“Molly,” I said, turning to face her as she toyed with a conch shell on the dresser. “It happened. No one’s going to tell me anything I don’t know.”
She looked at me. “How much does Alex Truslow know, do you think?”
“About me? Probably nothing. And I didn’t let Rossi know-at least, I don’t think I did-”
“Did you talk to Alex about this?”
“Not yet?”
“Why not?”
“I… don’t know.”
“Call him now.”
“He’s at Camp David.”
She looked at me quizzically.
“Meeting with the President,” I explained.
“The directorship. I see. Did you tell Bill Stearns?”
“No, of course not.”
She paused. “Why not?”
“What do you mean, why-”
“I mean, what are you afraid of?”
“Molly, come on-”
“No, Ben, think this through for a second.” She returned to the side of the bed and sat next to me, still toying with the conch shell’s pink labia. “Truslow Associates is hired to locate a missing fortune. It’s top secret work, so some guy from CIA flies down and, in the guise of fluttering you, puts you through this protocol. A superior lie detector. As they told you. So maybe it does work that way. Okay. So what makes you think they’re aware that this same superpowerful MRI also has some sort of-well, let’s call it a subsidiary effect-of rearranging the human brain, or a tiny part of the human brain? In such a way that people thus exposed develop the ability to listen to the brain waves of others? I mean, how do you know they know what it did to you, what it could do to a person?”
“After what you went through yesterday-the guy at the hospital-how can you think otherwise?”
“Ben,” she said in a small voice after a moment’s silence.
“Hmm?”
She turned to me, close enough to kiss, her face worried. “When we-when we made love last night. In the kitchen.”
I drew myself up straight involuntarily, guiltily. “Uh-huh?”
“You were doing it, weren’t you?”
“Doing-”
“You were reading my mind, weren’t you?” The sharpness had returned to her voice.
I smiled tensely. “What makes you-”
“Ben.”
“You and I don’t need extrasensory perception,” I began with false joviality.
She pulled herself away from my embrace. “You did, didn’t you?” Now she was angry. “You were listening in on my thoughts, on my fantasies, right?”
Before I could say yes, she spat out, “You bastard!”
She stood up, hands on her hips, facing me squarely. “You son of a bitch,” she said quietly. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
EIGHTEEN
Molly’s reaction, I suppose, was understandable. There is something creepy and awful about knowing that your innermost thoughts, which we all take for granted are inaccessible to anyone but ourselves, can be eavesdropped upon.
We’d just enjoyed the best sex we’d ever had, Molly and I, and now it must have seemed to her cheap, fraudulent. But why? Logically, this power enabled me to know something we normally can never know, what another person secretly wants, and to give it to her.
Right?
Yet one of the things that makes us intelligent, thinking beings is the ability not to share our thoughts with others-to decide what to disclose and what to keep a secret. And here I was, trespassing across that line. Molly seemed especially distant when we kissed good-bye an hour after that. But after what she’d just learned about me, who could blame her?
I suppose that on some level I had hoped to awake that morning and realize I had dreamed the whole thing, that I would now go back to my safe and reassuring work as a patent lawyer, go through my rounds of conferences and meetings as usual.
This may strike you as a bit odd. After all, the ability to read the thoughts of others is one of those stock fantasies or daydreams that many of us keep to ourselves. There are those on the lunatic fringe who buy books or tapes that promise to teach them extrasensory perception. At one time or another we have all wished for such a power.
But you do not want it, not really. Take my word for it.
As soon as I arrived at the office and chatted a bit with Darlene, I shut my office door and called my broker, John Matera, at Shearson. I’d moved a few thousand dollars from my savings account to my Shearson brokerage account. That, plus the small equity I still had in some blue chips-mostly Nynex and other utilities-would give me enough money to play with. In effect, I was gambling with the money that Bill Stearns had advanced me to stave off bankruptcy, poverty, and ruin.
But it was a sure thing, after all.
“John,” I said after a few pleasantries, “what’s Beacon Trust selling at?”
John, who is a gruff, plainspoken type, replied without pause, “Nothing. It’s free. They’re giving it away to anyone who’s foolish enough to express an interest. What the hell do you want that dog shit for, Ben?”
“What’s the asking price?”
He gave a long, soulful sigh. There was a clicking of computer keys, and then he said, “Eleven and a half asked, eleven bid.”
“Let’s see,” I said. “For thirty thousand dollars, that means I can get-what?-”
“An ulcer. Don’t be a lunatic.”
“John, just do it.”
“I’m not allowed to give you advice,” John said. “But why don’t you think this over and call me when you’ve come to your senses.”
Over his vehement protestations, I put in an order for 2800 shares of Beacon Trust at up to eleven and a quarter. Ten minutes later he called to say that I was the “proud owner” of 2800 shares of Beacon Trust at eleven, and couldn’t resist adding, “Chump.”
I smiled to myself for a few seconds, and then screwed up the courage to call Truslow. Suddenly remembering that he said he was going to Camp David, I momentarily panicked. It was imperative that I reach him, find out whether what had happened to me was intended, whether he knew…
But how to reach him?
I first called Truslow Associates, where his secretary informed me that he was out of town and couldn’t be reached. Yes, she said; she knew who I was, knew I was a friend, but even she didn’t know how to get in touch with him.
Next, I called his Louisburg Square home. The phone was answered by a woman (a housekeeper, presumably) who said that Mr. Truslow was out of town-“in Washington, I believe”-and that Mrs. Truslow was in New Hampshire. She gave me the New Hampshire phone number, and at last I reached Margaret Truslow. I congratulated her on Alex’s selection, then told her I needed to reach him immediately.
She hesitated. “Can’t this wait, Ben?”
“It’s urgent,” I said.
“What about his secretary? Is it something she can handle for you?”
“I need to talk to Alex,” I said. “At once.”
“Ben, you know he’s in Maryland, at Camp David,” she said delicately. “I don’t know how to reach him, and I have a feeling this isn’t a good time to disturb him.”
“There has to be a way to reach him,” I insisted. “And I think he’ll want to be disturbed. If he’s with the President or something, fine. But if he’s not…”
Sounding somewhat annoyed, she agreed to call the person at the White House who had first contacted Alex, to see if her husband could be reached. She also agreed that she’d relay my request that when and if Truslow called me, he do so only over a portable scrambler.
Partners’ meetings at Putnam & Stearns are as dull as partners’ meetings anywhere, except perhaps on television, on L.A. Law. We meet once a week, on Friday mornings at ten, to discuss whatever Bill Stearns wants us to discuss, decide whatever must be decided.