The Ninth Wave (49 page)

"Outside that window, right across the channel, Los Angeles County begins,"
Mike said. "Four million voters. Incompetent, restless, discontented.
They're the political bosses. You'd like to think that F.D.R. was the
political boss that punished the hell out of you for twenty years. But
you're wrong. It was those people across the channel. He sensed what they
would allow him to do. They gave him permission. And with ninety-five per
cent of the newspapers against him, with all of the good and responsible
people hating his guts, with all the big money against him he won . . .
four times."
Matthieson cleared his throat. He looked confused; as if he did not know
how the conversation had gotten sidetracked.
"What's that got to do with the governor of California?" Matthieson asked.
"Maybe a lot, maybe a lot," Mike said with satisfaction. "The boss is out
there. In the big cities, towns, farms, trade union halls, beer parlors.
Millions of him. But the governor is their executive and, if he's really
good he can take all that antagonism and resentment out there and channel
it through the legislature, the committees, commissions, research groups,
the legislative auditor, federal bureaus and a thousand others. And
he can make it expend itself that way. So that when it comes up to the
surface again it's tamed and manageable. Or, if he wants, he can give
the great big restless mass a kick in the ass. And when they turn around
he can point his finger at you and say you did it. You, Wall Street,
the big boys, the plutocrats. What you want, gentlemen, for governor,
is a man that will not point the finger at you."
They saw what it had to do with the governor of California. They looked
out the tinted windows, across the pink scented backs of their wives,
through the rigging of the yacht, and beyond that was The City. And in
The City were the People. Millions of them. On the faces of the young
executives was the sudden knowledge of how slight was their protection
against the People. The yacht, the beach house, the cool executive
offices, the clean children, the maid, the second car, the precious
incredibly wonderful sense of being "in" . . . all this was separated
from the brutish, pawing, powerful hands of the masses by the thinnest,
most translucent, most narrow of barriers. They had taken it all for
granted, but now, by some subtle appreciation of Mike's words they
realized how slight was their protection, how easily the barrier could
be ripped aside and the People could come pouring in.
On their faces was a sudden wonderment that it had not happened before;
that all of the things that separated them from the People had not
maddened the People into action; had not teased the jealous, tortured,
restless Masses into revenge. And when they looked away from the Balboa
Hills that protected them from Los Angeles and glanced at Mike, they were
different men. They knew he could push his finger against the barrier
and it would open and let all of this pour in on them. And they wondered
why it had not happened before.
"Assume that Cromwell could win," Matthieson said. "What would he want
from us? If he thinks we're going to finance a whole damned campaign
he's crazy, we won't."
Matthieson's voice was firm, under control, but Hank was not deceived.
hey were defeated. Old habits of control and negotiating still remained;
the retreat would be orderly; it would not be a rout. But Mike had
won. No one in the room was in any doubt about that.
Inside of Hank something collapsed blackly and softly; formed a small
hard knob of despair in his mind. Some insulating, protective illusion
was gone and he knew that some sort of decision had been made. He knew
the last defense had crumbled.
"Mike, I have to go," Hank said. He stood up. The men diminished, fell
away into a tinted blue-green shadow, the gin and tonic roared in Hank's
head. Then everything took shape again. They were gaping at him; not in
surprise, but in relief. "Have an operation in the city. Just have time
to make it back."
"I'll go with him," Georgia said. They stood up and walked out of the
room. They heard Mike's voice rise, start to outline the terms.
As they went by the umbrella, the women looked up. Their faces were
resentful, flushed, too pink. The talks had taken too long; it was late
for lunch; and, dimly, they sensed that their husbands had lost. As
if the smell of defeat had drifted across the porch, down the steps,
delicately across the sand and to their sensitive nostrils. They watched
Hank and Georgia dully.
Neither of them spoke as they drove out of Balboa Beach, past the dirty
beer-can-studded beach, through Seal Beach and up onto the Harbor Freeway.
Then Georgia spoke.
"I don't understand what he wants from them," she said. "Father said he
would give all the money that was necessary: He said he would underwrite
all the expenses. Then Cromwell wouldn't be obligated to a lot of other
people."
