A Mirror For Observers by Edgar Pangborn

Author:Edgar Pangborn
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: cf
Published: 2010-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

2

New York

Thursday, March 9

Today and yesterday make an ending and a beginning. Drozma, I am nearly certain Angelo is alive. I'll fill in some background.

Damn the Organic Unity Party, at least it doesn't hide itself. It occupies the first floor of an office building that went up when Lexington was remodeled as one of the two-level avenues — the others are Second and Eighth, a triumph of the Gadget. Lower levels are only for cars equipped with electronic controls; no wheeled traffic on the upper levels except busses in narrow center lanes; overpasses for crosstown traffic.

My apartment is in a plush downtown development near the ghost of the Bowery. I started early this morning and walked above Second Avenue Upper Level for the fun of it. There is a game for the young on those airy overpasses: you can't climb the guard fences, but through the mesh you can register an occasional hit on a bus top with wet chewing gum. I don't know what scoring system is used.

I took a bus on Lexington Upper Level. Organic Unity Party headquarters is uptown near 125th. And Harlem is not as you remember, Drozma. Negroes live anywhere in town, or almost anywhere: still some plague spots of white supremacy, but these are dwindling and unimportant. Harlem is merely another part of town, with as many pale faces as dark. I didn't find any dark faces at the Organic Unity offices... Prosperous place. Saving the world for the pure in heart is profitable. Always was, I reckon.

The receptionist blonde had glassy perfection like a rhinestone. She assessed my good clothes, turned on welcome — Smile, Standard B-1; semiautomatic; Sugar Daddies, for the control of — and waved me through a frosted glass door labeled DANIEL WALKER. He's a synthetically jolly endomorphic mesomorph softening with fat in his thirties. Just a greeter, one step up from the blonde. I took my time and got a cigar out of it. Nothing too blatant about Walker. His gaze is carefully candid; he speaks with the odd hollow noise of a man whose every word is a quotation. "I'm interested," I said. "You don't seem to be getting a good press."

"You're from a newspaper, Mr. Meisel?"

"No." I looked shocked. "Retired. Used to be in real estate."

"Never worry about the press," he quoted. "Joe doesn't. It's all reactionary. Doesn't Express the Organic Unity of the People." He talked in capitals while I nodded and looked grim and wise. "In the Larger Sense, we do get a good press. They hate us, that makes talk, and talk brings us Intelligent Inquiries like your own." I bridled: a durned old goat. "What interests you most about The Party, Mr. Meisel?"

"Your Sense of Purpose," I said. "You're not afraid of Stating an Aim." I lit the cigar with a lighter that cost me forty-eight bucks — lingeringly, so that Mr. Walker's candid eyes could price-tag it. (I'll bring it home, Drozma. It has a pop-up white-gold nude half an inch high who whangs the flint with a hammer and kicks up behind.

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