Easy and Hard Ways Out (17 page)

Kinsella licked his lips. “You really should eat. I'd also like your shower shoes, by the way.”

Buchfarer, who'd taken two sips of his coffee, nodded vacantly. “You still have the clap?” he said. “I wouldn't want her to get the clap.”

The A.I. room was twelve feet by twenty with ten metal folding chairs, a small platform in front, and a large, yellowing map that unrolled from a blue cylinder hung near the ceiling.

“It's a truck depot right adjacent to the Uong Bi railroad yards, about ten miles north of Haiphong,” Colonel Gilbert had told them, his thin, rubber-tipped pointer poking listlessly at the map. “The trucks carry missile parts and other ordnance that eventually gets down Uncle Ho's trail.”

Buchfarer, Kinsella, Chaplin, and Reed sat in the chairs and listened. I haven't had a hard-on in over a month, thought Buchfarer. I don't crap, and I don't get hard-ons anymore.

“Intelligence figures they've got about twenty trucks there now. After tonight they'll have none.”

Colonel Gilbert spoke slowly, and between his sentences Buchfarer allowed his mind to race with thoughts of Michelle, his wife. He pictured her in the living room of their apartment in Seattle, pictured her in a white summer dress, her black hair tied back with a pink ribbon. What if he could never get a hard-on again?

“The depot will be called ‘Point India.' You'll get to Point India at zero three oh two, and two minutes later you'll commence your runs to the northeast.”

Captain Jaffe stepped up to tell them about anti-aircraft fire. As he'd done so often in the past months, Buchfarer mentally lifted his wife's dress, ran his hands up her soft thighs, over her panties. He made her give a little gasping sound, smelled the perfume on her neck.

“We know of at least two
SAM-D
installations in the area,” said Jaffe. “Plus, we've had reports that they've added a wrinkle that gives them an additional element of ground radar control. Still, it should be nothing your
ECM
black box can't handle.”

Buchfarer, elated, felt the firm stiffening of an erection, and maintained it right through the briefing by Captain Narakian, the aerology officer.

“Basically the weather's excellent until just before the target. You've got some high scattered cirrus at approximately ten thousand feet, and that's about it.”

Buchfarer half believed in mental telepathy and had often told Michelle that he would try to contact her, and that she should write down any messages she thought she received, along with the date and time.
I
'
m in the A.I. room and I have a boner
, he transmitted.

“At about twenty miles south of Point India, however, we have the edge of a fast-moving storm center, and you'll find your ceiling there suddenly dropping quite low, possibly down to five hundred feet.”

Buchfarer saw Kinsella lean back languorously, hands behind head. He loved this stuff, ate it up. Chaplin and Reed watched unemotionally, took copious notes on their knee boards. Wills, the ordnance officer, began telling them what they'd be carrying. Buchfarer felt himself short of breath.

“—twenty Zunis with armor-piercing heads, four Bullpups, nine standard thousand-pounders, twelve five-hundred-pound incendiaries …”

When it was over, Buchfarer said to Kinsella, “I hope you were listening. I was asleep.”

“I was thinking of pussy,” said Kinsella.

There was a half hour left, and they gathered in the squadron ready room. “We'll come up on tactical primary,” said Chaplin, “which is two forty-one point four megacycles. Tactical secondary will be two forty-three point nine. Buchfarer, you look sick.”

“I feel fine, sir.”

“Buchfarer, is your mind on this mission?”

“Yes, of course it is.”

His mind
was
on this mission. He didn't want to go. His reluctance had nothing to do with morality, or fatigue, or even fear in any immediate sense. It was just a growing feeling for the last few weeks that nothing was being done, that the missions were games, somebody else's abstract exercises. Buchfarer had long ago come to terms with dying, but never as an abstract exercise.

“And don't forget to set your tail fuses on instantaneous,” said Chaplin.

Buchfarer wondered what would happen if he just told the truth; if he said, “Listen, fellas, I'm kind of re-evaluating my attitude toward things right now, and I wonder if I might just sit this hand out with no prejudice toward my future conduct.” They would hospitalize him.

