Tales of the Wold Newton Universe (19 page)

While we were waiting at the Lido Airport, I made another long-distance call to Lisa. Ralph paced back and forth nervously, whining now and then despite his vow to repress this canine characteristic. Cordwainer Bird sat on a bench nearby, writing in longhand his latest novel,
Adrift Just Off the Eyelets of My Buster Browns.
Both, seeing my approach, stopped what they were doing. Bird rose from the bench, though not very far.

“She gave the final ultimatum, Ralph,” I said. “It’s either she or you. I had to make the final decision right there.”

“No need to tell me what it is,” he said. “If your long face wasn’t enough, the odor of resignation mixed somewhat with that of repressed joy, would inform me.”

“Then it’s goodbye,” I said, choking.

“Das Ewig-Weibliche/Zieht uns hinan,”
he said.

“The Eternal-Feminine/Draws us on,”
I said. “The last line of Goethe’s
The Gothic Chamber.
He was a wise man.”

“A very horny one, too. I’ll miss you, Doc. It’ll be a new and exciting life in Los Angeles—provided I can get my citizenship papers in the States. But...”

The loudspeaker blared, informing us in Italian, French, German, and English that passengers for Hamburg must enter customs. At least, I thought that was what was said. Like airport announcers everywhere, he managed to make almost everything unintelligible, no matter what the language.

Bird said, “I’ll go change our reservations for the plane to LA.” He held out his hand. “Sorry about this, Doctor. I don’t like to rip off Ralph from you. But it’s your decision.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “Sooner or later, it would have come. But be sure to get in touch with me.”

“I’m not much for letter writing. Ralph’ll have to do that.
Auf Wiedersehen,
Doc.”

He walked away. I looked at Ralph. Then my German reserve shattered, and I knelt down and put my arms around that furry neck and wept. Ralph whined, and he said, “Come on, buck up, sweetheart. You know it’s all for the best. You’ll lead a dog’s life, it’s true. But that ain’t necessarily bad. Take it from one who knows.”

I stroked his ears, shed a few more tears, then rose.
“Auf Wiedersehen
. Though I have this feeling that I’ll never see you again.”

“Hit the road, Doc, before my guts lose their anchors.
Gott!
If only I had tear ducts! You humans don’t know how lucky you are. But we’ll see each other now and then. Maybe sooner than you think.”

I picked up my bags and walked away, never once looking back. I thought he was just talking to make me feel better. I didn’t know how prophetic his words were. Or how distressed I would be to see him. But that is all chronicled in the bewildering adventure of adulation and adulteration, private sin and public confession, branding irons and preachers:
The Scarletin Letter.

PULP
INSPIRATIONS

Philip José Farmer’s preface to “Skinburn” states that pulp devotees “might deduce Kent Lane’s identity from his fire opal ring and his name.” The implication is that Lane got the fire opal ring from his father, whom Farmer identified, in
Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life,
as Wold Newton Family member Allard Kent Rassendyll—the real name of the man whose exploits were immortalized in the pages of the long-running pulp magazine
The Shadow
(1931-1949). While many who are casually familiar with The Shadow might identify his alter-ego as man-about-town Lamont Cranston, pulp aficionados know that he was, in truth, aviator and adventurer Kent Allard. Kent Lane’s mother is The Shadow’s friend and companion, Margo Lane, who made her way into the pulp series in 1941 after being introduced as a radio character in 1937.

It makes no difference in the story itself, but devotees of old pulp-magazine fiction might deduce Kent Lane’s identity from his fire opal ring and his name. The surname implies, of course, that his parents were never married. I have plans for Lane, who will carry on his distinguished father’s career, though in a less violent manner.

This story is about Love, which means that it is also about Hate. One of the themes that run through much of my work is that for every advantage you gain there is a disadvantage, that the gods, or whoever, require payment, that the universe in all its aspects, which include the human psyche, is governed by a check and balance system.

“Your skin tingles every time you step outdoors?” Dr. Mills said. “And when you stand under the skylight in your apartment? But only now and then when you’re standing in front of the window, even if the sunlight falls on you?”

“Yes,” Kent Lane said. “It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s night or day, the skies are cloudy or clear, or the skylight is open or closed. The tingling is strongest on the exposed parts of my body, my face and hands or whatever. But the tingling spreads from the exposed skin to all over my body, though it’s much weaker under my clothes. And the tingling eventually arouses vaguely erotic feelings.”

The dermatologist walked around him. When he had completed his circuit, he said, “Don’t you ever tan?”

“No, I just peel and blister. I usually avoid burning by staying out of the sun as much as possible. But that isn’t doing me any good now, as you can see. I look as if I’d been on the beach all day. That makes me rather conspicuous, you know. In my work, you can’t afford to be conspicuous.”

The doctor said, “I know.”

He meant that he was aware that Lane was a private detective. What he did not know was that Lane was working on a case for a federal government agency. CACO—Coordinating Authority for Cathedric Organizations—was short of competent help. It had hired, after suitable security checks, a number of civilian agents. CACO would have hired only the best, of course, and Lane was among these.

Lane hesitated and then said, “I keep getting these phone calls.”

The doctor said nothing. Lane said, “There’s nobody at the other end. He, or she, hangs up just as soon as I pick the phone up.”

“You think the skinburn and the phone calls are related?”

