by Frank Lauria
“Well, I watch your show on the TV every night, Joe,” the woman said.
“Well, that’s wonderful, Mrs. Sterling, and now, this man here, is going to help you.”
“Well, I hope so.” She smiled nervously.
“Well, I think he can, Mrs. Sterling, or I wouldn’t be wasting your time or the time of our audience,” Kirk said. “Now suppose you tell Susej what’s ailing you.”
The woman thought. “I can’t walk so good,” she finally said. “I get these pains in my knees, you know. And I don’t see so good any more, even with my glasses.”
“Susej,” Kirk asked, “do you think you can help Mrs. Sterling?”
Susej ran a hand through his short, thick hair. “I believe I can,” he said, getting to his feet. “You understand that I am not a healer. I am here as an emissary of the. Clear Power. But I would like to help this woman if only to show your viewers the positive effects of this power.” As he spoke he moved slowly over to the woman’s chair. He stopped directly behind her and put his hand on the back of her neck.
“This woman is suffering from bodily cysts,” he announced. “I will end this affliction. It won’t be apparent to those watching, but I’m sure everyone will be able to see that Mrs. Sterling will leave here in better health.”
He circled the woman, his hand still on her neck. He closed his eyes as he moved around her and whispered something under his breath. As Orient watched, the woman began to show signs of increased vitality. She sat calmly, displaying none of her previous trembling. Susej pulled the woman to her feet. She rose securely, the stiffness gone. Gently, he removed her glasses. He took a piece of paper from Kirk’s desk and gave it to her. “Can you read this?” he asked.
“Just a minute now,” Kirk put in. “I want everyone here and at home to know that Mrs. Sterling is holding a contract in her hands. The print is fine. It’s extremely difficult to read, even for me. And I’m a perfect specimen.” The audience tittered appreciatively.
The woman began to read aloud in a clear steady voice. She had some trouble with pronunciation but none with her sight. She stopped and looked up at Susej, her eyes wide and grateful. “Mister, this is amazing,” she said breathlessly. “Bless you, mister. I feel like I got my strength back again. Bless you.”
Mrs. Sterling left the stage amidst a din of enthusiastic applause.
She walked down the stairs and to her seat unassisted. She left her glasses with Susej.
“Well, let’s go,” Hap shouted.
“Shh,” Orient said, his attention focused on the screen.
“You have just seen a man whom I consider to be the greatest man on earth today prove to you that he can help all of us,” Kirk was saying. “This is not the only proof of his power. From now on I am going to make sure that this man, Susej, is able to reach everyone in this country.” The Camera moved in on a tight shot of Susej’s face, the magnificent eyes, the thick, sensual lips. “I am going to make sure that everyone in this land of ours has the opportunity to be helped by Susej.”
Susej nodded gravely.
“Tonight was Susej’s first appearance on network television,” Kirk went on, “but, ladies and gentlemen, I can assure you that it will not be the last. Susej is going to be my guest for the next week, and at the end of that week he is going to make his most important statement. A statement that will benefit all our lives.”
Susej stared directly into the camera.
“Now I want to wish you all a most pleasant good night and I hope that you tune in tomorrow to see more of this man Susej, who can perform miracles.” As the credits rolled over the screen, the camera pulled back until Kirk was in the picture with Susej.
Orient reached over and snapped off the set.
“Well,” Hap jumped to his feet, “let’s go to the TV studio and grab him.”
“Relax,” Argyle said. “The show is taped in the afternoon. All you would find now is the night watchman. “ He looked over at Orient. “But you are going to do something, right, Doc?”
Orient shook his head. “Not right now,” he said quietly.
“What the hell are you talking about, Doc?” Hap yelled. “That’s the man who killed Malta.”
Orient looked around at his circle of pilgrims. “Yesterday I told you that D’Te would show his hand. Well he has. Now I’m telling you that if we hope to beat him we have to pick our spot. You’ll just have to trust me.”
Hap snapped his fingers in disgust and made an elaborate procedure of sitting down.
“Tell me something, Argyle,” Orient said. “What do you know about Kirk?”
It was a moment before the question registered with Argyle. He had been contemplating the immense vitality of Susej. “Oh, not much,” he said finally. “Used to be a small town newspaper man. Started with a local interview show and found out that the customers liked it when he really put it to somebody and made them squirm. He’s made a lot of noise since then, but he’s still a small-timer.”
“Does he have a lot of power in the business?”
“He owns a dynamite Neilsen. Thirty-million pairs of eyes a night. Owns a few radio and TV stations besides.”
“Then he could put Susej over?”
“If Susej delivers on a promise like he gave tonight, Tiny Tim could put him over.”
Redson looked up at Orient. “What are you getting at, Owen?”
“With a man like Kirk to help him, to certify him and put him before the public, Susej would have no trouble finding thousands of converts.”
“Especially if he can restore their health,” Levi added. “If I didn’t know better I’d be a charter member of his scene.”
“Exactly,” Orient went on. “So now we know who D’Te is, where to reach him and what he intends doing.”
“The question is, Doc,” Argyle said, looking intently at Orient, “What do you intend doing about it?”
