Artie watched while the police cordoned off the steps of the museum and pushed back the sightseers, pleased that they had been this close to tragedy but that it hadn’t involved them. Two of the women were weeping, and Artie guessed they had been coworkers of Hall’s.
There was nothing more to see—but that wasn’t quite true. Artie inspected the faces in the crowd again. There was whoever had shot Hall and had come back to see how good a job they had done. Say somebody like Watch Cap who, for all Artie knew, was searching the crowd looking for him.
He started back to his car. The crime scene investigators and police photographers would show up any minute, and Schuler would wonder what the hell he was doing there. He glanced at the body once more. A spot on the six-o’clock news, a tragedy for Hall’s family, and momentary curiosity on the part of the kids who came to the anthropology wing and wondered what had happened to the nice Mr. Hall who had always been so patient with answers to their questions.
Artie sat in his car for a long moment, then drove out of the park to Lincoln Way. Mitch had been wrong, he thought. He didn’t like war, never had. He certainly
didn’t like this one. Larry, Paschelke, Hall, the old man in the park—all innocent bystanders in a conflict he didn’t quite understand, whose participants he’d never met. Or at least didn’t think he had, with the possible exception of Watch Cap.
Then there was Mark. He couldn’t believe that Mark had just decided to leave, without any warning whatsoever. Had Mark gone up to see Susan? Maybe. He’d told Mark his mother wanted him up there. Mark knew his grandfather was doing badly—his going would have made sense.
Except he didn’t believe it. Mark sometimes seemed remote; probably all teenagers did to their parents. But he would have left a note, would have called, would never have thought, Fuck you, hurray for me, and split. He knew Mark better than that.
Or thought he did.
Mitch didn’t think there had been violence, but he wasn’t sure of that, either. If something had slipped into Mark’s head, he could have ended up doing anything it wanted or going anyplace it wanted him to. There were different levels of violence.
But what would have been the point? To hold Mark hostage for the return of Larry’s research diskette? He had never gotten a call, there had been no note slipped under the door. Mark had vanished into thin air, with no indication of violence, no indication of abduction. And someone, something, had taken the diskette anyway.
He still hadn’t been able to get hold of Susan, even though the operator assured him the lines were open—and always had been. She should have called him in any event, would certainly have phoned if Mark had shown up at the Eureka airport and called her in Willow to say he was there.
His world was slowly going to hell. His family had disappeared and something or somebody wanted him dead, as Mitch had put it. And he had no face to put
to the somebody or something except the photographs that Larry had taken of a sixty-year-old man who seemed younger than he should have been and who had died after an automobile accident on 580 late on a Saturday night. Artie had looked at the photos in Larry’s research a dozen times and could remember nothing about the man except that he’d seemed so ordinary—nobody you would have looked at twice.
The sun had come out and the drizzle had stopped, but Artie didn’t notice either one. He had braked for a ten-year-old battered Mustang that cut in front of him, and his sudden surge of anger had blanked out the slight feeling of fingers plucking at his mind more subtly than they had done several nights before. For Artie the sky still seemed just as gray, the mist still condensing and running down his windshield in rivulets.
The car that had cut in front of him had swerved back into the outer lane and was now crowding him over toward the curb. Artie leaned on his horn and glanced over to look at the driver. Long brown hair, street kid, early twenties at best. The type Artie had come to hate for what they were doing to the city he loved. The kid turned toward him at the same time and flipped him off. Artie couldn’t read lips but he knew what he was saying: “Get off the street, old man!”
They were on Kezar Drive now, then hit the light and turned onto Oak Street, paralleling the Panhandle. Artie twisted the wheel a little to the right and for a moment sparks flew from their fenders. He could feel his lips curl away from his teeth. Just like in the movies. Then his car jumped the curb and he hit the brakes to avoid a tree. The kid cut in front and stopped, jerked open the door of his car, and bolted out holding a tire iron.
