Deathbird Stories Part 23

Talbot sat back in the chair for the first time since he had entered Demeter's office. "I think I can accept that."

"Fine. Then why don't we get to specifics. Mr. Talbot, you're having some difficulty dying. Am I stating the situation succinctly?"

"Gently, Mr. Demeter."

"Always. "

"Yes. You're on the target."

"But you have some problems, some rather unusual problems."

"Inner ring. "

Demeter stood up and walked around the room, touching an astrolabe on a bookshelf, a cut-gla.s.s decanter on a sideboard, a sheaf of the London Times' held together by a wooden pole. "We are only information specialists, Mr. Talbot. We can put you on to what you need, but the effectation is your problem."

"If I have the modus operandi, I'll have no trouble taking care of getting it done."

"You've put a little aside."

" A little."

"Conservative portfolio? A few glamours, mostly steady climbers?"

"Bull's eye, Mr. Demeter."

Demeter came back and sat down again. " All right, then. If you'll take the time very carefully to write out precisely what you want--I know generally, from your letter, but I want this precise, for the contract--I think I can undertake to supply the data necessary to solving your problem. "

"At what cost?"

"Let's decide what it is you want, first, shall we?"

Talbot nodded. Demeter reached over and pressed a call b.u.t.ton on the smoking stand beside the wingback. The door opened. "Susan, would you show Mr. Talbot to the sanctum and provide him with writing materials." She smiled and stood aside, waiting for Talbot to follow her. "And bring Mr. Talbot something to drink if he'd like it...some coffee? A soft drink, perhaps?" Talbot did not respond to the offer.

"I might need some time to get the phraseology down just right. I might have to work as diligently as your copywriters. It might take me a while. I'll go home and bring it in tomorrow."

Demeter looked troubled. "That might be inconvenient. That's why we provide a quiet place where you can think."

"You'd prefer I stay and do it now."

"Inner ring, Mr. Talbot."

"You might be a toilet if I came back tomorrow." "Bull's eye."

"Let's go, Susan. Bring me a gla.s.s of orange juice if you have it." He preceded her out the door.

He followed her down the corridor at the far side of the reception room. He had not seen it before. She stopped at a door and opened it for him. There was an escritoire and a comfortable chair inside the small room. He could hear Muzak. "I'll bring you your orange juice," she said.

He went in and sat down. After a long time he wrote seven words on a sheet of paper.

Two months later, long after the series of visitations from silent messengers who brought rough drafts of the contract to be examined, who came again to take them away revised, who came again with counterproposals, who came again to take away further revised versions, who came again--finally--with Demeter-signed finals, and who waited while he examined and initialed and signed the finals--two months later, the map came via the last, mute messenger. He arranged for the final installment of the payment to Information a.s.sociates that same day: he had ceased wondering where fifteen boxcars of maize--grown specifically as the Zuni nation had grown it--was of value.

Two days later, a small item on an inside page of the New York Times noted that fifteen boxcars of farm produce had somehow vanished off a railroad spur near Albuquerque. An official investigation had been initiated.

The map was very specific, very detailed; it looked accurate.

He spent several days with Gray's Anatomy and, when he was satisfied that Demeter and his organization had been worth the staggering fee, he made a phone call.

The long-distance operator turned him over to Inboard and he waited, after giving her the information, for the static-laden connection to be made. He insisted Budapest on the other end let it ring twenty times, twice the number the male operator was permitted per caller.

On the twenty-first ring it was picked up. Miraculously, the background noise-level dropped and he heard Victor's voice as though it was across the room.

"Yes! h.e.l.lo!" Impatient, surly as always.

"Victor...Larry Talbot."

"Where are you calling from?"

"The States. How are you?"

"Busy. What do you want?"

"I have a project. I want to hire you and your lab."

"Forget it. I'm coming down to final moments on a project and I can't be bothered now."

The imminence of hangup was in his voice. Talbot cut in quickly. "How long do you antic.i.p.ate?"

"Till what?"

"Till you're clear."

"Another six months inside, eight to ten if it gets muddy. I said: forget it, Larry.

I'm not available."

"At least let's talk."

"No."

"Am I wrong, Victor, or do you owe me a little?" "After all this time you're calling in debts?"

"They only ripen with age."

There was a long silence in which Talbot heard dead s.p.a.ce being pirated off their line. At one point he thought the other man had racked the receiver. Then, finally, "Okay, Larry. We'll talk. But you'll have to come to me; I'm too involved to be hopping any jets."

"That's fine. I have free time." A slow beat, then he added, "Nothing but free time."

"After the full moon, Larry." It was said with great specificity.

