The Essential Ellison Part 49

"You know that guy, works two down on your right?"

Hale asked. He was looking at Knox closely; very closely. Knox sensed his answer had to contain just the right tone.

"Quint?"

"Quintana, you mean."

Hale had snapped the response in so quickly, Knox did not have a chance to say yeah, I know him, I've talked to him a few times, seems a nice enough guy. Now, he did not say it, though Hale was clearly waiting for him to say something.

"Changed his name?"

Hale nodded, with meaning.

"Oh," Knox said, softly. He looked around as if trying to orient himself.

"Have you, uh, ever heard him say anything...?" Hale let the sentence trail off, but its directional indicator was blinking.

"Anything...what...?"

"Well, anything...peculiar. Troublesome, you know what I mean?"

Quite suddenly, Knox knew precisely what Hale meant. "I don't talk to him much. I keep to myself a lot."

Hale pursued it. "But you have talked to him? You have heard him say things, is that it?"

Knox's mind was racing. "Nothing very much, just..."

"Just what?"

"Just about the line's speed, that's all."

"When was that?"

"Oh, h.e.l.l, Mr. Hale, I don't remem-"

"Could that have been a month ago, when we had that pile-up and the line had to be stopped for an hour?"

"Well, I don't know, exactly, it could have been."

"Be sure, Knox. We don't want you indicting a man on a guess." He was watching Knox like a shrike.

Indicting. The word burned in Knox's mind. But if Hale was asking these questions-and Hale was a ward lieutenant in the Party-there must be a good reason. Knox let his thoughts roll back quickly. Quint.

Correction: Quintana. Man doesn't change his name unless he has something to hide. "Quintana." That was a foreign name if ever he'd heard one. Probably a chili-belly. And, yes, Quint...ana had been saying all that about how fast the line moved, and how it didn't seem to serve any real purpose, fitting the block/bases together just to take them apart and put them together again...and that had been the same week of the pile-up, Knox was now sure of it. And the more thought he gave it, the clearer it became to him that Quintana was not what he seemed to be. Those little eyes, that way he moved his hands when he slipped the blocks into the holes.

"I'm sure."

"Knox," said Hale, and he was smiling tightly now, "you aren't just another average Party hanger-on. You've got s.p.u.n.k. Come see me over at the ward office one evening."

And he walked away.

Knox returned to his formfit, buckled in, and took up the beat. But he kept half a watch on Quintana, down there on the right.

And when the conveyor belt began to jerk and stutter, Knox looked immediately: at Quintana: at the overflow of blocks piling up in front of him: at the base with the defective holes into which Quintana was trying to hand-hammer a green block. So it was true. Quintana was a disrupter.

Someone yelled, "Get him!"

Knox was unbuckled and out of his formfit in a moment. Perhaps because he had been already alerted by his talk with Hale. Others were stumbling out of their a.s.sembly line trance, beginning to mill around looking for who the "get him" might be. But Knox knew!

He found a loading dock truck behind his station--it hadn't been there earlier-but it was there now-someone must have left it, contrary to regulations-and he wrenched loose the long iron rod that served as control handle for the truck. It was only three steps, three long steps, and he was standing over Quintana, who was desperately trying to clear away the pile-up.

Knox swung from the hips. The rod caught Quintana across the shoulders and he was jacked forward over the line. He half-twisted, throwing up his hands to protect his head, as Knox came around on the back swing.

The rod smashed across Quintana's throat, and his head skewed around till Knox heard cartilage snap. Then the others were there, dragging Quintana from his form/it.

They beat him, the ones in the back forcing away the ones in the front so everyone could have a chance, but in the end, it was Knox himself, Knox with the iron rod, who stood spraddle-legged over the disrupter, that greaser, and arched back till his stomach muscles were drumhead tight, the rod gripped perfectly with both hands, right thumb tucked inside left palm, and brought it straight back up and over and down, and crushed Quintana's skull with an impact sound like a dead fish hitting a plastic countertop.

Then Knox flipped the rod into a comer, stood over the dead beaner and looked around with a tight expression. "He won't f.u.c.k us up again. Let's get back to work."

As he buckled in, he looked across the manufactory, and Mr. Hale was staring at him. He smiled, proud.

Mr. Hale winked and gave him a "V."

Charlie Knox. Is a man. Who.

Is lying in bed dreaming.

He is dreaming about men in black garments coming for him. Hold that. They aren't men. Yes, they are. No.

Charlie Knox cannot tell if they are men or not.

He thinks (in the dream) that they are men, but they don't walk like men. There is some small alien movement--the way a lizard scurries, stops, scurries is alien; the way a chicken bobs, catches up, bobs is alien-the way their limbs are hinged. But they are men. No. They must be men.

