“Jesus,” Steinhardt groaned. “On top of everything I had to witness that scene. You’re making me feel awful. What a mess! What am I supposed to do?”
“Why don’t you just give in and admit I’ve got you beat?” Weller said.
“Who says you’ve got me beat?” Steinhardt said distractedly. “When Fred Torrez tells me you can get away with it, I’ll believe you can get away with it. Security matters I leave to security experts. But man to man, Jack, what am I supposed to do to eptify my own consciousness in this situation?”
“Huh?”
Steinhardt rose to his feet and began pacing again, his shoulders hunched forward under the towel he wore as a cloak; he seemed smaller, older, more human. “Look, kiddo, I’m not a monster. I messed up your life, I admit it. All I ever wanted to do was give you Transformational consciousness and reunite you with your old lady in eternal bliss and successfully find some way to bring creative people into Transformationalism without blowing out their lights. So what I’ve got now is a failed experiment and a guy who I’ve really hurt threatening to blackmail me in a way I cannot afford. How do I do what’s right?”
“What do you think is right, John?” Weller said.
Steinhardt stood before him, threw up his arms, and suddenly grew expansive again. “What’s right is I make up for what I’ve done!” he said. “I watch over you for the rest of your life like a guardian angel. I use my manifold connections to put your career on its feet. I prove to you that I’m sorry by never-ending good deeds. I win your forgiveness and successfully complete my experiment—”
Steinhardt stopped dead in mid-sentence. “Wait a minute!” he said. He sat down in his chair, swallowed down the remains of his drink. “I think I just heard me give myself an idea of cosmic significance,” he said slowly. “Why not? Maybe that’s the way to bring people like you into Transformationalism. Leave their minds alone until they’re ready for the final transformation. Win their willing loyalty by being a benefactor, a facilitator, a lucky leprechaun patron of the arts.”
He smiled benignly at Weller. “That’s the life scenario I have in mind for you, bucko,” he said. “Let you live your life and strew posies in your path to make up for what I’ve done and to prove to you that I really am the Way.” He frowned. “I’d do it too, really I would, but—”
“But what?”
Steinhardt leaned forward, looked at him, and shrugged. “But you’re a security problem,” he said. “I mean, if you wouldn’t trust me far enough to sign a few letters and postcards, why should I trust you to keep quiet about what you know?”
“How about my word on it?” Weller suggested quietly.
Steinhardt seemed to think that over seriously.
“How about because you believe I’m not dumb enough to want to end up like Richard Golden?” Weller said.
That seemed to sink in too.
“The risk you take by letting me go isn’t as great as the risk you take that those press releases will go out if you don’t,” Weller suggested.
“I’d need a full Monitor analysis to be sure of that,” Steinhardt muttered unconcernedly to himself. He seemed to have reached some decision.
Steinhardt beamed at Weller warmly now. “I’ll do it, bucko,” he said. “I’ll do what’s right if I can.” He cocked his head, shrugged sardonically. “But I’m not taking any chances with my own ass. You’re still a security problem. One that’s too complicated for me to figure out without a lot more to drink.”
He stood up, walked over to Weller, and shooed him to his feet. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?”
“To see Fred Torrez,” Steinhardt said. “For technical problems I call in my technical experts. The deal is this, laddy-buck. I’m going to sit you in a room with Fred and listen to you convince him that the minimal-risk scenario is to let you go. If you can get Fred to admit that in my presence, I’ll fly you back to L.A. first-class on my Learjet half an hour later.” He clapped Weller around the shoulders and half dragged him out the door.
“But Torrez doesn’t consider me exactly one of his favorite people,” Weller complained.
Steinhardt winked at him. “For sure,” he said. “That’s why I’m willing to rely on his judgment. If you can convince him against his emotional bias, I’ll know I’ve found the optimal scenario.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If Fred persuades me to hand you over to the Monitors, why then, I’ll be persuaded to hand you over to the Monitors, won’t I?” Steinhardt said. He laughed. “Out of habit, if nothing more, that’s what he’ll be trying to persuade me to do. If he succeeds, then you’re in his tender hands. It should be quite a contest.”
