But then Merrill did, at last, and agreed that Mordon should come to see him, not in the NAABOR offices in the World Trade Center, since Merrill had not yet consolidated his power there, but in Merrill's apartment atop Trump Tower. When Mordon, in abject despair, related the events of the day to Merrill, fully expecting to be thrown into the street, his heart to be eaten by dogs, Merrill had instead leaped magnificently to his defense, saying, "Beuler will betray you, we know that much. Leave it to me."
And an hour later Mordon and Merrill and a dozen other people were sailing past Miss Liberty, out of New York Harbor, into the choppy Atlantic on the good ship Nicotiana, where all aboard were prepared to swear they had been disporting themselves for the last twenty-four hours, with distinguished attorney Mordon Leethe prominent in their midst.
Would it work? Could it work? Could even Merrill Fullerton rescue Mordon from this far down in the deep pit of ignominy? His sleep last night had been tortured, and so were his bathroom experiences this morning.
When at last he staggered back out to the bright cabin, with its roving spotlight of sun, as though the gods of rectitude were looking for him to wreak their own vengeance, there was a discreet tapping to be heard from the cabin door. "Come in," he choked, but no one could have heard that croaking, so he went over to open the door and found standing there a white-suited member of the ship's crew, who actually touched a fingertip to a temple in what looked rather like a salute as he said, "Mr. Fullerton's compliments. He awaits you on the fantail, sir. Whenever you're ready."
"Fan — ?"
"Aft, sir. Stern. Back of the ship. That way, and up." He pointed.
"Thank you."
Mordon would never truly be ready, not fully ready, but in ten minutes he was sufficiently together to go in search of the fantail and his benefactor, who stood beside a groaning board of breakfast, a huge buffet table. No one else was around. "Good morning," Merrill said, and gestured at the many foods. "Breakfast?"
"Perhaps . . . later."
The fantail was outdoors, but shielded by a canvas roof, striped blue and white. The sea was huge, and everywhere, and nowhere flat. The day was sharply lit, with acute edges.
"Probably," Merrill said, with a smile, "you'd like to know what's going on ashore."
"Yes."
"Sit down, Mordon, sit down."
They sat near each other and the white rail, on large and comfortable leather and chrome chairs. Mordon didn't so much want to sleep as merely to lose consciousness, but he forced himself to remain alert, alert enough to listen.
Merrill said, "I've been on the phone to New York a lot this morning. You were right about Detective Beuler, he did implicate you, and me, and poor old Jack the Fourth, and the doctors, and everyone else he could think of. However, we were lucky enough to get our people to Beuler's home on Long Island before the police got there, and what a lot of evidence he'd built up against you, Mordon!" Merrill beamed at the thought of it.
"He needed," Mordon said, "to protect himself from everybody."
"The other way around, I should say," Merrill commented, and added, "But not to worry. All of those tapes, all of that evidence that, I must say, could have disbarred you and probably put you behind bars for the rest of your life, is in my hands now, so you have nothing to worry about."
"You'll destroy it all, won't you? Or give it to me, so I can."
"Oh, there's no need for that," Merrill said. "It's safe with me. And so are you, Mordon. The upstate activities of yesterday are being treated as a simple failed bank robbery, Beuler's smearing of so many of his betters is being quite properly ignored, and we are all of us home and dry. Now let us talk about the invisible man."
Mordon slightly lifted his head. "Did he get away again?"
"For good this time, I think." Merrill's smile seemed quite savage for a moment. "It seems, those two blithering-idiot researchers managed not only to find the fellow and chat with him but, before they lost him again, they let him know there's no hope of his ever returning to his former self. He has no more reason to contact them, nor can any of us contact him. So he's gone."
"Too bad," Mordon said.
"Agreed. Also, after that one experiment, it would seem we can't replace him, either."
"Apparently not."
"So we must lean on our doctors more firmly than I had at first intended, Mordon, you and I."
Mordon squinted at his benefactor in the harsh bright air. "Me?"
"Think of that as your assignment from now on, Mordon," Merrill said. "Project director, we'll call it. The Human Genome Project. You will see to it the doctors don't dawdle or stall or waste their time on that ridiculous research they were doing. You will see to it that they concentrate on the genome project, that they make it their business to meet and grow friendly with the researchers in the field, that they themselves become an official part of the project within, oh, I know we can't rush these things, say eighteen months."
"Eighteen months."
"Do you think I'm being too generous? Well, if they can do it more quickly, more power to them. And to you." Merrill's mad eyes glittered in all that light reflecting from the sea. "What a future we're going to have, Mordon, what a future, you and I."
57
Elizabeth Louise Noon had lived in this little house in Ozone Park, under the flight path for the big jets coming in from Europe or heading out for anywhere, all of her married life. Long ago she'd stopped hearing the thunder of the jets as they slid down their invisible chute over her house toward JFK or climbed the invisible ramp from JFK to the world. Long ago she'd stopped noticing the dark shadows of the wide bodies cross her lawn and house and yard.
Betty she was called by most people, but Louise by her husband, Norm, who in the first flush of their romance had wanted a private name for her and couldn't think of anything else. In her own mind, unknown to anybody, she was always Elizabeth Louise. She and Norm, a sanitation worker with the City of New York, had raised nine kids in this little house, all of them grown now, all of them living elsewhere, but most of them would come back from time to time to shout their hellos under the passing jets.
When you've got nine kids, you're going to have variety. Elizabeth Louise didn't believe she had any bad kids, not mean or nasty, but she did admit to having a few scamps in the mix. She also had proper kids who'd grown up to be proper citizens, one nurse, one bus driver, one third-grade teacher, one Wal-Mart stock clerk.
She liked it when the kids came by, and she missed the ones who didn't, fretted over them in a small way, not making a big deal of it. Lately, the one she'd been fretting about most was Freddie, who was maybe the worst scamp in the bunch. He'd already been in jail, and she suspected he'd done drugs at one point in his life, and she was pretty sure he didn't have any regular job. Then, last month, that fake official letter had come, claiming the state of New York owed Freddie money for some cockamamie reason, and she could see that meant somebody was trying to find Freddie for no good reason — not good for Freddie, that is — so she lit a few candles for him, and hoped that if she ever did hear from him again, at least it wouldn't be bad news.