"Fine," David said. "Then we'll proceed."
"And it isn't kidnapping," Peter insisted. "We had an agreement with the man."
"Which he abrogated," Edmond said, "when he left your house."
"And which he reinstated," Peter said, "when he phoned me. He phoned me, Edmond, not—"
"Us," said David.
"Exactly," Peter said. "He phoned us, he asked for either of us, so he was returning to the original agreement, and in fact he said so on the phone, offered to go on with the observation pattern we'd agreed to in the first place."
"An interesting question," Edmond said. "Unlikely, I suppose, to go to court."
"Freddie is very likely to wind up in court," Peter said, "but hardly as the plaintiff."
Robert said, "I know we have an hour, or more than an hour, but let's figure out now what we're going to do when he gets here."
"How will we know when he's here?" asked Curtis, a set designer. "I mean, if we can't see him."
David said, "I suppose he must have some sort of car, to come all the way up from the city."
"That should be something to see," Daniel, an architect, said. "An empty car, speeding along the highway."
David said, "Maybe he has a friend who can drive him," and Peter said, "Or possibly he wraps his head in bandages like Claude Rains in that movie."
"That would be spooky," Curtis said.
Robert said, "All right, he gets here, we see his car or he rings the bell or whatever. Peter and David, you two discuss the situation with him, see if you can persuade him to cooperate, but if it becomes clear he isn't going to cooperate, we ought to have a plan."
Martin said, "Here's what we'll do. Peter, if you decide he's planning to give you the slip again, say, "Harvey,' as though that were somebody's name here—"
Peter said, "Why Harvey?"
"Because that was the six-foot invisible rabbit in the play of the same name," Martin said. "Don't worry about it, Peter, just say "Harvey' if you think we have to hold the fellow here against his will. Then we'll all jump up and block the exits, and imprison him in this room."
"I'm not very happy about that idea," Edmond said.
"But you'll go along with it," Robert told him.
Edmond shrugged those hairy shoulders. "If I must. But, Peter, if you can get his willing agreement to stay, that would be so much better than using restraint."
"We had his agreement last time," Peter pointed out, "and we saw what it was worth."
"Besides," David said, "when he finds out, you know, he's going to be mad at us."
"I'm afraid he is," Peter agreed.
"He's likely to go away," David said, "just out of spite, and then that awful policeman will get him."
"Or the tobacco-company people," Peter said.
"When he finds out what?"
"That it's permanent, of course," Peter said, then looked up and frowned at everybody, to see them all frowning at him. "Who said that?" he asked.
They all went on looking at him.
"It's permanent?"
"Oh, my God," David whispered. "He's here."
"Impossible!" Peter cried.
"Peter," David whispered. "Can he fly?"
"I'm never gonna get myself back?"
All the faces in the room were now ashen. Hair stood up on the backs of necks, throats grew dry, eyes grew wide. Everybody stared all around, even though everybody knew there would be nothing to see.
Martin leaned toward Peter. "Speak to him," he whispered.
Those first two shouts had seemed to come from over by the fireplace, but the next one sounded from the vicinity of the hall doorway: "You dirty bastards! You can't bring me back!"
Everyone was afraid to move. With nothing else to gape at, they gaped at Peter and David. Turning to gape toward the doorway, Peter said, "You shouldn't have taken the other formula, Freddie. You should have been honest with us, and none of—"
"What other formula?" The loud angry voice came now from near the front windows. "I didn't take any formula! All I took was that goddam useless antidote!"
"There is no antidote!"
"Now you tell me? You said it was the antidote!"
"I'm sorry, Freddie," David said, and Peter said, "We did lie to you, we're both sorry, but we had no idea you'd be in a position to take that other formula."
"You said it was the antidote."
"To calm you down," David said, and Peter said, "You said it first, remember? It was your idea. "Oh, yeah, the formula's the shot and the antidote's the thing you swallow.' Remember?"
"You lied to me."
"We were wrong to do that, Freddie," Peter agreed, "but you were wrong, too. You promised you'd stay, and you didn't stay."
"So what was that other thing, if it wasn't the antidote?"
"We had two formulae," Peter said, and David said, "You took them both," and Peter said, "If you'd just taken the one, none of this would have happened," and David said, "You'd be your old self now."
"I can't believe it," the bodiless voice said. It seemed to be moving steadily around the room, like a lion in a cage. "My girlfriend's leaving me because it's driving her nuts I'm like this, and now I have to tell her I'm always gonna be like this?"
"I imagine," said the other William, the screenwriter, "sex is rather odd, the way you are now." He managed to sound at the same time both sympathetic and prurient.
"We keep the lights out."
"Oral, in particular," the other William mused.
Peter said, "Freddie, if you'll come back to the lab with us, we'll work on it, I swear we'll work on it day and night. We'll devote our entire lab time to finding an antidote. I'm sure, if you'll just give us some time—"
Edmond said, "I could draw up a preliminary agreement for you all right now. There'd be profit in it, too, of course, for all of you. Film and television rights, a sort of super magic act onstage—"
"You're gonna make a freak show outta me?"
"Oh, hardly anything that tasteless," Edmond assured him.
"The rose room was nice, wasn't it?" David asked. "You wouldn't mind staying there again, would you?"
"You could put the door back on," Peter said.
"Your girlfriend could come visit you all you wanted," David said.
"We'll study you," Peter said, "we'll show you to the scientific community and we'll all study you, we'll study the effects, and I'm sure we'll find the antidote in no time."
"That's right," David said, blinking, looking hangdog.
"You're lying, aren't you?"
"Freddie, what else are you going to do?" Peter demanded.
"Stay the way I am." The bravado obvious in that voice, he went on, "I'm doing okay, don't worry about me."
David said, "The policeman will get you, the really nasty one," and Peter said, "They know about the robberies you did."
"What robberies?"
"The fur place, and the diamond place. You can't wear gloves, Freddie, you leave fingerprints wherever you go."
"What?" The discorporate voice sounded more exasperated than ever. "Invisible hands leave prints?"
"I'm afraid so, yes," Peter said.
"Goddam it!"
A champagne bottle lifted itself out of its icer, rose into the air, and tilted itself upside down. They all heard the glug-glug-glug, and they all watched in astonishment as the amber fluid flowed down a twisty curvy route through the air and made a bowl of itself three feet from the ground.