Mission: Earth The Enemy Within Page 8

  "You found some artists, didn't you?" said Jet.

  "Yes. But they have a nonconventional style. They're antiestablishment, which should win friends. But they're total nonconformists. They barely squeaked through art school at Empire: their professors hated them. They tried to take up residence in Soho, the new New York art colony, and they were ostracized and ordered out.

  "They won't prostitute their art by working for advertising companies, so they are starving and have no place to go."

  "Prostitute their art," said Heller. "Hmm. Well, what's this art style that's so bad?"

  "It's called 'neorealism.' When they paint a sailboat, it looks like a sailboat. It's pretty revolutionary! And very daring, very much into the teeth of all modern trends. Their people look like people!"

  They were into Heller's office now. It looked like half an acre of white shag. Heller went over and opened an air vent. The view of lower Manhattan was brilliant in the September sun.

  "Sure smells of paint," said Heller. He turned. And there, all lined up against the entrance-door wall, were dozens of canvases.

  Heller looked at them. He went nearer. "But they're gorgeous!"

  Actually, they were not up to Voltarian standards. But they were a lot better than most art seen on the planet.

  Izzy said, "Well, technically they are quite good. But they went astray after studying pictures by Rembrandt and Vermeer and Michelangelo. They went totally out of step with the art world. One even refused to run a tricycle over paint tubes and call it a picture in spite of a handsome commission. And the others stood up for him. It's sort of a pathetic case. They're hunted now and scorned."

  Heller picked up a large canvas. It was a flesh-colored girl with a red shawl about her shoulders, balancing an orange pottery jug on her head. If I'd been in a better mood, I would have called it very arousing. He picked up another. It was a painting of a beautiful girl on a sofa, naked, holding a cat up in the air with her two hands. By some trick, even on my two-dimensional screen, it looked a bit three-dimensional. He took another: it was a girl in profile biting a rose off a live-looking rose bush—just her face, her teeth and the rose.

  "Where are these guys?" said Heller.

  "There're eight of them. They're down in my anteroom having kittens! But Mr. Jet, I must point out. This art is not in the mode! That cat looks like a cat! Those girls look like girls! I don't..."

  "I agree we should think this over," said Heller.

  "Oh, thank heavens."

  Heller sat down at his desk. "You got the school things all arranged."

  "Oh, yes," said Izzy, offendedly. "You are answering all roll calls. Your quizzes are being handed in. All your lab work is being done. And we don't have to take any more notes or recordings. All of last year's lectures to those same classes are there in mimeograph form in your top file cabinet. You are even taking gym. Bang-Bang is doing well on ROTC. And here is a beeper to wear in case you are suddenly summoned." He handed it over. "I hope this is easier for you now."

  "Great way to go to college," said Heller. "I handled the psychiatric interview this morning, but Miss Simmons will be riding my tail next semester."

  "I am so sorry I can't help you there. I strongly advise against violence. It's really so unbusinesslike. Can she be bought off?"

  "Not a chance," said Heller.

  "So you may fail after all."

  Bang-Bang came in.

  Heller said, "Well, I've decided. Bang-Bang, will our cab hold eleven?"

  "Yikes!" said Bang-Bang.

  "It's illegal," said Izzy.

  "And all these canvases?" said Jet.

  "We'll try," said Bang-Bang.

  "Collect your painters," said Heller to Izzy. "Bring them and these canvases down front."

  "Where we going?" said Izzy, in dismay.

  "Marketing," said Heller. "We're going marketing."

  "Look," said Izzy. "I can buy anything you need. I can get it for you wholesale."

  "Not that kind of marketing. We're going marketing marketing."

  "Oh, the book I got you," said Izzy. "What are we going to market?"

  "The survey said 'girls.'"

  "But that's illegal!" said Izzy.

  "You have to do class assignments honestly," said Heller. "And that's what the survey said. So, wouldn't it be illegal to try to get an illegal pass on a subject?"

  "That's very true," said Izzy. "You have no choice! If the survey said girls, it will have to be girls."

  A few minutes later, the canvases were lashed to the carrying rack on top and the mob somehow squeezed into the old cab.

