The Sheep Look Up Read online

  Chalmers, however, welcomed the latecomers cordially enough, brushed aside their apologies, waved them to the remaining vacant places—right in the front row, of course. The wall-clock showed two minutes of eleven instead of the scheduled ten-thirty. Trying to ignore it, Philip picked up a folder of papers from his assigned chair and distributed mechanical smiles to those of his colleagues with whom he could claim casual acquaintance.

  Casual ...

  Don’t think about Laura. Dennie, I love you! I love Josie, I love Harold, I love my family! But if only you hadn’t insisted on my—

  Oh, shut up. Talk about mountains out of molehills!

  But his situation was precarious, after all. Notoriously, he was by nearly seven years the youngest of Angel City’s area managers: LA, Bay, SoCal, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, NM, Texas, Colorado. Texas due for subdivision next year, the grapevine said, but as yet it hadn’t happened. That meant that his footsteps were being hounded by hordes of skilled, degree-equipped unemployed. He had six salesmen with Ph.D.’s. Running to stay in the same place ...

  “If we can continue?” Grey said. Philip composed himself. The first time he had met the actuary he had assumed him to be a dry extension of his computers, lost in a world where only numbers possessed reality. Since then, however, he had learned that it had been Grey who hit on the notion of adopting astrological symbolism for the firm’s promotional material, and thereby endowed Angel City with its unique status as the only major insurance company whose business among clients under thirty was expanding as fast as the proportion of the population they represented. Anyone with that much insight was worth listening to.

  “Thank you. I was just explaining why you’ve come.”

  Eyes rolling back to the limits of their sockets, mouth ajar, breath hissing in her throat! Useless denying it to myself. No woman ever made me feel more like a man!

  Philip touched the inside of his cheek with the tip of his tongue. She had slapped him back-handed and marched out of the motel cabin with blazing eyes because he had offered her money. There was a cut. It had bled for five minutes. It was next to his right upper canine, all his life the sharpest of his teeth.

  “It’s because,” Grey continued, “of the hike in life insurance premiums we’re going to impose from January first. Of course we’ve always predicated our quotations on the assumption that life expectancy in the United States would continue to rise. But during the past three years it has in fact started to go down.”

  A ROOST FOR CHICKENS

  Sharp on nine the Trainites had scattered caltraps in the roadway and created a monumental snarl-up twelve blocks by seven. The fuzz, as usual, was elsewhere—there were always plenty of sympathizers willing to cause a diversion. It was impossible to guess how many allies the movement had; at a rough guess, though, one could say that in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, LA or San Francisco people were apt to cheer, while in the surrounding suburbs or the Midwest people were apt to go fetch guns. In other words, they had least support in the areas which had voted for Prexy.

  Next, the stalled cars had their windows opaqued with a cheap commercial compound used for etching glass, and slogans were painted on their doors. Some were long: THIS VEHICLE IS A DANGER TO LIFE AND LIMB. Many were short: IT STINKS! But the commonest of all was the universally known catchphrase: STOP, YOU’RE KILLING ME!

  And in every case the inscription was concluded with a rough egg-shape above a saltire—the simplified ideogrammatic version of the invariable Trainite symbol, a skull and crossbones reduced to [??].

  Then, consulting printed data-sheets, many of which were flapping along the gutter hours later in the wind of passing cars, they turned to the nearby store-windows and obscured the goods on offer with similarly appropriate slogans. Unprejudiced, they found something apt for every single store.

  It wasn’t too hard.

  Delighted, kids on the afternoon school shift joined in the job of keeping at bay angry drivers, store-clerks and other meddlers. Some of them weren’t smart enough to get lost when the fuzz arrived—by helicopter after frantic radio messages—and made their first trip to Juvenile Hall. But what the hell? They were of an age to realize a conviction was a keen thing to have. Might stop you being drafted. Might save your life.

