Traitor to the Living Page 7

  She stood up and said, "The bathroom calls."

  It was all right to look into her purse, he told himself. He'd be a fool not to. Yet he felt as if he were betraying her, and he felt even more so when he found nothing except what was to be expected. That included a bottle of contraceptive and anti-VD pills.

  He made up his mind then. When she came out of the door, he was waiting. She looked up at him quickly and came into his arms.

  Afterward, as he was falling asleep, he wondered briefly if the dead could see the living. Frances wouldn't like this, but then she didn't have to hang around. Besides, it took a machine to get them even halfway into this world.

  Just before sleep finally pulled him down, he thought: what am I talking about? I don't believe that there is an afterlife; the sembs are parallel-world phenomena. Or something.

  9.

  "Nothing has been proved or disproved," Gordon Carfax said. "The bishop tried to exorcise MEDIUM, and he had a heart attack, that's all."

  "But how could Western have known that Bishop Shallund would pick out a childhood playmate, one who died at the age of eleven, one whom Western could not possibly have known anything about? Besides, Western didn't know who was going to be on the committee until the last moment."

  "We know he's very rich, and we can assume that he's unscrupulous," Gordon said. "He may have found out who was chosen some time ago, even if it was supposed to be a deep secret. And he may have put his researchers to digging up everything they could find about the committee members. No, all this committee has done is to make everything even more muddy. And it has increased the tensions. The pro-MEDIUMs are claiming that the dead resented the committee and that Everts killed Shallund because he wouldn't believe that he was Everts. Or, rather, he frightened Shallund so much that he had a fatal heart attack.

  "And the anti-MEDIUMs are still in two schools. One claims that Western is a fraud; the other believes that he is a witch, a Faust, who is tampering with forces that should be left alone.

  "We're right where we were, except that passions are roused even higher."

  "And what do you think about the validity of Western's claims?"

  "I haven't changed my mind. Not yet, anyway. I will admit that I may be biased. My resistance to the idea that there could be an afterlife may be warping my judgment."

  "You'll talk to Frances today, and no matter how extensively Western has researched her, he won't be able to find out everything. There are some things that only you would know about her."

  Gordon smiled and said, "Yes, but according to my theory that won't matter. It won't be Frances I'll be talking to; it will be some thing, some entity, that has some means of knowing everything about Frances. Mind reading, maybe. Or perhaps it's observed Frances from her birth and so knows all about her."

  "Oh, for God's sakes!" Patricia said. Her body was certainly beautiful, he thought, but her expression of anger, coupled with a complete lack of makeup, made her face ugly.

  He got out of bed and put on his pajamas and a thin dressing robe. He grinned at her and said, "Maybe some hot coffee will cool you off. Don't get mad just because I'm exercising my male prerogative."

  "What's that?"

  "I should have said human, not male. Homo sapiens is the rational animal. For everything that needs to be explained, he ignores the facts or, rather, twists them to suit his own beliefs."

  "Well, that may be what you do," she said, "but I don't! I know that Western killed my father and stole his invention, and I know that those are the dead! I can look at things objectively!"

  "Sure you can," he said. "Look, I'll make the coffee and you put your makeup on."

  "Does my face jar you that much?" she said. "You don't... "

  ".. . look so great myself in the morning," he said.

  "Yes, I know, and I apologize. I should have learned from Frances when to keep my opinions to myself."

  He walked around the bed to kiss her, but she turned her back and made for the bathroom. He went into the kitchenette, mentally kicking himself and wondering why he had said things designed to anger her. Doctor Sloko had thought that he had a deep-seated need to get the women he loved angry at him. He had agreed that might be possible, but why did he have that need? Neither he nor Sloko had ever found out.

  Patricia came out of the bathroom smiling. Her hair was in a Psyche knot, but she still had no makeup on. She was going to test him further. He wasn't going to do anything now to upset her, he told himself. He kissed her, and this time she did not refuse.

  "Let's start all over again," she said. "Good morning, Gordon."

