“Are we putting out too many protest songs?” he said, thinking to himself that he could readily show it not to be his personal responsibility but that of the chief of A and R, Hugo Wentz.
The greater of the two FAP agents said, “No, as a matter of fact your firm has a three-check rating with us, which is quite good. If anything, we’re here to compliment Progressive Records, at least in contrast to findings obtained throughout the record industry.”
“It’s pretty bad,” the other agent chimed in. “As I’m sure you realize, Mr. Brady. A large number of Communist singers are being regularly recorded, and many protest songs are being aired these days, despite the general cooperation of the networks and major independent stations.”
Nicholas knew it was not public policy for the radio stations to play protest songs; that was the reason Progressive Records didn’t cut them. It was pointless; no DJ would air them. It was a matter of economics, not principle.
“We are here regarding the following spinoff of Mission Checkup,” the greater of the agents said. “In the course of your work, Mr. Brady, you must come in contact with many singers and groups whom you do not sign, correct? For every one you sign to a contract there must be a hundred you don’t.”
Nicholas nodded.
“We also know what salary you draw here,” the greater agent continued. “And we know you have a small son who needs major dental work, that you’re in debt, that you’d very much like to move out of your apartment into a house, that Rachel is talking about leaving you if you don’t put Johnny in a special school, because of his stammering . . . am I correct? We’ve talked it over with our superiors in an effort to find a way to assist you, and we’ve come up with this: If you will provide the government with a copy of the lyrics of each artist whom you come in contact with who shows pro-Communist sympathies, we will pay you a flat hundred dollars per artist. It’s our estimate that you could enhance your salary by up to two thousand dollars a month this way, and you would not have to report it to the IRS; it would be tax-free. Of course, the determination as to which artists you report are pro-Communist and which are not belongs to us; but even if we accept only half of the ones you pass on to us, you should be able to—”
“And we guarantee,” the other FAP agent broke in, “that this will remain an arrangement known only to you and to us. No one else, either at Progressive or anywhere else, will find out. You’ll receive a code name under which you report, and everything, including payments, will be filed under that. The identity of the coded informant will be known only to the two of us sitting here and to you.”
“But if these artists aren’t signed,” Nicholas said, “what harm can they do?”
“They can change the slant of their lyrics,” the greater agent said, “so they’re not pro-Communist, and get signed up somewhere else.”
Nicholas said, “But if the lyrics aren’t subversive anymore, what does it matter? Why do you care about them then?”
The greater agent said, “Once they make it big they can again begin to sneak subversive poisons into their lyrics. And by that time it’s very difficult to eradicate them, once they’re known to the public, you see; once they’ve made it big. That’s potentially a very dangerous situation: someone who slips something controversial in with ordinary lyrics and then begins to further slant them later on. So you can see why we don’t merely go on who’s recorded and being played; we need to know the names of those who aren’t.”
“They in some ways are the most dangerous,” the other agent said.
That night Nicholas told me about this interview with the two government agents. He was angry by then, angry and shaking.
“You going to take them up on it?” I asked.
“Hell, no,” Nicholas said. But then he said, “You know, I can’t really believe the government is concerned with those loser artists. I think it’s my loyalty they’re interested in. Those two FAPers; it was a ploy to test me. They knew all about me; obviously there’s a file on me back in Washington.”
“There’s a file on all of us,” I said.
“If they know about Johnny’s overbite and what Rachel’s been saying to me, they undoubtedly know about my contacts with Valis. I’d better burn my notes.”
“What,” I said, “would a file on Valis look like? A file on a superior life form in another star system. . . . I wonder how it’d be cross-indexed. I wonder if it’d have a special marking.”
“They’ll get at Valis through me,” Nicholas said.
“Valis will protect you,” I said.
“Then you don’t think I should do it?”
“Hell, no,” I said. I was amazed at him.
“But they’ll think I’m disloyal if I say no. That’s what they’re after: proof of disloyalty. They’ll have it!”
“Fuck ’em,” I said. “Say no anyhow.”
“Then they’ll know. And I’ll be in Nebraska.”
I said, “They’ve got you, then. Either way.”
“That’s right,” Nicholas said. “Ever since the two FBI agents closed in on me back in the fifties. I knew it would catch up with me, my disloyal past. My Berkeley days—the reason I left the university.”
“You broke your gun.”
“I disabled my gun! I was a war protestor even then, one of the first. I knew Fremont’s minions would find me out; they only had to examine their files. The computers popped me up, the first antiwar activist in America. And now it’s cooperate with them or be arrested.”
“I was never arrested,” I said, “and I’ve done a lot more antiwar stuff than you. In fact, you haven’t done any since you left Berkeley. Since the FBI came by that day.”
“That proves nothing. I’m a sleeper. They probably think it’s Aramchek that contacts me in the
