Riders of the Purple Wage Read online

  Brown opted out of answering by fainting. While he was being revived, agent Jones said, “Uh, the exact sum is eight hundred billion, ninety-six million, twenty-seven thousand, six hundred and three dollars and thirty cents, sir!”

  It was Gnatcatcher’s turn to faint. When he came to, he muttered. “Rally around the flag, boys.”

  A minute later, having recovered somewhat, he said, “We’ve got to squash this, nip it in the bud. It’s sheer nonsense, gibberish, mopery on a colossal scale. But the mere rumor that this situation existed would cause the stock market to crash. We’ll keep this quiet among us. men. And we’ll go out and burn the traitors’ house down! That’ll put a stop to it!”

  “Their lawyers and whoever runs their empire for them know about this,” Jones said.

  “None of their underlings’ll dare say a word about it or about a refund after I get through talking to them!” Gnatcatcher screamed. Still holding his belly, he said, “We’re going to storm their house, drag them out, doctors’ excuses or no excuses, slam them into jail, incognito! I mean incommunicado! Don’t argue with me!”

  “Their civil rights, sir?” Brown said.

  “This is war!” Gnatcatcher shouted. “I’ll get the President to declare a state of martial law, civil rights suspended during the emergency! Once he understands the full implications of this, even he, dumb as he is, will cooperate fully!”

  The phone on Gnatcatcher’s desk rang. Brown punched a button, and a face appeared on the screen. “Speak of the devil,” Brown muttered. He turned. “The President, sir.”

  It was too late. If the IRS did not pay the refund, or if it fought the case in court, every company controlled by Agrafan and Netter was to onload its stocks and declare bankruptcy. That meant that the stock market would topple with a roar far louder than it had made in 1929. The world would sink into Great Depression II. All funds for space exploration, especially those for the tremendously expensive Uranus project would be cut off. Another generation, perhaps two or three, would pass before Earth endangered the life-forms of the great green planet again.

  Meanwhile, Gnatcatcher and his IRS contingent were outside the house. With them were National Guard units equipped with tanks and rocket-launchers.

  Agrafan and Netter radioed their farewells, knowing that they would probably be dead before the message reached home.

  “Well, it’s not so bad to end this,” Netter said. “I’ve been suffering from the heat ever since I got here. Now, I’ll be comfortable. Death is comfortable, isn’t it?”

  “We’ll find out,” Agrafan said. “Anyway, there’s usually something good to say about any situation. Don’t the Earth people have a word for that attitude?”

  “Pollyanna.”

  “I had a teacher named that. No connection, of course.”

  “Don’t die thinking that,” Netter said. “It makes it seem that you’ve learned nothing, wasted your life. All things impinge. Nothing moves without being moved or moving other things.”

  “Sorry,” Agrafan said. “I’ve been here too long. I’m starting to think like them.”

  Agrafan punched a button. Its last thought was of home, of the deliciously cold clouds, of flying through them, of ecstasy felt when he had been young and foolish and had dived as deep as he could, coming dangerously close to the hot, liquid hydrogen layer. Earth people did not know what fun was.

  The insulated room with its frozen carbon dioxide furniture and emergency bottles of methane-hydrogen-helium gas and the TV set with the infrared screen vanished in a gout of flame. Nothing would be left for the Earth people to identify Agrafan and Netter as nonterrestrials.

  Gnatcatcher ran as fast as be could, but the heat, far greater than that in his belly, caught up with him and passed him.

  The Making of

  Revelation, Part I

  God said, “Bring me Cecil B. DeMille.”

  “Dead or alive?” the angel Gabriel said.

  “I want to make him an offer he can’t refuse. Can even I do this to a dead man?”

  “Oh, I see,” said Gabriel, who didn’t. “It will be done.”

  And it was.

  Cecil Blount DeMille, confused, stood in front of the desk. He didn’t like it. He was used to sitting behind the desk while others stood. Considering the circumstances, he wasn’t about to protest. The giant, divinely handsome, bearded, pipe-smoking man behind the desk was not one you’d screw around with. However, the gray eyes, though steely, weren’t quite those of a Wall Street banker. They held a hint of compassion.