No. Definitely.

"Charlie!"Silence."Charlie, wake up, you're crying, Charlie!""I'm not, I'm okay, what, what's that...uh?""You were crying in your sleep.""It was the coffee.""Who is Quintana, Charlie?""n.o.body. A guy. n.o.body.""Charlie, something awful is happening to you.""Shut up, Brenda. Let me sleep."Silence."Oh G.o.d."

"Come, Charlie. Lie over here.""Hold me.""Don't cry."Silence.

They stood outside the little kike's store, waiting till the woman had looked at all the rotisseries and decided against any of them. They waited until she left, then Knox and Ernie Buscher went in.

"Mr. Kapp," Ernie said, "I've come for my sofa and easy chair suite. My friend and I got a truck outside."

Kapp was in his sixties. When he looked confused, his face became a cartographer's delight. "Suite, you say? What was the name, do you mind?"

"Buscher," said Ernie. Then he spelled it. "You said you'd have it ready today."

"Today? Sat.u.r.day? I got no deliveries on Sat.u.r.day. Are you sure it was a Sat.u.r.day, you're sure?"

"C'mon, Kapp," Ernie said, his voice getting deeper, "don't play jewdown with me. I paid you, you said today, now gimme my furniture." Ernie's eyes narrowed down, his jaw muscles tensed, he made a fist, let it relax, made it again. Ernie was unreliable, moved too fast.

The sheenie was nervous. "If you'll wait just a minute, I'll check my order book. When was it you said you bought this merchandise?"

"Don't give me any s.h.i.t, kike, get my stuff out here on the double before I kick your guts out!"

Kapp started to say something about the language being used, but Ernie needed no further provocation. He had enough for the investigation by the Party, right there on his recorder-tip. As Kapp raised his right had to wave a finger in Ernie's face, Ernie grabbed the hand and broke it. It was too fast for Knox, but it was on, so he went with it.

"Try to slug my friend, you kike sonofab.i.t.c.h," he said, very loud and very clear so the tip would pick it up, "how about this!" He whipped the link-chain belt off his waist with a smooth movement and brought it down across Kapp's thin shoulders with a crack. The sharpened links ripped cloth and broke skin. Kapp screamed, and Ernie fell back to let Knox work.

Knox felt a sudden, blossoming joy in his mission, and using a chain was too impersonal, too removed. He went at the little mockie with his fists.

Ernie Buscher threw a table through the front window, into the street. Knox held Kapp with his left hand around the sheenie's throat, the drumming heels an inch off the floor, the trembling body against the wall. Steadily and smoothly, as though gauging the rebound of the big bag down in the gym, Knox jacked one punch after another into Kapp's face; right cheekbone, nose, left cheekbone, nose, jaw, nose- and it broke-left cheek, right cheek, nose, nose, nose. The sound of the table shattering the front window, and its impact in the street, brought the others on the run.

They poured the kerosene over the breakfronts and dinette sets and ottomans and recliners. They tossed chairs into a pile in the center of the store, and yelled for Watson to bring the jellybomb.

"C'mon, Knox!" Ernie yelled. Knox put two final blows into Kapp's ruined face, then slung the little kike over his shoulder and carried him to the mound of shattered furniture in the center of the store. He flipped him over, and Kapp fell across the edge of a broken table. His spine cracked with a sound like borax furniture.

Then Knox followed the others outside, Watson handed him the jellybomb, because it was Knox's mission, and Knox pulled the tab, and slung the pill underhand, through the broken window.

They stood on the opposite side of the street, and when the first rush of heat came at them, they turned away to avoid getting their eyeb.a.l.l.s singed. It was like a sirocco, then a whump of pressure and bits of what was inside the store, including Kapp, came slicing out through the broken front window. Flames slashed after the shrapnel, and erupted into the street. Then the entire building went up.

"d.a.m.n!" Knox said. A piece of gla.s.s had cut him across the back of his left hand. "d.a.m.n!"

Charlie Knox is a man who.

Refuses to ask the necessary questions.And even if he could, he wouldn't. But he can't. That's been made sure of. He can't. Doesn't even know. They exist.

Those questions. And other things.

Training is very important for Charlie Knox. For Knox, training is important. To stay fit. To stay tough. Because.

That means.

Survival. And survival sometimes means getting a little cruel. Weakness kills.

And then the persons in black garments come and.

No.

There are no such things. Those are dreams. Those are delusions. Those are guilt. Those are fantasies. Those don't happen. Those persons in black garments, when the sky opens and they come in.

No.

Think about it. No.