Artie yanked open his own door, his hand on the automatic in his pocket. He had no clear idea of where he was or exactly what he was going to do, but he was
mad enough to kill, his rage as thick as cotton in his head.
The kid came at him swinging the tire iron and screaming, “What the hell, you old bastard, you don’t own the road!”
Suddenly a car directly behind Artie’s turned out and raced on past. In his head Artie sensed bemused frustration, and then something cold as ice water slid into his mind and his anger faded. He glanced around, noticing with surprise the cloudless sky and the brilliant green of the Panhandle on his left, drops of water glistening jewel-like on the grass.
He turned to the kid and gaped. A student type with glasses, an inoffensive skinny nineteen, his face pale with fright. He stood there looking at the tire iron in his hand, shaking and trying frantically to piece together what had just happened.
“I don’t know what the hell got into me, man—honest to Christ, I don’t know! You all right, man? I didn’t mean to cut in like that!”
A few minutes more and the fight would have escalated, Artie thought. He could have killed the kid, would have killed him. And if he’d tried to drive away, there were plenty of people around who would have gotten his license number. When the cops caught up with him it was more than an even-money bet that one of them would have shot him for resisting arrest.
Artie sat down on the curb, holding his head in his hands. “It’s all right—anybody can lose control of a car. It happens.” Especially if they had help.
The kid looked embarrassed. “Shit, my insurance has lapsed.”
His own car was almost as old as the kid’s, Artie thought. Why get the cops and the insurance companies into it?
“Forget it.”
The incident was a reminder, Artie thought, as if he needed one.
Four times now, he’d been lucky.
He couldn’t count on being lucky the fifth time.
What the hell was going on? Something had it in for him, and sooner or later they’d kill him and it would look like an accident or like it was all his own fault.
Artie pulled into a gas station and had the attendant fill his tank while he called Mitch on his cell phone. He got the answering machine, nobody at home. Office hours, noon to five—he could never keep it straight. He called the office and got a worried secretary. Mitch hadn’t shown or called in, and she’d already had to cancel one appointment. No, she had no idea where he might be.
Artie held the phone for a minute after the line went dead. Mitch never failed to show for work, or if he couldn’t make it, he never failed to cancel well in advance. An accident or …
Artie gunned the car and took off. He wasn’t the only one who knew too much. Mitch knew almost as much as he did.
There wasn’t much parking at the top of Telegraph Hill, and he left his car in a neighbor’s driveway with the motor running. The door to Mitch’s small cottage was locked, and Artie fumbled out his key ring and searched frantically for Mitch’s key, a leftover from when Mitch had gone on vacation and asked him to look in on his cat and feed her.
The inside of the small cottage was quiet. A living room, bedroom, bath, and kitchen, all decorated like a Cape Cod cottage. The small office in one corner of the living room, pale blue chintz curtains by windows overlooking the bay, driftwood furniture and maple antiques, braided-wool space rugs over polished wood-plank floors. The hill itself could have been transposed from New England, with wooden walks leading off to the various cottages. It was a perfect bachelor’s hideaway.
Mitch was stretched out on the kitchen floor, bleeding from a scalp wound where he’d hit his head on the table when he fell.
“Mitch!”
Levin was out cold, a half-empty bottle of scotch on the tiled sink ledge. Artie knelt down to feel his pulse. It was then he noticed the glass that had rolled beneath a chair and a small bottle of prescription pills. Valium—half the small yellow tablets were spilled on the linoleum. Bad combination if Mitch had taken them with the scotch, and he apparently had.
Artie lunged for the phone. The ambulance was there sooner than he thought possible, and he rode in the back while the attendant fixed an oxygen mask to Mitch’s face and monitored his slow and laborious breathing.
At the hospital they pumped his stomach, but it was a good two hours in the emergency room before they let Artie in to see a pale Mitch, sitting on the side of his bed.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I am now. It wasn’t much of a lunch, but they took all of it. It’ll be a week before I’m hungry again.”
