The Tomorrow File (50 page)

“Seth,” I started, “I haven’t had a chance before this to tell you what a fine service you’ve been pulling with Group Lewisohn.” I believe positive behavioral conditioning is more useful than negative.

“Thank you, Dr. Flair,” he said. Straightening. Consciously mature. “It’s been great experience for me. I’ve learned a lot.” “Nick,” I said. “Any problems?”

“Nothing I haven’t been able to handle. Nick. Lewisohn himself is my heaviest migraine. But I knew that before you organized Group Lewisohn.”

“All the indicators show go,” I said. “We’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, Seth, I have a heavy migraine myself. I’m hoping you can help me.”

“Of course,” he said. “Anything I can do. Nick.”

We were in his tiny office, seated at his desk. We were both sipping a plasticup of brown liquid the Hospice cafeteria called coffee. I rose from my chair, walked lightly to the corridor door. I yanked it open suddenly, peered out cautiously. I locked it shut from the inside.

“What the hell?” the kid said. “Nick?”

“Seth,” I said, “I’m going to ask you to do something for me. I know the request will sound strange to you. All I ask is for you to hear me out. I’ll explain what will be required of you. Then you can say go or no-go. The decision is entirely yours. Whichever way you decide, it shouldn’t have any effect on your rule of Group Lewisohn. Will you listen?”

“Well . . . sure. Nick.”

Speaking slowly, earnestly, I explained to him that a certain object (unnamed), a server of DOB, had been accused of activities dangerous to public security. I had been ordered to cooperate in proving or disproving those accusations. I would need his, Dr. Seth Lucas’, professional assistance.

“This object,” I said, “this em, will be brought into the Welcome Ward at approximately 2400 tomorrow night. You will be informed of the exact time of his arrival. Then you will send for me. I will be sleeping in Transient Quarters. This object has a security clearance equal to mine, higher than yours. Are you aware that such an object can only be treated by a medical doctor or psychiatrist with an equal or higher clearance? It’s regulations.”

“Oh sure,” he said hastily. “Nick.”

I doubted he had ever heard of that regulation. But it was operative.

“So I must be in attendance before this object is treated in the Welcome Ward,” I said solemnly. “From that moment on, he will be my responsibility.”

“Will he be injured?”

“Not at that point in time. But he will be unconscious.”

I then explained what would be required of him. His features grew increasingly bleak as I related details. He was spooked. It was understandable. Nothing in his conditioning had prepared him for activities of this nature.

“Of course,” I said offhandedly, “if you would feel safer if you had a direct order, signed by me, to account for your actions, I’ll be happy to oblige.”

“No no no,” he said hurriedly. “That won’t be necessary. I just don’t see—”

I leaned forward, grasped his arm, lowered my voice.

“Seth," I whispered, “I’d like to tell you more. I really would. But there are certain things you have no need to know. And believe me, it’s better that way. Just let me make one thing perfectly clear: If you do this, you’ll be performing a valuable service for the Department of Bliss. And for your country. I can’t make you any promises, but I’m sure you’ll find, a few weeks from now, that your Department and your country are not unappreciative.”

I thought then I had touched all bases. And so I had. He was bewildered, shaken, frightened. But he was in.

1640: Paul Bumford and Mary Bergstrom arrived. They had come down from the GPA-1 compound in my limousine. No chauffeur; Mary did the driving. The heavy equipment was locked in the trunk. Paul was carrying the drugs and small devices in a plastic shopping bag advertising “Maxine’s Smoked Salmon and Imported Delicacies. ” I remembered Leon Mansfield sleeping in a laundry van and using subway toilets. It’s the bizarreness of existence that continually bemuses me.

They settled in at Transient Quarters and made their presence known around the Hospice. Paul seemed charged, brittle, almost fatalistic. He didn’t smile or laugh very often. But recently he had become increasingly serious. If not solemn.

Mary Bergstrom I never could compute. I had no input on
her
self-interest. Paul said he controlled her, and had proved it. But to me, she was essentially an unknown quantity. I thought her cold, introverted, frustrated. Unattractive and rather dull. None of this, of course, affected her usefulness.

1900: I treated us all—Maya, Mary, Paul, myself—to dinner at a restaurant recommended by Dr. Luke Warren.

It was a crowded room; we didn’t discuss business. But afterward, we drove to the scene of the crime. We parked; Paul, Maya, and I got out and took a look. We couldn’t see any difficulties. Paul approved. We were there almost five minutes, and not a single car passed on the road.

