The Cunningham Equations

by G. C. Edmondson

  The room seemed empty, but he had thought the same walking into the other house, past Sergio concealed as effectively in the high-backed chair as if he had tossed a pinch of powders and conjured invisibility. Blaise had not seen him until the light came on and it was too late.

  The wingback chair was beside the window, facing the door. The couch looked out on the ocean. Silently, Blaise stepped in stockinged feet, letting his long shadow blend into the others.

  He stepped again and his shadow melted, waiting. Again. Stop. Convince himself it had been there all the time. Gun in right hand. Chair a step away. He moved and his shadow blended with that of the chair stretching across the room. He held his arms close, pretending he was a tree, feeling tension claw his belly. Then he plunged his left hand over the side of the chair and swung, jamming the gun toward the middle at head height.

  He almost screamed.

  His fingers clutched hair and a hard skull that twisted violently under his left hand until the pistol squished and jolted against something harder than the back of the seat. Blaise almost pulled the trigger.

  For a long moment he leaned against the chair staring into darkness, fingers wound in a handful of hair that pulled feebly. Blaise jerked. A body followed the head attached to his fingers, and stretched prone. Kneeling, Blaise pressed the gun barrel against teeth. The man’s eyes were fluttering like machine code in the moonlight.

  “Is there anyone else?” he whispered. The sibilance echoed through the cold lit room.

  The head rolled.

  Blaise let go of the hair and patted until he found the stranger’s gun. When he tucked it in his belt, his pants sagged.

  Grabbing hair again, he pulled the man to his feet. When he was facing away Blaise put the little automatic in his holster and took the big gun in his right hand. Prodding his captive like a shield, Blaise toured the house and made sure it was empty. Then he pushed his would-be assailant into the windowless interior bathroom and turned on the light.

  Blaise tied him under the sink, arms folded behind through the cast-iron drainpipe, lashed with his own belt and shoelaces. He studied his work, then embellished it with tape from the medicine chest. Pockets yielded a New Jersey driver’s license and two hundred dollars. Blaise already had the gun.

  The side of the man’s face was turning black from the blow of Blaise’s pistol. Eyes were vacant, as if the tenant was still not home. Blaise knew where he had seen that lock before: when Helen had faded away the first time he saw her in the hospital.

  He owed Sergio an apology. Sitting in the wingback chair punching numbers into the cordless phone with his left hand, the oversized pistol in his right, he finally understood the comfort that a gun delivered.

  The phone was answered with a sleepy “Hello?”

  “Linda?”

  “Blaise! Are you all right?”

  “Everything’s fine.” Blaise looked at the gun in his hand and decided he wasn’t lying. “Shouldn’t it be?”

  “No. I mean yes. I don’t know. I was asleep.” There was a silent ringing in his ears until Linda finally said, “How’s Helen?” in a changed voice.

  “Getting better. Maybe.”

  “I’m sorry. Really, Blaise. Even if . . .” A pause while Linda mentally shrugged. “You know.”

  “I understand. I just wanted to let you know I’m home again, now that Helen is in the hospital.”

  “You should come up here, Blaise. San Francisco is nice this time of year.” Unconsciously she lowered her voice. “Uncle Milo can protect you. I know he can.”

  “Do I need protection?”

  “We all need a little.” Her voice faded. Then she added, “You will come?”

  “Yes,” Blaise promised. “Good-bye until then.”

  “Good-bye.” Linda hung up but the sound of an open line remained. Blaise knew somebody was outwaiting him, that there would be no dial tone. He flipped the off button and waited ten seconds before pressing automatic redial. Linda’s line was busy.

  He checked the house before he left. Particularly the man on the bathroom floor who glared but said nothing. Leaving the way he’d entered, he drove Helen’s white Buick uphill past the house. When he was far enough away, he turned out the lights and continued in darkness back where he’d parked earlier. A casual observer would swear the car had not moved. Crickets decided the commotion was over and resumed their chirr.

  He waited eight minutes before a pair of cars without lights parked above and below his house. By the time he had the binoculars focused the lights were on inside. He released the brake and rolled downhill until he hit the dip out of sight of the house, then turned on the headlights.

