'If you have a transcript you know that Miss Bachis already arranged for Kathy to—'
'I know! All right.' Molinari panted for breath, his face unhealthy and raw; his skin hung in folds, dark wrinkled wattles of loose flesh. 'See how Lilistar operates? Using our own drug against us; it's just like the bastards, something they'd get a kick out of. We ought to drop it in their reservoirs. I let you in here and then you let your wife in; to obtain that crap, that miserable drug, she'd be willing to do anything – assassinate me if they asked her to. I know everything there is to know about Frohedadrine; I'm the one who thought up the name. From the German Froh, meaning joy, and the Latin heda-, the root for pleasure. Drine, of course—' He broke off, his swollen lips twitching. 'I'm too sick to get agitated like this; I'm supposed to be recovering from that operation. Are you trying to heal me or kill me, doctor? Or do you know?'
Eric said, 'I don't know.' He felt confused, numbed; this was just too much.
'You look bad. This is tough on you, even though according to your security file and your own statements you detest your wife – and her you. I guess you figure if you'd stayed wtih her she wouldn't have become an addict. Listen: everyone has to live his own life; she has to take the responsibility. You didn't make her do it. She decided to do it. Does that help you? Feel any better?' He scanned Eric's face for his reaction.
'I'll – be okay,' Eric said briefly.
'In a pig's ass. You look as bad as she does; I went down there to have a look at her, I couldn't resist. The poor goddam dame; you already can make out the destruction caused by that stuff. And giving her a new liver and all new blood won't help; that's been tried before, as they told you.'
'Did you talk to Kathy at all?'
'Me? Talk to a 'Star fink?' Molinari glared at him. 'Yes, I talked to her a little. While they were wheeling her out. I was curious to see what sort of woman you'd get mixed up with; you've got a masochistic streak eight yards wide and she proves it; she's a harpy, Sweetscent, a monster. Like you told me. You know what she said?' He grinned. 'She told me you're an addict. Anything to cause trouble, right?'
'Right,' Eric said stiffly.
'Why are you looking at me that way?' Molinari regarded him, his black, fat eyes showing his regained control. 'It upsets you to hear that, doesn't it? To know she'd do everything possible to destroy your career here. Eric, if I thought you'd dabbled with that stuff I wouldn't have you kicked out of here; I'd have you killed. During wartime I kill people; it's my job. Just as you know and I know, because we discussed it, there may come a time not far from now when it will be necessary for you to—' He hesitated. 'What we said. Kill even me. Right, doctor?'
Eric said, 'I have to give her the drug supply. May I go. Secretary? Before they take off.'
'No,' Molinari said. 'You can't go because there's something I want to ask you. Minister Freneksy is here still; you are aware of that. With his party, in the East Wing, in seclusion.' He held out his hand. 'I want one capsule of JJ-180, doctor. Give it to me and then forget we had this talk.'
To himself Eric thought, I know what you're going to do. Or rather try to do. But you don't have a chance; this isn't the Renaissance.
'I'm going to hand it to him personally,' Molinari said. 'To see that it actually gets there and isn't drunk by some pimp along the way.'
'No,' Eric said. 'I absolutely refuse.'
'Why?' Molinari cocked his head on one side.
'It's suicidal. For everyone on Terra.'
'You know how the Russians got rid of Beria? Beria carried a pistol into the Kremlin, which was against the law; he had it in his briefcase and they stole his briefcase and shot him with his own pistol. You think matters at the top have to be complex? There're simple solutions average people always overlook; that's the main defect of the mass man—' Molinari broke off, put his hand suddenly to his chest. 'My heart. I think it stopped. It's going now, but for a second there, nothing.' He had blanched and his voice now ebbed to a whisper.
'I'll wheel you to your room.' Eric stepped behind Molinari's wheel chair and began to push it; the Mole did not protest but sat slumped forward, massaging his fleshy chest, exploring and touching himself, with the tentativeness of disintegrating, overwhelming fear. Everything else was forgotten; he perceived nothing more than his sick, failing body. It had become his universe.
With the assistance of two nurses he managed to get Molinari back into bed.
'Listen, Sweetscent,' Molinari whispered as he lay back against the pillow. 'I don't have to get that stuff through you; I can put pressure on Hazeltine and he'll deliver it right to me. Virgil Ackerman is a friend of mine; Virgil will see to it that Hazeltine complies. And don't try to tell me my job; you do yours and I'll do mine.' He shut his eyes and groaned. 'God, I know an artery near my heart just burst; I can feel the blood leaking out. Get Teagarden in here.' Again he groaned and then turned his face to the wall. 'What a day. But I'll get that Freneksy yet.' All at once he opened his eyes and said, 'I knew it was a stupid idea. But that's the kind of ideas I've been having lately, dumb ideas like that. And what else can I do but that? Can you think of something else?' He waited. 'No. Because there isn't anything else, that's why.' Again he shut his eyes. 'I feel terrible. I think I really am dying this time and you won't be able to save me.'
'I'll get Dr Teagarden,' Eric said, and started toward the door.
Molinari said, T know you're an addict, doctor.' He drew himself up slightly. 'I can almost invariably tell when someone is lying, and your wife wasn't. As soon as I saw you I spotted it; you don't know how much you've changed.'
After a pause Eric said, 'What are you going to do?'
'We'll see, doctor,' Molinari said, and again turned his face to the wall.
As soon as he had completed the task of delivering the supply of JJ-180 to Kathy he boarded an express ship for Detroit.
Forty-five minutes later he had reached the Detroit field and was on his way to Hazeltine Corporation by taxi. Gino Molinari, not the drug, had forced him to move this swiftly; he could not even wait until evening.
'Here we are, sir,' the autonomic circuit cab said respectfully. It slid open its door so that he could emerge. 'That gray one-story building with the hedge of rose-colored calyx with the whorl of green bracts at the base ... that is Hazeltine Corporation.' Looking out, Eric saw the building, the lawn and heather hedge. It wasn't a large structure as industrial installations went. So this was the point at which JJ-180 had entered the world.
'Wait,' he instructed the cab. 'Do you have a glass of water?'
'Certainly.' From the slot facing Eric a paper cup of water slid forward, teetered on the lip of the slot, and then halted.
Seated in the cab Eric swallowed the capsule of JJ-180 which he had brought with him. Purloined from Kathy's stock.
Several minutes passed.
'Why aren't you getting out, sir?' the cab inquired. 'Have I done something wrong?'
Eric waited. When he felt the drug begin to reach him he paid the cab, got out and walked slowly up the redwood-round path toward the Office of Hazeltine Corporation.
The building flashed as if caught by a whip of lightning. And, overhead, the blue sky twisted laterally. He saw, gazing up, the clear blue of day dawdle as if attempting to remain and then collapse; he shut his eyes because the dizziness was too great, the reference point of outside objects had become too tenuous, and he walked, step by step, feeling his way ahead, bent down, for some reason motivated to continue in motion, however slow.