The brakes on the car screeched. Hank pulled over to the side of the road,
parked on the soft shoulder.
"Did your father really say that to Mike?" Hank asked.
"Yes. He's made arrangements for Mike to have all the money he needs."
"Are you sure Mike has plenty of money?" Hank asked. "Be sure, Georgia.
Are you absolutely sure?"
"I'm absolutely sure. I checked it with Morrie. Mike has all the money
he needs."
Hank licked his lips, his lean face seemed gaunt. He started the car
and moved slowly with the traffic
"It means Mike's gone over the edge," Hank said. "He didn't talk to them
because he needed money. He talked to them because he wanted them to
know that Mike Freesmith was a big tough guy. That he had power. That
he could beat them. He doesn't need their money, but he needs. their
surrender . . . he needs to see that frightened look in their eyes. He'll
win without their money. But because they resisted him he had to show
them. He knew they were opposed to him; he knew they had power; they
were tough. And so he went out and beat them. And he didn't have to."
He looked over at Georgia. For a moment she stared at him and then
she knew he was right. Her lips worked as if she might laugh; her fine
white teeth showed. But she did not laugh. An anguished sound came from
her lips. She bit her knuckles to hold it back. In a few moments she
could speak.
"That was the last chance, Hank," she said. "They were the last ones
that could stop him. They were confident and they had power. I was sure
they'd stop him. And he just had to be stopped once. Just once he had to
be beat and then he could be resisted. But they couldn't," she said. She
closed her eyes. "Hank, did you see the look on their faces when he
talked? He made them feel that there were four million Mike Freesmiths
out there in Los Angeles County; four million hard, tough people waiting
to get at them. And they knew that Mike was the only person that stood
between them and the four million. He broke them, Hank. Just as if he
had picked them up and broken their backs across his knee." She opened
her eyes and looked across her knuckles at Hank. "Now what happens, Hank?"
"I don't know," Hank said. "Now we try, I guess. Can you stop him?"
"I don't think so, Hank," she said. "He won't stop because of anything I
do. If I threaten to leave him he'll laugh. Maybe a month ago if Father
had withdrawn his money it would be a threat. But not now. Now he's
past that. He doesn't need Father's money. See, Hank, it doesn't make
any difference now whether Mike is right or not about how people act in
politics. He's persuaded enough people that they act in a certain way
. . . and now, they're acting the way he believes they do."
"I don't know if I can stop him, now," Hank said. "Maybe no one can."
He picked up speed. The car rushed down the freeway; like a corpuscle
caught in a rushing, busy artery, swept along by thousands of other
corpuscles, they rushed toward the great roaring viscera of the City.
CHAPTER 31
The Last Green Hump
The October storm waves came thundering in. In the far distance they
were blue, heavy and innocent. But as each wave reached the shallows
it turned green, its huge bulk rose into the air, it turned a concave
face toward the beach. There was a moment when the wave seemed frozen,
motionless. It stiffened and along its back appeared short, striated
lines of power, like muscles tightened. It was sleek and smooth with
force. Then a line of white spume, as solid as cream, appeared along
the top of the wave and it curled forward. With a crash the whole wave
broke. The green mass was gone and the wave disappeared and was replaced
by a huge white seething wall of foam that roared in to the shore.
The waves piled in without pause. They were the edge of a storm that
was thousands of miles away. They were huge. From the breaking point
to the sand, the sea was foaming white, roiled with splintered waves,
twisted by undertow, streaked with clouds of sand.
Hank took one board from the rack on top of his car and walked to the
edge of the cliff above the cove. The place was deserted; the beach
was empty. As he walked down the path he noticed that the ice plant was
dried out and brown, waiting for the winter rains. The path was drifted
over where the wind had gnawed into the soft soil of the cliff and made
miniature landslides. He walked slowly, feeling his way carefully over
the drifts, balancing the board on his shoulder. Halfway down he stopped
and rested. Then he went the rest of the way.