“What the hell happened?”
Mitch stared out the hospital window at the gray winter sky. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead but his voice was steady enough. Only his eyes gave away how jumpy he really was.
“After I left you this morning, I went home. Looked over some patient folders and poured myself a drink before going to work. Two fingers of scotch, a few cubes, and half a bottle of five-milligram Valiums.”
Mitch said it casually and Artie wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “I don’t get it.”
Mitch sounded as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it either.
“A neighbor came over to bitch about my cat digging in her flower bed and when she left, I decided to make
myself a quick drink before going to work. I knew what I was doing, Artie. I just didn’t believe there was anything strange or dangerous about it.”
Mitch struggled to keep his voice calm.
“I started to come out of it when I felt myself falling. Something just drained out of my head, like you’d pulled a plug. Something had been inside my mind and I didn’t even know it … .”
After a long moment of silence, Artie said, “It’s a strange feeling. You suddenly realize somebody’s been pushing your buttons but you have no idea what it was. Or who.”
Mitch looked at him in surprise.
“When? For you?”
“When I came home from seeing Paschelke that first time. I went out on my back porch and climbed up on the railing. I wanted to fly. I thought it was perfectly normal, too. Three stories down to solid concrete, Mitch.” He didn’t mention Mark; he didn’t want to start talking about him again.
“You should have told me.”
“Would you have believed me?”
“Not then. I sure would now.”
A nurse looked in, disapproving, then pulled the curtains and left.
“Do you know how they do it?” Artie asked.
Mitch seemed more himself now, his voice calmer, his eyes less jumpy. He was still pasty-faced but that would clear up with a decent meal—whenever he felt like eating, which probably wouldn’t be for a while.
“I’ve got my ideas. They’re probably no better than yours.”
“I don’t have any at all.” Artie hesitated. “I don’t understand how anybody can manipulate my mind, Mitch. I just don’t.”
He sounded like a small boy asking his father for reassurance and felt like two-thirds of an idiot. It was Mitch who had almost died, not him.
Mitch glanced at the white curtains drawn around the bed and lowered his voice.
“Forget about free will, Artie—you don’t have any. Physically speaking, you’re an electrochemical machine. Especially your brain. The neurons fire, an electrical impulse travels along a nerve, and you think a thought or move your arm. If you were small enough to crawl inside somebody’s head, you’d probably see little sparkles of light when their neurons fired. And like most electrical devices, your brain generates waves. You broadcast them and you receive them, too.”
He leaned back against the pillows. For a moment, Artie thought Mitch was going to be sick, then he realized Mitch was probably so empty he couldn’t even vomit green bile.
“We talk about it all the time, Artie. We feel the ‘electricity’ in the crowd when we’re at a football game. You can feel the ‘electricity’ of a mob if you get caught up in one. And your mind can be taken over by that mob, Artie. You can end up going along with whatever the mob wants you to do, even if you don’t really want to. The mob is doing your thinking for you.”
“One on one,” Artie objected, keeping his voice down. “We can’t do it one on one.”
Mitch managed a weak smile. “I read about it in the psychology newsletters all the time—talk to any biofeedback expert about your brain’s alpha, beta, and theta waves. A few years back, the air force gave Stanford a grant to link computers with brain waves—they wanted to teach pilots how to fly planes with them. And I’ve seen demonstrations where the participants played Pong on a computer by controlling the ball with their minds. It’s the next frontier, Artie.”
“There’s got to be an electrical connection,” Artie said, unbelieving. “There’s got to be a wire, some mechanical link.”
Mitch shook his head.
“I told you, Artie, we broadcast. And we receive. How
many times have you picked up the phone to call somebody and there they are, on the other end of the line? Or when somebody knows exactly what you’re going to say a split second before you say it?”
