“I’m truly sorry, Mr. Pickett, that you’ve been treated so badly these past several days. This business with your grandniece”—he gestured toward the bed—“regrettable. Not the way I would have handled things if I’d been in on this from the beginning. But I’m a very busy man and many people and events make great demands on my time. I’m sure you understand that I cannot get involved in every piece of company business unless it’s clear that my personal attention is absolutely necessary, not to mention justified.” He smiled warmly. “Now that I am here, however, there will be no more uncouthness directed at you or your relatives, and we can work this out like two intelligent, mature men.”
From the bed a sudden, anxious thought: Uncle Jake, don’t trust him!
“Sure, we can talk,” Jake said quietly. “First get him away from Amanda.” He gestured at the bed.
“Ah. Now that presents a small problem,” said Rutherford thoughtfully. “Mr. Drew is, after all, only doing his job.” Drew grinned at the Chairman, then over at Pickett. His hand hadn’t stirred from Amanda’s throat.
“Now if I were to tell Mr. Drew to move away from your grandniece, I’m certain that because he is a good employee he would do just that. However, if he were to do so then we would no longer retain any leverage over your actions, Jake. From what I’ve been told about you, it’s necessary that we retain that control for a short time yet. Once we have left this room and signed some papers and you have consented to be placed under sedation for the forthcoming journey, I promise you that your grandniece will be returned safely to her home.”
“I’m just an old bachelor,” Jake told him. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. I never wanted to hurt anybody. But Amanda says I shouldn’t go with you, and everyone keeps pushing at me, and I don’t know what to do.” His desperation was palpable.
Rutherford glanced sharply at Huddy, frowned. “I thought you told me there’d been no contact between him and the girl?”
“There hasn’t been,” said Huddy slowly. The meaning behind Pickett’s unintentionally revealing comment still hadn’t sunk in.
“No one’s going to push you, Jake,” said Rutherford, adopting as kindly a mien as possible. “You’re going to be treated with care, the best of care. I promise you.”
“You want me to go back with him, don’t you?” Pickett stammered, pointing toward Huddy. “You want me to go back with him to Los Angeles so you can have a bunch of socalled doctors poke around inside me to see how I make things slipt.”
“Whatever you call it, Jake. Yes, that’s the general idea. You’re a grown man. You can make your own decisions. Surely you don’t need to turn to a sixteen-year-old child to tell you what’s best for your future, not to mention your present. No one else will know about it. As to going back with Mr. Huddy, that won’t be necessary. I know you don’t care much for his company, and I can understand why. So no, you won’t have to return with him. I’ll escort you myself, if you like.”
Huddy digested the words and started edging toward the door. He reached it and broke into a sprint. One of Rutherford’s bodyguards walked to the doorway and fired with an air of boredom.
There was a violent explosion, muffled somewhat by the suite’s soundproofing. Huddy’s hand clutched convulsively at the handle of the hallway door. He twisted around and his back slammed against the wall. He stood there, still holding the doorknob, staring out into space with a puzzled look on his face. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to turn out, wasn’t the way it was supposed to turn out at all. He started to slide jerkily down the wall. By the time his rump reached the floor the last of Benjamin Huddy’s grandiose plans had become meaningless.
The bodyguard turned back into the room, blocking the doorway and any further futile gestures.
“Please.” Rutherford heard the voice and turned to look at Ruth Somerset. She was crouched in the corner opposite Pickett, all hint of bravado gone now. “Please don’t kill me,” she whispered fearfully. “It was his plan from the start. He dragged me into it. I didn’t want to join him but he threatened me. I didn’t have any choice. He told me that if I didn’t help him he’d—”
“Be quiet, woman,” Rutherford said disgustedly. “No one has any intention of killing you if you’ll just stay put and behave in a sensible manner.” He gestured back toward the sitting room. “If he hadn’t panicked he’d still be here. You’re not going to panic, are you?” Somerset shook her head quickly. “I thought not. That’s a good little junior executive.” He returned his attention to Pickett.
“That was unfortunate and I’m sorry you had to see it. I dislike losing potentially valuable personnel, but one who panics instead of using his head automatically obviates his usefulness in any case.
“Hopefully there will be no more unnecessarily dramatic interruptions while we decide what to do with you, Mr. Pickett. You must see why I cannot let your grandniece go until I have secured your cooperation. I realize that you can also threaten me. I’ve seen the reports and I have some idea of what this peculiar talent of yours is capable of doing, but I sincerely doubt that you can handle all of us simultaneously.”
As if on signal, the other bodyguard now directed his gun at Jake. Drew also pulled his, his other hand never straying from Amanda’s neck. Three handguns were now pointed at the old man.
“You might ‘disassemble,’ as I believe the late Mr. Huddy referred to it, one or two of these weapons and some of the bullets, Jake, but I don’t think you can handle all of them at the same time. You have to concentrate on one at a time, don’t you?” Jake Pickett didn’t reply.
“What I’m going to ask is that you just relax and do nothing. There is a sedative kit in the next room that Mr. Drew has been utilizing to keep your grandniece cooperative. If you will allow one of my assistants here to inject you with a modest dose, I promise that your grandniece will be on her way home as soon as the drug takes effect. Your grandniece is evidence that the drug is no more than a powerful sleep-inducer.
