"So can I. I could buy out that whole department in there and cover you with gold. But that's not the point. That's not why I did it."
"Then what is the point?"
"That there's Us, and there's Them. We don't have to answer to them. They deserve anything we do to them, they owe us anything we take from them. They've been dumping on you all your life. It's high time you got something back."
"But I don't want anything from anybody unless I earn it."
His smile was sad. "Don't you see? You have earned it. Just by being a Prime. We carry them on our backs. It's our minds, our dreams, our ambitions that fuel the machinery of progress and give them direction. Without us they'd still be boiling tubers over dung fires outside their miserable little huts."
Lisl reached back and unclasped the necklace from around her neck. She removed the earrings and pulled off the bracelet.
"All that may be true, but I'm taking these back. I can't wear them."
And I can't stay with you.
Rafe held out his hand. "Allow me."
Lisl hesitated, then handed him the gold jewelry. Rafe turned and gave it all to the first woman who passed by.
"Merry Christmas, ma'am," he said as he thrust it into one of her hands.
The gesture shocked Lisl. This wasn't petty thievery. Rafe was trying to make a point. When he took her hand, she didn't pull away.
They walked on and Lisl glanced back. The woman was staring after them as if they were crazy. She glanced at the jewelry in her hand, then dropped it all in a nearby litter basket.
Lisl stopped and tugged on Rafe's arm.
"That's eighteen-karat gold!"
Rafe pulled her along. "She thinks it's junk jewelry. Either way, it's shiny metal. That's all."
Lisl turned her back on the woman and the litter basket.
"This is all so crazy!"
"But exciting too."
"Not exciting—terrifying."
"Come now. Admit that there's a kind of exhilaration buzzing through you right now."
Lisl felt the adrenalized tingling of her limbs, the racing thump of her heart. As much as she hated to admit it, it had been exciting.
"But I feel guilty."
"That will pass. You're a Prime. Guilt and remorse—they have no place in your life. If you do something that causes guilt, you must do it again. And again. Ten, twenty, thirty times if need be, until the guilt and remorse are gone."
"And then what?"
"And then you go further. You crank it up a notch. You'll see."
Lisl felt a chill.
"I will?"
"Sure. You'll see that it's easier the next time."
"I don't want a next time, Rafe."
He stopped and stared at her. They were at a corner. People were streaming by but Lisl barely noticed them. The disappointment in Rafe's eyes nearly overwhelmed all other perceptions.
"This isn't for me, Lisl. This is for you. I'm trying to cut you loose, to free you to fly and reach the heights of your potential. You can't fly if you won't kick off the shackles they've used to hobble you all your life. Do you want to kick free or not?"
"Of course I do, but—"
"No buts. Are you going to stay chained down here or are you going to fly with me? The choice is yours."
Lisl saw how serious he was, and realized in that moment that she could lose this man. Yes, he was young, and yes, she had lived almost half again as many years as he had, but dammit she could not remember ever feeling this good about herself, about life in general. She felt like a complete woman, an intellectual and sexual being for whom there were no limits. She felt a certain greatness beckoning; all she had to do was follow the call.
And it was all due to Rafe. Without him she'd still be just another math nerd.
Nerd. God, she hated the word. But she'd always been a nerd. She knew it and was brave enough to admit it: She was a nerd to the bone and she was tired of it. She didn't want to be who she was, and here was Rafe offering her a chance to be somebody new. And if she didn't take that chance, what would he do? Would he turn his back and walk away? Give up on her as a lost cause?
She couldn't stand that.
But it wouldn't happen. She was through being a nerd. The new Lisl Whitman was going to take control of her life. She was going to squeeze the last drop of juice from it.
But she didn't want to steal. No matter what Rafe said about other people owing it to her, the idea of stealing stuck in her craw. And no matter how many times she did it, she knew she'd still feel guilty.
She could pretend to go along, though. Pretend that she'd overcome any guilt or remorse about it and then they could quit that and move on to quieter, saner pastimes. Rafe was so radical, so intense, but she was sure that was all due to his youth. A little time and she knew she could mellow him.
She smiled at him.
"All right. I'm ready when you are. When's the next caper?"
He laughed and hugged her. "It's now. It's right up the street. Let's go!"
"Great!" she said, reaching into her bag to hide the sinking feeling inside. She pulled out a stack of envelopes.
"What are those?"
"The Christmas party invitations. I finished addressing them this morning."
She dropped them in the mailbox and sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn't be in jail for her party.
EIGHT
Everett Sanders stepped off the bus from the campus at his usual stop and walked the three and a half blocks home. Along the way he picked up his five white, short-sleeved shirts—boxed, no starch—from the cleaners. He owned ten such work shirts, kept five at home and five in the cleaners at all times. He made his usual stop before the front window of Raftery's Tavern and peered inside at the people gathered there in the darkness to drink away the afternoon and the rest of the evening. He watched for exactly one minute, then continued on to the Kensington Arms, a five-story brick apartment house that had been built in the twenties and somehow had managed to survive the Sun Belt's explosion of new construction.