We drove back to the Hospice. Maya transferred to her sports car. We followed her back to her apartment. She pulled into the driveway that curved around to the back entrance. We parked right behind her. Paul and I got out and joined her. He handed over the drugs. They were in three small plastic containers. Color-coded caps: red, white, and blue. Red held the anaphrodisiac, white the instant narcotic, blue the thirty-minute narcotic.

Then I showed her the matches. Apparently an ordinary packet of paper matches. An ad on the cover for an IUD with the legend: “Close cover before striking.”

“The moment he lights up,” I told Maya, “turn your head away. Have your window down. Get your head outside and breathe fresh air deeply. Got that?”

“Sure,” she said. “How long does it take?” 

I looked at Paul.

“Probably within thirty seconds,” he said. “A minute at the most. Make certain he doesn’t fall forward and hit his head on the dash. We don’t want him to injure himself.”

He meant it seriously. Maya and I laughed.

I tore two matches from the folder. Holding them at arm’s length, I struck them. They flared. I turned my head away. They both burned halfway down, then went out when the saturation was

consumed. I dropped them onto the gravel driveway.

Then I placed the match folder on the shelf over the dash.

“You’ll drive?” I asked Maya.

She nodded.

I positioned the matches directly in front of the passenger’s seat. I bent the cover open.

“Don’t use them by mistake,” I cautioned her. “We want you wide awake.”

We went back to the Transient Quarters barracks. I thought sleep would come easily; I had done everything that could be done. But at 0200 I shoved a six-hour Somnorific up my nose.

October 18.

1000: Dr. Seth Lucas reserved two rooms in the Welcome Ward, as I had instructed. Into one, he moved a portable laserscope and the other equipment we’d need. He locked the door. I had told him if he got any flak, refer it to me.

Sure enough, Dr. Luke Warren found me in the offices of Group Lewisohn. He asked why it was necessary to reserve two of his precious rooms. He was unexpectedly determined. I think he was astonished by his own temerity.

“Departmental business,” I told him. It had worked once; I tried it again: “If you want a signed order, I’ll give you one.”

“Butbutbut. . . .’’he stammered.

“You have no need to know,” I said coldly.

1930: I phoned Maya Leighton’s apartment from the Hospice.

She answered: “Hello?”

“Is Jack there?” I asked.

“Sorry,” she said, “you’ve got the wrong number.” And hung up.

Signal. Our pigeon was in the coop.

Paul and I departed in my Rover. Mary Bergstrom took the plastic shopping bag up to the locked room.

20'30: We were parked down the block from Maya’s apartment. All our lights were out. I had a feeling of inexorableness and could wait patiently. Paul was in a voluble mood. He may have popped an energizer. I let him talk.

2140: The lights behind the shades of Maya Leighton’s apartment went out. Paul and I straightened in our seats, peering.

“She’s got him,” I said softly. “Clever ef.”

2145: Maya’s tooty little sports car backed swiftly out of the driveway, swung around in the street, paused, headed off.. We followed, well back. Paul had the infrared binoculars out, pressed

to his eyes.

2150: “Normal,” he reported. “She’s driving. Normal. Normal.”

“All
right,
Paul,” I said. “Just tell me if anything happens ”

2205: “There!” Paul cried. “Flare of match on his side. He’s lighting up! He’s using the matches! He’s using the matches!”

“We’ll soon know,” I said.

2210: The red sports car slowed appreciably. We pulled up until we were trailing by twenty meters. A bare arm came out of the driver’s window. A hand flapped at us languidly.

“Marvelous, marvelous ef!” I laughed. “He’s out.”

“Oh, yes!” Paul giggled. Almost hysterically. “Oh, yes! Oh, yes!”

2235: She pulled off the deserted road, into the shadow. Her car was tilted downward, hanging up on the steep shoulder. We parked right behind her. Paul and I got out, hurried up to her car. I was on the driver’s side.

“Go?” I asked her.

She was lighting a cigarette. With her own lighter.

“Cake,” she said. “You manipulated him beautifully. Clunked almost instantly. Dropped cigarettes and matches in his lap. I’ve got them. He started to fall forward, but I pulled him back.”

Paul had the door open on the passenger’s side. Feeling for a pulse in Roach’s neck. Lifting his eyelids.

