The demolished man (19 page)

delivery. You'll have to make up your mind. Trust me or trust Ben Reich. What

about the gun?"

Church's face disappeared from the light. After a pause, he spoke from the

darkness. "I sold no gun, peeper, and I don't know how any gun was used. That's

my objective evidence for the court."

"Thanks, Jerry." Powell smiled, shrugged, and turned again to Tate. "I just want

to ask you one question, Gus. Skipping over the fact that you're Ben Reich's

accessory... that you pumped Sam @kins about D'Courtney and got the orbits set

for him... Skipping over the fact that you went to the Beaumont party with

Reich, ran interference for him and've been running interference ever since---"

"Wait a minute, Powell---"

"Don't get panicky, Gus. All I want to know is whether I've guessed Reich's

bribe correctly. He couldn't bribe you with money. You make too much. He

couldn't bribe you with position. You're one of the top peepers in the Guild. He

must have bribed you with power, eh? Is that it?"

Tate was peeping him hysterically, and the calm assurance he found in Powell's

mind, the casual acceptance of Tate's ruin as an accomplished fact jolted the

little peeper with a series of shocks too sudden for adjustment. And he was

communicating his panic to Church. All this Powell had planned in preparation

for one crucial moment that was to come later.

"Reich could offer you power in his world," Powell continued conversationally,

"But it isn't likely. He wouldn't give up any of his own, and you wouldn't want

any of his kind. So be must have offered you power in the Esper world. How could

he do that? Well, he finances the League of Esper Patriots. My guess is he

offered you power through the League... A coup d'etat, maybe? A dictatorship in

the Guild? Probably you're a member of the League."

"Listen, Powell..."

"That's my guess, Gus." Powell's voice hardened. "And I've got a hunch I can

make my guess good. Did you imagine we'd let you and Reich smash the Guild as

easily as that?"

"You'll never prove anything. You'll---"

"Prove? What?"

"Your word against mine. I---"

"You little fool. Haven't you ever been at a peeper trial? We don't run 'em like

a court of law, where you swear and then I swear and then a jury tries to figure

who's lying. No, little Gus. You stand up there before the board and all the

1sts start probing. You're a 1st, Gus. Maybe you could block two... Possibly

three... But not all. I tell you, you're dead."

"Wait a minute, Powell. Wait!" The mannequin face was twitching with terror.

"The Guild takes confession into account. Confession before the fact. I'll give

you everything right now. Everything. It was an aberration. I'm sane now. Tell

the Guild. When you get mixed up with a damned psychotic like Reich, you fall

into his pattern. You identify yourself with it. But I'm out of it. Tell the

Guild. Here's the whole picture... He came to me with a nightmare about a Man

With No Face. He---'

"He was a patient?"

"Yes. That's how he trapped me. He dragooned me! But I'm out of it now. Tell the

Guild I'm cooperating. I've recanted. I'm volunteering everything. Church is

your witness..."

"I'm not witness," Church shouted. "You dirty squealer. After Ben Reich

promised---"

"Shut up. You think I want permanent exile? Like you? You were crazy enough to

trust Reich. Not me, thank you. I'm not that crazy."

"You whining yellow peeper. Do you think you'll get off? Do you think you'll---"

"I don't give a damn!" Tate cried. "I don't take that kind of medicine for

Reich. I'll bust him first. I'll walk into court and sit on the witness stand

and do everything I can to help Powell. Tell that to the Guild, Linc. Tell them

that---"

"You'll do nothing of the kind," Powell snapped.

"What?"

"You were trained by the Guild. You're still in the Guild. Since when does a

peeper squeal on a patient?"

"It's the evidence you need to get Reich, isn't it?"

"Sure, but I'm not taking it from you. I'm not letting any peeper disgrace the

rest of us by walking into court and blabbing."

"It could mean your job if you don't get him."

"To hell with my job. I want it, and I want Reich... but not at this price. Any

peeper can be a right pilot when the orbit's easy; but it takes guts to hold to

the Pledge when the heat's on. You ought to know. You didn't have the guts. Look

at you now..."