  Most of the drivers, however, had the sense to stay put, fuming behind their blank windshields as they calculated the cost of repairs and repainting. Practically all of them were armed, but not one was stupid enough to pull a gun. It had been tried during a Trainite demonstration in San Francisco last month. A girl had been shot dead. Others, anonymous in whole-head masks and drab mock-homespun clothing, had dragged the killer from his car and used the same violent acid they applied to glass to write MURDERER on his flesh.

  In any case, there was little future in rolling down a window to curse the demonstrators. Throats didn’t last long in the raw air.

  ENTRAINED

  “It’s easy enough to make people understand that cars and guns are inherently dangerous. Statistically, almost everyone in the country now has experience of a relative being shot dead either at home or abroad, while the association between cars and traffic fatalities opens the public mind to the concept of other, subtler threats.”

  MASTER MOTOR MART

  New & Used Cars

  Lead: causes subnormality in children and other disorders. Exceeds 12 mg. per m3. in surface water off California. Probable contributory factor in decline of Roman Empire whose upper class ate food cooked in lead pans and drank wine fermented in lead-lined vats. Common sources are paint, antiknock gas where still in use, and wildfowl from marshes etc. contaminated over generations by lead shot in the water.

  “On the other hand it’s far harder to make it clear to people that such a superficially innocuous firm as a beauty parlor is dangerous. And I don’t mean because some women are allergic to regular cosmetics.”

  Nanette’s Beauty Center

  Cosmetics, Perfumery & Wigs

  Polychlorinated biphenyls: waste products of the plastics, lubrication and cosmetics industries. Universal distribution at levels similar to DDT, less toxic but having more marked effect on steroid hormones. Found in museum specimens collected as early as 1944. Known to kill birds.

  “Similarly it’s a short mental step from the notion of killing plants or insects to the notion of killing animals and people. It didn’t take the Vietnam disaster to spell that out—it was foreshadowed in everybody’s mind.”

  FARM & GARDEN INC.

  Landscaping & Pest Control Experts

  Pelican, brown: failed to breed in California where formerly common, 1969 onward, owing to estrogenic effect of DDT on shell secretion. Eggs collapsed when hen birds tried to brood them.

  “By contrast, now that we scarcely make use of the substances which used to constitute the bulk of the pharmacopoeia and which were clearly recognizable as poisonous because of their names—arsenic, strychnine, mercury and so on—people seem to assume that any medical drug is good, period. I wasted more of my life than I care to recall going around farms trying to discourage pig and chicken breeders from buying feeds that contained antibiotics, and they simply wouldn’t listen. They held that the more of the stuff you scattered around the better. So developing new drugs to replace those wasted in cake for cattle, pap for pigs and pellets for pullets has become like the race between guns and armor!”

  Stacy & Schwartz Inc.

  IMPORTED GOURMET FOODS

  Train, Austin P. (Proudfoot): b. Los Angeles 1938; e. UCLA (B.Sc. 1957), Univ. Coll. London (Ph.D. 1961); m. 1960 Clara Alice née Shoolman, div. 1963, n.c.; a. c/o publishers. Pub: thesis, “Metabolic Degradation of Complex Organophosphates” (Univ. of London Press 1962); “The Great Epidemics” (Potter & Vasarely 1965, rep. as “Death In the Wind,” Common Sense Books 1972); “Studies in Refractive Ecology” (P&V 1968, rep. as “The Resistance Movement in Nature,” CSB 1972); “Preservatives and Additives in the American Diet” (P&V 1971, rep. as “You Are What You Have To Eat,” CS
B 1972); “Guide to the Survival of Mankind” (International Information Inc., boards 1972, paper 1973); “A Handbook for 3000 A.D.” (III, boards 1973, paper 1975); crt. J. Biol. Sci., J. Ecol., J. Biosph., Intl. Ecol. Rev., Nature, Sci. Am., Proc. Acad. Life Sci., Sat. Rev., New Ykr., New Sci. (London), Envrmt. (London), Paris Match, Der Spiegel (Bonn), Blitz (India), Manchete (Rio) etc.

