The Prisoner's Dilemma (37 page)

Out through the doors came a frazzled Mr. Benedict, doubled over and breathing hard. His suit coat was torn, his shirt was half untucked, and in his hair were bits of red fuzz from the wig he’d worn as Mr. Rubicund. Staggering over to put himself between Mr. Curtain and the children, he panted, “Leave them… alone… Ledroptha. It’s finished… anyway.”

Mr. Curtain was so furious it was a wonder he was still awake. “How dare
you
tell
me
when anything is finished, Benedict? No! No! No! I shall tell
you
when it is over! And for you it is over right now!” And flipping a switch on his wheelchair, he glared at Mr. Benedict with such hideous intensity that it was alarming even to look at his face.

“Very well, Ledroptha, very well,” Mr. Benedict intoned, and he turned to the children. He had recovered his breath somewhat, and with perfect calmness he said, “He’s attempting to brainsweep me, I’m afraid. Now, how are you all? I see poor Constance is sick. Well, it’s no surprise. She’s had quite a day, hasn’t she?”

The children were too astonished to answer. Not five paces away, Mr. Curtain was focusing on Mr. Benedict with all his might, yet Mr. Benedict was paying him no attention whatsoever, and seemed to be feeling no ill effects.

“S.Q.,” Mr. Benedict said, smiling warmly, “it’s good to see you again. I’ve never quite gotten over our last difficult parting. I hope I find you well?”

Like the children, S.Q. was too confounded to reply. Meanwhile, Mr. Curtain had begun to sputter. His face had grown pale and glistened with sweat, and his wheelchair twitched and bucked like a spooked horse.

Mr. Benedict glanced at him. “You may recall how much time I’ve spent in the basement lately,” he said, turning back to the children. “Constance believed I was seeking a cure for my narcolepsy—and for secrecy’s sake I chose not to dissuade her of this notion. But the fact is I was working on a program that would disable the Whisperer. It was a delicate business, for I had to disguise my work. Naturally, if Ledroptha regained possession of the Whisperer—and I knew he intended to try—I didn’t want him to detect the program.”

Behind him, Mr. Curtain gasped.

“You mean you sabotaged it?” Reynie cried.

“Indeed,” said Mr. Benedict. “But my program didn’t go into effect until, oh, about twenty minutes ago. You can imagine my dismay when Ledroptha stole the Whisperer
yesterday,
having cleverly deceived me into thinking he would make the attempt
today,
but it has all worked out well in the end, hasn’t it?”

“It… has?” Sticky asked hopefully.

“Certainly! Why, thanks to you children, we were able to prevent Ledroptha from obtaining the secrets he desired. And now the Whisperer is no longer a threat to anyone. His computer programs—including the self-destruct mechanism—are all wiped clean away. I’m afraid he’s wearing that silly helmet for nothing.”

Reynie suspected that Mr. Benedict was attempting to infuriate his brother; after all, it would be easier to capture him if he fell asleep. If that was the strategy, it almost worked. Mr. Curtain’s shock of disbelief was quickly overcome by fury, for the evidence was clear: The Whisperer was not responding to his mental directions. Everything—his invention, his great plans,
everything
—was ruined, and his face had gone quite purple as this realization took hold.

Still, even through the horror and anger Mr. Curtain saw that his fate depended upon staying awake. Panting and trembling, he began turning his wheelchair in a slow circle, trying to think what to do.

“Ledroptha,” Mr. Benedict said quietly. “You have no one to call. Your government connections have been severed. Further orders to disrupt the city’s power and communications will not be followed. Fleeing or fighting will be pointless now, and yet a peaceful surrender may earn you some degree of mercy before the court. Are you hearing me, Ledroptha? Your best course of action is to surrender.”

Mr. Curtain scarcely even looked at him, but S.Q. was listening with utmost attention, and when Mr. Benedict had finished speaking he said, “He’s right, Mr. Curtain. You should turn yourself in. But don’t worry, you don’t have to do it alone. I’ll do it with you—we can do it together.”

Mr. Curtain stared at S.Q. a moment, then pointed a finger at him and said, “You wish to help me, S.Q.?”

S.Q. nodded emphatically. “I do!”

“Then move!” Mr. Curtain barked, and his wheelchair suddenly shot forward.

With a nimbleness no one had seen in him before, S.Q. leaped aside just in time as Mr. Curtain barreled toward the prison wall. And then he had to leap again—indeed they all did—for the Salamander had launched into motion as well, following after Mr. Curtain like some vast creature under a spell.

