The Devil Tree
Whalen decided to find out whether he was being followed. He strolled casually out of the lobby. The doorman promptly called him a taxi, and when it arrived he got inside, turning to look back as the cab left the curb. Two sedans parked near the hotel immediately pulled out behind the taxi. Whalen asked the driver to go around the block. When the taxi turned the corner, the two cars followed. Whalen told the driver to take the first right turn and then the next left. The sedans were still behind him. When he asked the driver to go around the block again, the man became suspicious. Whalen explained that he had bet some friends of his that he could lose them in city traffic. He told the driver to drop him in the middle of Times Square, and as the taxi halted Whalen paid the driver and jumped out. He ducked behind a newsstand. It was still raining. Both sedans pulled to the curb, and two men got out of each and scattered in the crowd. As one of them passed near the newsstand, Whalen heard the static of a walkie-talkie. For a while Whalen mingled with the crowd, but soon he was drenched and moved into a crowded cafeteria.
Sitting at a table away from the window, his back to the street, he wondered who was paying to have him so elaborately tailed: the plump man, two cars, four men with walkie-talkies. Was it police? In spite of his previous drug history, they must surely know he was no longer buying or concealing drugs. The drug people? What for? He owed them nothing. Mafia? He remembered reading newspaper stories about people who kidnapped the rich, but he dismissed the thought. The crime syndicate worked subtly and efficiently; if they wanted him, they would have kidnapped him ten times over by now. Then who were his followers?
The coffee was weak; he felt sluggish. He thought of calling Karen but decided against it. Lately, when they talked, Karen seemed distant, probably because there was another man in her life, who was perhaps in bed with her right now. It was bad enough to be trapped in Times Square by the rain and anonymous pursuers without being reminded that he was also trapped by Karen.
• • •
Karen claims that when I seem sexually guarded, even though she’s turned on by my resistance, she responds by being cold—despite the risk of scaring me off. This makes her feel Victorian, passive, alive to nothing, just there to accept sex whenever I want to give it.
I told her that even in sex I was always trying to conceal both portions of my personality: the manipulative, malevolent adult who deceives and destroys and the child who craves acceptance and love. Now I know that I have really tried to conceal the child at the expense of the adult. While my dominant concern all my life has been with not admitting needs, not asking for things, not squandering money, my worst terror has always been that I might seem helpless, and that in appearing helpless or childish I might again be judged in relation to my parents. That’s why, even in my lovemaking, I manage to stay self-contained, allowing myself no extremes of pleasure or happiness. Recently Karen remarked that I must have lost my passions somewhere abroad. I wonder if she thinks I ever found them again before coming home.
For Karen, sex and rage are inextricably related. Even her anger often leads to the most violent lovemaking, in which the discharge of passion is in clear proportion to the rage that preceded it.
She once recalled her parents’ violent arguments. One ended with her father’s shouting at the top of his lungs, “Any whore in Pittsburgh is better in bed than you are!” To which her mother replied, “I’m glad you can get it up for the whores in Pittsburgh.” There was a hidden lesson in Karen’s remarks: she obviously assumes that whores free me of whatever inhibitions I still feel with her.
• • •
For those who can afford it, New York seems to have been designed as the perfect pharmacy, with remedies available around the clock, for all human ills. All except anguish. At midnight I called a neighborhood bookshop and asked the employee who answered to select twenty-five books of poetry for me and have them delivered to my hotel room. Shortly after the books arrived, Karen called and said she wasn’t feeling well. She said she was probably depressed because Susan had just left to visit her ailing mother in California. I sensed Karen’s need for me, but instead of inviting her over or going to see her, I told her that, if she liked, I would try to console or distract her by reading her passages from some of the well-known American poets. I said I had just had two bagfuls delivered. She hung up before I could even begin.
