The Rule of the Door and Other Fanciful Regulations. Lloyd Biggle jr.

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СКАЧАТЬ little between mouthfuls, mainly about Centertown. Skarn ate sparsely and tried to appear interested.

      “I appreciate this,” the mayor said suddenly. “Don’t often get a quiet evening. The mayor’s time belongs to everyone, day or night. Complaints about taxes, or the garbage service, or a hole in the street, or anything else. Each time I’m elected I swear it’ll be the last time. But here I am—ten straight terms and I’ll probably go on until I die. Unless the voters decide to throw me out.”

      “To throw you—” Skarn paused. “I see. You were expressing it symbolically. I don’t understand these elections of yours. We don’t have them where I come from.”

      “I figured you were one of those refugees. Well, it seems simple to us, but I suppose it really isn’t. Two or three men run for mayor, and the people vote their choice, and the one that gets the most votes is elected. For two years. Then there’s another election and the defeated candidates try again. Or maybe some new candidates. All it amounts to is that the people decide who runs things—those of them that take the trouble to vote.”

      “This voting is not required?”

      “Purely voluntary. Sometimes the turnout isn’t so hot.”

      Skarn considered this with a deep frown. “Wouldn’t it be simpler just to have your—” He thought for a moment and attempted a translation. “Have your Director of Vocational Assignments appoint a mayor?”

      “You’re thinking of the city manager sort of thing,” the mayor said. “Some places have them, but it’s usually the city council that does the appointing. Those places usually have mayors, too.”

      Skarn squirmed uncomfortably and tried again. “Your Director of Vocational Assignments—”

      “We haven’t got anything like that”

      “Then who assigns the vocations?”

      “Nobody. People work at what they want, if they can get it, and if they can’t they work at what they can get. It isn’t like those Iron Curtain countries. If a man doesn’t like his job, or his boss, or if he can get something better, he quits. The people run the show here. Sometimes they get the wool pulled over their eyes, but not for long.”

      “And—you’re going to be mayor until you die?”

      “I suppose it’ll work out that way, unless the people throw me out”

      “When are you going to die?”

      The mayor winced. “For God’s sake!” He dissolved in laughter, booming out great reverberating rolls of sound until he gasped for breath. “How do I know? I might get hit by a car on the way home, or drop dead from overeating. Or I might live to be a hundred. What a question!”

      Skarn leaned back to stare at the mayor. Ideas were coming at him so fast that he could not get a grip on them, and his thoughts whirled dizzily.

      “I came up the hard way,” the mayor said. “I made my money honestly and I went into politics honestly. I’ve kept my hands about as clean as a politician can. Most of the people know that, which is why they vote for me. It’s petty politics. I’m just a big frog in a small puddle, but I like it that way. I know everyone personally and everyone knows me. Every time a new baby is born, I have a new boss. I’m as happy as the proud parents. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

      “But politics is a dirty business. Some people had it all their own way in this town before I was elected, and they’d like to have it that way again. They’ve pulled every foul trick in the books, and some so low that no book would be nasty enough to mention them. They spread the damnedest lies about me, and my wife just can’t take that. We were happily married until I got elected mayor, but now—I suppose anything a man accomplishes has its price, but if I had it to do over again, I don’t know.” Suddenly he grinned. “I’ll tell you what—I’ve got a book on the American system of government I’ll send it over. It explains things a lot better than I could tell them to you.”

      “I would appreciate that,” Skarn said. “I would appreciate that very much.”

      * * * *

      Chief of Police Sam White arrived on foot to be Skarn’s luncheon guest. A tall, slim, dignified man, his manner was soft-spoken, his eyes hard and searching but none the less friendly. Skarn, on the basis of his report had visualized him in some dismal dungeon furiously lashing a prisoner, and the chief did not seem to belong in that role. Silvery-gray hair crowned a wrinkled, sympathetic face. There was gentleness in his handshake, in his mannerisms, in his voice. Skarn began to visualize him in a different setting—in a sealed specimen bottle—and felt uncomfortable.

      Skarn left him alone in the living room, and he and Dork watched anxiously from the laboratory. The chief shocked them thoroughly—he seated himself and waited quietly without so much as a glance in the direction of the mysterious Door. Later Skarn lured him into making the attempt by asking his assistance in opening it. And the Door ignored him.

      After lunch they sat together on the sofa and talked and smoked, the chief describing his various hobbies with dry humor and Skarn listening intently. Did Skarn ever do any fishing? Or hunting?

      “I’ll take you with me the next time I go out,” the chief said. “If you’re interested, that is.” Skarn was interested. “Ever play any chess?” Skarn did not know the game. “Drop in sometime when you’re uptown. Things are usually pretty quiet around the police department of a town this size. I’ll teach you.”

      The chief sent a smoke ring sailing across the room, and Skarn looked after it enviously. His own effort was a formless catastrophe.

      When Skarn had stopped coughing, the chief said gently, “You go at it the wrong way. You can’t form a smoke ring by blowing. You have to do it with your mouth. Look.” Skarn watched, made the effort, failed miserably. “Try it again,” the chief suggested.

      Skarn tried. His tenth attempt was a definite smoke ring, wobbly, lopsided and short-lived, but still a ring. Skarn watched it with delight.

      “Keep working at it,” the chief said. “A little practice and you’ll be an expert”

      “I will,” Skarn promised fervently, and felt forever beholden to him.

      Afterward, Dork stormed angrily about the laboratory while Skarn restudied his reports. “The detective agency is in error,” Skarn announced. “Those men are not evil.”

      “They’re evil,” Dork said, “but they’re important. They have positions of responsibility. The Door may consider that.”

      “True.”

      “The other two have no importance whatsoever.”

      “True.”

      “So let’s get on with it. We only need one specimen.”

      Jim Adams arrived early that evening. He was wearing his best—or only—dress suit, a shabby, threadbare garment that flapped loosely on his slight form, but he’d forgotten to shave. He extended a trembling hand for Skarn to shake, and then, fixing the eyes of the utterly damned on him, whined, “I need a drink. Haven’t had one today. Will you give me a drink?”

      Skarn patted his shoulder gently. “Of СКАЧАТЬ