by Farris, John
Gillian smiled whimsically back, and then a look of concern cut across her eyes like black thought, like a cat low on a fence.
"Be brave," Hester whispered, turning down the stereo. "Have a good night." And she got out of there, barely in time to make her futile seven o'clock telephone call from a windy toll station on York Avenue.
Okay. Two goddamn weeks without a word, and here she'd committed herself to a hasty course of action that was shaping up as a disaster. Peter had warned her often enough: don't be cute, don't play around with these people. If Peter was dead, then what good would it do to spring Gillian from Paragon Institute, provided she was dumb lucky enough not to bungle the job?
But dead—that was just too grim and awful and final. Hester refused to believe it. There was a very good reason why he'd let so much time go by without getting in touch: Peter had something clever up his sleeve.
If that was the case, then there was a good chance he didn't need Gillian any more.
Hester was ashamed of the relief she felt. The hell with what Peter needed or didn't need, what about poor little Gillian? What was going to happen to her in a matter of hours—a few days at the most?
Psi Faculty would happen to her. Whatever that was. Hester had risked her neck having another go at the computer. A number of cases—meaning, undoubtedly, real people—had been transferred from Paragon Institute to this other place. Hester knew no more than that about Psi
Faculty; she knew it existed, somewhere, for the purpose of swallowing up gifted psychics like Robin Sandza and Gillian Bellaver.
So, all other motives aside, it was morally right for her to try to smuggle Gillian out of Paragon before she disappeared. Problems on top of problems: Hester didn't have the semblance of a workable plan, and supposing she eventually came up with something and succeeded, Gillian would be virtually helpless on her own. She couldn't be handed back to her parents; they'd put her in Paragon to begin with. Probably grateful to be rid of the unfortunate kid. Hester, with a conventional small-town, middle-class upbringing, had a low opinion of monied and prominent Americans. Being worshipers of the almighty dollar, they were all cold-blooded and essentially not very loving people. No, she couldn't risk returning Gillian to them with the hope they'd do the right thing.
But Hester knew she would be under considerable suspicion at the Institute: she would have to weather their suspicions while protecting and looking after Gillian until Peter showed up. And what would Gillian be like once she was off the tranquillizers? Half mad, therefore unreliable and potentially as dangerous (through no fault of her own) as Bubonic Plague. Hester might need some protection herself.
Nine o'clock. Music on. Rock, then mordant blues from a twenties cotton-chopper with a voice dark and rich as Louisiana coffee.
Oh, liver-rot me baby, treat me
To your death's head pearly smile:
Then you can ride me on down to your boneyard
In a twelve-cylinder automobile
Hester, wondering how Gillian was getting along at this moment, had the shakes. If Gillian acted badly, if she gave herself away, then Hester was doomed. Bummer time. Each vague voice in the hall outside her door, every footfall, caused her to freeze and sweat, freeze and sweat. Nine-thirty. When she heard her friends the Bundys go out singing an old Cole Porter song, happy as clams, she wanted to rush downstairs and be swept along for a random and light-minded evening: a few drinks here, a few laughs there. She got as far as the door, but she didn't open it. No good. No use trying to duck out. If MORG wanted her, they'd find her. If not—There was nothing else to do but prowl the neat three-room flat and get slowly potted on vintage woe, and dread the coming of morning when she would have to begin herding events already restlessly in motion toward the desired conclusion.
Turn down your sireen woman
You like a ambulance on the street
It was after two in the morning when she came up with her great idea: out of desperation, perhaps, because everything depended on Gillian's reactions once the escape began. But Hester liked the plan. It wasn't complicated; it depended for success on surprise and, hopefully, a half-minute of total confusion, Unfortunately, there was a potential stumbling block in Mrs. Cunningham. She didn't look like a woman who was easily confused, and she seldom strayed far from Gillian's side when Gillian was out of her rooms.
But Hester was all thought out; it was the very best she could do. All she needed now was a third party, a sweet dumb guy who would willingly do what he was asked to do without raising too many questions. She'd dated plenty of those, so Hester had already picked her man when she tottered off to bed and fell asleep in mid-yawn.
Casket-eyed baby
Pull them shades down to the floor
And hand me your blank check, honey
For my final signature
Gillian was restless after she went to bed, restless and vocal. Mrs. Cunningham looked in on her twice. She was thrashing and tugging at the covers, muttering through her teeth. The second time Mrs. Cunningham turned on the lamp by the door she saw Gillian's face glistening with sweat.
"This room. This bed. Robin's room. He—"
"What's that, dear?"
Gillian was suddenly quiet, gazing at her as if from a far corner of the mind.
"Would you be sick to your stomach, darlin'?"
"A little," Gillian croaked.
Mrs. Cunningham smiled to assure her that something would be done about it. She closed the bedroom door and, using the telephone in the sitting room, rang Maylun Chan We. Maylun prescribed an antinausea drug and a sleeping pill. Mrs. Cunningham then called the medical associate on night duty at Paragon; he brought the pills up from the dispensary.