  Sergio was going to say Beginner’s luck! Remembering that tense stalk in the house when fear had filled his stomach to the verge of vomiting, Blaise knew Sergio would be right.

  It is in the interactions between individuals that the problem of intelligence becomes paramount. Just as machines which are not built to recognize their relationships to each other cannot communicate, humans fall into conflicts.

  FROM A SEMINAR ON

  THE CUNNINGHAM EQUATIONS

  CHAPTER 23

  Blaise palmed the gun from his newspaper-stuffed valise, feeling furtive because of the airport security guards, then threw the bag onto the luggage carrousel to orbit unto eternity before walking out to catch a cab.

  At the Burkhalter tum-of-the-century mansion, night was like standing in a covered well. Searching with his feet, Blaise followed flagstones to the huge, arch-topped oak door. The button produced a distant chime. Raw ocean wind knifed through his windbreaker as he waited. He stepped back to look up at the three story front of quarried stone.

  Like a cat’s eye opening, light flashed into existence near the top. Lights in other windows followed until finally the archway light momentarily blinded him. Blaise was still blinking as the door swung open.

  “Dr. Cunningham. It’s late for a visit.” Milo Burkhalter’s ponderous voice rolled through the night air, revealing neither surprise nor rancor. “As long as you’re here, why not come in?”

  Burkhalter shut the door behind Blaise before leading the way into the study. He wore a red brocade robe with gold-and-black trim. The satin lining was also red. Pale-blue pajama legs stuck out below the hem. Although he bulged and his hair was white, Blaise’s impression was not of a fat old man abruptly wrenched from his Seconal but of a man getting up to swat a fly.

  “I was hoping to see you, Dr. Cunningham.”

  “Were you?”

  Milo’s expression did not change. Blaise suspected powerful people had little emotion to spare and were such practiced liars that he would never catch them out. Sitting in the massive leather chair behind his desk, Milo offered the humidor. Blaise declined. Carefully Milo selected a cigar mottled with yellow-and-green spots.

  “Havana leaf,” he said. “People have tried to grow it in Mexico and North Carolina, but their weapons are inferior even to the Connecticut. I think it has to do with the bacterial strains in the ground, but you’d know more about that than I?”

  Blaise shook his head. “The owner of TIL surely knows more about applied biology than me, Mister Burkhalter.”

  “So you know.” Milo puffed, exhaling a mild blue cloud. “A small vanity. I was nearly there when the family fortunes failed. I dropped out and picked up the burden. In return for facing up to family responsibilities, I awarded myself a degree in absentia.” Milo flicked ash. “Of course, Doctor, you wouldn’t know about that sort of thing.” Milo paused at the elevator’s whine. A moment later the door clattered.

  “Hello, Blaise.” Linda wore a one-piece ivory dress that zipped up the back and molded itself to her. Soft white slippers with flat heels made her even more petite and Blaise knew what he had to say would be difficult in spite of endless rehearsals on the flight from San Diego.

  “You didn’t tell me you were coming tonight.”

  “I had to find out myself.”

  “I’m gla
d you came. Why don’t you sit down? I told you Uncle Milo would help.”

  “Of course I will, Linda.” Uncle Milo’s lips, cheeks, and eyes crinkled into a practiced benevolence.

  Blaise took a chair facing Milo but where he could still see Linda. “I told you where I was calling from, Linda.”

  “Your house.” She stared, green eyes clouded, distracting Blaise with perfection, although he knew he saw only the physical manifestation of an unattainable ideal.

  “My house.” Blaise glanced at Milo. “I don’t live there anymore. Since Helen was attacked I’ve had to move.”

  “Had to?” Milo’s face was patience in ironwood.

  “Some people want a lab animal. They forced their way into Helen’s house and almost killed her for a dog. I still have him.”

  “I see. Of course Linda is right, Dr. Cunningham, if here is anything we can do, we will.”

  “I hoped you’d say that, Mr. Burkhalter.”

  ! “That’s wonderful, Blaise.”

  When Blaise looked at her some of Linda’s enthusiasm ebbed. “You can help by answering a few questions.”