Del Vecchio, the maintenance officer, handed Buchfarer the yellow sheet on his plane. Buchfarer scanned the list of defects and their repairs. Exhaust-gas temperature gauge malfunction, replaced, checked O.K. Overheat warning detector not working. Replaced. Radar transmitter power two decibels below spec. Amplifier cable replaced. Buchfarer did not like this plane; most of the pilots didn't. It was a new one, and there were still bugs in it, and the rumor was that several had gone down without even being hit by enemy fire. In theory, the plane was a superior craft, but in practice the only one who enjoyed flying in it was Kinsella.

“Shapiro got the syph again,” said Kinsella as they laced up their G-suits.

“I thought he was taking precautions,” said Buchfarer.

“He was. He's been using two rubbers, one on top of the other.”

Buchfarer checked his oxygen mask, made sure the arrows were pointing down, so he wouldn't suffocate. “So what happened?”

“He got syph of the mouth,” said Kinsella, grinning.

Buchfarer smiled as he stuffed into his survival vest three tin-foiled plums his wife had sent him. Along with pencil flares, two radios with built-in beacons, flashlight, shark repellent, matrex signal light, canister of yellow dye, salt tablets, uppers, downers, and wire saw, the vest also contained prophylactics. Buchfarer pictured himself desperately fleeing a band of VC through dense jungle, stopping only for a quick sex act with a passing starlet, life-saving rubber protection snatched just in the nick of time from his specially equipped vest.

Stay Alert, Stay Alive
, read Buchfarer from the sign on the door as they left the building and walked toward the hangars.

A PERSONAL APPEAL

a. Something Big in Plant Five

“Attention, all personnel,” came the voice over the P.A. system. “In exactly fifteen minutes, Dr. Auerbach will address the entire staff on a matter of great importance in the main auditorium in Plant Five. All personnel are requested to proceed to the auditorium in an orderly fashion. Thank you.”

“Does all personnel include us?” asked Plotsky in Drafting.

“Where the hell is Plant Five?” asked Brank. “I thought this was the only building.”

“It's a long story,” explained Wizer. “Ah think it was Van Lamm's idea originally. It was supposed to make other companies think this was a big place. They called the first floor ‘Plant Five' and the second floor ‘Plant Six.' Then they could tell people, ‘Send it to Plant Number Six of Auerbach Laboratories.' Of course, there aren't any plants one through four.”

“You'll see,” said Security Chief Brine to his secretary. “Half of them won't even lock their ‘Secret' safes when they leave the labs. You'll see.”

“I won't see,” said the girl. “I'll be in the auditorium.”

“I wonder what's up,” said Odz, in the machine shop, to the fellow on the next lathe, Kliphaus, a mustachioed, older man who seemed to know things.

“Must be something big,” said Kliphaus, who didn't know.

“Kliphaus says it's something big,” repeated Odz to the man at the bandsaw, Melman, who was impressed.

They filed slowly into the auditorium, a room calculated to have insufficient seating capacity so that it would always appear packed to visitors. The people from each department clustered together clannishly; they even looked different, as if they were cell groups, differentiated in some mysterious way by the corporate body to perform the functions of corporate organs. Gradually they filled the room; bland accountants with rimless spectacles and chapped lips; salesmen with loud ties and big bellies; wise-aleck draftsmen dangling cigarettes from their mouths; preoccupied engineers who tripped over objects in their paths; smirking technicians; tense, harried men from Production Control; hawk-eyed men from the stock room; miniskirted secretaries from Records who flirted with foremen from Mechanical Inspection; set-jawed lawyers from Legal; gray-aproned machinists with grease on their fingers; men on the verge of cancer from Sprays and Paint; men on the take from Purchasing; men with velvet voices from Customer Service; clerks who were expert at making coffee; men with yellowed fingers from Etching; stocky men with hernias from Shipping and Receiving; men who Expedited; men who Coordinated; men who performed Liaison; men with no clear function, who needed additional secretaries; sallow, blank-faced men and stupefied women who sat in endless rows under icy fluorescents and spent year after year twisting wires, stamping serial numbers, snapping together bits of plastic.

