Extraordinary Powers

by Joseph Finder

  And then Molly was awake. Had she felt my breath on her face? Her eyes opened slowly, focusing on me. She jolted upright. “What is it, Ben?” she asked urgently.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “What time is it? Is it seven?”

  “It’s six.” I hesitated, then said: “I want to talk.”

  “I want to sleep,” she grumbled, and closed her eyes. “Talk later.” She rolled over on her side and clutched the pillow.

  I touched her shoulder. “Mol, honey. We have to talk now.”

  Eyes closed, she mumbled, “Okay.”

  I touched her shoulder again, and her eyes opened again. “What?” She sat up slowly.

  I moved over on the bed, and she made room for me.

  “Molly,” I began, and then paused.

  How do you say this? How do you explain something that doesn’t even make sense to oneself?

  “Hmm?”

  “Mol, this is going to be really hard to explain. I think you’re just going to have to listen. You’re not going to believe me, I expect—certainly I wouldn’t believe it—but for now, just listen. Okay?”

  She regarded me suspiciously a moment. “This has something to do with the guy at the hospital, doesn’t it?”

  “Please, just listen. You know this CIA man came over and asked me to submit to an MRI polygraph exam.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I think the MRI did something to me—to my brain.”

  Her eyes widened, then her eyebrows went up, worried. “What happened, Ben?”

  “No, listen. This is tough. Do you believe in at least the possibility that some human beings possess extrasensory perception?”

  “This client you talked about last night,” she said. “There isn’t any client, is there?” She groaned. “Oh, Ben.”

  “Listen, Molly—”

  “Ben, I’ve got some friends you can consult with. At the hospital—”

  “Molly—”

  “Very good, very smart people. The chief of the adult psychiatric division is an especially—”

  “For Christ’s sake, I haven’t flipped out.”

  “Then—”

  “Look, you know there have been a number of studies in the last few decades that demonstrate—not conclusively, but at least persuasively if you’re of an open mind—the possibility that some of us are able to perceive the thoughts of others.

  “Look,” I went on. “In February of 1993, a psychologist from Cornell gave a paper at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This is a matter of public record. He presented hard statistical evidence that ESP exists—that human beings actually can read the thoughts of others. His paper was accepted for publication by the most prestigious journal in psychology. And the chairman of Harvard’s psychology department said he was ‘quite persuaded.’”

  She seemed to be pouting, not even looking at me any longer, but I continued, undeterred. “Until recently I never paid any attention to that kind of stuff. The world is full of hucksters and charlatans, and I’d always dismissed those kind of people as naive, if not worse.”

  I was rambling now, desperately trying to sound as rational and grounded and lawyerly as possible. “Let me get to the point. The CIA, the old KGB, and a number of other intelligence agencies around the world—I think Israel’s Mossad, too—have historically been interested in the espionage possibilities of people who possess even a modicum of—for want of a better word—‘psychic’ abilities. There are well-funded programs to search out such people—this is a fact—and try to employ them for intelligence purposes. When I was with the Agency, I remember hearing rumors about a special program. And I’ve done a fair bit of reading about it by now.”

  Molly was shaking her head slowly, though I couldn’t tell whether this was in disbelief or sorrow. She touched my knee with her hand and said, “Ben, do you think Alex Truslow is involved in this?”

  “Hear me out,” I said. “When I…” My voice trailed off as I thought of something.

  “Hmm?”

  I held a hand up to silence her. I tried to make my mind a blank, then concentrated. Surely, if she was as upset as she seemed—

  Rosenberg, I heard as clearly as anything. I bit my lower lip and continued to concentrate.

  have let him do this fucking Truslow work. It’s got to be so hard on him to come back into contact with these spook types after giving all that up, after what happened to him, it’s got to take a toll. Stan Rosenberg will make time for him today if I ask him to as a special favor …

  I said: “Molly, you’re going to call Stan Rosenberg, right? That’s the name, isn’t it?”

  She looked at me sadly. “He’s the new chief of psychiatry. I’ve mentioned him to you before, haven’t I?”

  “No, Molly. Never. You were thinking it.”

  She nodded, and looked away.

  “Molly. Humor me for a second. I want you to think of something. Think of something I can’t possibly know.”

  “Ben,” she said, a wan smile on her face.

  “Think of—think of the name of your first-grade teacher. Do it, Molly.”

  “Okay,” she said patiently. She closed her eyes, as if thinking very hard, and I cleared my mind and heard it—

  Mrs. Nocito.

  “It’s Mrs. Nocito, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. Then she looked up at me, exasperated, and said, “What’s the point of all this, Ben? Are you having fun?”

  “Listen to me, dammit. Something happened to me in Rossi’s MRI lab. It altered my brain in some way, did something. I came out of it with an ability to—how can I explain this?—to hear, or read, or something—listen in on the thoughts of others. Not all the time, and not all thoughts. Only things that others think in anger or fear or arousal—but I can do it. Obviously someone discovered that a very powerful magnetic resonance imaging machine can alter the brain, or at least some brains—”

  Five five five oh seven two oh. When he goes in the bathroom, or when he goes downstairs, I’ll call Maureen. She’ll know what to do—

  “Molly. Listen to me. You’re going to call someone named Maureen. The phone number is 555-0720.”

