"No one took advantage of me, Lisl. I saw a fellow human being who needed a hand; I had no place I was hurrying to, so I lent him one. That's all. No big thing. I come away feeling a little better about myself, he goes away feeling better about other people. And somewhere inside I have this hope that I've started some kind of chain letter: Maybe the next time he sees someone who needs a hand, he'll stop. That's what it's all about,
Lisl. We're all in this mess together."
"Why do you need to feel better about yourself?"
The question caught him off guard. Lady, if you only knew.
"I… I think everybody does, a little. I mean, how many people don't feel they could be better or do better? I like to feel I can make a difference. I don't mean changing the world—although, come to think of it, if you make a change for the better in one person's life, you have changed the world, haven't you? An infinitesimal change, but the world, or at least a part of it, is better for your passing." He was pleased with the thought.
"If you want to be a sacrificial lamb, I'm sure you'll find plenty of people standing in line for a piece of you."
"But I'm not talking about sacrifice. I'm talking about simple good fellowship, acting like just another crewman on Spaceship Earth."
"But you're not a crewman. You're an officer. Think about it, Will. Can any of them do anything—really do anything—for you?"
He thought about that, and was frightened by the answer. Who out there in the world could help him? Was there anyone who could put his life right again?
"No," he said softly.
"Exactly. Primes stand alone. We're islands. We have to learn to exist apart from the rest."
Bill stared straight ahead at the road. Lisl, you don't want to be an island. I know what it's like. I've been an island for five years, and it's hell.
And then something she'd said struck a discordant note in his brain.
"Primes? Did you say Primes? What's that?"
She then launched into this involved dissertation on Primes and "others," punctuated everywhere with the phrase "Rafe says."
"What a load of elitist bullshit!" Bill said when she was through. "Does Rafe really believe that garbage?"
"Of course," she said. "And it's not garbage. That's your cultural conditioning speaking. Rafe says—"
"Never mind what Rafe says. What does Lisl say?"
"Lisl says the same thing. You and I and so many others have been conditioned to deny who we really are so that we can be more easily used. If you look around you, really look at the world, you'll see that it's true."
Bill stared at her.
"What's the matter with you, Leese?"
She turned on him, her face contorted with anger.
"Don't say that to me! My parents always said it and I don't want to hear it ever again!"
"Okay, okay," Bill said soothingly, startled by the outburst. "Be cool. I'm not your parent."
He spent the rest of the ride back to town trying to explain the shortcomings of Rafe's perverted egoism, how egoism in itself wasn't wrong, but when it refused to recognize the validity of all the other Fs around it, the result sacrificed not only logic but compassion as well.
But Lisl wasn't having any of it. She'd bought into Rafe's philosophy completely.
Slowly, a deep unease wormed through Bill.
What was happening here? It was almost as if Rafe had been reshaping Lisl from within—right under Bill's nose.
He saw how it had happened. Someone as vulnerable as Lisl was a sitting duck. A poor self-image, emotionally battered, and suddenly there was this enormously attractive young man telling her she's not the ugly duckling she's always considered herself, but a swan. A little love and affection to ease the deep emotional pains from her divorce, a little tenderness, a little patience, and Lisl opened up to him. But having her physically wasn't enough, apparently. He'd gone on to seduce her mind as well. Once her defenses were completely down, he began to fill the vacuum of her valueless upbringing, whispering a twisted philosophy that offered an easy road to the self-esteem she'd been denied for most of her life. But it was false self-esteem, gained at others' expense. And during the course of his remodeling job, Rafe had made himself Lisl's sun; she revolved around him now, her face turned always toward him, only him.
As they pulled into town, Lisl asked Bill to drop her off at the downtown lot where she'd left her car.
"Thanks for the ride, Will. It was great. But I want to get you and Rafe together real soon. He'll open your eyes. Wait and see—it'll be the best thing that ever happened to you."
She waved, then turned and headed for her car. Bill felt a terrible sadness as he watched her go.
I'm losing her.
Not losing her body, not her love—they weren't the important things for Bill where Lisl was concerned—but her mind, her soul.
Rafe. What was he doing to her? His involvement here seemed almost… sinister. But that had to be Bill's latent paranoia rearing its head. There was no plot here. Rafe was simply drawing Lisl into his own warped view of the world. Warped people tended to do that.
But in doing so he was turning Bill's only friend in the world •into a stranger. Bill wasn't going to allow that. Lisl was too innocent, too decent a person at heart for him to sit back and watch all that was good within her get sucked down the black hole of a philosophy like Rafe's.
He had to help her fight back, even if she didn't want to fight back.
Bill knew he was late coming to the battle. He hadn't even known it was being waged until today. But he could not sit on the sidelines any longer.
The first order of business was to learn a little more about Rafe Losmara.
TWENTY-ONE
Everett Sanders sat alone in his office and chewed his twentieth white grape. He hadn't been able to find any decent peaches yesterday, so he'd settled for the grapes. He folded the Ziploc bag he'd brought them in and slipped it back into his brown paper lunch bag. He stashed the bag in his briefcase.
There. Lunch was done. Time for cigarette number six. He lit up and reached for his novel of the week: The Scarlatti Inheritance by Robert Ludlum. He was enjoying it immensely; so much so that he had read well past yesterday's quota of pages last night. He pulled the little notebook from his breast pocket. Yes, there it was. Last night's entry. He had actually completed today's quota before he'd finally turned in.
Which left Ev in something of a quandary. Any more reading during his lunch break today would put him further ahead, opening the possibility of having nothing to read on Saturday. Of course he could ahvays start next week's book—usually first opened on Sunday afternoon—on Saturday, but that would move everything out of sequence for the coming week and he might be faced with an even worse problem next weekend.
A domino dilemma. Perhaps a book of short stories might solve the problem… he could sample a few as needed and then—
No. It was novels he liked and novels he would read.
Why not skip reading altogether today? It was Wednesday, after all, and he did have the meeting tonight. If he stayed a little later he could come home and go directly to bed at his usual hour of 11:30, immediately after the late news. All he had to do now was find a way to kill the lunch-hour time and he'd be almost home free.
But he had no backup plan for this lunch hour. That meant free time. Ev didn't like free time. It wasn't good for him. He knew from past experience that if he allowed his thoughts to roam free too long, they would roam the wrong way.