A Creed for the Third Millennium (12 page)

The menu was far from intolerable, a
fairly wide range of old-style Yankee or East Coast dishes from three kinds of
clam chowder to pot roast to scrapple to Indian pudding. Oddly enough
(considering the quality of Mama's cooking), he was always more interested in
food when away from home, especially when, as now, the trip was not connected
with the ordeal of a professional conference. He ordered the New England clam
chowder, a London broil and Russian dressing on his salad, and deferred a
decision on dessert until later, all this done with the same sweet smile for the
waitress he had given earlier to the tired hostess.

Maestro Steinfeld got up to leave the
dining room, nodding regally to this and that acquaintance, and pausing for a
word or two with his television colleague from Detroit. The woman with Mayor
d'Este was introduced to him, Maestro Steinfeld bowing to kiss her hand; this
movement flopped his hair forward and thus allowed him as he straightened to
throw his head back dramatically, settling his dishevelled coiffure into place
again as if it had been designed for just this contingency.

Dr Christian watched out of the corner of
his eye, amused. Then the first of his food came, so he bent his attention upon
the big bowl of steaming milky chowder and discovered that its bottom was
laudably full of minced clams and diced potatoes.

When the time came he declined dessert,
for the meal had been almost too plentiful, fresh, and excellently
cooked.

'Just coffee and a double cognac, thank
you.' He nodded towards all the occupied tables. 'Quite crowded
tonight.'

'The Marcus trial,' explained the
waitress, mentally agreeing with the hostess's whispered aside to her that she
was serving by far the most attractive man in the room. Oh, Maestro Steinfeld
was gorgeous in a standoffish way, and Mayor d'Este was so handsome he looked a
bit as if he was made of wax, but Dr Christian was really
nice;
his smile
said he found you genuinely interesting and likeable, without giving you the
slightest suggestion of a man on the make.

'They had to call me in to help,' the
waitress went on, and then added, in case this sounded as if she was not a
professional waitress, 'I
don't work Tuesdays as a rule.'

An up-country girl from somewhere like
the 'land of Goshen', Dr Christian decided; unsophisticated and down to earth.
'I
didn't realize the Marcus trial was such a big issue,' he
said.

'It's going to be in all the papers,' she
said solemnly. 'That poor man! All he wanted was a bit of wood.'

'It's against the law,' said Dr
Christian, his manner reassuringly free from disapproval.

'The law don't have a heart,
mister.'

'Yes, that's absolutely true.' He looked
at her left hand. 'I see you're married. But you work.'

'Gotta pay the bills, mister, they don't
pay themselves.'

Have you had your child yet?' He asked
because mostly when a woman had her child she gave up work.

'Nuh-uh. Johnny — he's my husband — says
we gotta wait until we get a permanent relocation in the south.'

'Very sensible! When do you expect to
go?'

She sighed. 'I dunno, mister. Johnny's
gotta find a job there first, and it's gotta be some
place where there's room. We've got our application in. Now — I guess we just
wait'

'What does Johnny do?'

'He's a plumber with the Hartford city
plant physical.'

Dr Christian threw back his head and
laughed. 'Then he'll find work somewhere warmer, never fear! Even the machines
which replace men don't like dealing with drains.'

She looked brighter, chirpier; it would
be days before she stopped telling her family and friends about the real nice
man she waited on in the motel dining room.

The coffee was good and the cognac a VSOP
Remy Martin, and the waitress was attentive about replenishing both cup and
glass. Warmly replete, Dr Christian found himself wishing for a cigar, a sure
sign that he had found a rare degree of pleasure in dining. But smoking indoors
was anathema, and outdoors tonight was no summer evening. So he contented
himself with admitting to himself that it did him good to get away from the
confines of home and clinic occasionally. A pity he found so little enjoyable in
professional conferences; but no man could enjoy an environment rife with
ridicule and contempt, all directed at himself. Whereas a murder trial — it
fitted the bill very nicely.

