by Julius Fast
Convince her of what? Just what did he want them to do, or not to do? What was he afraid of? Was it simply to leave Jack alone? To let him spend the last days of his life in peace, not as some impossible stud for a group of telepathic women? Or was it to tell him the truth, to let him know what they had done and what they intended to do?
Jack had thought his period as a wolf was an hallucination, mental decay before death. In that frame of mind wasn't he capable of something desperate, of suicide, of trying to meet death with dignity instead of through the dissolution of brain damage?
But it was more than that. Steve had hinted that Jack's change to what they wanted was only possible under stress. Were they capable of putting him in a situation where it was change or else—or else what? Death? Disaster? Rhoda wasn't, he thought, but Steve was surely capable of it.
He called Jack's number again, but there was still no answer. Not that he believed there would be. It was too long since he had last seen him. Something had obviously happened and he ought to report the whole matter to the police. They had routines for hunting missing men.
But if Jack was still alive, if for some reason he had deliberately chosen to disappear, would he want him to go to the police? But what possible reason could he have for disappearing?
He shook his head and sighed. Suppose the girls had lied and they had been in touch with Jack all along, putting him through whatever wild tests they had dreamed up. Suppose he was with them right now, and in danger?
Damn it, he had to know. Not only for Jack's sake, but for his own if he were to have another peaceful moment. He looked at his watch. Almost twelve. Steve would be at the medical school, but Rhoda was probably at home—wherever that was. They had given him no hint last night. How could he find out? He didn't think it was the city, but where else? The Island? Westchester? Connecticut?
He called the medical center and asked for personnel. He was trying to contact Dr. Douthright, he told them, did they have her address? Personnel put him through to her own department. Perhaps she was in and could help him.
He swore softly at his own lack of imagination. If Steve answered he'd hang up, but instead a pleasant-voiced secretary told him Dr. Douthright wasn't in the office just then. Relieved, Clifford said that was just fine. "You see, I want to send her a birthday card. I'm an old friend from Montreal and I know she's at Einstein, but I haven't her home address."
"I am sorry," the secretary said regretfully, "but we don't give out home addresses."
"Oh." Clifford cast about frantically. "I hate to write to her at the school..." He let a wistful note creep into his voice, and took a gamble. "Westchester covers a lot of territory."
There was a moment's silence, and then, uncertainly, the secretary said, "I think she's in South Salem, but I'm not sure and I really can't give the address out. I'm sorry."
He mustn't push it. "Well, thanks anyway. Bye." He hung up quickly and found that his hand was shaking. He wasn't much of a liar. In a moment he dialed South Salem information and got a new telephone number for Dr. Douthright, Barnyard Road, but no number.
All right. How long could Barnyard Road be? They had evidently taken a house in the country. If he could get up there now, before Steve came home from work, if he could have a little time alone with Rhoda he was sure he could get at the truth.
The first thing was a car. There was a car rental outfit near the river and they had a car in front of his house in half an hour. After he had signed the papers, he drove crosstown to the West Side Highway, and up into Westchester. He picked up a road map at a gas station and saw that this highway would lead him to the Hawthorne Circle; above that Route 23 went directly to South Salem on the Connecticut-New York border.
It was a long ride, a long commute for Steve too. Why had they picked a place this remote? Was there any significance to that?
It was late afternoon by the time he arrived at the narrow country road labelled Barnyard. Five mailboxes near the main road told him how many houses there were, and one had a freshly lettered Douthright-Watson on it.
He pulled into the driveway of the house at four o'clock. The cold, clean sky of the morning was overcast with grey, and a drab, white light covered the landscape. The house stood by itself on top of a small, treeless hill. Below it, in the valley, there was a twisting river that broadened out into a shallow swamp. The swamp, just below the house, ended at a dam, and a trickle over the spillway carried the river on down the valley.
