A Flash of Green

Seventeen

The table-top model of Palmland Isles was brought into the bank as soon as the doors were closed to the public. It was set up about fifteen feet behind Kat Hubble’s desk. A railing was installed around it, just far enough to keep the public from touching the exhibit.

A placard on a nearby easel was inscribed, Palmland Isles — A Planned Community — Styled for the Best of Tropical Living.

Martin Cable and Burt Lesser looked it over after it was set up. After they left, the bank employees gathered around it.

Kat stood beside two girls from the installment loan section.

“All the work in that thing!” one of them said.

“It’s absolutely gorgeous!” the other one said. “Chee, would I ever love to live there! What a place for kids, huh? What I’d like is that cute gray house there on that kinda point where the road curves around.”

“So tell Johnny you won’t settle for less.”

“Hah! Waterfront land? The only waterfront I’ll see is the kitchen sink. The closest I’ll get to that house is going by in a rowboat.”

“That bay belongs to both of you,” Kat said.

The two girls turned and stared blankly at her. “What do you mean, Mrs. Hubble?” the taller one said.

“You can use the bay now, Betty. Nobody can chase you off.”

“What would I use it for? Nobody swims there. It might as well be houses for all I care. Because I can’t afford it, it doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t have it that good.”

“Hey, I like the little red house best,” the other girl said. “On the wide canal there. A convertible in the front yard and a cruiser in the backyard. Wow!”

Kat went back to her desk. For the first time she had a hopeless feeling about their chances of defeating it. The model was the first tangible evidence that they were up against competence, imagination, money and a disheartening confidence.

She finished her routine typing a few minutes before three, and phoned Tom Jennings.

“They just set up a big model of that thing right here in the bank, Tom.”

“I saw it at the meeting this morning. It was a little like being hit in the head. I’ve been a little dazed ever since.”

“Somebody heard over the radio the hearing is two weeks from tomorrow. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Golly, that’s awful soon, isn’t it?”

“It’s being rammed through, Kat. The commissioners went along with it like lambs. All except Elmo Bliss. He gave me a chance to object, but they voted for that date. He was the only one who seemed to resent the very smooth job Lesser and company was doing on them.”

“He’s sort of an expert at the same thing.”

“Yes. I suppose. Anyway, it was the only help I got in any form, so I was grateful. I’ve been alerting the others about how little time we have. No pleasant chore. Doris Rowell was very savage about it. By the way, Kat, that model is out of scale. There won’t be that much of the bay left. I noticed that and called attention to it at the meeting. I hope the paper will make some mention of that. Both Mr. Borklund and Jimmy Wing were there. And a lot of pictures were taken. I’m going to go over the budget tonight with Harry and Wallace Lime and see what we can afford in the way of radio spots and newspaper ads. It won’t be much, I’m afraid.”

“I have to hang up, Tom. They want to close the switchboard.”

“I’ll phone you about the date of the next meeting, Kat. Don’t let that table-top promotion scare you.”

At home, after she changed, she walked to the Sinnats. The children, a half dozen of them, were on the beach with Esperanza, building sand forts and moats. Florence Riggs, the housekeeper, said, “Natalie drove them on over in the big car to catch that boat, Mrs. Hubble. She said she’d probably be back here about eight or nine o’clock if you want to see her.”

“It’s not important, Floss, thanks.”

“Mrs. Sinnat sure hated to go. It was like he had to drag her. I guess it was it all being so sudden. When that man makes up his mind, he moves fast.”

“I hope the children won’t be too much trouble now that she’s gone.”

“They’re no trouble at all! There’s always somebody with them. You can be sure of that.”

Well... you send them home about five-thirty, will you?”

“I certainly will.”

When she walked back she saw some young people on the beach near the pavilion. She thought others were playing tennis, but when she neared the courts she saw that it was Sammy and Wilma Deegan playing doubles against Angela McCall, Sammy’s sister and Carol Killian. Sally Ann Lesser sat in the shade of a beach umbrella, a thermos jug and a stack of paper cups on the bench beside her. She called Kat over.