  “Of course.” Linda smiled. Milo said nothing.

  “I went to my house to make the call. I told you where I was. And then I left.”

  Milo was willing to play. “Why did you do that?”

  “I didn’t go far. Just up the hill to watch two cars come to my house. And the men in them.”

  “Perhaps these people were searching randomly for you.” Milo seemed to be contemplating something outside Blaise and Linda’s vision.

  “When I first got to the house a man was waiting inside.”

  “I don’t understand . . .” Linda’s eyes pleaded with him not to mean what he was saying.

  “What Dr. Cunningham means, my dear, is if a man was waiting for him, the others wouldn’t have swarmed over the house unless they were sure he was inside.”

  “You see things clearly, Mr. Burkhalter.”

  Milo turned his head slightly toward the wall. The angle set deep shadows over the creases and wrinkles of his face.

  “Your telephone may have been monitored.”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Yes. Unlikely. Or that our telephone is tapped.”

  “Linda is the only person who knew of a connection between me and Helen; who knew Helen had Dobie. And who knew I was not at Helen’s home to intercept a call from Dr. Hemmett. She was along long enough to telephone while I met with Gordon.”

  Silence has a negative quality like the depth of black water. Felt but not heard, it filled the study. Blaise had a sense of moving underwater. But there was no stopping. With each word Linda drifted farther out of his life.

  “I didn’t, Blaise. I wouldn’t do anything to Helen.”

  “But you’d do it, wouldn’t you, Mr. Burkhalter?”

  Milo shifted his gaze from the wall to stare at Blaise. “Just as you did to Osgood.”

  Blood drained from Linda’s face. Blaise tried to feel something. Sorry, perhaps.

  “That’s a cruel thing to say. Osgood was necessary, for the family. That’s why Linda acted. For the family.” Milo’s voice made the pronouncement noble, justifying Linda’s prostitution on some Nietzschean grounds that, for the Herrenvolk of intellect, breeding, and money, anything is permissible.

  “Is that what it was for, Mr. Burkhalter? Linda lured him off to the Caribbean for a week while you stole his company. Seduced a man old enough to be her father—and all for the family?

  “When he found out, he came here. What did you tell him to make him kill himself?” Blaise shifted his gaze to Linda and asked softly, “Or what did you tell him?”

  Linda tilted her head so he couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “She did it for money.” Blaise’s voice rang louder than he intended in the small room. “But Osgood didn’t kill himself over the money. He died of shame Linda carried to him like some miserable disease. Because you told her to.”

  “Get out, Dr. Cunningham.” Milo didn’t raise his voice. But it vibrated with strength.

  “I’m not finished.”

  Looking more like a dressed-up school girl than a grown woman, Linda hid her face in her hands.

  “You are totally finished.”

  Blaise ignored Milo. “Linda had no reason to latch onto me, unless she was told to.” Blaise looked at her, feeling at last some small pity. “I’m sorry, Linda, but even drunk I don’t kid myself that I’m a prime catch—particularly for a handsome, intelligent woman who’s too self-centered to willingly burden herself with my problems.

  “I was the greedy kid in fairyland getting off on all his dreams. But in my intestines, Mr. Burkhalter, I knew. I drank more so I could ignore what was happening. I can’t blame Linda for what I did to myself.

  “I knew—not for sure, but close to the surface—that keeping in touch with Gordon and hanging onto Dobie would somehow keep Linda with me.” Blaise stopped talking, drained. In a single moment he had exposed more of himself than he had previously revealed in a lifetime.

  “I’ll kill you!”

  Jonathan Peters stepped into the study. Tears streamed down his face as he walked unsteadily toward Blaise. Face whiter than Linda’s, eyes filled with pain, he was without thought or cunning. Blaise knew he would really try.

  Milo rose, watching with hooded eyes from behind his desk. He wasn’t going to help. Blaise had forgotten about Linda’s husband. He’d dismissed him because Peters knew as much about Milo and Linda as he did.

  He took the Bufalo from the holster in his waistband and pumped the slide. “Dr. Peters,” he said quietly, “it is not in your character to kill anyone.”