"But I want to help you, Powell."

"You can't help me. Not at the price of ethics."

"But I was an accessory!" Tate shouted. "You're letting me off. Is that ethics?

Is that---?"

"Look at him," Powell laughed. "He's begging for Demolition. No, Gus. We'll get

you when we get Reich. But I can't get him through you. I'll play this according

to the Pledge." He turned and left the circle of light. As he walked through the

darkness toward the front door, he waited for Church to take the bait. He had

played the entire scene for this moment alone... but so far there was no action

on his hook.

As Powell opened the door, flooding the pawnshop with the cold argent street

light, Church suddenly called: "Just a minute."

Powell stopped, silhouetted against the door. "Yes?"

"What have you been handing Tate?"

"The Pledge, Jerry. You ought to remember it."

"Let me peep you on that."

"Go ahead. I'm wide open." Most of Powell's blocks opened. What was not good for

Church to discover was carefully jumbled and camouflaged with tangentional

associations and a kaleidoscopic pattern, but Church certainly could not locate

a suspicious block.

"I don't know," Church said at last. "I can't make up my mind."

"About what, Jerry? I'm not peeping you."

"About you and Reich and the gun. God knows, you're a mealy-mouthed preacher,

but I think maybe I'd be smarter to trust you."

"That's nice, Jerry. I told you, I can't make any promises."

"Maybe you're the kind that doesn't have to make promises. Maybe the whole

trouble with me is that I've always been looking for promises instead of---"

At that moment, Powell's restless radar picked up death out on the street He

whirled and slammed the door. "Get off the floor. Quick." He took three steps

back toward the globe of light and vaulted onto the counter. "Up here with me.

Jerry, Gus. Quick, you fools!"

A queasy shuddering seized the pawnshop and shook it into horrible vibration.

Powell kicked the light globe and extinguished it.

"Jump for the ceiling light bracket and hold on. It's a Harmonic gun. Jump!"

Church gasped and leaped up into the darkness. Powell gripped Tate's shaking

arm. "Too short, Gus? Hold out your hands. I'll toss you." He flung Tate upward

and followed himself, clawing for the steel spider arms of the bracket. The

three hung in space, cushioned against the murderous vibrations enveloping the

store... vibrations that created shattering harmonics in every substance in

contact with the floor. Glass, steel, stone, plastic... all screeched and burst

apart. They could hear the floor cracking, and the ceiling thundered. Tate

groaned.

"Hang on, Gus. It's one of Quizzard's killers. Careless bunch. They've missed me

before."

Tate blacked out. Powell could sense every conscious synapse losing hold. He

probed for Tate's lower levels: "Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. HOLD. HOLD. HOLD!"

Destruction loomed up in the little peeper's subconscious and in that instant

Powell realized that no Guild conditioning could ever have prevented Tate from

destroying himself. The death compulsion struck. Tate's hands relaxed and he

dropped to the floor. The vibrations ceased an instant later, but in that second

Powell heard the thick, gravid choke of bursting flesh. Church heard it too and

started to scream.

"Quiet, Jerry! Not yet. Hang on."

"D-did you hear him? DID YOU HEAR HIM?"

"I heard. We're not safe yet. Hang on!"

The pawnshop door opened a slit. A razor edge of light shot in and searched the

floor. It found a broad red and gray organic puddle of flesh, blood, and bones,

hovered for three seconds, then blinked out. The door closed.

"All right, Jerry. They think I'm dead again. You can have your hysterics now."

"I can't get down, Powell. I can't step on..."

"I don't blame you." Powell held himself with one hand, took Church's arm and

swung him toward the counter. Church dropped and shuddered. Powell followed him

and fought hard against nausea.

"Did you say that was one of Quizzard's killers."

"Sure. He owns a squad of psychgoons. Every time we round 'em up and send 'em to

Kingston, Quizzard gets another batch. They follow the dope trail to his place."

