The Stochastic Man

20

I didn’t put through an immediate call to Quinn, but I came close to it. As soon as Carvajal was out of sight I found myself wondering why I should hesitate. Carvajal’s insights into things to come were demonstrably accurate; he had given me information important to Quinn’s career; my responsibility to Quinn overrode all other considerations. Besides, Carvajal’s concept of an inflexible, unchangeable future still seemed an absurdity to me. Anything that hadn’t happened yet had to be subject to change; I could change it and I would, for Quinn’s sake.

But I didn’t put through the call.

Carvajal had asked me — ordered me, threatened me, warned me — not to intervene in this thing. If Quinn failed to keep his date with the Kuwaitis, Carvajal would know why, and that might be the end of my fragile, tantalizing relationship with the strangely potent little man. But could Quinn skip the Kuwait dedication, even if I intervened? According to Carvajal, that was impossible. On the other hand, perhaps Carvajal was playing games within games, and what he really foresaw was a future in which Quinn didn’t attend the Kuwait function. In that case the script might call for me to be the agent of change, the one who prevented Quinn from keeping his date, and then Carvajal would be counting on me to be just contrary enough to help things work out the right way. That didn’t sound very plausible, but I had to take the possibility into account. I was lost in a maze of blind alleys. My sense of stochasticity would not hold. I no longer knew what I believed about the future or even the present, and the past itself was starting to look uncertain. I think that luncheon with Carvajal began the process of stripping me of what I once regarded as sanity.

I pondered for a couple of days. Then I went to Bob Lombroso’s celebrated office and dumped the whole business on him.

“I have a problem of political tactics,” I said.

“Why come to me instead of Haig Mardikian? He’s the strategist.”

“Because my problem involves concealing confidential information about Quinn. I know something that Quinn might want to know, and I’m not able to tell him. Mardikian’s such a gung-ho Quinn man that he’s likely to get the story out of me under a pledge of secrecy and then head straight to Quinn with it.”

“I’m a gung-ho Quinn man, too,” Lombroso said. “ You’rea gung-ho Quinn man.”

“Yes,” I said. “But you’re not so gung-ho that you’d breach a friend’s confidence for Quinn’s sake.”

“Whereas you think Haig would?”

“He might.”

“Haig would be upset if he knew you felt like that about him.”

“I know you aren’t going to report any of this to him,” I said. “I know you aren’t.”

Lombroso made no reply, merely stood there against the magnificent backdrop of his collection of medieval treasures, digging his fingers deep into his dense black beard and studying me with those piercing eyes. There was a long worrisome silence. Yet I felt I had been right in coming to him rather than to Mardikian. Of the entire Quinn team Lombroso was the most reasonable, the most reliable, a splendidly sane, well-balanced man, centered and incorruptible, wholly independent of mind. If my judgment of him were wrong, I would be finished.

I said eventually, “Is it a deal? You won’t repeat anything I tell you today?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether I agree with you that it’s best to conceal the thing you want concealed.”

“I tell you, and then you decide?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t do that, Bob.”

“That means you don’t trust me either, right?”

I considered for a moment. Intuition said go ahead, tell him everything. Caution said there was at least a chance he might override me and take the story to Quinn.

“All right,” I said “I’ll tell you the story. I hope that whatever I say remains between you and me.”

“Go ahead,” Lombroso said.

I took a deep breath. “I had lunch with Carvajal a few days ago. He told me that Quinn is going to make some wisecracks about Israel when he speaks at the Bank of Kuwait dedication early next month, and that the wisecracks are going to offend a lot of Jewish voters here, aggravating local Jewish disaffection with Quinn that I didn’t know exists, but which Carvajal says is already severe and likely to get much worse.”

Lombroso stared. “Are you out of your mind, Lew?”

“I might be. Why?”

“You really do believe that Carvajal can see the future?”

“He plays the stock market as though he can read next month’s newspapers, Bob. He tipped us about Leydecker dying and Socorro taking over. He told us about Gilmartin. He—”

“Oil gellation, too, yes: So he guesses well. I think we’ve already had this conversation at least once, Lew.”

“He doesn’t guess. I guess. He sees. ”

Lombroso contemplated me. He was trying to look patient and tolerant, but he seemed troubled. He is above all else a man of reason; and I was talking madness to him. “You think he can predict the content of an off-the-cuff speech that isn’t due to be delivered for three weeks?”

“I do.”

“How is such a thing possible?”

I thought of Carvajal’s tablecloth diagram, of the two streams of time flowing in opposite directions. I couldn’t try to sell that to Lombroso. I said, “I don’t know. I don’t know at all. I take it on faith. He’s shown me enough evidence so that I’m convinced he can do it, Bob.”

Lombroso looked unconvinced.

“This is the first I’ve heard that Quinn is in trouble with the Jewish voters,” he said. “Where’s the evidence for that? What do your polls show?”

“Nothing. Not yet.”

“Not yet? When does it start to turn up?”

“In a few months, Bob. Carvajal says the Times will run a feature this fall on the way Quinn is losing Jewish support.”

“Don’t you think I’d know it pretty quickly if Quinn were getting in trouble with the Jews, Lew? But from everything I hear, he’s the most popular mayor with them since Beame, maybe since LaGuardia.”

