Death Qualified Part 51

He gazed at Mike, pityingly now.

"As for how he will be, I have no idea. Lucas Kendricks was salvaged enough to lead the rather dull life of a maintenance man. He was the lucky one of the four we knew about. And Frobisher is dead. There's no one to punish, no one to blame. Ruth, Herbert, and I tried to eradicate the menace. We didn't know there were disks, and as soon as we did know, we tried to recover them." He spread his hands wide and shrugged.

"If you had turned them over to Ruth, this young man would not have exposed himself as he did.

Who is to blame, Mr. Holloway? Where is the axe to fall first?"

They all turned to look when Herbert Margolis entered the living room.

"Done." He pulled a bunch of disks from his pocket and held them up.

"This is the lot."

"Let's add a log to the fire, make sure we have a good updraft, and then finish," Schumaker said. He got up to kindle the fire, and when the new log was blazing, he stood back and watched as Herbert Margolis tossed in the disks one by one. It did not take very long; no one moved as the disks curled, caught fire, and burned fiercely for a second or two, and then turned into black ash.

"And now it is really over," Schumaker said and drew in a long breath.

"At last."

"No," Barbara said softly, still on the floor by the couch where Mike slept.

"It isn't over. I don't know what Fro bisher thought he was doing, but he succeeded with Lucas finally. He succeeded with the last boy he worked with, and he killed that boy because he succeeded. Didn't he?

Isn't that what really happened?"

Margolis looked startled and began to shake his head vigorously.

"That isn't what happened! The police said the boy killed Frobisher!"

"Shut up," Schumaker said coldly.

Barbara went on.

"What if it worked with Mike, Dr.

Schumaker? Would you want him dead, too? Is that why Lucas is dead, because it worked?"

Schumaker picked up his lovely gray topcoat and pulled it on. The look he gave her was pitying and contemptuous.

"You know as well as I do that Nell Kendricks killed her husband. And you should be grateful, young lady, that the process did not succeed with your lover. Because if it had, he would be the loneliest man in the world. Better he should be mad and content than the only one of his kind on Earth."

"He's a mathematician, like you," she said softly.

"No, that's not quite right. Not like you. He doesn't think you're very good. He said you peaked twenty-five years ago and haven't been able to do any original work since, but he's as brilliant as you probably thought you were once." A deep flush suffused Schumaker's face. She got to her feet, speaking in the same low, intense voice, "He knows what's on those disks now."

"You're a fool!" Schumaker snapped.

"If the process worked with him, he wouldn't care if anyone else knows or not. But it didn't, simply because it can't. The process itself is impossible. Frobisher tried the impossible and failed. Dinesen will appear quite mad, my dear. Raving mad. For how long, I can't predict. Schizophrenic, perhaps paranoiac. He may suspect and dream that there was something wonderful on those disks, but it will forever be out of reach, as impossible to attain as the rainbow. There will be no financing. Until he recovers, no teaching. No job of any sort. He won't even be able to hold a conversation with another human being. I saw those boys: gibbering maniacs, every one of them. Lucas was a raving madman when he wasn't sedated. I wanted to let him go to an inst.i.tution, to let him go anywhere. He would have been killed in a day, in an hour, out in the real world. Two boys drove off the road. Probably thought they could fly or something. That's what the process does, Ms. Holloway. " He started for the door.

"What did Ruth Brandywine find out when she hypnotized those boys?" Barbara demanded.

This time Schumaker was taken aback.

"She didn't tell you that," he said.

"She never said anything like that."

"What did she learn from them?"

Herbert Margolis nearly ran from the room.

"I'm leaving," he said.

"She learned something that frightened you all into stopping the work, didn't she?" Barbara demanded.

' "That's when you quit, not because some unfortunate boys were driven mad, or died, but because you learned something that frightened you. What was it, Dr. Schumaker?

Was it that the process actually worked the way Emil Probisher hoped it would? And you had something on your hands you didn't know how to handle? Was that it?"

Slowly Schumaker pulled kid gloves from his pocket and started to put them on, studying her all the while.

Then he said in a quiet voice, "Leave it alone, Barbara Holloway. You may know the law, but you've b.u.mbled into an area where you are as ignorant as a school child. The work is gone. It cannot be reproduced. Dinesen will be in no condition to reproduce it, and you know nothing about it. I will give you just this bit of advice. If you bring in a psychologist, try hypnosis with him, you will simply confirm that he is mad, that he is out of touch with reality; he may even talk about a strange, alien world view, but nothing about the work, the process. Just leave it alone."

He turned and walked out of the room. Frank followed him to the front door, closed and locked it after him. When he got back to the living room, Barbara was standing at the couch, gazing at Mike, who had not stirred once.

Frank put his arm around her and held her for a moment.

"Ah, Bobby, what a hornet's nest we've got ourselves into."

She drew back.

"Right. Did you tape it all?"

"Jesus, how did you know that?"

"I saw you fiddling with your pen, and I remembered that junior G-man kit you used to have, with the microphone that looks like a pen. Is that how you taped the trial?"

