“abel said to.”
“Well, fuck Abel,” Baker fairly screamed in his head. “And anyway, Abel didn't hear her thinking. You did. And you also made up part of that, didn't you, Charley? I know damned well that at a time like this, Tanner Burke is not sitting around comparing the men in her life.”
Charley did not answer.
“Last warning, Charley. You're coming out.”
”i made up the last part, abel said to.”
“Why, Charley?”
“because she wants to be your friend and help you. because harrigan wants you to be his friend and help him. but abel says you don't need friends, abel says you only need charley to know things for you and you only need abel to keep people from hurting you. abel says that way we don 't need friends, abel says they don 't even like you. they want to hurt you.”
Charley, you just said they want to be my friends”
abel says that was wrong, they don 't like you. they don 't want you to be free, the man wants you to be his friend for years and years just to tell him things and to do things for him. the woman doesn't want you to need us. she wants you to need her so you won 't be free, she wants you to have tina so you won't be free too.'f
Tanner Burke was fuming. She was feeling her third or fourth flash of anger since Baker revived, but this was the first time that she understood. It's true, she thought. It's true that Baker can reach inside my head and he has no right. Even if it was just to read a fleeting thought about a sometime lover and what a simple little boy he now seems compared to Jared Baker.
She felt Harrigan watching her and she glared back at him. Now, damn it, Harrigan's trying to read my mind. Isn't anyone in this town normal? Every time she got a little mad in the past half-hour, she'd look up, and Harrigan would be watching her. It was as if he knew the anger was there, but he couldn't have because it came out of nowhere. Nothing happened to cause it. There would just be a tiny crowding feeling inside her head and she would feel her blood rising toward it. Next, there would be a new feeling. A sort of sucking feeling, like a tissue being drawn from its box, and then the anger would leave. She would have ignored these feelings or dismissed them as a product of fatigue except that Harrigan seemed to feel them too. He had the same little startled expression whenever she felt her own tissue being pulled away.
Harrigan reached his hand over and gave her a touch meant to be comforting. Then he lit his pipe and returned his attention to Jared Baker. His own crowding feeling, he was almost sure, was Baker probing him. As much as possible, he made an effort to keep his brain on idle. As for the anger, Harrigan was less certain about that. When it first passed, earlier, he thought it might have been a sense of indignation, a resentment of this violation to his inner self. But he knew that it had to be more. He'd felt it, of course, during the months of his surveillance and long before he'd had any notion of Baker's probing his mind. Yes, this was much more. There was something almost primal about the anger he felt. There had been a moment earlier, and another just now, when he wanted to hurt Baker. It was a flash compulsion that surged from deep within his brain and receded just as quickly. He leaned closer to Tanner Burke.
“Keep your mind off him for a moment if you can,” he whispered. “Did you just get a feeling that you wanted to hurt someone?”
“Yes. It was like—”
Baker flung a look over his shoulder that silenced Tanner. He stepped closer to the wall mirror, his face now only inches away. Harrigan saw that Baker was more than angry. His fists were opening and closing, and the muscles of his back were already knotted. He knew that he was watching a man at war with himself. Harrigan folded his arms and settled back. Barely moving, he worked the bolt of the gas pistol at his belt and slid a new dart into place. That was in case Baker lost.
“Charley, what was that about my daughter?”
There was no answer.
“Charley, if either of you try to cut Tina out of my life, so help me, I’II... Charley, answer me.”
“abel says don't. I’m going to sleep now.”
“Abel can't help you if I bring you all the way out, Charley.”
“you won't.”
“Charley!”
“abel says you won't, you're afraid it will make her not like you.”
“You just watch me, you little bastard,” he whispered.
Harrigan and Tanner heard him. She leaned forward in her chair as if to stand and move toward Baker. Harrigan pressed her forearm. Wait, he mouthed.
“He's going to explode again.”
”I don't think so. Don't stop him.”
