by Gene Wolfe
She was staring. “You’re him. You’re Gideon Chase.”
“I am.”
“You were in my apartment tonight.”
“I was.”
“You broke in.”
He nodded. “I did. And did some damage, by the way, in the process. I would think that building management would pay for the repairs, if the matter were put to them in the right way.”
“Besides, you’re going to make me rich.”
He glanced at her, his teeth flashing in the dim light. “I suppose I said that in my note. It was hastily written. I’m going to show you how you can become rich, yes. Not easily. And not safely. But quite quickly, if you have the fortitude for it.”
To her surprise, she found that she was warming to him. “Does this involve murder, Dr. Chase?”
“That,” he said, “depends on how you mean it. I do not plan to kill anyone. Is that what you’re asking?”
“I suppose.”
“Then you have your answer. Nor do I intend that you should kill anyone. If you did, however, it wouldn’t be murder. You’d be acting in defense of your country, and would thus avoid blood-guilt. Morally.”
“You’re telling me that America’s in danger.”
“Every country is always in danger. All the time.”
She sensed that he was smiling.
“Let’s get back to murder. The man we’re after has committed several. Thus he might murder you or me. In that sense, murder is certainly involved.”
“How risky is it?”
“Very risky. Mathematically? Let me think.” Gideon paused. “I’d say there’s about one chance in fifty that you’ll be killed if you do what I ask. I should tell you however that your present risk is at least equally grave. As things are right now, there’s about one chance in fifty that this man will kill you.”
“That is going to take some digesting. And coffee.”
He nodded. “Com Pu Ter, please fill the thermos under the instrument panel with coffee.”
Gurgling and hissing followed a brief silence. When they stopped, Gideon said, “It’s ready now.”
Cassie groped under the instrument panel, found the thermos, and brought it out. “Only one cup. Want to drink from the other side?”
Gideon nodded. “I do. Thank you.”
She poured. “Cream. I usually take it black, but tonight I’ll make an exception.”
“And sugar.”
“Here you go. It’s only half full.”
“Wise, I’m sure.” He accepted the cup and sipped.
“I — Dr. Chase, I just saw how fast we’re going.”
He sipped again, seeming not to have heard her.
“A hundred and forty? Is that right?”
He took the cup from his lips. “About that. We have to reach Canada and travel another hundred miles or more before sunrise. Or so I think. You see, I believe that you’ll agree to what I’m proposing. At this point you have nothing to lose, after all. And much to gain.”
Cassie drew breath, let it out, and filled her lungs again. “I’ve been looking out the window. Everything’s whizzing past. I feel like I’m in a low-flying plane.”
Gideon nodded, smiling. “I wish I had one. But if I did, there’d be no place to land it where we’re going. A hopper would be better, but the Mounties are on the lookout for smugglers. Are you up to some hiking?”
“In these heels? Absolutely not!”
“No. You’ll have to take them off. You know, I ought to have thought of that.”
“Brought shoes for me?”
He shook his head. “Told you to take off whatever shoes you might be wearing and put on walking shoes.”
“You know, I like you. But if I weren’t crazy, I’d be demanding that you turn this — this hot rod of yours around immediately.”
“And yet you are not.”
“No. And you haven’t told me anything. Not anything beyond the less than charming fact that I may have to hike for miles barefoot.”
“I will try to tell you whatever you want to learn,” Gideon said, “provided I know the answers myself. Ask a question.”
“How will you make me a star?”
“Ah!” He turned his head and looked at her so long that she felt a thrill of terror.
“Drive! Please drive! If we hit something at this speed...”
“We won’t.” Gideon looked ahead again. “There’s some slight danger, though, that we might buzz right through the checkpoint. It must be close.”
“We’ll have to stop? Thank God!”
“It’s to be hoped that God won’t keep us long. We’ve very little time. You were slow coming to that ice cream shop, which made me think I might have misjudged you.”
“I’m glad you said that. Now I know what my next question will be, if you ever answer my first one.”
“How I’ll make you a star? It’s almost easier to do than it is to explain. Every human being contains a whole grab bag of qualities. Some are inactive, others active. You have the quality that makes stars, but it is latent. The old mesmerists called it personal magnetism. We who think ourselves so much wiser have no better term for it.”
He sipped more coffee and handed her the cup. “One of my own qualities is the ability to manipulate qualities in others. With difficulty, and only to a limited degree, but I can do it. Tonight I’ll try to awaken your star quality. To change it from a latent quality to an active one. As active as I can make it. My mind will reach into yours, find that quality there, and drag it into the light.”
After that Cassie was quiet for a good three minutes. At last she said, “Why do I believe you?”
“Because you sense my honesty. Honesty is a powerful force.”
“You mean that.”
Gideon nodded. “With all my heart.”
“All right. I’d walk barefoot all night and all day if it would make me a star. If there’s a ghost of a chance that it will.”
“There’s an excellent chance,” he told her, “and it’s not a terribly high mountain. A couple of hours should be more than sufficient.”
“We’ll drive up as far as we can?”