Artie’s memories of balancing on the porch railing, arms outstretched, the wind tugging at his hair, were suddenly very vivid.
“I’m sorry, Mitch—maybe I just don’t want to think that somebody can make me do something by thinking at me.”
Mitch looked away. “I can’t blame you. I don’t like to think that I did what I did this morning. We like to think the mind is truly private, that it’s even more personal than our bodies. It’s us, it’s peculiarly our own, we operate it. But think of the last time you were ‘drunk out of your mind,’ or you were high on pot or had swallowed a tab of acid. Sure, it’s ancient history. But we did it. We own our own minds, Artie, but we abdicate that ownership often enough. And all of us are susceptible to suggestion. With us, it’s verbal. With something else, it’s what we might consider a stray thought. It’s a wild talent—one that we don’t have. But something sure as hell does. Was it your idea to climb up on the porch railing?”
The nurse was back, pulling aside the curtains and looking at both of them suspiciously. Mitch peeled off the hospital gown and started to slip into his street clothes, ignoring the nurse’s objections. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Will they let you go?”
“They won’t like it, but I’ll sign myself out.”
When Mitch had finished dressing, Artie said, “Where to?”
“You pick it.”
It was one of Charlie Allen’s days off, Artie thought. They could talk in his living room while Charlie puttered around with his computers and took on all comers in his Librarians Anonymous chat room.
They’d be in a friend’s house.
And they’d be safe.
Charlie Allen was glad to see them, greeting them at the door dressed in a ratty bathrobe. “Come on in, guys—Franny’s downtown, she’ll be out most of the afternoon. And it’s the last day of school for the kids; they won’t be home until three so we got the house to ourselves. Want some lunch?” He didn’t wait for an answer but swept into the kitchen and started pulling bread and luncheon meat out of the refrigerator. “There’s some ice cream in the freezer, help yourselves—and I don’t mind if I do.”
He loaded up a cereal bowl with several scoops of strawberry and squirted chocolate sauce over the top. “What’s up? You sounded pretty vague over the phone.”
Artie wasn’t very hungry. He dropped some deli ham on a single slice of unbuttered rye and folded it over. “We wanted to borrow your library for maybe an hour—talk over some business. We needed a place where it would be quiet and we wouldn’t be disturbed.” He took a breath. “So we thought of you.”
Allen looked puzzled, turning from one to the other.
“What’s wrong with your places? Not that I mind—it’s great to see you.”
“You were midway between,” Mitch said, as if the answer made a lot of sense.
Artie watched Charlie turn it over in his mind and thought to himself, Jesus, what a lame idea. Charlie must think they were a little nuts.
“Okay, my casa is your casa—feel free.” Allen led the way to the living room that doubled as a library, separated from the rest of the house by glass French doors. “Make yourselves at home.”
“Thanks,” Artie mumbled, “appreciate it.” He passed a bookcase on his right when he entered, then suddenly paused. He’d been to Charlie’s home dozens of
times. He’d also walked past the same bookcase filled with its rows of little black notebooks at least twenty times and never really noticed them before. This time he did. Each notebook carried a neat red plastic label on the spine: SUICIDE CLUB. There was a book for every year since they’d started the Club when they were kids, sometimes two or three books to the year.
He waved at the shelves. “What gives, Charlie?”
Allen shrugged. “You guys elected me secretary way back when and I guess I never stopped.” He looked embarrassed. “Call it a hobby. I probably know things about you guys that you forgot years ago.”
Hero worship, Artie thought. Charlie had had a bad case of it back then and had never gotten over it. He was suddenly as embarrassed as Charlie was. “Have to look at them sometime—bring back memories.”
“For you, any time.” Allen waddled back toward his office, closing the French doors behind him.
“Strange guy,” Artie muttered after he’d left.
