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Read Ebook: The Mighty Dead by Gault William Campbell
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Ebook has 375 lines and 12878 words, and 8 pages
the mighty dead
On its surface the choice was an easy one--Doak Parker's career in Washington against a highly suspect country girl he had just met.
Doak Parker was thinking of June, when the light flashed. He was thinking of the two months' campaign and the very probable probability of his knocking her off this week-end. It was going to be a conquest to rank among his best. It was going to be....
The buzzer buzzed, the light flashed and the image of Ryder appeared on his small desk-screen. Ryder said, "Come in, Doak. A little job for the week-end."
Ryder was sitting behind his desk when Doak entered. Ryder was a man of about sixty, with a lined, weary face and a straggling mustache. He nodded at the chair across the desk from him.
Ryder depressed a button on his desk and the screen beyond him began to glow. Ryder said, "An electronic transcript of a phone call I received this morning from former Senator Elmer Arnold. You know who he is, I guess, Doak."
Then the image of former Senator Arnold came on the screen. He didn't look any more than a hundred and ten years old, a withered and thin lipped man with a complexion like ashes. He began to talk.
"Ryder, I guess you know I'm no scatterbrain and I guess you know I'm not one to cry wolf--but there's something damned funny going on in the old Fisher place on the Range Road. You better send a man down here, and I mean quick. You have him contact me."
The image faded, the rasping voice ceased. Doak sighed and looked at his nails.
"Senile, you're thinking?" Ryder said quietly.
"I wasn't thinking at all, Chief," Doak said.
"Not even about that new one, that June?" the Chief asked, smiling.
Doak looked up, startled. "Is there no privacy? Are there no sanctuaries?"
"As long as we're being frank," Doak said, "he mentioned the old Fisher place and a road as though you should know them. Friends of yours?"
"Friends? That's our home town. Senator Arnold was very instrumental in my Department climb." Ryder paused. "And no crackpot."
"I'll buy that," Doak agreed. "He was the man who first saw the power in combining pressure groups. He surely made some strange bedfellows."
"Any lobbyist would be a strange bedfellow, I've been told," the Chief answered. "The Arnold Law has saved us one hell of a lot of work, Doak, and saved the Department money."
"Yes, sir," Doak said. "I'm to understand this couldn't be put off until Monday?"
Ryder nodded.
"And no other Security Officer would do?"
"No other."
Ryder smiled. "Just one. As a guess, what do you think it is, in the old Fisher place, on the Range Road?"
"Readers," Doak answered, "or why would the--uh, Mr. Arnold be so worried."
Ryder chuckled. "I can see them now, in the curtained room, huddling over an old railroad timetable. I think your guess is sound, Doak." He rose. "And there'll be other week-ends. That girl can wait. She isn't going to spoil."
It was still a half hour to quitting time and Doak went back to his desk. He sat there, trying to remember the history of Senator Arnold. It was all on the tape in the Biography Center, he knew, but he didn't want that much information.
Arnold had unified the Censors and they had made strange bedfellows. For where one bit of ink and paper might be anti-Christian, the next might be anti-anti-Christian and the next anti-anti-anti--ad absurdium. And sex? Where couldn't one find sex in print, even among the prissy writers? For wasn't a large part of it boy meets girl? And they didn't meet to exchange election buttons--that much was certain.
Well, there were the P.T.A. and the N.A.M. and the fine if disguised hand of the Lenin lovers and the S.P.C.A. who didn't like dogs to play a sub-human part in the world of letters. All these, fighting each other, until Senator Arnold came forth.
The Senator had never enjoyed a favorable press and had a habit of saying things that looked silly, three years later, in print. The Senator was the new spokesman for the Censors.
And those who loathed sex or Christians or Republicans or Democrats or the Big Ten or the small snifter were unified under this noble man who read with his lips.
They were for him. And they established the biggest lobby ever to crawl out of the woodwork in Washington. They had their day.
The printers fought a little but were offered jobs in Hollywood. The paper manufacturers were promised all the government map-work plus a new sheaf of picture magazines. The publishers were all rich and ready to retire anyway.
The writers? They were disorganized because some were rich and some weren't, the game being what it was, and the difference in viewpoint between a rich and a non-rich writer makes McCarthy and Malenkov look like brothers.
That wasn't the exact wording, but close.
Simple enough--how can there be subversive literature if there is no literature?
There were still sex, Democrats, Lenin lovers, some religion and two Republicans . There was, of course, no Post Office Department, nor need for any.
On Connecticut Ave there was a girl named June waiting for a call from Doak. She had been in a negative frame of mind for two months, but the week-end ahead had shown promise of bringing matters to a head and maybe, considering everything, well, what the hell....
A gong sounded.
The other wage-slaves rose with assorted sighs, looking forward to the week-end. Doak dialed June's number.
His outside screen lighted up and there she was, her hair in curlers but luscious as a peach. "Hi," she said. And then frowned at the seriousness of his smile.
"Look, June," he said, "I--I've got to go out of town."
"So help me, kid, it's...." Well, he couldn't say what it was. "I'll phone you, though, as soon--"
His screen went blank. He dialed again, and again. The screen stayed blank.
Ryder came out from his office, his hat on, looking weary. He managed a smile for Doak. "You'd better get to the cashier before he closes, if you haven't already."
"Yes, sir," Doak said. "Dubbinville, wasn't it?"
"Dubbinville," Ryder said. "My old Wisconsin home. You'll find it beautiful this time of the year. You'll love it, Doak."
"Yes, sir," Doak said.
The cashier was just getting ready to close when Doak came to the window. "Week-end trip," Doak said. "Secret."
"How much?"
Doak faced him squarely. "Two thousand."
The cashier seemed to wince but Doak's gaze didn't relent. He was only three years behind in his taxes now and this extra moola on the swindle-sheet could bring him two months closer. Anyone who was only two years behind on his taxes was considered a very solid citizen.
"You do that well," the cashier said and reached up to turn off the light overhead.
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