‘‘Pulse slow," he reported in a low voice. ‘‘He’s under deep. ’’

I went around and helped haul Art Roach from the car. We finally got him unfolded, lying on the shoulder of the road.

Maya Leighton got out and joined us. She left the driver’s door open. She took a final puff of her cannabis, dropped it to the ground, rubbed it to shreds under her foot. She looked at her car.

“Good-bye, sweetie,” she said.

“I’ll pay all expenses, ’ ’ I assured her. “It’ll be as good as new. ”

The three of us got behind the car and pushed it over the shoulder of the road. It crunched down into the trees. The right front fender crumpled. The car tilted crazily.

We hauled Art Roach down there, dragging him on pavement, gravel, short scrub. To mess him up. We arranged him artistically. On his back, arms flung wide, one ankle hooked over the sill on the passenger’s side. The door had sprung and he had been thrown out of the car. What else?

We climbed back onto the shoulder of the road.

“Let’s have the drugs, Maya,” Paul said. He was tracking now.

She gave him the fiddled matches. Roach’s cigarettes were tossed down atop his corpus. Paul inspected the three plastic containers before he slipped them into his purse. There was one an-aphrodisiac capsule missing. Maya had slipped that into Roach’s' first drink. To cool his ardency. Make him more willing to leave the apartment. If he had refused to leave, the instant narcotic would have smashed him in the apartment. Then Paul and I would have wrestled him out of there into Maya’s car, and the plan would have proceeded on schedule. If he had agreed to visit the King’s Pawn, but hadn’t used the narcotized matches en route, Maya still had the thirty-minute narcotic pills to fiddle his last drink at the roadhouse. He’d have clunked on the trip back. Fail-safe.

Maya Leighton looked at me, squared her shoulders, lifted her chin.

“All right, Nick,” she said crisply. “Let’s have it.”

Without pausing to reflect, not wanting to reflect, I slammed her in the jaw with the heel of my hand. She went flying back down into the gully, one hand out to break her fall.

She sat up on the ground, shaking her head groggily. She looked at her palm. It was scraped raw, beginning to ooze blood. She wiped it on her blouse. Ripped two buttons open. Took clips from her hair, let it fall free. She climbed to her feet. Came up the bank to us. Rubbed a bloodied palm across her face.

“You’ll pay for all this, you bastard.” She grinned at me.

“Any time,” I told her. “A profit.”

I made certain she had small coins in her purse. Then she started walking down the road to the public phone. Paul and I got into the Rover, drove back to the Hospice, undressed, slid into our cots in Transient Quarters. I may have been whistling.

2350: A nurse came down between the two rows of cots. She was carrying a flashlight. A puddle of white light jerked along at her feet. I closed my eyes.

She leaned over me, shook my shoulder.

“Dr. Flair,” she whispered. “Dr. Flair, wake up.”

“Wha’? What?” I sat up suddenly. “What is it?”

“Dr. Lucas asks you to come to Emergency. At once, doctor.”

“What’s wrong? Is it Lewisohn?”

“No, not Lewisohn. The ambulance just brought in two accident cases. Maya Leighton and an em. Dr. Lucas says it’s urgent, doctor.”

I began to dress. I waited until she had left the barracks. Then I tapped Paul and Mary Bergstrom. Their cots were side by side.

“They’re here,” I said. “Let’s go.”

The interne ruling Emergency was completely confused. The night dispatcher had sent an ambulance in answer to Maya’s phone call. By the time it returned with Maya, bruised but conscious, and Art Roach, unconscious, Dr. Seth Lucas was on the scene. After Maya had identified Roach as Chief of Security & Intelligence, DOB, Lucas had refused to touch the case and warned the befuddled interne not to interfere. At that moment he sent for me.

“You did exactly right, doctor,” I told him. In a loud voice. Everyone listening. “This em can only be treated by me. Regulations. Let’s get them upstairs. Paul, you and Mary assist. Dr. Lucas, please give us a hand. We’ll take them on the wheeled stretchers.”

“I can walk,” Maya protested.

“Just lie still,” I told her sternly. “You may have internal injuries.”

We wheeled the two stretchers rapidly into the elevator. On the second floor, we paused in the corridor outside one of the reserved rooms. The unlocked room.

“Mary, Seth,” I said, “you two take Maya in, get her cleaned up. A big bandage around that hand. Hospital gown.”