That left me free. To embark on a trip with yet another Strangelove from Odyssey 2001? I decided instead to do my own hunting. I went to a singles’ bar and started to talk to a girl standing next to me. She was good-looking and alone, and as she watched me I could see her breasts through the thin material of her dress. She had unusually long nipples. I ordered a pitcher of sangría, and we moved to a small table and sat close together. The girl seemed self-assured, and as she observed my gestures and the way my pants hugged my thighs, I could tell that she was assessing my body. I began to think of myself as an object of desire, and the more I concentrated on her image of me, the more I desired her. I tried to imagine myself in her place and wondered if she had any idea I was doing so. I finally asked her what it was like to ponder the idea of being with a man she hardly knew. She answered that familiarity, combined with the memory of past pleasures, was for her the most potent of all aphrodisiacs; still, she said, she was able to look at a man across a room and feel that she already knew him intimately.
She asked me what I did, and I told her I lived off a rich older couple from Pittsburgh. She was horrified at first, fearing that I might be some bisexual gigolo, some human hyena scavenging among the elderly set, but I quickly dispelled her fears by inviting her for a ride in my new convertible—which, even if she assumed I had bought the car with the earnings from my unwholesome profession, she was not about to miss out on. With the top folded down, pop songs blaring on the radio and tires screeching, we drove through the empty streets of the financial district, staring up at the Wall Street skyscrapers. On the way back I stopped at the marina. The captain of my boat—whom I’d called from the bar—was waiting for me, a bit sleepy but smiling, with the boat at the ready, quietly humming, its lights on. We stepped inside, and as the captain piloted the boat down the river the girl and I had a drink on the afterdeck. By now she no longer cared how I got my money. Like a prop on a watery stage with Manhattan for a backdrop, the boat moved slowly and almost noiselessly past the Battery.
At the mouth of the Hudson we passed between two ships. The crews looked down at the three of us—a man, a woman, and a uniformed captain—looking up at them from a luxurious mini-Titanic,
I asked the captain to drop anchor near the Statue of Liberty, and as he sat on the flybridge watching TV, the girl and I, both naked, lay on the bed in the cabin and let the gentle roll of the boat rock us into each other’s arms. At one point I was on top of her, stroking her hair, thinking, Soon I’ll put it in. But something reminded me of Karen. Screwing this girl would merely have been another anecdote for Karen’s amusement. Sweaty and exhausted, I turned away.
• • •
The desk clerk telephoned to say that Monsieur Bernardot was downstairs. “He says he has an appointment with you, Mr. Whalen.”
“Send him up,” said Whalen.
A balding, slightly stooped man in his fifties soon entered the room.
“I want you to be my cook,” said Whalen, shaking his hand.
The man looked at him with reverence, then said in a heavy French accent, “My former employer, Mrs. Allcott, greatly admired your parents, sir. It was while in her service that I cooked dinner for your father and mother on several different occasions. That was, shortly before you were born, Mr. Whalen. In a way,” he said, smiling at the thought, “I like to think that the food I prepared on those evenings might have contributed to what a fine man you’ve turned out to be.”
“My parents are both dead,” said Whalen.
“Yes, sir, I know that. I am sorry.” He paused. “Would you like to know my credentials and see my letters of reference?”
“Yo
u can leave the letters with my secretary. But tell me briefly where you’ve worked until now.”
The man smiled. “I’ve worked for over thirty years in many places. I went to the Hotel School in Lyon, where I studied cooking, service, and restaurant management. I spent three years working under Paul Bocuse, possibly the greatest cook ever, and then I worked at the Beau Rivage in Lausanne and the Hotel de l’Etrier in Crans-Montana. Later I became chef de cuisine at the Prince Royal Hotel at Bourg-Léopold, then chef de garde at the Ritz in Paris. After that I had some family trouble in France and immigrated to the United States. In New York I worked first for the famous Romeo Salta, then for David Wolf, the wellknown American restaurateur.”
“Good,” said Whalen, bored but polite.
