“All right,” Paul Bender said. “Your first incident was long ago. Over seven years have elapsed since the last one. That would put the next one years into the future. So why are you so upset about this one?”
“A feeling I have. I’m sure they will come thicker and faster now. It’s as though—well, as though something has finally slipped. I—this one scares me, Paul.” Paul Bender studied his friend keenly. “You’re afraid you’re going out of your mind, is that it?”
“It panics me to think I may be losing control over myself. I’m afraid of what might happen.”
“You should be able to control your fears. You’re a mature, educated man. And I take it there’s no history of insanity in your family.”
“None whatever.”
“Then if I were you, I wouldn’t look upon myself as either a freak or a person out of step with the rest of the world. Just keep your affairs to yourself and see what happens.”
“Do you think they are just hallucinations of some kind?”
“I haven’t the least idea. But look at it this way. Perhaps what’s happening to you happens to everyone. Maybe you’re just a rare specimen with the ability to carry memories of other lives back and forth with you.”
“That’s beyond all concept of—”
“What’s the difference!” Paul Bender snorted. “We’re nothing more than countless miniscules of awareness—sparks flashing off some vast conscious reality we know nothing about. We’re under the absolute control of awareness and unawareness. We walk between them as though they were two great walls. And they both terrify us for opposite reasons. We fear one because we know it and the other because we don’t know it. Our name for God is Mystery.”
“You’ve never indicated much of a religious leaning,” Mike said slowly.
“Nevertheless, I’m deeply religious. We’re all parts of a great and infinite Force and that Power knows what it’s doing. So why don’t you have another drink and stop wasting time by being afraid of God?”
The scotch had had a mellowing effect and Mike was beginning to appreciate Paul Bender’s wisdom although he couldn’t quite put his finger upon anything of great value that Bender had imparted. But at least Bender appeared to understand and that was a comfort.
“Have you told Donna any of this?” Bender asked.
“Good lord, no. She’d put her guard up every time I came around.”
“You don’t seem to have much faith in her.”
“She’s a beautiful girl. She’s popular. She doesn’t have to waste her time on kooks.”
“Also, you don’t seem to have much faith in yourself.”
Paul Bender was putting an edge on Mike’s temper. “For God’s sake, quit bugging me!”
“You could do with a little prodding at times. I’ve noticed a distinct inversion in you. And being a bully at heart, I enjoy it.”
Mike was scowling at his empty glass. “What if these phenomena increase? Suppose they begin to have longer duration? Then the time might come when I can’t return.”
“In that case,” Paul Bender said, “let me wish you success in finding a pleasant existence.”
Mike raised his eyes to study his friend. “Nothing I told you seemed to surprise you in the least. Have you had previous experience with this sort of thing?”
“I’ve met men who claimed the ability to go from one plane to another at will. But I never necessarily believed they could do it. In fact I’ve never had any definite proof that any inhabitable planes other than this one actually exist. That puts you at an advantage. You do have proof.”
“Suppose this had happened to you?”
“I’d consider myself most fortunate. And I’d probably give up this Chair and spend all my time traveling from one plane to the other.”
“I guess you would,” Mike sighed.
“To me, it all sounds incredibly fascinating. So as a friend I beg of you—please keep me informed.”
Mike left the house at the end of Faculty Row, not quite sure whether he had been wise in confiding his problem to Paul Bender or not. He was sure of one thing, though. Bender would respect the confidence.
He was plagued by the feeling that Paul Bender had held much in reserve. Had Bender really believed him? As he’d talked he’d sensed the wheels turning in Bender’s mind and was sure Bender had been making mental references to which he’d given no voice. Nor had much sympathy been extended.
Perhaps it had all been a fantastically clear daydream. Maybe Bender had been really pitying him for his childish apprehension.
More disturbed than ever, Mike took his eyes from his pocket. As he pushed the door key toward its slot in the lock, he stopped and held his hand motionless for a long moment. Then he slowly raised it and stared at his knuckles. They were bruised. He flexed his fingers into a fist. There was a swelling.
He had practically convinced himself that the lapse had been entirely mental. Now that hope was suddenly dashed.
As he opened the door, the fears came back—with a new one added. He hadn’t seen Solonoff move after going to the floor.
Was Mike Strong, among other fantastic things, a murderer also…?
CHAPTER 3
Mike got home just as the phone rang. He picked it up. A guarded voice said, “I got it.”
Mike was surprised. He hadn’t expected the operation to go so smoothly. “Okay. What’s holding you up?”
“I called. You weren’t home. I didn’t want to stand around in front of your place with no satchel in my mitt.”
“I’m home now,” Mike snapped, and broke the connection.
He scowled at the phone for a moment and then went out on the patio and scowled at the vast city spread out before him. From thirty floors up, the people looked like tiny dolls moving along the streets.
The view from his patio was always a source of satisfaction to Mike. It was symbolical of his rise. “A floor at a time—the hard way,” he’d told Lorry the first time she’d looked down from his luxurious suite. “Up here with the eagles, kid.”
Lorry had been properly adoring and Mike liked that. She’d been another of his conquests. Well, not a conquest exactly. She’d tipped over into his arms like a wobbly ten pin. Lorry was the crowning luxury that went with his position and his success.
But at the moment, he wasn’t thinking about Lorry. He was filled with the tension and the excitement of the things of the moment—the deal. Two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money to move safely. It was Mike’s job to take it in and see that various shares got into the right hands.
For all his confident image and the sure, smooth manner in which he worked, Mike ran scared in the maneuvers. He was noted in his circle for the complex arrangements he could create and execute. The secret of success as a fixer was to complicate the payoffs to a point where “all the snoopers ever smack into is a lot of brick walls.”
That had been the compliment accorded him from higher up. Nobody worried when he was handling grease job.
But he never let down; never got cocky; never became contemptuous of the jerks who would make such headlines as:
$200,000 GRAFT UNCOVERED IN MUNICIPAL CONSTRUCTION
Or:
BRIBE