“Which ones?”
West picked a cigar from the humidor and snipped an end before lighting it. “A fair question, Doctor. Let’s take your termination with GENRECT.” He waited.
“You have the floor, Mr. West.”
“Your stock options can be cashed in a year. Sooner if the board agrees. Dr. Hemmett is a director. And I am a director.”
“That’s two. Aren’t there more?”
“Five more, Doctor. I hold their proxies.” West studied his cigar. “You know, a cigar with a good ash burns more evenly than a cigar tip unprotected from errant breezes. Real smokers pay for the ash, Doctor.”
“And wear gray suits so it blends in.”
“That’s life, Dr. Cunningham. To get what you want you sometimes give up something you didn’t want quite as much.” Hemmett watched the exchange between the two men with desperate fascination.
“What do I give up?” Blaise asked.
West gave his cigar an unhurried puff. “GENRECT stock will be worth a great deal in a year. Maybe sooner. You get your job back at full pay and—” He held up a hand to forestall Blaise’s objection. “—and you get to do whatever you want. The company finances any research at all, Doctor. We’ll do even better than that. You can work wherever you want.”
“Play remittance man? Get out from underfoot?”
“A little more.” West’s voice had sharp edges that poked through the husky tenor. “Dr. Hemmett?”
Hemmett’s face was red as he forced the words out. “We want the dog. Right away. We want the computer here on the grounds, and no telephone connections.”
“You can’t have Alfie!” Blaise had not intended to raise his voice. Of all the things upsetting him, the idea of West wanting Alfie was one of the more disconcerting. But the memory of Helen in a hospital bed slowed him. “I mean, he’s irreplaceable.”
“We don’t want the computer, Dr. Cunningham.” West slipped smoothly between Blaise and Hemmett. He seemed pleased at Blaise’s reaction. “We want to make sure you don’t do something foolish, like snooping into our affairs. Inadvertently, Doctor. Perhaps under the influence of alcohol.”
“It bothers you that much?”
“Doctor, if we liked what your computer does, would we offer so much for you to stop?”
“Cunningham, do what he says” Hemmett was begging rather than demanding.
“I have to think it over.”
“Doctor!” West captured Blaise’s eyes with the sparkle of his own black pupils. “We don’t have to buy anything. The dog is our property. Your computer snooping is illegal.”
“Sue me!” Blaise said. “Have me arrested.”
West studied Blaise regretfully for a moment. “How many police officers are posted outside Miss McIntyre’s door?”
Blaise’s eyes were on Hemmett when he realized his moment of revolt was abruptly over. Dr. Arthur Hemmett did not seem overjoyed at his victory.
“From plain talk comes understanding,” Blaise said. “Dr. Hemmett, I believe you once called me a menace to orderly society?”
Arthur Hemmett looked away.
“Do you agree?” West asked.
“Under duress,” Blaise said. As if it made any difference. West stared thoughtfully at Blaise. “Sergio and Bruno will go with you to get the dog. Tomorrow we’ll move the computer to the GENRECT building. You go back on payroll. Fair enough?”
Standing behind West where he couldn’t be seen, Dr. Hemmett bobbed his head vigorously up and down, staring holes through Blaise. The oppressive, wood-paneled room was starting to fill with smoke. The time had passed for futile gestures. Hemmett was taking a risk with his blatant signaling. The great man’s jowls were white, all his bluff heartiness drained away.
“All right,” Blaise said finally.
West took the cigar from his mouth and smiled with thin lips. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Doctor.” No one offered to shake hands.
West opened the door and let Bruno and Sergio back in. “You take Dr. Cunningham home. He’s going to give you a dog to bring back here tonight. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.” Sergio seemed bored with the assignment. No single muscle twitched on Bruno’s side-of-beef face. “Bruno,” West said, and suddenly the dialect was so fast and heavy that Blaise almost missed the muscle man’s instruction to escort the doctor home and then to unwrap the package. And to bring back the dog and the computer. The dog in one piece.
“Si, Padróne,” Bruno’s voice was surprisingly high and sweet, like a girl’s.
West laughed and patted Blaise on the shoulder. “We talk to Bruno like the old country to make him understand, capicia?”
