The Ninth Wave (34 page)

"Here it is," Mike said and waved his hand around the room. "This is
the whole thing.".
"Where are the men with cigars and the rolls of bribe money?" Georgia
asked.
"Later, that comes later," Mike said smiling. "This is the only systematic
part of politics. After this stage it's all guesswork."
They walked over to the machine. The woman watched them carefully through
the cigarette smoke. With a snap the last card vanished into a pocket
and at once the machine started to race frantically. The woman pressed
a button and the machine was quiet.
"Henri, this is Georgia Blenner," Mike said. "Henri's an expert on
IBM machines."
"Hi. Wanna know 'bout the machine, eh?" she asked. She put out a thin
calloused hand, stained with nicotine, and shook hands. "I'm really
expert on the 101. You know, the electronic statistical machine. I can
run this O K., but I'm really best on the 101. That's really tough ."
"Miss Blenner doesn't know anything about the machines," Mike said. "She's
not looking for a job."
Henri's face cleared. A soft covert look of hostility vanished and
Georgia did not know it had been there until it disappeared.
"Sure, honey. I can tell you all about it. I can run 'em all," Henri
said brightly. She lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the other and
threw the butt on the floor. "Christ, I went to that IBM school for a
year almost. More 'Think' signs around than you could shake a stick
at. They wanted me to hang around and instruct, but I wanted to get
out of New York. After I learned the sorter, the ESM and the collator
verifying machines, I took off for L.A. Where you can grow gardenias in
your back yard. Hah."
"Did the last run of cards come in?" Mike asked.
"Just in. Fresh from the offices of Pacific Polling, Incorporated. Or
Pac Pol Ink as I call 'em," Henri said.
She took the cover from a box on the table. It was full of rectangular
cards. She ran her fingers down the cards with an expert casual motion.
They gave off a sharp trilling sound.
"All right. Run them through for the First Question," Mike said.
"Mike, you'd better explain it to me first," Georgia said.
"Sure, sure," Mike said. "I intended to. First, just forget about the
Democratic and Republican Parties. This doesn't have anything to do with
them. This is just a little operation by Cromwell and Freesmith. All
we're trying to do here is see what makes the California voter tick. Later
we'll worry about the parties."
Mike walked over to the table and sorted through some documents. Henri
leaned forward.
"This is a crazy operation, honey," she said. "I never saw anything like
it. Sometimes I think they're nuts."
Georgia smiled at Henri.
"You start with this," Mike said, handing Georgia a blue document. "It's
the census abstract plus a lot of other information. Tells you how the
population breaks down: how many street cleaners, Negroes, veterans,
trade union members, truck drivers, fry cooks, Protestants, Jews,
Catholics, foreign born, Okies, doctors and teachers there are. Also
how much money they make, the size of their houses, the kind of car they
drive, the degree of education, lodges they join and a lot more."
"Then you get your sample," Henri broke in.
"That's right," Mike said. "This abstract describes the Great Beast,
the public. Everything we know about it is there. It's what they've
been trying to do for centuries; describe the beast. Hobbes' Leviathan,
Locke's people, Rousseau's general will; they all took a crack at it and
missed. Partly they missed because the Great Beast is changing all the
time. Now if we were really scientific we'd go out and snap a picture
of the Great Beast, but we can't. Ifs too expensive and by the time you
got to his tail his muzzle would be changed already. So we make up a
Little Beast; an animal that's just like the Great Beast, but smaller,
diminished. You take what you hope is a good slice of the Great Beast; you
include Jews, protestants, Catholics, poor men, rich men, city dwellers,
farmers, plumbers and carpenters. Then you go to Pacific Polling and
tell them to go out and find out what the Little Beast looks like."
"They're good," Henri said with admiration. "If your sample includes
three Negro, Protestant, non-trade union, pork-chop-eating preachers
they'll find "em . . . or anything you want."
"And in a calm and neutral voice they ask them any question you want,"
Mike said. "Then they punch the answers into the IBM cards and bring them
back here and we run them through the machine. We pay them three dollars
for each card. Our sample is made up of three thousand people." He picked
up the box of cards and slapped them on the table. "There they are; a
Little Beast of three thousand people that's just like the Great Beast
. . . we hope."