  Unable to meet those eyes, DeMille looked at the angel by his side. He’d always thought angels had wings. This one didn’t, though he could certainly fly. He’d carried DeMille in his arms up through the stratosphere to a city of gold somewhere between the Earth and the moon. Without a space suit, too.

  God, like all great entities, came right to the point.

  “This is 1980 A.D. In twenty years it’ll be time for The Millennium. The day of judgement. The events as depicted in the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse by St. John the Divine. You know, the seven seals, the four horsemen, the moon dripping blood, Armageddon, and all that.”

  DeMille wished he’d be invited to sit down. Being dead for twenty-one years, during which he’d not moved a muscle, had tended to weaken him.

  “Take a chair,” God said. “Gabe, bring the man a brandy.” He puffed on his pipe; tiny lightning crackled through the clouds of smoke.

  “Here you are, Mr. DeMille,” Gabriel said, handing him the liqueur in a cut quartz goblet. “Napoleon 1880.”

  DeMille knew there wasn’t any such thing as a one-hundred year old brandy, but he didn’t argue. Anyway, the stuff certainly tasted like it was. They really lived up here.

  God sighed, and he said, “The main trouble is that not many people really believe in Me any more. So My powers are not what they once were. The old gods, Zeus, Odin, all that bunch, lost their strength and just faded away, like old soldiers, when their worshippers ceased to believe in them.

  “So, I just can’t handle the end of the world by Myself any more. I need someone with experience, know-how, connections, and a reputation. Somebody people know really existed. You. Unless you know of somebody who’s made more Biblical epics than you have.”

  “That’ll be the day,” DeMille said. “But what about the unions? They really gave me a hard time, the commie bas…uh, so-and-so’s. Are they as strong as ever?”

  “You wouldn’t believe their clout nowadays.”

  DeMille bit his lip, then said, “I want them dissolved. If I only got twenty years to produce this film. I can’t be held up by a bunch of goldbrickers.”

  “No way,” God said. “They’d all strike, and we can’t afford any delays.”

  He looked at his big railroad watch. “We’re going to be on a very tight schedule.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” DeMille said. “You can’t get anything done with all their regulations, interunion jealousies, and the feather-bedding. And the wages! It’s no wonder it’s so hard to show a profit. It’s too much of a hassle!”

  “I can always get D. W. Griffith.”

  DeMille’s face turned red. “You want a grade-B production? No, no, that’s all right! I’ll do it, do it!”

  God smiled and leaned back. “I thought so. By the way, you’re not the producer, too; I am. My angels will be the executive producers. They haven’t had much to do for several millennia, and the devil makes work for idle hands, you know. Haw, haw! You’ll be the chief director, of course. But this is going to be quite a job. You’ll have to have at least a hundred thousand assistant directors.”

  “But…that means training about 99,000 directors!”

  “That’s the least of our problems. Now you can see why I want to get things going immediately.”

  DeMille gripped the arms of the chair and said, weakly, “Who’s going to finance this?”

  God frowned. “That’s another problem. My Antagonist has control of all
the banks. If worse comes to worse, I could melt down the heavenly city and sell it. But the bottom of the gold market would drop all the way to hell. And I’d have to move to Beverly Hills. You wouldn’t believe the smog there or the prices they’re asking for houses.

  “However, I think I can get the money. Leave that to Me.”

  The men who really owned the American banks sat at a long mahogany table in a huge room in a Manhattan skyscraper. The Chairman of the Board sat at the head. He didn’t have the horns, tail, and hooves which legend gave him. Nor did he have an odor of brimstone. More like Brut. He was devilishly handsome and the biggest and best-built man in the room. He looked like he could have been the chief of the angels and in fact once had been. His eyes were evil but no more so than the others at the table, bar one.

  The exception, Raphael, sat at the other end of the table. The only detractions from his angelic appearance were his bloodshot eyes. His apartment on West Side had paper-thin walls, and the swingers’ party next door had kept him awake most of the night. Despite his fatigue, he’d been quite effective in presenting the offer from above.

