The well-known police tactic of whiplashing would be coming into play; they would soon be saying to me, “You better report on Nicholas Brady before he reports on you,” which meant, You had better get your friend before he gets you. We’d been put at each other’s throats; the only winner would be Ferris F. Fremont. The police have been using the same tricks since the time of the Medes, and people are still falling for them. As soon as Nicholas reported on anyone, especially for money, he would be vulnerable to police blackmail forever. The police had laid a noose out before him, and Nicholas was obligingly placing his head in it. He was doing most of the work. Where was the man who had damaged his gun rather than submit to taking military training involuntarily as a price for his college degree? Gone down the drain of prosperity, evidently; now Nicholas had a cushy job and great prospects, not to mention power over other people. That was what had done it. Idealism had given way to more realistic motivations: safety and authority and the protection of a family. Time had worked a dismal magic on my friend; he no longer strode along the pavement chanting old marching songs from the Spanish Civil War; in fact, if some young artist were to come to him with such lyrics, Nicholas would be in a position to pick up an easy hundred dollars.
“Here is what I will do,” I told Nicholas, “if you spy for the government. First, I will phone the brass at Progressive and tell them. Second, I will park my car out front of your main entrance, and when I see young artists going up the walk with their guitars and high hopes and absolute trust in you, I will stop them and tell them you are a paid—”
“Shit,” Nicholas said.
“I mean it,” I said.
“Well, I guess I can’t do it.” He looked relieved.
“That’s right,” I said. “You can’t do it.”
“They’ll destroy me. It’s just like when the FBI men came by originally; it’s me they’re after. Do you know the possible consequences if they harm Valis?”
“Valis can take care of himself,” I said.
“But I can’t,” Nicholas said.
“In that case you’re no different from the rest of us,” I said. “Because neither can I.”
That appeared to be the end of the conversation. The moral of it, I could have pointed out to Nicholas, is that if you are contemplating informing on people you should tell no one. Telling me had been a mistake, since I had immediately been flooded by visions of his informing on me.
11
That night I myself received a phone call from a cop, one whom I knew.
“A lot of people have access to your house, don’t they?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.
“I have a tip I’m passing on to you. Someone is hiding dope in your house and the local FAP knows about it. If we’re sent over to look for it and we find it we’ll have to arrest you.”
“Even though you know someone else is hiding it?”
“That’s right,” the cop said. “That’s the law. Better find it and flush it before we’re called to go over there.”
I spent the rest of the night looking for it. In all I found five stashes of drugs in five separate places, one even inside the phone itself. I destroyed all of it, but for all I knew I missed some. There was no way I could be sure. And whoever it was could plant more.
The following day two FAPers came by to visit me. These were young: a slender youth in a white shirt, slacks, and tie, and with him a girl in a long skirt. They could have been Mormon missionaries, but both wore the FAP armband. It was the really young FAPers who were the worst, so I was not very happy to see these two people. The FAPer youth were the zealous spearheads.
“May we sit down?” the boy said brightly.
“Sure,” I said, not moving. My friend the cop had warned me just in time.
The girl, seated on my couch with her hands folded, said, “We have mutual friends. Nicholas Brady.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yes,” the boy said. “We’re friends of his. He’s talked about you a great deal—you’re a writer, aren’t you?”
“Yep,” I said.
“We’re not interrupting your writing, are we?” the boy said. They were the epitome of grooming and politeness.
“Nope,” I said.
“You’ve certainly written some important novels,” the girl said. “Ubik, Man in the Castle—”
“The Man in the High Castle,” I corrected her. Obviously they’d never read my work.
“You and Mr. Brady together,” the girl said, “have certainly contributed a great deal to our popular culture, you with your stories and he selecting which artists are to be recorded. Is this why you’re both living down in this area, the entertainment capital of the world?”
“Orange County?” I said.
“The Southland.”
“Well, it makes it easy to meet people,” I said vaguely.
“You and Mr. Brady have been friends for years, haven’t you?” the boy said. “You lived together in Berkeley, as roommates.”
“Yep,” I said.
“And then he moved down here, and after a few years so did you.”
“Yeah, well, we’re good friends.”
“Would you be willing to sign a notarized statement, under oath, as to his and his wife’s political loyalty?”
Taken by surprise, I said, “What?”
“Or would you not be willing to?”
“Sure I would,” I said.
“We would like you to draft such a statement during the next few days,” the girl said. “We’ll help in the preparation of the final draft
