The Right Time Part 5

"Then tell me," I said. "What else do you know?"

That only made her cry harder, but between sobs she got it out. "He won't die the first time," she said sniffling. "But the _next_ attack will kill him."

"Soon after the first?"

She nodded. "A couple days," she said. "I wish you hadn't made me tell it."

"Good thing I did," I growled. "You're as nutty as a fruitcake.

Maragon won't die. I've got it on good authority."

"I'm _right_!" she insisted.

I took it to Maragon the next morning. The city was shrouded in a low layer of cloud, and his gla.s.sed-in penthouse office was gloomy with the morning. He motioned me to sit down. I dragged one of his Bank of England chairs through the ankle-deep pile of his rug and set it down next to his big desk.

"I have a progress report on Pheola, Pete," I told him.

"That skinny one you brought back from Nevada, Lefty?"

I nodded. "She's not quite so skinny, thanks to my expense account,"

I said. "And she's ready to qualify."

"Not on PC," he said, hot at once.

"That remains to be seen, Pete. The lab has been tracking her predictions for better than two weeks now, and in a couple more weeks Norty will give us some stix on her scope, range and accuracy."

He glowered at me, his bushy brows down about his eyes. "I thought I told you to concentrate on her healing," he said.

"I have," I told him. "But I saw no harm in seeing what she is like with precognition," I said.

"Flat on her face, that's what she's like," he said testily. "One of these days I'll have to convince you that what I say around here goes, do you hear?"

"One of these days," I said. "But not when you're being a sour old goat. You're just sore at her because she said you'd have a heart attack."

"Nonsense!" he bristled.

"I've had Evaleen Riley doing a little PC work on you, too," I confessed, and saw his face get dark with anger. "Now hold your tongue, you old goat. I'm trying to help you," I cut in, to keep him from bellowing at me. "Evaleen is worried, too. But she's a little more cheerful than Pheola. She doesn't think you'll die."

"Well," he growled. "That's nice. I won't write my will."

"Stop acting like an old goat, you old goat," I snapped at him. "I'll give you a prediction of my own: You'll be sick enough to die, but we'll find a way to do something about it."

"Well, now _you're_ a PC!" he huffed. I like to think I have a little, now and then. It's ever so short in range, and highly erratic, but I have had my flashes.

"Just one thing," I said to him. "As a surgeon who has done a lot of heart work, I want you in the heart clinic on the day these witches say you're going to be sick. It will certainly make a lot of us feel better, and the worst that can happen is that you can tell both those witches they don't know the right time."

I didn't get to first base. "Now I'll tell you something, Wally Bupp!"

he said loudly. "I was fool enough to pay attention to what that witch of yours said, and I've had a complete checkup. The heart people can't find a thing the matter with my heart. The devil you say! I won't go near your hospital. Now get out of here and don't give me another word about the PC powers of that fraud."

I let a week go by after that, not quite able to figure out what I should do. One night, after a dinner that Pheola had cooked for me as part of her transparent scheme to convince me she was G.o.d's own gift to Lefty Bupp, I raised a question with her.

"You are still sure," I said, loading the dishwasher, "about Pete Maragon?"

"Yes," she said. "He'll have a heart attack."

"All right. Exactly when?"

"The nineteenth. Thursday," she said.

"We've got to pin point this thing," I said as we went back to her living room. "Do you think you are ready to do some serious diagnosis?"

"Of the Grand Master?" she asked me.

"Sure. I can get you into his office without too much trouble. What I want you to do is feel around inside his heart. The sawbones from the clinic can't find anything out of line, and I think you can. Can you PC that?"

She smiled at me. "Of course," she said. "You'll take me there in the morning."

I did, of course.

Maragon gave us an appointment when I a.s.sured him that I wanted to show him some aspects of Pheola's healing powers and that PC wasn't going to enter into the discussion. His spooky clairvoyant let us in with a knowing smile and we found the old goat pouring over some papers in front of him on the big slab of walnut.

He was really quite nice to Pheola. "Well, well, young woman," he said, "Lefty tells me that you are coming along."

"I hope so, Mr. Maragon," she said.

"Well, Lefty," he said, after he had shown us both into the handsome chairs he had drawn up in front of his desk, "you were going to have Pheola give me some kind of a demonstration."

"Sure," I said. "First off I want you to know that she can qualify as a TK. Her healing powers are a subtle form of that. But as proof, she'll give a demonstration with weights."

I drew the carrying case from my pocket and laid four pith b.a.l.l.s on his desk, as well as a ten-gram standard TK weight.

"Ten grams?" he said, interested.

"Maybe," I grinned. "We haven't tried this outside our own company.

Pretty big emotional quotient here, you know."

He shook his head. "It has to be reproducible, Lefty," he said, but in a kindly tone. "Let me see it, Pheola."

She was really pretty good, and the pith b.a.l.l.s behaved quite well. The first time around, the ten-gram weight stopped her cold, but by laying it on my palm, she got a good grip and thereafter was able to make it perform.

"Very nicely done," the old goat grumbled. He hadn't expected anything of the kind. But I was only half through with him.

"Now," I said. "The more important part of the demonstration. Do you object to a little minor pain?"

"I certainly do," he growled, bringing his bushy brows down.