The Multiple Man (22 page)

"So I've heard."

"I was wondering how much you know. What ideas you have about which of them might be the murderer."

She arched an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"You agree that one of the brothers is . . . killing the rest of them?"

"I suppose that's what it is," she said. Then, looking up at me, "But it might be someone else . . . someone who wants to see just one of the brothers in power, and all the others out of the way."

"You mean Wyatt?"

She made a small shrug. "Or Lazar."

"I can't believe that."

"Or Mandella, the Secretary of Defense. Or . . . anybody."

She was teasing, toying with me, not taking it seriously.

"Or you," I said suddenly.

Her smile got wider, but her eyes went cold. "Yes," she said slowly, "it might even be me. Maybe I want to be President."

"Or in total control of the President."

"It's a thought," Laura said.

It was like trying to interview a piece of sculptured crystal. Laura sat there, beautiful, smiling,
knowing—
but not giving me anything.

"I'm calling a press conference tomorrow," I said. "If there's no answer by then, I'll throw it open to the public."

"Yes. He told me."

"Who told you? Which one?"

An annoyed shake of her head. "I don't know. I make it a policy not to ask."

"You just deal with them . . ."

"As if there were only one," Laura finished for me. "It's easier that way. They're careful not to let anybody see more than one at a time. They do the same for me . . . most of the time."

I could feel my knees getting fluttery. "But . . . but you
are
married to James John. I mean, he's the one . . ."

Her eyes never faltered. She kept looking straight at me, kept her smile going, although now it was starting to look mocking. "I told you, Meric, I never ask. Was it Franklin who said, 'In the dark, all cats are gray'?"

I felt myself sit with a thump on the edge of the dais.

"Oh, don't look so shocked," Laura said, her voice getting sharp. "You'd do exactly the same thing . . . men have been doing it for ages. It's called a harem."

"No . . . it's not . . ." I was shaking my head.

"Poor Meric. Still a Yankee frontiersman in your head, aren't you? All the old morality. All the lovely old chauvinist attitudes."

There wasn't much I could say.

"Come here, Meric. Sit beside me." Laura patted the seat next to her.

I went over and sat, like an obedient puppy.

"You realize that if you make this story public, it will ruin the President. He'll be forced to resign."

"At least."

Laura put a finger on my lips. "Do you realize that you're doing this to hurt me? To punish me for choosing him over you?"

"You mean choosing
them
,
don't you?"

"Don't be mean."

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Laura. God knows that's the last thing in the world I'd want to do."

"Then drop this press announcement. Cancel the conference."

"And let one of those brothers finish murdering the rest of them?"

"Let them settle their family matters by themselves. It doesn't concern you."

"I can't!" It sounded more like pleading than a mighty affirmation of morality, justice, and the rule of law.

"Not even for me?"

"Not even for you," I said. Miserably.

Her hand came back to my face. I could smell a fragrance that she used, a scent I hadn't known since we were in college together. She brushed at the hair over my ear.

"You don't understand what I just said, Meric," she said, very softly. "You can have me . . . if you still feel the way we used to."

"The way we used to?" My voice was a strangled squeak.

"Yes. When you loved me and I loved you. We can have that again. The two of us. Just like before."

I pulled myself away from her. "How in the hell . . . you must be out of your mind, Laura!"

Very patiently she said, "Listen to me. Jim has a little more than three years to his term. He won't try for reelection . . . too much has happened for him to expect that. After he's out of office, there will be a quiet, amicable divorce. Then you and I . . . together . . . anywhere in the world, Meric."

There must be an instant in a heart transplant operation when the surgeons have removed your original heart but haven't yet put in the donor organ. That's how I felt right then. There was a hole in my chest, an aching cavity, livid with flame-hot pain.

"Three years . . ." I heard myself mumble.

Laura said, "I never loved him, Meric. I realize that now. It was all ambition . . . the power trip. And we could get together from time to time even before the three years is up. I travel a lot, and so does . . ."

