Thirteen

Paragon Institute took up part of the block between East 86th and 87th Streets in Manhattan, facing Carl Schurz Park and the river. The main entrance was at the corner of 86th and East End", a handsome Federal house of aging red brick. Paragon also owned the row house next door and the two houses immediately behind them, each with a private entrance on a narrow mews which lay in the permanent shadow of a twenty-story apartment building.

On the evening of the fourth of January it snowed for hours. The fifth dawned clear and very cold, a morning of blue shadows, red faces, vapor breath and crunching footsteps.

Roth, asleep on the couch in his office, flinched and burrowed under one arm when the drapes in his third-floor office were opened part way. He muttered bearishly.

"Dr. Roth?"

When he didn't respond Hester Moore came over and put a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Doctor, you had an eight o'clock breakfast date on your calendar."

For a few moments she thought he was going to ignore her.

She looked around the office, strewn with papers and files. There were two horoscopes visible in view boxes on one wall. At a glance the charts appeared to be identical.

Roth sat up. His shirt was unbuttoned almost to his shaggy stomach, and he needed a shave.

"Time's it now?"

"Seven forty-two."

He smiled and yawned.

"Good to see you back, Hester. How was your vacation?"

"Oh—fabulous."

"Where'd you go?"

"Skiing. In Colorado."

"You don't have much color. You ought to be the color of new pennies by now."

"It was overcast most of the time, but I loved it anyway." Hester drifted toward the view boxes. "I didn't know you were an astrologer, doctor."

For having just come out of a sound sleep, Roth was fast and agile on his feet. He blocked Hester away from the view boxes without making an excuse for his rudeness and took the transparencies down.

"I can draw up a chart, that's about it. The fine art of interpretation I leave to others." Roth rubbed the crown of his balding head, smiling edgily. "Tell my, uh, tell him I'll be a little late. Worked all night."

His hand slid down over the wiry paunch of his chin and he began pulling open desk drawers, looking for his electric razor. "Oh, bring a pot of coffee for me?"

"Yes, doctor," Hester said. She walked down one floor and through a doorway, emerging into a sunlit foyer where a bodyguard stood with folded arms on a carpet designed by Leger. Hester had just a glimpse of the man who sat inside the private dining room behind a Wall Street Journal, which he held with one hand. All she saw of him, really, was his stubby hand and a flighty swept-back hairdo; he might have been a man-sized cockatoo sitting there.

Hester's blood didn't run cold, as she'd expected, but she felt distinctly uneasy.

"Miss?"

"Oh! Ah, Dr. Roth will be just a few minutes late."

"Thank you." The bodyguard looked toward the dining room. "I'll tell him."

Hester swallowed and nodded and was about to turn away, but at that moment Childermass put down his newspaper and smiled, catching her eye. Hester froze outside the door, and quickly progressed from an initial stage of awkwardness to feeling downright foolish as she tried to raise a pleasant smile that would get her gracefully away from there.

He beckoned; she had to go in.

"Hello," Childermass said, "and how are you this morning?" He seemed to know he couldn't do much with his little mouth, it was—she couldn't think of a kinder analogy—asshole-tight and just about as attractive, but there was a pert twinkle in his eyes. Hester was fascinated to see that he was wearing makeup to conceal a bad shiner.

"I haven't seen you before, do you work for Roth?"

"Yes. Well, there's two of us, Kristen and myself. I'm Hester."

"I know Kristen. She's a very pretty girl. You're a very pretty girl yourself, Hester. Have you worked here long?"

"Almost a year."

"Well, well. Is the Big Man going to keep me waiting today?"'

"Oh, only a few minutes, sir."

Childermass beamed at her for a few moments longer, then his eyes became inexplicably cold as, without saying another word, he resumed with his newspaper. Hester beat it out of the dining room, hurried past the guard and went down another flight of stairs to the kitchen.

"Coffee for Dr. Roth," she said to the cook. She continued on to an adjacent washroom, bolted the door. She sat down on the John with her knees together and rode out a trembling fit.

There'd been nothing about his appraisal of her, nothing in the routine compliment he'd offered like a leftover Danish pastry to trouble her so, but Hester had the super-creepy feeling Childermass was acquainted with her life from the first baby tooth—he knew everything there was to know about her liaison with Peter.

