The Puppet Master

by John Dalmas

  I was optimistic about my Tomasic project. It seemed to me Hjelmgaard would go for it, and that Tomasic would give us something useful. I didn't have any evidence, but that's how it felt.

  22

  CHARLES TOMASIC

  The nonstop flight to Minneapolis took four hours, plus about thirty minutes waiting at the terminal, riding the air shuttle to the Campus Station, and walking to the ultramodern, tile-faced Steinhof Building where Hjelmgaard was located. I got to the departmental office about four minutes early, and the doctor had them bring me right over.

  Being the leader of the Savant Project—they avoided the term "idiot savants"—Hjelmgaard had an office big enough to hold small conferences. He even had a silver tea service—a monument to the prosperity that had begun with the introduction of the geogravitic power converter. Hjelmgaard was a short, pink, balding blond, and wore old-fashioned on-the-nose glasses over blue eyes. I guessed his age at forty-five. He was forward without seeming aggressive, direct without being rude. After seating me and offering tea, coffee, or hot chocolate, he asked me five minutes worth of questions about myself. His questioning was skillful, and when he was done, he probably knew more about me than most people who've been around me for years.

  "I think," he said, "it's time for Charles to meet you." Then he keyed his phone and waited long enough for three or four rings. "Hello, Charles. Do you remember I said a Mr. Seppanen would be here to meet you today? . . . That's right, the detective. . . . Fine. I'd like to bring him over now. . . . Good. We'll be there in five minutes."

  He broke the connection. "The reason I set our appointment for three-thirty is that Charles is with his tutor till three. Usually he watches television till four, then does his homework."

  Homework? I thought. The catalog had given his IQ as 64.

  "He's quite interested in history and geography," Hjelmgaard went on, "but because he reads rather laboriously, with resulting poor comprehension, he listens to his homework on audio tapes designed especially for the disadvantaged. They're a little like learning tapes for the blind, but the language is simpler and the learning gradient easier. And they use visual material, computer-coordinated with maps, simple charts, and photographs or video footage. And some of the better historical and biographical documentaries. In general, our wards do quite well with them."

  The apartments for the Project's savants were in a wing of the same building, across a courtyard from the office wing. In bad weather you could go from one to the other indoors, through the classroom section, which was the main or base section of the U-shaped building.

  We shortcut across the courtyard, where the planters and tulip beds were splashed with red and yellow, white and violet. Some of the shrubbery was putting out new leaves. Even the young maples were tinged with green from the bud scales separating. It was about as nice a garden as you could hope for in a climate where the temperature in January averages 11 degrees. (I'm interested in weather and climate: I subscribe to the Weather Service's electronic Michigan and National Monthly Climatic Summaries, with statistics out the tubes. And to Monthly Weather Review. Hemlock Harbor, a lot farther north, averages the same January temperature as Minneapolis, but its winters arrive two weeks earlier, as defined by a normal daily temperature of 32 degrees, and end more than three weeks later. And it has a normal annual snowfall of 128 inches, compared to 51 in Minneapolis. We Upper Peninsulers are proud of our winters, especially when we've left them for places like L.A.)

  Hjelmgaard showed me a little of the savants section in passing. They had their own dining room, a gymnasium and pool, a sort of small theater that handles TV, holos, and film, and a social room with an honest to God concert grand piano. According to Hjelmgaard, one of the savants came to their attention because he played the classics on the piano—Chopin, Beethoven . . . without ever having had lessons. And one of their wealthy supporters—a wide receiver on the Vikings—decided the kid needed a good piano to play on. Each savant also had a private room, with the exception of a pair of twins who were inseparable. Hjelmgaard said that in general, they needed the opportunity to be alone.

  When we got to Tomasic's door, Hjelmgaard knocked politely, and a young man's voice called out, "Just a minute." To my ears, it could have been a teenager's, one not into cynicism or being "smooth." Then he let us in. Charles was medium—medium size, medium build, with medium brown hair in the currently mod "bowl cut." He thrust out a hand to shake. His grip was firm but not strong or assertive. "You're Mr. Seppanen," he said, putting the accent on the first syllable, where it belongs. From learning it by ear, I suppose, instead of seeing it in writing.