"But what have they got against you? I---"

"Clever-up, Jerry. They're Ben's deputies. Ben's getting panicky."

"Ben? Ben Reich? But it was in my shop. I might have been here."

"You were here. What the hell difference did that make?"

"Reich wouldn't want me killed. He---"

"Wouldn't he?" Image of a cat smiling.

Church took a deep breath. Suddenly he exploded: "The son of a bitch! The goddam

son of a bitch!"

"Don't feel like that, Jerry. Reich's fighting for his life. You can't expect

him to be too careful."

"Well, I'm fighting, too, and that bastard's made up my mind for me. Get ready,

Powell. I'm opening up. I'm going to give you everything."

After he finished with Church and returned from Headquarters and the Tate

nightmare, Powell was grateful for the sight of the blonde urchin in his home.

Barbara D'Courtney had a black crayon in her right hand and a red crayon in her

left. She was energetically scribbling on the walls, her tongue between her

teeth and her dark eyes squinted in concentration.

"Baba!" he exclaimed in a shocked voice. "What are you doing?"

"Drawrin pitchith," she lisped. "Nicth pitchith for Dada."

"Thank you, sweetheart," he said. "That's a lovely thought. Now come and sit

with Dada."

"No," she said, and continued scribbling.

"Are you my girl?"

"Yeth."

"Doesn't my girl always do what Dada asks?"

She thought that one over. "Yeth," she said. She deposited the crayons in her

pocket, her bottom on the couch alongside Powell, and her grubby paws in his

hands.

"Really, Barbara," Powell murmured. "That lisping is beginning to worry me. I

wonder if your teeth need braces?"

The thought was only half a joke. It was difficult to remember that this was a

woman seated alongside him. He looked into the deep dark eyes shining with the

empty brilliance of a crystal glass awaiting its fulfilling measure of wine.

Slowly he probed through the vacant conscious levels of her mind to the

turbulent preconscious, heavily hung with obscuring clouds like a vast dark

nebula in the heavens. Behind the clouds was the faint flicker of light,

isolated and childlike, that he had grown to like. But now, as he threaded his

way down, that flicker of light was the faint spicule of a star that burned with

the hot roar of a nova.

Hello, Barbara. You seem to---

He was answered with a burst of passion that made him backtrack fast.

"Hey, Mary!" he called. "Come quick!"

Mary Noyes popped out of the kitchen. "You in trouble again?"

"Not yet. Soon maybe. Our patient's on the mend."

"I haven't noticed any difference."

"Come on inside with me. She's made contact with her Id. Down on the lowest

level. Almost had my brains burned out."

"What do you want? A chaperone? Someone to protect the secrets of her sweet

girlish passions?"

"Are you comic? I'm the one who needs protection. Come and hold my hand."

"You've got both of yours in hers."

"Just a figure of speech." Powell glanced uneasily at the calm doll face before

him and the cool relaxed hands in his. "Let's go."

He went down the black passages again toward the deep-seated furnace that was

within the girl... that is within every man... the timeless reservoir of psychic

energy, reasonless, remorseless, seething with the never-ending search for

satisfaction. He could sense Mary Noyes mentally tiptoeing behind him. He

stopped at a safe distance.

Hi, Barbara.

"Get out!"

This is the spook.

Hatred lashed out at him.

You remember me?

The hatred subsided into the turbulence to be replaced by a wave of hot desire.

"Linc, you'd better jet. If you get trapped inside that pleasure-pain chaos,

you're gone."

"I'd like to locate something."

"You can't find anything in there except raw love and raw death."

"I want her relations with her father. I want to know why he had those guilt

sensations about her."

"Well, I'm getting out."

The furnace fumed over again. Mary fled.

Powell teetered around the edge of the pit, feeling, exploring, sensing. It was

like an electrician gingerly touching the ends of exposed wires to discover

which of them did not carry a knock-out charge. A blazing bolt surged near him.

He touched it, was stunned, and stepped aside to feel a blanket of instinctual

self-preservation choke him. He relaxed, permitted himself to be drawn down into