She felt better after patting a little cold water on her cheeks and in the hollows of her throat. With time to analyze her irrational upset Hester realized that she'd simply heard too many horror stories about the man from Peter. She had a bad case of—what was Peter's term?—"fugitive mentality." If Childermass had any cause to be suspicious of her he wouldn't sit there making boring small talk. No, they'd have whisked her away to some grim little room and . . .

Fugitive mentality again. Hester smiled at herself in the tarnished mirror, hated the smile more than the dopey one she'd flashed at Childermass. She grimaced instead, finally stuck her tongue out at herself. Now that she was back at Paragon she had important things to do; if she hoped to be of any use to Peter then she needed to be nervy and on the attack and not the least afraid of possible consequences . . . and right now Dr. Roth was waiting for his coffee.

At six minutes past eight Roth slid into a chair opposite Childermass, facing a diffused glare from the snowy park across the street. Hanging baskets in front of the wide windows were dripping scarlet poinsettia leaves. The poinsettia was not one of Roth's favorite plants: he thought of them as the whores of horticulture. He preferred desert plants, with their austere and delicate flowers.

"Good news this morning?" Roth said to the Wall Street Journal.

"A sampan loaded with junketing congressmen has gone down in the Styx. Sabotage is suspected, but not condoned."

Roth laughed and drank his grapefruit juice. Childermass put the paper aside.

"So how are things at the hospital?" Roth asked.

"Sweetened," Childermass said indifferently.

"I can't imagine that all the law suits have been filed yet."

"I'd say we're one jump ahead of everyone who has a possible claim."

"Any fuss from the Bellavers?"

"People of quality don't 'fuss.' They make inquiries. They spend money if necessary, quite a lot of money, to get all the facts. Then, if they have a case, they hit like a tsunami. So far the family firm is still looking into it. They seem puzzled by the whole business."

"The girl hasn't talked, then."

"It isn't likely she'll say a word. She left two bodies behind her."

"Gillian may have no idea she was responsible for the death of McCurdy and Toone. She may not remember a thing that happened to her that night."

Childermass scowled.

"Retrograde amnesia? That tired old bit?"

"The organism will produce some bizarre effects in its efforts to prevent total mental and emotional collapse. Amnesia is the most common reaction to sudden intense shock. If you'd seen Gillian, blood head to foot, you'd wonder how she could possibly survive the experience with her mind intact."

"That's a good point. She may not be totally sane. The family is certainly keeping her under wraps."

Roth buttered a half slice of toast. "But they haven't consulted a psychiatrist, or packed her off to a good sanitarium. According to the agents who found her hiding in 909 and the floor nurse who spoke to her, Gillian appeared a little upset, but she didn't behave irrationally. I think she'd already done a good job of blacking out Mrs. McCurdy. The Toone woman was bad luck, my God, she was asking for trouble with her blood pressure." Roth ate his toast in two bites and said grimly, "I'm inclined to accept a prognosis of, say, selective repression, which may last a few hours or a few days. It could all be coming back to Gillian by now. If so, God help the unfortunate kid."

"I'd say the sooner we get Gillian in here, the better."

"Agreed. I've been working on it. A matter of reaching the people who will recommend me to the Bellavers. Complicated. Like finding your way through a maze . . . meanwhile, the girl is a danger to everyone around her. Her ability to psychometrize is entirely spontaneous. She must create an enormously powerful electromagnetic field. Of course not everyone exposed to it bleeds. But the list of those who will bleed, and fatally, is a long one. Someone with a peptic ulcer could go in a matter of minutes. The smallest vascular weakness in heart, brain, kidneys—"

"Is she as dangerous as Robin Sandza?"

"As far as I know she hasn't caused as much havoc as Robin, but it's only a matter of time. Look at this."

From a folder Roth took the two horoscopes he hadn't wanted Hester to see. They were identified by number.

"Robin Sandza and Gillian Bellaver. If you'll lay one over the other you can see that, allowing a few seconds' adjustment for local mean time, they were born virtually at the same moment: on February 4, 1962, at nine minutes and fifty seconds past midnight Universal Time. Gillian at Doctors' Hospital just up the street, Robin at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. Allowing for minor hereditary differences, mostly coloring, they resemble each other physically according to their common ascendant. It was the moment of the new moon in the sign of Aquarius. The moon, die sun and five planets were all in the same sign. A rare and significant astrological event. It also coincided with an increase in solar activity.