"Can I see one of the cards?" Georgia said.
Mike handed her a card. It was rectangular and its face was covered
with closely printed, black rows of numbers. Some of the numbers had
been punched out, leaving tiny slots in the cards. There were no words
on the cards.
"Read it for her, Henri," Mike said.
Henri took the card and held it toward the window. She narrowed her eyes
and glanced at the pattern of slots.
"Subject is: White. Male. Thirty-four years old. Catholic. Married. Three
children. Clerk. Less than four thousand and more than thirty-five hundred
a year. No television. In debt."
She handed the card to Georgia. Georgia turned it over.
"Doesn't it have his name?" she asked.
"We don't care what his name is," Mike said. "We just hope that all the
other white, male, Catholic, three-kidded, married clerks react the way
he does. Oh, not exactly, but within a per cent or two."
"What was the First Question?" Georgia asked.
"The interviewer handed the subject a card with six names on it and asked,
'If these six men were running . for governor of California which one
would you like to see win?'" Mike said. "Here's a copy of the card."
He handed her a heavy white card with six names on it. They were:
Earl Warren
Wingate Daigh
James Roosevelt
Richard Cutler
John Cromwell
Hiram Johnson
"But Hiram Johnson's dead," Georgia said. "He died years ago."
"That's right," Mike said. "I threw him in just to see how many people
would vote for a dead man."
Georgia looked at Mike and she felt a twinge of anxiety, too slight and
passing to notice.
"Who did the white, Catholic, married trade unionist pick?" she asked.
"I can tell you without looking," Mike said. "He picked James
Roosevelt. Take a hundred low-income Catholics and show them a list
like that and they'll pick the name with the strongest Democratic Party
associations. So Roosevelt's son, Jimmy, is who they pick."
"Well, check it anyway," Georgia said and there was irritation in her
voice. "Maybe this clerk had a mind of his own."
Mike handed the card to Henri. She glanced at it.
"He picked Roosevelt," Henri said. She grinned.
"All right, Henri," Mike said. "Start to run them through. Give me the
percentages when you figure them."
She nodded. She put the cards from the box into the hopper and pressed the
button. The machine began to purr. She looked down at it with pleasure,
moved her fingertips lightly over the quivering surface. Then she touched
the lever and the cards began to flick through the machine.
Mike turned and walked over to the window with Georgia. Outside it was
bright and clear. Across the air well of the building they could see into
a dentist's office. A well-dressed woman, soft and expensive, was lowering
herself into the dentist's chair. They could see the dentist's back, his
thin neck sticking up out of the white smock, his hands clean and pink.
"This sort of thing isn't very important right now," Mike said. "We won't
be able to use it until after the pre-primary Democratic convention."
"What's that?"
"Well, they have cross-filing in this state. A Democrat can file in the
Republican primary and vice versa. So both parties have a pre-primary
convention to select the man they want for governor. About five hundred
Democrats will go to the convention and make the choice. After that is
when the information on the cards gets important."
Henri handed him a card. He showed it to Georgia.
"This is the percentage of voters that picked each of the six people on
the card," he said.
Warren 35%
Daigh 22%
Roosevelt 18%
Cutler 15%
Cromwell 4%
Johnson 2%
Georgia looked at the card and then up at Mike. She felt a quick, sharp
sense of relief and then anger.
"Why, Mike, Cromwell doesn't have a chance," she said. "Only four per
cent of the people picked Cromwell."
Father and Morrie think Cromwell has a chance, she thought. And he
doesn't. Not a prayer.
"That's right, honey," Henri said. "That's what I told 'em after the
first raw tab. He's backing a bum horse. Christ, his man is just a little
better than the dead man."
"It could be worse," Mike said. "Much worse."
He grinned and at once the irritation and anger faded in Georgia; she
felt wary, cautious.
"Sure it could be worse," Henri said. "Your man could be dead."
She laughed so hard that her eyes watered. Georgia watched Mike. He
was bored.
"All right, Henri, run off the results of the Second and Third Questions,"
Mike said.
Henri turned back to the machine; rearranged the cards.
Mike put the card down on the window sill. He drew a line through
three names.