A sudden vision of me waiting at the end of a line, with everybody ahead of me looking like the President, snapped me back to reality.

"Sure, we could get together," I said. "With three of the brothers dead, your dance card must have a lot of holes in it."

"Don't be vicious."

"Then don't treat me like some high school kid with a hard-on. Jesus Christ, Laura, you're nothing but a high-classed whore."

"And what are you?" she snapped back, taunting. "A sniveling little boy who works at the White House and still believes everything they taught him in grammar school about patriotism and loyalty."

"Damned right I do!"

"Grow up, Meric! Be a man! It's
power
that makes the world go 'round. Power! And no matter which one of them ends up with the power in his hands alone, he'll be mine. I'll share his power."

"Yeah . . . he pumps it into you, doesn't he? How the hell do you arrange it? Do they each have a certain night, or do you take them all on the same night? Do you have gang bangs in the Queen's Bedroom?"

Her smile returned, but now it was etched with acid. "Sometimes."

"Ahh, shit!" I bolted out of the chair, turned and kicked it, sending it clattering into the row of chairs behind it.

"There
are
differences among them, you know," Laura said, gloating, getting even, rising to her feet so she could pour the poison into my ears. "Even in the dark. Meric, they're each a little different."

"I don't give a damn!"

"But it's so
fascinating.
One of them likes to be sucked, one of them likes my ass. One of them—I think it's Joshua—just lets me do whatever I want to him. And then there are the parties . . . the grand balls, we call them . . ."

I should have socked her. I wanted to. Instead, I just headed up the aisle toward the exits at the back of the ballroom. Fast as I could. Nearly running.

"Meric!" she called to me.

I got to the last row of seats before I turned. I could hardly see her, my vision was blurry. I was gasping for breath. I felt like I was going to die. I wanted to.

"Cancel the press conference," Laura commanded. "We'll find the newsmen you sent those tapes to and shut them up—and you—and your two friends—one way or another."

I shook my head and staggered out of the ballroom, blubbering like a kid who's just had his last hope of joy taken away from him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Hank drove me back to my apartment. My hands were shaking too badly even to hail a taxicab.

"What th' hell went on between yew two?" he asked, frank astonishment on his face. "Y'all look like somebody put yew through a meat grinder."

"Somebody did."

"Th' President's lady?"

"She's no lady."

He shrugged and weaved his way through the mounting afternoon traffic.

"Look at 'em," Hank said, more to take my mind off my troubles than anything else.

The streets were filling up with demonstrators for the big Neo-Luddite rally that was going to meet at the Capitol at sundown. The local authorities had forbidden a rally during the daylight hours, while the Capitol building was open to visitors. So the Neo-Luddite leaders found a loophole in the official decision and organized their people to congregate on the Capitol's main steps at sundown. They were expecting a hundred thousand people.

"Yew think all these people lost their jobs t' computers?" Hank asked as we threaded through cars and buses festooned with signs reading STOP AUTOMATION and PEOPLE NOT MACHINES.

"It's the second Industrial Revolution," I said. "It's happening all over again. People have been bombing computer facilities here and there."

Hank nodded. "They tell me there's even a new kinda robot that's working foot patrol with the New York Police Department. Guess my job'll be next."

I said nothing, just watched the crowds. They seemed to be more in a holiday mood than anything else, laughing and hollering at each other. Drinking beer, inside the buses we passed.

"Maybe I oughta join 'em," Hank muttered.

"No," I said. "There's something more important for you to do. Find Vickie and get the two of you out of town. Tonight. As soon as you let me off at my place."

"Now that's a
damn
good way t' get me fired," Hank said. "My orders are t' stick with yew . . ."

"I'll be all right," I said. "They're after you and Vickie, too."

"How d'yew know?"

"What the hell do you think shook me up back there?"

His jaw dropped open. "Th' First Lady? She's in on it?"

"Deep enough to know that you two are in as deep as I am. Get Vickie and disappear. Go up to Boston and live with Johnny Harrison for the next day or two. Wait 'til after my press conference before you come back."