He got to his feet a little regretfully,
having added a generous tip to the bottom of his cheque, and wended his way
slowly out of the room without remembering to look in the direction of the
dark-haired woman he obviously ought to know from somewhere.

Behind him, lingering in the company of
Mayor d'Este, Dr Judith Carriol thought about the conversation she had
shamelessly eavesdropped upon between Dr Christian and his waitress. Most
interesting! He had spoken to the girl so very kindly. An ordinary enough
passage of civilities, but he had endowed it with real meaning, and the waitress had
visibly blossomed. Charisma. Was that what it was? Was that what Moshe Chasen
thought it was?

She frowned, but inwardly only; Dominic
d'Este was in the midst of a monologue about the relocation programme, the
thrust of his argument a vigorous defence of continued federal funding of
winters-only relocation. All he required her to do was nod occasional
encouragement, so Dr Carriol's mind was free to stray where it wanted. Charisma.
This candidate most definitely did
not
have charisma. Warm and charming
and personable though he was, he also had a tendency to be downright boring once
he climbed aboard his hobbyhorse. As now. However, be thankful for small
mercies, she told herself wryly; at least he wasn't one of those people who made
sure their audience listened properly!

Senator Hillier was over and done with,
an easy subject for one in her Washington position to get to meet without a
meeting seeming odd. He had impressed her, but she had fully expected to be
impressed. A most dynamic, intelligent, caring man. Brought up from silver spoon
infancy in the old American tradition of public service without personal gain.
And yet, and yet — Dr Carriol had come away from a most enjoyable afternoon
spent in his company with a profound conviction that Senator David Sims Hillier
VII was deeply in love with power. Patently he neither needed nor craved the
money power could bring any more than he did the status power could bring. No,
he wanted power for power's sake only, and that to Dr Carriol's way of thinking
was infinitely more dangerous. Also, she agreed with Dr Moshe Chasen; Hillier
quite lacked charisma. The man had to
work
to capture those who swung
into his sphere, you could see the cogs and wheels and gears churning nonstop
behind his eyes. Charisma was definitely an effortless phenomenon.

By coming to Hartford she was killing her
other two birds with the same stone, though the Mayor was not actually the
reason she had come to Hartford. Dr Joshua Christian had proven as difficult to
get close to as she had felt he would be after reading his file for the first
time. It was John Wayne who thought of putting private detectives on his tail.
Brilliant! Not ten minutes after Dr Christian had made his bus booking and his
motel booking, Dr Carriol was in the process of getting herself from Washington
to Hartford.

And, hey presto, Mayor d'Este as well! Of
course he would attend the Marcus trial; Hartford was a northern city, and his
television programme Northern City' would be able to use the footage shot in
Hartford for several different purposes throughout the season besides for airing
the Marcus dilemma. So today she had devoted to the Mayor, scraping acquaintance
through their mutual friend Dr Samuel Abraham. Dominic d'Este knew enough of her
to want to get her on-side, thinking she might come in handy during his
perpetual struggles in Washington to secure work for Detroit. Thus Dr Carriol
had not found it hard to prolong her initial overture into an afternoon watching
him direct his television crew, and then dinner
a
deux.

Good. The Mayor was finished with,
undoubtedly. From now until May first she could concentrate entirely upon Dr
Joshua Christian, who in her mind was steadily acquiring the status of heir
apparent to the outcome of Operation Search.

The following morning Dr Christian came
early to the courthouse, with Dr Carriol a discreet distance behind him all the
way from the motel. She waited until he had chosen a seat three rows from the
back and in the middle, then she strolled into the same row, but remained on the
aisle. She was careful not to glance in his direction. As people entered the row
she merely moved up each time a little closer to her quarry. He had struck up a conversation with two
women in the row in front of him, and from the way he was talking it was obvious
they were the widow and mother-in-law of the murder victim. Only when the court
rose to commence the session did he cease talking to Mrs Bartholomew and Mrs
Nettlefold and direct his attention towards the podium; by which time Dr Carriol
was sitting right next to him.