  Don Francisco “The Fixer” Fica drank a sixth glass of wine to up his courage, made the sign of the cross, most offensive to the Chairman, gulped, and spoke.

  “I’m sorry, Signor, but that’s the way the vote went. One hundred percent. It’s a purely business proposition, legal, too, and there’s no way we won’t make a huge profit from it. We’re gonna finance the movie, come hell or high water!”

  Satan reared up from his chair and slammed a huge but well-manicured fist onto the table. Glasses of vino crashed over; plates half-filled with pasta and spaghetti rattled. All but Raphael paled.

  “Dio motarello! Lecaculi! Cacasotti! Non romperci i coglioni! I’m the Chairman, and I say no, no, no!”

  Fica looked at the other heads of the families. Mignotta, Fregna, Stronza, Loffa, Recchione, and Bocchino seemed scared, but each nodded the go-ahead at Fica.

  “I’m indeed sorry that you don’t see it our way,” Fica said. “But I must ask for your resignation.”

  Only Raphael could meet The Big One’s eyes, but business was business. Satan cursed and threatened. Nevertheless, he was stripped of all his shares of stock. He’d walked in the richest man in the world, and he stormed out penniless and an ex-member of the Organization.

  Raphael caught up with him as he strode mumbling up Park Avenue.

  “You’re the father of lies,” Raphael said, “so you can easily be a great success as an actor or politician. There’s money in both fields. Fame, too. I suggest acting. You’ve got more friends in Hollywood than anywhere else.”

  “Are you nuts?” Satan snarled.

  “No. Listen. I’m authorized to sign you up for the film on the end of the world. You’ll be a lead, get top billing. You’ll have to share it with The Son, but we can guarantee you a bigger dressing room than His. You’ll be playing yourself, so it ought to be easy work.”

  Satan laughed so loudly that he cleared the sidewalks for two blocks. The Empire State Building swayed more than it should have in the wind.

  “You and your boss must think I’m pretty dumb! Without me the film’s a flop. You’re up a creek without a paddle. Why should I help you? If I do I end up at the bottom of a flaming pit forever. Bug off!”

  Raphael shouted after him, “We can always get Roman Polanski!”

  Raphael reported to God, who was taking His ease on His jasper and cornelian throne above which glowed a rainbow.

  “He’s right, Your Divinity. If he refuses to cooperate, the whole deal’s off. No real Satan, no real Apocalypse.”

  God smiled. “We’ll see.”

  Raphael wanted to ask Him what He had in mind. But an angel appeared with a request that God come to the special effects department. Its technicians were having trouble with the roll-up-the-sky-like-a-scroll machine.

  “Schmucks!” God growled. “Do I have to do everything?”

  Satan moved into a tenement on 121st Street and went on welfare. It wasn’t a bad life, not for one who was used to Hell. But two months later, his checks quit coming. There was no unemployment any more. Anyone who was capable of working but wouldn’t was out of luck. What had happened was that Central Casting had hired everybody in the world as production workers, stars, bit players, or extras.

  Meanwhile, all the advertising agencies in the world had spread the word, good or bad depending upon the viewpoint, that the Bible was true. If you weren’t a Christian, and, what was worse, a sincere Christian, you were doomed to perdition.

  Raphael shot up to Heaven again.

  “My God, You wouldn’t believe what’s happening! The Christians are repenting of their sins and promising to be good forever and ever, amen! The Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, scientologists, animists, you name them, are lining up at the baptismal fonts! What a mess! The atheists have converted, too, and all the communist and Marxian socialist governments have been overthrown!”

  “That’s nice,” God said. “But I’ll really believe in the sincerity of the Christian nations when they kick out their present administrations. Down to the local dogcatcher.”

  “They’re doing it!” Raphael shouted. “But maybe You don’t understand! This isn’t the way things go in the Book of Revelation! We’ll have to do some very extensive rewriting of the script! Unless You straighten things out!”

  God seemed very calm. “The script? How’s Ellison coming along with it?”