Baker turned to face Harrigan. The slackness that Harrigan thought he had seen was gone. In its place, beneath the anger, was the look of a man betrayed. Baker's eyes softened as they fell on Tanner and his head shook just a fraction, as if in apology. Harrigan put more pressure on her arm.
“I'm going to the bathroom,” Baker said.
“Yes,” Harrigan answered.
“I'd like you to not bother me for a while. You'll know when to come in.”
“Jared!” Tanner pulled free of Connor Harrigan. “You're not thinking of doing anything .. .”
“He's fine,” Harrigan answered softly. “He'd simply like to go to the bathroom.”
Baker hesitated for a moment, holding Harrigan's gaze. Go on, lad, thought Harrigan. Have your private meeting of the minds and see if you can sort out who's going to be in charge. And perhaps you'll come back with an answer or two.
Baker walked to the bathroom door and closed it behind him.
Tanner jumped at the sound of the lock being turned. “What is it?” she asked. “What's happening to him?”
”I don't know, to be honest.” Harrigan glanced up at the sound of the bathroom tap running. He had at least begun to understand the man who had just left the room. What might now emerge from that bathroom was another matter entirely. If it turned out to be the beastie, Harrigan would very probably have to kill him. He raised a hand, interrupting as Tanner was about to speak. “Miss Burke,” he said, “I'm going to have to ask you to trust me.”
“What are you going to ask?”
“I'd like you to leave at once and not look back. I promise that I'll take care of Baker and that I'll do all I can to keep you from being involved further.”
”I won't do that,” she answered.
“You can't help. You can only distract. You can end up losing your hide and costing me mine as well.”
“I've already helped, and that includes your hide. Anyway, Jared could have been killed in the park last night, but he didn't walk away from me.”
‘That wasn't the same, Miss Burke.” Harrigan shook his head. “The two in the park didn't have a chance in the world against Baker. The man isn't who you think he is.”
“You mean this other-personality business. Well, there's a real Jared Baker who's a good and decent man and . . ”
Harrigan raised a hand again and Tanner pushed it aside. “And stop shutting me up, damn it. If you think I believe for one moment that Jared Baker is some sort of monster, I have to tell you that I know him a hell of a lot better than you do, no matter how long you've been watching him.”
“You know him so well that you'd bet all you have on him? It's a wasteful risk, Miss Burke. He doesn't need you.”
“I'll leave when he tells me that.”
“Is that a promise?”
“No.”
Harrigan sighed and he rose to his feet, moving closer to the bathroom door. He listened. There was nothing. Only the hushed sound of water from an aerated faucet. He returned to Tanner's chair and eased himself onto one knee beside it.
“It's like this is a railroad train,” he said, “and this is the only stop. You must get off here or stay until the end. I must tell you that the likelihood of a happy end is almost nonexistent.”
“You're patronizing me, Mr. Harrigan.”
“No, I'm trying in my clumsy way to find the argument that would make you leave a situation you'
re not equipped to help.”
“I've already helped, Mr. Harrigan,” she said stubbornly.
“So we're talking in circles?”
“And we're wasting time,” she answered. “I'm willing to trust you, Mr. Harrigan, because you seem to know what you're doing. I'll help you as long as I can believe that.”
Harrigan let out a long, defeated breath. I know what I'm doing, is it? There's not a damned bit of it that makes any sense. Not Sonnenberg's intentions, not Tortora's involvement, and least of all the anxiety of Duncan Peck. All that's clear is that I have Jared Baker and that now everyone involved will be forced into action of some sort. Including Jared Baker.
But how much to tell Tanner Burke? She can hardly claim a need to know. Oh, to hell with that, he thought, ft¾ her life as well that might end without a decent breakfast. She might even have a useful thought to offer. But where to start?
“Let's find out together just how well I know what I'm doing, Miss Burke.” He frowned. “Shall we begin with Dr. Sonnenberg?”
Tanner Burke nodded attentively.
