The Ninth Wave (15 page)

"Mike, how do you know this stuff?" Hank said. He stirred on the warm
concrete; suddenly itched with restlessness. "You sound crazy."
"I feel it. That's how I know it. I sound crazy because people are crazy.
The only way you can describe it accurately is to sound crazy. This is a
senseless, irrational, unorganized, inarticulate thing, Hank. Maybe the
craziness is the only orderly thing about it. Maybe if you understand
the craziness you understand the whole thing."
"O.K., O.K., Mike," Hank said. "I'm not interested in changing your mind.
But why aren't you interested in doing something that will improve the
process? Assume that you're right. Why don't you try and change it? Make
it better?"
"Why?" Mike asked. "Change it to what? Maybe I'd change it and it would
be worse than it is now. Everyone wants to change things; make them
better. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Roosevelt, Father Coughlin, the Pope,
trade union leaders, Think they'll make things any better? Maybe so,
but I doubt it. Anyway, I don't know how I want things changed. I just
want to live in the world the way it is now."
"You're probably right," Hank said wearily. He reached down to the warm
asphalt surface, tried to scrape a few pieces of gravel together. He
managed only to get three small pieces of stone. He poured them from one
hand to the other. They were hot against his palms. "Every tyrant in the
world has thought he was doing good. Matter of fact some of the worst
tyrants are the boys who get the idea that God is on their side. But,
Mike, what's the alternative? Is everything good? Do you give up trying
to find out what is right just because a lot of people have been mistaken
about it before?"
"You don't worry about what's good," Mike said. "Maybe there isn't any
such thing as good. And when you start to worry about that you get like
Moon and all the thousands of birds like him in the world: politicians,
messiahs, bureaucrats, prophets. They start worrying about what's good
and what's bad and pretty soon all alone and in isolation they've built a
perfect little world of what ought to be. It's like one of those clocks
you see inside a glass dome; all of the beautiful wheels and gears
whirring and clicking together and lifting little levers and moving
other things. In that private little world you can cut out anything you
don't like, you can make everything match. And then these poor bastards
turn to the world and announce that they've got a new system, a new
morality, universe, a new interpretation. And nobody even listens, Nobody
cares. See, Hank, I don't care about these guys and their little worlds.
Sometimes they even do good. But I'm interested in something else. I'm
interested in what is actually happening."
"You can say that again," Hank said. He stood up and threw the three
pebbles in his hand far out into the Quad. He pounded his hands against
his pants. He was unbearably nervous, anxious to go. "Let's get going."
Far across the Quad the shadows were starting to lengthen and there
was the first breath of chill. When they stood up they were dizzy for a
moment from the heat and the sudden rush of blood through their veins.
They started to walk.
"I told Connie I'd meet her by the bookstore at five o'clock," Mike
said. "What time is it?"
"Quarter to five."
"I better get going. You want to come along? We're going up to the City
tonight to hear a speech. Come on along."
"Who's going to talk?"
"Cromwell. John Cromwell," Mike said.
"You going in Connie's car?" Hank asked.
"Sure. Do you want us to go on the train just because I don't have a car?"
"O.K., O.K. Only someday I want to see you buy a tankful of gas for that
car. The only time you give it back to her is when it's out of gas."
"She gets a fair return on her investment," Mike said and grinned. "A
very fair return."
They left the Quad and walked into the shade of the oak trees. They saw
Connie's car in front of the bookstore. By the time they reached the
car, evening had fallen and suddenly it was much cooler. They shivered
as they walked toward the car.
CHAPTER 9
Vox Populi, Vox Dei
It was dark when they arrived in San Francisco. Mike drove slowly out
to North Beach and found the square in which the speech was to be given.
"It's only seven," he said. "The speech probably won't start until
eight. Let's get something to eat"
"Let's have spaghetti," Hank said. "North Beach is supposed to be good
on spaghetti. How about that restaurant over there?"
They parked the car and walked across to the restaurant. The square
was big, stony and almost empty. There were a few patches of grass
protected by low wire fences, but the wire was kicked loose and hung
down in loops. The grass was thin and brown. A group of Italian men
stood in the middle of one of the grass plots, smoking rat-tail black
cigars and talking.
