Ambient Page 2

  "-idiot," concluded Mister Dryden. I could not help but notice how his neck darkened as he spoke; his anger was such that I felt that were he to have continued his screed the blood, rising, would have filled and burst his head asunder, spraying forth a foamy wave.

  "House charge or Amex, sir?"

  "House."

  "Fine. Clerk!" The store manager clapped his hands. Mister Dryden had accumulated an enormous stack of books; thirty dollars worth, I estimated. The clerk lifted them onto the counter.

  "Look out-" said the manager's assistant, too late. One book fell onto the floor; the clerk held onto the rest of the stack. The book that fell was a leathered edition of Last Exit to Brooklyn. A gift, I suspected, though for whom I wasn't sure; his son, whose birthday was two days off, wasn't much for linear print.

  "Durak.!" the store manager shouted; the assistant slapped the clerk several times, as if attempting to wake him.

  "Let's exam," said Mister Dryden, seemingly calm once again-it was terribly hard to easily discern his fury, until it alit. I handed him the book; he peered at it closely, as if deciphering subtle code. He vizzed out the window for a moment, raising eye to unjust Heaven and Godness therein. He glared at the store manager; pushed the book into the manager's chest, a heartblow.

  "Scratched," said Mister Dryden. I hoped he wouldn't take this too far but suspected he would.

  The store manager eyed the book a moment, at last pretending that he had glimpsed an appropriate flaw. "Let me see whether we might have another. "

  "Fool," said Mister Dryden, rapping another book over the manager's head; the book split and bent. "Thank me."

  "Thank you."

  Mister Dryden hit him with the book again. This wasn't a professional's behavior, I thought, and-admittance-suddenly felt embarrassed to be connected with him at all; felt disgusted for having to feel such a way about him. But amateurs of any sort draw my ire deep, and he behaved no better just then than any amateur.

  "Disirregardless," he said, "If this is how I'm serviced I'll spurn. " He almost sounded as if he meant it.

  "Please, sir-"

  "I've decisioned."

  "At least," said the store manager, holding his head as if quietly trying to rub the pain away, "I should let you deal with the one responsible as you see."

  Mister Dryden appeared so startled as I was; this was twisting anew. When scenes such as this usually unwound, the store managers beat the clerks themselves before firing them. There was but one thing to be done if this ploy was enforced.

  "AO," said Mister Dryden, staring at the clerk.

  "I'll be in the car," said Avalon, turning away. I wished to take her and run, forever avoiding the unavoidable.

  "Wait," said Mister Dryden, scratching at his arms; she stopped. "Safety first. Don't alone streetways." He looked at me, and nodded.

  "For what reason?" I heard myself asking.

  "He disturbed, O'Malley," he said, sounding calm again. "Victimize."

  "No sense doing what hasn't point," I said; he would have agreed, once. "Let's-"

  "O'Malley. "

  He knew and I knew that it was this or the gutter, awash in the millions, adrift with the chanceless, alone in the crowd.

  "I don't feel that this is part of my job."

  "He disturbed. Revenge me."

  Freedom rings but no one answers; it was difficult to remain ever optimistic. I sighed, turning, dreamlike, toward the clerk. A job's a job, and I do my job; the work ethic, after all, made America what it is and I always found my pride in honest work. My father told me anyone could make it to the top; he was easily led, and so often seduced by other's wiles, and for the loveliest lies the deepest fondness grows. I feared, that day, that I was so close to the top as I would get, if I did not find another way, some way, somehow; a kid allowed to dust the candy in the big window.

  "O'Malley. "

  Look your form in mirrors and run mad, Ambients say, and I knew of what was told. As he sank, I sank, and I knew I could sink no more. That morn I felt my mind shift, and at once made ready to seek other-but there was no other, nor did it seem possible that there ever would be. Take the given or lose the all; that was the way. There I stood, sans ears, sans love, sans soul; part owner, part Ambient, each together less than each apart.

  "O'Malley!"

  I pondered which of my suit's accessories would be most appro: the batog, the chuks, the chain, or the trunch. I estimated that my batog-two sharp sticks lashed together with heavy wirewould do. Never howitzer a housefly. Once more, I paused; my limit neared. Mister Dryden spoke.