“Sit and learn some new words,” she said in a stage whisper. “This is for blood.” She filled a paper cup and gave it to Kat. It was rum and fruit juice, icy cold, alarmingly strong.

Sammy and his sister were excellent players. Wilma tried to kill the ball whenever she could reach it. Carol had a model’s superb grace whenever she was standing still, which was most of the time. When she had to go after the ball, she moved in a curious, floundering, knock-kneed trot and swung at it stiff-armed, turning her face away from the ball as she patted it.

Wilma Deegan was a spare, brown, savage little woman with a withered face and a cap of tight gray curls. She was some ten years older than Sammy. She and Sammy and Sammy’s widowed sister, Angela, and Angela’s strange, shy, frail ten-year-old son all lived well on the royalties from the books and plays Wilma’s first husband had written.

“No tricks today,” Sally Ann said softly. “No parlor routines. But Sammy and Angela will make it come out just right. Victory by a narrow margin for Wilma.”

The players were sweaty. Tennis, Kat thought, like ballet, needs a little distance. Their tennis shoes slapped the asphalt. Their gasps of effort were audible. Carol Killian’s long smooth golden thighs, exposed by her very short shorts, looked splendid when she stood still. When she lurched into her strange half-gallop, the thighs rippled into an unpleasant looseness, her breasts and buttocks bounced, and she made a squeaking sound as she bit her lip and swung the racket.

“Goddammit, stop poaching!” Wilma snarled at Sammy.

“Add here,” Angela said, and crossed to the service court.

“What the hell did you do to Burt last night?” Sally Ann demanded. “He was very upset.”

“Jackie Halley gave him a bad time.”

“Burt said she was disgustingly drunk.”

“He’s wrong, Sally Ann. She was a little high. Mostly she was just angry about Dial Sinnat.”

“Why should she think Burt had anything to do with that?”

“I guess because he has a lot to do with Palmland Development.”

“So do a lot of people. Do you know how many miles of roads there’ll be in the Isles?”

“I have no idea.”

“It’ll be a very substantial contract for somebody. Burt told me last night that he can’t help it if people get so anxious to see it go through they... do unpleasant things to anybody opposing it. He wishes you’d get out of it, dear. He told me so.”

“I couldn’t let Tom down now, even if I wanted to.”

“But he’s such a dreary, solemn type. All those retired Army, they just can’t stop organizing things. And fighting against the fill is really terribly unrealistic this time. Everybody is in favor of it. You know, dear, I sold some very happy little securities so I could put money into this, and I wouldn’t have done that if there was the slightest chance of it falling through. I’m not a gambler. I’m much too stingy. Burt acts worried, but then he always does. Leroy and Martin are supremely confident. Burt was as fidgety as a bride this morning, getting ready to go down and talk to those dreary little commissioners. If you really want the truth of the matter, dear, Dial Sinnat probably spread some tale of persecution so he could ease out and save his face. He’s a shrewd man, you know, and why should he make himself look silly by thrashing around for a lost cause?”

“But I happen to know that somebody...”

“Oh, I wouldn’t deny that some idiot probably called him up and woofed at him. And that’s precisely the sort of thing Di would ignore, unless he was looking for an out. You’re too naive about these things, Kat, darling. It’s a precious quality and I adore it, but it really isn’t very realistic. Di will come back after it’s all died down, and by then you’ll forgive him, because by then it will be perfectly obvious that if he had stayed around, he couldn’t have changed the outcome in the slightest degree.”

“Sally Ann, sometimes you make me so darn mad I want to hit you!”

“People trying to live in a dream world always resent hard facts,” Sally Ann Lesser said patronizingly.

