II
Larry Grantz looked in, eating a wedge of pie from the diner across the street. "You want anything else?" he demanded.
"Coffee."
"Ah, you won't have time to drink it." Grantz licked his fingers. "Of course, if you wasn't such a bastard about tipping me off—" He waited a moment and, when Chandler did not reply, closed the door.
Chandler looked put the window. It was a nice day. Far outside, above and away, a thin pale line of cloud stretched itself across the horizon. Contrail. Chandler watched it, listening, and caught the distant thundering mumble of a transsonic jet.
He wondered what sort of hand was at its controls.
Where they came from no one knew, where they were going no one could tell. None had ever landed in this little part of the world in a long time. Not even at the Air Force base. Not anywhere, in the years since that day of disaster when the old world came to an end. Every once in a while one rasped across the sky, on what errands Chandler could not guess.
In any event he had more pressing problems.
The odd thing about his dilemma was not merely that he was innocent—in a way, that is—but that many who were guilty (in a way; as guilty as he himself, at any rate) were free and honored citizens. Chandler himself was a widower because his own wife had been murdered. He had seen the murderer leaving the scene of the crime, and the man he had seen was in the courtroom today, watching Chandler's own trial. Of the six hundred or so in the court, at least fifty were known to have taken part in one or more provable acts of murder, rape, arson, theft, sodomy, vandalism, assault and battery or a dozen other offenses indictable under the laws of the state.
Of course, that could be said of almost any community in the world in those years; Chandler's was not unique. What had put Chandler in the dock was not what his body had been seen to do, but the place in which it had been seen to do it.
For everybody knew that medicine and agriculture were never molested by the demons.
Chandler's own lawyer had pointed that out to him the day before the trial. "If it was anywhere but at the McKelvey plant, all right, but there's never been any trouble there. You know that. The trouble with you laymen is you think of lawyers in terms of Perry Mason, right? Rabbit out of the hat stuff. Well, I can't do that. I can only present your case, whatever it is, the best way possible. And the best thing I can do for your case right now is tell you you haven't got one." At that time the lawyer was still trying to be fair. He was even casting around for some thought he could use to convince himself that his client was innocent, though he had frankly admitted as soon as he introduced himself that he didn't have much hope there.
Chandler protested that he didn't have to commit rape. He'd been a widower for a year, but—
"Wait a minute," said the lawyer. "Listen. You can't make an ordinary claim of possession stick, but what about good old-fashioned insanity?" Chandler looked puzzled, so the lawyer explained. Wasn't it possible that Chandler was—consciously, subconsciously, unconsciously, call it what you will—trying to get revenge for what had happened to his own wife?
"No," said Chandler, "certainly not!" But then he had to stop and think. After all, he had never been possessed before; in fact, he had always retained a certain skepticism about "possession"—it seemed like such a convenient way for anyone to do any illicit thing he chose—until the moment when he looked up to see Peggy Flershem walking into the culture room with a tray of agar disks, and was astonished to find himself striking her with the wrench in his hand and ripping at her absurdly floral-printed slacks. Maybe his case was different. Maybe it wasn't the sort of possession that struck at random; maybe he was just off his rocker.
Margot, his wife, had been cut up cruelly. He had seen his friend, Jack Souther, leaving his home hurriedly as he approached; and although he had thought that the stains on his clothes looked queerly like blood, nothing in that prepared him for what he found in the rumpus room. It had taken him some time to identify the spread-out dissection on the floor as his wife Margot . . .
"No," he told his lawyer, "I was shaken up, of course. The worst time was the next night, when there was a knock on the door and I opened it and it was Jack. He'd come to apologize. I—well, I got over it. I tell you I was possessed, that's all."
"And I tell you that defense will put you right in front of a firing squad," said his lawyer. "And that's all."
Five or six others had been executed for hoaxing; Chandler was familiar with the ritual. He even understood it, in a way. The world had gone to pot in the previous two years. The real enemy was out of reach; when any citizen might run wild and, when caught, relapse into his own self, terrified and sick, there was a need to strike back. But the enemy was invisible. The hoaxers were only whipping boys—but they were the only targets vengeance had.
The real enemy had struck the entire world in a single night. One day the people of the world went about their business in the gloomy knowledge that they were likely to make mistakes but with, at least, the comfort that the mistakes would be their own. The next day had not such comfort. The next day anyone, anywhere, was likely to find himself seized, possessed, working evil or whimsy without ever having formed the intention to do so . . . and helplessly. Demons? Martians? No one knew whether the invaders of the soul were from another world or from some djinn's bottle. All they knew was that they were helpless against them.
Chandler stood up, kicked the balled-up wax paper from his sandwiches across the floor and swore violently.
He was beginning to wake from the shock that had gripped him. "Damn fool," he said to himself. He had no particular reason. Like the world, he needed a whipping boy too, if only himself. "Damn fool, you know they're going to shoot you!"
