Baby Is Three (21 page)

Every agent has a Sig Weiss—as a rosy dream. You sit there day after day paddling through oceans of slush, hoping one day to run across a manuscript that means something—sincerity, integrity, high word rates—things like that. You try to understand what editors want in spite of what they say they want, and then you try to tell it to writers who never listen unless they’re talking. You lend them money and psychoanalyze them and agree with them when they lie to themselves. When they write stories that don’t make it, it’s your fault. When they write stories that do make it, they did it by themselves. And when they hit the big time, they get themselves another agent. In the meantime, nobody likes you.

“Real stiff opening,” said Naome.

“Real stiff,” Cris nodded.

And then it happens. In comes a manuscript with a humble little covering note that says, “This is my first story, so it’s probably full of mistakes that I don’t know anything about. If you think it has anything in it, I’ll be glad to fix it up any way you say.” And you start reading it, and the story grabs you by the throat, shakes your bones, puts a heartbeat into your lymph ducts and finally slams you down gasping, weak and oh so happy.

So you send it out and it sells on sight, and the editor calls up to say thanks in an awed voice, and tells an anthologist, who buys reprint rights even before the yarn is published, and rumors get around, and you sell radio rights and TV rights and Portuguese translation rights. And the author writes you another note that claims volubly that if it weren’t for you he’d never have been able to do it.

That’s the agent’s dream, and that was Cris Post’s boy Sig Weiss and
The Traveling Crag
. But, like all dream plots, this one contained a sleeper. A rude awakening.

Offers came in and Cris made promises, and waited. He wrote letters. He sent telegrams. He got on the long distance phone (to a neighbor’s house, Weiss had no phone).

No more stories.

So he went to see Weiss. He lost six days on the project. It was Naome’s idea. “He’s in trouble,” she announced, as if she knew for sure. “Anyone who can write like that is sensitive. He’s humble and he’s generous and he’s probably real shy and real good-looking. Someone’s victimized him, that’s what. Someone’s taken advantage of him. Cris, go on out there and find out what’s the matter.”

“All the way out to Turnville? My God, woman, do you know where that is? Besides, who’s going to run things around here?” As if he didn’t know.

“I’ll try, Cris. But you’ve got to see what’s the matter with Sig Weiss. He’s the—the greatest thing that ever happened around here.”

“I’m jealous,” he said, because he was jealous.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, because he wasn’t being silly.

So out he went. He missed connections and spent one night in a
depot and had his portable typewriter stolen and found he’d forgotten to pack the brown shoes that went with the brown suit. He brushed his teeth once with shaving cream and took the wrong creaking rural bus and had to creak in to an impossibly authentic small town and creak out again on another bus. Turnville was a general store with gasoline pumps outside and an abandoned milk shed across the road, and Cris wasn’t happy when he got there. He went into the general store to ask questions.

The proprietor was a triumph of type-casting. “Whut c’n I dew f’r you, young feller? Shay—yer f’m the city, ain’t cha? Heh!”

Cris fumbled vaguely with his lapels, wondering if someone had pinned a sign on him. “I’m looking for someone called Sig Weiss. Know him?”

“Sure dew. Meanest bastard ever lived. Wouldn’t have nought to dew with him, I was you.”

“You’re not,” said Cris, annoyed. “Where does he live?”

“What you want with him?”

“I’m conducting a nation-wide survey of mean bastards,” Cris said. “Where does he live?”

“You’re on the way to the right place, then. Heh! You show me a man’s friends, I’ll tell you what he is.”

“What about his friends?” Cris asked, startled.

“He ain’t got any friends.”

Cris closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Where does he live?”

“Up the road a piece. Two mile, a bit over. That way.”

“Thanks.”

“He’ll shoot you,” said the proprietor complacently, “but don’t let it worry you none. He loads his shells with rock salt.”

Cris walked the two miles and a bit, every uphill inch. He was tired, and his shoes were designed only to carry a high shine and make small smudges on desk tops. It was hot until he reached the top of the mountain, and then the cool wind from the other side make him feel as if he were carrying sacks of crushed ice in his armpits. There was a galvanized tin mailbox on a post by the road with S. WEISS and advanced erosion showing on its ancient sides. In the
cutbank near it were some shallow footholds. Cris sighed and started up.