"But yew . . ."

"Jesus Christ Almighty! Will you do what I tell you, or do you want to get yourself killed? And Vickie too?"

"I'll get one of my buddies to fill in with yew . . ."

"No, that would tip them off. Just grab Vickie and get the hell out of town. I'll lock myself in my apartment and phone the cops if I even hear a mouse squeak."

With a shake of his head, "I dunno . . ."

"But I do. And if Vickie gets hurt I'll blame you for it."

His face tightened. "God
damn!
Life jes' gets more complicated ever' goddamned day."

"Do what I tell you," I said.

He hated the idea of leaving his assigned responsibility, but he was enough of an old-style Westerner to worry more about Vickie than about me. And I was old-fashioned enough to know that if they grabbed Vickie, I'd do whatever they told me to.

I sprinted from Hank's unmarked car to the lobby of my apartment building, waved to him through the glass doors, and went up to my rooms. The first thing I did was snoop around the place, poking into closets and even the shower stall, to make certain I was alone. The first thing after triple-locking the front door, that is. Then I put a frozen dinner in the cooker and called the door guards and told them I didn't want any visitors allowed up, under any circumstances. They could talk to me on the phone if they needed me.

I settled down with the aluminum dinner tray in my favorite living room chair and flicked on the TV. The evening news was mostly about the gathering horde of Neo-Luddites congregating at the Capitol. Congress had courageously adjourned early, so that the Congresspersons and Senators could be safely home and far from their demanding constituents. The Capitol building itself was now closed to all visitors, and there were thousands of DC and Capital police ringing the venerable old marble pile.

"Unofficial reports from generally reliable sources," the TV commentator added, "claim that the Army has several regiments of troops standing by in nearby locations, ready to deal with any emergencies that might arise."

"Generally reliable sources" was me. We had argued in the office a good part of the day about tipping off the press that the Army was standing by for riot duty. Finally I decided it was better that the people hear about it from us, beforehand, than to have the troops show up as a surprise or, worse still, have some enterprising snoop like Ryan find out about them in spite of us. The President had agreed with my views and let the balloon float out into the public airways.

"There is also a rumor," the TV commentator went on, "completely unconfirmed, that the President himself will address the demonstrators later this evening. As I say, this rumor is completely unconfirmed . . ."

That was news to me. Watching the gathering crowd on the TV screen, I didn't think they looked particularly dangerous. But I knew that in a throng as big as that, a riot could erupt as easily as spitting on somebody's sandal. And a crowd that size would need tanks and water cannon before they were calmed down.
Or maybe worse.

So I picked listlessly at my dinner, drank damned near a whole bottle of white wine, and watched the special coverage of the demonstration that came on after the regular news show. The speakers were dull, inane, making absurd demands that, if met, would turn the economic clock back a generation and throw
everybody
out of work.

But the people cheered every asinine punchline and waved their signs: COMPUTERS MUST GO! HUMAN DIGNITY REQUIRES HUMAN JOBS. I couldn't see anything dignified about being a secretary or a copyboy or even a typesetter, for that matter. On the other hand, I had a job that exercised my brain, not my hands and legs, so who the hell was I to complain?

It was a combination of the wine and the moronic speeches droning from the TV that put me to sleep. It was the phone's insistent buzzing that woke me up.

I blinked. The TV was still on, and both in the panoramic view of the Capitol showing on the screen and through my own living room windows, I could see that it was dark outside. Night, as they say, had fallen.

The TV audio was saying, "And now, the President of the United States." The view zoomed down to a makeshift podium that had been set up on the Capitol steps. And there he was, James J. Halliday, smiling confidently at the assembled multitudes.

"I don't have a prepared speech," he said disarmingly. "I thought I'd come out here and listen to what
you
have to say."

They roared their approval.
Must be John,
I thought.
He's the charmer.

The phone was still buzzing, louder and more insistent. I reached over from my chair and tapped the ON button.