“Once this has been accomplished, we can proceed without intemperate words and weapons to a sane conclusion. How about it, Jake? You’ve run these dogs a pretty good race up ’til now, but it’s time for the thoroughbreds to take over the track. There are no more motels to run to, no new places to hide. It’s time children were in bed and adults made the decisions.
“From what I’ve been able to ascertain, Jake, you’re an under-educated but rational man. So please, cooperate. If you don’t, then much as I’d regret the lost opportunities for study, vje’ll be forced to kill you. That means the girl would have to die also. We can hardly allow either of you to go to the police to recite your recent history.”
Jake stood there and listened to this completely confident, self-possessed stranger. Someone was using a heavy fist on his chest. He saw the three guns aimed at him, saw Drew’s ugly hand on his grandniece’s delicate neck. All he wanted just then was for it to be over. Let it be over, no matter what Amanda thought. The important thing was to get her home, back to her mother and father, home safe and away from these horrible people. For himself, he no longer cared.
Maybe Amanda saw the change overcoming her uncle. Maybe she saw it in the way his expression twisted, or maybe it was his mind that was twisting. Regardless, perhaps for some other unknown reason, she suddenly raised up in the bed, pushing back Drew’s hand.
“Don’t do it, Uncle Jake! Don’t go with them. They’ll never let me go because I can tell the police what—!”
Drew’s hand moved from her neck just long enough to crash across her face. Her head slammed back against the pillow, bounced once. Blood began streaming from her nose. Jake took an instinctive step toward the bed, his uncertainty swallowed up by sudden blind, mindless fury.
“Drew, Pickett; hold it!” Jake froze, glaring at Drew, who simply grinned back at the old man. Yeah, sure he’s dangerous, Drew thought. Those guys who went into the motel after him were useless. Abilene, that must’ve been some kind of fluke. The old guy’s not dangerous enough to sneeze about. His hand pressed tighter on the girl’s neck. He wasn’t worried anymore. In fact, the whole tableau was becoming rather amusing.
“That will be quite enough, Mr. Drew,” said Rutherford warningly. Drew shrugged indifferently.
“Please, Jake, you saw what happened to Mr. Huddy when he panicked. I know you have better sense than that.” He nodded to the bodyguard on his right. The man vanished into the sitting room, reappeared a moment later holding his gun in one hand and a loaded syringe in the other.
“I know how tired you must be, Jake,” said Rutherford sympathetically. “All that running for a man your age, with a cardiac condition. I have a few problems myself. You see, I understand, I can commiserate with you.” The man with the hypo started cautiously toward Jake. “It’s time for you to relax. You’ve earned a rest. I know all you want is to lie down and forget about all this.”
Abruptly Jake was completely relaxed. It was almost as if the Chairman’s words had provided the surcease he so desperately wished for. He knew now what he was going to do. He didn’t want to do it, but as before these people seemed disinclined to give him any kind of a choice. The lump returned to his throat. If only they’d give him a choice, but they never did. They kept pushing him, forcing him to do things he’d never dreamed of doing, never wanted to do.
His heart was bothering him quite a lot now. It might worsen at any moment. These people would welcome a blackout on his part. It would save them the trouble of having to use the hypodermic. If he blacked out or had a mild stroke they’d gain everything they were after. They wouldn’t even have to return Amanda.
But Amanda was sure they had no intention of doing that whether he was alive or dead, cooperative or otherwise.
He was almost as frightened as he was angry. His head was starting to hurt like it had several times in the past week, though because of the extreme angina he was experiencing he hardly noticed the other. He was afraid that what the dignified visitor said about him handling all the guns and bullets simultaneously might be true. So he didn’t think about the guns, and he didn’t think about the bullets.
A strange gurgling came from the man holding the syringe. His expression went sort of blank. Then it was gone altogether, along with his face. So was the face of his counterpart, and the sadistic face of Mr. Drew waiting tensely on the bed. They were all gone.
From their faces it spread to encompass their skulls, and then traveled down their whole bodies. They came apart in comparative silence. There were no ripping, tearing noises, no violent eruptions of blood and flesh. The three of them just melted from the top down. Most of the human body, after all, is water, and if you make the watery combinations inside the body slipt as Jake Pickett instinctively, fearfully did, there isn’t much left and what is left isn’t very solid. So everyone in the room stood paralyzed as three skeletons collapsed in on themselves atop a reddened, jelly-like mass. Unsupported clothing came folding down on top of former bodies until, under the tremendous surge of disassembling energy from Pickett, even they began to come apart.
Now Amanda was screaming on the bed. The Chairman of the Board stood alone by the doorway, a lifetime of assurance dissolving as rapidly as his henchmen. At last there were only two piles of sticky, maroon-colored sludge spreading out across the floor, mixed with some powdered bone and loose rags. The third mass of slime extended from Amanda Ramirez’s throat down to her legs.
“Stop it, Uncle Jake! That’s enough, stop it!”
Jake Pickett heard her only faintly. The pain in his chest threatened to double him over any second now. It was worse than any pain he could remember. Still he didn’t reach for his pills. There weren’t safe yet, weren’t free. The agony in his chest had progressed to the point where the pills might not have done him much good anyway.