There was a faint path writhing its way through heavy growth. Through the trees he could see a canted shingle roof. He had gone about forty feet when there was a thunderous explosion and shredded greenery settled about his head and shoulders. Sinking his teeth into his tongue, he turned and dove head first into a tree-bole, and the lights went out.

A fabulous headache was fully conscious before Cris was. He saw it clearly before it moved around behind his eyes. He was lying where he had fallen. A rangy youth with long narrow eyes was squatting ten feet away. He held a ready shotgun under his arm and on his wrist, while he deftly went through Cris’s wallet.

“Hey,” said Cris.

The man closed the wallet and threw it on the ground by Cris’s throbbing head. “So you’re Crisley Post,” said the man, in a disgusted tone of voice.

Cris sat up and groaned. “You’re—you’re not Sig Weiss?”

“I’m not?” asked the man pugnaciously.

“Okay, okay,” said Cris tiredly. He picked up his wallet and put it away and, with the aid of the tree trunk, got to his feet. Weiss made no move to help him, but watchfully rose with him. Cris asked, “Why the artillery?”

“I got a permit,” said Weiss. “This is my land. Why not? Don’t go blaming me because you ran into a tree. What do you want?”

“I just wanted to talk to you. I came a long way to do it. If I’d known you’d welcome me like this, I wouldn’t’ve come.”

“I didn’t ask you to come.”

“I’m not going to talk sense if I get sore,” said Cris quietly. “Can’t we go inside? My head hurts.”

Weiss seemed to ponder this for a moment. Then he turned on his heel, grunted, “Come,” and strode toward the house. Cris followed painfully.

A gray cat slid across the path and crouched in the long grass. Weiss appeared to ignore it, but as he stepped by, his right leg lashed out sidewise and lifted the yowling animal into the air. It struck a
tree trunk and fell, to lie dazed. Cris let out an indignant shout and went to it. The cat cowered away from him, gained its feet and fled into the woods, terrified.

“Your cat?” asked Weiss coldly.

“No, but damn if—”

“If it isn’t your cat, why worry?” Weiss walked steadily on toward the house.

Cris stood a moment, shock and fury roiling in and about his headache, and then followed. Standing there or going away would accomplish nothing.

The house was old, small, and solid. It was built of fieldstone, and the ceilings were low and heavy beamed. Overlooking the mountainside was an enormous window, bringing in a breathtaking view of row after row of distant hills. The furniture was rustic and built to be used. There was a fireplace with a crane, also more than ornamental. There were no drapes, no couch covers or flamboyant upholstery. There was comfort, but austerity was the keynote.

“May I sit down?” Cris asked caustically.

“Go ahead,” said Weiss. “You can breathe, too, if you want to.”

Cris sat in a large split-twig chair that was infinitely more comfortable than it looked. “What’s the matter with you, Weiss?”

“Nothing the matter with me.”

“What makes you like this? Why the chip on your shoulder? Why this shoot-first-ask-questions-afterward attitude? What’s it get you?”

“Gets me a life of my own. Nobody bothers me but once. They don’t come back. You won’t.”

“That’s for sure,” said Cris fervently, “but I wish I knew what’s eating you. No normal human being acts like you do.”

“That’s enough,” said Weiss very gently, and Cris knew how seriously he meant it. “What I do and why is none of your business. What do you want here, anyhow?”

“I came to find out why you’re not writing. That’s my business. You’re my client, remember?”

“You’re my agent,” he said. “I like the sound of it better that way.”

Cris made an Olympian effort and ignored the remark.
“The Traveling Crag
churned up quite a stir. You made yourself a nice piece of change. Write more, you’ll make more. Don’t you like money?”

“Who doesn’t? You got no complaints out of me.”

“Fine. Then what about some more copy?”

“You’ll get it when I’m good and ready.”

“Which is how soon?”

“How do I know?” Weiss barked. “When I feel like it, whenever that is.”

Cris talked, then, at some length. He told Weiss some of the ins and outs of publishing. He explained how phenomenal it was that a pulp sale should have created such a turmoil, and pointed out what could be expected in the slicks and Hollywood. “I don’t know how you’ve done it, but you’ve found a short line to the heavy sugar. But the only way you’ll ever touch it is to write more.”

“All right, all right,” Weiss said at last. “You’ve sold me. You’ll get your story. Is that what you wanted?”