“You’re a millionaire. So are your friends,” I told him. “You can’t get a representative sampling of popular opinion hanging out with millionaires. You aren’t even a representative Jew, Bob. You said so yourself: you’re a Sephardic, you’re Latin, and Sephardim are an elite, a minority, an aristocratic little caste that has very little in common with Mrs. Goldstein and Mr. Rosenblum. Quinn might be losing the support of a hundred Rosenblums a day and the news wouldn’t reach your crowd of Spinozas and Cardozos until they read about it in the Times. Am I right?”

Shrugging, Lombroso said, “I’ll admit there’s some truth in that. But we’re getting off the track, aren’t we? What’s your actual problem, Lew?”

“I want to warn Quinn not to make that Kuwait speech, or else to lay off the wisecracks. Carvajal won’t let me say a word to him.”

“Won’t let you?”

“He says the speech is destined to occur as he perceived it, and he insists I simply let it take place. If I do anything to prevent Quinn from doing what the script calls for for that day, Carvajal threatens to sever relations with me.”

Lombroso, looking perturbed and mournful, walked in slow circles around his office. “I don’t know which is crazier,” he said finally. “Believing that Carvajal can see the future, or fearing that he’ll get even with you if you transmit his hunch to Quinn.”

“It’s not a hunch. It’s a true vision.”

“So you say.”

“Bob, more than anything else I want to see Paul Quinn go on to higher office in this country. I’ve got no right to hold back data from him, especially when I’ve found a unique source like Carvajal.”

“Carvajal may be just—”

“I have complete faith in him!” I said, with a passion that surprised me, for until that moment I still had had lingering uncertainties about Carvajal’s power, and now I was fully committed to its validity. “That’s why I can’t risk a break with him.”

“So tell Quinn about the Kuwait speech, then. If Quinn doesn’t deliver it, how will Carvajal know you’re responsible?”

“He’ll know.”

“We can announce that Quinn is ill. We can even check him into Bellevue for the day and give him a complete medical exam. We—”

“He’ll know.”

“We can hint to Quinn that he ought to go soft on any remarks that might be construed as anti-Israeli, then.”

“Carvajal will know I did it,” I said.

“He really has you by the throat, doesn’t he?”

“What shall I do, Bob? Carvajal’s going to be fantastically useful to us, whatever you may think at the moment. I don’t want to take the chance of spoiling things with him.”

“Then don’t. Let the Kuwaiti speech happen as scheduled, if you’re so worried about offending Carvajal. A few wisecracks aren’t going to do permanent damage, are they?”

“They won’t help any.”

“They won’t hurt that much. We’ve got two years before Quinn has to go before the voters again. He can make five pilgrimages to Tel Aviv in that time, if he has to.” Lombroso came close and put his hand on my shoulder. This near, the force of his strong, vibrant personality was overwhelming. With great warmth and intensity he said, “Are you all right these days, Lew?”

“What do you mean?”

“You worry me. All this lunacy about seeing the future. And so much dither over one lousy speech. Maybe you need some rest. I know you’ve been under a great strain lately, and—”

“Strain?”

“Sundara,” he said. “We don’t need to pretend I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I’m not happy about Sundara, no. But if you think my wife’s pseudo-religious activities have affected my judgment, my mental balance, my ability to function as a member of the mayor’s staff—”

“I’m only suggesting that you’re very tired. Tired men find many things to worry about, not all of them real, and worrying makes them even more tired. Break the pattern, Lew. Skip off to Canada for a couple of weeks, say. A little hunting and fishing and you’ll be a new man. I have a friend who has an estate near Banff, a nice thousand-hectare spread up in the mountains, and—”

“Thanks, but I’m in better shape than you seem to think,” I said. “I’m sorry I wasted your time this morning.”

“Not at all a waste. It’s important for us to share our difficulties, Lew. For all I know, Carvajal does see the future. But it’s a hard notion for a rational man like me to swallow.”

“Assume it’s true. What do you advise?”

“Assuming it’s true, I think you’d be wise not to do anything that could turn Carvajal off. Assuming it’s true. Assuming it’s true, it’s in our best interests to milk him for further information, and therefore you ought not chance a break over something as minor as the consequences of this one speech.”

I nodded. “I think so, too. You won’t drop any hints to Quinn, then, about what he ought to say or not to say at that bank dedication?”

“Of course not.”

He began to usher me toward the door. I was shaky and sweating and, I imagine, wild-eyed.

I couldn’t shut up, either. “And you won’t tell people I’m cracking up, Bob? Because I’m not. I may be on the verge of a tremendous breakthrough in consciousness, but I’m not going crazy. I really am not going crazy,” I said, so vehemently that it sounded unconvincing even to me.

“I do think you could use a short vacation. But no, I won’t spread any rumors of your impending commitment to the funny farm.”

“Thanks, Bob.”

“Thank you for coming to me”

“There was no one else.”

“It’ll work out,” he said soothingly. “Don’t worry about Quinn. I’ll start checking to see if he really is getting in trouble with Mrs. Goldstein and Mr. Rosenblum. You might try some polltaking through your own department.” He clasped my hand. “Get some rest, Lew. Get yourself some rest.”