Farmer, Philip José - Traitor to the Living (2 page)

A few minutes after she left, she was dead. An old man had driven his large, heavy car at fifty kilometers an hour through a stop sign in a 30-kph zone and rammed through the door of her German import and into her.

Frances went underground. Mr. Lincks, a very solid citizen and very rich, went into the hospital overnight for observation. He had a cut on his head and a ticket for going through a stop sign. Lincks claimed he had not been able to see the stop sign because of an obscuring bush.

It was true that the city had failed to keep the bush cropped and that a stranger might have missed it. Carfax could, however, prove that the old man had driven this route many times. The only witness was a seventeen year old who, it turned out, was drunk and driving with a suspended license. And he had twice been charged though not convicted of car stealing. The last car he was supposed to have stolen had been from one of Mr. Lincks's car lots. It was Lincks's own testimony, given shortly after the policeman showed up, that had resulted in the ticket for failure to stop. The claim that Lincks was doing fifty was based on the youth's testimony, and nothing he said was likely to be believed.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Lincks had flown to Los Angeles and purchased three hours of medium's time. On returning to Busiris, he had been interviewed by Mrs. Knowlton of the Journal-Star. Her article had quoted in full Mr. Lincks's overwhelmingly favorable impression of Western and MEDIUM. Mr. Lincks had indeed talked to his late and dearly beloved wife, and now he looked forward to seeing her "in the great beyond." He was vague about the details of her description of the afterlife.

He had been mainly concerned in finding out if she were happy and in assuring her that he would never be happy until reunited with her and God. He had also spent much time (at $5,000 per half-hour) in telling her how well the automobile agency and his investments were doing. The actual time spent talking to her was about thirty minutes. It had taken two hours to locate her and half an hour to establish her identity, even though he had been sure from the first moment of contact that it was his wife. The FCC required the half-hour of identity-establishing if the session were not free. "Even the dead suffered from too much government interference", Mr. Lincks said.

However, despite the heavy hand of the federal government on free enterprise, MEDIUM certainly "exposed the wrongness of those godless atheists who called Mr. Western a crook and established the eternalness and true verity of the Good Book."

Mr. Lincks had overlooked the fact that the majority of Christian sects denied that it had been proved that MEDIUM could get into contact with the dead.

Carfax, after wading the article, had been swept by fury to the phone. He had called Mr. Lincks at his main office on Lot No. A-l of the Robert (Bob) Lincks Easy Credit Automobile Agency, told him who he was, and then had said, "Why didn't you talk to my wife and ask her forgiveness for your criminal driving?"

Lincks had sputtered and then had said, "If she'd been driving an American car instead of that German tin can, she'd be alive today!" And he had hung up.

Carfax felt ashamed of himself, though he did not know why.

Now, drinking the coffee and watching the birds, he thought of Frances. Perhaps the shame had come because he had always felt that if he had gone with her, he would have saved her. He would have insisted on finishing a chapter before they left and that would have altered the timing, and the old man would have sailed through the stop sign and struck no one.

Perhaps he opposed Western's claims because he did not want to believe that it would be possible to talk to Frances again. Perhaps he feared her reproaches.

He rose and took the empty cup into the kitchen, bright with the new paint that Frances had applied only three weeks ago. The wall clock indicated 09:05. Patricia Carfax had said that she would call him back at eleven this morning, Illinois time. She'd be phoning from a public booth, as she had done the first time. But she'd use one that had a viewphone so that he could see her face and be sure that she really was his cousin. He could compare her features with the photographs of her in the family album. The latest showed her at the age of twelve, but she had not changed so much that he would not be able to recognize her.

Carfax had proposed that she use the viewphone.

For all he knew. Western had put some girl up to posing as his cousin so that he could, in some way, discredit him. Western was, despite all the publicity, an essentially mysterious person. His vital statistics were available, but the true nature of the man himself eluded even the most perceptive interviewers.

