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And there he stood—not Kathy, but the one, if I'd had good sense. I'd have expected to be there, Old Nick, His Satanic Majesty, the Devil.
He was dressed as I last had seen him, with his obscene belly hanging down, over the dirty piece of cloth that afforded him a minimum of decency. He had his tail in his right hand and was using the barb of it as a toothpick to probe his mossy fangs. He leaned nonchalantly against the fence, with his cloven hoofs braced against a crack that ran along the concrete, and he was leering at the crowd in an infuriating ma
"Hail, the home-come hero!" he bugled, walking swiftly toward me with his arms outstretched. "Back from Gettysburg. I see that you got scotched. Where did you find the pretty baggage to tie up your head so becomingly?"
He went to throw his arms around me, but I jerked away. I was sore at him for being there when I'd expected to find Kathy."
"Where's Kathy?" I demanded. "I expected her." "Oh, the little wench," he said. "You can rest your apprehensions. She is safe. At the great white castle on the hill. Above the witch's house. I expect you saw it."
"You lied to me," I told him, furiously. "You told me…"
"So I lied to you," he said, spreading his arms to indicate that it was of no consequence. "It is one of my most minor vices. What is a little lie among good friends? Kathy is safe so long as you play ball with me." "Play ball with you!" I yelped, disgusted. "You want the pretty cars to run," he said. "You want the radios to blat. You want the phones to ring."
The crowd was getting restless. It was pressing closer and while the people in it might not know what was going on, they were all ears when the Devil spoke about the cars and radios.
But the Devil ignored them. "A hero you can be," he said. "You can bring about negotiations. You can play the big shot."
I didn't want to be a hero. The crowd, I sensed, was getting ugly.
"We'll go in," the Devil said, "and talk turkey with them." He made a thumb across his shoulder, pointing at the White House.
"We can't get in," I told him. "We can't just go walking in."
"Surely you have got a White House press card?"
"Yes, of course, I have. But that doesn't mean I can just walk in, anytime I wish. Especially with a bird like you in tow."
"You mean you can't get in?"
"Not the way you think."
"Look," he said, almost pleading with me, "you have to talk with them. You can shoot the proper lingo and you know the protocol. I can't do anything by myself. They would not listen to me."
I shook my head.
A couple of guards had left the gate and were walking down the sidewalk.
The Devil saw me looking at them.
"Trouble?" he demanded.
"I think it is," I said. "The guard probably has phoned the police—no, not phoned, I guess. But I imagine they have sent someone to tell the cops there might be trouble brewing."
He moved closer to me and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. "Trouble with cops I don't need," he said. He craned his neck to see the two guards. They still were walking toward us. He grabbed me by the arm. "Come on, let's go," he said.
The world went out from under me with a clap of thunder and in its place was darkness and the roar of heavy winds. Then we were in a large room with a long table ru
Smoke was rising in tendrils from a scorched place in the carpet where I stood beside the Devil and the air was heavy with the smell of brimstone and of burning fabric. Someone was hammering frantically on the two doors that led into the room.
"Tell them, please," the Devil said, "that they can't get in. I'm afraid the doors are jammed."
A man with stars upon his shoulder leaped to his feet. His outraged bellow filled the room. "What is the meaning of this!"
"General," said the Devil, "please resume your seat and do your best to be at once an officer and a gentleman. No one will get hurt."
He flicked his tail ferociously to emphasize his words.
I looked quickly around the room to check my first impressions and I saw that they'd been right. Here we were, in the midst of a cabinet meeting—perhaps something more than a cabinet meeting, for there were others there, the director of the FBI, the head of the CIA, a sprinkling of high military brass, and a number of grim-faced men I did not recognize. Along a wall a group of very solemn and apparently learned men sat stiffly on a row of chairs.
Boy, I thought, we have done it now!
"Horton," said the Secretary of State, speaking gently to me, not flustered (he was never flustered), "what are you doing here? The last I knew of you, you were on a leave of absence."
"I took the leave," I said. "It seems it didn't last very long."
"You heard about Phil, of course."
"Yes, I heard of Phil."
The general was on his feet again and he, unlike the secretary, was a very flustered man. "If the Secretary of State will explain to me," he roared, "what is going on."
The pounding still was continuing, louder than ever now. As if the Secret Service boys were using chairs and tables to try to beat in the doors.
"This is most extraordinary," said the President, quietly, "but since these gentlemen are here, I would suspect they had some purpose in their coming. I suppose we should hear them out and then get on with business."
It was all ridiculous, of course, and I had the terrible feeling that I'd never left the Land of Imagination, that I still was in it, and that all this business of the President and his cabinet and the other people here was no more than a half-baked parody good for little more than a panel in a comic strip.
"I think," said the President to me, " that you must be Horton Smith, although I would not have recognized you."
"I was out fishing, Mr. President," I said. "I have had no time to change."
"Oh, that's quite all right," said the President. "We stand on no great ceremony here. But I don't know your friend."
"I'm not sure, sir, that he is my friend. He claims he is the Devil."
The President nodded sagely. "That is what I had thought, although it seemed farfetched. But if he is the Devil, what is he doing here?"
"I came," the Devil said, "to talk about a deal."
The Secretary of Commerce said, "About this difficulty with the cars…"
"But it's all insane!" protested the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. "I sit here and I see it happening and I tell myself it can't be happening. Even if there were such a personage as the Devil…" He turned to appeal to me. "Mr. Smith," he said, "you know this is not the way to go about it."
"Indeed I do," I said.
"I'll admit," said Commerce, "that these whole proceedings are most irregular, but this is an unusual situation. If Mr. Smith and his sulfurous friend have any information, we should listen to them. We've listened to great numbers of other people, including our scientific friends," and he made a sweeping gesture to indicate the men ranged in the chairs along the wall, "and we haven't heard a thing except a large array of people telling us that what has happened is impossible. The scientific community informs us that these happenings defy all laws of physics and that they are frankly fuddled. And the engineers have told
"But the Devil!" bellowed the man with the stars upon his shoulders.
"If he is the Devil," said the Secretary of Interior.
"My friends," the President said, wearily, "there was another president—a great wartime president—who, upon being chided for doing business with an unsavory foreign character, said that to span a stream he'd walked across a bridge with the Devil. And here is another president who will not shy from dealing with the Devil if it shows the way out of our dilemma."