“Set point!” Wilma Deegan yelled. She served to Carol. Carol patted the ball back to her. Wilma drove it into the far corner, past Angela. It hit a good eight inches past the base line.

“Beautiful!” Angela called. Carol Killian looked dubiously at her partner.

“We whupped ’em, pal!” Wilma said to Sammy. She gave him a sweaty hug and they all came off the court, breathing hard, picking up towels, wiping their shining faces.

Angela, the permanent house guest, smiled at her sister-in-law and said, “Willy, you’re putting a lot of top spin on that ball. It comes over real heavy.” Angela was a graceful blonde with sturdy legs and ingratiating manners.

“But she wants to powder everything on our side of the net,” Sammy said, and laughed.

Wilma stopped smiling. “I want to what?”

Sammy stopped laughing. “I meant you got an aggressive spirit, Willy.”

“You’re the one wants to cover the whole damn court.”

“Just half of it, pet. Just half of it.”

“So let me see you cover all of it for a while, darling. You and your sweet sister get on out there and show us some fast singles.”

“Honey,” Sammy said patiently, “it’s almost too brutal a day for doubles. I’m dragging, and I’m sure Angie...”

“But I’d learn so much just watching you and your sister,” Wilma said in a grave tone.

Angela finished her drink, stood up and picked up her racket. “Come on, Sam,” she said and walked out onto the court.

Sammy Deegan hesitated, then followed her. Kat glanced at Sally Ann, and looked away quickly when she saw Sally Ann smirk and wink.

Carol Killian, with her customary lack of contact with the world around her, said, “Golly, I don’t see how they can want to play again so soon. I’m so positively pooped I feel faint almost. They must be in wonderful condition.”

“They’re natural athletes, dear,” Wilma said.

“I’ve never been good at games,” Carol said sadly.

“You’ve never had to be,” Sally Ann said.

Carol looked at her blankly. “Have Sammy and Angie had to be good at games?”

“It’s been a big help to them,” Sally Ann said.

“Get off my back,” Wilma said gently to Sally Ann. She turned and smiled at Kat. “I don’t see you for weeks on end. I hear there’s a big broohah about Grassy Bay. Just don’t propagandize me, dearie. I’ve had to shut Sally Ann up about it. It’s too hot in the summer to get agitated about anything.”

Kat stood up. “I wasn’t going to mention it, Willy. I just dropped off for a drink on my way home.”

Carol stood up quickly and collected her gear. “I’ll walk with you, Kat. I’m so hot and tired I could die. All I want is a bath and a nice nap.” She called goodbye to Sammy and Angela. They waved rackets at her. Kat and Carol walked down the road.

“I didn’t want to play tennis but everybody else wanted to. Mostly Wilma,” Carol said. “What I am mostly is thirsty, and there isn’t anything except that rum stuff Sally Ann makes. I had two cups of it, and honest, I’ve got such a buzz my mouth feels numb.”

Carol stopped to fix her shoe. Kat looked back. Sammy and Angela were agile figures in white, bounding and racing dutifully in the afternoon sun. Wilma and Sally Ann sat on the bench in the shade of the umbrella, two brown women with gray curls, looking like sisters, one stocky and the other scrawny, two monied women who had ordered their world to their own liking, and seemed to spend most of their time wondering if they really liked what they had wrought.

Carol straightened up and began walking. “I should do more things like that to get tightened up. I’d like to be like Angela. She’s hard as a rock. She’s got dumpy legs, but she’s in wonderful shape. Do you think if I swam more it would help?”

“Swimming is good exercise.”

“You’re real trim, Kat. But I guess you’re naturally slender, aren’t you? I mean you don’t have to work at it. I weigh just the same as I did when I was nineteen, and my measurements are almost the same, but if I don’t watch it every minute, my hips blow up like a balloon.”

“I gain and then I take it off.”

“Gee, Kat, I don’t know about my spending so much time with them. There always seems to be some kind of a fight going on that I don’t understand. But who else is there to be with this time of year? And Sammy is real odd, you know? I never know if he’s making a pass at me, the way he kids around.”