"Yep. Works just fine. Just fine. But d.a.m.ned if I know what good it will do us."

She looked down at Mike again. She should get a blanket, she thought vaguely. Or restraints?

Straitjacket? The tape recording wouldn't do a bit of good, she thought in despair. Not a bit of good.

THIRTY-FIVE.

at four Doc called to see if he could drop in. Frank glanced at Barbara, who was sitting with a book in her hands, not reading a word. She shrugged. Mike was sleeping on the couch, covered now with a blanket. She had removed his shoes. He was sleeping as peacefully as a baby.

"Sure, Doc," Frank said.

"I'll be here."

"No point in having him see Mike, I guess," she said.

"No point in my seeing him."

"We'll talk in my study." Now and then that afternoon he had gone to the couch, felt Mike's forehead, or his pulse. When he sat down, he had not even pretended to read. He had gazed at the fire, or out a window, or at his daughter, or Mike. He welcomed Doc, welcomed an interruption.

He left Barbara baby-sitting. He thought of it that way, baby-sitting. At the thought, a pang of grief swept him.

He never had even breathed to her how much he longed for a grandchild, a whole pa.s.sel of grandchildren. He would have been overjoyed by a grandchild by way of Tony as much as he disliked him. But his genes were probably okay, he had told himself, and he d.a.m.n well knew that Barbara's were just fine. The moment of grief pa.s.sed when he took a last look at Mike on the couch. Then he closed the living room door and went to the kitchen to wait for Doc.

At first Doc turned down his hospitality.

"It's a business call," he said almost primly, taking off his long, heavy jacket. He was as jerky and jumpy as always, not sitting still long enough to warm a chair.

"d.a.m.n it, we can talk business over a gla.s.s of wine, or a cup of coffee," Frank growled.

Doc agreed to coffee and went to the sliding door to the terrace. The river was nearly black in the late-afternoon light. It was getting dark already, the clouds low, threatening rain again, heavy snow in the mountains.

"I want you to divorce me," Doc said suddenly, and with nervous energy he paced the kitchen as Frank made the coffee.

"Um. Have you both discussed it?"

"No. No. I wanted to talk to you first. But she knows, just not when. Now is when."

"Sit down. Doc. You'remaking me twitchy." Frank came around the counter with the coffee tray and indicated one of the chairs at the table. Doc sat down.

"Now, let's have it." He poured for them both.

"Nothing to have! I want out. I've wanted out for a long time, but it seemed, oh, I don't know, indecent, I guess.

Now I don't care. Out."

"Is there someone else?"

Doc jumped up so fast he nearly knocked his chair over.

He caught and steadied it, and then sat down again.

"Not like that. I mean Not like that."

Frank regarded him morosely. Barbara had told him about Doc and Nell, but that was over, he was certain.

"Okay," he said.

"But you should see a marriage counselor, you know. Differences can be reconciled if both people want reconciliation."

"I don't! Christ! I said I want out. That's all."

"Do you expect her to fight it?"

"Oh, sure. Tooth and claw."

Frank's sigh was mournful. It would be messy, nasty, dirty, filthy, all the things he hated.

"You'll want to talk to one of my a.s.sociates, then. Sandra Seligman would be good. You know I don't do divorces, myself." "Come off it, Frank!" He ran his hands through his thin hair and nearly knocked his cup over with his elbow.

Frank grabbed it and moved it away from him.

"Anyone can do a simple divorce. I could get a kit and do it myself.

I took care of you through a lot of stuff that's not my specialty."

"Kicking and screaming all the way," Frank snapped back at him.

"And you could have turned me over to a specialist at any time, you know."

"Well, I didn't. I don't want Sandra whoever she is."

"This isn't going to be a simple divorce, you idiot!

There's property, and investments, and insurance, and your earnings, today's and in the future.

What kind of picture will she make in a divorce court in her wheelchair? She'll clean you out down to your holiest socks!"

"I know all that," Doc said almost meekly.

"I just don't care. Help me, Frank. I want you to do it. I'm taking her down to her sister's place in Palm Springs this evening.

For Thanksgiving." He laughed, a short, bitter sound that was almost a sob.

"Thanksgiving. I'll tell her Friday, down there. We'll talk on Sat.u.r.day, and I'll fly home Sunday.

She won't come back with me. Not yet. She'll have her sister to comfort her and scheme with her and plan revenge, whatever. That's all right, too. After that, I don't know. Probably I'll stay in town. I just want to know you'll take care of things. I don't expect you to work miracles.

Just try to keep my skin intact. That's acceptable."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l!" Frank muttered.

"I might not even be able to do that much for you." He drummed his fingers on the table for a minute, then said deliberately, "Listen, Doc, when I was sick you did some pretty d.a.m.n embarra.s.sing things to me. My turn. And you sit in that chair and answer, or I'll toss you out. I know about you and Nell. G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I said sit still!"

Doc was up and out of his chair faster than Frank could reach out to stop him. He ran to the sliding door and stood with his shoulders hunched looking out.