“Oh yeah, now I remember. You were going to check him out in person.”
“That’s just what what I did. Went up to offer him a job that would get him out of the area and away from the nosy. He refused the job again, but he was so pleased with the cleanup work that I didn’t feel he presented a real threat. He’s sharper than the average site-proximate citizen, but it’s more native cunning than real intelligence.”
“If he’s no problem, why bring him up now?”
“As I was leaving, Pickett performed a few little tricks for the neighborhood delinquents. Then he did a couple especially for me.”
Somerset didn’t look quite so pretty when she was confused. “The point of which is what, Benjy? I don’t see where you’re going with this.”
Huddy took a deep breath before continuing. “I have reason to believe that the proximity of the Pickett family to the dump site and continuous exposure to its contents has, over a period of time, resulted in a genetic mutation which has manifested itself in the person of Jake Pickett in the ability to utilize that paranormal ability commonly known as telekinesis.”
She stared at him. When she was sure he wasn’t kidding around she burst out with the high, delicate trill that was Somerset laughter. Huddy didn’t join in, simply waited patiently.
“You are serious! Benjy, you’ve got to stay away from science-fiction films. They’re a bad influence on you.”
“Most people are quick to laugh when anyone brings up the subject of parapsychology,” he murmured. Since he’d expected it, her reaction did not upset him. Indeed, he would have been disappointed if she’d reacted in any other way. “What about that Israeli, Uri Geller? The one who bends spoons by looking at them? What about those people who develop film simply by thinking pictures onto the negatives? What about Kirlian photography? And there are other examples.”
“I watch the news, read the papers,” she responded. “Explanations exist for every example you mention.”
“And maybe there’s one I’m not seeing for what this Pickett can do. Come on, Ruth, you know me. I’m the strictest pragmatist you’ve ever met. I’m not given to flights of fancy and I require hard evidence before I’ll believe a plane can fly or a new employee can do the job. But dammit Ruth, I saw this! It happened. It happened right in front of my eyes. I hadn’t been drinking and I wasn’t high.”
“You saw what happen?” Her voice was calm now, careful. She didn’t want to antagonize him, and he was so positive.
“I saw him remove bottle caps from tightly capped beer bottles without touching them. I was holding the bottles, and I’d tried the caps first. They were on tight.”
Somerset leaned back in the chair. The white blouse and black skirt were suddenly pulled taut over a deceptively voluptuous body and for a moment Huddy had another kind of tight on his mind.
“Bottle caps. For bottle caps you drop everything and run around shouting that the sky is falling?”
“Not just that, no,” he said, unmoved by her sarcasm. “After that he asked if I wanted to see another trick. I said that I did. So he cleaned my car.”
“What?” She frowned at him.
“He cleaned my car, the Eldo,” Huddy repeated, pleased by her reaction, “without touching it.”
For the first time there was a hint of real interest in her voice. She wasn’t patronizing him now. “He did what?
Huddy rose and began pacing back and forth behind his desk. As he talked his hands stirred the air like those of an Italian traffic cop. He was full of nervous energy and excitement and managed to convey some of both to Ruth.
“I stood there and he volunteered to show me another trick. He said, ‘Your car’s dirty,’ and I said yeah, and the next time I looked at it there wasn’t a speck of road dirt on it. Even the wire wheels looked like they’d just come through the wash. I couldn’t have turned my attention away from it for more than a few seconds. A few seconds. I’d just climbed a filthy dirt road. The underside of the Eldo was all gunked up. This old man grins at it and it’s showroom neat.
“He didn’t wash it off, somehow. I checked for that right away. It was as dry as morning. God knows where any water could’ve come from anyway. I’m thinking about this, thinking hard, all the way back on the Freeway. And the only explanation I can come up with is that somehow he moved that dirt without touching it. So help me.” He stopped pacing and stared at her expectantly.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” she said slowly.
“Very clever. Move two squares forward. Do not pass Go.”
“Shut up and let me think, lover. You said there were a lot of kids around and that this Pickett plays with them a lot. Maybe they had something going together. Maybe the kids jiggled the car somehow when you weren’t looking.”
“That road grime was caked on, Ruth. To knock it loose you’d have had to drop the car from ten thousand feet. But your choice of words is propitious. Only I don’t think the car was jiggled. I think the dirt was.”
She considered his attitude as well as his words. She knew Benjamin Huddy pretty well by now. She doubted he was playing some kind of elaborate trick on her. He wasn’t the practical joker type and even if he’d been so inclined, this wasn’t the kind of joke he’d choose to perpetrate.
“I studied all the medical records relevant to site-proximates,” she reminded him. “There are no suggestions of, uh, paranormal abilities in any of the personal histories.”
“Maybe not, but there’s plenty of mention of other kinds of abnormal developments. Premature deaths among children born to site-proximate parents. Physical deformities. Why not mental deformities as well? If Pickett’s the only one, it’s hardly surprising that nothing would appear on his chart.”
“Funny,” Somerset murmured, “if anyone was likely to develop paranormally, Pickett’s family would be the likely place to look for one.”
“Exactly,” said Huddy. “Both of his parents and his sister developed cancer. I’m surmising that the same carcinogens that killed them also affected Pickett, but in a non-fatal and highly unique fashion. He has heart trouble. That’s probably traceable to site exposure. He also has something else.”
“You really think this is worth pursuing, Benjy?”
He nodded slowly. “And then some.”
“Alright. How do you intend to proceed?”
“First I need to make arrangements to have Pickett watched. Particularly when any of the local kids gather around him. We should be able to monitor him fairly tightly even at a distance. Use Foraker’s people. They’re pros and they’re patient, and they won’t ask unnecessary questions.”
Somerset nodded, making mental notes. “What am I supposed to tell them to look for?”
“Parlor tricks. Sleight of hand. Anything out of the ordinary. I want anything he does for those kids videotaped. This is all superficial anyway. We’ll really find things out when Pickett arrives for his tests.”
“He agreed to submit to testing?” Somerset’s eyebrows lifted.
“He thinks he’s coming in for a free medical exam. Which he’ll receive. Only it’ll be a lot more extensive and sophisticated than he thinks. Why shouldn’t he come in? There’s no reason for him to think we have an unusual interest in him.”
“You said he was sharper than he first appeared. Native cunning, you called it. What if he gets suspicious? What if he finds out that you’re interested in him because you think living next to the dumpsite has had some kind of permanent effect on him? Perhaps he already suspects it may have had something to do with the premature deaths of his parents and sister. You do anything to reinforce that belief and he’s liable to go looking for someone official to complain to.”