Mitch shrugged. “Don’t knock him, Artie. He’s a generous, friendly slob, and we’re charismatic. Neither of us can help it—and please don’t take me seriously.” He leaned back on the couch. Behind his steel-framed lenses his eyes were a bright ice-blue and he seemed a little remote, a little cold—the way Artie remembered him from the times they’d served together in ’Nam. “We haven’t been using our heads. Who knew Larry was coming over to the city?”
Artie thought for a moment. “The people he worked with at Kaiser. The people at the restaurant—they took the reservations, they knew all of us would be there or were planning on being there.”
“Who else?”
“All of us, of course—all the members of the Club.”
“You’re leaving somebody out.”
“Anybody they might have talked to,” Artie said slowly. “And maybe some of the kids.”
“Who knew what he was going to talk about?”
“Probably only Cathy. Larry was writing an article, he wanted to go public with his findings. Maybe Cathy was apprehensive, maybe like Hall she figured that if there were one there had to be others and considering Talbot’s lack of ID, they probably didn’t want anybody to find them.”
“You’re giving her a lot of credit.”
“She’s nobody’s dummy, Mitch. And she would have worried about the family. When the cops called with news of Larry’s murder, it confirmed her fears and she grabbed the kids and ran.”
“Who else?”
“I don’t know.” Artie frowned. “Paschelke didn’t know about the meeting, though he must have known Larry was writing an article.”
“You’re not thinking, Artie. Would Cathy have kept Larry’s research to herself or would she have confided in a close friend?”
Artie shrugged. “I suppose it would have been natural if she’d confided in a friend. Especially if she were scared. But Susan never mentioned it—she would have if Cathy had talked to her.”
“I wasn’t thinking of Susan. If Cathy had talked to her, Susan probably would have talked to you. Which leaves the other members. One of them didn’t want the rest of the Club members knowing about Larry’s research and definitely didn’t want Science printing it. Which means the prime suspect is whoever Cathy made the mistake of confiding in. The danger for her is that she might not realize it.”
“That’s just a theory,” Artie objected.
“You got a better one?”
Artie felt like a slow study. “Find Cathy, then, and maybe we’ve found our man. Or woman.”
Mitch shook his head. “You’re never going to find her, Artie. Or the kids. My guess is they’ve been dead for days.” He was silent for a moment, thinking. “What
did Talbot look like? You saw Larry’s photos of the body.”
“Ordinary. Nobody you’d look at twice.”
“So what we’ve got is a group of people living among us who really aren’t ‘us,’ who will kill to keep their existence a secret. All we know is that they can fuck with our minds and you’d never notice them in a crowd. Short of an autopsy, like Larry did on Talbot, there’s no way of knowing who they are.”
Artie thought about it. “You’re driving at something.”
“The obvious, Artie. The largest group of suspects are the members of the Club, or those related to the members. That means one of us, perhaps more than one, may not be who we’ve always thought he was. That for all the length of time that we’ve known him—or her—for them it’s been a game of Let’s Pretend. Worst of all, they’re not human. Not human the way we’re human. If Larry Shea was right, they’re a different species.”
Artie felt the small hairs stir on the back of his neck.
“So how does it affect us—you and me? Give me an example.”
Mitch smiled. “I told you a cock-and-bull story at the hospital and you believed every word of it. You didn’t doubt me for a moment.”
Artie had the automatic out without even thinking. Jesus Christ, he’d walked right into it.
“You’re my best friend, Mitch,” he said slowly, “but if I were you, I wouldn’t move.” The gun was rock steady in his hand.
Mitch didn’t even look surprised. “What I told you in the ER was true,” he said dryly, “but you asked for an example and I gave you one. This is exactly how it affects us. And I could turn it around. How do I know that you’re really you—somebody I’ve known for half my life? Because you’re my friend? The ones who really screw you are your friends, not your enemies. You can
watch out for your enemies.” He smiled bleakly. “You could have lied about the porch railing bit. How do I know it’s true? I wasn’t there. You could have spent the last few days trying to sound me out for what I believe—or don’t believe.”