  They went rocketing up Fifth Avenue.

  Chapter 3

  "Now, gentlemen," said Heller to the paint-smocked mass, which was nine people in a space meant for five– Izzy and Bang-Bang were up front—"I don't want you to look on this as prostituting your art."

  A nearby, bearded face drew back as much as it could. A real flinch. "We refuse to change off from neorealism!"

  "For Heavens' sake, don't!" said Heller. "But you'll see what I mean shortly."

  They went roaring into the garage at the Gracious Palms. They jammed into the elevator.

  Heller walked into Vantagio's office. Vantagio was sitting at his desk. He obviously had a bit of a hangover. He

  frowned at the mob he saw coming in behind Heller.

  "We want to paint Minette," said Heller. This was a little bit direct for Vantagio at this hour. "Good morning, kid. Would you like to introduce your friends?"

  Heller did. Then he said, "We have a bare wall and it needs a bare girl. We deal only in the authentic. It's for the Beautiful Tahiti Gilt-Edged Beaches Wonder Corporation. Minette is the only beautiful Tahitian I know of."

  "Well, take her along, kid. The UN session doesn't start until next week so we're not peak load. I'm sure Minette will do what you tell her so take her along to the Empire State."

  "No," said Heller. "Izzy here," and he glanced at Izzy who obviously didn't know where he was or what was coming, "has a great idea. Come along."

  Heller went out in the lobby. He opened a closet and rolled out a little platform they must use for something. He began to push it across the lobby. A houseman instantly jumped to help him. Heller put it in the far corner, near the street door.

  Then he went and got a painter. He stood him near the platform. Then he got an easel from their gear and stood it up in front of the painter, who, seeing an easel, promptly put a framed blank canvas on it.

  Heller and the houseman moved a couple of palms in pots up on the platform to the back.

  Heller went to the phone and hit some numbers.

  "Who ees thees?" Minette's voice. "I am not dress'. It ees too earlee!"

  "You sure you got no clothes on?" said Heller.

  "Oh, 'ello, pretty boy. I come right een!"

  "No," said Heller. "Grab your grass skirt and some flowers for your hair and come down in the lobby!"

  "Ze lobby? You mos' be jokeeng. Vantagio..."

  Heller handed Vantagio the phone. Vantagio said, "The kid is changing the decor, Minette. Anything is liable to happen. Come down."

  A couple of diplomats were leaving in somewhat tousled condition. They saw the painter standing there with a blank canvas. They stopped.

  An early-day demander, a big black, walked in the front door. He saw the blank canvas and stopped.

  A limousine drew up and spilled out three Moroccans. They entered, saw the blank canvas and stopped.

  Minette arrived. She was wearing a grass skirt and had hibiscus in her hair. Heller put her on the platform. The painter posed her. He began to paint.

  "Allah forbids the rendition of live figures," said a Moroccan. But he stood closer to get a better look.

  A cab drew up and two diplomats got out. They started to walk to the desk but stopped and watched the painting.

  Heller beckoned to Vantagio, Izzy and the other painters. He drew them back into Vantagio's office.

  "You're going to
cost us a fortune if you stop everybody who comes in that door," said Vantagio.

  "Ah," said Heller, and he waved his hands just like an Italian, "think of the word of mouth. The advertising!"

  "Maybe you better tell me this idea," said Vantagio, sitting down at his desk.

  "Well," said Heller. "Izzy figured it this way. Now, this is strictly between you and Izzy but I will outline it. I told him I thought it was great.

  "It goes like this. The UN is just going into session. We put an artist, easel and platform in the lobby." He turned to the painters. "How long does it take you to paint a really good, big portrait?"

  They disagreed. But it seemed like anything from twelve hours to a week.

  "Now, every night," Heller told Vantagio, "for one whole week, a good artist will be there in the lobby painting a nude. And every week, the painting and the nude will change. We will choose the girls who epitomize the beauty of each country. And each week, you feature a different country."

  Vantagio sat up straight. Then he got up and began to pace, a bit excited.

