He poured himself a hefty bourbon and, naked, flopped down in a chair. A little of the liquor went sloshing out onto his thigh. Cold brown drops on the golden hairs. He felt not at all triumphant at having ousted Hamlin from control. What good was it, being in charge again? Who was he, anyway, that he needed so badly to live? An oppressive sense of having come to the end of the line grew in him. Paul Macy, born 1972 Idaho Falls, Idaho, father a propulsion engineer mother a school teacher, no brothers no sisters.
False. False. False shit. I wasn’t born anywhere. I am a thing out of a testube: I am a golem, a dybbuk, a construct. Without friends, without family, without purpose. At least he was real. He’d fuck his kid sister, he’d steal toys from a baby, but he had an identity, a personality that he had earned by living. An artistic gift.
What about it, Hamlin? You want to have it all back? Why do I insist on getting in your way? Maybe you’re right: maybe I should let you win.
Hamlin respondeth not. Only the tinny echoes, de profundis. He must be dormant worn out by everything he was doing. Well, fuck him. He’s no good. His soul is full of poison. Damned if I’ll step aside for him, genius or no genius. The world has enough great artists. It’s only got one Paul Macy, for what that’s worth. This would be a good moment to go to the Rehab Center, while Hamlin’s groggy. Get him carved out of me for once and all. And if he surfaces? And if he gives me that coronary he’s been threatening? Fuck him. If he wants to, he can. So go ahead, coronary. So we’ll both be dead. Pax vobiscum. We shall sleep the eternal sleep, he and I. Anything would be better than this. Nodding solemnly, Macy reached for the phone to call Gomez.
The phone rang with his arm still in midstretch.
Lissa, he thought. Calling to find out where I’ve been, asking if she can come back!
Joy. Excitement. That startled him: the intensity of his wish that it be Lissa calling. What was all this crap about dying? He wanted to live. He had someone to look after. And to look after him. They needed each other.
“Hello?” he said eagerly.
On the green screen bloomed the swarthy face of Dr. Gomez. The angel of death himself. Speak of the devil.
“I’ve been phoning all day,” Gomez said. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“Driving around the suburbs. Weren’t you supposed to be keeping me under surveillance?”
“We lost track of you.”
“Is that a fact?” Macy said harshly. “Well, let me be the first to tell you, then. Hamlin got me last night and kept control until late this afternoon.”
Gomez made elaborate facial gestures of exasperation. “And did what?”
“Visited his dealer, his old studio, and his former wife. Who he was in the process of raping when I got control again.”
“He’s still a psychopath, you mean?”
“He still gets a kick out of manhandling women, anyway.”
“All right All right. Too fucking much, Macy. Taking you over, running around the countryside. I’m having the van sent for you. Sit tight and if Hamlin makes another try at you, fight him off somehow. We’ll have you safe inside the Center under sedation in an hour and a half, and then—”
“No.”
“What, no?”
“Keep away from me if you want me to go on living. I tell you, Gomez, he’s a wild man. If he thinks you’re seriously after him he’ll shut off my heart.”
“That isn’t a realistic fear.”
“It’s realistic enough for me.”
“I assure you, Macy, he wouldn’t do any such thing. We’ve let this situation drag on too long as it is. We’ll come and get you, and we’ll do a proper job of deconstructing Hamlin, and I assure you—”
“Shove your assurances, Gomez. We’re talking about my survival that’s being gambled with. My survival. I refuse to let you have me. Where’s your authority for picking me up without my consent? Where’s your court order? No, Gomez. No. Keep away.”
Gomez was silent a moment. A crafty look flickered into his eyes; he immediately tried to hide it, but not before Macy had picked it up. At length Gomez said in his heaviest I-know-this-will-hurt-but-it’s-for-the-general-welfare manner, “You realize, Macy, that your safety isn’t the only thing we have to consider here. A court has ruled that society must be protected against Nat Hamlin. The moment you notified me that Hamlin wasn’t entirely gone, it became my obligation to take him into custody and carry out the court’s sentence the right way. Okay, so you said you felt you were in jeopardy, you asked me to leave you alone until we worked out some sure-thing way of coping, and I let you have your way. It was against every rule, but I gave in. Out of friendship for you, Macy. Will you buy that? Out of friendship. Out of concern. And we’ve been trying since Monday to figure out a way of handling the situation without endangering you. But now you tell me that Hamlin actually regained command of his body for a little while, for long enough to commit an assault against a human being. Okay. Friendship can go only so far. Can you guarantee Hamlin won’t take you over again half an hour from now? Can you guarantee he won’t be out banging housewives tomorrow? We have to seize him now, Macy, we have to finish him off.”
“Even if it entails danger for me?”
“Even if it entails danger for you.”
“I see,” Macy said. “You figure what the hell, I’m only a construct anyway and if I get wiped out, tough shit on me. The important thing is catching Hamlin. Nothing doing, doctor. I’m not going to be the innocent bystander who gets zapped while you and Hamlin shoot it out. Keep away from me.”
“Macy—”
Macy hung up. Gomez’ image shrank and vanished like a photo being sucked into a whirlpool. Macy gulped the last of his drink, dropped the glass, and looked around for some clothing. He understood that his conversation with Gomez had worked a significant and perilous change in his status. The Rehab man had served notice that they were going to come after Hamlin, no matter what risks were in it for anyone else who happened to be inhabiting Hamlin’s body. He could wait here meekly for the van, of course. Let himself be hauled off to the Rehab Center. Taking his chances that Gomez would be able to get Hamlin before Hamlin got him. But how chancy a chance that was! He knew Hamlin. They hadn’t shared a brain all these weeks for nothing. And he knew that if Hamlin surfaced and found himself at the Center, being readied for a new deconstruct job, he’d explode with destructive fury. Samson pulling the pillars down around his ears. If Hamlin couldn’t have the body, he’d see to it that no one would have it. So it didn’t make sense to surrender to Gomez, not now. His fatalism of half an hour ago had gone from him. He didn’t want to die or even to risk dying. He wasn’t sure what it was he had to live for, but even so. He would have to run. He was going to have to become a fugitive.
Night had come. Everything was washed in a peculiar faded gray light. Out the side way, down the alley. Macy looked in all directions as he left the building. Feeling faintly absurd about it. This silly skulking, so melodramatic, so unreal. But what if Gomez had a man watching the main entrance? More than a touch of paranoia. They’ll have hovereyes searching for me, a ten-state alarm, all the airports being watched. And where can I go? Jesus, where can I go? Macy wanted to laugh. Some fugitive. What am I going to do, camp out in Central Park? Eat squirrels and acorns?