  "Don't see, muchacho," he said, quivering as if being charged. "Do."

  I did.

  2

  "Blue Moon of Kentucky" played while Avalon sipped Glenlivet through a straw from a liter. She drank heavily on conference days in hopes of being unable to recall them from month to month.

  "He bleed enough for you?" she asked, pulling off her cap, unlacing her suit.

  She wasn't speaking to me. Mister Dryden said nothing, nor did he watch her as she shed. He picked up the phone and called the bookstore, asking that his books be delivered to his office within the hour. The books were reshelved, he was told. He said he saw no reason why his wishes wouldn't be fulfilled as demanded, and hung up; he hung up on everyone except his father. Taking beauties from his compartment and bennies from his drawer, he washed them down with absinthe. A few snots and sniffs from the kane and he sat sufficed. Not until a year agoafter his mother died-had Mister Dryden much to do with the reckers so successfully imported into the country by his organization. Now he was always on the fly. Drug's shrouds swathed him so closely that it was as if, having been hurt and seeking protection, he chose to wrap himself so tightly in bandages that he might suffocate long before he healed.

  We drove to his office, at Rockefeller Center, in the Dryco building. Army troops passed us, marching down Fifth in hap hazard formation, the smirkers on their helmets bobbing as they huffed along.

  "Yellowjackets," Jimmy sneered, nodding at their sunflower flakjacks. "Think they sting like fire."

  Avalon donned her conference outfit, hooking up her armor, a heavy steel corselet daubed with orange trim. Daggers rose from each breastplate like exomissiles. She slid on her spiked leather bracelets, her kneepads, her elbowpads, her thick wool leggies, and her leather G-string. Finally she pulled on her tight leather mitts and her roller skates.

  "You're pillowing?" asked Mister Dryden, frowning.

  "Yeah," she said, oiling the wheels with a can of 3-in-1.

  We parked out front, in the small street by the plaza, in front of the building. I brushed soot from my eyes as we stepped from the car; my hands were filthy from being in the air. Sirens whined in the distance. Several jets passed east, overhead, toward Long Island.

  "We'll afternoon it down, Jimmy," said Mister Dryden.

  "Right," said Jimmy, standing at ease beside the car. He wore a dark blue Navy bridge coat that must have weighed thirty pounds; too warm for the weather, I thought, but he wore it always. For aesthetics he'd sewn skull-and-crossbones patches on the shoulders, and a patch of the Lion of Judah on the back. His hair, knotted into thick ropes, tumbled past his neck. He wore razor knucks strapped to his left hand. Standing next to him was unsettling. I'm big, but Jimmy was magnificent; I came up to his chin. It was good to know that in theory Jimmy worked with us and not against-still, you could be certain only of yourself. Every worm can turn and strike, and it always seemed to me that Jimmy was only waiting for the moment he could keen to strike deep.

  At the building's entrance, Mister Dryden shouted to a gentleman arriving, an unfamiliar face; someone's replacement. He had a compact bodyguard; they wore gray suits. This signified that he was but a boozhie midman and so could be easily replaced as the day demanded. Only owners and their immediate lessers wore corporate blue; it wasn't forbidden that others should, but to do so would be considered unmannerly at best.

  "Tom,'' said Mister Dryden.
"Well-going, son?"

  "Fine, sir."

  Tom looked to be thirty years older than Mister Dryden.

  " Conference-ready?"

  "Yes, sir."

  We entered the lobby, Avalon rolling on ahead, zazzing around the planters and the display cases containing Dryco-made products: electronic gear, sports equipment, art supplies, cassettes, phone systems, Army weapons, farm tools, fiberoptic line, auto parts, laserlights, robots, and plastic statues of E. Dryco-di- rectly or indirectly, it didn't matter-controlled about 40 percent of American production and could if desired lay claim to another 30 percent.

  A silk banner hung from the ceiling in the lobby, wafting gently in the AC. On it was printed the Dryconian ethic:

  WORRY NOT, WONDER NOT.

