Dr. Bloodmoney (6 page)

Hoppy had seen
something
. And it was a dreadful something; there was no doubt of that.

What else does he see? Stuart wondered. I wish I could make the little bastard say. What else has that warped, wicked mind perceived about me and about the rest of us, all of us?

I wish, he thought, I could look, too. Because it seemed to Stuart very important, and he ceased looking at the TV screen. He forgot about Walter and Lydia Dangerfield and history in the making; he thought only about Hoppy and the incident at the café. He wished he could stop thinking about it but he could not.

He thought on and on.

The far-off popping noise made Mr. Austurias turn his head to see what was coming along the road. Standing on the hillside at the edge of the grove of live oaks, he shielded his eyes and saw on the road below the small phocomobile of Hoppy Harrington; in the center of his cart the phocomelus guided himself along, picking a way past the potholes. But the popping noise had not been made by the phocomobile, which ran from an electric battery.

A truck, Mr. Austurias realized. One of Orio Stroud’s converted old wood-burners; he saw it now, and it moved at great speed, bearing down on Hoppy’s phocomobile. The phocomelus did not seem to hear the big vehicle behind him.

The road belonged to Orio Stroud; he had purchased it from the county the year before, and it was up to him to maintain it and also to allow traffic to move along it other than his own trucks, He was not permitted to charge a toll. And yet, despite the agreement, the pod-burning truck clearly meant to sweep the phocomobile from its path; it headed straight without slowing.

God, Mr. Austurias thought. He involuntarily raised his hand, as if warding off the truck. Now it was almost upon the cart, and still Hoppy paid no heed.

“Hoppy!” Mr. Austurias yelled, and his voice echoed in the afternoon quiet of the woods, his voice and the poppopping of the truck’s engine.

The phocomelus glanced up, did not see him, continued on with the truck now so close that—Mr. Austurias shut his eyes. When he opened them again he saw the phocomobile off onto the shoulder of the road; the truck roared on, and Hoppy was safe: he had gotten out of the way at the last moment.

Grinning after the truck, Hoppy waved an extensor. It had not bothered him, not frightened him in the least, although he must have known that the truck intended to grind him flat. Hoppy turned, waved at Mr. Austurias, who he could not see but who he knew to be there.

His hands trembled, the hands of the grade school teacher; he bent, picked up his empty basket, stepped up the hillside toward the first old oak tree with its damp shadows beneath. Mr. Austurias was out picking mushrooms. He turned his back on the road and went up, into the gloom, knowing that Hoppy was safe, and so he could forget him and what he had just now seen; his attention returned swiftly to the image of great orange
Cantharellus cibarius
, the chanterelle mushrooms.

Yes, the color glowed, a circle in the midst of the black humus, the pulpy, spirited flower very low, almost buried in the rotting leaves. Mr. Austurias could taste it already; it was big and fresh, this chanterelle; the recent rains had called it out. Bending, he broke its stalk far down, so as to get all there was for his basket. One more and he had his evening meal. Crouching, he looked in every direction, not moving.

Another, less bright, perhaps older … he rose, started softly toward it, as if it might escape or he might somehow lose it. Nothing tasted as good as the chanterelle to him, not even the fine shaggy manes. He knew the locations of many stands of chanterelles here and there in West Marin County, on the oak-covered hillsides, in the woods. In all, he gathered eight varieties of forest and pasture mushrooms; he had been almost that many years learning where to expect them, and it was well worth it. Most people feared mushrooms, especially since the Emergency; they feared the new, mutant ones above all, because there the books could not help them.

For instance, Mr. Austurias thought, the one he now broke … wasn’t the color a little off? Turning it over he inspected the veins. Perhaps a pseudo-chanterelle, not seen before in this region, toxic or even fatal, a mutation. He sniffed it, catching the scent of mould.

Should I be afraid to eat this fellow? he asked himself. If the phocomelus can calmly face his danger, I should be able to face mine.

He put the chanterelle in his basket and walked on.