  "And you're Charles Tomasic," I answered. "It's up to you, but I hope you'll call me Martti."

  He grinned. "Okay. I'll call you Martti and you call me Charles. Dr. Hjelmgaard told me something about you. You're a famous detective."

  I grinned back. "Not really famous. Semi-famous. And you make pictures like nobody else can."

  He nodded. "Yes," he said. "Dr. Hjelmgaard says I do it even better than Ted Polemes did." He tapped his head. "That's why I don't figure things out as well as other people. Part of my brain got used to do my special thing." He looked at Hjelmgaard, who was beaming like a father. "I figured that out myself, didn't I, Clarence?"

  "Yes, you did."

  We sat around and talked for about twenty minutes, then Hjelmgaard excused us, and we left Charles to do his homework. "It tires him to carry on a conversation at that level for too long," Hjelmgaard said. "Then he begins to act childish, and realizes it, and tends to get upset with himself. I tell him it's all right just to be himself, that everyone has their own style, but advice like that isn't always easy to follow." He shrugged. "For any of us.

  "Studying history and geography, especially cultural geography, has increased his confidence and competence in social situations. He's a very special person, entirely aside from his talent, and very interesting as well.

  "He came to us at fourteen, more than five years ago. At that time his IQ was fifty-one. His father had died in the EVM plague, when Charles was only six, and his mother, who needed to work, had left him at a day care center for special children.

  "His talent didn't show up until a Christmas picture—a candid shot—was taken of him with his mother and grandparents. Instead of showing them, it showed a ship at sea: a specific ship—the Alvin S. Baker of the Baldwin Transportation Company." Hjelmgaard laughed. "The uncle who took it couldn't imagine what had happened. The negative was a single frame in an uncut roll! So a week or so later he tried again and got an aircraft, an old Boeing 747. In flight, as if shot from above!"

  Hjelmgaard chuckled. "His mother mentioned it to the director of the care center, not as something Charles was responsible for, but as a family mystery. But the director there had read an article, years before, about a psychic photographer, probably Polemes. Knowing of the Savant Project, she called us.

  "Charles is not autistic, but he was a somewhat disturbed boy at that time. Then our Dr. Pendleton did a series of traumatic incident reductions on him—Pendleton was the first person on our staff trained for it—and it not only stabilized Charles emotionally; it caused an immediate eleven-point jump in his IQ. It's climbed several more points since then, perhaps due to his growing confidence."

  We sat down in Hjelmgaard's office again. "Charles reacted very well to you, Mr. Seppanen, and you to him. You seem nicely compatible. What I need to know now is how, specifically, we would proceed. You said it wouldn't be necessary to trespass."

  * * *

  I wasn't even sure it would be necessary for Charles to leave his room, but according to Hjelmgaard, the Willmar murder case was the only instance in which he'd succeeded in producing a photo of an intended subject. He'd seen the murderer on television, heard about the crime, had an emotional response, and produced what might be termed "target photos." So we acted on the hope, if not the expectation, that if Charles was told about the presumed crime, and then shown the presumed site, he m
ight give us a picture of the crime in progress.

  The fee that Hjelmgaard named was $2,500, to be paid directly into a trust fund that the project had already set up for Charles. I checked it with Butzburger over the phone, and he agreed without even looking troubled. Apparently to him that was pocket money, once he'd decided it was all right to use psychics. And maybe he liked where this particular twenty-five hundred was going. A good man, Butzburger, in spite of his church.

  We ended up with an agreement to do it in three days, or as soon afterward as conditions were suitable. Hjelmgaard was to come along too, of course. He wasn't charging anything for his time and services. All we had to do was cover his expenses. I also told Hjelmgaard I'd like to take along an ex-Gnostie, Fred Hamilton, to advise me as necessary. We called Hamilton at his office—he'd just gotten back from a business lunch—and Hjelmgaard and he talked for several minutes. Hamilton would remain behind if Charles didn't like him.