"Of course. I'll meet you at the last place we met, at the same time, on the thirtieth of this month. Do you remember?"

"I remember. That'll be fine."

"Thank you, Victor. I appreciate this." There was no response.

Talbot's voice softened: "How is your father?"

"Goodbye, Larry," he answered, and hung up.

They met on the thirtieth of that month, at moonless midnight, on the corpse barge that plied between Buda and Pesht. It was the correct sort of night: chill fog moved in a pulsing curtain up the Danube from Belgrade.

They shook hands in the lee of a stack of cheap wooden coffins and, after hesitating awkwardly for a moment, they embraced like brothers. Talbot's smile was tight and barely discernible by the withered illumination of the lantern and the barge's running lights as he said, " All right, get it said so I don't have to wait for the other shoe to drop."

Victor grinned and murmured ominously:

"Even a man who is pure in heart And says his prayers by night, May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms And the Autumn moon shines bright. "

Talbot made a face. "And other songs from the same alb.u.m."

"Still saying your prayers at night?"

"I stopped that when I realized the d.a.m.ned thing didn't scan."

"Hey. We aren't here getting pneumonia just to discuss forced rhyme."

The lines of weariness in Talbot's face settled into a joyless pattern. "Victor, I need your help."

"I'll listen, Larry. Further than that it's doubtful."

Talbot weighed the warning and said, "Three months ago I answered an advertis.e.m.e.nt in Forbes, the business magazine. Information a.s.sociates. It was a cleverly phrased, very reserved, small box, inconspicuously placed. Except to those who knew how to read it. I won't waste your time on details, but the sequence went like this: I answered the ad, hinting at my problem as circuitously as possible without being completely impenetrable. Vague words about important money. I had hopes. Well, I hit with this one. They sent back a letter calling a meet. Perhaps another false trail, was what I thought....G.o.d knows there've been enough of those. "

Victor lit a Sobranie Black & Gold and let the pungent scent of the smoke drift away on the fog. "But you went. "

"I went. Peculiar outfit, sophisticated security system, I had a strong feeling they came from, well, I'm not sure where...or when."

Victor's glance was abruptly kilowatts heavier with interest. "When, you say?

Temporal travelers?"

"I don't know."

"I've been waiting for something like that, you know. It's inevitable. And they'd certainly make themselves known eventually."

He lapsed into silence, thinking. Talbot brought him back sharply. "I don't know, Victor. I really don't. But that's not my concern at the moment."

"Oh. Right. Sorry, Larry. Go on. You met with them..."

"Man named Demeter. I thought there might be some clue there. The name. I didn't think of it at the time. The name Demeter; there was a florist in Cleveland, many years ago. But later, when I looked it up, Demeter, the Earth G.o.ddess, Greek mythology...no connection. At least, I don't think so.

"We talked. He understood my problem and said he'd undertake the commission.

But he wanted it specific, what I required of him, wanted it specific for the contract--G.o.d knows how he would have enforced the contract, but I'm sure he could have--he had a window, Victor, it looked out on--"

Victor spun the cigarette off his thumb and middle finger, snapping it straight down into the blood-black Danube. "Larry, you're maundering. "

Talbot's words caught in his throat. It was true. "I'm counting on you, Victor. I'm afraid it's putting my usual aplomb out of phase."

"All right, take it easy. Let me hear the rest of this and we'll see. Relax."

Talbot nodded and felt grateful. "I wrote out the nature of the commission. It was only seven words." He reached into his topcoat pocket and brought out a folded slip of paper. He handed it to the other man. In the dim lantern light, Victor unfolded the paper and read:

GEOGRAPHICAL COORDINATES.

FOR LOCATION OF MY SOUL.

Victor looked at the two lines of type long after he had absorbed their message.

When he handed it back to Talbot, he wore a new, fresher expression. "You'll never give up, will you, Larry?"

"Did your father?"

"No." Great sadness flickered across the face of the man Talbot called Victor.

"And," he added, tightly, after a beat, "he's been lying in a catatonia sling for sixteen years because he wouldn't give up." He lapsed into silence. Finally, softly, "It never hurts to know when to give up, Larry. Never hurts. Sometimes you've just got to leave it alone.

Talbot snorted softly with bemus.e.m.e.nt. "Easy enough for you to say, old chum.

You're going to die."

"That wasn't fair, Larry."

"Then help me, dammit! I've gone further toward getting myself out of all this than I ever have. Now I need you. You've got the expertise. " "Have you sounded out 3M or Rand or even General Dynamics? They've got good people there."

"d.a.m.n you."