Psychomech (24 page)

‘Totally,’ he answered. ‘This headgear of mine, and these,’ he shot his cuffs to show her the gold bracelets on his wrists, ‘—they give me tiny electronic sounds which I turn into pictures—but the pictures are only silhouettes, really. Some depth but not much. Everyone is a cardboard cutout, if you see what I mean. As for my physical coordination: that’s mainly use and instinct.’

She stared at his face, at the silver lenses.

‘Go on with your story, Theresa Miller,’ he told her.

‘Why are you so interested?’ she suddenly wanted to know. ‘And just why did you pull me out of that mess anyway? It wasn’t your business—and it might all have been perfectly innocent.’

‘I’ve always tilted at windmills,’ said Garrison. ‘Anyway, it seemed to me that you needed help. And as it happens you did. Also, you’re English. And you’re a lovely girl. How old are you, Terri?’

‘I’m twenty-two—and don’t change the subject! I mean, I would be interested to hear just how you came to be—’ She paused and Garrison could almost feel her frown turning into a smile. After a moment she continued: ‘Yes, let’s change the subject. Flattery gets you everywhere. And maybe I can kill two birds with one stone. You said I’m lovely—but how would you know that? Also, how did you just happen to turn up at exactly the right time last night?’

Garrison grinned. He was tempted to tell her all of it but decided against it. A little knowledge could do no harm, no, but not the whole story. ‘If I tell you the truth will you believe me?’ he asked.

‘Try me,’ she echoed his own words of a few minutes earlier.

‘Well, you see, I’ve dreamed of you—twice. And in my dreams you were lovely. It’s as simple as that. Are you telling me now that I was wrong, that in fact you’re just a plain Jane?’

‘Oh, people say I’m good-looking,’ she said. ‘But—’ And now he heard a sharp intake of breath. She took his right hand in both of hers and leaned closer. ‘Richard, did you really dream of me?’

‘Didn’t I say so?’

‘But that’s quite… amazing!’

‘What is? Clairvoyance?’

‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘more than that. You see, I’ve dreamed of you, too! The night before last…’

‘Oh? Two-way clairvoyance!’ He was flippant, ‘but mainly to hide his sudden intense interest. ‘What did you dream?’

‘I’m trying to remember,’ she said. ‘It came back to me a moment ago but now it’s gone again. It was at the hotel. One of the younger Borcinis, Alfredo, had been paying me too much attention. When I went to bed I locked my door and just lay there wishing I was out of the place. Finally I dropped off to sleep… and dreamed.’

‘About me?’

‘About you, yes—or a blind man, anyway—and about…’ She came to an abrupt halt.

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, nothing. And… the blind man couldn’t have been you. No, it wasn’t you. I’m sorry.’

Garrison was disappointed. ‘You’re sorry it wasn’t me? Can you be sure of that? A blind man is a blind man after all. And though there are plenty of us, I’m sure we’re not just everyday occurrences—in or out of dreams. Is there something you don’t want to tell me?’

‘Yes… no!… Well, if you must know, I also dreamed about this Gareth Wyatt creature.’ She paused. ‘I don’t suppose you know him?’

‘Never heard of him. Where did he fit into your dream?’

She sat back and shook her head. ‘No, it doesn’t matter. And this really is a silly conversation. I mean, my blind man was a real blind man. Not like you at all. And I was..- frightened of him.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘And you don’t frighten me a bit.’

Garrison let it drop—for the moment. Better not to push things. ‘OK, so go on with your story. How come you’re in Italy?’

She shook her head, patted his hand, said, ‘First tell me about your dreams—if you really did dream. I mean, I know it’s silly but I’m interested anyway.’

‘There’s nothing much to tell, really,’ Garrison lied. ‘I just dreamed of this lovely girl, that’s all.’

‘And what makes you think it was me?’

He shrugged. ‘Black hair, small flat ears, lips that are naturally red, large dark eyes—who else could it be?’

‘A thousand and one girls!’ she cried. ‘I mean, a description as general as that?’

‘No, it was you. And you were right here in Italy. And you were in trouble.’

‘Precognition!’ She clapped her hands.

Garrison was pleased. He could tell that she was feeling a lot better. ‘Possibly,’ he eventually answered. ‘Are you interested in ESP?’