“Not quite.” Cris rose. He felt better, and he could allow himself to be angry now that the business was taken care of. “I still want to know how a guy like you could have written
The Traveling Crag
in a place like this.”

“Why not?”

Cris looked out at the rolling blue distance. “That story had more sheer humanity in it than anything I’ve ever read. It was sensitive and—damn it—it was a
kind
story. I can usually visualize who writes the stuff I read; I spend all my time with writing and writers. That story wasn’t written in a place like this. And it wasn’t written by a man like you.”

“Where was it written?” asked Weiss in his very quiet voice. “And who wrote it?”

“Aw, put your dukes down,” said Cris tiredly, and with such contempt that he apparently astonished Weiss. “If you’re going to jump salty over every little thing that happens, what are you going to do when something big comes along and you’ve already shot your bolt?”

Weiss did not answer, and Cris went on: “I’m not saying you didn’t write it. All I’m saying is that it reads like something dreamed up in some quiet place that smelled like flowers and good clean sweat … Some place where everything was right and nothing was sick or off balance. And whoever wrote it suited that kind of a place. It was probably you, but you sure have changed since.”

“You know a hell of a lot, don’t you?” The soft growl was not completely insulting, and Cris felt that in some obscure way he had scored. Then Weiss said, “Now get the hell out.”

“Real glad to,” said Cris. At the door, he said, “Thanks for the drink.”

When he reached the cutbank he looked back. Weiss was standing by the corner of the house, staring after him.

Cris trudged back to the crossroads called Turnville and stopped in at the general store. “Shay,” said the proprietor. “Looks like a tree reached down and whopped ye. Heh!”

“Heh!” said Cris. “One did. I called it a son of a beech.”

The proprietor slapped his knee and wheezed. “Shay, thet’s a good ‘un. Come out back, young feller, while I put some snake oil on your head. Like some cold beer?”

Cris blessed him noisily. The snake oil turned out to be a benzocaine ointment that took the pain out instantly, and the beer was a transfusion. He looked at the old man with new respect.

“Had a bad time up on the hill?” asked the oldster.

“No worse’n sharing an undershirt with a black widow spider,” said Cris. “What’s the matter with that character?”

“Nobuddy rightly knows,” said the proprietor. “Came up here about eight years ago. Always been thet way. Some say the war did it to him, but I knew him before he went overseas and he was the same. He jest don’t like people, is all. Old Tom Sackett, drives the RFD wagon, he says Weiss was weaned off a gallbladder to a bottle of vinegar. Heh!”

“Heh!” said Cris. “How’s he live?”

“Gits a check every month. Some trust company. I cash ’em. Not much, but enough. He don’t dew nahthin. Hunts a bit, roams these hills a hull lot. Reads. Heh! He’s no trouble, though. Stays on his
own reservation. Just don’t want folks barrelin’ in on him. Here comes yer bus.”

“My God!” said Naome.

“You’re addressing me?” he asked.

She ignored him. “Listen to this:

Jets blasting, Bat Durston came screeching down through the atmosphere of Bbllzznaj, a tiny planet seven billion light years from Sol. He cut out his super-hyper-drive for the landing … and at that point a tall, lean spaceman stepped out of the tail assembly, proton gun-blaster in a space-tanned hand
.

‘Get back from those controls, Bat Durston,’ the tall stranger lipped thinly. ‘You don’t know it, but this is your last space trip.’ ”

She looked up at him dazedly. “That’s Sig Weiss?”

“That’s Sig Weiss.”

“The same Sig Weiss?”

“The very same. Leaf through that thing, Naome. Nine bloody thousand words of it, and it’s all like that. Go on—read it.”

“No,” she said. It was not a refusal, but an exclamation. “Are you going to send it out?”

“Yes. To Sig Weiss. I’m going to tell him to roll it and stuff it up his shotgun. Honey, we have a one-shot on our hands.”

“That is—it’s impossible!” she blazed. “Cris, you can’t give him up just like that. Maybe the next one … maybe you can … maybe you’re right at that,” she finished, glancing back at the manuscript.

He said tiredly, “Let’s go eat.”

“No. You have a lunch.”

“I have?”

“With a Miss Tillie Moroney. You’re quite safe. She’s the Average American Miss. I mean it. She was picked out as such by pollsters last year. She’s five-five, has had 2.3 years of college, is 24 years old, brown hair, blue eyes, and so on.”