It was a small courtroom with good
acoustics because it was old and liberally bedizened with plaster excrescences,
hanging lights, niches and differently textured surfaces; therefore it was a
pity that the morning's proceedings were so dull. Such a room was made for vocal
fireworks. The jury had been picked and sworn in the previous day without real
opposition from the Defence, and now there seemed to be a mass of
inconsequential technicalities to get out of the way; finally the Prosecution
rose to commence a long preamble presented not by the Prosecutor himself, but by
an underling. Everyone dozed in the relative warmth except Dr Christian, who
gazed everywhere save towards the woman alongside him, eagerly drinking in every
facet of this new experience.

When the luncheon recess arrived in due
course, Dr Carriol turned to face Dr Christian quite naturally, as if assuming
he was going to move out of the row in the direction away from her, and she
intended to leave the same way. Her start of surprise was well done. She emitted
the sort of noise loosely called an inarticulate exclamation, and looked
searchingly into his face with the same expression she had used on the previous
evening.

'Dr — Christian?'

He nodded. 'That's me.'

'You don't remember? But why should you,
indeed!' she said, the second part of her speech following too hard on the heels
of the first to permit him to begin edging away.

He stood looking down at her politely,
his attention caught by her eyes; they reminded him of the pond in West Holloman
Park, murky amber water overlying thick green weed. Fascinating eyes which might
harbour anything from crocodiles to drowned ruins.

He smiled back at her very warily,
understanding that he was in the presence of a peer. 'I have seen you
somewhere,' he said slowly.

'Baton Rouge, two years ago,' she
said.

His face cleared. 'Of course! You gave a
paper, didn't you? Dr — Dr — Carriol?'

'That's right.'

'It was a good paper, I remember. The
social problems peculiar to Band C towns. In fact, I thought you had a really
excellent grasp of the logistics, but not much deep insight into either the
spiritual problems or the answers.'

His frankness took her aback; she blinked
heavy white eyelids but was too good at concealing her thoughts to show more. No
wonder his colleagues didn't like him! And could anyone so blunt possibly have
charisma?

'I'm not alone in lacking deep insight,'
she said evenly. 'Is it a quality you possess?'

'I think so,' he said, not in the tones
of an overweening conceit, but quite matter-of-factly.

'Then how about having lunch with me, Dr
Christian, and filling me in on what's wrong with the Band C towns?'

He had lunch with her, and he filled her
in.

'The Band C situation is only one aspect
of what I call millennial neurosis, but it's perhaps the most severe one. More
severe certainly than the Band D situation, where people admittedly have to face
the trek back north each spring too, but have their love of the land and their
land-based occupations to sustain them. I know I'm not telling you anything you
don't already know when I say that the Band C relocatees are industrial transplants from the
poorer parts big northern and midwestern cities, and truly I'm not trying to
patronize you. But have you considered the poverty of their
inner
resources? For one thing, they're not spiritually linked to the changing
seasons the way the Band D people are, nor do they have the national
togetherness of the Canadian Band E relocatees. And there are only so many ball
games and hockey games and mardi gras they can attend during those idle months
in winter quarters. They're not permitted a car for longer than a month out of
the four they spend in the south all told. Bread and circuses didn't work all
that well for the Romans, so why should they work any better now? Our urban
proletariat is far better educated and more sophisticated than any other in the
history of the world, including the present time. It needs direction. It needs a
purpose. It needs to feel —
wanted!
Yet what it feels is utterly unwanted.
The Band C people are poor, yes, but the bulk of them are not egalitarian at
heart, they're genuine American elitists. In many ways they took the worst blows
to pride and honour when we signed the Delhi Treaty. They've certainly taken the
worst blows to comfort and convenience! Oh, sure, their winter quarters are
undoubtedly more luxurious and better planned than their homes in the north and
midwest, but I think they feel as if they've simply been bought off.'