  Peters’ gaze flicked casually at the gun, but he walked like a man intent on suicide.

  “Please don’t, Dr. Peters.”

  “Kill him, Jonathan!” Milo’s voice exploded. Peters emitted an indecipherable wail of anguish and lunged.

  Blaise saw it in slow motion, Jonathan stretching, hands hooking into claws and lunging without the simplest attempt to protect himself.

  The gun rose in Blaise’s hand. In time it pointed at Jonathan and his finger came out of the trigger guard. Blaise was stunned by how easily he smashed it against Peters’ face. Inertia carried Linda’s husband against the chair where he made a whomping sound when he hit the leather.

  Milo sat slowly, face frozen, both hands conspicuously on top of his desk. After an instant he picked up his cigar.

  “Jon!” Linda’s red fingernails were ragged pickets beneath her eyes.

  Blaise sat again, breathing heavily. Reaching down, he shook Peters until the mathematician rolled over and looked up with blank eyes.

  “Go outside and wait for me.”

  Peters got to his feet. Like an arthritic old man, he trudged away. Blaise heard the massive thud of the door and felt a surge of cold air. He eased the slide back and set the safety. He’d been lucky the gun hadn’t gone off when he hit Peters.

  Milo’s eyes followed Blaise’s hands, his thoughts veiled.

  “No, Mr. Burkhalter,” Blaise said musingly, “what can I devise for the man who is responsible?” But hatred was draining away, purged by the sudden violence. He couldn’t kill Milo out of hand. Jonathan Peters had saved Milo’s life.

  Blaise played with the pistol, nervously switching it from hand to hand. In his right the safety was under the ball of his thumb. In his left he would have to release it with his trigger finger. Milo’s jerky eyes following the pistol were the one sign of concern he couldn’t control.

  “Should I show more kindness than you and just kill you?”

  Linda stared in horror.

  “For what reason?” Milo shrugged but his eyes were drawn back to the pistol each time he tore them away.

  “Linda told you. You told West, or maybe Hemmett. They paid you off: traded GENRECT stock for TIL stock. And Helen almost died for some lousy money. Will you never get enough?”

  Milo shook his head. “Not that. They had
to make the deal. A person . . . a cheap tramp working for TIL modified the product. She experimented on my time, on my patent, developing a self-propagating strain. Then she sold it to your Dr. Hemmett.”

  “Esther Tazy.”

  Milo looked at Blaise and smiled. “If you know Miss Tazy, I’m sure you can understand the spot she put me in. I learned too late about her deal with Dr. Hemmett. West and Hemmett already had samples of the modified germ plasm. I didn’t trade you or your precious Helen. Gregory West and I have had dealings before. He wanted no fuss. I simply threatened to sue him for patent infringement and theft of industrial secrets.”

  “You knew Dobie was at Helen’s, you and Linda.”

  “I am sorry.” Milo spread his hands. “I just passed along a favor. Dr. Hemmett feared that the dog might fall into the wrong hands and my patent—ours, sharing it was part of our deal—would be stolen by a third party. No one was to be hurt. I can only blame Gregory West for that. He is ruthless. But I thought Dr. Hemmett had control.”

  Milo could be telling the truth. Greed, Blaise knew, should wear glasses.

  “I’m sorry, Linda.”

  She watched him, prepared to cringe again.

  “It was never right between us.”

  “We can make it right, Blaise.” She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

  “Maybe you’re part of a love-hate relationship with my mother, but you’ve already had both sides. Nothing’s left.”

  “You don’t really love that woman, Blaise. I know you. You just think you’re responsible.”

  “I knew before then that you didn’t care for me, or I for you, Linda. I avoided Helen for another reason. Love is not lust. Helen was important. You were never there when I needed you.” Blaise felt the sour taste of truth in his mouth.

  “When Helen was hurt, I knew I’d screwed up and might never get another chance. I have to try.”

  “It’s not true.”

  Blaise shrugged. “Call off your dogs, Mr. Burkhalter. I am swiftly losing patience. What happened to Helen happened because of you. I’ll have eyes for an eye. Teeth for a tooth.”

  “I’ll see to it.” Milo did not blink as Blaise walked out.