  Then I called Joe. He had Contracts finalize the agreement then and there, and Hjelmgaard's computer received a copy with Joe's intersig. When I took off from Lindbergh that evening, I felt as if I'd done a really good day's work.

  23

  EVIDENCE—OF A SORT

  I reserved two moderately priced suites in the New Black Angus Inn in Eugene, Oregon, one for Hamilton and myself, the other for Hjelmgaard and Charles. Our flight arrived at the airport a little after noon, half an hour ahead of theirs. We waited for them there and took a taxivan to the motel.

  The idea was to go to bed early, because our chartered skyvan would take off with the four of us at 2 a.m., which meant that Hjelmgaard and Charles would have to get up at half-past midnight. Hamilton and I would make a preliminary overflight at eleven, to make sure there was no reason to postpone or cancel.

  Hamilton and I actually did catch a decent nap. But Charles was wound up like an old clock spring, so about seven, Hjelmgaard took him to a movie. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was going around again. I'd like to have gone myself.

  Our preliminary overflight showed the lodge occupied. A sky limo was on the ground beside it, while a skyvan was parked at the guard barracks. Apparently some bigwig was there, though why I couldn't guess. At that elevation, the ground was still snow-covered. A thought struck me: Wouldn't it be something if Christman was back in residence there, hail and strong. I asked the pilot if there was an aurora in the weather forecast.

  She turned to me with a quizzical expression. "In the forecast?" she said, and pointed. "Look out the window."

  And there it was, not a major display—as a kid I'd often seen better over Lake Superior—but there it was, some cold shimmering curtains, and sheaves of icy-looking bundles of lightspears, shifting and pulsing. I'd been looking down, ignoring up.

  We flew over just fast enough not to look like snoopers, in case we were being monitored from the ground. The skyvan's computer recorded everything our scanners picked up, of course, so we could examine it more closely on the flight back to town. Among other things, it showed a small security patrol—seemingly three men and a dog—near the forest road along the property's lower edge, where there was more chance of trespass. As on our earlier trip, there was no evidence of radar or other electronic activity on the ridge, and no people on it or on the trail that climbed it. The observatory was glass-roofed and glass-walled, surrounded by a wooden walkway and railing. The telescope inside was aligned with an oblong panel that presumably could be opened. Apparently the whole building could be rotated. It was mounted on a circular metal base. Now though, it was dark and cold.

  There was no question. We'd go for it as planned, making another preliminary overflight just before landing there, to be sure no threat had developed.

  Back at the airport, Hamilton stayed with our pilot. I took a cab to the motel, in case Hjelmgaard needed help. He didn't really, though he'd had trouble getting Charles awake enough to get dressed. I helped Charles stumble out to the cab, where he fell asleep immediately. I began to wonder if he'd be functional, but kept it to myself. If there was a problem, it would be Hjelmgaard's to handle. Charles became more alert at the airport, and walked to the skyvan on his own, still not talking, but looking around. After we took off, I told him again what I thought might have happened on the ridge, and what I hoped he'd provide us with. He nodded without speaking, but now his eyes were bright.

  It was 2:16 when we made our preliminary overflight. There was no sign of anyone outdoors now, just a pair of sentry dogs in the run outside the kennel. The sky limo was still there, and an IR reading showed that the lodge was heated to a comfortable temperature. We made our landing approach from the northeast, keeping the ridge between us and the lodge, the dark and brooding evergreen forest barely beneath us. Our pilot set us down carefully about 150 feet from the observatory. Charles still wasn't talking, but his eyes were wide and alive.

  The observatory was on a rock hump, a sort of ridgetop prominence without trees, though there'd been some cut down, both outside and inside the fence. Their stumps had prevented landing closer. As we got out, I realized the sentry dogs had sensed us. They were barking in their run, maybe a quarter mile away and 400 feet lower. I wondered if the security people would let them loose. Even with the distance and the protection of the boundary fence, we walked somewhat hurriedly across the hard, crusty, frost-rimed snow till we were within 40 feet of the observatory. It had been a mild spring night in Eugene; on the ridge it was cold.

