The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick Page B

alive, anyhow, the two of us.”
    “You go.”
    “Okay.” Chic nodded. “I’ll go. But you agree to abide by his decision. Okay?”
    “Hell,” Vince said. “Then I’ll go along, too. You think I’m going to depend on your verbal report of what he says?”
    The door of the apartment opened. Vince turned. There, in the doorway, stood Julie, with a package under her arm.
    “Come back later,” Chic said to her. “Please.” He rose to his feet and walked toward her.
    “We’re going to see a psychiatrist about you,” Vince said to Julie. “It’s settled.” To his older brother he said, “You and I’ll split the fees. I’m not going to get stuck with the whole tab.”
    “Agreed,” Chic said, nodding. Awkwardly—or so it seemed to Vince—he kissed Julie on the cheek, patted her shoulder. To Vince he said, “And I still want that job at Karp und Sohnen Werke, no matter how this comes out, no matter which of us gets her. You understand?”
    Vince said, “I’ll—see what I can do.” He spoke grudgingly, with massive resentment. It seemed to him too much to ask. But after all, Chic was his brother. There was such a thing as
family.
    Picking up the telephone, Chic said, “I’ll call Dr. Superb right now.”
    “At this time of night?” Julie said.
    “Tomorrow, then. Early.” With reluctance Chic set the phone down again. “I’m anxious to get started; this whole business weighs on my mind, and I’ve got other problems that are more important.” He glanced at Julie. “No offense meant.”
    Stiffly, Julie said, “I haven’t agreed to go to a psychiatrist or abide by anything he says. If I want to stay with you—”
    “We’ll do what Superb says,” Chic informed her. “And if he says for you to go back downstairs and you don’t then I’ll get a court order to bar you from my apartment. I mean it.”
    Vince had never heard his brother sound so hard; it surprised him. Probably it was due to Frauenzimmer Associates folding up. Chic’s job was his whole life, after all.
    “A drink,” Chic said. And crossed to the liquor cabinet in the kitchen.
    To her talent scout Janet Raimer, Nicole said, “Where did you manage to dig up
that?
” She gestured toward the folk singers twanging their electric guitars and nasally intoning away at the microphone in the center of the Camellia Room of the White House. “They’re really awful.” She felt thoroughly unhappy.
    Businesslike and detached, Janet answered brightly, “From the conapt building Oak Farms in Cleveland, Ohio.”
    “Well, send them back,” Nicole said, and signaled Maxwell Jamison who sat, bulky and inert, on the far side of the large room. Jamison at once clambered to his feet, stretched, and made his way to the folk singers and their microphone. They glanced at him. Apprehension showed on their faces and their droning song began to trail off.
    “I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” Nicole said to them, “but I guess I’ve just had enough of ethnic music for this evening. Sorry.” She gave them one of her radiant smiles; wanly, they smiled back. They were finished. And they knew it.
    Back to Oak Farm Conapts, Nicole said to herself. Where you belong.
    A uniformed White House page approached her chair. “Mrs. Thibodeaux,” the page whispered, “Assistant State Secretary Garth McRae is now waiting in the Easter Lily Alcove for you. He says you’re expecting him.”
    “Oh yes,” Nicole said. “Thank you. Give him some coffee or a drink and tell him I’ll be in shortly.”
    The page departed.
    “Janet,” Nicole said, “I want you to play back that tape you made of your phone conversation with Kongrosian. I want to see for myself just how sick he is; with hypochondriacs you can never be certain.”
    “You understand there’s no vid portion,” Janet said. “Kongrosian had a towel—”
    “Yes, I realize that.” Nicole felt irritable. “But I know him well enough to tell by his voice alone. He gets that reticent,