  Of course, God knew everything that was happening, but He pretended sometimes that He didn’t. It was His excuse for talking. Just issuing a command every once in a while made for long silences, sometimes lasting for centuries.

  He had hired only science-fiction writers to work on the script since they were the only ones with imaginations big enough to handle the job. Besides, they weren’t bothered by scientific impossibilities. God loved Ellison, the head writer, because he was the only human he’d met so far who wasn’t afraid to argue with Him. Ellison was severely handicapped, however, because he wasn’t allowed to use obscenities while in His presence.

  “Ellison’s going to have a hemorrhage when he finds out about the rewrites,” Raphael said. “He gets screaming mad if anyone messes around with his scripts.”

  “I’ll have him up for dinner,” God said. “If he gets too obstreperous, I’ll toss around a few lightning bolts. If he thinks he was burned before… Well!”

  Raphael wanted to question God about the tampering with the book, but just then the head of Budgets came in. The angel beat it. God got very upset when He had to deal with money matters.

  The head assistant director said, “We got a big problem now, Mr. DeMille. We can’t have any Armageddon. Israel’s willing to rent the site to us, but where are we going to get the forces of Gog and Magog to fight against the good guys? Everybody’s converted. Nobody’s willing to fight on the side of anti-Christ and Satan. That means we’ve got to change the script again. I don’t want to be the one to tell Ellison…”

  “Do I have to think of everything?” DeMille said. “It’s no problem: Just hire actors to play the villains.”

  “I already thought of that. But they want a bonus. They say they might be persecuted just for playing the guys in the black hats. They call it the social-stigma bonus. But the guilds and the unions won’t go for it. Equal pay for all extras or no movie and that’s that.”

  DeMille sighed. “It won’t make any difference anyway as long as we can’t get Satan to play himself.”

  The assistant nodded. So far, they’d been shooting around the devil’s scenes. But they couldn’t put it off much longer.

  DeMille stood up, “I have to watch the auditions for The Great Whore of Babylon.”

  The field of 100,000 candidates for the role had been narrowed to a hundred, but from what he’d heard none of these could play the part. They were all good Christians now, no matter what they’d been before, and they just didn’t have their hearts in the role. De
Mille had intended to cast his brand-new mistress, a starlet, a hot little number—if promises meant anything—one hundred percent right for the part. But just before they went to bed for the first time, he’d gotten a phone call.

  “None of this hankypanky, C.B.,” God had said. “You’re now a devout worshipper of Me, one of the lost sheep that’s found its way back to the fold. So get with it. Otherwise, back to Forest Lawn for you, and I use Griffith.”

  “But…but I’m Cecil B. DeMille! The rules are O.K. for the common people, but…”

  “Throw that scarlet woman out! Shape up or ship out! If you marry her, fine! But remember, there’ll be no more divorces!”

  DeMille was glum. Eternity was going to be like living forever next door to the Board of Censors.

  The next day. his secretary, very excited, buzzed him.

  “Mr. DeMille! Satan’s here! I don’t have him for an appointment, but he says he’s always had a long-standing one with you!”

  Demoniac laughter bellowed through the intercom.

  “C.B., my boy! I’ve changed my mind! I tried out anonymously for the part, but your shithead assistant said I wasn’t the type for the role! So I’ve come to you! I can start work as soon as we sign the contract!”

  The contract, however, was not the one the great director had in mind. Satan, smoking a big cigar, chuckling, cavorting, read the terms.

  “And don’t worry about signing in your blood. It’s unsanitary. Just ink in your John Henry, and all’s well that ends in Hell.”

  “You get my soul,” DeMille said weakly.

  “It’s not much of a bargain for me. But if you don’t sign it, you won’t get me. Without me, the movie’s a bomb. Ask The Producer, He’ll tell you how it is.”

  “I’ll call Him now.”

  “No! Sign now, this very second, or I walk out forever!”

  DeMille bowed his head, more in pain than in prayer.

  “Now!”

  DeMille wrote on the dotted line. There had never been any genuine indecision. After all, he was a film director.