“Correct.” He braked, seeing the lights of the checkpoint ahead.
THE MAGIC MOUNTAINAND BEYOND
Gideon Chase got out of the car. Cassie Casey watched him talking to somebody who might have been a Mounty and to somebody else who might have been a customs officer. After speaking with Gideon for a minute or two, the Mounty came to her window and tapped on the glass. She lowered it, admitting night air that held a spring chill.
“Are you a U.S. citizen, ma’am?”
She nodded.
“Talk out loud, ma’am. I need to hear your voice.”
“I’m not,” she told him. “My position is a great deal higher. I’ll have you know I’m an undocumented national of indefinite residential status. Our government cherishes me, so if you mess with me you’d better look out.”
“Mexican?”
“Russian.”
“You don’t sound Russian.” The Mounty himself sounded impatient.
“I ’aff lied.” Cassie’s eyes were cast down demurely. “I am uf Byeloruss. Een my own country vimen such as I are calt belles. Here you tsay dingdongs.”
The Mounty heaved a sigh. “Let’s see some ID.”
“I haf a tattoo.” Looking up at him, she licked her lips. “Ees var’ preety. Tzum private place, da?”
The Mounty reached into the car and grabbed her purse.
“That’s twice tonight I’ve had my purse snatched,” she told him. “It was an American cop the first time.”
The Mounty nodded. “He has my sympathy.” After glancing at her driver’s license, he returned her purse.
Smiling, Gideon slid back into his seat and shut the door. As their car glided silently away from the checkpoint he said, “Any questions I haven’t answered?”
“Five or six hundred. Will bringing out my star quality make me a star?”
�
��Yes.”
Cassie felt a sudden pang of sympathy for the Mounty. “Enlarge on that a bit, will you?”
“If you were...” Gideon waved his hand vaguely. “A factory worker. In that case it wouldn’t, and I’d have to bring you to the attention of the right people. I could do it, but it might take a week. As it is, I don’t have to. You’re an actress already. That will be sufficient.”
“My show is closing — what time is it?”
“Two fifteen.”
“Ummm... You didn’t look at your wrist. Or at the clock in front of me, either. I see it now.”
Gideon said nothing.
“All right, I’ll let that alone. Our show is closing tonight. Just a tiny bit under twenty-four hours from now I’ll be unemployed.”
“You will be my partner in a difficult and dangerous enterprise that will make us rich.”
“I haven’t said yes yet.”
He shrugged.
“I see. It doesn’t matter. Are we going to Toronto?”
He shook his head.
“Well, that’s what the sign said.”
“We’ll turn off. Another five miles or so.”
“There was a question I was going to ask you before we stopped. Only I know the answer now. I’m going to ask it anyway, to see how honest you really are. Why did the cop who brought me to this car say ultra-natural ash rose would put me to sleep?”
“I can’t say. When you were talking to your friend Sharon you mentioned lipstick, then you said your news would wake her up. I suppose the implication was that lipstick was dull and so induced sleep.”
“You heard us, too. You must have planted a bug in my apartment.”
He shook his head.
“I heard you leave, Dr. Chase.”
“You did not. You heard your door open and close, and assumed I had gone.”
“You were in there all the time.”
“If you mean all the time that you yourself were, yes. I was. I came in before you did and left after you had gone.”
“Taking nothing. Right?”
“Wrong. I took away knowledge I didn’t have when I arrived. I know you’re wearing a gun on your right thigh, for example.”
Cassie stared. “You — you watched me dress...”
“I did not. I can explain later.”
“You can explain now!”
“As you like. Before you came home, I had found your gun in the night-stand. Under it was what’s called an ankle holster. The straps on those things have to be long enough to circle the calf of a powerfully built man, so they would presumably circle your thigh. When you left, your gun and holster left with you.”
“I could have had it in my purse.”
“You could have, but it didn’t seem likely since you had taken the ankle holster, too. It was much more likely that your gun was strapped to your leg. To your calf if you were wearing slacks. When I joined you in this car, I saw that you were wearing a skirt. Besides, that Canadian officer poked through your purse. If your gun had been in there he would have found it.”
“The cop you had pick me up looked in my purse, too.”
“Did he?” Gideon’s shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t suppose he found anything.”
“No, but he’d tapped my phone. He knew about Sharon naming lipsticks to get to sleep.”
“Or he had tapped Sharon’s.” Gideon sounded bored. “Or your talk was broadcast at some point. If the number you called was that of a cell phone, it had to be. Or he spoke to Sharon afterward. I could go on.”
“You want me to go partners with you. If I do, you’ll have to trust me.”
“Exactly.” Gideon nodded. “And this sort of thing is the only way I can do it. Suppose you’d called Bill Reis instead of Sharon. Reis is the man we’re going after.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“You will.”
“I... see.” Cassie looked thoughtful.
“So I hope.”
“We’ll become friends. Reis and I. Is that your idea? But all the time I’ll be feeding information to you, maybe even setting him up for a neat little murder.”
Gideon touched the brake pedal. “No. I don’t do murders.”
