Supermind
“Okay, okay,” Boyd said. “Keep your pants on. But here’s the dope: I
just flew in from New York, and I brought all the files on the case—
the stuff you left in your office in New York, remember?”
“Right,” Malone said. “Thanks.”
“And I think we may be able to get the Big Cheese,” Boyd went on.
“Manelli?” Malone said.
“None other than the famous Cesare Antonio,” Boyd said. “It seems two
of his most valued lieutenants were found in a garage in Queens,
practically weighted down with machine-gun bullets.”
Malone thought of Manelli, complaining sadly about the high overhead
of murder. “And where does that get us?” he said.
“Well,” Boyd said, “whoever did the job forgot to search the bodies.”
“Oh-oh,” Malone said.
“Very much oh-oh,” Boyd said. “They’re loaded down, not only with
lead, but with paper. There are documents linking Manelli right up to
the International Truckers’ Union—a direct tie-in with Mike Sand. And
Sand now says he’s tied in with the Great Lakes Transport Union in
Chicago.”
“This sounds like a big one,” Malone said.
“You have no idea,” Boyd said. “And in the middle of all this, Burris
called.”
“Burris?” Malone said.
“That’s right,” Boyd said. “He wants me to go on down to Florida and
take over the investigation of the Flarion assassination. So it looks
as if I’m going to miss most of the fun.”
“Too bad,” Malone said.
“But maybe not all,” Boyd said. “It may tie in with the case we’re
working on. At least, that’s what Burris thinks.”
“Yes,” Malone said. “I can see why he thinks so. Did he have any
message for me, by the way?”
“Not exactly,” Boyd said.
Malone blinked. “Not exactly?” he said. “What’s that supposed to
mean?”
“Well,” Boyd said, “he says he does have something to tell you, but
it’ll wait until he sees you. Then, he says, he’ll tell you
personally.”
“Great,” Malone said.
“Maybe it’s a surprise,” Boyd said. “Maybe you’re fired.”
“I wouldn’t have the luck,” Malone said. “But if I get any leads on
the Flarion job, I’ll let you know right away.”
“Sure,” Boyd said. “Thanks. And—by the way, what are you doing now?”
“Me?” Malone said. “I’m driving.”
“Yes, I know,” Boyd said patiently. “To where, and why? Or is this
another secret? Sometimes I think nobody loves me any more.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Malone said. “The entire city of Miami Beach is
awaiting your arrival with bated breath.”
“But what are you doing?” Boyd said.
Malone chose his words carefully. “I’m just checking a lead,” he said
at last. “I don’t know if it’s going to pan out or not, but I thought
I’d drive down to Richmond and check on a name I’ve got. I’ll call you
about it in the morning, Tom, and let you know what the result is.”
“Oh,” Boyd said. “Okay. Sure. So long, Ken.”
“So long,” Malone said. He hung up the phone, put the car into gear
again and roared off down U. S. Highway Number One. He didn’t feel
entirely happy about the way things had gone; he’d been forced to lie
to Tom Boyd, and that just wasn’t right.
However, there was no help for it. It was actually better this way, he
told himself hopefully. After all, the less Tom knew from now on, the
better off he was going to be. The better off everyone would be.
He went on through Fredericksburg without incident, but he didn’t
continue on to Richmond. Instead, he turned off U. S. 1 when he
reached a little town called Thornburg, which was smaller than he had
believed a town could be and live. He began following a secondary road
out into the countryside.
The countryside, of course, was filled with country, in the shape of
hills, birds, trees, flowers, grass and other distractions to the
passing motorist. It took Malone quite a bit longer than he expected
to find the place he was looking for, and he finally came to the sad
conclusion that country estates are just as difficult to find as
houses in Brooklyn. In both cases, he thought, there was the same
frantic search down what seemed to be a likely route, the same
disappointment when the route turned out to lead nowhere, and the same
discovery that no one had ever heard of the place and, in fact,
doubted very strongly whether it even existed.
But he found it at last, rounding a curve in a narrow black-top road
and spotting the house beyond a grove of trees. He recognized it
instantly.
He had seen it so often that he felt as if he knew it intimately.
It was a big, rambling, Colonial-type mansion, painted a blinding and
beautiful white, with a broad, pillared porch and a great carved front
door. The front windows were curtained in rich purples, and before the
house was a great front garden, and tall old trees. Malone
half-expected Scarlett O’Hara to come tripping out of the house at any
moment.
Inside it, however, if Malone were right, was not the magnetic
Scarlett. Inside the house were some of the most important members of
the Psychical Research Society.
But it was impossible to tell from the outside. Nothing moved on the
well-kept grounds, and the windows didn’t show so much as the flutter
of a purple curtain. There was no sound. No cars were parked around
the house, nor, Malone thought as he remembered _Gone With the Wind,_
were there any horses or carriages.
The place looked deserted.
Malone thought he knew better, but it took a few minutes for him to
get up enough courage to go up the long driveway. He stared at the
house. It was an old one, he knew, built long before the Civil War and
originally commanding a huge plantation. Now, all that remained of
that vast parcel of land was the few acres that surrounded the house.
But the original family still inhabited it, proud of the house and of
their part in its past. Over the years, Malone knew, they had kept it
up scrupulously, and the place had been both restored and modernized
on the inside without harming the classic outlines of the
hundred-and-fifty-year-old structure.