When Mrs. Cunningham cracked the bedroom door again Gillian was lying on her side; she seemed peaceful at last. Mrs. Cunningham spoke softly to her. No response. Obviously Gillian's discomfort had eased. If she woke up later, the medicine was handy. Satisfied, Mrs. Cunningham went back to the sitting room and the bile, gall and bad blood of the nightly TV news, unaware that for the time being she was tending a shell instead of a sleeping girl—
Gillian had been lured elsewhere.
She was now a notion of horizon and winter
Laid on with a trowel snowfields moon
Burning in blunt weather
Deflected by too much brilliance, all motion
Discontinued according to laws of time and
Distance
She waits for a confrontation with his psychic's
Mind waits with an eye for the precious past,
An expectancy he is bound to fulfill.
"Robin?"
Following the line of least resistance, they
Meet with no great shock of recognition
Eyelocked burning, in snowfields, windless
as the grave.
Something quite formal between them, a new development—she is taken silent by the animus of his gaze.
"Come on," he says is off again
highly combustible like starflash
between the charring crosses. Sustained by the narrow and merciless vision of her trust, she follows in her skin of bridesmaid's tears
to the bed of his whore:
(Slash
eyed
bushed
baby
featly boned
and throbbing
luscious
to blood's
tame purr
ing posture
all strung out &
affording
a lewd
glimpse
of asshole)
Whore
Prance Robin showing off riding her
Sideways upside down
or feet on the floor You name it
Blood's a cataract
Nerves fine black beneath the skin
like waxed violin string's hum here
he comes
His way of declaring himself
shooting off Roman candles of confession
/>
creating galaxies of unrepented sins
How do you like her Gillian? Slow eyes sink wounds
Her smile curling like flame blackens
the spirit, and he is (as he should be)
terrified as well as amused, having full
knowledge of the hereafter and heretofore
while his body, unequal to the strain
of living everywhere at once
Threatens to disintegrate.
"Now go away."
With a simple motion of his hand she is
swept, brief as a gnat, through time.
Excited by his cruelty insatiable
he turns again to drowsy Gwyneth. He is
eager for accolades,
and the absolution that is sure to follow.
When Hester reported for work at eight on Thursday morning Roth and Maylun were already there. Apparently they'd had a long conference. Something was in the air, undoubtedly involving Gillian. Hester didn't have a clue. But at least the girl was still at Paragon: she'd been afraid they might steal away with her in the middle of the night.
At eight-twenty she accompanied both doctors upstairs. Gillian was awake and sitting up in bed, gazing out through frost-stippled windows. There was a bland smile on her face, but her eyes were puffy and humid and seemed, unless Hester was overempathizing, distressingly sad. Hester held her breath when Gillian glanced her way, but Gillian's smile didn't change, and her manner was indifferent. Hester couldn't decide if the indifference was studied or real. If real, then without a doubt sometime during the night they'd shot her full of shit, and that did the trick, that just totally wrecked the plan right there.
Hester asked Gillian what she would like for breakfast, and Gillian said, "I don't care," and then Dr. Roth examined her. Gillian's blood pressure had climbed and her pulse was faster than it had been twenty-four hours earlier. Roth seemed to feel that was encouraging.
"I'd like to take a bath before I eat," Gillian said.
"Surely," Roth said.
"Could Hester stay and shampoo my hair?"
"Don't see why not. Hester?"
"I'd be happy to," Hester replied, trying not to study Gillian's mood. Maylun left medication and vitamins for Gillian and the doctors withdrew, heads together, talking in low tones.
"What sort of day is it?" Gillian asked, looking out the windows again.
"Cold." Hester shuddered for emphasis, then smiled at Mrs. Cunningham, who was laying out a dress for Gillian. "You could have your breakfast while I'm doing Gillian's hair."
"That's a fine idea."
"I'd like jeans today, Mrs. Cunningham," Gillian said.
"When you have all those lovely dresses?"
"I feel like jeans."
"Whatever you say, darlin'."
Hester went into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar. She ran Gillian's bath water, and when the big tub was half full Gillian came in. She didn't look at Hester. She took off her nightclothes in a corner, carelessly pinned up her hair, then stepped into the hot water and stood looking downcast at her body, which, though it needed replenishing right now, was elegantly structured and revealed modest curves that would round gloriously into womanhood. She was a ewe-necked beauty, five-feet-nine with shady good looks and flaky lips—she'd probably never have a pimple, Hester thought wistfully. Gillian settled down to the breastbone, knees wide apart, and began to soap herself. Then, almost without warning, she went to pieces.
Hester stood by rigid with anxiety as Gillian tried to smother big sobs in the washcloth. Then she used her head and switched on the noisy exhaust fan in the ceiling, hoping that the microphones she knew had to be in the bathroom wouldn't pick up the sounds of grief which they'd drug-programmed Gillian not to feel.