  IT’S A GAS

  Leaving behind half his lonely brunch (not that the coffee shop where he’d eaten regularly now for almost a year wasn’t crowded with lunchers, but sitting next to the fuzz is prickly), Pete Goddard waited for change to be made for him. Across the street, on the big billboards enclosing the site of Harrigan’s Harness and Feed Store—it had kept the name although for years before it was demolished it had sold snowmobiles, motorcycle parts and dude Western gear—which now was scheduled to become forty-two desirable apartments and the Towerhill home of American Express and Colorado Chemical Bank, someone had painted about a dozen black skulls and crossbones.

  Well, he was feeling a little that way himself. Last night had been a party: first wedding anniversary. His mouth tasted foul and his head ached and moreover Jeannie had had to get up at the ordinary time because she worked too, at the Bamberley hydroponics plant, and he’d broken his promise to clear away the mess so she wouldn’t be faced with it this evening. Besides, that patch on her leg, even if it didn’t hurt ... But they had good doctors at the plant. Had to have.

  New, not disposed to like him, the girl cashier dropped his due coins in his palm and turned back to conversation with a friend.

  The wall-clock agreed with his watch that he had eight minutes to make the four-minute drive to the station house. Moreover, it was bitterly cold outside, down to around twenty with a strong wind. Fine for the tourists on the slopes of Mount Hawes, not good for the police who measured temperature on a graph of smashed cars, frostbite cases and petty thefts committed by men thrown out of seasonal work.

  And women, come to that.

  So maybe before going ... By the door, a large red object with a mirror on the upper part of its front. Installed last fall. Japanese. On a plate at the side: Mitsuyama Corp., Osaka. Shaped like a weighing machine. Stand here and insert 25¢. Do not smoke while using. Place mouth and nose to soft black flexible mask. Like an obscene animal’s kiss.

  Usually he laughed at it because up here in the mountains the air was never so bad you needed to tank up on oxygen to make the next block. On the other hand some people did say it was a hell of a good cure for a hangover...

  More detail penetrated his mind. Noticing detail was something he prided himself on; when his probationary period was through, he was going to shoot for detective. Having a good wife could spawn ambition in any man’s mind.

  The mirror cut in a curve to fit around the mouthpiece: cracked. Slot for quarters. Below it a line defining the coin-hopper. Around that line, scratches. As though someone had tried to pry the box out with a knife.

  Pete thought of bus-drivers murdered for the contents of a change machine.

  Turning back to the counter he said, “Miss!”

  “What?”

  “That oxygen machine of yours—”

  “Ah, shit!” the girl said, hitting “No Sale” on the register. “Don’t tell me the stinking thing is on the fritz again! Here’s your quarter back. Go try the drugstore on Tremont—they have three.”

  THE OPPOSITE OF OVENS

  White tile, white enamel, stainless steel ... One spoke here in hushed tones, as though in a church. But that was because of the echoes from the hard walls, hard floor, hard ceiling, not out of respect for what was hidden behind the oblong doors, one above another from ankle-level to the height of a tall man’s head, one next to another almost as far as the eye could see. Like an endless series of ovens, except that they weren’t to cool, but to chill.

  The man walking ahead of her was white, too—coat, pants, surgical mask at present dangling below his chin, tight ugly cap around his hair. Even plastic overshoes also white. Apart from what she had brought in with her, dull brown, there was effectively only one other color in here.

  Blood-red.

  A man going the other way wheeling a trolley laden with waxed-paper containers (white) labeled (in red) for delivery to the labs attached to this morgue. While he and her companion exchanged helloes, Peg Mankiewicz read some of the directions: 108562 SPLEEN SUSP TYPH CULT, 108563 LIVER VERIFY DEGEN CHGES, 108565 MARSH TEST.

  “What’s a Marsh test?” she said.

  “Presence of arsenic,” Dr. Stanway answered, sidling past the trolley and continuing down the long line of corpse closets. He was a pale man, as though his environment had bleached every strong tint out of him; his cheeks had the shade and texture of the organ containers, his visible hair was ash-blond, and his eyes were the dilute blue of shallow water. Peg found him more tolerable than the rest of the morgue staff. He was devoid of emotion—either that, or absolutely homosexual—and never plagued her with the jocular passes most of his colleagues indulged in.