  "It has political advantages! Bargaining power!" said Vantagio. "They will push and prod to get their country featured early in the program! They will want to have a part in conceiving the subject matter."

  Heller made an Italian gesture. "Ah, there you have it, Vantagio. Depend on you to grasp the nuance! This is a marketing program aimed at expansion and penetration. Your products will become known in every land. It puts a Gracious Palms commercial in every one of the top offices of every nation. And they will pay handsomely to exhibit the commercial itself! What the Gracious Palms needs is more penetration. Consumer desire will be aroused in every country on the planet and you will have a better market projection into your resources!"

  Vantagio peeked out into the lobby. Heller stepped behind him. Minette, on the platform, had assumed pose after pose, despite the painter's pleas and was now exhibiting one whole leg while she cupped her breasts and smiled lasciviously at the crowd. The original ones who had paused were now feverishly signing up at the desk. Another was on the phone loudly telling his chief delegate he should drop whatever he was doing and rush over. The crowd around the easel had swelled.

  "You see," said Heller, "it makes it all refined. It puts it in the world of art. The positioning of the

  Gracious Palms is upgraded to number one instead of just a horizontal graph. It will be on top!"

  Vantagio went back into his office. He began to pace up and down excitedly. Then he stopped and made an expansive Italian gesture. With glowing, visionary eyes, he said, "I can see it now! We've been taking it lying down! We've been guilty of practicing seasonal interruptus. We can spread this climax into a more bilateral approach, even multilateral. We've been practicing nonintervention! We have been underprivileging certain elite minorities!" Vantagio pounded a fist into his palm. "We need a wider spread internationally! And it will give us more consumer flow! They'll lap it up!"

  Izzy said, "You can hang a whole gallery here in the lobby with the paintings for sale at very fancy prices. And you can put forms on the counter they can fill out to have girls of their choice painted for their offices and special gift forms for paintings so heads of state and leading politicians can come here and pick out a girl to be painted. And we can handle special trips for artists to go to their countries on special commission, accompanied by PRs to run beauty contests to select Miss Country Name with the grand prize of training and employment at the Gracious Palms. I just this minute formed a corporation called True Allure Fine Arts International, Incorporated—probably in Greece as we don't have one there—and these artists are all under contract to it. Our prices are high and the commission we get is twenty-five percent!"

  "Excellentissimo!" cried Vantagio, lapsing into Italian from excitement. "D'accordo! Agreed!"

  "I told you Izzy was pregnant with ideas," said Heller.

  "The slack season!" said Vantagio. "Things go limp nine months of the year! This will stiffen up foreign trade!"

  "We only want ten percent of the gross increase over last year's net," said Izzy.

  "Marvelous!" said Vantagio.

  Heller turned to the seven remaining painters who were standing there a bit goggle-eyed. "Now, I hope you gentlemen don't think you will be prostituting your art."

  "Oh, no!" said the leading painter. "The proposition is too hard to refuse!" Behind him the others cried their assent.

  "The name of the program," said Heller, "is Whore of the Week."

  They all cheered.

  The leading painter said, "Mister, whatever your name is, you're something out of this world!"

  "Keep it to yourself," said Heller.

  Izzy rushed around and got contract signatures from all eight painters on blank sheets he said he'd fill in. He scribbled a Memorandum Agreement In Principle and Vantagio signed it.

  Then they left. As Heller walked out with Izzy, he said, "So that was my marketing project. Did I pass, Izzy?"

  "Oy," said Izzy. "Just plain 'oy,' Mr. Jet!"

  As they climbed into the cab, Izzy and Heller in back, Heller said, "Well, that was just fun mostly. But it also has its place."

  "Fun?" said Izzy. "With neorealism in demand by the tops of every government, it will sweep the world! That project is worth millions! And every real revolution has to have its own art form. Neorealism! Things that look like what they are! Absolutely revolutionary in itself! Neorealism, the art of the people!"

  Bang-Bang zoomed the cab out of the garage, heading back to the office. After a bit, Heller said, "Izzy. I've been checking it over and I think we can consider Phase One of the Master Plan complete."

  I instantly went into a spin. Even my dulled senses could smell danger. WHAT plan?

