Control

  “I’m not the enemy,” Beulah said. “I’m an American just like you’re an American. And I’m frightened just now, because there’s a war stench in the air and we all know it. You don’t remember what it was like in the 1930s but that same war stench was there too. Today almost a quarter of Germany looks back on Hitler as the ‘good old days.’ And that percentage is on the rise. Anti-Semitism is skyrocketing in Prance, the terrorists are feasting on everyone, there are assassinations and assassination attempts in every civilized country, and during all this the Russians are just sitting there with this big smile—and with damn good reason— they’ve cornered the market on weaponry, they’ve got everything from The Doomsday on down, and we don’t. Now, I truly enjoyed your little anecdotes—”

  “—those ‘little anecdotes’ were merely to make you aware of a phenomenon—traveling clairvoyance’—I can give a dozen others equally authenticated if you need convincing—”

  Now, with surprising speed, Beulah stood and moved to the desk. “I’m not going to say this again, son, so remember it please —I am not the enemy. I’m not a nut who won’t get out of bed without talking to my astrologer, but I believe in ‘something.’ Most people do. Two-thirds of us think you can communicate with thoughts. When those executives at ABC got caught paying fifty thousand to that seer to predict hits, they got a lot of static —but they only did it because they thought, ‘what if she really does know?’ They believe in ‘something’ too, or they never would have done it. I understand ‘something’ is (Hit there and I hope whatever it is it doesn’t get mad at me. But what I do not understand, what I am not remotely close to the vicinity of understanding is why a man who has spent half his life in jail, who has been a rapist, an animal who apparently lacks the least basic human feelings of decency, who is an escaped criminal that is not only a murderer but now a cop killer, is essential to the enterprise. With that record of his, if we get found out, we are in deep shit, I’m here to tell you.”

  “You know Winslow made contact with Theo Duncan?”

  “You just said there were a dozen more cases of this ‘traveling clairvoyance.’ Fine. Use one of them.”

  Trude looked at Kilgore. “He doesn’t understand anything, does he?”

  Kilgore said quickly, “I think a great deal more than he lets on.”

  “Assume I don’t,” Beulah said sharply. “You know the trouble we’re in with those mind-expanding jobs we pulled back a ways? You know the story that’s building about all the people on that John Wayne movie who got caught in the wind from that bomb experiment and died of cancer? I’m telling you, we’ve covered for you up to now. We’ve got the New York police acting just like we want ‘em, no one connected with Winslow here is about to tell bad stories. But you better come up with some explanation right now or that’s the end of it.”

  In reply, Leo Trude stood up and began to make a pot of coffee.

  “You’ve got my attention, son; I suggest you don’t lose it.”

  Trude carefully measured spoonfuls of coffee into the paper container, put the container in place. “I’m assuming we could all use a cup,” he said.

  “Black, when you’re ready,’’ Kilgore said.

  Trude busied himself with the machine, finally got it perking. “There’s a game we all play, as children, in school, often, I think, and it’s not a game with any strict set of rules or even a name. But I call it the ‘what if game.”

  “You better do better than that, son,” Beulah said. Kilgore thought Beulah was, for the first time, showing his age. He chomped on his pipe, tapped it out, got a cleaner out and fussed with that—trying to maintain concentration, Kilgore decided.

  “Quit playing with that goddam toy and pay attention to me then,” Trude said. “Or do you want a nap?”

  “It doesn’t matter if we like each other,” Beulah answered slowly. “Because if it did, you’d be out in the street.”

  “I have no intention of going there. Just try and stay with me —if I go too fast, raise your hand.”

  Kilgore watched as Beulah refilled his pipe, spilling more tobacco than seemed necessary on the immaculate office rug. Score one for the old guy, Kilgore decided.

  “The ‘what if game is simply when you fantasize. ‘What if Mommy never met Daddy? Or ‘what if I found a thousand-dollar bill or, to put it in historical terms, ‘what if the man who shot the archduke had been delayed, would that have delayed World War One? Or ‘what if Hitler had invaded England in 1939 and Germany had conquered Europe?”

  “Spare me any more examples,” Beulah said. “I have the concept firmly grasped in my aging cranium.” He spilled some more tobacco, ground it into the rug.

  Trude studied the rug a moment, then checked on the progress of the coffee. When he spoke, his voice was stronger. “Humor me now. Take the ‘what if seriously for a moment. Ose the Hitler example I just gave. If you could somehow arrange for Hitler to cross the Channel, the results might be cataclysmic for America. He might have won the war, he might have lost but damaged us grievously—in any case, the results would be wildly beyond our control. And potentially disastrous.”

  “Am I done humoring you?” Beulah asked.

  “Not quite. Please. All right—altering a major event is a no-no, we’ve just decided that. On the other hand, altering an inconsequential happening—if we could, for example—change the life of some unimportant person of long ago, that wouldn’t do us any good either: because we wouldn’t know if we’d truly done anything or not. What we need—what everything depends on—is finding something that was important enough for us to monitor the change, but something also in which there would be no undesirable effects. In all history, I’ve found one event that truly satisfies my needs.”

  Beulah said nothing.