The house itself was old, over two hundred years, he guessed, and the artist in him responded to the clean, white frame lines, the long windows and the crusting of gingerbread that decorated the porch. It had been remodeled, added to and redone a number of times, but always, whoever had worked on it had the good sense to leave the basic lines intact.
From the porch he looked back at a magnificent view of the road, the valley, the river and the distant, low hills.
There was no bell, but the simple front door had a massive brass knocker. He let it fall, and the sound reverberated through the house. It had hardly stopped before the door opened and he was facing Rhoda, a calm and unsurprised Rhoda.
Does anything shake her up or disturb her? he wondered, and felt a sudden overwhelming desire to ruffle her serenity in some way, to see that lovely composed face excited—and frightened.
He pushed the thought back and took his hat off. "Hello."
As if she were expecting him, she stood aside, holding the door open. "Come in and put your coat there." She nodded at an elaborate coat rack in the front hall. "Steve isn't in, but of course—you know that."
Feeling guilty in spite of himself, he hung up his coat and followed her into a front parlor, an early American parlor of gleaming pine and ruffled organdy, handwoven upholstery and softly gleaming pewter plates. Wood panelling, painted white, reached shoulder height with a plate rail gracing it, and above the walls were painted a soft, whited green.
He nodded appreciatively. "It's a lovely house, and this room —perfect."
Rhoda smiled. "No thanks to us. We bought it decorated and furnished. Steve's been muttering about it ever since. I think she'd like to tear out the front wall, make a huge picture window and furnish it with Danish Modern. Can I get you something to drink?"
He shuddered at the Danish Modern. "No. At least not yet." He sat down in a bentwood rocker. "I wanted to talk to you."
She nodded. "I thought you would." She sat on a small love-seat opposite him and spread her skirt. He was aware that it was uncommonly long. The new midi look? But no, not quite. There was something of the thirties about her dress, yet it seemed as if she wore a completely new style, a style that dated back to a much earlier era. There was an illusion of hoops, of old-fashioned silks and velvets. Even her hair, drawn back in a bun, framing the lovely oval of her face, seemed to belong to some early American past.
There was a serenity about her that he could almost feel. The antagonism he had come with, the anger and indignation at Jack's supposed treatment, suddenly seemed ridiculous and out of place here.
Still she sat there waiting, and finally he said, "I've come about Jack."
"Yes, I realized that."
"What he's been through, what he may be going through now—it's just not right or fair. I want you and Steve to understand that."
Rhoda spread her hands. "Perhaps that's so, Mr. McNally, but..."
"Clifford, please."
"Clifford then. Perhaps that's so, but Steve started something in Montreal that must be finished. I didn't agree with her at first, but now I'm sure she's right."
"You say it must be finished. How?"
She bit her lip a moment. "If Jack comes back—when Jack comes back—Steve has a series of tests. She wants to do chromosome studies, and then, if Jack is what she and the women who work with her believe, if he's genetically labile..." She paused to smile and shake her head. "Genetics is a field I know nothing about. Give me something to do with my hands, weaving, painting, sewing ... but theoreti
cal genetics! I'm lost."
He interrupted her rudely. "And if he's genetically labile, then what?"
Her smile flickered briefly, reluctantly, then disappeared. Her delicate eyebrows drew down over her pale eyes. "Steve has a test. I'll admit it's a dangerous one, maybe deadly. It's taking an awful chance, but she says if Jack can change, it must be when he's under some kind of stress. There must be some way to make him change to—to what we want, to make him allelomorphic for our own mutant gene. She's explained it to me with diagrams, but it doesn't register. I'm sorry, Clifford, I don't really know what she plans, and I think it has to be—well, it has to be kept from Jack too, in order to work."
She looked genuinely disturbed and he almost began an apologetic protest, when with a sudden chill he wondered if it weren't all an act, all designed to convince him that there was no way he could interfere with what they planned.