“He's the fellow at the core of all this, you know. Sonnenberg created your friend Baker. In fact, he created several others who are just as remarkable in their own way. I even have some notion of how Sonnenberg does it because I've been reading his mail for the past nine months. He's forever receiving research papers from Cal Tech and one or two other institutions involved in the study of behavioral modification. It wouldn't surprise me if he's planted one of his people out there.
“The material ranges from hypnosis to psychosurgery to brain cell transfusions, much of it very advanced stuff that's never been tried on humans. Except, it seems, by Sonnenberg. If we're to believe Jared Baker, what he's doing with it is scientifically risky but not necessarily sinister. Putting the best face on it, he might, like many scientists, be doing it simply because it can be done. His subjects may indeed be no more than men and women who want to start new lives. If that sounds farfetched, you heard Baker say that there are at least two federal agencies whose function is to create new identities for people who are in mortal danger otherwise. Beyond that are the entrepreneurs, mostly private detectives and lawyers, who make a business out of showing people how to get lost. Each year there are literally thousands of takers. It gets so I can hardly look at a moving van anymore without wondering who the new people really are.
“As for Sonnenberg, I have no clear idea of what he's up to. He may not be a Boris Karloff type out to rule the world, but he's not the pussycat Baker thinks he is either. There's a possibility that Sonnenberg murdered a man named Roger Hershey in order for a new Roger Hershey to replace him. I also suspect, without evidence, that Sonnenberg may be behind the murder of the judge who Baker's accused of killing. The manner of Judge Bellafonte's death points to Tortora's man, Levy, but the motive points to Sonnenberg. He needed Baker to need him.”
“And Sonnenberg sent that man to murder us, didn't he?” she asked, her head turning toward the bathroom door. Tanner squinted as if she'd heard a distant sound.
Harrigan blinked. “May I ask why you think he did?”
”I saw the phone number written backward on his pad. Jared writes phone numbers that way too. The same man must have taught them both.” Tanner hesitated. “At least, I thought so a minute ago.”
Connor Harrigan sucked deeply on his pipe. The buzz inside his head had started again. She was wrong, of course. He'd known at a glance that that coded number rang in a bedroom in Alexandria, Virginia. Duncan Peck had ordered that cop to kill him, and possibly Tanner Burke, and then use the dart gun on Jared Baker until they could cart him off to a test tube someplace. But what else did she say? She said the same man must have taught them both. That was wrong. But the buzzing sound told him there was something else there.
“It wasn't Sonnenberg,” he told her. “It was the number of a man in Washington, a very powerful and devious man, who's afraid of what I might know and who seems to be especially afraid of Sonnenberg. And you can be sure, incidentally, that the dead man has at least one partner waiting downstairs to hear that it's safe to come and haul our carcasses out of here. That's why I wanted you to leave.” What the hell is it, he wondered? Something about teaching them both.
“I'm glad,” she said. “I'm glad it wasn't Sonnenberg.”
A curious sentiment, thought Harrigan.
“And I don't believe Dr. Sonnenberg is a criminal,” she added. “Or that he's hatching any grand conspiracy either.”
“Could I ask how it's possible to doubt it?”
“Just a feeling.” She squinted again and turned her eyes toward the bathroom.
“Feminine intuition, I take it.”
Tanner Burke straightened. “Would you try to be less of an ass on the subject of my sex, Mr. Harrigan?” She tried to say it without sharpness. And Connor Harrigan tried not to flush.
“What sort of intuition then?” he asked.
“Perception, Mr. Harrigan. Or judgment. Believe it or not, I am capable of offering a useful thought. I've even been to college and managed to graduate without ever being a cheerleader or a prom queen. I've sat through lectures on history and political science without ever once doing my nails, reading Modern Screen, or offering to screw the professor in return for a passing grade.”
“I'm deservedly abashed, Miss Burke.” He sighed. ”I take it that your education has prepared you for an insight that applies to Dr. Sonnenberg.”
There was still an edge of sarcasm to his tone. Tanner chewed her lip, wondering whether to bother.
