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For the laws a relief
But it's death for Bo
That about summed it up: the laws were not necessarily fascist Gestapo racist pigs (words largely unknown in Texas), but they were people who would find it a relief if bothersome and rebellious individualism disappeared, however bloody the disappearance might be. If you were ornery enough, the laws would bushwhack you- shoot you dead from ambush, without a chance to surrender, as they did to Miss Parker and Mr. Barrow-but even if you were merely a mildly larcenous hoaxter like Dr. Naismith, they would be much cheered to put you someplace where you couldn't throw any more entropy into the functioning of the Machine they served. And so, recognizing laws, Dr. Naismith narrowed his eyes, thought deeply, and when they began their questioning, lied as only an unregenerate old-school Texas confidence man can lie.
"You got it from somebody who had body contact with you. So either you were in a very crowded elevator or you got it from a prostitute. Which was it?"
Naismith thought of the collision on the sidewalk with the Midget and the weasel-faced character with the big suitcase, but he also thought that the questioner leaned heavily on the second possibility. They were looking for a woman; and, if you tell the laws what they want to hear, they don't keep coming back and asking more personal questions. "I was with a prostitute," he said, trying to sound embarrassed.
"Can you describe her?"
He thought back over the pros he had seen with other VSR delegates, and one stood out Being a kindly man, he didn't want to implicate an i
Unfortunately for Dr. Naismith's kindly intentions, the laws never expect an eyewitness description to match the person described in all respects, so when his information was coded into an IBM machine, three cards came out. Each one had more similarities to his fiction than differences from it, and they came from a card file of several hundred prostitutes whose descriptions had been gathered and coded in the past twenty-four hours. Ru
"You don't work free-lance," Despond told her, nastily, for the fifth time. "In this town, the Maf would put a knife up your ass and break off the handle if you tried that. You've got a pimp. Now, do we throw the book at you or do we get his name?"
"Don't be too hard on her," Tobias Knight said. "She's only a poor, confused kid. Not twenty yet, are you?" he asked her kindly. "Give her a chance to think. She'll do the right thing. Why should she protect a lousy pimp who exploits her all the time?" He gave her a reassuring glance.
"Poor confused kid, my ass!" Despond exploded. "This is a matter of life and death and no Nigra whore is going to sit here lying her head off and get away with it." He did a good imitation of a man literally trembling with repressed fury. "I'd like to kick her head in," he screamed.
Knight, still playing the friendly cop, looked shocked. "That's not very professional," he said sadly. "You're overtired, and you're frightening the child."
Three hours later- after Despond had nearly done a complete psycho schtick and virtually threatened to behead poor Bo
Twelve minutes later, Roy Ubu, calling via car radio, reported that Carmel was not in his house and had been seen driving toward the Southwest in a jeep with a large suitcase beside him.
In the next eighteen hours, eleven men in jeeps were stopped on various roads southwest of Las Vegas, but none of them was Carmel, although most of them were around the height and weight and general physical description given by Bo
Among all the men wandering around the Desert Door base and the city of Las Vegas with credentials from the U.S. Public Health Service, one who really was employed by USPHS, had a long lean body, a mournful countenance, a general resemblance to the late great Boris Karloff, and the name Fred Filiarisus. By special authority of the White House, Dr. Filiarisus was able to gain access to everything known by the scientists at Desert Door, including the course of the disease in those originally infected, among whom two had died before the antidote took effect and three had shown a total lack of symptoms even though exposed along with the others. He also had access to both FBI and CIA information as it came in, without having to bug either office. It was he, therefore, who finally put together the correct picture, on April 30, and reported directly to the White House at eleven that morning.
"Some people are naturally immune to Anthrax Leprosy Pi, Mr. President," Filiarisus said. "Unfortunately, they serve as carriers. We found three like that at the base, and it is mathematically, scientifically certain that a fourth is still at large.
"Everybody was lying to the FBI and CIA, sir. They were all afraid of punishment for various activities forbidden by our laws. No variation or permutation on their stories will hang together reasonably. Each witness lied about something, and usually about several things. The truth is other than it appeared. In short, the government, being an agency of punishment, acted as a distorting factor from the begi
"He sounds like an effing anarchist," the Vice President muttered.
"The true picture, with a ninety-seven percent probability, is this," Filiarisus continued. "Dr. Mocenigo had only one contact, and she died. The FBI hypothesis is correct: her body was then hidden, probably in the desert, by an associate wishing to avoid involvement with law enforcement agencies. If prostitution were legal, we might never have had this nightmare."
"I told you he was an effing anarchist," the Vice President growled. "And a sex maniac, too!"
"The associate who hid the body," Filiarisus went on, "is our fourth carrier, personally immune but lethal to others. It was this person who infected Mr. Chaney and Dr. Naismith. This person was probably not a prostitute. These men lied, among other reasons, because they knew what the government agents wanted them to say. When power is wielded over people, they say as well as do what they think is expected of them- another reason government always finds it difficult to learn the truth about anything.