you a greater sense of reality you might be experiencing the same apprehension.'
Stokharin clapped his hands happily. 'Classic, classic. To believe she alone knows reality. Madam, I suggest that you…'
There was a roar of sound from the hallway; a noise of glass shattering; a revolver went off with a sharp report and, frozen with alarm, I waited for its echo: there was none; only shouts of: Cave! Cave! Cave!
Surrounded by police, Cave and Iris were escorted into the office. More police held the door, aided by the office crew who, suddenly inspired, were throwing paper cups full of water into the crowd. Flash bulbs like an electric storm flared in all directions as the newspaper men invaded the office, let in by the police who could not hold them back.
Iris looked frightened and even Cave seemed alarmed by the rioting.
Once the police lieutenant had got Cave and Iris into the office, he sent his men back to hold the corridor. Before he joined them he said sternly, breathing hard from the struggle, 'We're going to clear the hall in the next hour. When we do we'll come and get you people out of here. You got to leave whether you want to or not. This is an emergency.'
'An hour is all we need, officer.' Paul was smooth. 'And may I tell you that my old friend, the Commissioner, is going to hear some extremely nice things about the efficiency and good sense of his men.' Before the lieutenant had got around to framing a suitably warm answer, Paul had maneuvered him out of the inner office; he locked the door behind him.
'There,' he said, turning to us, very businesslike. 'It was a mistake meeting here after last night. I'm sorry, John.'
'It's not your fault.' Cave, having found himself an uncomfortable straight chair in a corner of the room, sat very erect, like a child in serious attendance upon adults. 'I had a hunch we should hold the meeting out on Long Island.'
Paul scowled. 'I hate the idea of the press getting a look at you. Spoils the mystery effect; guess it was bound to happen, though. You won't have to talk to them.'
'Oh, but I will,' said Cave easily, showing who was master here, this day.
'But… well, after what we decided, the initial strategy being… '
'No. It's all changed now, Paul. I'll have to face them, at least this once. I'll talk to them the way I always talk. They'll listen.' His voice grew dreamy. He was indifferent to Paul's discomfiture.
'Did you get a new place?' asked Iris, suddenly, to divert the conversation.
'What? Oh yes. A whole house, five stories on East Sixty-first Street. Should be big enough. At least for now.' The inter-office communicator sounded. Paul spoke quickly into it: 'Tell the newspaper people to wait out there. We'll have a statement in exactly an hour and they'll be able…' he paused and looked at Cave for some reprieve; then, seeing none, he finished: 'They'll be able to interview Cave.' He flipped the machine off. Through the locked door, we heard a noise of triumph from the gathered journalists and photographers.
'Well, come along,' said Clarissa, 'I thought this was to be a board of directors meeting. Cave, dear, you've got to preside.'
But, though he said he'd rather not, Clarissa, in a sudden storm of legality, insisted that he must: she also maliciously demanded a complete reading of the last meeting's minutes by Paul, the secretary. We were able to save him by a move to waive the reading which was proposed, recorded and passed by a show of hands, only Clarissa dissenting. Cave conducted the meeting solemnly. Then Clarissa demanded a report from the treasurer and this time Paul was not let off.
For the first time I had a clear picture of the company of which I was a director. Shares had been sold. Control was in the hands of Clarissa, while Paul and several West Coast industrialists whose names were not familiar to me, also had shares. The main revenue of the company now came from the sponsor of Cave's television show. There was also a trickle of contributions which, in the last few weeks, had increased considerably.
Then Paul read from a list of expenses, his voice hurrying a little over his own salary which was, I thought, a bit large. Cave's expenses were recorded and, with Clarissa goading from time to time, Paul gave an accounting of all that had been spent since the arrival in New York. John Cave was a big business.
'The books are audited at standard intervals,' said Paul, looking at Clarissa as he finished, some of his good humor returning. 'We will not declare dividends unless Mrs Lessing insists the company become a profit-making enterprise.'
'It might not be a bad idea,' said Clarissa evenly. 'Why not get a little return…'
But Paul had launched into policy. We listened attentively. From time to time, Cave made a suggestion. Iris and I made no comment. Stokharin occasionally chose to illuminate certain human problems as they arose and Paul, at least, heard him out respectfully. Clarissa wanted to know all about costs and her interruptions were always brief and shrewd.
Several decisions were made at that meeting. It was decided that a Center be established and headed by Dr.