He stretched and twisted his body violently, alone in the middle of the room, in silence. He had to wake up. He had to start thinking. In a quarter of an hour or less the court would reconvene, and from then it was only a steady, quick slide to the grave.
It was better to do anything than to do nothing. He examined the windows of his improvised cell. They were above his head and barred; standing on the table, he could see feet walking outside, in the paved playyard of the school. He discarded the thought of escaping that way; there was no one to smuggle him a file, and there was no time. He studied the door to the hall. It was not impossible that when the guard opened it he could jump him, knock him out, run . . . run where? The room had been a storage place for athletic equipment at the end of a hall; the hall led only to the stairs and the stairs emerged into the courtroom. It was quite likely, he thought, that the hail had another flight of stairs somewhere farther along, or through another room. What had he spent his taxes on these years, if not for schools designed with more than one exit in case of fire? But as he had not thought to mark an escape route when he was brought in, it did him no good.
The guard, however, had a gun. Chandler lifted up an edge of the table and tried to shake one of the legs. They did not shake; that part of his taxes had been well enough spent, he thought wryly. The chair? Could he smash the chair to get a club, which would give him a weapon to get the guard's gun? . . .
Before he reached the chair the door opened and his lawyer came in.
"Sorry I'm late," he said briskly. "Well. As your attorney I have to tell you they've presented a damaging case. As I see it—"
"What case?" Chandler demanded. "I never denied the acts. What else did they prove?"
"Oh, God!" said his lawyer, not quite loudly enough to be insulting. "Do we have to go over that again? Your claim of possession would make a defense if it had happened anywhere else. We know that these cases exist, but we also know that they follow a pattern. Some areas seem to be immune—medical establishments, pharmaceutical plants among them. So they proved that all this happened in a pharmaceutical plant. I advise you to plead guilty."
Chandler sat down on the edge of the table, controlling himself very well, he thought. He only asked: "Would that do me any good at all?"
The lawyer reflected, gazing at the ceiling. ". . . No."
Chandler nodded. "So what else shall we talk about? Want to compare notes about where you were and I was the night the President went possessed?"
The lawyer was irritated. He kept his mouth shut for a moment until he thought he could keep from showing it. Outside a vendor was hawking amulets: "St. Ann beads! Witch knots! Fresh garlic, local grown, best in town!" The lawyer shook his head.
"All right," he said, "it's your life. We'll do it your way. Anyway, time's up; Sergeant Grantz will be banging on the door any minute."
He zipped up his briefcase. Chandler did not move. "They don't give us much time anyway," the lawyer added, angry at Chandler and at hoaxers in general but not willing to say so. "Grantz is a stickler for promptness."
Chandler found a crumb of cheese by his hand and absently ate it. The lawyer watched him and glanced at his watch. "Oh, hell," he said, picked up his briefcase and kicked the base of the door. "Grantz! What's the matter with you? You asleep out there?"
Chandler was sworn, gave his name, admitted the truth of everything the previous witnesses had said. The faces were still aimed at him, every one. He could not read them at all anymore, could not tell if they were friendly or hating, there were too many and they all had eyes. The jurors sat on their funeral-parlor chairs like cadavers, embalmed and propped, the dead witnessing a wake for the living. Only the forewoman in the funny hat showed signs of life, looking alertly at Chandler, at the judge, at the man next to her, around the auditorium. Maybe it was a good sign. At least she did not have the frozen-in-concrete, guilty-as-hell look of the others.
His attorney asked him the question he had been waiting for: "Tell us, in your own words, what happened," Chandler opened his mouth, and paused. Curiously, he had forgotten what he wanted to say. He had rehearsed this moment again and again; but all that came out was:
"I didn't do it. I mean, I did the acts, but I was possessed. That's all. Others have done worse, under the same circumstances, and been let off. Just as Fisher was acquitted for murdering the Learnards, as Draper got off after what he did to the Cline boy. As Jack Souther over there was let off after he murdered my own wife. They should be. They couldn't help themselves. Whatever this thing is that takes control, I know it can't be fought. My God, you can't even try to fight it!"
He was not getting through. The faces had not changed. The forewoman of the jury was now searching systematically through her pocketbook, taking each item out and examining it, putting it back and taking out another. But between times she looked at him and at least her expression wasn't hostile. He said, addressing her:
"That's all there is to it. It wasn't me running my body. It was someone else. I swear it before all of you, and before God."
The prosecutor did not bother to question him.
Chandler went back to his seat and sat down and watched the next twenty minutes go by in the wink of an eye, rapid, rapid; they were in a hurry to shoot him. He could hardly believe that Judge Ellithorp could speak so fast; the jurymen rose and filed out at a gallop, zip, whisk, and they were back again. Too fast! he cried silently, time had gone into high gear; but he knew that it was only his imagination. The twenty minutes had been a full twelve hundred seconds. And then time, as if to make amends, came to a stop, abrupt, brakes on. The judge asked the jury for their verdict and it was an eternity before the forewoman arose.