“I don’t know. But I’m putting all unusual phenomena into one box. The calls started a week after I’d had a final talk with a lady who’d been chasing me and wouldn’t quit. She has a Ph.D. in bioelectronics and is a big shot in the astronautics industry. She’s brilliant, charming, and witty, when she wants to be, but very plain in face and plane in body and very nasty when frustrated. And so...”

He was, he realized, talking too much about someone who worked in a top-secret field. Moreover, why would Mills want to hear the sad story of Dr. Sue Brackwell’s unrequited love for Kent Lane, private eye? She had been hung up on him for some obscure psychological reason and, in her more rational moments, had admitted that they could never make it as man and wife, or even as man and lover, for more than a month, if that. But she was not, outside of the laboratory, always rational, and she would not take no from her own good sense or from him. Not until he had gotten downright vicious over the phone two years ago.

Three weeks ago, she had called him again. But she had said nothing to disturb him. After about five minutes of light chitchat about this and that, including reports on their health, she had said goodbye, making it sound like an
ave atque vale,
and had hung up. Perhaps she had wanted to find out for herself if the sound of his voice still thrilled her. Who knew?

Lane became aware that the doctor was waiting for him to finish the sentence. He said, “The thing is, these phone calls occurred at first when I was under the skylight and making love. So I moved the bed to a corner where nobody could possibly see it from the upper stories of the Parmenter Building next door.

“After that, the phone started ringing whenever I took a woman into my apartment, even if it was just for a cup of coffee. It’d be ringing before I’d get the door open, and it’d ring at approximately three-minute intervals thereafter. I changed my phone number twice, but it didn’t do any good. And if I went to the woman’s apartment instead, her phone started ringing.”

“You think this lady scientist is making these calls?”

“Never! It’s not her style. It must be a coincidence that the calls started so soon after our final conversation.”

“Did your women also hear the phone?”

Lane smiled and said, “Audiohallucinations? No. They heard the phone ringing, too. One of them solved the problem by tearing her phone out. But I solved mine by putting in a phone jack and disconnecting the phone when I had in mind another sort of connection.”

“That’s all very interesting, but I fail to see what it has to do with your skin problem.”

“Phone calls aside,” Lane said, “could the tingling, the peeling and blistering, and the mild erotic reaction be psychosomatic?”

“I’m not qualified to say,” Mills said. “I can, however, give you the name of a doctor whose specialty is recommending various specialists.”

Lane looked at his wristwatch. Rhoda should be about done with her hairdresser. He said, “So far, I’m convinced I need a dermatologist, not a shrink. I was told you’re the best skin doctor in Washington and perhaps the best on the East Coast.”

“The world, actually,” Dr. Mills said. “I’m sorry. I can do nothing for you at this time. But I do hope you’ll inform me of new developments. I’ve never had such a puzzling, and, therefore, interesting, case.”

Lane used the phone in the ground-floor lobby to call his fiancée’s hairdresser. He was told that Rhoda had just left but that she would pick him up across the street from the doctor’s building.

He got out of the building just in time to see Rhoda drive his MG around the corner, through a stoplight, and into the path of a pickup truck. Rhoda, thrown out by the impact (she was careless about using her safety belt), landed in front of a Cadillac. Despite its locked brakes, it slid on over her stomach.

Lane had seen much as an adviser in Vietnam and as a member of the San Francisco and Brooklyn Police Departments. He thought he was tough, but the violent and bloody deaths of Leona and Rhoda within four months was too much. He stood motionless, noting only that the tingling was getting warmer and spreading over his body. There was no erotic reaction, or, if there were, he was too numb to feel it. He stood there until a policeman got the nearest doctor, who happened to be Mills, to come out and look at him. Mills gave Lane a mild sedative, and the cop sent him home in a taxi. But Lane was at the morgue an hour later, identified Rhoda, and then went to the precinct station to answer some questions.

He went home prepared to drink himself to sleep, but he found two CACO agents, Daniels and Lyons, waiting for him. They seemed to have known about Rhoda’s death almost as quickly as he, and so he knew that they had been shadowing him or Rhoda. He answered some of their questions and then told them that the idea that Leona and Rhoda might be spies was not worth a second’s consideration. Besides, if they were working for SKIZO, or some other outfit, why would SKIZO, or whoever, kill their own agents?

“Or did CACO kill them?” Lane said.

The two looked at him as if he were unspeakably stupid.

“All right,” Lane said. “But there’s absolutely no evidence to indicate that their deaths were caused by anything but pure accident. I know it’s quite a coincidence...”

Daniels said, “CACO had both under surveillance, of course. But CACO saw nothing significant in the two women’s behavior. However, that in itself is suspicious, you know. Negative evidence demands a positive inquiry.”

“That maxim demands the investigation of the entire world,” Lane said.

“Nevertheless,” Lyons said, “SKIZO must’ve spotted you by now. They’d have to be blind not to. Why in hell don’t you stay out from under sunlamps?”

“It’s a skin problem,” Lane said. “As you must know, since you’ve undoubtedly bugged Dr. Mills’ office.”

“Yeah, we know,” Daniels said. “Frankly, Lane, we got two tough alternatives to consider. Either you’re going psycho, or else SKIZO is on to you. Either way...”

“You’re thinking in two-valued terms only,” Lane said. “Have you considered that a third party, one with no connection at all with SKIZO, has entered the picture?”