From below, from the road, he heard a strange sound, a grating, rough noise; pausing, he listened. The noise came again, and Mr. Austhrias strode quickly back the way he had come until he emerged from the oaks and once more stood above the road.

The phocomobile was still pulled off onto the shoulder; it had not gone on, and in it sat the armless, legless handyman, bent over. What was he doing? A convulsion jerked Hoppy about, lifting his head, and Mr. Austurias saw to his amazement that the phocomelus was crying.

Fear, Mr. Austurias realized. The phocomelus had been terrified by the truck but had not shown it, had by enormous effort hidden it until the truck was out of sight—until, the phocomelus had imagined, everyone was out of sight and he was alone, free to express his emotions.

If you’re that frightened, Mr. Austurias thought, then why did you wait so long to pull out of the truck’s way?

Below him, the phocomelus’ thin body shook, swayed back and forth; the bony, hawk-like features bulged with grief. I wonder what Doctor Stockstill, our local medical man, would make of this, Mr. Austurias thought. After all, he used to be a psychiatrist, before the Emergency. He always has all sorts of theories about Hoppy, about what makes him plunk along.

Touching the two mushrooms in his basket, Mr. Austurias thought, We’re very close, all the time, to death. But then was it so much better before? Cancer-producing insecticides, smog that poisoned whole cities, freeways and airline crashes … it hadn’t been so safe then; it hadn’t been any easy life. One had to hop aside, both then and now.

We must make the best of things, enjoy ourselves if possible, he said to himself. Again he thought of the savory frying pan of chanterelles, flavored with actual butter and garlic and ginger and his home-made beef broth … what a dinner it would be; who could he invite to share it with him? Someone he liked a lot, or someone important. If he could only find one more growing—I could invite George Keller, he thought. George, the school superintendent, my boss. Or even one of the school board members: even Orion Stroud, that big, round fat man, himself.

And then, too, he could invite George’s wife, Bonny Keller, the prettiest woman in West Marin; perhaps the prettiest woman in the county. There, he thought, is a person who has managed to survive in this present society of … both of the Kellers, in fact, had done well since E Day. If anything, they were better off than before.

Glancing up at the sun, Mr. Austurias computed the time. Possibly it was getting close to four o’clock; time for him to hurry back to town to listen to the satellite as it passed over. Must not miss that, he told himself as he began to walk. Not for a million silver dollars, as the expression used to go.
Of Human Bondage
—forty parts had been read already, and it was getting really interesting. Everyone was attending this particular reading; no doubt of it: the man in the satellite had picked a terrific one this time to read. I wonder if he knows? Mr. Austurias asked himself. No way for me to tell him; just listen, can’t reply from down here in West Marin. Too bad. It might mean a lot to him, to know.

Walt Dangerfield must be terribly lonely up there alone in the satellite, Mr. Austurias said to himself. Circling the Earth, day after day. Awful damn tragedy when his wife died; you can tell the difference—he’s never been the same again. If only we could pull him down … but then, if we did, we wouldn’t have him up there talking to us. No, Mr. Austurias concluded. It wouldn’t be a good idea to reach him, because that way he’d be, sure never to go back up; he must be half-crazy to get out of the thing by now, after all these years.

Gripping his basket of mushrooms, he hurried in the direction of Point Reyes Station, where the one radio could be found, their one contact with Walt Dangerfield in the satellite, and through him the outside world.

“The compulsive,” Doctor Stockstill said, “lives in a world in which everything is decaying. This is a great insight. Imagine it.”

“Then we must all be compulsives,” Bonny Keller said, “because that’s what’s going on around us … isn’t it?” She smiled at him, and he could not help returning it.

“You can laugh,” he said, “but there’s need for psychiatry, maybe more so even than before.”

“There’s no need for it at all,” Bonny contradicted flatly. “I’m not so sure there was any need for it even then, but at the time I certainly thought so. I was devoted to it, as you well know.”

At the front of the large room, tinkering with the radio, June Raub said, “Quiet please. We’re about to receive him.”

Our authority-figure speaks, Doctor Stockstill thought to himself, and we do what it tells us. And to think that before the Emergency she was nothing more than a typist at the local Bank of America.