Seeing the outraged look on Weller’s face, he stopped short and turned Weller around to face him, nose to red-veined nose.
“Be a man, Jack,” he said. “Think of it as a chance to prove yourself worthy of my beneficence. A chance to really show what you can do.”
He slapped Weller on the back and gave him a bloodshot stage wink. “I’ll be rooting for you, kiddo,” he said.
Steinhardt rushed Weller over to Institute Central at a waddling near trot, then left him to cool his heels in what seemed to amount to a cozy little cell while he went off to fetch Fred Torrez. No glaring white walls and bright lights here, just a matched set of brown leather couch and chairs, walnut incidental tables, soft pastel yellow walls, and a thick navy-blue carpet. Given an assortment of magazines on a table, it could’ve been a dentist’s waiting room. Given Weller’s state of trepidation, he might as well have been waiting for a session of particularly unpleasant dental surgery.
While he waited for Steinhardt to return with the Monitor chief, Weller tried to dope out a coherent strategy for the upcoming final confrontation without much success. He knew that he had aroused Torrez’s ire at least twice in the past— once by using Maria Steinhardt, and again after the Monitors had snatched him at Golden’s place. Both times directives from John had prevented Torrez from doing his nastiest; first by allowing Maria to prevent Weller from being dealt with as a regressive after he had directly defied a Monitor life directive, and then by bringing him to the Institute after he was caught hobnobbing with a superregressive like Golden. Could he count on Steinhardt’s support again, or had all of that been a scenario designed to inflame Torrez against him with this scene ultimately in mind? With Steinhardt, who could tell?
And what am I supposed to try to do here? Weller wondered in something of a daze. Convince Torrez that I’m really harmless? Or convince him that there’s no way he can prevent those press packets from being released if they don’t let me go? It seemed that Steinhardt had set it up so he had to do both simultaneously. And that seemed a contradiction in terms. Convince Torrez that a harmless nerd has Transformationalism by the balls? How the fuck am I supposed to do that?
Steinhardt returned fortified not only with a glowering Fred Torrez but with a fresh bottle of bourbon. He had thrown on a pale blue tennis outfit though his skin still glistened from suntan lotion, and he was carrying a clean-looking glass. Did that mean he intended this to be a little more civilized?
Steinhardt ushered the tense-looking Torrez to a chair opposite the couch on which Weller was sitting and took a position himself in a chair with a convenient end table, equidistant from both of them, poured himself a drink, and slapped the bottle down on the table like a judge’s gavel calling the court to order. Was that some kind of statement too? Weller wondered. Or have I really reached an eptified state of paranoia?
“Now Fred here has been fully briefed on the details,” Steinhardt told him, “so Fred will conduct this proceeding while I watch the show and get soused.” He took a long drink to establish his intention and nodded to Torrez. “Over to you, Torquemada,” he said.
“You may consider this a form of life analysis, Weller,” Torrez said smoothly. But there was an extreme undertone of tension in his voice and a petulant annoyance in his expression that Weller sensed was p
artly directed at the forbidden target of Steinhardt himself. How is Steinhardt using this to run a number on Torrez? he found himself wondering. For suddenly it began to seem obvious that he was.
“I’ve been directed by John to recommend one of two alternative scenarios,” Torrez continued. “Either you are to be terminated as a regressive and a severe security risk, or you are to be permitted to blackmail Transformationalism into letting you go free.” He favored Weller with a vulpine smile. “Perhaps you can guess where my sympathies lie?” he said.
“Now, now, Fred,” Steinhardt chided. “Do remember whose balls-up got us into this pickle.”
Torrez flushed. So that’s it! Weller thought. Sure, if I really do have a working fail-safe system for distributing the Master Contact Sheet to the press and the authorities, it means that the Monitors and Torrez let down the movement by not finding it out. In a way Torrez is on the carpet here too, and I’m interrogating him for John. He began to glimpse some light at the end of the tunnel.
