“I would have thought I was an object of interest,” answered Gavein. “My teeth, aren’t they sharp and white? And when my hair goes, the entire skull will emerge. I won’t be boring then.”
“You made that joke already.”
“I’m getting old.”
They were interrupted by a phone call from Medved.
“Ravitzer died,” he told Gavein.
“I’m not surprised. They shouldn’t have shown him on television. Anyone else?” Gavein was in a black-humor mood, expecting fresh confirmation of his powers.
“Yes. But I don’t see a connection.”
“Impossible.”
“Dr. Alfe Bode. Heart attack.”
“From the hospital where Ra Mahleiné was?”
“Another hospital. A surgeon.”
“I did see another doctor. When I was coming back from Port 0-2. It was, hold on… the twentieth of December. He took the minibus driver who had suffered a heart attack. I don’t remember what street the hospital was on.”
“That may be important. I’ll check.”
“It may.” Gavein smiled. “One more thing, Captain: I watched a television show about Maslynnaya and Lola Low. A lot of people were in it, Miriam Ohindee and others. You can view the tape.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing. Just that I saw them.”
Gavein hung up.
Lorraine turned pale, and the comb on Zef’s head jutted so stiffly, it seemed to want to jump free.
“It appears I am indeed Death,” Gavein told them. “Stray not one step from us, Lorraine. Sleep like a dog at our threshold, if you wish to live. And the same for you, Zef. Stick close instead of hanging out with your fellow delinquents.”
“So you’re starting to believe that article,” said the young man. “But there could be laws at work here other than what was written in the Courier. One must learn what they are.”
41
That night, Ra Mahleiné had a hemorrhage. When she tried to take a shower, she fell in the stall. Gavein carried her wet to the bed and revived her, as he had done when they first brought her. She scolded him for getting the bed wet. He should have at least toweled her off first…
It began early in the morning. Medved called to say that a mutiny had broken out in Port 0-2, in the quarantine area for whites. Before the desperate women were subdued, three people died—namely, Ross Berg and Linda Newton, who had transported Ra Mahleiné to her apartment, and Agippa Melyanz, chief of the guards during voyage 077-12. Also among the dead was Cyril Pruh, who drove the van that delivered Ra Mahleiné. Gavein knew these people either from meeting them personally or from the accounts of his wife, and he didn’t regret their deaths.
A special news bulletin was devoted to a bomb that went off at the cemetery. The explosion took place during the interment of the two film stars. The attack was the work of a deranged fan, who in a letter to the police revealed that his intention was to hasten the arrival of a new and better incarnation for his favorite actors.
“Frank,” said Gavein into the phone, “some names to add to your list.”
“What!?”
“If you have a TV set there, turn it on.”
“I don’t.”
“…in the blast perished Clinton Prado, G; Miriam Ohindee, B; and Lopez de Gabriel, B,” Gavein recited, after the television announcer. “Eddie Davis, R, died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital. Several dozen people suffered lacerations. The bomb had been placed in a funeral wreath. You’re right, this is simply too much coincidence, Frank,” he said.
Then, for a while, things quieted down. At the bookstore Gavein tried sitting in the back so he wouldn’t come into contact with any more customers. Wilcox was annoyed to be driven from his hiding place. If Gavein had been less preoccupied with his own problem, he would have noticed that Wilcox was coming to work dirty, unshaven, pale from lack of sleep, with bags under his eyes. Again the retired policeman was reading obsessively in that book, Nest of Worlds.
One evening Gavein and Ra Mahleiné were visited by a thin, little man with a luxuriant handlebar mustache. Some little men grew a mustache like that. Perhaps in the mirror, while shaving, it made them feel they had more substance. In reality it made them look like beetles. Theodore Puttkamel was a psychologist who worked for the Division of Science. He had recently joined the team investigating the phenomenon of Dave Throzz. He said that he was made leader of the group because no one else wanted the honor.
“Such fear has fallen upon the professors,” he said. “They want to save their skins by remaining in the background, in the shadow, unknown…”
“And you?” Gavein asked wryly. “Are you using a pseudonym?”
“No, my name is really Puttkamel. A pseudonym makes no sense. If Medved and I aren’t struck down, it doesn’t matter whether you know my name or not.”
“Psychologists,” said Ra Mahleiné, “don’t ordinarily engage in research that puts their lives at risk. It’s the physicists, biologists, chemists who do that. How do you feel in this new situation?”
Puttkamel sat down on the rug, arranged his legs in a half-lotus position, and took a swallow of thin Davabel coffee. Ra Mahleiné had taken pity on the man and didn’t brew the Throzz tea.
“I feel fine,” he said comfortably. “It’s warm and cozy here. And if I’m successful and survive”—he said with a smirk—“then the publications will flow as from a horn of plenty. Unless, of course, it’s all nonsense, in which case I’ll be a laughingstock.”
“You won’t get the better of him,” chuckled Gavein. “He’s a psychologist, an expert at talking… and getting others to bare their souls while saying not a thing about himself.”
Puttkamel shrugged and smiled wanly. Then he got down to work, with his questions. He gathered all the information he could from Gavein and his wife—about Gavein’s life, childhood, education, work history, health. When they were done, he admitted that he had hit on nothing remarkable. He drew up a list, as Medved did before, of the people Gavein had come in contact with. His visit lasted until late at night.
The television was silent on the subject of Gavein, but news traveled quickly. Proof of that was the statement, on the newscast, that many were moving from Central Davabel to the outskirts. The most expensive apartments downtown grew cheap, while dwellings at the edges of the city-continent shot up in value.
Edda lowered the Throzzes’ monthly rent to thirty packets, including dinner. Helga Hoffard was hospitalized, on suspicion, it was said, of a cerebral hemorrhage. Medved informed them that Helga’s name was Intralla, which means “From the inside,” so they could probably add her to the list.
42
In the night someone threw a stone through the dining room window. The broken glass cut Massmoudieh’s face.
Immediately Gavein put in a new pane, working in the light of a lamp held by Edgar Patricks. The air was damp and cold, and the sidewalks were becoming covered with slush.
He saw movement in the darkness.
“Ah, I’d hate to be in the shoes of the fool who threw that stone,” he sang out. “We all know what’s in store for him when he comes to the attention of David Death. The terrible David Death can kill without knowing the name of his victim or even seeing his face. All he has to do is think, ‘I’ll get the one who threw that stone.’”
Not another stone was thrown.
“Was that the truth or were you just putting fear into him?” asked Edgar.
“I don’t know.”
The next day, the papers said that an enraged crowd stoned to death a certain David Lanu, B, suspected of being David Death. In the following edition, David Coles, B, was killed by his wife with a razor while he slept, and David Bharozz, B, was dropped from a window. In each case, the reason given for the crime was that the people wished to rid themselves of a monster.