* * * * *

He walked into his warm flat and extracted the pre-cooked meal from the
electroven. He ate with little relish, abstractly thinking of the
foolish little cog in the governmental machine he had talked with that
afternoon. Or was Pettigill that foolish little cog? Bartle could not
help but feel there was something deep inside him that did not show in
that wizened and seemingly open little face. He thought about it the
rest of the evening.

He looked at the clock on the night table--2300 hours. "Pettigill's
Lullaby Hour," he thought. Bartle chuckled and switched off the bed
light. He was asleep before the puffs of air had escaped from under the
covers he pulled over himself.

When the phone rang at 0300, Bartle was strangely not surprised,
although, consciously, he was expecting no call.

"Hello," he said sleepily.

"Bartle? This is Pettigill." The voice _was_ Pettigill's but the
nervous, timid, quality was gone. "I assume you did not hear the 2300
'cast?"

"You assume correctly, Pettigill. What d'you want?"

"Come on over to the Center; we'll split a fifth of former Section
Secretary Andrews' Scotch."

"What the hell do you mean?"

"Were you serious about that 'therapy revolution' we were talking about
this afternoon?"

"I'm always serious. So what?"

"Excellent, excellent," Pettigill laughed. "I've spent thirty years just
waiting for such a man as you! No, I'm serious, my cynical friend--what
position would you like in the new government?"

"Let's see--why don't you make my descendants real peachy happy and make
me, say, Administrator of Civilian Relations. That sounds big and
important."

"Fine, fine! Tell me, Bartle--how are your relations with psychotics?"

Bartle leaped to the floor. Instantly he recalled what Pettigill had
said that had disturbed him. When they had been discussing the
repercussions of a miscast, Pettigill had said, "it _will_ be
disastrous" and not "it _would_ be disastrous." The devil had been
planning just such a thing for God knows how long!

"How many of 'em, Pettigill?" Bartle asked.

"A lot, Bartle, a lot," the little man answered. "I would say 170
million! I might even say, a nation of psychotics!" He giggled again.

A smile sliced through Bartle's sallow cheeks. "My relations with them
would be the best! Keep that Scotch handy, Pettigill. I'll be right
over."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tape Jockey, by Tom Leahy