She was beginning to look rather disheveled. Beaming at Chandler—surely the woman was rather odd, it couldn't be just his imagination—she fumbled in her pocketbook for the slip of paper with the verdict. But she wore an expression of suppressed laughter.
"I knew I had it," she cried triumphantly and waved the slip above her head. "Now, let's see." She held it before her eyes and squinted. "Oh, yes. Judge, we the jury, and so forth and so on—"
She paused to wink at Judge Ellithorp. An uncertain worried murmur welled up in the auditorium. "All that junk, Judge," she explained, "anyway, we unanimously—but unanimously, love!—find this son of a bitch innocent. Why," she giggled, "we think he ought to get a medal, you know? I tell you what you do, love, you go right over and give him a big wet kiss and say you're sorry." She stood drunkenly swaying, laughing at the courtroom.
The murmuring became something more like a mass scream.
"Stop her, stop her!" bawled the judge, dropping his glasses. "Bailiff! Sergeant Grantz!"
"Oh, cool it," cried the woman in the floppy hat. "Hi there! That you, love?" A man in the front row leaped to his feet and waved to her. The scream became a shout, a single word: Possessed!
"I tell you what," shrieked the woman, "let's all sing. Everybody. 'For he's a fairly good fellow, for he's a fairly good fellow—' Come on now, loves! All together, for His Honor—"
The bailiff, half a dozen policemen, the judge himself were scrambling toward her, but they were fighting a tide of terrified people, flowing away. Possessed she clearly was. And she was not alone. The man in the front row sang raucously along with her; then he flopped like a rag doll, and someone behind him leaped to his feet and carried along with the song without missing a beat, then another, another . . . it was like some distant sorcerer at a selector switch, turning first one on, then another. The noise was bedlam. As the police closed in on her the woman blew them kisses. They fell away, as from leprosy, then hurled themselves grimly back, like a lynch mob.
She was giggling as they fell on her.
From under their scrambling bodies her voice gasped, "Oh, now, not so rough! Say! Got a cigarette? I've been wanting—"
The voice choked and spluttered; and then it screamed. It was a sound of pure hysteria. The police separated themselves and helped her up, still screaming, eyes weeping with terror. "Oh!" she gasped. "Oh! I—I couldn't stop!"
Chandler stood up and took one step toward the door. So much confusion. Such utter disorganization. There was a chance—
He stopped and turned. They would catch him before he got outside the door. He made a decision, caught his lawyer by the arm, jerked at it until he got the man's attention. All of a sudden he felt alive again. There was hope! Tiny, insubstantial, but—"
"Listen," he said rapidly, "You, damn it! Listen to me. The jury acquitted me, right?"
The lawyer was startled. "Don't be ridiculous. It's a clear case of—"
"Be a lawyer, man! You live on technicalities, don't you? Make this one work for me!"
The attorney gave him a queer, thoughtful look, hesitated, shrugged and got to his feet. He had to shout to be heard. "Your Honor! I take it my client is free to go."
He made almost as much of a stir as the sobbing woman, but he outshouted the storm. "The jury's verdict is on record. Granted there was an apparent case of possession. Nevertheless—"
Judge Ellithorp yelled back: "No nonsense, you! Listen to me, young man—"
The lawyer snapped, "Permission to approach the bench."
"Granted."
Chandler sat unable to move, watching the brief, stormy conference. It was painful to be coming back to life. It was agony to hope. At least, he thought detachedly, his lawyer was fighting for him; the prosecutor's face was a thundercloud.
The lawyer came back, with the expression of a man who has won a victory he did not expect, and did not want. "Your last chance, Chandler. Change your plea to guilty."
"But—"
"Don't push your luck, boy! The judge has agreed to accept a plea. They'll throw you out of town, of course. But you'll be alive." Chandler hesitated. "Make up your mind! The best I can do otherwise is a mistrial, and that means you'll get convicted by another jury next week."
Chandler said, testing his luck: "You're sure they'll keep their end of the bargain?"
The lawyer shook his head, his expression that of a man who smells something unpleasant. "Your Honor! I ask you to discharge the jury. My client wishes to change his plea."
. . . In the school's chemistry lab, an hour later, Chandler discovered that the lawyer had left out one little detail. Outside there was a sound of motors idling, the police car that would dump him at the town's limits; inside was a thin, hollow hiss. It was the sound of a Bunsen burner, and in its blue flame a crudely shaped iron changed slowly from cherry to orange to glowing straw. It had the shape of a letter "H."
"H" for "hoaxer." The mark they were about to put on his forehead would be with him wherever he went and as long as he lived, which would probably not be long. "H" for "hoaxer," so that a glance would show that he had been convicted of the worst offense of all.
No one spoke to him as Larry Grantz took the iron out of the fire, but three husky policemen held his arms while he screamed.