“I don’t think he is, really. I think it’s just his manner.”

Carol frowned. “I guess you’re right. I wouldn’t want him really making a pass at me. I mean, it would be awkward. I’ve got nothing against passes. It makes you sort of confident, you know? Even if a girl doesn’t want an affair, it’s nice to know men think about it. I couldn’t pull such a dirty trick on Ben anyhow. But I think a husband should know other men find a girl attractive, don’t you?”

“I guess so. Will you come in and have something for that thirst?”

“No thanks. I think I’ll go home. Uh... Sally Ann says Sammy is making passes at me. She says it’s obvious.”

“Sally Ann is a liar and a trouble-maker, Carol.”

“Well. I guess so. Will you come over and have dinner with us some night?”

“I’d like to, after all the bay fill thing is over. It might be awkward right now, considering the stand the paper is taking.”

“Oh, Ben doesn’t have anything to do with that! That’s all Mr. Borklund doing that.”

“But Ben owns the paper. Mr. Borklund works for him.”

“All Ben cares about is designing those darn boats and building them and selling them for a loss.”

“Then the paper should stay neutral like the last time.”

“Oh, Mr. Borklund explained how they can’t do that again. He had a list of the advertising they’d lose. It was a lot of money. And there was something about zoning, something that might happen to the boatyard unless the paper came out in favor of it. Ben was mad for a week. He kept telling me he didn’t want to be pushed around. Mr. Borklund was at the house almost every night, and he’d bring men with him and they’d argue. Finally Ben just said the heck with it. He won’t even talk about it any more.”

“What was that about zoning, Carol?”

“I don’t understand that stuff. It was something about taxes and nonconforming. They could do something to him he wouldn’t like.”

“I guess the invitation had better wait until this is settled.”

“Sure, Kat. If that would be better for you.”

It was a little after five when Kat entered her house. As she started to close the door she watched Carol Killian walking away in her little white shorts, her gray-and-white-striped sleeveless blouse, carrying her racket and towel and little zipper bag, hair shiny-black in the sun, slow golden legs scissoring, hips flexing. She was, Kat estimated, about thirty-four, a curiously teenage thirty-four, childless, placid, a simplified, undemanding woman. Ben had provided her with a handsome home, a full-time maid, a new sports car every year, charge accounts, shopping trips. It had been Van’s sardonic opinion that Ben Killian had acquired exactly what he wanted when he had married Carol twelve years ago. She was decorative, faithful, undemanding, unquestioning, healthy and as unabashedly sensual as any Micronesian maiden. She was always there when he wanted her, and she could be readily ignored when he did not.

Her days were without event. She slept late. When she got up she had the sober problems of what to do with her hair, how to fix her face, what selection of clothing to make from the yards of closet in her dressing room. There was music in the house, and daytime television to keep her amused. Too many drinks made her sick to her stomach. She loved oils and lotions and scents, naps and deep hot baths. She had her own bathroom, with a large sunken tub and many mirrors. She lived like a pretty cat on a cozy hearth. She had her own bedroom, all quilted and cozied and dainty, with a deep salmon rug, tinted mirrors and a draped canopy over the bed.

Ben Killian was a remote man, complex, a listener who made the more articulate ones uneasy through the uncommitted quality of his listening. People were always asking him, somewhat plaintively, if he agreed, and he could say yes in a way that made it sound like no. His grandfather had started the paper late in life. His father had driven the competing paper out of business and had died early, when Ben was still in college. Ben had spent every possible hour of his childhood afloat, and had planned to become a marine architect and designer. But the brother, Arnold, the one who relished the newspaper business, died in a war in an unpronounceable village in Burma, and Ben was elected by circumstance to publish the Palm City Record-Journal. He went through all the necessary motions until he finally found J. J. Borklund, and then he went through less of them. Gulfway Marine Designs took more and more of his time and energy.