“That’s right, Torrez,” Weller said. “You’ve got to certify me a liar to prove that you didn’t screw up your job, don’t you?”
“Well put, laddy-buck!” Steinhardt said.
Torrez glared at Weller.
“And you’d better put your feelings aside and be right this time, because either way, if you’re wrong, you really put Transformationalism in the shits,” Weller said, bearing in on Torrez to Steinhardt’s open amusement.
“Fortunately emotions and logic sync perfectly in this instance, Weller,” Torrez finally said, maintaining his control with a visible effort. “Because the question isn’t whether you’re telling the truth but simply whether you’re more dangerous to Transformationalism alive than dead. ”
“Two points!” Steinhardt said.
Torrez smiled. “If you are terminated, your dangerous knowledge is terminated with you,” he said. “Whereas if we let you go, you’ll always be a threat. I don’t really think this decision is going to be all that hard to make. Do you?”
“You’re forgetting that if you don’t let me go, the Master Contact Sheet will certainly be made public in a few days,” Weller said.
“A long assumption, Weller,” Torrez said. “First I must assume that you’re telling the truth about these secure mail drops in the absence of corroborating reports, and secondly you assume that even if you do have redundant mail drops set up, we cant extract the locations from you and recover the material before it can be mailed.”
“After which, you can safely terminate me?”
“As you suggest … ,” Torrez said smoothly.
“Well, then you’ve just admitted that I have no percentage in talking, haven’t you?” Weller said. “I’m terminated either way. ”
“We have very swift and advanced ways of extracting information against your will,” Torrez said, somewhat melodramatically.
“No doubt,” Weller said. “But even if I told you who my mail drops were, you still wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I set it up that way.” It was true. Wally Bruner’s office was a fortress of security, what with all the borderline legal case he handled. My agent keeps his files in a safe because he’s paranoid about industrial espionage. Bob Shumway is nobody’s schmuck. And Uncle Bill is a gun nut. No way they could stop all the packets from getting through with only a few days to work in.
“But then if that’s true, you’ll always be a threat if we let you go,” Torrez said. “Technically speaking, we’re confronted with the same problem whether we terminate you or not, even if you’re telling the truth. So we have no advantage in not terminating you.”
Steinhardt laughed. “I love it!” he cried. “It’s the sport of kings!”
“But that’s not true,” Weller said uneasily. “If you let me go, nothing will happen. Because I’m offering you a fair deal, Torrez. As long as you leave me alone, I leave you alone.”
Torrez snickered. “No doubt you’ll even give your word on it,” he said.
“That’s right,” Weller said coolly.
“Well, your word isn’t good enough, Weller,” Torrez said. “The risk is still immeasurable.”
“Well, what about Richard Golden?” Weller said off the top of his head.
“Golden?”
Torrez looked confused, and even Steinhardt seemed taken aback, which however, only seemed to intensify his interest and somehow amuse him.
“Sure, Golden has a thousand times the damaging material on Transformationalism that I do, yet you leave him alone,” Weller said.
“You’ve met Golden,” Torrez said. “Does he seem like someone who isn’t being monitored, a free spirit?” It was meant to be menacing, but from the look on Steinhardt’s face, it seemed as if Torrez was also trying to justify another unresolved mess to John.
“He’s still alive,” Weller said.
“Only because he’d be a bigger nuisance dead, maybe generating another round of investigations.”
“Well, there you are. Let me go, and it’s the exact same situation. It’s the same situation already. I’m more potential trouble to you dead than alive. It’s as simple as that.”
Torrez seemed to unwind a notch. “Perhaps it is,” he said. “We could handle you the way we handled Richard Golden.” He smiled. He leaned back. “That’s my recommendation, John,” he said. “The same life scenario we worked out for Golden-type regressives.”
He laughed. He beamed at Weller. “You’ll like that, Weller,” he said. “You’ll be a free man. Just like Richard Golden. Afraid of your telephone, papering your windows with tinfoil, raving like a lunatic, and perhaps ultimately certifiable. There’s your fair deal, Weller. You’ll be an unemployable, discredited, raving paranoiac, but you’ll be alive, and you’ll be harmless. Congratulate yourself, Weller. You talked me into it.”