Western had made a good impression on Carfax when he had called. His voice was deep and rich and friendly. His big deep-blue eyes and somewhat aquiline nose and out-thrust, cleft chin gave him strength and sincerity.

Carfax knew too well that appearances meant little.

This, plus his prejudice against Western's claims, had made him very wary. Yet he had ended the conversation feeling that he had perhaps made a mistake about the man. Or, at least, he would have to try to be more objective to ensure against making a mistake.

After the spell had worn off, he regained the feeling that Western, despite his seeming frankness, was far from being honest.

Western had not only invited him to come at any time to his place for a free session. He had offered to pay Carfax's roundtrip air fare. Carfax had thanked him and said that he would think about it. He would reply not later than Saturday.

Why was Western offering all this? He was speeding along the road to success with no obstacles of any importance in sight. He had many antagonists but many more friends. Why should he worry because some obscure professor of history had happened to get some publicity about his theory? What could Carfax be to Western other than a minor nuisance?

Or was Western aware that Patricia Carfax had phoned him and so was trying to invalidate anything she might say?

Whatever the real situation, Gordon Carfax had never meant to say no to Western. He was far too curious about MEDIUM. He would have to see for himself what it was all about. And he could never have borrowed enough money to pay for a three-hour session with MEDIUM.

He would, however, wait until after Patricia's call before he called Western. He might even put off phoning until late. that evening. He did not want to give Western the impression that he was eager.

To be honest, he told himself, he was somewhat scared of the idea of sitting down before MEDIUM.

He heard a car draw up before his house. A moment later, a car door slammed. A few seconds afterward, the door chimes bonged.

Carfax grimaced and strode through the living room to the front door. Since the lecture, he had been besieged by phone calls and by visitors. He had changed his phone number to an unlisted one, and he had tacked a sign up by the door.

PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB

WRITE IF YOU MUST COMMUNICATE

But many people paid no attention to the notice.

Opening the peephole, he suddenly remembered the case of the private investigator who had looked through a keyhole and received a spray of nitric acid. The man had been a friend of his, and had, in fact, worked on several cases with him.

Carfax was, however, wearing his spectacles at the moment, so that any acid would be diverted.

He shook his head and grinned, told himself he was getting more paranoid every year, and put his eye to the hole.

The woman was about thirty. She had a pretty face, though her nose was a trifle too long and there were spiderleg lines from the corners of her nose to the corners of her mouth. Her reddish-bronze hair was cut short and seemed to be naturally curly, though it was difficult to be sure of that, of course. She was wearing awhite somewhat rumpled dress over an attractively curved figure.

He knew then why he had thought the hair was naturally curly. He had seen her before, though not in the flesh.

He swung the door open and saw the two suitcases beside her.

"You were supposed to call me," he said. "Come in, anyway."

Patricia Carfax looked like a younger edition of his mother. The differences were that her hair was lighter, her nose longer, her eyes were a deeper blue, and she had legs even longer than his mother's. And his mother had never had that desperate look.

He stepped out to pick up the suitcases.

She said, very softly, "When we go in it might be best to turn up the radio before we start talking. Your house might be bugged."

"Oh?" he said. He picked up the cases and followed her in. He set them down and rolled five long-playing

Beethoven marbles into the stereo. While the Eroica was blasting, he gestured for her to follow him out onto the sun porch. Beethoven continued his function of beauty and of ensuring that electronic eavesdroppers, if any, were thwarted.

"I'll get some coffee," he said. "Sugar and cream?"

"No, thank you. Black. I'm a purist."

Returning from the kitchen, he put her cup and saucer on the little table by her chair, put down his own coffee, also black, and then pulled up a chair close to hers.

"Is anybody after you?"

"I don't think anybody was on the plane with me, I mean, no shadow was. If he had been, he surely would have done something to me before I got here."

"He?"

"Well, I suppose a woman could have been sent to stop me. But I thought all professional killers were men."