He stood up and walked to the window, pulling aside the organdy curtains to stare out at the valley and the river. There was something so genuinely honest about her. He didn't want to believe she was lying. If it were a lie, why had she told him this much?
"You can't play with a man like this," he protested. "You can't treat him as if he were a guinea pig or a mouse in a laboratory. Jack is a living, breathing man. You don't experiment with a man. Can't I make you two understand that?"
She stood up and came to him quickly. "Can't we make you understand what this means, not only to us, but to humanity? Jack is our only hope for tomorrow's man!"
The pretentiousness of it snapped him out of the spell she had cast around him. He looked at her in dismay, at her suddenly exalted look, the widened eyes and parted lips. Quite deliberately he said, "Balls to tomorrow's man—and woman too! My private opinion is that you're all a pack of dangerous nuts, and I'm going to do my damnedest to stop you."
Slowly the exalted look left her and her eyebrows drew down in a frown. "You won't be able to stop us, Clifford," she said flatly.
"We'll see about that." It seemed as melodramatic an exit line as her tomorrow's man bit, he thought. He jammed his hat on his head. "I never wanted to get involved in this, but I'm in it now for better or for worse." Was that what he really wanted to say? He was all muddled about the whole business. "I'm sticking with it. I owe that much to Jack." Whatever that was supposed to mean. A string of clichés were always easier to get out than real thoughts.
Even now, frowning but adamant, the tranquility never left Rhoda. Thoughtfully she said, "That's what Steve meant, and she was right, about not having anything in common with men. There's a comprehension gap between us."
"You just bet there is," Clifford said savagely, "and maybe a gap between you and the rest of humanity."
She smiled sadly. "Perhaps there is a difference. There are human concepts I can't understand, like murder or war."
He didn't answer, but slammed out of the house and almost ran down the hill to the car. Well, he had loused that up, and had gotten almost none of the information he had come for, nor had he convinced her of his point of view. "Whatever that is," he muttered.
As he pulled out of the driveway he could see her standing on the porch, slim and tall, her skirt whipped about her legs by the autumn wind, so lovely he could scarcely believe it.
He fumed and raged halfway back to the city, hardly understanding the depth of his anger or the cause of it. Was it Rhoda's constant reminder that she and Steve and the others like her were so obviously superior? Was that what galled him more than anything else?
It was true that he had no leg to stand on in talking about humanity. He laughed and shook his head. Man's inhumanity to man! What a stale old story, but it was more than that. What he resented was her calm assurance that they were right, that they had the privilege to submit Jack to tests, to poking and picking and prying.
In another few miles he was able to smile. Had Homo nean-derthalensis felt the same way when Cro-Magnon men moved into his valleys and hunting fields? Now it was make way for Homo superiorensis—or something. Well, he was damned if he would. Somehow he'd manage to upset their little applecart. They'd have to damn well fight for this earth.
Come to think of it, there was nothing more terrible than the idea of a telepathic race of men. The last area of privacy would be gone, the last hiding place. The very thought of it sent cold chills through him. And how much of his fierce, unreasoning resistance to the whole plot was based on just that?
To hell with it. He was tired and hungry. Just let him get home, shower and go out for a good meal. Man's future could wait. His fate could hang in the balance.
But later, finishing his supper in a small French restaurant on Second Avenue, he kept remembering that afternoon, thinking of things he should have said, answers he should have given— and above all questions he should have asked.
He had called Jack again this evening, but there was still no answer, and now, settled over a cigar and coffee, he felt an uneasy apprehension about the whole thing.
He stubbed out the cigar angrily. It was unthinkable that this should bother him so, should intrude so on the ordered routine of his life. And it had been ordered, he thought, neat and carefully routinized. His world. The secure fortress of his apartment, and an occasional venture out into the East Side of Manhattan for dinner or a movie. Today, driving up to South Salem had been his first variation from an inflexible routine.