  Shit. Maybe I should take a wash in vitriol!

  She was beautiful: slim, five-six, with satin skin, huge dark eyes, a mouth juicier than peaches. Especially modern peaches. But she hated it because it meant she was forever being hounded by men collecting pubic scalps. Coming on butch was no help; it was that much more of a challenge to men and started the ki-ki types after her as well. Without make-up, perfume or jewelry, in a deliberately unflattering brown coat and drab shoes, she still felt like a pot of honey surrounded by noisy flies.

  Poised to unzip if she so much as smiled.

  To distract herself she said, “A murder case?”

  “No, that suit someone filed in Orange County. Accused a fruit grower of using an illegal spray.” Eyes roaming the numbered doors. “Ah, here we are.”

  But he didn’t open the compartment at once.

  “He isn’t pretty, you know,” he said after a pause. “The car splattered his brains all over everywhere.”

  Peg buried her hands in the pockets of her coat so that he couldn’t see how pale her knuckles were. It might, just conceivably might be a thief who’d stolen his ID. ...

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  And it wasn’t a thief.

  The whole right-hand side of the dark head was—well, soft. Also the lower eyelid had been torn away and only roughly laid back where it belonged, so the underside of the eyeball was exposed. A graze clotted with blood rasped from the level of the mouth down and out of sight beneath the chin. And the crown was so badly smashed, they’d put a kind of Saran sack around it, to hold it together.

  But it was pointless to pretend this wasn’t Decimus.

  “Well?” Stanway said at length.

  “Yes, put him away.”

  He complied. Turning to lead her to the entrance again, he said, “How did you hear about this? And what makes the guy so important?”

  “Oh ... People call the paper, you know. Like ambulance-drivers. We give them a few bucks for tipping us off.”

  As though floating ahead of her like a horrible sick-joke balloon on a string: the softened face. She swallowed hard against nausea.

  “And he’s—I mean he was—one of Austin Train’s top men.”

  Stanway turned his head sharply. “No wonder you’re interested, then! Local guy, was he? I heard Trainites were out in force again today.”

  “No, from Colorado. Runs—ran—a wat near Denver.”

  They had come to the end of the corridor between the anti-ovens. With the formal politeness due to her sex, which she ordinarily detested but could accept from this man on a host-and-guest basis, Stanway held the door for her to pass through ahead of him and noticed her properly for the first time since her arrival.

  “Say! Would you like to—uh ...?” A poor communicator, this Stanway, at least where women were concerned. “Would you like to sit down? You’re kind of green.”

  “No thanks!” Over-forcefully. Peg hated to display any sign of weak
ness for fear it might be interpreted as “feminine.” She relented fractionally a second later. Of all the men she knew she suspected this one least of hoping to exploit chinks in her guard.

  “You see,” she admitted, “I knew him.”

  “Ah.” Satisfied “A close friend?”

  There was another corridor here, floored with soft green resilient composition and wallpapered with drifts of monotonous Muzak. A girl came out of a gilt-lettered door bearing a tray of coffee-cups. Peg scented fragrant steam.

  “Yes ... Have the police sent anyone to check on him?”

  “Not yet. I hear they’re kind of overloaded. The demonstration, I guess.”

  “Did they take his belongings from the car?”

  “I guess they must have. We didn’t even get his ID— just one of those forms they fill out at the scene of the accident.” Dealing with Christ knew how many such per day, Stanway displayed no particular interest. “Way I read it, though, they’d be concerned. Must have been stoned to do what he did. And if he was one of Train’s top men they’re bound to show up soon, aren’t they?”

  They hadn’t yet reached the door to the outside, but Peg hastily put on her filtermask.

  It covered so much of her traitorous face.

  It was a long walk to where she had left her car: a Hailey, of course, on principle. Her vision was so blurred by the time she reached it—not merely because the air stung her eyes—that she twice tried to put the key in the lock upside-down. When she finally realized, she was so annoyed she broke a nail dragging open the door.