Woodkin introduced the new arrivals as Ralph Plumridge, Assistant Public Utility Liaison at the Los Angeles Traffic Commission, and Wright Marsh, Vice Chairman of the Executive Council at the California Institute of Technology. Loeser’s heart sank. In Berlin he’d always gone out of his way not to socialise with people with real careers. They were impossible to talk to.
‘We just happened to arrive at the same time, you understand,’ said Plumridge to no one in particular. ‘We’re not a couple of queers!’ In fact, the two bureaucrats’ mutual aversion was obvious from the absurd way they had positioned themselves not quite side by side but instead angled slightly outward, like two secret agents confining each other to peripheral vision.
‘Hey, Marsh, I heard one of your biologists got his tenure revoked last week.’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Yeah, he did. The other fellows at the department said he was faking his fieldwork. He submitted a paper describing something that none of them had ever heard of in their lives.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was like a man, he said, but with these two big lumps on its chest, and no dick! Ha ha ha!’ Plumridge slapped his thigh.
When Wilbur Gorge came in, he looked just like all his portraits, although they hadn’t been able to capture his bisontine bulk. Before acknowledging anyone else, he circled the room, greeting all nine patrilineal ancestors by name, then apparently checking the symmetry of his moustache in the final portrait of himself as if it were a mirror. At last he joined his three-dimensional companions. ‘Marsh,’ he cried. ‘Plumridge. Rackenham.’ Then he glared at Loeser.
‘Colonel, this is the fellow I was telling you about on the telephone,’ said Rackenham. ‘Herr Loeser from Berlin. He’s an old friend of mine.’
Gorge shook Loeser’s right hand in a way that made Loeser glad he wrote with his left, and then said, ‘All wrong, your clocks.’ Loeser looked down at his tie and smiled dutifully at the joke. But Gorge’s expression was oddly serious. ‘Hours out. Can’t stand a bitched clock. Wind ’em for you if you like. Don’t know why you’ve got so many. Just need one, most cases.’ Loeser hesitated, and Gorge reached out and started to scratch at his tie. ‘Can’t seem to find the knob,’ said Gorge. ‘Bolted on, are they? Glued?’ His eyebrows were so bushy they looked almost tumorous.
‘That is merely the pattern of Mr Loeser’s necktie, sir,’ said Woodkin, handing him a glass of ginger ale.
‘Necktie! Right. Beg your pardon. Marsh! Wife?’
‘Her sister called just before we left. Some minor emergency. Sends her apologies.’
‘I didn’t know you were married, Marsh,’ said Plumridge.
‘Yes. Last month.’ Marsh took a photo out of his wallet and passed it around.
‘Congratulations, pal, she’s just your level,’ said Plumridge.
‘Hello, Mrs Marsh,’ said Gorge politely. But then when Marsh made to put the photo back in his wallet, Gorge grabbed his wrist. ‘God’s sake, man, don’t stuff her back in there! No air. Sure to suffocate. Don’t you care a snap about your wife?’
‘It’s only a photograph, sir,’ said Woodkin.
‘Photograph! Right. Pardon me.’
‘Will the Gorge ladies be joining us?’ said Plumridge to Gorge.
‘No. Upstairs with her skull. Off at Radcliffe. Stag tonight.’ After a moment’s analysis, Loeser took Gorge to be referring respectively to his wife, his daughter, and the occasion. Gorge turned to Woodkin. ‘Tell Watatsumi nix the tuna. No need for damsel food.’ Woodkin nodded and went out. ‘Nazi, Loeser?’ said Gorge.
‘Pardon me?’ said Loeser.
‘Nazi?’ repeated Gorge, as if he were offering Loeser some sort of hors d’oeuvre.
‘No, Loeser is not political,’ interceded Rackenham. ‘He is very happy, I’m sure, to have escaped all the unpleasantness going on in Berlin.’
Loeser thought of Brecht and nodded.
‘When Professor Einstein last came to the Institute, he told me he thought it might be a very long time before he could go home,’ said Marsh.
‘What’s he like?’ said Rackenham.
‘Fascinating. You know, last year, a woman donated ten thousand dollars to the Robinson Laboratory in exchange for meeting him. Worth every cent, I should say.’
‘Talk much, him and Bailey?’ said Gorge.
‘They did, yes. Which is unusual. Professor Bailey is normally quite secretive about his work.’
‘Why would a CalTech physicist need to be secretive?’ said Plumridge. ‘He’s juggling atoms, not patenting a toaster.’
‘I believe he’s just reluctant to disseminate even the first hints about his researches until he’s quite sure they will develop into something worthwhile.’
‘Field?’ said Gorge.
Marsh hesitated. ‘Physics.’
‘Know that! Branch?’ Marsh didn’t answer. ‘Theoretical or applied?’ said Gorge. Marsh still didn’t answer. ‘Don’t know or won’t tell us?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Marsh at last.
‘You mean to say you don’t have even the faintest idea what your top scientist is working on?’ sneered Plumridge. ‘Except that it’s “physics”? Doesn’t he talk to anyone about it?’
‘He does have one research assistant,’ said Marsh. ‘But he chose someone from outside the faculty — a non-specialist, in fact — so as to cut down on departmental gossip. All I know is that he’s in touch with some top men at the State Department. Quite a lot of our physicists are, to tell the truth. Although I shouldn’t say any more than that.’
‘Weapons,’ said Gorge.
‘Perhaps,’ said Marsh. ‘As you know, Dr Millikan is normally very much against federal involvement in the sciences, but he believes an exception should be made for defence research.’
‘Made an investment, why I ask. Take an interest.’
‘Of course.’
‘The Colonel just gave CalTech a lot of money,’ explained Rackenham to Loeser.
‘Million dollars for the Gorge Auditorium,’ said Gorge. ‘Put on some plays. Can’t stay in labs all the time, the students. Ran an opera house in Paris, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Ran a dirty puppet show in New Orleans, my great-great-great-great-grandfather. Family tradition. Not my own game but damned proud of it.’
‘When it’s finished, the Gorge Auditorium will be one of the finest buildings on campus,’ said Marsh.
‘Oh, what an achievement,’ said Plumridge.
Woodkin came back into the drawing room. ‘Watatsumi tells me dinner is about to be served, sir.’
‘Mess hall!’ said Gorge, and the five of them followed him to the dining room, in which a crystal chandelier hung galactically over a long table. They all sat down except Woodkin, who stood behind his employer like a valet. Two maids brought in five silver serving dishes, inside each of which was a cheeseburger and a china bowl of frenched potatoes.
Loeser saw that Rackenham, who was seated next to him, had taken out a fountain pen and was sketching some sort of spotty cucumiform entity on his napkin. He then gave the napkin to Loeser and whispered, ‘Say to Gorge you don’t like pickles so does he want yours.’
‘Why?’
‘Just say it. You don’t like pickles so does he want yours. He’ll like it. I promise. You don’t understand American table manners yet.’
Loeser cleared his throat. He didn’t want to do this but he was only here because of Rackenham so he wasn’t sure he could refuse. ‘Colonel Gorge, I’m afraid I don’t happen to care for pickles, perhaps you’d like to —’
But Gorge had already snatched the napkin out of his hand. ‘More for me!’ he cried cheerfully, and stuffed it into his mouth. Then as Loeser watched in horror the tycoon began to chew.
Woodkin stepped forward. ‘That is not a pickle, sir, that is only a drawing of a pickle in black ink on a