S.Q. stumbled, recovered his balance, then jumped up and climbed into the Salamander as it passed by. “If you’re going, Mr. Curtain, then I’m going with you!”

“Should we try to stop them?” Kate asked.

Mr. Benedict shook his head sadly. “We already have stopped them, Kate. This is just the sorting out.”

And so Mr. Benedict and the children watched the sorting out.

Near the prison wall Mr. Curtain had slowed to let the Salamander catch up with him. Like a stunt rider standing in the saddle, he rose and balanced on the seat of his wheelchair, and from there he leaped over the Salamander’s side—smacking straight into S.Q., who had staggered forward to help him.

“They’re going to crash!” Reynie said, for the Salamander had narrowly missed the construction crane and was headed to the right of the gap in the wall.

Mr. Curtain, however, had taken the wheel and applied the brakes, and just in time he brought the Salamander to a grinding, skidding stop. With a curse they could hear even from a distance, he ordered S.Q. to give him room, then reversed the Salamander to take a better angle.

Mr. Curtain’s abandoned wheelchair, meanwhile, was now rolling crazily along on its own, but Mr. Curtain paid it no mind, as if the wheelchair, like everything else, was something he meant to escape from forever. Round and round it looped, at greater and greater speed, until its course brought it crashing headlong into the construction crane with a violent crunch. The red helmet dropped to the ground like fruit from a tree, and a lone wheel wobbled off and twirled to rest like a spun coin.

The wheelchair would never be used again, but it had not done its final damage. High above, the crane’s cable slipped visibly, and the enormous metal beam began swaying back and forth. An ominous groaning echoed off the building and the prison wall. Mr. Curtain looked up in alarm as the beam’s shadow passed over the Salamander.

“S.Q.!” he ordered. “Get into the crane and grab that lever!”

In a flash S.Q. had climbed into the cab of the crane—breaking through the yellow hazard tape, which now hung from him like streamers—and grabbed a large lever. “I can feel it trembling! I think it’s slipping!”

“Of course it’s slipping, you fool!” Mr. Curtain shouted. “You need only hold it until I’m through the gap!”

Overhead the beam swung back and forth, back and forth, now over the gap in the wall, now over the crane itself. The groaning grew louder.

“I don’t think I can!” S.Q. shouted.

Kate gasped and started to run forward, but Mr. Benedict, predicting this, had already grabbed her. “You mustn’t risk it,” he said, his face rigid. “No matter what you do, that beam is going to fall.”

Mr. Curtain had maneuvered the Salamander into the gap now. He was almost to the river. “Come, S.Q.! Come on, you idiot!”

“But if I let go…” S.Q.’s face was a mask of fear. High above him the beam swung and swung.

“Snakes and dogs!” Mr. Curtain bellowed. He gazed up at the swinging beam, then at S.Q., and then turned to stare at the dark river flowing past. Under the circumstances his hesitation seemed very strange indeed. He seemed to stare a terribly long time. And as he stared, his shoulders seemed to sag, as if a great weight had settled upon them.

Perhaps, thought Reynie—standing with the others, still watching anxiously from a distance—perhaps the full force of despair had finally hit him. Hadn’t he said that the Whisperer was his all? Hadn’t he lost it forever? So what did that river have to offer him? If one had nothing to escape to, what did escape really mean?

And then Mr. Curtain turned his back on the river, leaped from the Salamander, and climbed into the cab of the crane. As he did so, a loud, wailing alarm sounded from the direction of the prison gate (“The sentries have arrived,” Mr. Benedict said to the children), but Mr. Curtain seemed not even to notice. Elbowing S.Q. aside, he snatched hold of the trembling lever. “Get into the Salamander and pull it forward, S.Q.—I will follow after.”

“But you won’t be able to?—”

“I’m stronger than you, S.Q.! Now do as I say!”

S.Q. leaped down from the cab and ran to the Salamander. But instead of pulling it forward, he backed it out of the hole in the wall, turning it so that its back end was almost to the crane. Mr. Curtain was shouting furiously at him, but S.Q. shouted even louder. “Jump down and get under the Salamander! Then I’ll drive it out! You’ll be protected if the beam falls!”