“We have a deal,” Blaise said.
Chuckling, West said, “That’s fine, Doctor. While you’re on vacation you can visit Italy and pick up the language.”
Sergio smiled.
Hemmett appeared worried, but he tried to smile at Blaise. He was the only person in the room who didn’t speak Italian.
Bruno took the backseat where he looked over Sergio’s shoulder at the panoply of ghost lights on the windshield. He seemed hypnotized by the map and the red line, like a child discovering something new and mysterious. Except that Blaise could not believe the man-mountain huddled in back had ever been a child.
“Bruno don’t say much,” Sergio offered. “But he pays attention.”
“I imagine.” Blaise glanced back but Bruno gave no sign that he noticed. “Do you have the car manual?”
“Try the glove box.” Sergio put a cigarette in his mouth and grasped the dashboard lighter. “You know,” he said, the red ember bouncing up and down in front of his lips, “I had a hard time getting a lighter. People can afford this kind of machine are smoking less and when the sales department researched the kind of accessories would make it sell, cigarette lighters were low on the list.”
“Does Bruno smoke?”
“Tufuma, Brun’?” Sergio yelled over his shoulder.
The high voice tried to growl “Naw!” but failed to get any rasp into the sound.
“He doesn’t,” Sergio said conversationally to Blaise. “Any time you need somebody to interpret with Bruno, just ask. He speaka da Italian, you know.”
“I gathered as much.” Blaise opened the glove box and discovered if he held the manual at the right angle he could read it comfortably under a built-in map light.
“What do you think, Professor? Those people with money and power know something we don’t?”
“Something you don’t anyway. I don’t smoke.”
“You think I should give it up, Professor?”
“You’d live longer.” Blaise glanced in back, but the hulking Bruno hadn’t moved. “It’s amazing what science is doing these days,” he said. “The dog I’m giving your bosses is a valuable experimental animal.”
“What kind of experiments?” Sergio’s voice was flat, as if the humor had escaped him.
“I don’t think I can talk about the work I’m involved in without consulting Mr. West. After all, he just hired me.”
“If that’s what you call it.”
Blaise and Sergio looked at each other. Sweat was soaking Blaise’s shirt down the back. “I suppose I’m defining the obvious,” he said, “but don’t they seem anxious to get this dog before anyone else can learn what poor Dobie’s future holds?”
Sergio jerked the car back onto the road. “You still staying at Miss McIntyre’s?”
“That’s right.”
With his right hand Sergio fed the destination into the computer. The red line extended south to the Bird Rock end of La Jolla. No one spoke until they arrived at Helen’s empty house. They got out together. Bruno followed them up the sidewalk, saying nothing while Blaise fumbled with the key.
In the vast silence of the night keys jangled like a wind chime. The car’s headlights flooded the street. Bruno stood behind Blaise, so close that his cologne was overpowering.
A quiet whine sounded as the Chrysler’s headlights
retracted, plunging the house door into darkness just as Blaise leaned against it and literally fell into the hallway.
For a big man Bruno was fast. He moved immediately even though he couldn’t see, and crashed into Blaise, carrying him in his arms until they ran into the jog at the end of the hallway.
Blaise’s ribs ached. His lungs were painful voids. Something thin and sharp caught him across his cheek, searing him with fire while Bruno’s bearlike body pressed him irresistibly. Giving his all, Blaise slammed both hands against the wall and was rewarded with a little give as Bruno stumbled backward.
He felt the piano-wire garrote slice hair and skin as his face was forced against Bruno’s chest. A sweaty odor rose from the big man’s skin, overpowering his seeming total immersion in cologne. Desperately Blaise forced his hands up between their bodies, pressing to pry Bruno’s arms away and release the terrible pressure on the back of his head.
“Stop it, Bruno. Basta!” Sergio’s arms wrapped around Bruno’s massive neck. “Bruno,” he panted. “Abbiamo bisogno dell dottore. Brun’! We need him. Who else stands between us and dying?”
With a sound like escaping steam, Bruno let slip one end of the garrote while he clubbed Sergio off his back.
“Bruno. Listen!” Sergio plowed into Bruno’s back. Blaise felt the heavy, muscular body flinch under the impact. “BRUNO!” Sergio yelled and Blaise was blasted by the sound.
