The Complete Short Stories

Madame Gioconda steadied him maternally. ‘Yes, Mangon,’ she said, her eyes on the discarded notes lying in the dust. ‘You’ve got a wonderful voice, all right.’ Sotto voce, she added: ‘But your hearing is even more wonderful.’

Paul Merrill switched off the SP player, sat down on the arm of the sofa and watched Mangon quizzically.

‘Strange. You know, my guess is that it was psychosomatic.’

Mangon grinned. ‘Psychosemantic,’ he repeated, garbling the word half-deliberately. ‘Clever. You can do amazing things with words. They help to crystallize the truth.’

Merrill groaned playfully. ‘God, you sit there, you drink your coke, you philosophize. Don’t you realize you’re supposed to stand quietly in a corner, positively dumb with gratitude? Now you’re even ramming your puns down my throat. Never mind, tell me again how it happened.’

‘Once a pun a time—’ Mangon ducked the magazine Merrill flung at him, let out a loud ‘Ole!’

For the last two weeks he had been en fte.

Every day he and Madame Gioconda followed the same routine; after breakfast at the studio they drove out to the stockade, spent two or three hours compiling their confidential file on LeGrande, lunched at the cabin and then drove back to the city, Mangon going off on his rounds while Madame Gioconda slept until he returned shortly before midnight. For Mangon their existence was idyllic; not only was he rediscovering himself in terms of the complex spectra and patterns of speech — a completely new category of existence — but at the same time his relationship with Madame Gioconda revealed areas of sympathy, affection and understanding that he had never previously seen. If he sometimes felt that he was too preoccupied with his side of their relationship and the extraordinary benefits it had brought him, at least Madame Gioconda had been equally well served. Her headaches and mysterious phantoms had gone, she had cleaned up the studio and begun to salvage a little dignity and selfconfidence, which made her single-minded sense of ambition seem less obsessive. Psychologically, she needed Mangon less now than he needed her, and he was sensible to restrain his high spirits and give her plenty of attention. During the first week Mangon’s incessant chatter had been rather wearing, and once, on their way to the stockade, she had switched on the sonovac in the driving-cab and left Mangon mouthing silently at the air like a stranded fish. He had taken the hint.

‘What about the sound-sweeping?’ Merrill asked. ‘Will you give it up?’

Mangon shrugged. ‘It’s my talent, but living at the stockade, let in at back doors, cleaning up the verbal garbage it’s a degraded job. I want to help Madame Gioconda. She will need a secretary when she starts to go on tour.’

Merrill shook his head warily. ‘You’re awfully sure there’s going to be a sonic revival, Mangon. Every sign is against it.’

‘They have not heard Madame Gioconda sing. Believe me, I know the power and wonder of the human voice. Ultrasonic music is great for atmosphere, but it has no content. It can’t express ideas, only emotions.’

‘What happened to that closed circuit programme you and Ray were going to put on for her?’

‘It — fell through,’ Mangon lied. The circuits Madame Gioconda would perform on would be open to the world. He had told them nothing of the visits to the stockade, of his power to read the baffles, of the accumulating file on LeGrande. Soon Madame Gioconda would strike.

Above them in the hallway a door slammed, someone stormed through into the apartment in a tempest, kicking a chair against a wall. It was Alto. He raced down the staircase into the lounge, jaw tense, fingers flexing angrily.

‘Paul, don’t interrupt me until I’ve finished,’ he snapped, racing past without looking at them. ‘You’ll be out of a job but I warn you, if you don’t back me up one hundred per cent I’ll shoot you. That goes for you too, Mangon, I need you in on this.’ He whirled over to the window, bolted out the traffic noises below, then swung back and watched them steadily, feet planted firmly in the carpet. For the first time in the three years Mangon had known him he looked aggressive and confident.

‘Headline,’ he announced. ‘The Gioconda is to sing again! Incredible and terrifying though the prospect may seem, exactly two weeks from now the live, uncensored voice of the Gioconda will go out coast to coast on all three V. C. radio channels. Surprised, Mangon? It’s no secret, they’re printing the bills right now. Eight-thirty to nine-thirty, right up on the peak, even if they have to give the time away.’

Merrill sat forward. ‘Bully for her. If LeGrande wants to drive the whole ship into the ground, why worry?’

Alto punched the sofa viciously. ‘Because you and I are going to be on board! Didn’t you hear me? Eight-thirty, a fortnight today! We have a programme on then. Well, guess who our guest star is?’