"The chap with the brain metastases. You saw him a few hours ago."
"Oh, yes. Of course." Bulmer smiled. "He's fine, I'm sure. A remarkable 'spontaneous remission,' no?"
"You read minds, too?" Charles blurted in surprise. That had been exactly what he had been thinking.
Bulmer's smile was laconic. "I've heard that one a few times before."
"Right. I'll bet you have."
He looked Bulmer in the eye and hesitated before asking the question. The question. Because he was afraid of the answer.
"Is all this for real?"
Bulmer held his gaze. "Yes, Charles. It's for real."
"But how, dammit?"
Bulmer went on to tell him about a former Vietnam medic who eventually wound up in the Monroe Community Hospital, where he touched him and died.
A fantastic story, but certainly no more fantastic than Jake Knopfs remission. He studied Bulmer. The man's bearing, his laid-back manner, the pile of notes in the envelope, all indicated a sincere man.
But it can't be!
Charles stood and hefted the envelope.
"I'm going to sift this stuff through the computer and see if any correlations fall out."
"There's a definite rhythm to the Touch, but I haven't been able to figure it out."
"If it's there, we'll find it."
"Good. That's why I'm here. You're going to do a work-up on me, aren't you?"
"Starts first thing in the morning."
"Do a good one. The works."
"I intend to." He noticed Bulmer's grim expression. "Why do you say it like that?"
"Because there's something wrong with me. I don't know if it's stress, or if it's something else, but I can't seem to remember things the way I used to. I can't even remember half the people I cured. But I cured them. That I know."
"Short-term or long-term memory?"
"Mostly short-term, I think. It's pretty spotty, but there's definitely something wrong."
Charles didn't like the sound of that, but he reserved judgment until he had some data to work with. "Rest up tonight, because tomorrow and the next day you're going to be tested like you've never been tested before."
As Charles turned to go, Bulmer said, "You do believe me just a little now, don't you?"
Charles saw something in his eyes at that moment, a terrible loneliness that touched him despite his desire to prove Alan Bulmer a cheap fraud.
"I don't believe in believing. I either know or I don't know. Right now I don't know."
"Fair enough, I guess."
Charles hurried out.
It was late, but Charles made the calls anyway.
He had looked through Bulmer's notes and couldn't believe that the man would put all this down in black and white. He had listed dates and times. He named names! He even listed other physicians caring for the patient! If he was a phony, he was either a very naive or a very stupid one. It would be so easy to trace these people and check out their medical records.
But, of course, if Bulmer was completely caught up in a delusional system, he could be expected to record his imagined data rigorously.
Charles couldn't say exactly why he had looked through Bulmer's manila envelope before sending it down to data processing, but now that he had, he was compelled to call at least one of the other doctors mentioned within the mess to check out a "cure" Bulmer described.
He picked one at random: Ruth Sanders. Acute lymphocytic leukemia. He called information, found the number of the hematologist Bulmer had listed, and called him. After blustering his way past the answering service, he got Dr. Nicholls on the line.
The hematologist was instantly suspicious and very guarded. And rightly so. He did not want to give out privileged information over the phone to a voice he didn't know. Charles decided to lay his cards on the table.
"Look. I'm at the McCready Foundation. I've got someone here who says he cured Ruth Sanders' leukemia three weeks ago. I'm looking for proof that he's bonkers. I'll hang up. You call me back here at the Foundation—that way you'll know I'm really calling from here—and ask for Dr. Charles Axford. Then give me a few straight answers. I promise you they'll go no further."
Charles hung up and waited. The phone rang three minutes later. It was Dr. Nicholls.
"Ruth Sanders' leukemia is in complete remission at this time," he said immediately.
"What protocol were you using?"
"None. She had refused further treatment due to side effects."
"And her peripheral smear is suddenly normal?"
"It happens."
"What about her bone marrow?"
Dr. Nicholls hesitated. "Normal."
Charles felt his throat go dry.
"How do you explain that?"
"Spontaneous remission."
"Of course. Thank you."
He hung up and pawed through the envelope for more "cures" that listed consultants. He found one that Bulmer apparently wasn't sure about: a teenage girl with alopecia universalis—bald as a billiard ball when she came and left the office. He called her dermatologist. After going through a similar rigamarole with the consultant, he finally got the man to admit reluctantly:
"Yeah. Her hair's growing back. Evenly. All over her scalp."
"Did she tell you about a Dr. Bulmer?"
"She sure did. According to Laurie and her mother, that quack will be raising the dead next."
"You think he's a rip-off artist, then?"
"Of course he is! These guys make their reputations on placebo effect and spontaneous remissions. The only thing about this Bulmer character that doesn't fit in with the usual pattern is his fee."
"Oh, really?" Charles hadn't thought about how Bulmer must be cleaning up on these "cures" of his. "What did he take them for?"
"Twenty-five bucks. I couldn't believe it, but the mother swore that was all he charged. I think you've got a real kook on your hands. I think he may really believe he can effect these cures."
"Could be," Charles said, feeling very tired. "Thanks."
With steadily growing alarm, he made five more calls, which yielded three more contacts. The story was always the same: complete spontaneous remission.
Finally he could not bring himself to dial another number. Each doctor he had spoken to had had only one encounter with a "Bulmerized" patient and had easily written off the incident as a fluke. But Charles had a sheaf of names and addresses, and so far Bulmer was batting a thousand.
Charles fought off a sudden desire to throw the envelope into his wastepaper basket and follow it with a match. If what Bulmer had said about his failing memory was true, he wouldn't be able to recall much of the data. It would be gone for good. And then Charles would feel safe.
He smirked at the thought of Charles Axford, the relentless researcher and pursuer of scientific truth, destroying data to save himself from facing the collapse of all his preconceptions, the repudiation of his precious Weltanschauung.
It was a perfectly heinous idea, yet oh, so attractive.
For the events of the day—first Knopf and now these phone calls with the unbroken trail of "spontaneous remissions" they revealed—were making Charles physically ill. He was nauseous from the mental vertigo it caused him.
If he could destroy the data, he was sure he could make himself forget they had ever existed. And then he could once again return his mind to an even intellectual and philosophical keel.
Or maybe he couldn't. Maybe he would never recover from what he had learned today.
In that case the only thing to do was follow it through.
He looked once more—longingly—at the wastebasket, then stuffed Bulmer's papers back in the envelope. He was locking them in his office safe when his secretary popped her head in the door.
"Can I go now?"
"Sure, Marnie." She looked as tired as he felt.