  We newstanded a moment. The proprietor, an old man Iegbent and wobbly with rickets, leafed through El Newsweek. I picked up the two dailies-the New York Times and USA People-and dropped the two cents in his hand. In a guarded nook was Mister Dryden's elevator. "Open," he said, pressing his hand against the printcode monitor; the door opened. We entered and began rising to the sixty-fifth floor. Most elevators had Vidiac piped in, but not Mister Dryden's; we had nothing to watch but each other.

  "Basic morning meets, OM," said Mister Dryden, slipping his stance, weaving slightly, as if the increasing altitude affected his sense of balance. "You can skip. Three contractings and one intrapersonal. No shakes."

  "No problem," I said. Most important business meetings I attended with Mister Dryden, so that I might lend counsel and prevent assassination. I knew so much about the workings of the organization in most areas as he did-most, but not all. One area remained an enigma and I suspected, then, that it always would. I suspected as well that so long as it did, I would go no further than I already had; it was something the family kept tight, and underwrapped, like the crazy uncle locked in the attic roomthough whatever it was, was considerably more useful than that.

  "Who're you seeing?" Avalon asked, making noises with her straw and giggling, her bottle tucked in the crook of her arm. The more she drank, the stronger her accent grew. She was born in Washington Heights. Her parents were English, by way of Barbados-perhaps vice versa. Her given name was Judy-Judy something; she never said what. Proxies tend to lose touch with their families during their time spent as lalas. Avalon hadn't seen hers since she was eleven; she once sent them a Christmas card.

  "Pards," said Mister Dryden, chewing his lip, tapping the walls with his fingers as if attempting to send messages to the spirit world. "La Rue from StanBrand, Jameson from XBP, Timmer- man from Gorky-Detroit. They're reporting me preprogram. "

  "Sounds thrilling. Who's the fourth?"

  "Lope. "

  "He's a nice old man," she said. "The old ones always spend more sugar than the young ones."

  "Is he still working with Intel?" I asked; Lope hadn't been by in months-working on arms deals in Siberia, I believed.

  "He's working his old boys with this one. He stands to Mar- ielize Atlantic City."

  "Why?"

  "We won't."

  The system was simple and, unlike most systems, often worked. Mister Dryden steered the business; the computers and midmen ran it; his father owned it. His father owned many things. Dryco piefingered every major country, stuck both hands deep into America. Mister Dryden's father-the Old Man, we pegged himwas the most successful of those who had bested the Ebb.

  "How long's it going to take?" asked Avalon. "I'm freezin' my ass."

  "Hourish. I'm gauging that Lope '11 conference today."

  "I didn't think he liked violence," I said.

  Mister Dryden laughed, pressing the up button several more times. "Ask Dad," he said.

  In the halcyon days, in those shimmery years lostbegone, the Old Man and his wife-Susie D-controlled the most profitable recreational drug circulation network between the Americas. With trusted assistants such as Lope and with friendly competitorsthose they hadn't had to buy, as it were-they directed other promising enterprises on an equally productive scale: carting and disposal, active/passive pleasure provision, domestic security and international antiterror assistance, and general import-export. Even then the family was rich, though of comprehensible wealth.

  "Note me, OM," said Mister Dryden. "Call a maintenant."

  For years the Drydens stood firm, reinvesting their profits and growing evermore secure. Their influence was strong, before; afterward, it was complete. The administration of that day, having beguiled the nation so willfully with enthralling lies, suffered a succession of unexpected horrors, long developing and at last erupting. The panic was on; no one understood what was happening well enough to concoct a believable deceit in time, and so for a while it all came down. The Old Man and Susie D knew when to move and when to lay still, and as all began to tumble they caught, reaped, secured, and ran. Their plan worked well-for them, and for their friends. It was as if the country had been in a theater when the cry of fire rang; when all broke for the exit, they discovered that the Drydens had locked the doors behind them, and now charged all an escape fee.

  "Maintenant?" I asked, "Why?"

  "Speed increase," he muttered, pressing the button again.

  "You're flyin' now," mumbled Avalon.