The storm waves had narrowed the beach. It was only fifteen or twenty feet
wide. Hank put the board down. For a moment he squatted in the sand and
looked out to sea. Here, with his eye almost at water level, the long sweep
of ocean to the horizon was invisible. He could see to the shallows but
no farther. There his vision was blocked by the slow, regular, inevitable
heaving of the ocean as the newest wave was formed. The waves reached into
the sky, blotted out the sky and the Channel Islands.
The waves exhausted themselves just at Hank's feet. He reached down and
touched the last thin edge of the waves. They hissed softly against the
sand, turned it gray, and then slid backward.
Hank stood up. He started back up the cliff.
Ten minutes later he had the second board on the beach. He brushed them
both off, set them carefully on their sides. He took his pants and shirt
off and stretched out on the send in his shorts.
The early winter sun was very thin. The surface of the sand was warm,
but not like the summer sand. Just below the surface the sand was chilled,
slightly wet. And there were no sand fleas.
Once Hank opened his eyes and looked at the sun. It was yellow and pale.
A thin corona, like a black line, traced its shape.
He thought of the summer sand, the deep swelling warmth that seemed to
come from the interior of the earth. He rolled over on his stomach,
laid his cheek against. the sand. The grains were instantly cool. He
turned again on his back.
A gull came in from the sea, kaaing as it slid down a smooth layer
of wind. Hank was looking straight up into the sky and saw it for a
moment. Its white shape and the pink feet scarred the blueness of the
sky and the yellow light between the sky and earth. It looked very small
He forgot how long he lay there, pulling the heat from the sky, feeling
the coldness of the beach against his back. But finally he heard the
sound of a car at the top of the cliff. He sat up. He saw Mike's head,
and then Georgia's peer over the side of the cliff. Then they started
down the path.
Hank picked up one of the boards and stepped to the edge of the water. He
waded in until the water reached his ankles. In a well-remembered motion
he swung the board into the water and forward and, at the same time, landed
on the board while it still had motion. He squatted on the board
and began to paddle.
The board chunked into the first shattered wave. It was a wall of foam
only a few feet high. The board cut up through the foam, diced through
empty air and then whipped flat. Hank eased his weight onto his arms,
lifted his knees slightly from the board and when the board slapped
against the water began paddling again.
The next three waves were easy because they were almost spent. But between
the waves the water hissed and boiled in a way Hank had never seen. The
water moved in quick senseless eddies, was checked by other pressures and
tossed aimlessly. The board cut across the eddies, making a slicing neat
sound that came minutely to his ear, cutting through the larger sounds.
The fourth wave was difficult. It came combing down on him, four feet
of foam, laced through with green strands of water. He paddled hard,
with his cheek flat on the board. As the nose of the board hit the wave,
he slid his weight back to raise the board, and then, instantly, pushed
forward. The board whiplashed into the foam; crashed into the wave with
a motion that was arclike, but moving forward. The wave sucked at him,
he lost way and then, almost as he stopped, it released him. His eyes
were full of water but he was already paddling. He blinked his eyes
clear and looked ahead.
This is the moment, he thought. The moment when you see the ocean's worst
face, when you are most evenly matched.
Twenty yards in front of him a big wave was forming. It rose silently,
steeply, without effort. The mound of water started to peak, to raise
itself into the air.
Hank paddled in deep powerful strokes. His whole body was bowed into the
effort. He stared at the wave, watched the line of spume suddenly thread
along the top. The wave turned concave; became a huge forward-bending wall.
He felt a pressure in his ears and knew the wave was about to break. He
paddled savagely and just as the tons of water curled down, he shot into
the concave green substance. He cut through the middle of the wave; he
locked his arms around the board. He felt the wave crash down on his
ankles; the board shivered for a moment, was almost dragged backward
and he heard a great rumbling savage noise as the wave hit the surface
of the ocean. Then he was released. He slid out past the surf line.
Hank swung into a squatting position and paddled slowly out for a few
more yards. Here the skin of the ocean was flat and smooth and the waves
looked harmless. Hank swung the board around and looked toward the shore.