The man went on. “The last three years I worked for Mrs. Mary Hay ward Weir. I’ve a letter of recommendation from her. And before that I was in the employ of Mrs. Charlotte Cobb-McKay, and before—”
“Fine,” Whalen interrupted. “Anything else?”
“Well, sir. . .” The man’s French accent became more noticeable. “There’s nothing in the field of haute cuisine that I can’t do. But of course—” he paused—” of course, you can’t compare what I could cook for you, let’s say, in Paris, Florence, or in Crans-Montana, to what I can prepare in New York or Pittsburgh. Here, the food-freezing methods kill the flavor—”
“You are single, aren’t you?” Whalen cut in.
“I am divorced. My children, all grown up, live in France.”
“All right,” said Whalen. “Now, as my lawyers discussed with your agency, I’m ready to pay you twice your previous salary. But you will have free time only when I am dining out or not in town. Otherwise you will have to be on call always to cook for me and my guests.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man. “Will I be living on the premises?”
“Yes, you will,” said Whalen. “My house should be ready in a month or so. I’ve already hired two experienced maids, and there will be an ample cleaning staff available. That’s all.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the man, and he bowed before leaving.
• • •
“You have asked us, Jonathan, to submit to you the findings of our screening of the applicants for the executive posts that are available from time to time in our company. These findings were obtained through the carefully monitored use of electronic Voice Stress lie detectors, sophisticated scientific testing and multidimensional personality analysis, as well as through information about each applicant’s family, his professional past, his medical history, even his habits and hobbies—all acquired through our well-placed confidential sources. Eighty percent of those interviewed suffered from some disorder in the urinary tract and anal zones and admitted having sexual problems ranging from inadequate erection to complete impotence. More than forty percent complained of heart palpitation, tension, breathing difficulties, or headaches. We established that close to ninety percent of these otherwise outstanding businessmen had routinely complained about anxiety, insomnia, depression, forgetfulness, sweating, and ulcers. Your father was always in favor of such preventive screening. He called it our anti-ulcer policy. He was ahead of his time, Jonathan.”
“To be really ahead of his time, my father should have trained Peruvian Indians to become his executives,” I said. “According to the Corporate Scientific, Peruvian Indians never develop ulcers.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re notorious opium and cocaine smokers who lack ambition, refuse to compete, and are unwilling to plan ahead. Without tension, with no anxiety, they live only in the present—hence, they have no ulcers.”
“Do you know, Jonathan, that right here in this country we have millions upon millions of lazy blacks and Hispanics with exactly that attitude? It’s nice for them that we keep them all on welfare so that they can enjoy their freedom—freedom from work as well as ulcers.”
• • •
In the rearview mirror Whalen saw the car following him, and he recognized his pursuers. Noting that the highway was empty except for them, he stepped on the accelerator and his car lurched forward. In a maneuver that brought back memories of his high school drives with Karen and their friends, he jerked the steering wheel to the left. As the car leaned to one side he pulled out the hand brake, locking the rear wheels, and as if lifted by a giant crane the car spun to the left, skidding and pitching. In an instant he swung the steering wheel to the right, released the hand brake, and simultaneously depressed the gas pedal. The front of the car swayed, then stabilized. Now moving in the opposite direction, he passed the pursuing car and then in the rearview mirror saw it stop suddenly. He could hear the tires squealing. Whalen sped on for about a mile, turned at an intersection, and continued speeding for another mile. Having lost his pursuers again, he slowed down, parked his car at the curb, and turned off the engine. He could hear the faint siren of a police car far away.
• • •
Whalen walked around the room glancing at the modern paintings. He paused at the window. Like an architect’s scale model, Manhattan spread out below him.
“In my father’s office I could open the window.”
“Ah, yes,” said Peter Macauley. “Those charming old-fashioned windows. Ours are all permanently sealed. Here on the hundred and sixth floor the wind is no joke.” He came closer and stood next to Whalen. “Your father’s office was on the twentieth floor of the dear old Coinage Building, wasn’t it?”
