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come apart in a fight.
 It came apart, alright, but not in a fight, he told her.  And not in the
way I thought it would have, either. His voice was soft, his tone
indifferent. He turned to stare down at the workbench and his mind seemed a
million miles away.
She couldn t fathom his attitude. Why was he so upset? If Pickett had done
these things in the fashion described by eyewitnesses, then events seemed to
be confirming all Huddy s initial guesses concerning the old man s peculiar
abilities. He ought to be delighted.
That was when she decided to dump him the moment the opportunity presented
itself. As soon as she could get out clean she d start putting some distance
between them. If he was going to sink into deep depression every time
something happened he hadn t planned for she sure as hell didn t want him
around when the time came to make quick, career-crucial decisions.
Her mind worked rapidly. If she watched herself and moved carefully enough to
keep him from becoming suspicious, she might be able to claim all the credit
for anything beneficial arising out of this Pickett business. If the operation
was a complete bust she ought to be able to divorce herself completely from
the consequences.
Thus comforted in her own mind she considered her future. Hank Moorhead
wasn t quite the dumb flake Huddy insisted he was. Maybe he wasn t especially
bright, but he was solid. If he thought he stood a chance of learning
something that would take Huddy or Somerset down a notch or two, he d dig for
it like a wildcatter in shale. Huddy, of course, was the fatter target of the
two. Yes, Moorhead could be enemy or ally.
She was trying to determine how best to approach him when she returned to
L.A. when Huddy said,  Jake Pickett s not telekinetic, Ruth, like I thought. .
. like I hoped he might be. He s... something else.
 Hmmm? Sorry, Benjy, I wasn t listening. You were drifting, and I was waiting
on you.
 Come here. He took her arm, escorted her down to the far end of the
workbench. Locked into the lowest shelf was a rack of large test tubes. Each
glass cylinder held a differently colored powder. The quantities were very
small.
 What do you think those are? he asked her.
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 Really, Benjy, she chided him,  you know I m not the twenty questions
type.
 We found all the pieces of the gun, and all the threads from the rag. What
we didn t find right away were the bullets that had been in the gun when it
had come apart. He pointed toward the test tubes.  That s why it took us so
long to find them. We had to vacuum the carpet.
She looked at the test tubes a second time, uncomprehend-ingly.  So they ve
been ground up for testing. What s that supposed to tell us, Benjy?
 No, you don t understand, he corrected her patiently.  We haven t ground
them up, for testing or for anything else. Pickett ground them up.
Hank Moorhead and intercorporate political machinations were abruptly
forgotten.  If this is your idea of a gag, Benjy, now s not the time. I ve
just spent I forget how many days of utter and complete boredom squatting in a
backwoods motel because of your infatuation with this old man.
 It s no joke, Ruth.
 Well then, if you re trying to see how easy I scare....
 Ruth, I wish it was just a bad joke. As for trying to frighten you, I m not.
Not intentionally, anyway. Myself, I m already scared shitless. He thumbed a
switch hidden beneath the edge of the tabletop. A concealed drawer slid open
with a hum. It yielded a thick stack of paper.
 Here. These ought to be familiar to you. He handed her the computer
printouts.  Analysis of the powders in those test tubes. When we extracted
them from the motel carpeting they were all mixed together. See what they
are? He tapped the papers.  Lead, sulfur, copper... the proportions are all
just right, even down to those composing the brass casings of the shells. Put
them together in the right way and you get six slugs for a .38 special. There
are no powdered alloys in those test tubes, either. Only basic elements.
She handed back the papers, waited quietly to hear the rest.
 What I think happened in that motel, Huddy told her softly as he replaced
the readouts in the drawer and slammed it shut,  is that our two men entered
Pickett s room as planned. This isn t difficult to reconstruct, you know. One
of them put the ether-soaked rag over the old man s face. Pickett s
whatever-it-is dissolved the rag. Probably broke down the ether as well,
because one of the men insists that when the rag came apart the ether smell
disappeared.
 I still don t know what you mean,  broke down . Benjy-
 Let me finish, Ruth. Pickett caused the rag to come apart. Then our people
improvised to the best of their limited mental abilities. One of them pulled
his gun and advanced on Pickett, intending to knock him out. So Pickett had to
react a second time, just like he did outside Phoenix.
 Only this time he went further than Phoenix, much further. He didn t just [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]