"The fact that you're here shows that nobody meant to kill you," he said. "Killing is very easy; especially in crowds or on the city streets. It makes little difference if it's day or night."

She sighed and leaned back and, suddenly, she gave the impression of being boneless.

"I'll bet you're hungry," he said. "Bacon and eggs in a little while sound good?"

"Could you make it a hamburger? I don't like bacon and eggs. But I am hungry! And I'm also very tired!"

She sat up, regaining the appearance of hardness under the rounded flesh.

"But I can't sleep until I get everything off my chest."

Carfax could not help glancing at her full breasts.

She caught the glance, looked down, looked up, saw him smiling, and laughed. The laughter was somewhat thin; the cup shook in her hand; her eyes showed too much white.

She drank the coffee without spilling any and set the cup down with only a slight rattle against the saucer.

She said, "I suppose it was overly cautious of me, maybe cowardly, not to phone and tell you I was coming. But I got to thinking after my call, and it seemed to me that it just might be possible that Western had your house bugged and your line tapped."

"Why?"

"Because I told him I was going to you for help. I shouldn't have, I know that now. And it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I didn't know you, except that you were my cousin and you had once been a detective. I just pulled your name out of a pile of rage, you might say. But I'll get to that. The thing was, really, I wanted to get out of Los Angeles, and I wanted to talk to you face to face. Even with the viewphone, things are so impersonal, and I was sick to death of impersonality, of hiding with no one to talk to. And I knew that that man had been hanging around the entrance of the apartment building down the street from my motel... "

"In Los Angeles?"

"Yes, I'd moved there so I could be close to Western. I mean, not to that motel. I had an apartment just outside Beveriy Hills, but I moved out when I knew that Western was after me. My lease wasn't up yet, but I'd paid the rent three months ahead. And I've moved twice since. I left my car with a friend in the Valley so Western couldn't trace me through it. And I never sent back for it because he may have left somebody to watch it."

"It takes money to hire a man just to hang around one place for months on the off-chance you might come back."

"Oh, Western has it! He has lots of money; he's a multi-millionaire! By rights, that money should be mine. But he has it all, and still he wants to kill me! Just like he did my father!"

"You understand that I have to be objective," he said. "I just can't take your word, you know. So please don't take offense at any of my questions."

"I won't," she said. "I know that I have to prove my accusations."

"You only have to give me some good grounds for suspecting Western. I doubt you could prove anything."

"You're right," Patricia said, sitting up a little straighter and smiling. "You're right. First, I may as well satisfy your curiosity as to why I didn't go to the police and tell them my suspicions about Western. Not suspicions. Facts. Only, the police, you see, would ask me for proof, and I can't give them anything that would stand up in court. Not enough, really, to make them haul him in for questioning. Besides, he's such a famous person now, and so powerful, the police would hesitate doing anything to him unless they caught him red-handed."

"I doubt that," Carfax said. "They might not like to arrest him, but they would do it if they had sufficient cause."

"But if I went to them, then Western would know where I was, and he could get to me. Anyway, I went to a lawyer and presented my case. He told me I didn't have a chance. If I would leave my phone number, he would call me later. He might just change his mind. I said, no, thank you, I would tell him where I lived only when he became my lawyer."

"I walked out, and I took a taxi straight back to my motel, and there is where I made a mistake. I think he sent someone to tail me..."

"Who did?"

"The lawyer!"

"Who was he?"

"Roger Hampton. Of Hampton, Thorburr, Roxton, and Row."

"They have a very good reputation. Why would Hampton send somebody to tail you?"

"Because he thought I was crazy and would get back at Western even if I had to shoot him to do it! I got pretty emotional when I was in his office! But I'm sure that he called Western and told him where I was."

"It's true he hadn't taken your case, but what you told him should have been confidential."

"He may have thought Western was in danger from a maniac and so he told him where I was but didn't say anything about what I'd told him."