“Yeah, yeah, he could have. But he didn’t. They took the easy way, and the upshot of it is, they’re in the AAMT’s pocket.”
“A Faustian bargain,” Nadezhda observed.
“That’s right.” Tom picked up more leaves. “And he should have known better, he really should have. He must have felt desperate, back there that first time. Or else he’s one of those smart people who is also fundamentally a little stupid. Or he’s simply drawn to the power.”
“But are you saying that the AAMT is responsible for this development idea?” Kevin asked.
Tom nodded. “They’ve been using the little companies they’ve got in their pocket as fronts, and funding developments like this all over the country. In one small town outside Albany, New York, they were getting resistance, and so they bought its whole city council—contributed illegally to the campaigns of several New Fed candidates for the council, and when they won, it was shoved right through. So they got that one built. They’ve done it all over the country. Once the developments are in place, the AAMT can use them. They’ve got a lot of control over them, and they can use them to build medical centers, or labs that generate profits that can be slipped into the AAMT and used to generate more, and so on. They no doubt would tell you they’re doing it for the good of the nation’s health care services. And maybe there’s some truth to that, but there’s a lot of raw power drive in it too. Putting the complexes in prominent, attractive places—that’s part of it too, and that’s mostly the drive for power, if you ask me. Pretty places.”
“So was this one their idea?”
“That’s what my friends have been told. In fact they were told that Alfredo tried to resist it, at first.”
“You’re kidding!”
Tom shook his head. “Alfredo told them it was a bad idea, and he didn’t want Heartech involved. But he’s in their pocket, see? They’ve got the goods on him, they can twist him like a dishrag.
“Still, he squirmed around trying to fight it. He said, listen, the hill’s protected, it’s zoned open land, and besides the town doesn’t have any water to spare. Tell you what—I’ll try the zoning and water issues and see what happens. If they don’t go, we can’t build anyway. Because he was pretty sure they wouldn’t go. That’s why he started all this backwards, you see? And indeed the water thing didn’t go. But he’s simply in no position to make a deal. They’ve got him, and they said, Hey—propose it directly, and see how that goes. And so that’s what he’s doing now.”
“How did your friends find that out?” Kevin said, amazed.
“Their mole in AAMT has seen this one up close, apparently. She knows for sure, I’m told.”
“Well—” Confused, Kevin didn’t know which of several things on his mind he wanted to say. “Well, hey—then we’ve got him, don’t we. I mean, when this story gets out…”
Tom frowned. “It’s a question of proving it. We’ll need something other than just the story, because the mole isn’t coming out for this particular case. So we’ll need some kind of documentation to back the charge, or they’ll deny it, and it’ll look like a smear campaign.”
“Will there be any documentation?”
“Not much. They don’t write these kinds of arrangements down, they don’t put them in computers. The black economy is a verbal game, by and large. But my friends are looking—following traces of the money, mostly. They seem confident they’ll come up with something on the Hong Kong end of things. But they haven’t yet.”
The three of them sat for a while.
“Wow,” Kevin said. “I just had no idea.”
“Me neither.”
Nadezhda said, “It makes sense, though. There wasn’t much motive to go for this hill in particular.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tom said. “I think maybe Alfredo likes the idea, now. Height equals power, after all, and he’s fond enough of power. But it’s true—now we’ve got more of the story, we can see he’s… hoist on his own petard, to an extent.”
“I had no idea.”
“People’s motives are mixed, Kevin.”
“I guess.” He sighed.
After a while he said, “In a way I wish you weren’t leaving.”
“I’m not going to stop working on it. Most of what I’m doing is by phone, and I’ll keep doing that from the ship.”
“Part of it’s your presence,” Kevin said.
Tom regarded him steadily. “If that’s so, it’s going to change. That part’s up to you, now.”
Kevin nodded.
“You’ll do fine.”
Kevin nodded again, feeling doubtful.
Time passed in silence.
Nadezhda asked him what was happening with Ramona.
Awkwardly, hesitantly, Kevin found himself telling the story. The whole story. The childhood stuff, the softball game, the ultraflight, the night in the hills, the birthday party, the following morning. The little that had happened since.
It felt good to tell it, in a way. Because it was his story, his and his alone, nobody else’s. And in telling it he gained a sort of control over it, a control he had never had when it happened. That was the value of telling one’s story, a value exactly the reverse of the value of the experience itself. What was valuable in the experience was that he had been out of control, living moment to moment with no plan, at the mercy of other people. What was valuable in the telling of the story was that he was in control, shaping the experience, deciding what it meant, putting other people in their proper place. The two values were complementary, they added up to something more than each alone could, something that… completed things.
So he told them his story, and they listened.
When he was done he sat crouched on the balls of his feet, feeling pensive.
Tom looked at him with his unblinking birdlike look. “Well, it ain’t the worst thing that could happen.”
“I know.” But this is bad enough for me! he thought.
He recalled Tom’s long years of silence, his retreat to the hills after Grandma died. Years and years. Sure, worse things could happen. But at least Tom had had his great love, had gotten to live it to its natural end, to live it out! Kevin’s throat was tight.
“There is not much worse,” Nadezhda said to Tom, rebuking him. Then to Kevin: “Time will make a difference. When enough time is passing—”
“I won’t forget!” Kevin said.
“No. You never forget. But you change. You change even if you try not to.”
Tom laughed, tugged at the white hair over one ear. “It’s true. Time changes us in more ways than we can ever imagine. What happens in time… you become somebody else, do you understand?” His voice shook. “You don’t forget, but how you feel about what you remember… that changes.”
He stood up suddenly, walked to Kevin and slapped him on the shoulder. “But it could be worse! You could forget! And that would be worse.”
He stood by Kevin’s side. Nadezhda sat on the ground beyond them. For a long time the three of them rested there, silent, watching sunlight tumble down through clouds.
That night while they were making dinner Kevin said, “One thing that really bothers me is the way everyone in town seems to know about it. I hate people talking about me like that, about my private affairs.”
“Hell, you can’t ever escape that,” Tom said. “People are talking about me and Nadezhda too, no doubt.”
Donna and Cindy and Yoshi came into the kitchen. “The bad thing,” Kevin said, “is that now when I fight Alfredo over the hill it looks like it’s just because of Ramona.”
“No it doesn’t. Everyone knows you’re against that development, and the Greens are too. This thing is only likely to get you sympathy votes. And you can use all the votes you can get.”