"The voters aren't going to get to vote for all six people," he said.
"Johnson's out: he's dead. Warren's out: Supreme Court. Roosevelt is out:
he's running for Congress."
The card now read:
Daigh 22%
Cutler 15%
Cromwell 4%
"But Mike, only four per cent of the voters are for Cromwell," Georgia
said softly; not confidently, but cautiously, waiting.
"Sure. That's right. But Daigh's a Republican. He'll get the Republican
nomination in the primary for sure. Cutler and Cromwell will be going for
the Democratic nomination. But only one of them will be on the primary
ballot . . . the one who gets selected by the five hundred delegates at
the pre-primary convention of the Democrats," Mike said.
He spoke as if there were something she should understand. Georgia shook
her head.
"Mike, the Democrats won't pick Cromwell at the pre-primary," she
said. "They'll pick Cutler. He's got more support, a better chance in
the general election."
"Look, Georgia, there are only five hundred people at the Democratic
pre-primary convention. They'll go for Cromwell. And when they go for
him he'll be the only Democrat in the primary."
"But why, Mike? Why would they go for Cromwell?"
"Because there are only five hundred of them and a group of people that
small is pretty easy to influence," Mike said. His voice fell away, was
more cautious. "The pre-primary convention will be in Fresno in March.
Why don't you come up and see what happens?"
"I will," Georgia said. "Look, Mike, I'm not trying to be dumb, but
even if Cromwell does get the Democratic endorsement how will he beat
Daigh? My God, Daigh's a big man in this state. I've even heard of him.
And nobody knows Cromwell. Look at your own statistics. He's just a
little more popular than a man who's been dead for years."
"O.K. Forget about the pre-primary. Assume that Cromwell wins the
Democratic nomination and Daigh wins the Republican nomination. Then
they run off in the November election. All right?" He stepped over to
the table and picked up the box of cards which Henri had just finished
running through the machine again. He put the box on the window sill and
opened it. "Now here's your Little Beast; a diminished tiny copy of the
Great Beast. Just the same except there's only three thousand of him here
instead of five million . . . but just the same. Makes the same noises,
barks the same, scared of the same thing, same markings, same gait."
Mike ran his fingers over the cards. and Georgia noticed, with surprise,
that his fingers were trembling. Somehow she was embarrassed. She
looked across at the dentist's office. The chair and its chromium and
steel appliances glittered in the sun; water bubbled from a spigot. The
dentist stood with a hypodermic in his hand, a drop of liquid hung at
the sharp point of the needle, with his left hand he made a placating,
distracting gesture. The woman looked sideways and instantly his right
hand darted forward, disappeared in the woman's mouth. The woman's shoes
jerked suddenly and her arms went rigid. The dentist pulled the empty
hypodermic from her mouth.
"Go on, Mike," Georgia said.
"A funny thing happens after the primary . . . after the Republican and
Democratic candidates have been chosen," Mike said. His voice was only
a shade tense. "Just put 'Republican' after a man's name and he'll get
forty-five per cent of the votes. I don't know why, but it happens." Mike
lifted out a little less than half of the cards and placed them on the
window sill. "And the same with the Democrat. He'll get forty-five per
cent of the votes just because he's the Democrat. It doesn't matter if
they're crooks, cuckolds, veterans, young, old or a damned thing. Just put
the label on and each of them will get forty-five per cent of the vote."
Mike took out almost all of the remaining cards. There was only a thin
stack of cards left. The rest were on the sill
"Why does it happen that way, Mike?" Georgia said.
The dentist stepped away from the woman and a burr in his hand glistened
with bright red blood.
"I don't know," Mike said. "I really don't. But they do. It's like an
instinct; something that tells them to split up; to divide evenly. Jesus,
it's uncanny. The Great Beast splits up into two beasts; almost exactly
the same size. It always happens."
Georgia looked away from the dentist's window, down at the cards in
the box.
"So these cards, the ten per cent left over, they're the ones that really
decide the election," Georgia said. "That's it, isn't it, Mike? You just
forget about the rest . . . the ninety per cent who are going to vote
Democrat or Republican and you concentrate on the ten per cent. That's
right, isn't it? They're the ones you try to attract to your candidate?"