  After the Long Island accident and the birth of Ambients; after the revelation of the Q documents and the loss of spirit thereof; after the economic emergency, the resulting currency devaluation, and what was called, by some, the unavoidable regrouping of structures, came the twelve months known by Ambients, and now by most, as the Goblin Year. All made up the Ebullition (another Ambient coinage that slipped into general use-though we just called it the Ebb). I was twelve, that year, unknowing of the inventiveness of my future employers; uncertain, as was everyone, of what future there might remain. My mother had been killed earlier, during a pro-life riot. My father, once a realtor, once well-off, managed to hold only one property, the building on Avenue C in which Enid and I lived, and had lived, since that time. Dad was gone in a matter of weeks; Enid raised me, having raised herself.

  "I was elevatorspeaking," he said.

  "Oh," she nodded. "Of course."

  "I'll see what can be done," I said, knowing nothing could be done; there was nothing wrong with the elevator.

  "Good man," said Mister Dryden.

  Since then, all had adjusted-some more so than others. It was quite simple. The government served those who supervised the sailing of the yacht of state; the government controlled the business that controlled the government. Complex in theory, it was infallible in practice. I gather that new owners weren't much different from old ones; oldboss, newboss, as Enid put it. Live and let live was the word; so went the thought, so went the act. With useful exceptions matters ran themselves; that this did not always work to everyone's benefit aroused among the government apparatchiks no concern, brought no interpretation, produced no apology, stirred no regret. Those in control worked their legerdemain when and as they wished. It was nature's way.

  "Here now," said Mister Dryden as the elevator slowed.

  American society, thus, had three arenas in which all could cavort: that of owners and their servants; that of boozhies, the old bourgeois; that of what the government pegged the Superfluous. The last, like owners, paid no taxes; unlike owners, they were felt to deserve no shielding from the vicissitudes of life. Unless they entered the Army (by draft or, in the case of women, by choice) the Superfluous were underemployed. Some were useful to industry; the elderly were useful in research. All did business on the unders; many got along. There was no excuse for being poor in America; it was much easier to be dead.

  "Ola, Renaldo," said Mister Dryden.

  But no cynic, I; there was never a country like America in which to live.

  Mister Dryden's waiting room was impressive: paneled in woodtone, shielded from the public hall by three-inch glass; that hall's door openable only from the reception desk. A neon smirker hung behind the desk. Renaldo was the receptionist.
He was once a member of La Societa Mariel, formed originally to provide its members with jobs; people helping their own, as the government always insisted. As with Jimmy, the lure of Dryco proved inescapable. Madre was tattooed in his lower lip; her image marred the backs of his hands. He shaved his head; he affected a bushy mustache and wore small hoop earrings. The metal plate in his skull reflected the overhead light; his head at some angles resembled an expensive kitchenware item.

  "Renaldo," said Mister Dryden, "Punch up 37H, 26B, 29C, 2T. Expect them. Don't enter others. "

  "Toderecho," said Renaldo.

  Cameras focused the doors leading from the public hall. On his monitors, Mister Dryden could see who entered, could signal by silent alarm. Renaldo kept an ax by his desk, ready for unsolicited arrivals.

  Avalon and I sat on the couch nearest the elevator. I shifted as I sat so that my weight wouldn't ache my hip joint. We looked over our papers: I had USA People and she read the Times. The first three of Mister Dryden's visitors arrived and disappeared behind the office door. I studied my paper. NATION'S CRIME RATE PLUNGING WEEKLY, the headline read; in smaller type, Slower Progress Seen in Major Cities. The twenty-first anniversary of the start of the Russian-American War was to be celebrated this year in the capitals of both countries, from July 4 to November 7. Enormous profits for both sides had been realized during the previous quarter. Additional advisers were to be sent this year into Pakistan, Nigeria, and Costa Rica by both sides, to assist those countries' armies. Poland was again up for grabs; a settlement was made in Indonesia, good for three years. The blessing of the Russian-American War-indirectly, of the Pax Atomica itself-was that the two countries never needed to battle directly; that would have been neither emotionally productive nor financially wise.

  There was other news. Britain was in good form; under the guidance of King Charles-presently occupying himself buying horses in Kentucky-and the National Front, unemployment was down to 80 percent. In Germany, President Streicher set forth new policies promising shifts in direction concerning resident Turks. Swedish destroyers shelled Oslo; another argument over fishing rights. Lucy, the last rhinoceros, died of old age in the Cincinnati Zoo. Why they called it USA People, I'll never know; there were rarely any in it.