He had the day's mail arranged in proper order by the time he reached his three-room apartment on the third floor: the magazines and mail-order catalogs on the bottom, then the second- and third-class mail, then the first-class envelopes. Always the first-class mail on top. That was the way it was done. He just wished the mailman would put it into his box that way.
Ev placed the mail in a neat pile where he always placed it: on the table next to his La-Z-Boy lounger, then made his way to the kitchenette. The apartment was small but he saw no sense in moving to a bigger place. What would he do with the extra room? It would only mean more to clean. He never had company, so what would be the point? This efficiency was fine for him.
He spotted a smudge of dust on the glossy surface of the tiny dining table as he passed and pulled out his handkerchief to buff it away. He glanced around the living areas. Everything was in order, everything clean and exactly where it should be. The television was over by the sofa and lounger in the living room; the computer terminal was dark and dumb on the desk in the dining area. The plaster walls were bare. He kept telling himself he should get something to hang on them, but every time he went to look at paintings he couldn't find anything that appealed to him. The only picture he had was an old photograph of his ex-wife that he kept on the night table.
In the kitchenette Ev measured out exactly half a cup of unsalted, dry-roasted peanuts into a paper cup. He returned with this to the lounger. This week's novel was Hawaii, a fat one. He'd have to get to today's quota of pages immediately after dinner. He nibbled on the peanuts one at a time as he began opening the mail. First class first, of course.
The invitation to Lisl's party surprised him, and pleased him to no end. What a sweet woman she was to include him in her plans. He was touched. He had a warm feeling for Lisl, and although her intention to prepare a paper for the Palo Alto conference was a direct challenge to his own bid for tenure, it did not alter his feelings for her. She had every ri
ght to go for it. And after what he'd overcome in the past, Everett was hardly afraid of a challenge, especially from a respected colleague like Lisl.
But he'd have to turn down her invitation. A party of that sort was out of the question.
He noted that the address was not Lisl's but a place in that exclusive new development, Parkview. Probably belonged to that Rafe Losmara she had been seeing.
Poor Lisl. She no doubt thought she was being so discreet and low-key, but her affair with that rich graduate student was the talk of the department.
Ev wondered what this Rafe Losmara saw in her. He too was reputed to possess a brilliant mind, perhaps the equal of Lisl's, but he was almost ten years her junior. Why was he pursuing an older woman? Lisl couldn't help him academically—she was in a different department than he. So what was his game?
None of my business, he told himself.
And perhaps he wasn't being fair to Lisl. She was an attractive woman—at least Ev had always found her so—and even more attractive now that she was slimming down. There was no reason why she shouldn't have many men chasing after her.
Which made the pool among the other members of the math department all the more offensive. When they'd approached him to see if he wanted to place a wager on how long Lisl's romance would last, he'd coldly dismissed them. He should have given them hell, should have gone to LisI with it, but he lacked the nerve, and hadn't the heart to bring her hurtful news.
He hoped Lisl and this Losmara fellow stayed together for a long time, just to show up the fools in the department.
But what of that groundskeeper? Ev still saw Lisl taking lunch with him. He wondered how he felt about her relationship with Losmara.
Will Ryerson put off opening the envelope. He knew what it was. He dropped it on the kitchen counter and wandered the main room of the house he'd been renting for the past three years. The tiny ranch was old and damp; built on a concrete slab but that hadn't stopped the termites from establishing themselves in the walls. He swore there were some nights when he cquld lie awake in the silent darkness and hear them chewing. The house was situated on a large wooded lot in the center of a dense stand of oaks. He never had to go outside to know when fall arrived—the acorns raining on his roof heralded the return of cool weather.
Nothing here belonged to Will but the food, the linens, and the Macintosh on the dining-room table. The house came furnished. And decorated, so to speak. The previous renter had run a roadside stand specializing in velvet paintings. According to the landlord, that tenant had fallen behind in his rent and had simply disappeared one night, leaving behind some of his stock. The landlord had taken a few of the choicer works for himself and had hung the rest in the little ranch, literally covering the walls with them. Everywhere Will turned he faced yards of black velvet smeared with garish colors—yellow lions, orange-striped tigers, sad-eyed clowns, purple-white rearing stallions, and multiple, idealized studies of good old Elvis—the later Elvis, the glitter-sprinkled, high-collared, white-jumpsuited King of Rock V Roll.
Will had found the collection unsettling when he'd first moved in, but he'd become used to them over the years. Lately he'd found himself actually growing fond of one or two. That worried him.
Will picked up the envelope again and stared at it without opening it.
The party.
Lisl talked about little else these days. And she never let up on pestering him to come. She saw it as her big chance to get him together with Rafe Losmara. Rafe, Rafe, Rafe. Will was tired of hearing about him. In a way, he wanted very much to meet the man who had stolen Lisl's heart so completely. He was curious as to what kind of man—younger man, no less—could engender that level of infatuation in such an intelligent woman. And in another way he dreaded the meeting, fearing he'd discover that Rafe Losmara had feet of clay.
No use in putting it off. He tore open the envelope.
There it was. After all his refusals she'd gone ahead and invited him anyway. A holiday party, from eight till whenever, the Saturday before Christmas. At Rafe's Parkview condo.
