They were nearing the pond now. Ducks sailed lazily across its mirror surface. The two men paused by it. Behind them, the young man in the sport coat was watching a middle-aged man and woman cantering along side by side on the far side of the pond. Their reflections were broken only by the long, smooth glide of one of the white ducks. Andy thought the couple looked eerily like an ad for mail-order insurance, the kind of ad that’s always falling out of your Sunday paper and into your lap-or your coffee.
There was a small pulse of pain in his head. Not bad at all. But in his nervousness he had come very close to pushing Pynchot much harder than he had to, and the young man might have noticed the results of that. He didn’t seem to be watching them, but Andy wasn’t fooled.
“Tell me a little about the roads and the countryside around here,” he said quietly to Pynchot, and pushed out lightly again. He knew from various snatches of conversation that they were not terribly far from Washington, D.C… but nowhere as close as the CIA’s base of operations in Langley. Beyond that he knew nothing.
“Very pretty here,” Pynchot said dreamily, “since they’ve filled the holes.”
“Yes, it is nice,” Andy said, and lapsed into silence. Sometimes a push triggered an almost hypnotic trace memory in the person being pushedusually through some obscure association-and it was unwise to interrupt whatever was going on. It could set up an echo effect, and the echo would become a ricochet, and the ricochet could lead to… well, to almost anything. It had happened to one of his Walter Mitty businessmen, and it had scared the bejesus out of Andy. It had turned out okay, but if friend Pynchot suddenly got a case of the screaming horrors, it would be anything but okay.
“My wife loves that thing,” Pynchot said in that same dreamy voice.
“What’s that?” Andy asked. “That she loves?”
“Her new garbage disposer. It’s very…”
He trailed off:
“Very pretty,” Andy suggested. The guy in the sport coat had drifted a little closer and Andy felt a fine sweat break on his upper lip. “Very pretty,” Pynchot agreed, and looked vaguely out at the pond. The Shop agent came closer still, and Andy decided he might have to risk another push… a very small one. Pynchot was standing beside him like a TV set with a blown tube. The shadow picked up a small chunk of wood and tossed it in the water. It struck lightly and ripples spread, shimmering. Pynchot’s eyes fluttered.
“The country is very pretty around here,” Pynchot said. “Quite hilly, you know. Good riding country. My wife and I ride here once a week, if we can get away. I guess Dawn’s the closest town going west… southwest, actually. Pretty small. Dawn’s on Highway Three-oh-one. Gether’s the closest town going east.”
“Is Gether on a highway?”
“Nope. Just on a little road.”
“Where does Highway Three-oh-one go? Besides Dawn?”
“Why, all the way up to D.C… if you go north. Most of the way to Richmond, if you go south.”
Andy wanted to ask about Charlie now, had planned to ask about Charlie, but Pynchot’s reaction had scared him a little. His association of wife, holes, pretty, and-very strange!-garbage disposer had been peculiar and somehow disquieting. It might be that Pynchot, although accessible, was nevertheless not a good subject. It might be that Pynchot was a disturbed personality of some sort, tightly corseted into an appearance of normality while God knew what forces might be delicately counterbalanced underneath. Pushing people who were mentally unstable could lead to all sorts of unforeseen results. If it hadn’t been for the shadow he might have tried anyway (after all that had happened to him, he had damn few compunctions about messing with Herman Pynchot’s head), but now he was afraid to. A psychiatrist with the push might be a great boon to mankind… but Andy McGee was no shrink.
Maybe it was foolish to assume so much from a single trace-memory reaction; he had got them before from a good many people and very few of them had freaked out. But he didn’t trust Pynchot. Pynchot smiled too much.
A sudden cold and murderous voice spoke from deep inside him, from some well sunk far into his subconscious: Tell him to go home and commit suicide. Then push him. Push him hard.
He thrust the thought away, horrified and a little sickened.
“Well,” Pynchot said, looking around, grinning. “Shall we returnez-vous?”
“Sure,” Andy said.
And so he had begun. But he was still in the dark about Charlie.
6
From
Herman Pynchot
To
Patrick Hockstetter
Date
September 12
Re
Andy McGee
I’ve been over all of my notes and most of the tapes in the last three days, and have spoken to McGee. There is no essential change in the situation since we last discussed it 9/5, but for the time being I’d like to put the Hawaii idea on hold if there is no big objection (as Captain Hollister himself says, “it’s only money'!).
The fact is, Pat, I believe that a final series of tests might be wise-just for safety’s sake. After that we might go ahead and send him to the Maui compound. I believe that a final series might take three months or so.
Please advise before I start the necessary paperwork.
Herm
7
From P. H.
To Herm Pynchot
Date September 13
Re Andy McGee
I don’t get it! The last time we all got together we agreed-you as much as any of us-that McGee was as dead as a used fuse. You can only hesitate so long at the bridge, you know!
If you want to schedule another series of tests-an abbreviated series, then be my guest. We’re starting with the girl next week, but thanks to a good deal of inept interference from a certain source, I think it likely that her cooperation may not last long.
While it does, it might not be a bad idea to have her father around… as a “fire-extinguisher”???
Oh yes-it may be “only money,” but it is the taxpayer’s money, and levity on that subject is rarely encouraged, Herm. Especially by Captain Hollister. Keep it in mind.
Plan on having him for 6 to 8 weeks at most, unless you get results… and if you do, I’ll personally eat your Hush Puppies.
Pat
8
“Son-of-a-fucking-bitch,” Herm Pynchot said aloud as he finished reading this memorandum. He reread the third paragraph: here was Hockstetter, Hockstetter who owned a completely restored 1958 Thunderbird, spanking him about money. He crumpled up the memo and threw it at the wastebasket and leaned back in his swivel chair. Two months at most! He didn’t like that. Three would have been more like it. He really felt that-
Unhidden and mysterious, a vision of the garbage-disposal unit he had installed at home rose in his mind. He didn’t like that, either. The disposal unit had somehow got into his mind lately, and he didn’t seem to be able to get it out. It came to the fore particularly when he tried to deal with the question of Andy McGee. The dark hole in the centre of the sink was guarded by a rubber diaphragm… vaginal, that.
He leaned farther back in his chair, dreaming. When he came out of it with a start, he was disturbed to see that almost twenty minutes had gone by. He drew a memo form toward him and scratched out a note to that dirty bird Hockstetter, eating the obligatory helping of crow about his illadvised “it’s only money” comment. He had to restrain himself from repeating his request for three months (and in his mind, the image of the disposer’s smooth dark hole rose again). If Hockstetter said two, it was two. But if he did get results with McGee, Hockstetter was going to find two size-nine Hush Puppies sitting on his desk blotter fifteen minutes later, along with a knife, a fork, and a bottle of Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer.