“Will you cooperate afterward? Regarding your books?”
“Yes,” I said, although I did not intend to; I was trying to buy time for Nicholas.
Vivian picked up a walkie-talkie, said into it, “Hold up on Nicholas Brady. He’s to be taken to a cell instead, for now.”
The walkie-talkie sputtered into response. “Sorry, Ms. Kaplan; he’s already dead. Wait—just a minute and I’ll check.” A pause. “Yes, he’s dead.”
“Okay,” Vivian said. “Thanks.” To me she said calmly, “Too late, Phil. It’s police policy not to delay in—”
I lunged at her, trying to hit her in the face. In my mind a fantasy wiped out reality; in my mind I hit her in the face, right in the mouth, I felt teeth break and fly into bits, I felt her nose and features collapse. But it was a dream, a wish and nothing more; immediately the FAPers were all over me, between me and her, hitting me. A gun butt slammed against my head, and the scene—and the dream—were gone.
29
I recovered consciousness, not in a hospital bed but in a jail cell.
Sitting up, I felt pain everywhere. My hair was matted with blood, I presently discovered. They had given me no medical attention, but I did not care. Nicholas was dead, and by now Rachel and Johnny, who had done nothing, had been rounded up. Progressive Records no longer existed; they had been ground into the dirt, abolished, before their record had even come into existence. So much for the great project, I said to myself. So much for the idea of a handful of people overthrowing a police tyranny.
Even, I thought, with the help of Valis.
My friend is dead, I said to myself. The friend I have had most of my life. There is now no Nicholas Brady to believe crazy things, to listen to, to enjoy.
And it would never be rectified. No force, no superior entity would arrive and make everything right. The tyranny will continue; Ferris Fremont will remain in office; nothing was achieved except for the death of innocent friends.
And I will never write a book again, I realized; they will all be—have been, in fact—written for me, by the authorities. And those who followed my writing and believed what I had to say will be listening to the voice of anonymous flunkies in Washington, D.C., offices, men wearing fashionable ties and modern expensive suits. Men saying they are me but who are not. Creatures rasping like snakes in imitation of my own style and getting away with it.
And I have no recourse, I said to myself. None.
Two cops entered the jail cell. They had been watching on closed-circuit TV; I saw the scanner mounted on the ceiling and realized that they had been waiting for me to regain consciousness.
“Come with us.”
I went with them, slowly, painfully, down a corridor, having trouble walking. They led me down hall after hall, until, ahead, I saw a double set of doors marked MORGUE.
“So you can see for yourself,” one said, pressing a bell.
A moment later I stood gazing down at the body of Nicholas Brady. There was no doubt that he was dead. They had shot him in the heart, making identification of his features easy.
“All right,” one of the cops said. “Back to your cell.”
“Why was I shown that?” I asked, on the way back.
Neither cop answered.
As I sat in the cell I realized that I knew why they had shown me Nicholas’s body. It told me that it was all true, what they had done to him, what they would do to me, what they were probably doing to the others. It was not fakery to frighten me; it was grim reality. This time the police were not lying.
But, I thought, maybe some of the Aramchek organization still remains. Just because they got Nicholas doesn’t mean they got them all.
The death of men, I thought, is a dreadful thing. The death of good men is worse still. The tragedy of the world. Especially when it is needless.
I half dozed for a while, aching and miserable, still in shock from the loss of my friend. Finally I was awakened from my trance state by Vivian Kaplan entering the cell. She carried a glass in her hand, which she held down to me.
“Bourbon,” she said. “Jim Beam. Straight.”
I drank it. What the hell, I thought. It was the real thing—it smelled and tasted like bourbon. It made me feel better at once.
Vivian seated herself on the cot facing me; she held a handful of papers and she looked pleased.
“You got everyone,” I said.
“We got the record company before they even had a tape. We got the material to be inserted, too.” Examining a typed sheet of paper she read, “ ‘Join the Party!’ No, it’s called ‘Come to the Party!’ They say ‘join the party’ later on. And here’s another: ‘A grand chick saved me, put back together my whole world.’ The background turns into ‘Aramchek saved the world.’ Isn’t that gross? I mean, really.”
“It would have worked,” I said.
Vivian said bitingly, “ ‘Is everybody president at the party?’ I wonder which of them made up this stuff. And they intended to flood the market with this garbage. Maybe it would have influenced people subconsciously. We use this technique too, but not as crudely.”
“And not for the same ends,” I said.
“You want to see the manuscript for your next book?”
“No,” I said.
Vivian said, “I’ll have it brought to you. It has to do with an invasion of Earth by alien beings who rape people’s minds. The Mind-Screwers it’s called.”
“Christ,” I said.
“Do you like the title? As they say, if you liked the title you’ll love the book. These hideous things come here from across space and work their way into people’s heads like worms. They’re really horrible. They come from a planet where it’s night all the time, but because they have no eyes they think it’s daylight all the time. They eat dirt. They really are worms.”
“What’s
