Now Wait for Last Year

'There's nothing to dope out,' the first – youthful – Secret Service man said. 'It's just the meeting of two vacuums and that's the same as one big vacuum.'

'Yeah, some vacuum. He rises to the UN Secretaryship; you think you or anybody else you know could do that? Here's her conapt.' The older Secret Service man halted and indicated a door. 'Don't act surprised when you see her,' he told Eric. 'I mean, when you see she's just a kid.'

'I was told,' Eric said. And rang the bell. 'I know all about it.'

'"You know all about it,"' the Secret Service man to his left mocked. 'Good for you – without even seeing her. Maybe you'll be the next UN Secretary after the Mole finally succumbs.'

The door opened. As astonishingly small, dark, pretty girl wearing a man's red silk shirt with the tails out and tapered, tight slacks stood facing them. She held a pair of cutical scissors; evidently she had been trimming and improving her nails, which Eric saw were long and luminous.

'I'm Dr Sweetscent. I've Joined Gino Molinari's staff.' He almost said your father's staff; he caught the words barely in time.

'I know,' Mary Reineke said. 'And he wants me; he's feeling lousy. Just a minute.' She turned to look for a coat, disappearing momentarily.

'A high school girl,' the Secret Service man on Eric's left said. He shook his head. 'For any ordinary guy it'd be a felony.'

'Shut up,' his companion snapped, as Mary Reineke returned wearing a heavy, blue-black, large button, navy-style jacket.

'Couple of smart guys,' Mary said to the Secret Service men. 'You two take off; I want to talk to Dr Sweetscent without you sticking your big fat ears into it.'

'Okay, Mary.' Grinning, the Secret Service men departed. Eric was alone in the corridor with the girl in the heavy jacket, pants and slippers.

They walked in silence and then Mary said, 'How is he?'

Cautiously, Eric said, 'In many ways exceptionally healthy. Almost unbelievably so. But—'

'But he's dying. All the time. Sick, but it just goes on and on – I wish it would end; I wish he'd—' She paused thoughtfully. 'No, I don't wish that. If Gino died I'd be booted out. Along with all the cousins and uncles and bambinos. There'd be a general housecleaning of all the debris that clutters up this place.' Her tongue was amazingly bitter and fierce; Eric glanced sharply at her, taken aback. 'Are you here to cure him?' Mary asked.

'Well, I can try. I can at least—'

'Or are you here to administer the – what do they call it? The final blow. You know. Coup something.'

'Coup de grace,' Eric said.

'Yes.' Mary Reineke nodded. 'Well? Which did you come for? Or don't you know? Are you as confused as he is, is that it?'

'I'm not confused,' Eric said, after a pause.

'Then you know your duty. You're the artiforg man, aren't you? The top org-trans surgeon ... I read about you in Time, I think. Don't you think Time is a highly informative magazine in all fields? I read it from cover to cover every week, especially the medical and scientific sections.'

Eric said, 'Do – you go to school?'

'I graduated. High school, not college; I've got no interest in what they call "higher learning."'

'What did you want to be?'

'What do you mean?' She eyed him suspiciously.

'I mean what career did you intend to enter?'

'I don't need a career.'

'But you didn't know that; you had no way of telling you'd wind up—' He gestured. 'Be here at the White House.'

'Sure I did. I always knew, all my life. Since I was three.'

'How?'

'I was – I am – one of those precogs. I could tell the future.' Her tone was calm.

'Can you still do it?'

'Sure.'

'Then you don't need to ask me why I'm here; you can look ahead and see what I do.'

'What you do,' Mary said, 'isn't that important; it doesn't register.' She smiled then, showing beautiful, regular, white teeth.

'I can't believe that,' he said, nettled.

'Then be your own precog; don't ask me what I know if you're not interested in the results. Or not able to accept them. This is a cutthroat environment, here at the White House; a hundred people are clamoring to get Gino's attention all the time, twenty-four hours a day. You have to fight your way through the throngs. That's why Gino gets sick – or rather pretends to be sick.'

'"Pretends,"' Eric said.

'He's an hysteric; you know, where they think they have illnesses but really don't. It's his way of keeping people off his back; he's just too sick to deal with them.' She laughed merrily. 'You know that – you've examined him. He doesn't actually have anything.'

'Have you read the file?'

'Sure.'

'Then you know that Gino Molinari has had cancer at three separate occasions.'

'So what?' She gestured. 'Hysterical cancer.'

'In the medical profession no such—'

'Which are you going to believe, your textbooks or what you see with your own eyes?' She studied him intently. 'If you expect to survive here you better become a realist; you better learn to detect facts when you meet up with them. You think Teagarden is glad you're here? You're a menace to his status; he's already begun trying to find ways to discredit you – or haven't you noticed?'

'No,' he said. 'I haven't noticed.'

'Then you haven't got a chance. Teagarden will have you out of here so fast—' She broke off. Ahead lay the sick man's door and the two rows of Secret Service men. 'You know why Gino has those pains actually? So he can be pampered. So people will wait on him as if he's a baby; he wants to be a baby again so he won't have grownup responsibilities. See?'

'Theories like that,' Eric said, 'sound so perfect, they're so glib, so easy to say—'

'But true,' Mary said. 'In this case.' She pushed past the Secret Service men, opened the door, and entered. Going up to Gino's bed, she gazed down at him and said, 'Get on your feet, you big lazy bastard.'

Opening his eyes, Gino stirred leadenly. 'Oh. It's you. Sorry, but I—'

'Sorry nothing,' Mary said in a sharp voice. 'You're not sick. Get up! I'm ashamed of you; everybody's ashamed of you. You're just scared and acting like a baby – how do you expect me to respect you when you act like this?'

After a time Gino said, 'Maybe I don't expect you to.' He seemed depressed more than anything else by the girl's tirade. Now he made out Eric. 'You hear her, doctor?' he said gloomily. 'Nobody can stop her; she comes in here when I'm dying and talks to me like that – maybe that's the reason I'm dying.' He rubbed his stomach gingerly. 'I don't feel them right now. I think that shot you gave me did it; what was in that?'

Not the shot, Eric thought, but the surgery downstairs on McNeil. Your complaint is gone because an assistant cook on the White House staff now has an artiforg heart. I was right.

'If you're okay—' Mary began.

'Okay,' Molinari sighed. 'I'll get up; just leave me alone, will you, for chrissake?' He stirred about, struggling to get from the bed. 'Okay — I'll get up; will that satisfy you?' His voice rose to a shout of anger.

Turning to Eric, Mary Reineke said, 'You see? I can get him out of bed; I can put him back on his feet like a man.'

'Congratulations,' Gino murmured sourly as he shakily rose to a standing position. 'I don't need a medical staff; all I need is you. But I noticed it was Dr Sweetscent here who got rid of my pains, not you. What did you ever do but bawl me out? If I'm back up it's because of him.' He passed by her, to the closet for his robe.

'He resents me,' Mary said to Eric. 'But underneath he knows I'm right.' She seemed perfectly placid and sure of herself; she stood with her arms folded, watching the Secretary as he tied the sash of his blue robe and got on his deerskin slippers.