He was, as Van had once noted, a man constructed of spare parts. He had the heroic torso of a beef-cake western hero, the long leathery durable arms and curled thickened hands of a dirt farmer, the domed head and large bland unfocused bespectacled face of professorship, a pair of thin, stringy, tough, bowed little legs. He was in constant demand to crew for the ocean racers because he could do twice the work of younger men with half the fuss and many times the knowledge of the sea and the winds. He could cut, shape, drill, fit and finish fine wood with the loving skill of a master boatwright.

His attitude toward Gulfway Marine Designs was one of utter dedication. His attitude toward Carol was avuncular, gentle and slightly amused. His attitude toward the paper was one of slight but evident embarrassment, as though it was an affliction, a congenital deformity which strangers might notice and find distasteful.

Kat walked thoughtfully through her house, sat on the edge of her bed for a little while, thinking of what Carol had told her, and then phoned Jimmy Wing at the paper. When they told her he was out, she tried his cottage. Just as she was about to hang up, he answered.

“This is Kat. Are you in the middle of something? You could call me back.”

“I was at the end of a shower. When I turned the water off, I heard the phone ringing.”

“Oh dear! I hate to do that to anybody.”

“No strain. I’ve been doing my public-relations job for Palmland Isles, and I’m going to take it in in a little while. Not much chance to stick any flies in the ointment, which I hope you and your buddies will understand when they see the by-line. I reported what Tom said about the model being out of scale, but that’s no guarantee it will get by Borklund. Actually, it’s a hell of a big local news story, Kat. The biggest we’ve had in some time. I can’t legitimately underplay it.”

“I understand that, Jimmy, and the others will too. What I called about, I was talking to Carol Killian, and she said something interesting, about why Ben is going to be in favor of the fill this time.”

“I can think of a lot of plausible reasons.”

“She said it was something about zoning, something to do with his boat works, about taxes and nonconforming. Would you know what she was talking about?”

“I think I do. He’s got a very nice chunk of land there, just south of the Hoyt Marina, about three hundred feet of bay front adjacent to the channel. When the county was zoned four years ago, I think the commercial zoning extends down from the causeway onto Sandy Key to include the Hoyt Marina. But it doesn’t include Gulfway Marine Designs. So that makes it nonconforming. Actually I think it’s in Residential B.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he can’t expand, and if it burned he couldn’t rebuild it, and if he sold it, he’d have to sell it as nonconforming. But he’s got all the buildings he wants there, and it isn’t likely to burn down, and he certainly doesn’t want to sell. Actually, it’s fine for him the way it is. It was probably one of those favors local government does for newspaper publishers. He pays taxes on a Residential B basis. He loses money on that operation anyway, so the lower taxes are a help.”

“How much help, Jimmy?”

“All I can do is guess. Three hundred feet. I’d say if they zoned him commercial it would cost him about eighteen hundred to two thousand a year more. His land goes all the way through to Bay Highway.”

“That isn’t enough to bother him, is it?”

“Not that alone. I wouldn’t think so. Probably Carol didn’t get the whole picture. He’s got a lot of little things scattered around, and he’s probably getting the best possible break on all of them. If they went into rezoning and reassessment on all of them, they probably could bruise him pretty good. And he couldn’t use the paper to fight back because all he would be doing would be disclosing the fact he had been getting some breaks.”

“Carol said he was complaining about being pushed around.”

“He probably was a little slow making up his mind, so they leaned on him. They’re not taking any chances, Kat.”

“But isn’t it something you can use, Jimmy?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can’t you sort of... track down what happened and let people know these Palmland people have blackmailed the paper?”

“Kat, are you comfortable? Can you listen to a lecture?”

“I’m stretched out across my bed,” she said, “but don’t you want to dry off?”