A fence surrounded the estate, but the front gate was swinging open.
Malone saw it and took a deep breath. Now, he told himself, or never.
He drove the Lincoln through the opening slowly, alert for almost
anything.
There was no disturbance. Thirty yards from the front door he pulled
the car to a cautious stop and got out. He started to walk toward the
building. Each step seemed to take whole minutes, and everything he
had thought raced through his mind again.
Nothing seemed to move anywhere, except Malone himself.
Was he right? Were the PRS people really here? Or had he been led
astray by them? Had he been manipulated as easily as they had
manipulated so many others?
That was possible. But it wasn’t the only possibility.
Suppose, he thought, that he was perfectly right, and that the PRS
members were waiting inside. And suppose, too, that he’d misunderstood
their motives.
Suppose they were just waiting for him to get a little closer.
Malone kept walking.
In just a few steps, he would be close enough so that a bullet aimed
at him from the house hadn’t a real chance of missing him.
And it didn’t have to be bullets, either. They might have set a trap,
he thought, and were waiting for him to walk right into it. Then they
would hold him prisoner while they devised ways to....
To what? He didn’t know. And that was even worse; it called up
horrible terrors from the darkest depths of Malone’s mind. He
continued to walk forward, feeling about as exposed as a restaurant
lamb chop caught with its panty down.
He reached the steps that led up to the porch, and took them one at a
time.
He stood on the porch. A long second passed.
He took a step toward the high, wide and handsome oaken door. Then he
took another step, and another.
What was waiting for him inside?
He took a deep breath, and pressed the doorbell button.
The door swung open immediately, and Malone involuntarily stepped
back.
The owner of the house smiled at him from the doorway. Malone let out
his breath in one long sigh of relief.
“I was hoping it would be you,” he said weakly. “May I come in?”
“Why, certainly, Malone. Come on in. We’ve been expecting you, you
know,” said Andrew J. Burris, director of the FBI.
15
Malone sat, quietly relaxed and almost completely at ease, in the
depths of a huge, comfortable, old-fashioned Morris chair. Three
similar chairs were clustered with his, around a squat, massive coffee
table made of a single slab of dark wood set on short, curved legs.
Malone looked around at the other three with a relaxed feeling of
recognition: Andrew J. Burris, Sir Lewis Carter, and Luba Vasilovna
Garbitsch.
“That mind shield of yours,” Burris was saying, “is functioning very
well. We weren’t entirely sure you had actually located us until you
pulled into that driveway.”
“I wasn’t entirely sure what I was locating,” Malone said.
“And so it’s over,” Burris said with a satisfied air. “Everything’s
over.”
“And just beginning,” Sir Lewis put in. He drew a pipe from an inside
pocket and began to fill it.
“And, of course,” Burris said, “just beginning. Things do that; they
go round and round in circles. It’s what makes everything so
confusing.”
“And so much fun,” Lou said, leaning back in her chair. She didn’t
look hostile now, Malone thought; she looked like a cat, wary but
content. He decided that he liked this Lou even better than the old
one. Lou, at home among her psionic colleagues, was even more than
he’d ever thought she could be.
“More what?” she said suddenly. Burris jerked upright a trifle.
“What’s more what?” he said. “Damn it, let’s stick to one thing or the
other. As soon as this thing starts mixing talk and thought it
confuses me.”
“Never mind,” Lou said. She smiled across the table at Malone.
Malone jerked a finger under his collar.
“What made you decide to come here?” Sir Lewis said. He had the pipe
lit now, and blew a cloud of fragrant smoke over the table.
Malone wondered where to start. “One of the clues,” he said at last,
“was the efficiency of the FBI. It hit me the same way the efficiency
of the PRS had hit me, while I was looking at the batch of reports
that had been run off so rapidly.”
“Ah,” Sir Lewis said. “The dossiers.”
“Dossiers?” Burris said.
Sir Lewis puffed at his pipe. “Sorry,” he said. “I thought you had
been tuned in for that.”
“I was busy,” Burris said. “I can’t tune into everything. After all,
I’ve only got one mind.”
“And two hands,” Malone said at random.
“At least,” Lou said. Their eyes met in a glance of perfect
understanding.
“What the hell do hands have to do with it?” Burris said.
Sir Lewis shrugged. “Tune in and see,” he said. “It’s an old joke; but
you’ll never really adjust to telepathy unless you practice.”
“Damn it,” Burris said, “I practice. I’m always practicing. This and
that and the other thing—after all, I am the director of the FBI.
There’s a lot to be done.”
Sir Lewis puffed at his pipe again. “At any rate,” he said smoothly,
“Mr. Malone had requested some dossiers on us. On the PRS, myself, and
Luba. They arrived very quickly. The efficiency of that arrival, and
the efficiency he’d been noting about the FBI ever since he began work
on this case, finally struck home to him.”
“Ah,” Burris said. “You see? The FBI’s a full-time job. It’s got to be
efficient.”
“Of course,” Sir Lewis said soothingly.
“Anyhow,” Malone said, “Sir Lewis is right. While every other branch
of the government was having its troubles with the Great Confusion,
the FBI was ticking along like a transistorized computer.”
“A good start,” Sir Lewis said.
“Darn good,” Burris said. “Malone, I knew I could depend on you.
You’re a good man.”
Malone swallowed hard. “Well, anyway,” he said after a pause, “when I
saw that I began to remember a few other things. Starting with a