"You do not," Appleford said to Mrs. Hermes, "want to know where the Anarch's body lies buried? That's not--"
"Oh, we know that," Mrs. Hermes said in her grave, honest little voice; Tinbane started visibly and looked annoyed.
Appleford said to her, "Mrs. Hermes, you probably shouldn't tell anyone you know that."
"Oh," she said, and flushed. "I'm sorry."
Appleford went on, "Someone from the Uditi was in here just prior to you, trying to find that out. If anyone approaches you--" He leaned toward her, speaking slowly, so as to impress it on her. "-- don't tell them. Don't even tell me."
"Or me," Tinbane said.
Mrs. Hermes, looking as if she was about to cry, said chokingly, "I'm sorry; I guess I screwed everything up. I always do."
To Mrs. Hermes, Officer Tinbane said, "Have you told anybody else, Lotta?"
She shook her head, wordlessly, no.
"Okay." Tinbane nodded to Appleford in shared agreement. "Probably no harm done yet. But they'll be trying to find out. They may canvass all the vitariums; you better discuss this with Seb and with your employees. You understand, Lotta?"
Again she nodded, this time yes; her large dark eyes glinted with repressed tears.
5
Love is the end and quiet cessation of the natural motion of all moving things, beyond which no motion continues.
--Erigena
At three in the afternoon Officer Tinbane reported to his superior, George Gore.
"Well," Gore said, leaning back and picking his teeth, meanwhile eying Tinbane critically, "did you learn a lot about Ray Roberts?"
"Nothing that changes my mind. He's a fanatic; he'd do anything to keep his power; and he's potentially a killer." He was thinking about the Anarch Peak, but about that he said nothing; that was strictly between him and Lotta Hermes... or so he viewed it. In any case it was a complex problem. He would play it by ear.
Gore said, "A modern Malcolm X. Remember reading about him? He preached violence; got violence in return. Like the Bible says." He continued to scrutinize Tinbane. "Want my theory? I checked into the date that Anarch Peak died, and he's about due to be reborn. I think Ray Roberts is here because of that. Peak's rebirth would end Roberts' political career. I think he'd cheerfully kill Peak--if he could find him in time. If he waits--" Gore made a slicing motion with the side of his hand. "Too late. Once Peak is re-established he'll stay that way; he was a canny bastard himself, but without the violence. The critical time will be the week or ten days--whatever it is-- between the time Peak is dug up and the time he leaves the hospital. Peak was very ill, the last months of his life; toxemia, I understand. He'll have to lie in a hospital bed, waiting for that to go away, before he can effectively regain control of Udi."
"Would it be to Peak's advantage," Tinbane said, "if a police team could locate him?"
"Oh yes; _hell_ yes. We could protect him, if we dig him up. But if one of those private vitariums gets hold of him--they can't shield him from assassination; they're just not equipped for it. For instance, they use regular city hospitals... we of course have our own. This, as you know, isn't the first time this has cropped up, somebody having a vested interest in an old-born individual staying dead. This is simply more public, on a bigger scale."
Tinbane said thoughtfully, "But on the other hand, owning Anarch Peak, having him to sell, would be a financial asset to a vitarium. Peddled properly, to the right party, he could bring in a medium-sized fortune." He was thinking what a sale like that would mean to a concern as small as the Flask of Hermes Vitarium; it could stabilize them financially for virtually an indefinite period. Confiscation of Peak by the police would be a disaster to Sebastian Hermes... this was, after all, the first, the one, the really great break for Sebastian. In the entire life span of his flea-bag enterprise.
Can I take that away from him? Tinbane asked himself. God, what a thing to do, to take cold, professional advantage of Lotta's blurting it out there in Appleford's office.
Of course Appleford might do it, might sell the information to Ray Roberts--at a good price. But he doubted it; Appleford did not strike him as that sort of man.
On the other hand, for the Anarch's own good--
But if the police seized the Anarch, Sebastian would know how they found out; he would track it, with no difficulty, to Lotta. I must consider that, he realized, in view of any plans I might have in her direction. As regards my relationship--or potential relationship--to her.
Just who am I trying to aid? he asked himself. Sebastian? Or Lotta? Or--myself?
I can blackmail her, he found himself thinking, and was horrified; yet the thought had been clearly there. Simply tell her, when I can manage to get her off alone for a few minutes, that--she has a choice. She can be--.
Hell, he thought. That's terrible! Blackmailing her into becoming my mistress; what kind of person am I?
On the other hand, in the final analysis it didn't matter what you thought; it was what you did.
What I ought to do, he decided, is talk to some clergyman about this; _somebody's_ got to know how to deal with difficult moral matters.
Father Faine, he thought. I could talk to him.
As soon as he lrtt George Gore's office he shot off in his Squad car for the Flask of Hermes Vitarium.
The frail old wooden building always amused him; it seemed perpetually about to fall, and yet it never had. What a variety of enterprises had been transacted, over the decades, on these faded premises. Before becoming a vitarium, Sebastian had told him, the building had housed a small cheese factory, employing nine girls. And before that, Sebastian believed, it had housed a television repair establishment.
He landed his squad car, walked through the doorway. There at the typewriter, behind the counter, sat Cheryl Vale, the obliging, thirtyish receptionist and bookkeeper of the firm; at the moment she was on the phone, and so he passed on through the back doorway, into the employees' portion of the premises. These he found their sole salesman, R.C. Buckley, reading a dog-eared copy of _Playboy_, the eternal salesman's choice and obsession.
"Hi, Officer," R.C. greeted him, with a toothy smile. "Out fixing tickets as usual?" He laughed a salesman's laugh.
Tinbane said, "Is Father Faine here?" He looked around, but did not see him.
"Out with the rest of them," R.C. said. "They zeroed in on another live one at Cedar Halls Cemetery in San Fernando. Should be back in a half hour. Want some sogum?" He indicated a nearly full sogum tank, the establishment's pastime when there was nothing else to do.
"Do you think," Officer Tinbane said earnestly, seating himself on one of Bob Lindy's tall workbench stools, "that it's what you do, or is it what you think? I mean ideas that come to you that you mull over but never put into action... do they count, too?"
R.C.'s forehead wrinkled. "I don't get you."
"Look at it this way." Tinbane gestured, trying to convey what he had on his mind; it was difficult, and R.C. was not the person he would have picked. But at least it was better than mulling. "Like what you dream," he said; a way of conveying it had come to him. "Suppose you're married. You are, aren't you?"
"Oh sure, yeah," R.C. said.
"Okay, so am I. Now, for instance, say you love your wife. I'm assuming you do; I love mine. Now, suppose you have a dream, you dream you're making out with another woman."
"What other woman?"
"Any. Just another woman. You're frankly in bed with her. In your dream, I mean. Okay. Is this a sin?"
"It is," R.C. decided, "if after you wake up you think back to it, the dream, and you enjoy thinking about it."
Tinbane continued, "Okay, suppose the idea comes into your head as to how you could hurt another person, take advantage of him; and you don't do it, naturally, because he's your friend, you see what I mean? I mean, you don't do that to someone you like; that's axiomatic. But isn't there something wrong if you have the idea, just the idea?"