Orient jammed his hands into his pockets and frowned. He was tired. He had no way of attacking Susej. The most important thing for them to do right now was to be very patient and wait. He knew Hap and Argyle found it difficult to accept. He also knew that if they lost faith they would lose everything. He could feel Argyle’s eyes on him. There was something else eating at Simpson besides a need for action. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but it was there. “I have some research to do first, but when we meet for our instruction tomorrow night we’ll have a plan,” he said.
“Well, all right, Doc. That’s more like it.” Hap grinned.
Argyle said nothing. He had already decided what he was going to do.
Levi scratched his beard as he considered the implications. “There really is no way for us to fight Susej at his level,” he announced. “He has more offensive pieces than we could ever acquire even if we turned to negative magic tonight. But sometimes, the way you set up your defense determines the attack of your enemy. You limit possibilities to known factors. I remember a chess game I had with a Dane, Ben Larsen. It was beautiful. I was down three pieces and suckered him into an early rush.” His voice trailed mellow as he savored the memory.
“Do you know what he’s talking about?” Bishop Redson asked Orient.
Orient began to pace the floor. “He’s saying exactly what I’ve been trying to explain to Hap and Argyle. There are two things we could possibly do. We can try to prevent him from making his cures or we can provoke him into casting the spell of destruction against us.”
“How does it help if he destroys us, Doc?” Hap said.
“If the intended victim of destruction isn’t hit,” Redson put in gravely, his eyes on the cross hanging from his neck, “then the energy of the spell returns to the person who called it up and destroys him.”
Orient stopped his pacing to make sure Hap understood, “Once the energy has been called up you can’t send it back. It must destroy. Every time you invoke the spell you take almost as great a risk as your victim.”
“So if we can choose our spot we’ll at least be able to put up enough resistance to make it an
even-money affair,” Redson added.
Hap nodded. “You mean get him to go for us when he doesn’t know we’re ready. I used to fake shoe trouble to get base-runners to break on me.”
“That’s it,” Orient said. “That’s why it’s important that we wait until he’s vulnerable.”
“What makes you think he’s vulnerable?” Argyle’s voice was pleasant but his question froze in Orient’s mind. For a moment they locked eyes and held. Orient was the first to look away.
“Each time you roll the dice it’s different,” he said quietly. He wanted to say more, but this was something only Argyle could calculate.
“There are some guys on this earth who can really handle dice,” Argyle reflected.
Orient went over to the table and took one of Redson’s Players. “Never saw a man who was perfect every time.”
“I wonder if you can get so perfect that you can’t be anything else but perfect,” Argyle said.
Orient didn’t answer. It was a question he had often asked himself.
XIV
Argyle took his time as he prepared to go out. He had no compunctions about ignoring Orient’s advice and leaving the house at night, but he wanted to avoid an unpleasant scene. He just wanted to see for himself if Susej had anything to say.
He remembered Orient in his dream. Orient hadn’t been open to begin with. He knew something about the Seventh Door. There was a reason why he wouldn’t come out with it. Susej was a special man. Perhaps Orient was resisting a change that was special.
Argyle couldn’t let him influence his thinking. No man was perfect. Orient had said that himself.
Argyle took a long, warm shower and then finished with a brisk rinsing of cold water. He felt good. There was a certain exhilaration that always preceded his entrance into a new scene. New people, new combinations. But tonight he felt more than exhilaration. He’d felt this way a few times before, and each time the feeling had been rewarded with a major transition in his life.
He decided to put on his black silk cowboy shirt for the occasion, but after due deliberation passed over the scarf. Tonight it was all business.
He opened the door of his room and stood there listening for a long moment. The house was quiet. He pulled on a pigskin coat and belted it, still listening for any sign of activity. Then, suddenly annoyed with himself for his timidity, he stamped out into the darkened hall, walked briskly down the stairs and out the front door into the night.
At the Seventh Door Argyle had to stand in line for twenty minutes before someone recognized him and let him inside.
His annoyance quickly gave way to curiosity as he stepped into the whirling lights and stop-action motion of a discotheque revving at maximum revolutions. The place was full of beautiful children. They all had the same basic moves and the same look; a glossy collage of one-part show business, one-part drug cowboy and one-part art nouveau. He worked his way through the crowd toward the bar. It wasn’t easy. The flow was constant, the music was loud and the talk was fast. These kids weren’t mawkish tourists, they were stylists. Even the dancers crowded into the small floor managed to make room somehow for original passes. As he waited for the bartender to come his way he studied the room.
The usual baroque marketplace. The main customers. The sellers; very young, ultra hip. That flat, devastating style that comes with early success. And the buyers. The plump, smug men and lean, nervous women who operate the machinery of that success.
He ordered a Bloody Mary, and when it was served, toasted his own inflated market value. By the time he was ready for his second, he had the sources of the action pinned: the young couple standing near the large mirror on the other side of the room, an adolescent lounge lizard impressing two sweating businessmen, a fat buyer standing at the other end of the bar, two fashion gays rapping with a group of jaunty English types, and two girls, both in red, dancing in the center of the elegant tangle on the floor.
A special style emanated from these people—a style that suggested power. He noticed one of them looking his way. It was the girl-half of the young couple across the room.
A fox. Long legs, short skirt. Long black hair and even from that distance something ancient and composed in her slanted eyes. She left her friend and started moving toward him.
Very professional, he thought, watching her graceful approach. People moved carefully out of her way as she came closer to where he stood. He saw a few of them following her with their eyes. He didn’t blame them. Up close she made his first judgment seem conservative. Her skin was a natural bronze that set off the violet in her eyes. Fine long neck. The silk blouse and leather skirt emphasized the fluid lines of her body. When she spoke her voice was just the right combination of melody and intonation.
“You’re Argyle Simpson,” she said. Her smile made him glad she was right.
He grinned. “You should have been at the door when I was tryin’ to get in.”
“The crass public.” She brought a cigarette up to her mouth. “Please accept the house apologies.”
Argyle struck a match. “This your store?”
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled another kind of smile. One that said she preferred to own nothing. “This is Seth’s special toy. He invented it himself. I just help him.”
“Special?” Argyle looked around. Then he saw the acoustical paneling covering the walls and ceiling.
“We record here.” She took his hand. It felt good. “Let me take you on the grand tour, compliments of the management.”
He pulled her back to him. “The management has the advantage,” he said leaning close to her.
“Addison.” Her breath was warm against his cheek. Then she was moving ahead of him, still holding his hand, leading him across the floor through the sudden push of people having a good time. As they neared the mirror where he had first spotted her he realized that the mirror was the glass panel of a control room.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Simpson.”
The voice was softly penetrating and went with a cool hand. He looked up into the strangest pair of eyes he had ever seen. Cold silver.
“My name is Seth,” he was saying. He seemed genuinely pleased to see Argyle. But then, they always were. Good publicity.
“Nice place you have here.” Argyle struggled to make his voice carry above the noise.
Seth smiled and opened the door of the control room. He snapped on the lights and held the door as Addison led Argyle inside. Seth closed the door behind them, shutting off the sounds from the main room. The room was small. The floor was covered with a thick green carpet. There were a couch and some chairs at the far end, near a door. The control board dominated the front section.
“It’s a full twelve-track setup,” Seth said fondly. “With some gimmicks of my own. Would you like a drink?”
Argyle decided to keep him talking. “Thanks, no. Do you ever record with the place full up like tonight?” He moved to join Seth at the board. Watching the soundless movement through the glass absorbed him immediately.
“Everything I record for Addison I do live. She has a special animal quality that communicates to an audience. I have a theory about that.” Seth looked up at Simpson and smiled. “The vibrations and excitement of an audience at a performance should be engineered the way the performer is.” He moved to the center section of the board. “From here I can control the lighting in terms of spectrum chords.” He fingered the organ-like keyboard and Argyle saw a ripple of light start red and finish violet as it traveled across the room, illuminating the animated crowd. “I can raise the sound level and the color level or play them off against each other,” Seth continued, opening the stops on his board as he spoke. “So we can get the crowd moving fast or slow, depending on the effect we need for the track.”
“How’s it working out?” Argyle was really interested. He calculated the relationships to his own profession.
“Dynamite. Our first two albums are already mixed. Took me four days of live takes. Addison’s on her wa
y.”
Argyle turned. She was stretched out on the couch on the other side of the room. “Talented girl.” He wondered how old they both were. She looked about nineteen, he could be thirty.
“That’s just what I said when I first met her.” Seth’s smile was private. Then it became public. “You know I’ve been wanting to get in touch with you,” he said. “About some business.”
“In what way?” Argyle tensed automatically. This cat didn’t want an autographed glossy of them shaking hands.
“I want to expand other phases at the same rate as my music operation. I’ve already arranged distribution for Addison’s first album. I’m now producing a film vehicle for Addison, using the track from the second album. We’ll be able to follow a gold album with saturation.” Seth stared out at the crowd through the glass.
“What happens if Addison’s first album bounces.”
Seth didn’t turn around. “It won’t,” he said.
Argyle believed him. The narcissism Seth projected was alloyed with a relentless kind of strength. He had met a few like him before and he knew that they were capable of anything—except failure. “How can I help you?” he said. “If you want me to act in your film you’ll have to get in touch with my manager.”
“I want you, Mr. Simpson”—Seth turned to face him— “but not as an actor. As my director.”
“Director?” Suddenly he was off balance. Seth had touched one of his buttons. Always at the back of his head there had been the yen to take an O for direction.
“Plus a lot of production points,” Seth added, “including a few points of the music end.”
Argyle forced himself to meet Seth’s steady stare. “Interesting.” He smiled. “But not what I had in mind.”
“Of course not.” The voice jerked Argyle’s head around. Susej was standing at the other door. He was dressed in a plain black suit, but he still exuded the exotic flair he had projected through the tube as a robed healer. It was his wide-set eyes, the size of his head, the muscular shortness, the way he smiled. Argyle almost moved forward toward him. Then he remembered who and where he was and tightened up.