“The twenty-fifth,” said Whalen.
As Macauley returned to his office desk, he noticed Whalen looking at a panel of screens, buttons, knobs, and flickering lights on it. “Recently installed,” Macauley said, patting the desk affectionately. “Made of hand-rubbed walnut. Everything is built in. This is a closed-circuit TV that is hooked up with a videophone, so I can see those I’m on the phone with, as long as they work for this company. I can even freeze a single frame and create an instant portrait of any one of them, as well as of myself.” He laughed. “And this,” he said, pointing to the right, “is a conference telephone with a hands-free speaker and an electronic touch dial—also connected to a screen that allows me to zero in on every participant at any conference that might be taking place in the building—and all this from behind my desk. Very useful. Here, farther to the right, we have a twelve-digit memory calculator hooked into our central corporate data bank. Every relevant business figure of our company for the last twenty-five years is retrievable in a split second. And here, below, special gauges compute the working time and wear on every major piece of heavy equipment we, or our subsidiaries, own. Don’t you think, Jonathan, that your father would have loved it?” When Whalen nodded, Macauley continued. “In only forty-five seconds this telecopier transmits—over telephone, radio, and communication satellite—a facsimile of any document or photograph to any part of the world. Here, above, my personal ticker tape gives quotations of our stock and that of our affiliates. In the center are the intercom, the Dictaphones, the paging systems, the data-retrieval subset.”
“Why isn’t there equipment like that to sort out a person’s conflicting ideas and emotions?” asked Whalen.
“Well, there almost is!” exclaimed Macauley. “Pressing this little knob,” he said, pointing to the desk’s side, “activates the latest polygraph—we’ve nicknamed it the Nothing-but-the-Truth Machine—developed by one of our subsidiaries. Like many other technological breakthroughs, Nothing-but-the-Truth grew out of military intelligence research related to the interrogation of prisoners and spies. By electronically analyzing the unconscious and involuntary stress that affects the muscles controlling the vocal cords and causes microtremor in a person’s voice, this polygraph can tell when a person is telling the truth and when he is not. In addition, it alerts me to the presence of wiretaps, phone bugs, or tape recorders, either installed in my office or carried by a visitor.”
“Isn’t that unethical?”
“Lying and deceiving are unethical, Jonathan.
Their deterrents are not.
“When your father was running the company, he was greatly in favor of introducing the latest means of increasing our efficiency. Today this company is a vast conglomerate, one of the largest in the world, with over seventy national and international subsidiaries scattered in nearly as many countries. Each year our revenues are higher than the gross national product of, say, Sweden or Spain, not to mention other less advanced countries. Our labor force, here and abroad, exceeds a million and a half men and women of different colors, speaking dozens of different languages. Metals, once your father’s major preoccupation, are now only our ninth-largest interest. We are, I’m happy to say, among a handful of large corporations that, through their investments, control at least fifteen percent of the stock of the top forty conglomerates. We and the companies we own are involved in aerospace, pharmaceuticals, computers, food, coal mining, hotel chains, gas turbines, oceangoing tankers, offshore drilling, television, semiconductors, insurance, realty development, publishing, and several other industries—from prostaglandins to prefabricated housing.” Reassured by Whalen’s silence, he went on. “Our policies have also changed since your father’s time. Although he opposed any substantial foreign acquisition of our stock, we’ve embarked on a different course. The West Germans, as well as Arab investors from Kuwait and the Emirates, own slightly over four percent of our equity. However, since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires full disclosure of ownership only when five percent or more of a company’s stock is owned by one investor, we are within our rights to hide the identities of our foreign investors—as well as to shield from our government and the public the actual size and nature of their formidable holdings. I might add that all our foreign investors are proud to know that, without some of the products manufactured by our company, American astronauts might never have walked on the moon.” Grinning, he looked at Whalen.