Around the square, the street lights made weak puddles of light. Most of
the buildings had small businesses on the ground floor: salami factories,
wine dealers, bars, a travel office and warehouses. The upper floors
were apartments, most of which had small iron balconies.
Women stood on the balconies. They were fat, petulant, irritated with the
work of preparing the evening meal. Children stood behind them, waving
moist pieces of bread. The faces of the women softened as they sniffed
the cool air off the Bay. Most of them wore dirty chiffon dresses that
gave their bulky bodies a wispy, fragile quality.
In the middle of the square was a statue of Garibaldi. It was an equestrian
statue and the huge bronze horse and rider rose so high into the night
that all one could see was the pawing hoofs of the horse and a huge
booted foot stuck into stirrups. Occasionally a pigeon flew down to the
base of the statue, picked through the litter of peanut shells and then
soared back up into the blackness again.
Mike led the way into the restaurant and sat down at a table in front
of the large flyspecked window that overlooked the Garibaldi statue.
"How about some wine?" Mike asked.
"See if they have Chianti," Connie suggested.
"We'll have three orders of spaghetti with meat sauce and two bottles
of dago red," Mike said to the waiter.
The waiter turned and walked toward the kitchen.
"Mike, they don't like to hear the word 'dago,'" Connie said. "It's like
'nigger' or 'kike.' You shouldn't use the word."
"Hey, waiter," Mike called."
The waiter turned away from the kitchen and walked over. He was a young
man with a small round belly and a mustache.
"Do you mind people calling you 'dago'?" Mike asked.
"Hell, no," the waiter said. "Dago, wop, ginny; they're all the same to
me. I'm a dago, ain't I? Why should I care?"
"Damned if I know," Mike said. "I just wanted to find out."
The waiter looked down at Connie, ran his eye over her and and the swell
of her bosom, studied her clothes. He grinned at Mike.
"She's worried, eh?" he asked.
"That's right," Mike said.
The waiter turned his hands up in puzzlement and winked at Mike. Connie
looked down at her hands. The waiter walked over to a sideboard and
picked up two bottles of wine and began to polish three glasses.
"See. He doesn't care," Mike said. "Where do you get those crazy ideas,
Connie?" He grinned at her.
"All right, Mike, skip it," Connie said. "I just don't like the
word. That's all."
The waiter brought the wine and Mike filled their glasses. It was a
bitter wine with a thin biting taste. A black residue floated in the
bottom of the glasses.
The waiter brought three large plates of spaghetti and meat sauce. In
the center of the table he placed a wicker basket full of big chunks of
sour-dough bread and he gave each of them a small white dish with a pat
of butter. Mike bent his head over the plate, twirled the spaghetti with
his fork and began to eat. Pieces of spaghetti dropped from his lips and
with a piece of bread he pushed them onto his next forkful. He finished
half of the plate before he paused. Connie was looking at him.
"All right. I'll be a good boy and watch my manners," he said.
He sat up and began to eat more slowly, taking smaller bites. Connie
began to eat. Hank, without talking, finished his plate and asked the
waiter to bring a second helping.
They were almost finished when a white panel truck with loudspeakers
on top came down the street, lurched over the curb and drove into
the square. It stopped between the restaurant and the Garibaldi
statue. Two men got out and opened the rear door of the truck.
They took out a portable platform and put it just beneath the window
of the restaurant. They hauled spools of black wire from the truck and
unloaded a microphone.
Out of the darkness, flitting through the pools of light, children
gathered silently. They looked in the back of the truck, played with
the wire, talked softly in Italian.
"For Christ sake get away," one of the men said. "Keep back until we
get the equipment set up."
The children paid no attention.
"Who's this Cromwell, Mike?" Hank asked.
Hank was eating the bread left in the wicker basket. He did it unthinkingly,
by habit.
"Just a talker," Mike said. "He's a lawyer, but he makes speeches all over
the state. I've heard him a few times down in L.A. and once up here."
"Is he in politics?" Hank asked.
"In a way, I guess. He's run for office a few times and was a Congressman
for a while. But he isn't a regular politician if that's what you mean."
The waiter brought another basket of bread and Hank reached for a piece,
crumbled it into chunks and threw them in his mouth.
"What does he live on?" Connie asked.
"He's rich. Comes from a real old California family. They say he has
a fortune. That's one reason these Italians will come out to hear him;
because he's a Cromwell and has money."