‘Not at all.’ She drew back from him a little and cocked her head on one side. ‘Are you sure you’re not just pulling my leg?’

‘Ah!’ He grinned. ‘But that was my
second
dream!’

‘You
are
pulling my leg!’

‘No,’ he said, more soberly. ‘Actually I did dream that I had known you… rather well.’

‘How well?’ She was wary.

‘Very well.’ He was frank.

‘This sounds like a new kind of line to me.’

‘Terri, there are a thousand and one girls who look just like you, you said so yourself just a second ago. If I was simply a dirty young man I could easily have found myself one of the others. Or ten of them.’

‘Oh?’ There was a pseudo-haughty edge to her voice. ‘You’re pretty damn sure of yourself, Mr Garrison.*

‘Call me Richard. And I am sure of myself, yes. I know what money can buy.’

She looked about, as if noticing her surroundings for the first time. ‘This very swish little motor-yacht is yours?’

‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘I’m hiring it. And the crew. For as long as I want them.’

‘And that gentleman?’ She inclined her head in Koenig’s direction, where he sat apparently asleep in a chair some little distance away. ‘German, isn’t he? He’s not one of the crew, and I seem to remember that he was with you last night.’

‘That’s Willy Koenig, who you might call my gentleman’s gentleman—and he’s my friend, too.’

‘Your gentleman’s gentleman…’ she mused.

‘Yes, except he’s sometimes very un-gentle.’

She looked at him curiously for a moment, then asked: ‘Are you really quite rich?’

‘Extremely.’ (A departure for Garrison, who was normally evasive on this point.)

‘Then I was simply an adventure? As you yourself said: a girl you decided to help out of a fix?’

He shrugged, smiling.

‘And you didn’t really dream about me at all. You were just making amusing conversation.’

Again he shrugged, this time without smiling. The conversation was beginning to irritate him. He had been telling her too much too fast—or she had been drawing it from him. Whichever, it now appeared that Terri was deeper than he had supposed. But if the stars and Adam Schenk were to be believed, and if this really was‘T’, things should soon begin to work themselves out. Why attempt to hurry (or to delay) the inevitable?

Abruptly, breaking his thoughts, she dropped his hand. ‘I don’t think I’m amused any more,’ she said.

A vivid picture formed in Garrison’s mind and a feeling etched itself invisibly on his fingertips. Mind and fingers seemed one as they traced a familiar, albeit mental, pattern. His hand jerked as if from a mild electric shock. He seized upon these impressions, voicing his thoughts almost without conscious volition. ‘You have a tiny moon-shaped scar just under your navel. A childhood accident.’

She gasped, stood up… flopped down again into her chair. ‘Dirty young man indeed!’ She sounded disgusted. ‘I hadn’t realized I was that oblivious last night!’

‘No one touched you last night, Terri,’ he said. ‘I find the suggestion revolting—no, degrading! Christ, you weren’t worth touching!’ He let this sink in for a moment, then lowered his voice. ‘I sat up and watched you. I was afraid you might be sick and choke in it. That’s the closest anyone got to you.’

‘But how could you know about… about—’ She was close to tears again.

‘Just believe me. I’ve been blind for some time. Blind people are often gifted with a different sort of sight.’

‘You’re a very strange man,’ she said after a while. ‘But I think I do believe you. What are you doing here in Italy? Apart from rescuing me, I mean?’

He smiled, his anger ebbing as quickly as it had advanced. ‘I asked you first—but I’ll tell you anyway. We’re here on holiday, Willy and I.’

She nodded and bit her lip. ‘I see. And blind and all you saw and—’

‘—Recognized you as a girl from my dreams, yes. That’s more or less the truth.’

She shook her head, her intense gaze attempting to penetrate the reflective surfaces of his lenses. Then: ‘Can I have more coffee?’

‘Of course.’ He could have sighed his relief that at last she seemed to have dropped it. ‘And a little food? I’ll join you.’ He called out to Koenig who immediately came awake, asking him to arrange coffee and sandwiches.

‘Richard—’ She caught up his hand again as he turned back to her. ‘You
are
very strange, you know?’

‘But you’re not frightened of me?’

‘No, not at all. You’re not like the blind man in my dream.’

‘You never told me what he was like?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember what he looked like. But he was angry—and
powerful
Don’t ask me how. Actually, I don’t think it was him I was frightened of so much as his dog.’