  She looked at me dully.

  “There’s no way I could know that, Molly. No way. Believe me.”

  She continued looking at me, her eyes shining with tears, her mouth slightly agape. “How did you do that?” she whispered.

  Oh, thank God. Thank God. “Molly, I want you to think of something—something I couldn’t possibly know you’re thinking. Please.”

  She brought her knees up to her chest, hugged them against her, and compressed her mouth.

  Trollope. I’ve never read Barchester Towers. I want to read that next. Next vacation …

  “You’re thinking you’ve never read Trollope’s Barchester Towers,” I said very deliberately.

  Molly breathed in slowly, audibly. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, no,” she said, and I was taken aback to see her face overtaken with an expression, not of excitement, but of enormous fear. “Oh, Ben,” she said. “Please. No.”

  * * *

  She pulled at her chin in an unconscious gesture of deep reflection. She got out of bed and began pacing. “Would you agree to see someone at the hospital?” she asked. “Like a neurologist, someone whom we can talk this over with?”

  I thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Who’s going to believe me?”

  “If you do to them what you did to me—if you just demonstrate it—how could they not believe you?”

  “True. But what’s the point? What would we learn?”

  She flailed her hands about, then brought them down to her sides. “How this happened,” she said, her voice taking on that shrill edge of tension. “How it could possibly have happened.”

  “Molly,” I said, turning to face her as she toyed with a conch shell on the
dresser. “It happened. No one’s going to tell me anything I don’t know.”

  She looked at me. “How much does Alex Truslow know, do you think?”

  “About me? Probably nothing. And I didn’t let Rossi know—at least, I don’t think I did—”

  “Did you talk to Alex about this?”

  “Not yet?”

  “Why not?”

  “I … don’t know.”

  “Call him now.”

  “He’s at Camp David.”

  She looked at me quizzically.

  “Meeting with the President,” I explained.

  “The directorship. I see. Did you tell Bill Stearns?”

  “No, of course not.”

  She paused. “Why not?”

  “What do you mean, why—”

  “I mean, what are you afraid of?”

  “Molly, come on—”

  “No, Ben, think this through for a second.” She returned to the side of the bed and sat next to me, still toying with the conch shell’s pink labia. “Truslow Associates is hired to locate a missing fortune. It’s top secret work, so some guy from CIA flies down and, in the guise of fluttering you, puts you through this protocol. A superior lie detector. As they told you. So maybe it does work that way. Okay. So what makes you think they’re aware that this same superpowerful MRI also has some sort of—well, let’s call it a subsidiary effect—of rearranging the human brain, or a tiny part of the human brain? In such a way that people thus exposed develop the ability to listen to the brain waves of others? I mean, how do you know they know what it did to you, what it could do to a person?”

  “After what you went through yesterday—the guy at the hospital—how can you think otherwise?”

  “Ben,” she said in a small voice after a moment’s silence.

  “Hmm?”

  She turned to me, close enough to kiss, her face worried. “When we—when we made love last night. In the kitchen.”

  I drew myself up straight involuntarily, guiltily. “Uh-huh?”

  “You were doing it, weren’t you?”

  “Doing—”

  “You were reading my mind, weren’t you?” The sharpness had returned to her voice.

  I smiled tensely. “What makes you—”

  “Ben.”

  “You and I don’t need extrasensory perception,” I began with false joviality.

  She pulled herself away from my embrace. “You did, didn’t you?” Now she was angry. “You were listening in on my thoughts, on my fantasies, right?”

  Before I could say yes, she spat out, “You bastard!”

  She stood up, hands on her hips, facing me squarely. “You son of a bitch,” she said quietly. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Molly’s reaction, I suppose, was understandable. There is something creepy and awful about knowing that your innermost thoughts, which we all take for granted are inaccessible to anyone but ourselves, can be eavesdropped upon.

  We’d just enjoyed the best sex we’d ever had, Molly and I, and now it must have seemed to her cheap, fraudulent. But why? Logically, this power enabled me to know something we normally can never know, what another person secretly wants, and to give it to her.

  Right?

  Yet one of the things that makes us intelligent, thinking beings is the ability not to share our thoughts with others—to decide what to disclose and what to keep a secret. And here I was, trespassing across that line. Molly seemed especially distant when we kissed good-bye an hour after that. But after what she’d just learned about me, who could blame her?

  I suppose that on some level I had hoped to awake that morning and realize I had dreamed the whole thing, that I would now go back to my safe and reassuring work as a patent lawyer, go through my rounds of conferences and meetings as usual.

  This may strike you as a bit odd. After all, the ability to read the thoughts of others is one of those stock fantasies or daydreams that many of us keep to ourselves. There are those on the lunatic fringe who buy books or tapes that promise to teach them extrasensory perception. At one time or another we have all wished for such a power.

  But you do not want it, not really. Take my word for it.