"Why are you looking at me like that?""Like what?""You know like what!""It's your imagination.""You keep doing that to me now, all the time.""I'm not doing anything, shut up.""You never talked to me like that.""I always talk the same.""You don't. You're different. You've changed, you're changing.""Shut up.""You're like an animal now, Charlie. You scare me.""Maybe that's what you need. To be scared. Maybe that'd shape you up."

"What are you talking about!?!"

"Don't yell at me, I'll clip you one."

"Charlie, honey, what're you doing? You scare me."

"Stop crying...I'm sorry. Honest to G.o.d, I'm sorry. It's just, oh, you know. There's another purge coming on at the ward."

"But what's that got to do with me?"

Silence.

"Charlie?"

"Nothing. Stop crying."

"Do you love me?"

Ted Beckwith was Knox's best friend. They joined the Party together, their wives exchanged secrets regularly, their kids went on camping trips out near the perimeter. Beckwith hated this life of endless and senseless a.s.sembly line drudgery, mindless holovision game shows, patch-on-the-sleeve heroism and provincial hatred. Ted Beckwith was a member of the underground. Beckwith tried not to let it show: that he despised everything Knox had become. He thought, at one time, that Knox might come in with him and the others. That he would take a walk out near the perimeter, and he would reveal all of it to Knox.

"There has to be more to life than this," he thought he would say, on that day. "There has to be more than the rallies and the fitness sessions and the prayer meetings for the President's health. There has to be. The world has to be wider than what we have here, Charlie." That was what he would say to Knox, on that day. But Knox had begun to change. It had started long before the night Knox killed his poor black n.o.body. It had been long before that. But on the night of the raid, the change had begun to accelerate. And then that business with Quint. Poor devil: he hadn't been involved with anyone. Just too inept to keep up his beat on the line. But Knox was forming anew, even then. And it had gone on.

Now Ted Beckwith knew Knox was one of them, one of the heroes with a patch on his sleeve. Now he could never tell him. Ted Beckwith had to go on being Knox's best friend, and he despised him.

Ted Beckwith did not think Knox knew about his secret involvement with the underground.

Beckwith was wrong.

Ted Beckwith came home. Knox watched from cover. As he walked up the front steps of his little house, Beckwith saw a terrible thing, a thing he could not believe. He had a dog, a beautiful dog, a golden retriever. As he walked up the steps of his house, he stopped and stared, because he could not believe what he saw. Tears came into his eyes and filled them; he slumped down on the top step, crying without being able to stop. Someone had held his beautiful dog by the throat, up against the wooden wall of the house, and had driven a long, thick nail through the throat and into the wood. The nail had been driven in, hammered in, all the way to the head. The nail head gleamed brightly through the fur, reflecting in the porch light. Knox could see it all the way across the street. The dog's four paws had been nailed to the wall. The dog had voided itself as it died, and the wall was smeared.

Beckwith sat there, refusing to look at the terrible thing nailed to his front porch wall.

After a long time, he got up and went inside. The house was dark. Knox saw the living room light go on; through the front window he saw Beckwith staring at the living room wall, at a thing more terrible than the dead animal outside.

Nailed to the wall, the same way his dog had been nailed, Beckwith saw, all in a row, his wife's best dress, his daughter's playsuit, and his son's T -shirt and jeans. All nailed to the wall at eye-level. The implications of the message were clear. Knox had intended it to be clear; Beckwith understood.

His family was having dinner down the street at Knox's house. He was supposed to join them as soon as he had cleaned up after work. He knew who was responsible for this.

Knox was responsible for it.

The Party would simply have killed him. But Knox must have said, let me take care of it, Ted Beckwith is my best friend, I will deactivate him.

Knox has said, with nails : Stop what you are doing. Stop right now. This minute. Or I will do what the Party wants me to do. I am giving you this humane and merciful break because I am your best friend. Now wash up and come to my house for dinner.

Turn off the porch light.

Knox was in on the raid at the high school. He was a squad leader, with three patches and a service commendation. He took the leader of the rebellion, a sixteen year old girl, to the bell tower of the high school, and raped her three times, and then threw her off.

Knox was made a Party Lieutenant and gathered the proof of revisionism that removed Hale from the ward. Knox took the contract on him. He also delivered the eulogy at the grinder ceremony.

Knox headed up the a.s.sault team on the Western Quadrant. He wore leather protective garments, moved through a cloud of infiltration gas, used a scattergun exclusively, and joyed in moving meticulously from sector to sector, street to street, house to house, room to room, slaughtering anything that moved or crawled or whimpered or pleaded or twitched. His promotion to Captain and ward selectman followed soon after.