The intercom buzzed.
“John Rainbird is here,” the new girl said. Her usual bland receptionist’s tone was threadbare enough to show the fear beneath. On that one I don’t blame you, babe, Cap thought. “Send him in, please.”
2
Same old Rainbird.
He came in slowly, dressed in a brown and balding leather jacket over a faded plaid shirt. Old and scuffed Dingos peeked out from beneath the cuff’s of his faded straight-leg jeans. The top of his huge head seemed almost to brush the ceiling. The gored ruin of his empty eye-socket made Cap shudder inwardly.
“Cap,” he said, and sat down. “I have been in the desert too long.”
“I’ve heard about your Flagstaff house,” Cap said. “And your shoe collection.”
John Rainbird only stared at him unblinkingly with his good eye.
“How come I never see you in anything but those old shitkickers?” Cap asked.
Rainbird smiled thinly and said nothing. The old unease filled Cap and he found himself wondering again how much Rainbird knew, and why it bothered him so much.
“I have a job for you,” he said.
“Good. Is it the one I want?”
Cap looked at him, surprised, considering, and then said, “I think it is.”
“Then tell me, Cap.”
Cap outlined the plan that would bring Andy and Charlie McGee to Longmont. It didn’t take long.
“Can you use the gun?” he asked when he was finished.
“I can use any gun. And your plan is a good one. It will succeed.” “How nice of you to give it your stamp of approval,” Cap said. He tried for light irony and only succeeded in sounding petulant. God damn the man anyway. “And I will fire the gun,” Rainbird said. “On one condition.” Cap stood up, planted his hands on his desk, which was littered with components from the McGee file, and leaned toward Rainbird.
“No,” he said. “You don’t make conditions with me:”
“I do this time,” Rainbird said. “But you will find it an easy one to fulfill, I think.”
“No,” Cap repeated. Suddenly his heart was hammering in his chest, although with fear or anger he was not sure. “You misunderstand. I am in charge of this agency and this facility. I am your superior. I believe you spent enough time in the army to understand the concept of a superior officer.”
“Yes,” Rainbird said, smiling, “I scragged one or two in my time. Once directly on Shop orders. Your orders, Cap.”
“Is that a threat?” Cap cried. Some part of him was aware that he was overreacting, but he seemed unable to help himself. “God damn you, is that a threat? If it is, I think you’ve lost your senses completely! If I decide I don’t want you to leave this building, all I have to do is press a button! There are thirty men who can fire that rifle-”
“But none can fire it with such assurance as this one-eyed red nigger,” Rainbird said. His gentle tone had not changed. “You think you have them now, Cap, but they are will-o'-the-wisps. Whatever gods there are may not want you to have them. They may not want you to set them down in your rooms of deviltry and emptiness. You have thought you had them before.” He pointed to the file material heaped on the library trolley and then to the blue-backed folder. “I’ve read the material. And I’ve read your Dr. Hockstetter’s report.”
“The devil you have!” Cap exclaimed, but he could see the truth in Rainbird’s face. He had. Somehow he had. Who gave it to him? he raged. Who?
“Oh yes,” Rainbird said. “I have what I want, when I want it. People give it to me. I think… it must be my pretty face.” His smile widened and became suddenly, horribly predatory. His good eye rolled in its socket.
“What are you saying to me?” Cap asked. He wanted a glass of water.
“Just that I have had a long time in Arizona to walk and smell the winds that blow… and for you, Cap, it smells bitter, like the wind off an alkali flat. I had time to do a lot of reading and a lot of thinking. And what I think is that I may be the only man in all the world who can surely bring those two here. And it may be that I am the only man in all the world who can do something with the little girl once she’s here. Your fat report, your Thorazine and your Orasin-there may be more here than drugs can cope with. More dangers than you can understand.”
Hearing Rainbird was like hearing the ghost of Wanless, and Cap was now in the grip of such fear and such fury that he couldn’t speak.
“I will do all this,” Rainbird said kindly. “I will bring them here and you will do all your tests.” He was like a father giving a child permission to play with some new toy. “On the condition that you give the girl to me for disposal when you are finished with her.”
“You’re mad,” Cap whispered. “How right you are,” Rainbird said, and laughed. “So are you. Mad as a hatter. You sit here and make your plans for controlling a force beyond your comprehension. A force that belongs only to the gods themselves… and to this one little girl.” “And what’s to stop me from having you erased? Right here and now?”
“My word,” Rainbird said, “that if I disappear, such a shockwave of revulsion and indignation will run through this country within the month that Watergate will look like the filching of penny candy in comparison. My word that if I disappear, the Shop will ceased to exist within six weeks, and that within six months you will stand before a judge for sentencing on crimes serious enough to keep you behind bars for the rest of your life.” He smiled again, showing crooked tombstone teeth. “Do not doubt me, Cap. My days in this reeking, putrescent vineyard have been long, and the vintage would be a bitter one indeed.”
Cap tried to laugh. What came out was a choked snarl.
“For over ten years I have been putting my nuts and forage by,” Rainbird said serenely, “like any animal that has known winter and remembers it. I have such a potpourri, Cap-photos, tapes, Xerox copies of documents that would make the blood of our good friend John Q. Public run cold.”
“None of that is possible,” Cap said, but he knew Rainbird was not bluffing, and he felt as if a cold, invisible hand were pressing down on his chest.
“Oh, very possible,” Rainbird said. “For the last three years I’ve been in a state of information passing-gear, because for the last three years I’ve been able to tap into your computer whenever I liked. On a time-sharing basis, of course, which makes it expensive, but I have been able to pay. My wages have been very fine, and with investment they have grown. I stand before you, Cap-or sit, which is the truth, but less poetic-as a triumphant example of American free enterprise in action.”
“No,” Cap said.
“Yes,” Rainbird replied. “I am John Rainbird, but I am also the U.S. Bureau for Geological Understudies. Check, if you like. My computer code is AXON. Check the time-sharing codes in your main terminal. Take the elevator. I’ll wait.” Rainbird crossed his legs and the cuff” of his right pantsleg pulled up, revealing a rip and a bulge in a seam of one of his boots. He looked like a man who could wait out the age, if that were necessary.
Cap’s mind was whirling. “Access to the computer on a time-sharing basis, perhaps. That still doesn’t tap you into-”
“Go see Dr. Noftzieger,” Rainbird said kindly. “Ask him how many ways there are to tap into a computer once you have access on a time-sharing basis. Two years ago, a bright twelve-year-old tapped into the USC computer. And by the way, I know your access code, Cap. It’s BROW this year. Last year it was RASP. I thought that was much more appropriate.”
Cap sat and looked at Rainbird. His mind had divided, it seemed, had become a three-ring circus. Part of it was marveling that he had never heard John Rainbird say so much at one time. Part of it was trying to grapple with the idea that this maniac knew all of the Shop’s business. A third part was remembering a Chinese curse, a curse that sounded deceptively pleasant until you sat down and really thought about it. May you live in interesting times. For the last year and a half he had lived in extremely interesting times. He felt that just one more interesting thing would drive him totally insane.