  But Kilgore could sense a rise of energy. Trude turned toward the percolator. Let the coffee the hell alone, Kilgore thought. Get on with it now!

  “Have you ever heard of Elisha Gray?” Trude asked then.

  Beulah had not.

  “Odd,” Trude said. “Since he invented the telephone.”

  “I believe it was Alexander Graham Bell,” Beulah replied.

  “In point of fact, both Bell and Gray did,” Trude said then. “In the single greatest scientific coincidence in history, they both patented the telephone on precisely the same day. Gray, alas for posterity, did it two hours after Bell. Had he been just that much earlier, it would have been the Gray phone we talked of today.

  Beulah was sleepy no longer. He put. his pipe down as Trude poured three cups of coffee, passed them around.

  “Now what if Bell were delayed? What if Gray got his telephone patent in first on that long ago February day? Mr. Beulah, do you know in one word what we’re after here?”

  “I await your brevity.”

  “Control.”

  “Expand that please.”

  “We are trying to control the future by controlling the past-Bell was in this city just before his patent was applied for—and so was Theo Duncan—and that’s why William Winslow is everything—he is not just an ordinary traveling clairvoyant, he doesn’t just move across space, he moves across time.”

  R.E.L. Beulah closed his eyes.

  “When I said Winslow made contact with Duncan, I meant not just down in a Gramercy Park mansion, I meant a mansion in February one hundred and five years age—Theo Duncan was a poet surviving as a tutor. Nelson Stewart was enormously rich— he was old and single, Charlotte Bridgeman was young and beautiful. Her father was his lawyer. A marriage was arranged—all perfectly standard for the time. The marriage produced two sons but evidently little passion. The children were tutored as rich children were then. Theo arrived. One thing, as I’m sure they said even in those days, led to another. Theo and Charlotte had intercourse—Winslow described it clearly to me. Thoughts were exchanged I’ve never come this far before, it was the breakthrough. That’s why your appearing now from Washington was not greeted with more cheer.”

  “Though
ts were exchanged—is there more?’’

  “Of course—Bell took a walk in Central Park on the thirteenth of February, one day before the patent application. Winslow will direct Duncan to the park. And once he meets with Bell, he will detain him.”

  “And if Bell chooses not to be detained?”

  “By any means possible,” Trude said. “And if we’re successful, the world will be unchanged except The Gray System’ will be doing a lot of advertising on television.”

  “Winslow is Duncan,” Kilgore said quietly. “That’s the key to everything Trude’s doing. Everyone has been here before, but people like Winslow remember it all. Trude is simply trying to put a use to reincarnation. He’s not only our leader in this field, he’s our only practitioner. Our pioneer.”

  “And if it’s successful?” Beulah asked. “The benefits would be how immediate?”

  “No telling,” Trude answered. “Depends on who else we find that can do what Winslow can do. When I said control the future by controlling the past you could rephrase that to our winning the future by damaging our enemies in the past. What if we found someone today who could control someone who was around Stalin? What if Stalin was disposed of as a young man?”

  “I’ve always been a student of Leon Trotsky myself,” Beulah said. “Vastly underrated figure.” Then he put his coffee cup down. “All right, do it.”

  “I’m free to do what I want then?” Trude said. “There’ll be no interference?” He sounded, Kilgore thought, almost happy.

  “I don’t mean that at all,” Beulah said. “I mean do it. Show me. Make contact Now.”

  R.E.L. Beulah was not overly impressed with the Infinity Room. For a man who had seen moonshots, who had dined with presidents and kings, who had been on reviewing stands with dictators living and dead, the Infinity Room was not such a much. Oh, the lights strung up and reflecting forever in the mirrored ceiling and walls were a nice enough decorating touch. And the wind sounds were first-rate stereo. But the name “Infinity Room” was as pompous as Trude himself. And the rolling in of wave sounds could have made Beluah, had he allowed himself, just the least bit seasick, a disease to which he was prone. So he was, all in all, unimpressed.

  He was also bored.

  “Where the hell’s Trude?” he said to Kilgore. They were standing together by the couch in the center, by the, box of toys.

  Kilgore, bored himself and also worried, said, “First of all, preparing for a regression is not like throwing together a picnic hamper-—and you did spring this on the man—”

  “—I suppose.”

  “And besides, that, Trude is famous for his meticulousness.” Was that enough bluster, Kilgore wondered? He hadn’t the least idea where Trude was or why it was taking so goddam long to bring the killer in and put him under. “But I wouldn’t worry myself. I think we should stay cool and relaxed because I’ll guarantee you one thing: Leo Trude is.”

  In point of fact, Leo Trude was on the verge of panic. For two reasons mainly. First: Ever since the initial contact with Theo, Billy Boy had met with nothing but failure. Hours of waiting in the Infinity Room while the silence and the deep breathing dragged on and on and then the perspiration from the giant as he entered into severe head pain. Followed by: absolutely nothing. No success whatsoever. Boring failure following boring failure. And if that pattern continued now, if another failure transpired in front of Beulah, it might mean the end of everything, all of it over and done. So that was the first reason for Trude’s keen sense of unease.