It sounded nice. Too bad he couldn't go. Not only would he feel out of place—a laborer mingling with the professors—but there'd be telephones there.
And then he saw the inscription at the bottom of the inside page.
Will—
Please come. I don't have many friends, but I want them all
at the party. And it won't be a party at all if you're not there.
Please?
Love, List
Guilt. How could he say no to that? He hated the thought of letting her down, but he couldn't go. It was impossible. Or was it? Maybe there was a way. He'd have to think on it…
NINE
Will was on his third cruise through the Parkview complex now. He'd passed Rafe Losmara's condo on each circuit, but each time had been unable to stop and go in. He felt like an awkward teenager, driving past the home of the prettiest girl in school, endlessly circling the block because he was too shy to knock on her door.
No doubt about where the party was. Will could have found it without the address. The gallimaufry of cars cluttering the curbs in front of Losmara's unit told the story.
Finally he forced himself to pull his Chevy into the curb, but he kept the engine running.
"Okay," he muttered. "Decision time."
Was it worth it? That was the question. He was already an hour late. The smart thing would be to turn around and head for home and forget about Christmas parties.
He could see them standing in the windows, drinks in hand, laughing, talking, posing. He didn't belong in there. They were faculty and he was maintenance. And he hadn't been in a social situation for so long he was sure he'd commit some gaffe within the first ten minutes.
But these were all minor excuses. The telephone—that was the obstacle that really counted. What was he going to do about the damn telephone? Telephones. There had to be more than one in Losmara's three-story unit.
And within minutes of entering a room with one it would ring, that long, eerie ring, and then they'd hear that voice, and if Will was close enough he'd hear it too, and even after all these years he couldn't bear to hear that voice again.
But he had a plan. And it was time to act. Time to take a chance.
Will turned off the engine and got out of the car. At the front door to the townhouse he paused, fighting the urge to flee. He could beat this. He could.
Now or never.
Without knocking, he stepped inside and grabbed the arm of the nearest person—a tweed arm with a suede patch over the elbow. A bearded face turned toward him.
"Hi," Will said with all the confidence he could muster. "I've got to check in with my service. Where's the phone?"
"I believe I saw one over on the table next to the sofa in the front room there."
"Thanks."
Immediately Will began to worm his way through the guests, focusing straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with anybody, aiming for the sofa. A white sofa. A white rug. White walls. Everything white. The guests looked out of place, obtrusive. They wore every color but white.
There it was. To the left of the sofa. The phone. White, of course.
Will's plan was simple: He'd locate the phones one at a time, make a beeline for them, and disable them.
The first one was right in front of him. He reached for it but a tubby figure suddenly blocked his way.
"Why, Will Ryerson!" said a familiar voice. "Is that you? Praise the Lord, I almost didn't recognize you in that jacket and tie!"
It was Adele Connors, Lisl's secretary friend from the math department.
"Hello, Adele. Look, I've got to—"
"Oh, Lisl was so hoping you'd show up." She glanced around. "Isn't it strange here? Doesn't it make you feel funny! I mean, look at those paintings," she said, lowering her voice and pointing at the abstracts. "There's something unholy about them. But not to worry. The Lord is with me. And Lisl will be so glad you're here."
"Uh-huh."
>
He tried to slip around her but there was no room to get by. My God, the phone!
"She wanted you here so bad but didn't think you'd show up. So last night I prayed to the Lord that you'd be here today, and see? Here you are!"
He could feel the sweat breaking out all over his body. Any second now, that phone was going to ring. Any second…
"I've got to make a call, Adele."
"You know," she said, "not enough people at Darnell appreciate the power of prayer. Why, just the other day—"
Will pushed past her and lunged for the phone. He yanked up the receiver.
Safe! At least for the moment. It couldn't ring while it was off the hook.
That had been his original plan: Find a phone, lift the receiver, and leave it off the hook. But then it would begin to howl, or someone would see it off the hook and replace it on its cradle. His new plan was better.
Positioning his body between the phone and the rest of the room, Will reached around to the rear of the base and undipped the jack. This phone was now cut off from the rest of the world. No wire, no calls. Simple but effective.
He hung up the receiver and turned back to Adele. She was looking at him strangely.
"What was so important that you had to almost knock me over to get to the phone?"
"Sorry. Had to check on something. But there's no answer." He looked around the room. "Where's our hostess? I'd like to say hello."
"In the kitchen, I think."
The kitchen. Most likely there'd be a phone there as well.
"Thanks, Adele," he said. "I'll see you later."
Will wove through the living room, went right around a corner, then left toward the back, and there was the kitchen. There was Lisl as well. She was placing canapes on a cookie sheet, spacing them evenly and sliding them into the oven.
Will had to stop and look at her. She wore white, the same white as the rest of the condo, a dress of some soft fabric that clung in all the right places, its whiteness broken only by the red and green splash of holly above her left breast. He had always found her attractive, but she looked beautiful today. Radiant.
Whoever had said white wasn't a good color for blondes obviously had never seen Lisl.
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