“I brought my towel along. Feet on my desk. Cigarettes handy. Now listen carefully, dear. You’re an intelligent woman. I went into journalism out of a sort of idealism. I fell in love with a glamorous gal called the newspaper game, and after I’d lived with her a few years I found out she’s a whore. She talks big sometimes, but she’s bone-lazy, cynical, greedy and perfectly satisfied with herself. Do I sound like a college sophomore?”

“Maybe... a little.”

“So let’s look at the facts. I think these figures are close. There are seventeen hundred and sixty-one daily newspapers in this country. Sixty-one of them are in cities with more than one newspaper. The other seventeen hundred are monopoly papers. The Record-Journal is a monopoly paper. Now here is the crazy thing about a monopoly paper. It is the only form of monopoly not subject to regulation. Regulation would be interference with the freedom of the press. The A.N.P.A. would never let that happen. So, in seventeen hundred cities of America, including this one, the publisher decides exactly what he will give the public. We present the cheapest, dullest possible coverage of national and international news, and all the bargain syndicate items. In contrast, our local news coverage is maybe a little better than average. But the publishers — Ben Killian included — look on news as a tiresome but necessary evil, and they resent the public for expecting it. It’s the only game in town, Kat, and its main, basic, primary, unchangeable purpose is to sell advertising and make money. Follow me?”

“Yes,” she said hesitantly.

“Actually this is a better paper than the average, because Ben Killian doesn’t have any particularly strong opinions. Our political stance is conservative Democrat on a local level, Republican on national issues, which precisely reflects the point of view of the advertisers. Suppose, as is true in many unhappy areas, Ben Killian was a confirmed John Bircher, a witch-hunter, an oppressor of every variety of liberal thought and viewpoint. Then, with no regulatory checkrein, no holds barred, he could make happen here what has been happening in, for example, Boulder, Colorado. He could have an outraged citizenship, indomitably ignorant, purging their community of everything which did not fit their standards of mediocrity. But Ben and Borklund have merely the simple touching desire to make the maximum amount of money with the minimum fuss. To do this, the paper must go along with the viewpoints of the advertisers. So, if Ben showed any sign of deviation, it is natural that the advertisers would arrange to move against him in the direct way of cutting their budgets for newspaper advertising as much as they dare. Because they can’t cut it completely and survive themselves, they move against him in other ways, through the pressure they can generate through their indirect control of the agencies of local government. Clear?”

“It sounds so... cut and dried.”

“It is. The only thing about that zoning thing which surprises me is that Ben hesitated so long they had to use it. And there’s nothing there I can use, certainly. I work for Ben Killian. I am an agent of his policy. What if I want to expose this whole mess? What do I do? Go on the air? He owns thirty percent of WKPC. And the men who own WEVT in the south county are certainly not interested in giving me a platform. I can’t use Ben’s paper to expose him. I couldn’t get it past Borklund. Can I quit and go someplace else and expose the whole conspiracy? The next town I go to would have another monopoly publisher, and a readership vastly uninterested in what happens in Palm County. Do I start my own paper here? I don’t have the million dollars required, and if I did have it and did get a paper going, neither paper would be profitable because the shopping area is too small. Do I still sound sophomoric?”

“No, Jimmy.”

“So it’s a little late for me to change professions, Kat. I have to go right on living with this lady I thought was so exciting. I’m an assistant advertising salesman. If I call myself a pimp, I sound too dramatically cynical, I guess. Put it this way. She isn’t what I thought she was, but I’m used to living with her now. I’m good at what I have to do. If somebody else did it, it wouldn’t be done as well, and the lady would be that much worse off. But don’t ask for crusades, Kat. No lance, no armor, no horse. We come out strongly in favor of motherhood once a year, in May. We’re in favor of peace, education, public health, the right to work, church-going, weak unions, lower taxes...”

“And filling Grassy Bay.”

“You have the picture.”

“If you’d tried to depress me, I don’t think you could have done a better job, darn it.”