Frowning, Bonny started to answer Mrs. Raub, and then she abruptly leaned close to Doctor Stockstill and said, “Let’s go outside; George is coming with Edie. Come on.” She took hold of his arm and propelled him past the chairs of seated people, toward the door. Doctor Stockstill found himself being led outdoors, onto the front porch.

“That June Raub,” Bonny said. “She’s so goddam bossy.” She peered up and down the road which led past the Foresters’ Hall. “I don’t see my husband and daughter; I don’t even see our good teacher. Austurias, of course, is out in the woods gathering poisonous toadstools to do us all in, and god knows what Hoppy is up to at the moment. Some peculiar puttering-about.” She pondered, standing there in the dim late-afternoon twilight, looking especially attractive to Doctor Stockstill; she wore a wool sweater and a long, heavy, hand-made skirt, and her hair was tied back in a fierce knot of red. What a fine woman, he said to himself. Too bad she’s spoken for. And then he thought, with a trace of involuntary maliciousness, spoken for a number of times over.

“Here comes my dear husband,” Bonny said. “He’s managed to break himself off from his school business. And here’s Edie.”

Along the road walked the tall, slender figure of the grammar school principal; beside him, holding his hand, came the diminutive edition of Bonny, the little red-haired child with the bright, intelligent, oddly dark eyes. They approached, and George smiled in greeting.

“Has it started?” he called.

“Not yet,” Bonny said.

The child, Edie, said, “That’s good because Bill hates to miss it. He gets very upset.”

“Who’s ‘Bill’?” Doctor Stockstill asked her.

“My brother,” Edie said calmly, with the total poise of a seven-year-old.

I didn’t realize that the Kellers had two children, Stockstill thought to himself, puzzled. And anyhow he did not see another child; he saw only Edie. “Where is Bill?” he asked her.

“With me,” Edie said. “Like he always is. Don’t you know Bill?”

Bonny said, “Imaginary playmate.” She sighed wearily.

“No he is not imaginary,” her daughter said.

“Okay,” Bonny said irritably. “He’s real. Meet Bill,” she said to Doctor Stockstill. “My daughter’s brother.”

After a pause, her face set with concentration, Edie said, “Bill is glad to meet you at last, Doctor Stockstill. He says hello.”

Stockstill laughed. “Tell him I’m glad to meet him, too.”

“Here comes Austurias,” George Keller said, pointing.

“With his dinner,” Bonny said in a grouchy voice. “Why doesn’t he teach us to find them? Isn’t he our teacher? What’s a teacher for? I must say, George, sometimes I wonder about a man who—”

“If he taught us,” Stockstill said, “we’d eat all the mushrooms up.” He knew her question was merely rhetorical anyhow; although they did not like it, they all respected Mr. Austurias’ retention of secret lore—it was his right to keep his mycological wisdom to himself. Each of them had some sort of equivalent fund to draw from. Otherwise, he reflected, they would not now be alive: they would have joined the great majority, the silent dead beneath their feet, the millions who could either be considered the lucky ones or the unlucky ones, depending on one’s point of view. Sometimes it seemed to him that pessimism was called for, and on those days he thought of the dead as lucky. But for him pessimism was a passing mood; he certainly did not feel it now, as he stood in the shadows with Bonny Keller, only a foot or so from her, near enough to reach out easily and touch her … but that would not do. She would pop him one on the nose, he realized. A good hard blow—and then George would hear, too, as if being hit by Bonny was not enough.

Aloud, he chuckled. Bonny eyed him with suspicion.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was just wool-gathering.”

Mr. Austurias came striding up to them, his face flushed with exertion. “Let’s get inside,” he puffed. “So we don’t miss Dangerfield’s reading.”

“You know how it comes out,” Stockstill said. “You know Mildred comes back and reenters his life again and makes him miserable; you know the book as well as I do—we all do.” He was amused by the teacher’s concern.

“I’m not going to listen tonight,” Bonny said. “I can’t stand to be shushed by June Raub.”