Shuddering, but drawing courage from the horror of his predicament, Weller stared across the room at Steinhardt, the ultimate arbiter of his fate, who was grinning like an asshole as he poured himself another in an endless procession of drinks, I’m pissed off at this drunken fraudulent egomaniac! Weller decided. Terrified, but pissed off too.
“That’s not what you promised me, John,” he said indignantly. “You said if I convinced Torrez here to recommend that you let me go, you’d put me on your Learjet for the Coast and do nothing but sprinkle my paths with posies for the rest of my life. Or are you too swacked to remember what the fuck you said from one drink to the next?”
Steinhardt suddenly seemed to snap into sharp focus, his vision clear as a clean glass lens as he stared Weller down. “I remember everything I’ve said back to the World Science-Fiction Convention of 1956,” Steinhardt informed him with amusement. “What I might have meant at the time is a different story.”
“Be a man, you sot!” Weller snarled, infuriated by Steinhardt’s welching evasion. “Live up to your word, John. Or are you willing to admit to yourself in front of Torrez here that your word means nothing?”
Torrez cringed at this, he glanced back and forth between Weller and Steinhardt, not knowing how he was supposed to react. Steinhardt glowered indignantly for a moment. He frowned. He smiled. He took a drink, stood up, and orated at Weller.
“You’re right, laddy-buck,” he said, “and I’ll take it like a man. I’ll show you that John B. Steinhardt has a sense of honor. I’ll do exactly as I promised.” Pacing, he turned to Torrez. “Life directive, Jack Weller, effective immediately. Jack Weller is to be flown to Los Angeles on my private jet and released. Upon good behavior, he is to be treated as a friend of Transformationalism.”
“What!” Torrez finally exploded. “You’re releasing this dangerous regressive and making him your pet?”
Steinhardt held up his hand for peace. “Upon good behavior,” he said, “which is to be verified by monthly Monitor updates submitted to me. If he deviates from his part of the bargain, further disposition of his case will be at your discretion.”
Torrez subsided; grievously disappointed
and even shamed, but given an obsession for watching Weller for a hoped-for sign of regression that he could fester over for life. As John no doubt intends, Weller thought. Now I’ve got a lucky leprechaun and a bloodhound on my trail for the rest of my life to make sure I’m a good boy.
“You understand the scenario, Jack?” Steinhardt asked.
“Perfectly,” Weller said. “I intend to give you no cause to ever notice me again. I hope you’ll do likewise. I know you’ll be watching, but please let me live in ignorant bliss.”
Steinhardt laughed. He clapped Weller on the back. “Bliss, I promise you, laddy-buck. It will always be yours for the taking. ”
He took a sip of bourbon and shrugged sardonically as he started toward the door. “Ignorance, however,” he said, “you’ll have to handle on your own. ”
As Weller stood at the foot of the embarkation ramp between two Monitor guards, waiting, apparently for some luggage to arrive, a golf cart careened madly out of the woods at the edge of the landing field and made for the plane. On it were two suitcases, a driver, and Annie.
The cart pulled up in front of the Learjet. The driver started loading the suitcases onto the plane. The two guards moved to a discrete distance. Annie stood before him radiating a strange calm.
“I thought we had already said good-bye,” Weller said. “Several times.”
“But we never got it right,” Annie said. “I don’t want to remember leaving you all wounded and hurt. And hating me. I want you to understand that it can’t be you and me anymore—not because I don’t love you but because I feel happy and fulfilled now, and I can’t lose that feeling or 111 die. I only hope you find your way to feeling like that someday, love. I’m sorry you’re leaving yourself behind.”
There was love, real love, in her heart, and Weller could not deny that to himself. But it was coming out all mixed in with Transformationalist programming. It was touching, it was horrifying; it was over, it was dead.
The Mind Game Page 41