  "And a good morning to you," he said. "I'll be back in a minute," and he went to the bathroom.

  When he came out, she was seated on the sofa in front of the TV and drinking black coffee. He sat down by her and sipped the hot liquid.

  The news was mostly about the events at Western's and their implications. There were shots of a riot on the parking lot below Western's between antis and pros, sluggings, hangings of signs on heads, police firing tear gas and shooting foam over the cement so that no one could stand up, a number being hustled off in vans, and ambulances carrying off the more seriously hurt.

  There were some scenes of parades by pro-Westemites in New York City and San Francisco. A Senator Gray from Louisiana was interviewed. He proposed that mediums should be built at government expense and installed in all cities with more than fifty thousand population. Free sessions, or moderately priced sessions, should be provided for the public. Gray had a deep, rich voice and a sincere expression which seemed to have been made for TV; he was becoming well known to the public because of his pro-MEDIUM speeches.

  This was the first, however, in which he had proposed that MEDIUM be made available to everybody. He was for the common man, the man who did not have the money to buy sessions so that he could talk to his beloved dead. He was outraged that the greatest thing since creation was restricted to the rich.

  "He wants to be president," Gordon said, "and he may make it. He's shrewd, he knows that many of his constituents are fundamentalists or Catholics who think that MEDIUM is the devil's own machine. But he's willing to stick his neck out, because the majority of people in this country think as he does. Why should the wealthy have not only the best of life but a monopoly on the dead? Gray may get to be president on that platform. alone."

  "Western could be president if he wanted to," Patricia said. "I'm surprised that he hasn't announced his candidacy."

  "Maybe Gray is his man," Carfax said. "It's better to be the power behind the throne than to sit on it. But I'm not so sure that MEDIUM shouldn't be reserved as a plaything for the rich. If it becomes available to everybody, its impact on society will be tremendous."

  "Like what?" Patricia said.

  "We may become the modern Egyptians, focusing our lives on death. This world will be looked at as only a short stage preparing for the next one, the long one."

  "Isn't that the way it's always been?"

  "Theoretically, yes. Practically, never."

  Patricia shuddered and put her hands on her face.

  "Oh, it's awful!"

  "It could be. It'll be different, anyway, unless MEDIUM turns out to be a gateway to a world different from what most people think. Look at the legal profession. Some lawyers have already published articles extrapolating changes in court and police procedure if MEDIUM becomes legally acceptable. A murdered man might be sworn in as the prosecution's star witness. And what about property? Can a dead man have a legal right to administrate his own business or his own estate? Why should he be cut off from its benefits just because he's in another world? On the other hand, what will the rights of the man who first owned the property be? Will John D. Rockefeller, after a long court battle, regain control of Standard Oil? Will George Washington run for president again? If he did, who could beat him, except maybe Abe Lincoln? And how could George Washington run this country competently? He couldn't, because conditions have changed so vastly and deep
ly that he could not possibly under' stand them. And ... "

  "You're being ridiculous!" Patricia said.

  "Yes, I know. But if you think about all that could happen, you can see what a mess it could be. And probably will be."

  "Whatever happens, whoever owns MEDIUM is going to be very very rich," Patricia said. "Even if the government should take it over, it'd have to lease it from the owner."

  Gordon wanted to make some comment about the dollar bills shining in her eyes, but he refrained. He couldn't blame her for thinking about how wealthy she would be if she proved that she was the rightful owner.

  She was human, and he had thought about how half of those billions would be his if he should marry Patricia. Was that behind his making love to Patricia? No, he told himself, greed had nothing to do with it. Besides, if it had been driving him, even unconsciously, would he have deliberately angered her this morning? Wouldn't he be doing everything possible to make her pleased with him?

  But then his remarks might spring from another unconscious source. The drive to convince himself that money had no part in his interest for her. Life was complicated enough without bringing in the dead, too. And they were coming in, they were coming in.

