Mylady stifled her sobs and sat up. "Manager Kurt has been our guest
every month. Protector, John's upset. He's talking wildly."
"Father told me. He said Manager Kurt didn't like him."
"Your father and the Manager were good friends."
He felt a sudden resentment in the woman. Why? The boy didn't feel as
if he was lying. Maybe Esponito had been the kind of man who didn't
talk about his job with his wife. But his son--who would some day be
a member of his father's class--would have received a certain amount
of practical advice. Perhaps Mylady resented being left out of her
husband's professional life. That was a common family pattern, after
all.
George felt impatient. Sordman shot him a questioning glance. "Where
does Manager Kurt live?"
"In Baltimore," the boy said.
"Mylady, may we use your phone?"
"You don't take John seriously?" Mylady said.
"We'll have to ask the Baltimore police to check on the Manager. It may
not mean anything, but we have to follow every lead."
"Use the phone, Protector."
Sordman and George stepped into the dining room.
"We're wasting time," George said. "They're both upset and there seems
to be a family quarrel."
"I know. But Esponito's murder gives us more leads than Bedler's.
Bedler didn't even have a one-month wife when he died. Lots of people
knew the Administrator and might have had a grudge against him."
George clasped his hands behind his back. "We've unraveled twenty-three
murders in the last four years. Judging by that experience, I'd say
there are three possibilities: both victims were picked at random; both
victims are in some way related; or one victim was killed to confuse
the police."
"Unless we have something entirely new."
"That's been the pattern so far."
"I think we're both coming to the same conclusion."
"Find out if the murderer used the picture from the paper?"
"Mmm. If he did, Administrator Esponito was probably attacked on the
spur of the moment. And we should be seeing who wanted to kill Bedler."
"What about Manager Kurt?"
"Have Lee call the Baltimore police while I try to locate the murder
weapon. At least they can search his home for drugs."
* * * * *
George went back to the parlor and Sordman stripped to his yellow vest.
From the pockets of his morning coat he removed a leather case and a
tiny plastic package. Unfolded, the plastic became a thin red robe with
a yellow bomb-burst on the back.
He called it his battle robe. Habit played a big part in the
development of Talent. The same clothing, the same ritualized
movements, helped put his mind in the proper state.
He filled a hypodermic with a pink liquid and jabbed the needle into
his wrist. As the drug took effect, he knelt to pray.
"Grant me, God, the strength to bind the demons in my mind."
He stood up. At this point many Talents danced. Sordman loved to use
his body, but ritual dancing made him feel ridiculous. It had been
proven, however, that the Power flowed at its freest when the body was
occupied, so he took three colored balls from the case and started
juggling.
The balls soared higher and faster. He mumbled a hymn. His voice grew
stronger. He roared his love of life at the world.
The wall between his conscious and unconscious mind collapsed.
Lightning flashed in his eyes. Colors sang in his brain. Walls, floor,
table, chairs became extensions of his mind. They danced with the balls
between his hands. The Universe and he flowed together like a sea of
molten iron.
His hands, miles from his mind, fumbled in the case. The balls danced
and bobbed in the air. He laughed and unfolded his divining rod. The
furniture bounced. Mylady Esponito screamed.
All Creation is a flow. Dance, you parts of me, you living things, you
atoms of my dust!
He had torn Esponito's photo from a newspaper. Now he let the colored
balls drop and stuck the picture on the end of the rod.
"This and that are one in kind. Servant rod, find me that!"
He stretched out the rod and turned on his heels. He sang and blanked
his mind and listened to the tremors in his hands.
Stop. Back right. Now the left. Too far. Down. Correct left....
Here!
He pressed a button on the rod. A tripod sprang out. A pair of sights
flipped up. Carefully he sighted down the rod, out through the
window-wall beside the table, to a grove of trees in the park.
* * * * *
Creation roaring in his open head, divining rod in hand, he stormed
out the door and down the hall. Lee and George hurried after him. The
presence of their well known minds pleased him. There was George's
unexpressed belief that he had "mastered" and guided the Power he
feared. There was Lee's worry for him and her keen awareness of
human realities. And there, too, were self-discipline, intelligence,
affection, and a richness of experience and thought he expected to draw
on for another forty years.
And filling the world, pounding on the walls of existence, the Power.
_His_ power. He, the master of the world! He who could uproot the
trees, spin the earth, make the ground shake and change the colors of
the sky.
He felt George's clear-eyed, good-humored tolerance. A hypnotic command
triggered in his mind. He saw a Roman Caesar ride in triumph and the
slave behind him said, "Caesar, remember you are mortal."
_My_ power? It is a gift from the Fountain of Creation. Mine to use
with the wisdom and restraint implanted by my teachers. Or else I'll
be destroyed by _my_ power.
He laughed and rolled into a cannon ball and hurled his body through
the wood.
"Andy! Andy, you're losing us!"
He picked them up and towed them with him. The girl in the beer hall
cried in his heart. The fox is many hills away and the hound grows
impatient.
They landed in a heap.