"These children are Aquarius with Scorpio rising, a powerful combination for good or evil. Psychics were predicting that a child born at the time of the Great Conjunction might be the new Messiah. But what about—a thousand children? So far we know of two who are extraordinary—"

"Statistically speaking, how many could there be?"

"I'll put the computer to work on it. Some of them wouldn't have survived, of course."

"But we do have a phenomenon on our hands," Childermass said, with so much excitement he couldn't hold his fork. "Robin Sandza's psychic twin."

"When they were babies," Roth mused, "they may have been in touch telephatically. Each other's imaginary playmate."

"Even the most backward tribes, the most primitive cultures on earth must have welcomed the birth of their Robin Sandza. By now those children are well on their way to becoming the magicians, the prophets, the great healers of their tribes. But there's no place for kids like them in our great culture, because they're so superior to what we hold sacred. Now ain't that a kick in the head?"

"And history teaches that what a culture can't assimilate it destroys," Roth said moodily.

The rest of their breakfast came from the kitchen, but neither man even picked at the food.

"Once you have Gillian here," Childermass said, "we'll make arrangements to move her to Psi Faculty."

"But how do we—? Another 'suicide' without a body would be an unacceptable coincidence. By the time the Bellavers get through with us—"

"We'll stage an 'accident' this time. There'll be a body— decapitated, so no one will have the stomach to look too closely."

Roth sat back and took a deep breath. He looked unwell.

"That's heavy. Very heavy."

"I don't think you realize how serious my responsibilities are. Gillian Bellaver and Robin Sandza must be protected—we have to be protected from them. I report to a committee of five men, doctor. Five of the most powerful politicians on earth. Yet two of them want Robin Sandza destroyed, and the others are wavering. The Chief Executive is said to be "very concerned." They didn't know what real power was until they saw Robin at work. Ultimately we're all in the protection business—self-interest is the only constant in life, and murder is always preferred to impotence. I expect an attempt on Robin's life before long, probably from the Langley gang. Deep snow at Psi Faculty places a burden on our security. Darkness comes much too early these days."

"How can you hope to find a—a substitute for Gillian on short notice?"

"We have the body already. It's being flown in from Copenhagen. The girl died two days ago of a cleanly broken neck. An amazing physical resemblance to Gillian. Fortunately they grow those willowy ones by the acre in Scandinavia. The victim was quick-frozen within minutes of her death. We paid twenty-five thousand dollars for her in a natural state. This one was easy; it took us over a week to locate a ringer for Peter Sandza."

"Oh. What did you need him for?"

"I'm sure that's something you'd rather not know."

"Of course! I meant—I'm just curious about Sandza. Wondered if you picked up his trail again."

Childermass smiled meanly.

"Doctor, you're scared shitless."

Roth flushed with shame.

"He's a—a vicious and unprincipled man. He came within a whisker of killing me."

"We're grateful you're in one piece. But seriously, I don't think he would have killed you. Out of desperation he may resort to you again."

"W-why?"

"He assaulted you once, looking for the truth, but even though the beating was severe it was a hasty job by Peter's standards. At leisure Peter is much more effective. He's a skilled torturer."

Roth didn't say anything. He rubbed his sweating palms on his trousers.

"I thought you told me—you were beefing up the security force around here."

"Oh, we are. But short of placing you in solitary confinement there's no way to guarantee your safety."

Childermass let that soak in, like a solution of chilled acid. Then he hunched his shoulders apologetically.

"These days, Doc, we're spread kind of thin. We need to maintain a twenty-four hour watch on Sutton Mews in case Peter decides on another move in the girl's direction. And we're making every effort to uncover his confederate at Paragon."

Roth was astounded. "Confederate? Someone who works here?"

"Oh, he must have penetrated Paragon months ago. I would say, knowing Peter, that it has to be a woman. He may have doubled one of our own dollies. That would be like him. But we're painstakingly checking and rechecking everyone. I've had to call agents out of retirement to do this job. Your bauernfruhstikk is getting cold, doctor. Dig in."

"I'm trying to drop a little weight," Roth muttered. He poured coffee instead, despite a queasy stomach. "When I get through to the Bellavers, what—how much do you think I should tell them about Gillian?"

"That depends on what they're ready to believe," Childermass said. "By now they should be eager for the advent of a miracle worker named Irving Roth."