  In haste I prepared to go back through the older recorded strips. And a moment later, I stared at my equipment in horror. In all my recent travail, I had overlooked loading the recording strip reservoir! I didn't have any back track to look at!

  WHAT PLAN!?!?!

  Geological surveys and a legation and a diploma and Gods knew what else. I knew Heller! This would all come together some way with a huge black eye for me. Death, even!

  A sort of savage feeling began to grip me. Heller and all this success with women. Wasn't it his fault that I had gotten into all this mess in the first place? And if he hadn't been distracting me, I wouldn't be in any trouble with Utanc!

  A burning, bitter hatred of Heller began to sear through me.

  Chapter 4

  The following day, I was wandering about after a sleepless night and bitter morning and chanced to look at the viewscreen.

  I was startled to see Heller was driving along in the cab! There was no sign of Bang-Bang and, as he turned to check a sign, there was nobody in the back seat!

  He was driving in New York! It was illegal! By his license, he was not yet eighteen!

  I looked at my watch. It was not yet 6:00 A.M. in Heller's zone!

  With a savage curse, I sat down to watch and study this. He was off on some new tack!

  I watched for signs. He was on Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and by the horizon light of dawn, he was travelling north. I got out an Octopus Oil Company map of that area. Where was he going? Why?

  The old cab was really purring. Heller seemed quite happy and relaxed. He was going faster than Bang-Bang drove but he didn't seem to be having any trouble.

  By the signs, he was going to the Bronx. I tried to figure out what was in the Bronx that would interest him. I couldn't come up with anything.

  Now he was paying a toll. He left the bridge behind him. Now he was ignoring Bronx signs. He was spotting U.S. 278. Throg's Neck? Was he going to Throg's Neck? No. Now he was on Hutchinson River Parkway. White Plains? Was he going to White Plains? No, he passed that turnoff. Boston? Ah, New Brunswick, Canada! He must be running away to leave the country.

  I instantly got up to send Raht and Terb a message. Heller would be going out of the range of the activator-receiver, to say
nothing of the 831 Relayer!

  I halted. My Gods, due to all the disturbance Heller was guilty of, I had forgotten to give Raht and Terb their receiver and decoder! I was not in contact with them!

  Helplessly, I sat and watched the viewer.

  I cursed him. This was all his fault. He hadn't gone over this cursed "Master Plan" with anyone while I was watching!

  The sun was up now where he was. He seemed to be appreciating the green trees and grass that flowed by, for he certainly wasn't paying much attention to his driving. Maybe somebody would consider that scenery beautiful if they were less under the hammer of fate than I was.

  He went through a toll gate and was on a toll road, the New England Thruway. His eye lingered on a sign. Stamford! He was in Connecticut!

  And then I got my first clue. Looking at some very dark green trees, he said, "Old Cap Duggan was right! You are a beautiful country."

  Cap Duggan! The Geological Survey! But what had they discussed? Gold in Alaska? Maybe he was going to Alaska! But this wasn't the route to Alaska. And you wouldn't be driving a bright orange, vintage antique, New York taxicab to Alaska. You'd go in a dog sled! I knew the planet! But maybe he had some cunning deception plan in mind. I knew no good would come of his ROTC studying for the Army's G-2!

  He went right on by any opportunity to turn off into Stamford. But just as my attention was beginning to relax, off to his right he went and was on a bad state highway. A sign said Noroton Point lay in that direction.

  Soon, he stopped the cab and got out.

  He was standing on a beach. A vast expanse of water spread before him, a solid sheet of gold in the morning sunlight. He walked along the sand. He seemed to be enjoying the flow of ocean air. He took several breaths as though it tasted good.

  He said, "They haven't completely wrecked you yet, old planet." Then he walked a ways and saw an oil scum. He amended what he had said. "But they're working on it pretty hard."

  He walked further. Some sandpipers did a running walk away from him. Some gulls wheeled overhead. The surf, golden-tipped, purled up the beach toward his toes.

  "It's a shame," he said. "You're such a pretty planet." Then, with sudden determination, he said, "I better get to work while you're still habitable!"