Blaise forced the bigger man’s arms until the wire no longer cut into his head. But his arms were leaden. Bruno’s strength was beyond belief. Bruno’s body transmitted the shock of Sergio punching him in the kidneys and still he continued his silent, inexorable pressure. Sweat streamed down Blaise. His fists were clenched around Bruno’s wrists.
It was like holding up a building. There was no letup. The pressure continued until Blaise’s world shrank to blackness and Bruno’s arms and the smell of sweat. The throb of Bruno’s pulse under his fingers seemed timeless. Blaise’s mind saw the hair-thin length of virtually invisible steel slicing the back of his neck, blood spurting and wire sinking into his flesh to leave only a thin, red line until it reached his spine.
He visualized it cutting into the soft vertebrae, exposing white bone, his head flopping forward with no bone to support the weight of his skull.
Desperately, Blaise gulped air. His body was burning oxygen in wasteful abundance, and still it wasn’t enough. Muscles agonized, metabolic wastes accumulating so fast that he was poisoning himself.
He pushed and nothing yielded. Heart pounding, he slid down Bruno’s body. Bruno’s huge hands followed, bringing the deadly wire closer.
Blaise straightened suddenly, driving his body up. His face burned against the fabric of Bruno’s vest, buttons digging in quick succession, each leaving another pain. His head smashed into the point of Bruno’s jaw and light streaked under his eyelids. He was falling.
“Come on, Doc. Come on!”
Blaise opened his eyes. The lights were on and he was in the little entranceway to Helen’s house atop Bruno.
Sergio pulled Blaise to his unsteady feet.
Bruno moaned and moved his head. Blood ran from his mouth and his jaw looked odd.
“We got to get going before Bruno revives.” Sergio shook Blaise. “You understand, Doc?” Pulse howling in his ears, Blaise was not sure but he nodded.
The garrote dangled from Bruno’s hand. Sergio took a quick wrap around one wrist, then held Bruno’s other hand up and wound the wire around both wrists until it sank into the skin. He twisted the wood handles around each other, making the tempered piano wire surrender and take a permanent set.
“Dobbiamo andare. Let’s get him out of here.”
Blaise nodded.
Huffing and straining ferociously, they got Bruno to his feet. Sergio turned the light off.
Blaise supported Bruno while Sergio opened the car trunk from the keypad. Blaise felt awareness slowly returning to Bruno’s corded muscles. The deck lid rose in majestic slowness and the trunk light flashed on. Blaise released the breath he’d been holding. Sergio materialized out of the darkness and they forced Bruno into the trunk. The rear of the Chrysler squatted, protesting the weight distribution. Sergio said, “Automatic load levelers. It’ll be all right.”
From inside the trunk came thumpings. They got in the car.
“We’ll need your VW,” Sergio said, “then we dump this car.”
Blaise nodded. Gordon had been right. A lot was at stake for somebody. In his beetle he followed the button man for an hour back north to Heaven’s Gate. Parking the Chrysler at the far end of the lot where it would sit until somebody who knew what was going on recognized it. Sergio patted the trunk when he got out. “Stay cool, fatso,” he said before getting into the VW with Blaise.
The drive back to La Jolla hadn’t the same style as the computerized Chrysler, but it was less suspenseful. Blaise dropped Sergio at a car rental, then drove to Helen’s. He backed her car out on the street and put the VW in the garage. No one would be looking for a white Buick.
Before he left the VW, he noticed a book on the passenger seat. It was the Chrysler manual with all the customized computer instructions. He put the book in his pocket and smiled. Bruno would need one hell of a locksmith to open that trunk without it. Blaise did not know whether to be reassured or horrified by Sergio’s sense of humor. But he was glad the Jersey button man had finally chosen sides.
Because machines may be made immortal, when defined for most intents and purposes, and memory may be expanded to an infinite degree in theory, then a machine with human intelligence would technically surpass the ability of man to reason.
FROM A SEMINAR ON
THE CUNNINGHAM EQUATIONS
CHAPTER 20
Blaise idled the Buick up the driveway to the garage door and sat in the dark feeling his blood pound. He got out of the car, locking it before he wobbled around to the front door. A lifetime ago he’d quit expecting to find someone waiting.