“We'll sit in back,” said LoParino to Brank.

They walked to the last row. Sussman-Smollen seated himself one row ahead of them; Plotsky sat by Brank's side.

“I had another dream,” said Sussman-Smollen over his shoulder.

In front, near the small platform, Rocco checked the microphone cable as Rupp, Lingenfelter, Fish, and Marchese took seats in the first row. Redberry, twitching slightly, head cocked at thirty degrees, climbed the four steps to the stage, walked to the mike, and cleared his throat intimidatingly, thereby stopping all conversations.

b. “You, You, and You”

Plotsky chuckled nervously while he stared at Carol, the switchboard operator, and gave himself hickies on the arm. He began to breathe heavily as the lights in the auditorium darkened and Redberry cleared his throat a second time on stage. “I … I … I could suck the sweat from her feet,” whispered Plotsky.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Redberry, briefly forcing his mouth into a fluttering smile. “Earlier today Dr. Auerbach taped a message of great importance to us all. Although circumstances prevent him from appearing here in person, he's asked me to be sure that every member of the Labs has the opportunity to view the message. Thus, if you will kindly direct your attention to the screen behind me, I'd like to present our president, Dr. Auerbach.”

There was a smattering of applause. LoParino made a mooing sound. Redberry walked briskly from the stage as the image of a serene, distinguished-looking, partially balding man seated behind a plain but huge wooden desk filled the screen. A densely packed bookcase was visible behind him. He wore rimless spectacles, and as the camera came closer, his eyes seemed to project a deep, luminous, inward-directed quality.

“So that's
A
,” said Dubrowolski, seated next to Wizer.

“It's not
A
,” said Wizer.

“Please listen closely,” said the image on the screen, “because what I'm about to say will affect everyone. And that means”—the image extended its arm and pointed a finger—“you”—the finger went to the left—“you”—to the center—“as well as you”—to the right.

“Does that include us?” said Plotsky, his lap covered now by a copy of the
Daily News
.

“A
sucks!” yelled an anonymous voice that belonged to LoParino.

“We are in a critical period now at the Labs,” said the image.

“I'm not in any critical period,” said Brank.

“I dreamt,” whispered Sussman-Smollen over his shoulder, “that—”

“In two weeks the Air Force is going to perform the final developmental inspection on the F24BZ.”

“—I went to the dentist and that—”

“Based partially on the results of this inspection, a decision on funding the prototypes and eventually the production units will be predicated.”

“What do you mean it's not
A?”

“—he sat me in the chair and sprayed something in my mouth and then left me alone with—”

“The present financial status of the Labs, however, what with our extremely heavy, although essential, in-house R and D funding, mandates that we reduce costs immediately or else suffer a catastrophic blow to the corporate body.”

“I'd like to suffer a blow to my corporate body,” said Plotsky, the
Daily News
beginning to shake.

“Ralph, cut it out,” said Brank.

“—a striped cat and a red-haired nurse who never—”

“Now one solution that I've considered is a company-wide layoff, something that's very painful and demoralizing to us all.”

A collective moan went up from the audience.

“The moan signifies demoralization,” said LoParino

“You think,” said Plotsky, “the President of the U.S. can get any girl he wants?”

“I've rejected that solution in favor of an immediate, temporary, across-the-board fifteen percent salary reduction. Management personnel, as an example, will take a twenty percent reduction.”

“Shit,” said an anonymous voice that was Rupp's.

“—turned around but I could see blue underwear through her uniform with the word ‘Never' written across—”

“Just what Ah said, it's not
A
.”

“Two people are talking to me at the same time,” said Brank. “Three if you count the screen.”

“Now in order to somewhat alleviate the personal financial difficulty I know this will engender, I've additionally ordered, also effective immediately, plant-wide overtime.”

“—her ass. I try to talk to her but all she does is hum ‘Rock-a-Bye Baby,' until finally—”

“You can't count the screen, that's not a person.”

“It's an actor. Redberry pays him after the speech. Ah know how
A
looks from the old days. That's not him. This gah does aspirin ads on TV, don't you recognize him? Sometimes he plays dentists.”