  * * *

  As soon as I arrived at the office and chatted a bit with Darlene, I shut my office door and called my broker, John Matera, at Shearson. I’d moved a few thousand dollars from my savings account to my Shearson brokerage account. That, plus the small equity I still had in some blue chips—mostly Nynex and other utilities—would give me enough money to play with. In effect, I was gambling with the money that Bill Stearns had advanced me to stave off bankruptcy, poverty, and ruin.

  But it was a sure thing, after all.

  “John,” I said after a few pleasantries, “what’s Beacon Trust selling at?”

  John, who is a gruff, plainspoken type, replied without pause, “Nothing. It’s free. They’re giving it away to anyone who’s foolish enough to express an interest. What the hell do you want that dog shit for, Ben?”

  “What’s the asking price?”

  He gave a long, soulful sigh. There was a clicking of computer keys, and then he said, “Eleven and a half asked, eleven bid.”

  “Let’s see,” I said. “For thirty thousand dollars, that means I can get—what?—”

  “An ulcer. Don’t be a lunatic.”

  “John, just do it.”

  “I’m not allowed to give you advice,” John said. “But why don’t you think this over and call me when you’ve come to your senses.”

  Over his vehement protestations, I put in an order for 2800 shares of Beacon Trust at up to eleven and a quarter. Ten minutes later he called to say that I was the “proud owner” of 2800 shares of Beacon Trust at eleven, and couldn’t resist adding, “Chump.”

  I smiled to myself for a few seconds, and then screwed up the courage to call Truslow. Suddenly remembering that he said he was going to Camp David, I momentarily panicked. It was imperative that I reach him, find out whether what had happened to me was intended, whether he knew …

  But how to reach him?

  I first called Truslow Associates, where his secretary informed me that he was out of town and couldn’t be reached. Yes, she said; she knew who I was, knew I was a friend, but even she didn’t know how to get in touch with him.

  Next, I called his Louisburg Square home. The phone was answered by a woman (a housekeeper, presumably) who said that Mr. Truslow was out of town—“in Washington, I believe”—and that Mrs. Truslow was in New Hampshire. She gave me the New Hampshire phone number, and at last I reached Margaret Truslow. I congratulated her on Alex’s selection, then told her I needed to reach him immediately.

  She hesitated. “Can’t this wait, Ben?”

  “It’s urgent,” I said.

  “What about his secretary? Is it something she can handle for you?”

  “I need to talk to Alex,” I said. “At once.”

  “Ben, you know he’s in Maryland, at Camp David,” she said delicately. “I don’t know how to reach him, and I have a feeling this isn’t a good time to disturb him.”

  “There has to be a way to reach him,” I insisted. “And I think he’ll want to be disturbed. If he’s with the President or something, fine. But if he’s not…”

  Sounding somewhat annoyed, she agreed to call the person at the White House who had first contacted Alex, to see if her husband could be reached. She also agreed that she’d relay my request that when and if Truslow called me, he do so only over a portable scrambler.

  * * *

  Partners’ meetings at Putnam & Stearns are as dull as partners’ meetings anywhere, except perhaps on television, on L.A. Law. We meet once a week, on Friday mornings at ten, to discuss whatever Bill Stearns wants us to discuss, decide whatever must be decided.

  In the course of this particular meeting, over coffee and very good sweet rolls from the firm’s caterer, we went over a number of matters ranging from the dull (how many new ass
ociates should we hire for the upcoming year?) to the mildly sensational (should the firm agree to take on the representation of a well-known Boston underworld crime lord—no, make that alleged crime lord—who happened to be the brother of one of the state’s most powerful politicians, and who was being charged with fraud by the state Lottery Commission?).

  The answers: No on the crime lord and six on the associates. If it weren’t for the sole item of business that involved me—could I make a good case to a giant food conglomerate that would impress them into hiring me in their suit against another food conglomerate over who stole whose formula for a fake fat—I would have been unable to keep my attention on the business at hand at all.

  I was feeling unsettled and decidedly unlawyerly, as if I could burst out of my skin at a moment’s notice. Bill Stearns, at the head of the coffin-shaped conference table, seemed to be giving me too many glances. Was I being paranoid? Did he know?

  No, the real question was: How much did he know?

  I was tempted to try to tune in on the thoughts of my fellow partners as they doodled or spoke up, but, truth to tell, it was difficult. So many of the partners were on edge, nervous, irritated, angry, that the din, the hubbub, arose as one great wall of sound, or one wall-to-wall pile rug of chatter, out of which I could barely sort one person’s thoughts out from another’s spoken words. Yes, I’ve described the qualitative difference—the difference in timbre—in the thoughts I was able to receive as compared with the normal spoken voice. But the difference is a subtle one, and when too much was going on, I simply got confused and frustrated.

  Yet I couldn’t stop receiving the random thought. So one moment I would hear Todd Richlin, the firm’s financial whiz, discussing billables and receivables and deliverables and at the same time I could hear, overlaid, his frenetic, edgy thoughts—Stearns just raised his eyebrows, what does that mean? and Kinney’s trying to jump in and embarrass me, that asshole. And over that would come interjections by Thorne or Quigley, something about hiring an outside consultant to train our basically illiterate associates in writing and speaking, and then their thoughts over that. So what I ended up with was a nightmarish babble of voices, which gradually drove me to distraction.