Artie sat there in silence, staring at him, the automatic never wavering. “Then that’s a problem, isn’t it?”
Mitch looked disgusted. “For Christ’s sake, Artie, put it away. It goes off, you lose a friend and gain a murder rap.”
There was a knock on the French doors and Allen opened them. Artie made the gun disappear before Allen had a chance to see it.
“If you guys are still hungry, there’s some leftover potato salad—it’s Franny’s specialty.” He caught the sudden shock on their faces and looked offended. “Hey, if you don’t like it, that’s fine—don’t blame me for trying to be a good host.”
Artie and Mitch listened to him shuffle back to the kitchen before speaking. Artie was sweating. He had to go to the bathroom, bad. Innocent, innocuous Charlie Allen. Why not?
Mitch shook his head.
“Relax, Artie—he’s okay.”
“Based on what?” Artie jerked a thumb at the notebooks in the bookcase. “He said he probably knows more about us than we do about ourselves. And he certainly knows more about Larry Shea than we ever did. He was close to Larry; if Cathy was going to confide in anybody about what Larry was working on, it could easily have been Charlie.”
Mitch stood up and reached for his coat. “And there’s always the chance that we’re paranoid.”
Outside, Artie shivered—it had turned chilly and gray again. Charlie had been miffed when they’d left so suddenly, but he’d get over it. All they had wanted was to get out of the house as quickly as possible.
Mitch stopped at his car and turned to Artie. “You’re a good friend, Artie—one of my best.”
“Yeah,” Artie said, trying hard to sound convincing, “same here.”
They looked at each other, each a little awkward, and then Mitch said, “Don’t forget, Artie—you’re the only one who saw Larry’s research and is still alive.” Artie nodded. “And I’m the only one you talked to about it, right? And I’m still alive. We’ve both had plenty of opportunity and we’re still around. We both know the other is safe.”
“Right,” Artie said, still dubious.
Mitch blinked nervously behind his granny glasses.
“We’re going to have to trust each other, Artie. We’re the only ones we know for sure who know too much.”
Artie nodded in agreement and got in his car.
Mitch was right: They were going to have to trust each other. But Jesus, right then he wasn’t willing to trust anybody.
And he was sure Mitch wasn’t willing either.
He got home and called the station, then went through a ritual of locking all the doors and windows and pulling down the shades and turning the lights low, keeping to the center of the rooms so his shadow wouldn’t show on the window blinds. It was only after he finished his TV dinner of macaroni and cheese that he noticed the blinking red light on the answering machine.
“Artie? Susan. It’s noon, Wednesday. Please call me at the following number—haven’t heard from you.”
That wasn’t right. He had tried to get her two days running. He hastily dialed the number.
“Where have you been, Susan? I’ve been calling—”
“I’m at the hospital.” A slight pause. “Dad’s dying … .”
He had expected it but it was still a shock. “I’m sorry, Susan.”
Her voice became sharper. “Where’s Mark? I thought I asked you to send him up here—please try to get him on the next plane.”
His throat suddenly felt very dry. He told her that Mark had disappeared, that he’d filed a missing persons report with the police but with no luck so far, that he’d tried to phone her—
Her voice turned frantic. “You’ve got to find him, Artie!”
“Can you come back?”
“I can’t—I told you, Dad’s dying. Find him, Artie! Please, you’ve got to find him!”
“Sure, Susan,” he mumbled. “Sure, I’ll do my best.”
And then she had to go and he sat there holding the phone and all he could think of for a moment was that she had wanted Mark up there—she’d never mentioned him. Her father was dying and she’d lost her son, and he hated himself because what he’d thought of first was that she hadn’t pleaded for him to come up.
Which made sense, because if he went up there, who would be left behind to look for Mark? And he sure as hell couldn’t help her father.
He wore his heart on his sleeve, he thought. He had for fifteen years.