“Retired. Retired.”
“Will you think about it?”
I caught my wife out of the corner of my eye. She was frowning in the manner that I recognized as: listenanddon’tsayanythingstupiduntilyou’vethoughtaboutit. “Okay,” I told Goldfarb, “I’ll think about it. But I should remind you that prot wouldn’t let us take any money for his TV appearance, and fled probably won’t, either.”
“I won’t tell her about the money if you don’t. So when will I see you again?”
“I was planning to come in on Mondays and Fridays.”
“Can you make Wednesday an administrative day? To take care of this sort of thing?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Would a regular paycheck help you decide?”
We needed some remodeling done. “Might.”
I could see that knowing smile beaming all the way up from the city. “See you Wednesday,” she said, and hung up.
During lunch I filled Karen in on what had just transpired, followed by a report on my conversation with Will. She was almost as fascinated as I was by his suggestion that perhaps our visitor had an alter ego somewhere on Earth. “You’re hooked again, aren’t you?”
I had to admit I was, and that I was eagerly anticipating getting to the bottom of the “fled story,” wherever it might lead. “But there are a lot of negatives creeping into it, too,” I pointed out. “It’s not only the demands on my time that bother me about going back to the hospital a few days a week, it’s talking with fled herself. She wants to have sex with me!”
After a momentary frown, my wife burst out laughing.
“What—you don’t think I can do it?”
We both laughed at this absurd notion. When we slowed down a little, I added, “Given her promiscuity, it occurred to me that her alter ego might be a prostitute. What do you think?”
“Don’t jump to any conclusions, Dr. B,” she advised.
* * *
That evening Dartmouth and Wang called on us again. “May we come in, Dr. Brewer?” they begged simultaneously, brandishing their badges and promising, “We won’t take much of your time,” as if they had been in on my conversation with fled.
I stepped back. Dartmouth eyed the entryway suspiciously, as if it were mined. Wang, for his part, quickly covered his crotch when Flower appeared, wagging her tail hopefully. We proceeded to the living room sofa as before. The government gazed around, apparently searching for anything out of the ordinary. I thought I heard one or two clicking sounds, like the opening of a camera shutter hidden in a button or tie, but perhaps it was only a wisp of wind being passed.
Wang got right to the point. “Sir, we can’t let your—uh—visitor take 100,000 people with her when she goes back to K-PAX.” If I still had any doubt about fled’s origins, they certainly did not.
For some reason, I became annoyed by their assumption that I had any control over fled. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“Everything. You are her host. Whatever she does is your responsibility.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Wang stared at me icily while Dartmouth fiddled with a button on his jacket.
“Look: the woman travels on a beam of light. What do you expect me to do, seal her up in an unlighted room?”
They glanced at each other briefly, as if seriously considering this offhand remark. But before I could explain that this wouldn’t work, Wang added, “How you do it is up to you, doctor. But we would have to make certain that no Americans are going with her.”
I didn’t ask them how they planned to make certain of it. “You mean anyone outside the U.S. could go?”
“We have no authority in other sovereignties,” Wang reluctantly confessed. “If she wants to take 100,000 Middle Easterners, that’s their concern.” Suddenly Dartmouth looked up at the ceiling and began to follow something with his eyes, as if there were a tiny insect flitting around up there.
“Here’s what I can do. I’ll pass on your apprehension to fled. What she does with it is up to her.”
“Thank you, sir. We’d appreciate that. And one more thing: we’d like for you to keep tabs on how her travel plans for the return trip are progressing. You know, the when, the where, that sort of thing. We’ll take care of the rest.”
I mumbled a noncommittal response. Apparently they hadn’t yet heard about the proposed magazine and television ventures. Or perhaps they had no problem with those. In any case, they jumped simultaneously to their feet. Dartmouth started to fall back onto the sofa, but whirled around rapidly instead, somehow ending up facing me again. “We’ll let you get on with your dinner, sir,” he volunteered (I wasn’t aware it was being prepared). At this point Flower ran at Wang with her squeaky fish. He immediately crouched into his defensive position, hands in chopping mode. I called her away before she could sustain some kind of freak accident.
“We’ll be in touch,” they cried in unison as they backed toward the door. I heard Dartmouth trip again in the entryway, but apparently Wang caught him before he crashed to the tiles.
CHAPTER THREE
The joys of (partial) retirement: Karen and I spent Tuesday morning and part of the afternoon wallpapering the guest bathroom in pastel blue and yellow flowers with dark green leaves.
When I checked my e-mail that evening I was surprised to discover more than a dozen messages requesting information about fled. The following is typical.
Hello,Dr.Brewer!
Ihearyou’vegotanothervisitorfromK-PAX!What’sshelike?Canyouaskhertotakemeandmygirlfriendoncearoundtheworld?Areyougoingtowriteanotherbookaboutthis?
Reasonable questions from interested people. I sent the same reply to all of them:
Howdidyouknowaboutfled’svisit?
A few minutes later the responses started to dribble in.
Itwasonthenews.TheyhadpicturesofherontopoftheEmpireStateBuilding,theEiffelTower,theGreatWallofChina,andsomeotherplaces.
Obviously she wasn’t keeping her presence on Earth a secret. Was she trying to get the attention of the United Nations? Or just showing off?
* * *
I hadn’t seen Jerry, our matchstick engineer, for quite a while, so I came in early on Wednesday for an overdue visit. I found him where he almost always is, sitting beside his latest model, the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute itself, complete with the new Villers wing. Now in his mid-thirties, Jerry has done little else during his entire stay with us except for his amazing creations, which are scattered around not only the Ward Three (seriously psychotic patients) activity room, but on other floors as well.