  At 09:00, he left the hotel. The air was clear, and the skies were blue except for a few clouds left over from the night's seeding. He saw a bus a block to the west but decided to walk to the La Brea MT line. It was only ten blocks to the east, and he needed the exercise. Besides, he wanted to check for shadowers and to see how the neighborhood had changed. He sauntered along the southern walk of Wilshire, pausing now and then to look into the shop windows. If anybody was trailing him on foot or by car, he/she was doing a good job of it. Anyway, he did not think that Western considered him an important enough threat to have Tnm under surveillance all the time. He probably knew that Patricia had stayed in his hotel room all night, but that was not an item he could use to discredit Carfax or Patricia. Nobody cared about such things anymore.

  The Miracle Mile, he found, had changed little except for the overhead moving bridges for the pedestrians.

  The streets to the south of it. Eighth and the others, were no longer single-residence houses. These had been torn down and replaced with high-rise apartment buildings or parking buildings. In the middle of them was an eight-story windowless structure, more or less tastefully decorated, hiding oil-pumping machinery.

  On La Brea, he took the elevator to the MT platform, and a moment later boarded an express. It shot him to Sunset, where he descended and got on a bus which took him to Highland. A taxi, Ateam-powered this time, got him to the entrance to Western's. Tours met him at the gate.

  "I suppose you saw yesterday's debacle on TV," he said.

  "Who didn't?" Carfax said.

  "Perhaps you haven't heard that Bishop Shallund's niece is suing us," Tours said. "She won't have a chance, since the bishop signed our release form, of course. But it's a damnable nuisance. Mr. Western would settle out of court just to get rid of her, but if he did that he'd set a bad precedent. There is one good thing about it. I mean, from our viewpoint," he added, seeing Carfax's raised eyebrows. "We plan on interviewing the bishop himself in a few days. The bishop's niece has been invited to attend so there'll be no doubt about its being him. She's refused, but we have several people who knew him well, and they can identify him."

  Carfax accompanied Tours up the front steps of the mansion and onto the porch. Carfax said, "Why are you doing this?"

  Tours opened the door for Carfax to precede him but blocked the entrance.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why do you want to speak to the bishop?"

  "Oh, I see." Tours laughed. "Well, if the bishop isn't in hell or in heaven or purgatory, and he verifies it himself, then what happens to his religion?"

  Carfax grinned and said, "You've published a score or so of interviews with Catholics, and with other people of other religions. If the faithful reject the testimony of the popes, John XXIII and Pius XI, why should they be bothered by a mere bishop's testimony?" "Because they've been able to throw some doubt on the identities of the popes. But Shallund himself has just died, and..."

  He stopped and stared past Carfax. Carfax turned and saw the plane just passing over the hills to the north. It was a twin-jet monoplane, coming so swiftly that it was over the valley and halfway to the hill and diving before Carfax could understand what it was doing. Or, rather, what it looked like it was doing.

  "That fool!" Tours said. "He's going to buzz! ..." "No-o-o-o!" Carfax shouted, and he dived over the railing and into the plastic bushes. He crashed through the rough leaves, hit the main trunk, felt it crumple beneath him, and heard the roar of the jets. And then he was lifted by something gigantic and brutal and he spun, half-senseless, through the air, over and over and over until he struck unconsciousness.

  10.

  He awoke lying on his back. He did not hurt--as yet--and he had no idea of what had happened or even where he was. He could not make his arms or legs move, and he could hear nothing. Somebody ran by him, arms up in the air, blackened body naked except for a shredded blouse, and hair a charred mass. Then she was gone, and as far as he knew he was alone. The sky was blue, then became black as smoke drifted over it. Something struck his side but he could not turn his head to see what it was.

  After a while a helicopter passed over him quite low, and he could feel the hot air its vanes whirled at him, though he could not hear it. He tried to cry out; his mouth was open; his head roared; blackness came again.

  The second time he awoke, he was lying in a stretcher, blankets over him, his arms and legs tied down. This time, he could move them a little, but he wished he hadn't. They were beginning to hurt, and his head felt like a huge clot of dried blood. Or as he imagined his brain would feel if it had been pounded into a bloody mass. A white-coated man was about to apply a respirator to him.