“You won’t be really depressed until you see tomorrow’s paper.”

“I can hardly wait. The thing that gets me, Jimmy, there’s just no way to... to present the other side of this to the people.”

“Not when the other team controls the communications.”

“I hear the kids coming. Thanks for the lecture, Jimmy.”

“I should have given it to you a long time ago. But I guess I wanted your good opinion. I wanted you to think of me as the fearless journalist, fighting for truth and beauty.”

“I’ll retain that delusion anyhow, Jimmy, because... well, I know you would if you could.”

After Wing had finished talking with Kat, he had a cautious euphoria which he could not identify. He knew he should dress quickly and take his copy into town, but he did not want to disturb this feeling of well-being until he could be certain what caused it. He stretched out on his bed, naked, resting the icy ring of the beer can against his belly. At first he thought it was due entirely to Kat and to his awareness of her. She had said she was stretched out across her bed. He had visualized her in a manner he knew was inaccurate. He had made it night at her house, and put a weak lamp beyond her, and dressed her in a diaphanous hip-length nightgown, ribboned at her throat, her hair ruffled, her face softened by desire as she spoke to him...

Like in high school, he thought irritably. Sex visions. All the hot swarming preludes to masturbation. You’re supposed to be grown up, lover boy. You are supposed to have arrived at that male adult condition which has learned that strangers are never very good in bed together, and that the similarities shared by all women are of more moment than the differences between them.

No, it was not the familiar compulsion which had given him these moments of something which felt like a cousin to happiness. He felt as if he had been released, freed of some weight which had been pressing against him. He began to wonder, with increasing conviction, if it was merely the result of having expressed his own attitude toward his work. He realized he had never talked in precisely that way to anyone, about what he felt and believed. He had tried to tell Gloria, but she had thought, each time, he was just in a bad mood and needed cheering up. He had argued it with Brian Haas, but Brian’s disenchantment was so much more thorough than his own that he generally found himself defending a position he could not believe.

In stating his position to Katherine Hubble, he had felt as though he were striking a pose with her, presenting a faulty image of himself, but the pretense had been the reality he had been suppressing. And he had experienced the familiar phenomenon of self-illumination which comes through turning thoughts into words.

But as he tried to find the reasons for his sense of well-being, it had faded to where it was too faint to identify. His head was propped up on two pillows. He looked down along his body, still lean, but softened by the sedentary years, looked at the ruff of tan-blond hair on his chest, the slight bulge of pallid belly with the dimpled umbilical knot, at the nested peduncular sex, at the slight sheen of perspiration on the long flaccid legs. My unloved engine, he thought, idling along, working its gas-bag lungs, clenching its heart in resting rhythm, burning what it wants and making rubbish of the rest — while way up here, behind the wet lenses to see with, behind the fleshy bulge of the air intake, and behind that dual-purpose orifice which can make howling and grunting sounds and also grind matter small enough to go down the pipes, the gray jelly makes its pictures, its plans, its excuses and confusions, arrogantly ignoring its dependence on the engine which carries it about, ignoring all the dutiful, clever combustions and hydraulics, the thermostats and maintenance and repair procedures, the churning and pulsating and secreting which never stop until it all stops. Perhaps then, as the last bright picture fades, the final emotion sustained by the bone-cased jelly is indignation that the faithless engine has quit. Perhaps its last word is WAIT!

The phone rang. It was Harmon at the paper saying, “Borklund says to say he’s wondering about the Palmland stuff.”

“I’m just now tying it to the pigeon.”

“Huh?”

“Tell J.J. it’s Pulitzer material.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve done it as a long dialogue between an empty bay and a sexy bulldozer.”

“Chrissake, Wing, what he wants to know is when are you bringing it in here?”

“Tell him to look up. I’m probably standing in front of him right now.”

“Huh?”

Wing hung up, dressed quickly and headed for the mainland.