"I still don't get it," Hank said. "What does he talk about?"
"It varies," Mike said. "Once I heard him talk on unemployment; another
time he talked on trade with Japan. Different things."
"Why?" Hank asked. "What's the point?"
"I'm not sure what the point is," Mike said. He paused and looked out the
window. "Sometimes I think he just likes to talk. Other times I think he
really feels about things. You'll see. It's funny. Wait till you see him."
Outside in the square one of the men picked up a microphone, plugged it
into a black wire and mounted it on a stand. He spoke into it gently.
"Testing . . . one . . . two . . . three . . . testing," a huge magnified
voice said.
He whistled and an earsplitting shard of sound crashed through the
square. The man stepped back and smiled.
"It's O.K., Jamie," he said. "Turn the volume down a bit."
In the warm air the voice was enormous. The words floated like sluggish
balloons, keeping their shape until they reached the buildings and then
fractured into smaller sounds. People appeared in the windows of the
apartments; men in undershirts, children, old women. Almost at once
people began to drift across the square, made a scattered thin line
around the Garibaldi statue.
"We'll just sit right here," Mike said. "We can hear everything and get
a good look at the crowd."
"Good," Connie said. "Standing up makes my feet ache."
"I still don't get it," Hank said. The breadbasket was empty and his
fingers ran crablike over the wicker strands, found a few crumbs. "Does
Cromwell belong to a political party? Or is he trying to start one? Or
what?"
"I don't know," Mike said impatiently. "I told you that. I've heard
he's a Democrat, but he never mentions political parties. You'll see. He
just doesn't sound like a politician. Someone told me that he wants to
be governor of the state, but he never mentions it."
The loudspeakers on top of the truck were connected to a record
player. The two soundmen put records on the turntable and then sat on
the fenders of the truck and smoked cigarettes.
Green eyes, those soft and limpid green eyes,
Your eyes that promise sweet nights,
Give my soul a longing, a search for love divine.
As the song floated over the square the children stopped playing. They
gathered around the truck and stared up at the big white speakers. One of
the boys, about four years old, stepped out from the crowd of children. He
was a stocky boy, with black thick hair and strong legs. He closed his
eyes romantically, held his arms out as if they were around a partner
and began to mimic a couple dancing. He had a slight subdued smile
on his face; as if he were about to burst into laughter. The children
cheered. In the faint light the boy looked dwarfish; like a full-grown
person imperfectly viewed.
Someone put a foot out and the boy tripped. He stumbled to his knees,
his eyes popped open and he roared with laughter. He got to his feet
and lunged at the boy who had tripped him.
The crowd started to thicken. Women filled up the shaky green benches
that lined the edge of the park, holding limp babies in their arms. The
air was turning blue-white with cigar smoke. Men stepped out of nearby
bars. Most of them wore black hats and their shirts were buttoned up to
the top button, but they wore no ties.
An old gray Cadillac came around the corner, worked through the people in
the street and drove over the curb. Finally it came to a halt in front of
the restaurant. The driver got out of the front seat and opened the rear
door. A woman got out. As she stepped from the car she lifted her hand,
but not quickly enough to conceal the purple splash of a birthmark down
the left side of her face. It started under her eye and like a vivid welt,
furry in texture, spread down her cheek. With a practiced, expert gesture
she lit a cigarette and held it so the birthmark was covered. She turned
and walked up the stairs to the restaurant. As she turned, her profile
came into view. She had a perfect cameo profile, with flawless skin,
a flaring nose and a beautiful rounded chin. She had a superb figure.
"Who's she?" Connie breathed; her voice admiring, but her lips drawn back
slightly, as if by disgust. "She's beautiful. I mean really beautiful
. . . except for that thing."
"I don't know for sure," Mike said. "She's his secretary or something.
She's not his wife. She's always with him. Her name is Clara."
Mike looked through the window into the car. Cromwell sat in the back
seat, the light from the window falling directly on him. He was a big
man with lanky legs and long arms. He looked about fifty years old,
but it was hard to tell. He might have been much older, but it was
impossible that he could be younger than that. He had a hat pushed back
on his head and the tanned angularity of his face showed. He scratched
savagely at his armpit and looked out at the crowd. He turned suddenly,
stepped out of the car and came into the restaurant.