  The third time, he opened his eyes to see Patricia standing over him and crying. He was in a hospital room; a nurse was writing on a piece of paper clipped to a board. He could turn his head, though it cost him pain, and his, legs and arms felt as if they were connected to thin wires through which voltages of pain were pulsing.

  "That plane," he said to Patricia. "It deliberately crashed into the house." His voice seemed to echo in his head.

  The nurse put the board down and walked around the bed toward him. "Now, Mr. Carfax, don't exert yourself. Just go back to sleep. You're all right." Her voice sounded as if it were far away.

  "Is my back broken?" he said.

  "No, but one of your legs was, and you had two ribs broken. Otherwise you're just fine."

  "I was afraid my eardrums were broken," he said.

  "What time is it?"

  "Just take it easy, Mr. Carfax. You're not going anyplace for a while."

  "What time is it, Pat?" he said.

  Patricia looked at her wristwatch through tears. "It's almost 24."

  "Midnight?"

  "Gordon, do what the nurse says. I'll be here if you wake up."

  "No, I want to know what happened," he said. But he was gone, and when he woke again, he thought that only a few minutes had passed. He was alone, and he thought, "So much for Pat's promise," but she entered the room a moment later. She rushed to him and bent over and kissed him and said, "You would wake up just now! I had to go to the toilet!"

  "I think I already have," he said. "Call the nurse, will you?"

  By 08:00, he was able to sit up and take note of what had happened. His right leg below the knee was in a splint. Two of his left ribs were taped. The hearing in his left ear was fully restored, but he still had a slight buzzing in his right. He had numerous contusions and bruises on his body and face. He had a headache which felt as if he had been on a three-day drunk. And he tended to shake at loud or unexpected noises.

  Patricia told him as much as she knew of what had happened. The TV and the papers added details.

  At 9:20 of the previous day, a Mr. Christian Ho
uvelle of 13748 Sweetorange Lane, apartment 6H, Augusta Complex, had flown a rented Langer four-passenger jet from the Santa Barbara Seaside Airport. His flight plan called for him to fly over the Pacific to Eureka, a city on the far north coast of California. Instead, Mr. Houvelle had swung south and, despite the orders of Seaside Control and Riverside International, had continued on his illegal path southeastward. In a few minutes he had descended so low that radar could not track him. Eyewitness reports confirmed that he had maintained an altitude of about a hundred meters above the tallest buildings and the mountain ranges.

  Mr. Houvelle, on approaching the Nicholls Canyon area, had lifted to three hundred meters, circled twice, apparently to make sure of identification of the Western mansion, and then had descended and headed straight for his target. The plane carried Mr. Houvelle and an estimated fifty pounds of dynamite, which Mr. Houvelle, a chemist, had made himself on company time.

  The plane, the pilot, the dynamite, and the house disintegrated in a ball of flame and expanding an".

  With these also went MEDIUM and thirty employes of Western, including Tours, Mrs. Morris, Harmons, and two clients who were interviewing the late Karl Marx.

  Western and two of his bodyguards had survived without serious injury. Mr. Western had been in a subbasement beneath the garage at the time, with another client. What he was doing there or the identity of his client were not known. During the confusion, his client had disappeared, and Mr. Western did not care to name him.

  Mr. Houvelle had failed in his mission, which must have been to send Mr. Western on to the great beyond.

  Carfax, along with many others, had assumed that Houvelle had belonged to some religious group which loathed Western because he was discrediting its faith.

  Not so. Mr. Houvelle was a fanatical atheist. He had ridiculed all religions and once had been beaten up in a Silverlake bar when he had suggested that Christianity was the greatest evil that this planet had ever known.

  Why would Mr. Houvelle want to kill the man who was in the process of destroying all established religions and most of the unestablished? No one knew, but the TV casters thought it probable that Mr. Houvelle hated Western because he was also destroying atheism.