  The second reason was a good deal more immediate: Billy Boy refused to do it anymore.

  “And you can’t make me,” Billy Boy shouted.

  “William,” Trude said—“you’ve got to understand my position—”

  “—fuck you and your position.” They were alone in Billy Boy’s plain hospital room. A barred window, a bed, a bureau, a mirror, a chair, all standard.

  “But very important people are here. Crucial to us.”

  And now Billy Boy was screaming— “It hurts/—it tears your head apart and Pm done!”

  There was a window in the door, a small square window, and now the sound of his shouting brought faces there. Billy Boy saw them, the faces in the blue suits. They had guns. You had to be careful when they had guns. Until they weren’t looking. There was a speaker outside and now one of their voices came through loud: “Everything okay, Doctor Trude?’’

  Trude waved the two men away. “Everything’s fine here,” he said. “Don’t worry about William. He’ll come through for us.”

  “I’m done,” Billy Boy repeated. “Believe that.”

  “I need you one last time.”

  Billy Boy shook his head violently.

  Trude glanced at his watch. This had been going on for far too long and God alone knew what kind of fuse Beulah possessed. The last thing helpful in the Infinity Room was anger. “Look,” Trude said finally. “I’ve got this fool down from Washington. We’re spending a lot of money and the government wants to see it’s getting it’s money’s worth. I don’t think you can object to just that.”

  “Just what?”

  “I’ll relax you, put you to sleep—and I’ll do the regression. But that’s all Once you’re a baby, that will be the end of it, I won’t take you any further. You know the pain only comes when I take you further.”

  “I don’t know,” Billy Boy said.

  “It’s all for show! The regression is by far the most spectacular part of it. How can you object? He’ll be happy, you will have no pain.” Trude tried to say this as casually as he could, because if the answer was “no” there wasn’t much he could do—drugs were out of the question. You could put someone to sleep with drugs, but you could never segue into a successful regression. It all had to be natural or it was nothing. Trude looked at his watch again. There was simply no time for a decent relaxation. Billy Boy was in hospital whites. “You can go dressed as you are. No massage, no preparation. With any luck at all you can be back here in an hour. And I promise you, I’ll never ask anything of you again.”

  “I’ll be free?”

  “Absolutely. Get me through this, and we’re done. Let’s get on with it. I’ll put you to sleep here, we can wheel you straight down.” He smiled, never his best gesture, but there was no more time for words. And there would be violence later when Billy Boy awoke with his head on fire. But that Trude decided, could be faced in its proper time. The stun pellets had been effective before, never on one of Winslow’s power, true, but there was no reason to assume they would fail totally. He smiled again. “Shall we begin?”

  “If you’re lying, I’ll tear your arms off.”

  Trude managed to hold on to his smile…

  ***

  “Dear Lord, he’s a mastodon,” Beulah said as the nurses rolled Billy Boy into the Infinity Room, Trude a step ahead of them.

  Trude immediately busied himself with the box of toys. “We had a fabulous preparation,” he said. “Each time it gets better.”

  Beulah glanced at his watch. It was already well after midnight. “How long will this take?”

  “With the kind of good luck we’ve been having, we should be finished by dawn.”

  “Dawn!— “

  Trude whirled on Beulah—”This is not the Automat in here— you do not put in a quarter and get a piece of pie—I am a surgeon of the brain and this is my operating room—!”

  “I’m sorry,” R.E.L. Beulah muttered.

  Trude continued on the attack. “No, I do not think you are at all sorry. I think you are like everyone in government, you want it yesterday. I cannot work in an atmosphere of hostility. It’s damaging to me and mostly to the patient.” He looked at the nurses who had transferred Billy Boy to the couch. “I don’t want to do this but I must cancel tonight’s journey.”

  “I truly am sorry,” Beulah said, his voice soft. “There is no hostility emanating from me, son, I assure you. And I’ve got to be back in Washington tomorrow so let’s get on with it.” br />
  Damn, Trude thought, as he said, “Much the best to do it now.” He gestured for the nurses to leave the room. He had spent the last minutes carefully planning the regression—a spectacular display was his main hope; if they did not make contact but the regression was in itself of sufficient interest, that might keep things on track for a while, perhaps enough for the next contact to be made. When the nurses were gone Trude turned to Beulah and Kilgore: “Of course you’re familiar with regression techniques.”

  They were not.

  “Tedious stuff, but we must get through it, please bear with me.” He walked close beside the giant. The breathing was deep and even. Trude gestured to the control room and there was more wind. Then he took his penknife with the honed blade, asked Winslow for his hand. When Winslow lifted it, Trude took it and jammed it deep under the fingernail.

  Billy Boy did not move.

  But Kilgore did—he jumped backward, said “Holy shit,” then “Fm sorry, Leo, forgive me.”

  R.E.L. Beulah stood where he was, his unlit pipe between his teeth. He looked mightily unimpressed.

  Trude began the regression then, first taking Billy Boy to his fifteenth birthday, because at an earlier session he tried fifteen and found that Winslow had raped the neighbor girl in Waukegan and it was very sensual, listening to him describe the way she tried resisting.

  Kilgore seemed fascinated.