Garrison’s heart went cold inside him. ‘His dog?’ His throat was so dry he could not be sure he had spoken the words.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed it, ‘a great black Doberman. A guide-dog, obviously. But I told you. He was a
real
blind man. Not like you at all…’

After that… Garrison conversed with Terri for a little longer. She had come to Italy for two reasons; to try to get her mother to return to England and their home in Winchester, and to have a short holiday and so put herself out of the way in the event that her parents became reconciled.

Having seen her mother in Milan, however-and realizing that at the moment the gap between them was too recent and too deep a wound, but having at least satisfied herself that at present there was no plan for divorce—she had journeyed to Arenzano where she had friends. Except that her friends had moved out of the district some months earlier to an address unknown.

Determined to give herself some sort of rest from travelling, not to mention respite from her emotional upsets, she had then booked into the Hotel Borcini. That had been eight days ago. Two days later, while shopping for gifts and souvenirs in the tiny town, her bag was stolen. With it went her money, travellers cheques and one or two small valuables. Fortunately her return air ticket and passport were safe back at the hotel; unfortunately her passage was booked from Milan and she had not purchased a return ticket. Also, she now owed two days’ board at the hotel.

From then on things went from bad to worse. She was unable to contact her father in England and use of the telephone was expensive, adding considerably to her bill. The Borcini brothers were only too obliging, not only allowing her to bill all her requirements but actually seeming to encourage it; and while Terri had no drink problem, still her nerves were so badly frayed that the only way she could rest at all was to get herself half drunk. This, too, the Borcinis encouraged, inviting her to the bar whenever she appeared on the scene and generally pushing the booze at her; but by then they had also begun to pester her, however obliquely, so that she determined to sneak out of the hotel and hitchhike, if necessary, back to Milan.

Before that, however, she tried to contact her mother, who by then was also unavailable. On the fifth morning Terri woke up to discover her passport and flight ticket missing. The Borcinis told her that she had had them during the course of the previous evening, in the bar. But… well, she had gone to bed a little under the weather, and there had been several strangers… out-of-towners, possibly undesirables—in the bar, and… And they had shrugged. They were sorry, they said.

The only undesirables to Tern’s mind were the Borcinis themselves!—but what could she do? She tried to contact the British consul, tried for hours on end, to no avail. Only later did it dawn on her that the switchboard at the hotel was operated by one of the Borcinis.

Finally she had broken down and begged Carlo Borcini, the senior brother, for his help. The next day, after more abortive, expensive telephone calls and a sleepless, tearful night, he came to her with her passport and ticket. He had traced them (he said) to one of the local troublemakers, a youth he had briefly seen in the bar on the night they were stolen. As punishment, he had warned this person never to enter his hotel again, but he had not reported him, no. The boy’s parents were too important. And to make amends for the various troubles she had experienced while staying at his hotel, Carlo Borcini himself would arrange transport for her back to Milan the very next morning. As for her bill; she could send the money on later.

Her relief was so great that it washed over her like a flood, making her feel sick and weak. She slept most of that day and got up in the evening when Borcini came to her room to enquire if she was quite well, and to tell her that her transport to Milan had been arranged for midday tomorrow. Her gratitude then was boundless; so that when the hotelier politely and apparently innocently asked her if she would care to join him and his brothers that night in a meal and drink at Marios’ (they were celebrating a birthday) she had readily agreed.

Nightmare followed fast on the heels of nightmare.

Her first drink at‘Marios’ had tasted… not quite right; everything after that had seemed addled; she had vaguely known she was in trouble but had been too far gone to do anything about it. The Borcinis had seemed like vultures closing in on her, and there had been nowhere to run.

Now, having heard her out, Garrison remarked, ‘I’ve a mind to go back and let Willy and Francesco and his boys work those bastards over!’

‘No,’ she answered, ‘I’d rather you didn’t. It was all my own silly fault.’

‘You were unlucky,’ he told her. ‘You just happened to fall among animals. And maybe I will go back there one day, just to see what damage I can do them.’

The way he said it left little doubt in her mind that Richard Garrison, if ever he set himself to the task, would be very capable of an awful lot of damage. ‘Well, anyway,’ she finally broke the brooding silence conjured by his suddenly grim mood, Tm very grateful for what you’ve done already, except—’