“Comforting.”
“Bill Reis does, however. Haven’t you noticed that I haven’t objected to your gun?”
“Yeah. Did you mess with it? Take out the bullets or the firing pin?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Darned if I know.”
The black car slowed again and swung off onto a side road.
“Where are we going, Dr. Chase?”
“To a certain mountain. There’s a road for most of the way up. Beyond that, we’ll have to hike to the summit. When we reach the summit, you’ll become a star. That will take another hour or two, I’m afraid. After that, we’ll return. It’s important that you make the final performance of that play.”
“I’m going to name a price.”
“Are you?” His teeth shone in the dark.
“I am. A firm, hard price, the amount I want for going along with this from this point on.”
“If you want cash now, it had better not exceed five hundred dollars. I don’t have much more than that with me.”
“I want your word that I’ll get this much if I play ball. Your word of honor.”
“You’d trust me to that extent? I — well, Miss Casey, it’s flattering.”
“Yes, I would. Besides, I have to.” For a second or more, Cassie wrestled with her thoughts. “I would anyway. I don’t know why, but I would. You’re a wizard. Sharon said that, and she was right. But you’re a good wizard.”
“Famous,” Gideon remarked dryly, “for saying there is no good.”
Cassie nodded. “I think I understand that now. You mean it’s extinct. I never did before. When I saw you on vid, I mean. Now I’ve got it. Or I think I do. Is this supposed to bring my price down?”
“I suppose not.”
“You suppose right.” Cassie drew breath. “Have I said this is firm? It is. One hundred thousand. I’ll keep on with this — be your Rose O’Neal — for one hundred thousand dollars. Payable on demand, in cash.”
Gideon chuckled. “I asked the president for fifty million. I haven’t told you about that.”
“The president?”
Gideon braked, swinging his strange black car around a sharp curve. “Yes.”
“You saw him? Face-to-face?”
“Right.”
“I don’t like him. Did you?”
“More than I expected to, yes.” The black car slowed again. “I don’t believe he can have many friends, but he’s probably loyal to those he has. In general, I think he’s as honest as he can afford to be.”
“Which isn’t very,” Cassie said.
“Is it ever?”
“And you?”
Gideon grinned. “A man of shining integrity wherever there’s a dollar to be made. Or an honor to be gained, for that matter. They offered a full professorship at Harvard. Or Yale. Princeton. Wherever I wanted to go.”
“To hell with that. Did you get the fifty million?”
“No. I didn’t expect to, either. Though I’d have taken it if they had surprised me. I wanted to see how they reacted.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“The president and an advisor of his. He’s a federal agent named John Ferguson. I’m not supposed to know that, but I’ve researched him since.”
“How much did you get? Will you tell me, honestly?”
“Yes. I got nothing. My shining honesty is very much in evidence in that statement. No professorship, no money. Nothing.”
“If you can’t afford a hundred thou — but you can. I know you can.”
“You’re right. I can.”
The road angled up sharply. Cassie could sense no downshift of the transmission.
“Since I’m being honest,” Gideon said, “I should tell you that John’s called me twice since. Seventeen million the first time
. Fifty the second time, but with strings. I refused both offers.”
“No wonder you researched him.”
Gideon nodded. “There’s a great deal of money to be had. I don’t know how much, and it may be that no one does. Still, it’s very large indeed. Billions, almost certainly.”
“This Bill Reis will be my assignment?”
Gideon nodded again.
“Tell me about him.”
Gideon handed her two photographs. “Put these in your purse, and have a good look at them when you’ve a better light.”
“This is him?” Cassie was peering at the photographs.
“Supposedly, yes. My guess is that they’re good. We don’t have much time, so I’ll just cover the most important points. The first is that he’s terribly dangerous. You’d have asked for more than a hundred thousand dollars if you’d known how dangerous. The second is that I suggested the obvious course — that they pick up Reis and sweat the information they wanted out of him. My suggestion was ignored. It wasn’t rejected. It wasn’t even discussed. What does that tell you?”
Cassie thought. “That they don’t think they could make him talk? Like maybe he’d kill himself instead?”
“I don’t believe so. I have the advantage, obviously, of having been there — of having sensed the atmosphere. It means that it’s been tried and failed. That they can’t pick him up, although they seemed to know something about his past movements.”
“Huh!”
“Indeed.” Gideon’s hand touched hers. “It’s just possible that they have picked him up, only to have him escape before they could learn anything. Possible, but unlikely. I believe my first supposition is correct. He’s as slippery as an eel, either way.”
“They can’t hold on to him?”
“Exactly.”
A yellow sign loomed in their headlights. Gideon stopped the car. “Leave those shoes behind.”
“All right, but you may have to carry me.”
“I will if I must.” He opened his door and stepped out into the moonlight. “Come along. We’ve got to walk from here, and walk fast.” He opened a rear door and pulled out a small canvas carryall.
“This is where you’re going to magnify my star quality?”
“I can’t. It’s innate. Most people have little or none. You have a lot, but it’s not active. This is where I energize it.”