  I pointed. "That's it," I told Charles, then stepped back with my repeating Polaroid. Hjelmgaard stood beside me with his own. Charles turned, faced the observatory, and stood quiet for a long minute. My shivering was only partly from the cold. Then he shifted his gaze down the path that led to it, closed his eyes and grimaced. After a long moment he gritted out: "Now!" I pressed the shutter release. "Now!" he repeated, and again, my finger keeping time. Then he turned, facing almost toward the skyvan. "Now!" I exposed a fourth frame. "Now! Now!" Two more.

  His eyes gleamed as he turned back to Hjelmgaard. "That's all, Clarence," he said. He didn't sound retarded at all; at his game we were retarded.

  "Thank you, Charles," Hjelmgaard answered, smiling, then looked at Hamilton and me. "Well, gentlemen." We crunched our way back to the van, where the pilot eyed us curiously as we climbed in.

  Off the ground and flying back to Eugene, I turned on the cabin lights and we removed the prints from the cameras. Hjelmgaard was blasé about what we found, but Hamilton and I stared. Charles had unbelted, and crowding close, laughed delightedly, a strange sound in the chilly skyvan cruising otherwise silently above nightbound mountains. The prints looked as if they'd been shot with Ultracept 1000, instead of Polaroid, the details of faces and figures equal to film exposed in, say, overcast daylight with a proper exposure setting. Yet the background was dark with night.

  The first shot showed Christman walking beside a young woman, both of them wearing down parkas with the hoods back. His arm was around her waist. Behind them to one side, you could make out a man wearing black trousers and jersey, his face and hands blackened. He was half crouched, as if just getting to his feet. The rest formed a sequence, two men grappling with Christman, Christman being injected, Christman being supported to a skyvan while the young woman was carried to it dead or unconscious. And two men pushing and pulling Christman through the door. He seemed semiconscious; his head wasn't lolling.

  The final shot appeared as if taken from the rear of the skyvan's cabin. The woman was trussed up on the floor, apparently unconscious instead of dead, while Christman lay on a side seat, handcuffed and seemingly also unconscious. Three men sat across from him, looking toward him, and each face was clear. In the previous shot we'd seen four men. The fourth was either the pilot, or was with the pilot in the pilot's compartment.

  "Do you know any of them?" I asked Hamilton.

  He shook his head. "Only Christman."

  At the airport I called a taxivan, and had it take us to an all-night restaurant off the freeway.
We were too wound up to go to bed, especially Charles. He chattered about the food, and a place in Minneapolis where Hjelmgaard and his wife occasionally took him for supper, and about other pictures he'd made that he was particularly proud of. I had bacon and fried eggs, buttered sourdough toast, and tomato slices, and listened to him partly because I owed it to him, but also because he was interesting. Charles had strawberry waffles, and respectable table manners in spite of talking so much.

  I looked forward to a few more hours of sleep. But more than anything else, I looked forward to getting back to L.A. and finding a way to identify the men in the pictures. The pictures weren't legal evidence of anything, but they could be a powerful wedge for breaking the case.

  24

  LUNCH BREAK

  The effect of the Veritas had begun to fade; it showed on the aura analyzer. Now the young woman spoke, breaking Martti's groove. "This is a good place to stop for lunch, and the injection is wearing off."

  His eyes had opened. "Ah. How did we do?"

  "Just fine. Excellent in fact. Why don't we eat on my expense account and start again at one-thirty."

  "Sounds good. Do I need a counter injection?"

  "No. A bit of walking will handle what's left. Is there a restaurant you like within walking distance?"

  They agreed on Canter's. It was a bit far, but she was willing and they had time.

  He'd been aware of his monolog as he gave it, aware that he'd rambled, and aware that he had no will to edit as he spoke. As he went down the hall to the men's room, he was also aware that his throat felt none the worse for his verbal marathon. The effect of the Veritas, he decided. It was, after all, a sort of hypnotic.