For their last year he’d lived with his parents while they worked on the equations. At least his parents had worked on them, while Blaise assembled Alfie and wrote the programs that furnished final proof of the Cunningham Equations.
To sit in the dark and hide his need was second nature. Only recently he had lost the knack. Blaise was overwhelmed by loneliness and remorse—for his parents and for Helen.
Loneliness was worse in a strange house where he was free from all needs, including that of exorcising his parents. He had hoped a place without memories would make a difference. But he had only moved an empty soul into another empty house. Not knowing where the light switches were or if he was going to walk into a piece of furniture simply added to Blaise’s distress. He groped for a switch and a table light came to life.
Sitting unruffled as a bodhisattva in a heavy chair next to the lamp was Sergio Paoli. Blaise envied the Jersey button man’s easy integration into a society that grew increasingly alien.
“You’re not very good at this, Doc.” Sergio might have been commenting on the color scheme.
Blaise struggled to conceal his surprise at Sergio’s presence. “I’m learning as I go. Where did you park?”
“Couple of blocks away.” Sergio’s eyes revolved Blaise on a mental spit as he probed beyond surface weaknesses.
Abruptly Blaise understood what frightened Linda’s Uncle Milo and his coterie. No man of imagination could look steadily into the passionless eye of the predator.
“I’ve got to check on Dobie,” he said.
“Sit down, Doc. I looked and the dog’s okay. I think it’s important we talk.” Sergio’s brown eyes could be expressive when he chose. Eyes Helen would have ascribed to a Latin lover. Blaise was seeing the world increasingly through Helen’s eyes. The view did not permit him to see what Helen saw in him.
Sergio’s eyes had filled with amusement and, after locking Bruno in the trunk, something like anger. Blaise had not understood then.
Taking the nearest chair, Blaise made
his face impassive. “I imagine you’re right,” he said. “It’s not my trade.” Sensing that this was not the most diplomatic thing to say, he added, “I’m not even very good at what I do.”
Sergio Paoli regarded him with veiled eyes. “I done a terrible thing tonight, Doc, I want to be sure it’s worthwhile.”
“A little late, isn’t it? Haven’t you burnt your bridges?”
“Bruno is my cousin. I may have killed him. Famlglia per straniero. If I killed family for a stranger, Doc, that stranger better be worthwhile.”
“Bruno’ll be all right.” Blaise felt himself retreat from Sergio’s mood. “I’ll call in the morning and tell Dr. Hemmett to look in the trunk.”
Sergio’s laugh reminded Blaise of the times he had strangled on vodka. “Doc, you’re not in college anymore. You call and somebody says, ‘Look, Bruno let his cousin get away and they try to make it look good but that prick Sergio don’t want his greaseball cousin to cook in the sun.’ ”
“I didn’t know,” Blaise said.
“Wasn’t your decision, Doc. He cooks.” Sergio shook his head. “Bruno had the treatment.”
It took Blaise an instant to absorb this. “Didn’t it work?”
“I guess so. You never saw him before. Bruno started remembering back to the day he was born. Every conversation he ever heard. Everything we said in that car, every move you made, how many breaths you took.”
Blaise had never considered what effect Gordon’s treatment might have on the retarded. Idiot Bruno had become idiot savant.
Jesus! Gordon . . . Helen . . . Sergio . . . even silent, brooding Bruno. You can’t stir the water without upsetting the fish. As he’d done to his parents. And now, thanks to Blaise’s prying, what would happen to Gordon?
“We’re in this together, Doc. Me—a wise guy, street soldier! I listened to a man’s sweet talk. And now I know sin and regret.” Sergio smiled crookedly. “Can eight grades and a sneak-thief mentality think those kinda thoughts, Doc?” Blaise tried to guess what answer Sergio wanted. “You’re not alone, Doc. I couldn’t answer that if you were me and I was you. And I’ve had time to think about it. You know, Bruno could never make the same mistake twice. He remembered. Only sometimes he’d make a different mistake because he can’t seem to see the future—only the past.” Blaise thought of the day Gordon told him Dobie caught six squirrels.
The Cunningham Equations Page 20