Mr. Curtain gaped at him as if astonished. “But of
course
it’s going to fall, S.Q.! Couldn’t you tell that? And now…” He shook his head. His arms were visibly shaking with the effort of holding the lever firm. “I will not go to prison, S.Q., and yet… I am so weary of trying to control what ought to be controlled, so weary…”

“It’s all right!” S.Q. called desperately. “You can still be all right, Mr. Curtain! I’ll help you! Just… just let go of the lever and jump down…”

Mr. Curtain looked very tired—very tired, and almost relieved. Gazing at S.Q., who was gazing back with a helpless, concerned expression that Mr. Curtain had never seen from anyone, at least not directed toward
him,
he seemed to settle something in his mind. “Yes, I suppose it’s time I relinquish control—at least I can control the relinquishing. Very well, S.Q., I’ll let go of the lever! Let go and let chance take over at last…”

Mr. Curtain released the lever and threw up his hands in defeat.

The lever slipped. The beam dropped.

But before the lever slipped and the beam dropped, S.Q.—who had started moving the instant he saw what Mr. Curtain meant to do—leaped into the cab of the crane, seized him, and leaped out again, falling hard to the ground. The beam came down just as S.Q. was dragging Mr. Curtain beneath the Salamander. It struck the cab and the Salamander both, crushing the cab like an aluminum can and nearly flattening the Salamander’s sides.

But when Mr. Benedict and the children came running to pull the men from the wreckage, they found them unhurt. S.Q. was holding Mr. Curtain tightly, so that they had to drag the two men out together, and Mr. Curtain was cursing him, berating him, snapping at him. “You fool! You fool! You miserable, unthinking…”

But Reynie noticed—and so did they all—that Mr. Curtain was clinging as tightly to S.Q. as S.Q. was to him, and in the brief moments before his emotions sent him to sleep, Mr. Curtain’s eyes expressed something quite different from the words he was uttering with such ferocity. His words were venomous, and his face was twisted with despair, yet there was something in his eyes that might have seemed familiar in anyone except Mr. Curtain. It was relief, perhaps, or perhaps something even stronger.

It might even have been hope.

M
r. Benedict awoke with a start and ran his fingers through his rumpled hair. Glancing about, he found himself in his study chair, flanked by Rhonda and Number Two. Across the desk sat a frowning Mr. Gaines and a worried-looking Ms. Argent.

“Ah,” Mr. Benedict said. “You were saying, Mr. Gaines?”

“Have you already forgotten?” growled Mr. Gaines. “Apparently you found it quite humorous.”

“Oh yes!” Mr. Benedict said with a smile. “You were warning me of the consequences of failing to cooperate. I apologize—I thought we had established that the Whisperer no longer functions, so your threat to deny me access seemed like a joke.”

Mr. Gaines stared at him coolly. “We thought with proper incentive you might be persuaded to
restart
the Whisperer.”

“To do so I would essentially have to reinvent it, Mr. Gaines, a project that would take many years—and in which I have no interest.”

Mr. Gaines grunted doubtfully. “We’ll return to this subject later, then. Right now we have some straightforward questions, and you would be well advised, Mr. Benedict, to answer them honestly.”

“I shall do my best,” Mr. Benedict declared, patting the hand of Number Two, who had bristled at Mr. Gaines’s words. (Rhonda reached across and handed her a banana.) “Why don’t you ask them all together? It will be more efficient that way. Oh, and if you don’t mind, please start at the end of the list and work your way backward. Changing the order of things often helps clarify my thinking.”

Mr. Gaines rolled his eyes and turned to Ms. Argent, who ner-vously flipped to a different page on her clipboard, cleared her throat, and began reading questions from a long list, starting at the bottom. As promised, the questions were fairly straightforward, but to anyone unfamiliar with the case they would have seemed like jokes and riddles:

What were the strong man and the security guard doing in the prison elevator? Who hit the man in seersucker with the fake ambulance? How did the secret agent come to be in the courtyard with so many broken bones—and why did he seem so cheerful about it? What exactly happened to the Salamander, the Whisperer, the wheelchair, and the crane?

These and several other questions Ms. Argent read with a straight face and an even, deliberate tone. Mr. Benedict listened attentively, looking thoroughly entertained. When she came to the end he said, “All excellent questions, Ms. Argent. In response, allow me to offer a short narrative of the pertinent events. If you prefer, I shall start at the beginning rather than the end.”

“Oh, please do!” said Ms. Argent, and Mr. Gaines nodded brusquely.