But he liked that routine. That was the point. He liked the day-to-day living, the certainty of it, his records and books and his cat. The only concession to sociability had been the rare evenings he and Jack had spent together. What was his relationship to Jack? What did he feel for him? Friendship? Something deeper than that? My only friend, he said in sudden wonder. It boils down to that. My only friend!
Why now did he have this terrible restlessness, this weary sense of apprehension? It was Rhoda, of course, and the whole damned mess this afternoon. What he needed, he realized with a start of surprise, what he desperately needed, was someone to talk to.
He paid his bill and left the restaurant, walking slowly through the darkened streets, dawdling in front of the brilliantly decorated windows of the antique shops. Was there anyone he could call, anyone he knew well enough to be at ease with, to talk out his problems?
No one really. One by one, and quite deliberately he had cut himself off from his friends, and he hadn't regretted it, nor did he really regret it now. The isolation was what he wanted and needed.
And then, surprisingly, he thought of Anna, of her disordered apartment and warm, comforting acceptance. Surely, by now she had gotten over her shock. By now she'd be willing to talk about Jack and the whole problem. He had only once seen Anna alone, without Jack. But she had been warm and friendly. Why not see her now?
But Anna, when he called, was busy. Regretfully. "It's so nice to hear from you, Clifford, and I would love to see you. Tonight it's just not possible. Another night?"
"Of course." He hung up despondently and continued his walk. He stepped into a movie house in the Seventies, but walked out halfway through the picture when the images on the screen made no sense, had no power to hold him or involve him in their shadow plot.
Involvement, he told himself on his way home, was what was so surprising about this business with Jack. How had he become so totally involved? In recent years he had taken pride in his ability to keep his life apart, infringing on no one, involving no one.
Abruptly, and with terrifying clarity, his mind flashed back to the days in New Orleans, to Sarah's terrifying suicide attempt, the frantic trip to the hospital, the endless wait and the final shocking report. "It wasn't the sleeping pills. We had her stomach pumped out in time, but the lungs, you see, somehow she had regurgitated into her lungs..."
He didn't see. Nor did he understand any of it except that Sarah's suicide attempt had succeeded indirectly. Relief and guilt, shame and horror were inextricably tied up within him. That was when he had sworn desperately that he would never be involved with a
ny other life, that he would live apart, complete and sufficient to himself.
Damn it, it had worked. Perhaps his life was empty, but he could point to any number of involved people who led far emptier, far more desperate lives. Why then had he become so tied up in Jack's problems? Why couldn't he shut the whole thing out of his mind, out of his life and return to the calm of the days before Jack had called from the park?
He could and he would. Let him just reach Jack and warn him and he would wash his hands of the whole affair. "I'll wash that man right out of my hair!" He laughed for the first time that night and started for his apartment, walking swiftly and purposefully.
He called Jack before he went to bed, but there was still no answer, and the next morning, after a shower and shave he called once more, knowing the phone would ring unanswered.
But to his astonishment and delight it was answered by the third ring.
"Hello? Jack?"
"Clifford? Is that you?" Jack's voice was heavy and drugged with sleep.
"Thank God you're back! Are you all right? Where have you been, for Chrissakes? Why didn't you call or at least leave a message? I've been worried sick..."
"Clifford, Clifford ..." A tremendous yawn. "I can't talk, Cliff. I got to sleep only a few hours ago, and I'm so groggy, so damned groggy. I couldn't call. It was like—like before. Cliff, can I call you back later, when I wake up? Please! You don't know how beat I am."
"Sure. It's okay. I just feel relieved as hell that you're back. I'll wait for your call."
He heard the line click in the middle of a tremendous yawn, and he smiled as he hung up. Well, thank heaven for that. What a load off his mind! Jack was safe. He'd speak to him later, and they'd get together this afternoon. He pushed the uneasy "like before" out of his mind. He'd tell Jack the whole crazy story and finally, oh, what a relief that would be, he'd be rid of it.