That much accomplished, Hester, in a mothering twitch, knelt by the tub and put an arm around the slippery girl.
"Oh, Hester, it's the end of the world!"
"Gillian, Gillian."
"I want to get out of this place!"
"It's practically all set. Shh, shush, now. I'll take care of you." Covering her mouth with her two hands, Gillian stared unbelievingly at her.
"But we can do it: I know we can."
"When?"
"This afternoon."
"H-how?"
Hester kneeled facing the door, watching in case Mrs. Cunningham appeared surreptitiously. She started Gillian's shampoo, and while she lathered she whispered in an ivory ear.
When she had finished laying out the plan all Gillian said was, "Mrs. Cunningham has a gun."
"Oh, God! Are you sure?"
"It's in a pocket of her cardigan sweater."
"But she wouldn't shoot you."
"She might shoot you." Gillian couldn't control her tears, and her nose ran too.
"This will positively work, Gillian, and don't worry. Nobody will be hurt."
"I'm afraid, Hester; I know I'll do something really stupid and—where should I go again? I forgot already! My mind just gets blank."
"You'll be okay, I wrote it down for you."
When Gillian was out of the tub and robed Hester took a round Band-Aid from her pocket. She reached inside the robe, which startled-Gillian, and stuck the Band-Aid high on the inside of one thigh.
"It's all written out. If you forget anything, just tear the Band-Aid open."
Gillian's teeth were clicking. Hester went to work on her wet head, rubbed until the scalp was a newborn pink. Gillian's head bobbed with the massage. She yawned and slowly went slack in Hester's capable hands.
"Hester, I can't stay with you, no matter what."
"We'll worry about that later."
"I'll have to be alone. Alone! For the rest of my life. Robin hates me, there's no place I can go now. He m-must hate me, to do what he did."
Hester was eager to ask questions about Robin. But the phone had rung in the bedroom, she had to answer it. Mrs. Cunningham. Gillian's breakfast had been prepared, and perhaps she'd like to eat in the Morning Room for a change. Hester promised to bring her right down.
She hung up, and remembered to pocket the medication that was on the little tray beside the bed. The vitamins she fed to Gillian.
Mrs. Cunningham should have walked upstairs to fetch Gillian herself; was she getting just a little lazy and careless? A good sign. Hester helped Gillian to dress warmly. Too much clothing for indoors, but she'd have to endure it.
Further serious conversation was out at this point, so Hester prattled about movies and fashions and the difficulties a working girl had making ends meet in the Big Apple. Gillian listened without comment, her head fallen forward; she appeared to be in a rueful daze.
For Hester the remainder of the day was the meanest sort of torment. Trouble lay in her stomach like a small ticking bomb. It was Kristen's day off, so she had a heavy work load. Her mouth was constantly dry, no matter how much water or coffee she sipped. Her bowels quaked often, and that meant a lot of trips to the bathroom. She couldn't find items she had filed two days ago. She dialed wrong numbers and couldn't seem to handle simple sentences during dictation. Dr. Roth was hard-pressed to conceal his irritation.
Even with all these difficulties four-thirty arrived too soon. Suddenly there it was, on the clock in front of her. What had happened to three-thirty? Her lunch hour? Four thirty-one. Hester compensated for her panic with a mad rush. She gathered all the outgoing mail from the various offices; a lot of parcels today, almost enough to fill two shopping bags. Her coat, her hat, her gloves. Lugging the shopping bags, she all but ran down the stairs to the kitchen. Her face was bright red, her pulse too rapid to count. If it didn't happen now, she knew she would pass out.
Gillian, following her afternoon constitutional, was sitting at the butcher-block table a few feet from the door, nursing a cup of cocoa. Mrs. Cunningham and Mrs. Mayborn were smacking their lips over something that bubbled in a pot on the stove.
"Here comes the pony express," Hester said, breezing on through, not daring to look directly at
Gillian. But out of the corner of her eye she saw that Gillian had raised her head.
"Running late, Hester," Mrs. Mayborn commented.
"It's just been one hell of a day, Felicia."
"I know; the boss almost snapped my head off over nothing."
Hester bolted up the short flight of steps—six in all—to the back door, which was secured by a Medeco lock. The ultra-security lock required a special key. Hester put down the shopping bags and got out her copy of the key and opened the door. The cold air felt good. She turned and kicked over one of the shopping bags.
Envelopes and brown paper packages cascaded down the steps.
"Oh, well, shit," Hester mumbled, scurrying down the steps after the mails. "Don't bother," she said, waving off Cunningham and the cook. All too soon she had the mail picked up, and Gillian hadn't budged. Hester looked frantically at her. Gillian seemed witless and paralyzed, as if her nerve had failed.
For the love of God, Hester thought, move your ass!