“With respect”—Harrigan dipped his head—”I would indeed like to hear your thought.” It appeared to have struck him for the first time that this piece of Hollywood fluff might have substance. Tanner saw that in him, resenting him no less for it. But she relented.
”I had a professor,” she said slowly, “who used to say that the answer, when found, would be simple.”
“Meaning that Sonnenberg is simply a benevolent eccentric?”
“Meaning that there are more conspiracies in the minds of people like you than there are in the intentions of the people you investigate. In the history I've read, best-laid plans never work anyway. Murphy's Law. Even Hitler made things up as he went along and got caught up in his own momentum. I think Dr. Sonnenberg is doing the same thing.”
A faraway look came over her, the same squinting concentration he'd seen twice in the past several minutes. She'd also played back a thought he'd had, almost verbatim. Harrigan leaned forward, interested now, where only moments before he would have dismissed her opinion as simplistic prattle.
“Without trying to reason it out, Miss Burke,” he said carefully, “are you able to tell me why you think this way?”
She glanced toward the door. Involuntarily, he thought.
“Because I trust Jared,” she answered, speaking very slowly now, “and because I think Jared would know if Sonnenberg was . . . dangerous. And . . . you're right. You're right about the same man teaching them both.” A look of surprise crossed her face. She had no idea why she'd said that. Tanner turned once more toward the bathroom door. “And ... my God. I know Tina Baker. She's written to me. And once I gave her a trophy for ...”
Harrigan stared disbelievingly. Stupefied. The buzz in his head had become a siren. He barely heard the part about Tina.
“What.. . what man?” he stammered.
“The man who taught Jared was the same man who taught. . .” She closed her eyes. “It wasn't the policeman. He taught a man named . . . Duncan?” Tanner brought her hands to her face.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, what a boob I've been!” Harrigan raged at himself. The answer had been there almost from the beginning. From the day Peck had told him about the coded numbers in Roger Hershey's wallet. A code Peck recognized because he'd learned it himself from a man who was now dead. The genius, Harrigan remembered, who could make whole departments disappear. The man who could field operatives so immersed in deep cover that they might not
recognize their mothers on the street. A tinkerer with minds and memories. A behaviorist. An eccentric.
And now Harrigan retrieved from his memory those odd and fearful little reactions whenever Sonnenberg's name was mentioned. God in heaven, was it possible? Ivor! That was his name. Ivor Blount! Now what did Harrigan remember about him? That he was a genius? He'd said that. Eccentric? Yes. Foreign. Swiss, he thought. And unstable. At least that was the rumor. But who said it? Who was closest to him? Damn! It was Duncan, all right, wasn't it? It was Duncan who talked of his unhappy visits with Ivor Blount at, let's see, St. Elizabeths in D.C. And it was Duncan who told sadly of Ivor Blount's tragic death.
Harrigan was pacing now, driving one fist against the other as he stalked the room. You're an ass for fair, Harrigan. The lady was right about that. Peck had given you just enough to get you interested and held back just enough to
get you suspicious. He played you like a fiddle. He knew that your interest would cause you to seek out Baker and that your suspicion would cause you to work alone. He knew that in the end, whatever the outcome, there would only be Connor Harrìgan to silence.
“Mr. Harrigan!” Tanner called.
Only old Connor, he thought, and whoever worked for him. Merciful God, poor young Thomas Dugan was alone on the street.
“Mr. Harrigan!” Tanner Burke called sharply. She was close to tears.
Connor shook himself, realizing for the first time that he had crossed the room and was methodically tearing apart a bouquet of flowers. A crushed carnation bled in his hand. “Was Baker right, Miss Burke, when he said that you too sometimes get into people's minds?”
”I don't know.” Her voice was anguished. ”I don't know why I said all those things. I just started thinking them.”
“Do you begin to sense that I've not been entirely in control of events?” Harrigan drew his pistol and checked the breech.
”I think we're all in a lot of trouble.”
“In fact, my own vanity may have killed us. I realized that while you were having your chat with Baker just now.”
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