Mindkiller

by Spider Robinson

  “Hey, no hard feelings, huh?”

  A shinbone was the least risk; I got ready to try a kick, rehearsing what I would do after he broke my leg. “No hard feelings, Wishbone.”

  If it is possible to grunt above high C, that is what he did then. He came at me in a shambling walk, hissing, and when he cannoned into me he embraced me. I was too startled to react. The hiss ended in the word “Shit,” and then he slid slowly down me.

  God damn it, was my whole house full of armed hostiles? I stepped out of his arms, bent and searched hastily for the sap without success.

  “Twenty bucks, huh?” Karen said. “Mother fucker.”

  I got slowly to my feet. “What the hell did you do to him?”

  “Put a fist through his goddam kidney. Son of a bitch. Help me find his crotch, I want to kick it.”

  “Take it easy. Your honor is satisfied.”

  “But—”

  “He sapped me. It’s my turn.”

  “Oh. Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be okay for another couple of minutes, until this arm comes back to life. Then I will be very disconsolate for a long time.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Help me drag him over here.”

  We arranged him on a low flatbed handtruck. He was making mewing sounds. He wanted to scream, but he would give up the idea long before he had the breath. I was glad she had hit me only a glancing blow that first day; full strength and she might have killed me, and wouldn’t that have made interesting copy for the Daily News?

  “Who the hell is he?”

  “Wishbone Jones. Small-time mugger and a little of this and that. Skinny as a stork and stronger than I am. Lives down by the wharf. Not bright, but a good fighter. We’ve tangled.” By now I had my gun out. I gave it to her and sat down on the handtruck beside him. My arm and shoulder were just beginning to catch fire, but that was mitigated to some extent by the exhilaration of survival. “Hello, Wishbone.”

  “H—hi, Sam.” He was getting back under control.

  “Bad day at the track, Wishbone?”

  “Nuh…no.”

  “Then it’s got to be basketball or poker.”

  “Neither one. My ex from Columbus caught up with me.”

  “Yep. That’s kharma for you. Well, I believe we discussed this the last time?”

  He grimaced. “Aw, shit, Sam. If I go to the hospital they give me the cure.”

  “We did discuss it.”

  He shook his head. “Ah, shit. Yeah.” He gave me his arm.

  “No hard feelings, Wish?”

  “No hard feelings.” He closed his eyes and I broke the arm across the edge of the handtruck as quickly and cleanly as I could. He screamed and fainted.

  Karen had not uttered a sound when I had suddenly flung her into the darkness, but she yelped now.

  I slumped, exhausted and unutterably depressed. I wanted to vomit, and I wanted to scream from the pain in my shoulder, and I wanted to cry. I stood up. “Let’s go inside.”

  It took one metal key and a five-number combination to get us into the office module. The windows are not boarded, they’re plated. The door is too heavy to batter and the roof is reinforced. Still, it is no more secure than the average New York apartment. A cleverer cracksman than Wishbone could have opened it in fifteen minutes with the right tools. There is no such thing as an unbeatable lock, just incompetent craftsmen.

  “What about him?” she asked as we stepped in.

  “Wishbone will find his way home. To the hospital if he’s smart. But Wishbone’s not smart. Damn his eyes.” I sealed the door and turned on the light.

  She was looking at me expressionlessly. She came suddenly close, took my face in her hands, and studied it. Nearly at once she nodded. “You hated it.”

  “God damn you, did you think I enjoyed it?” I yelled, flinging her hands away.

  She shook her head. “No. Not for a second.” She backed away one step. “But for just a minute there I was scared to death that you didn’t give a damn, one way or the other.”

  I dropped my eyes. “Fair enough.” I turned around and walked a few steps. “Simulating total ruthlessness is, I guess, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. Sometimes it’s necessary.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  I whirled, ready to flare up at any sign of pity or sympathy, but there was neither. Only a total understanding of, and agreement with, what I had said.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’ll show you around.” My shoulder ached like hell, but as I said, I wanted to see her reaction.

  The room we were in had not been substantially altered since the last time it was used as an office, perhaps fifteen or twenty years ago. The alterations I had made had not involved cleaning. There wasn’t much to see that was worth looking at, unless she had a thing for busts of President Kennedy the Second. I led her into the back, throwing on lights as we went.

  It was obvious that a bachelor burglar of no great fastidiousness lived here. Three inner offices were converted to living space, furnished with things too rickety, threadbare, or ugly to fence. Empties lay here and there, and all the wastebaskets were overflowing. The “kitchen” could produce anything from peanut butter on moldy white bread to a tolerable mulligan, and not much in between, if you didn’t count the beer. The office with the toilet had perforce become the master bedroom. A truly astonishing calendar hung on the wall. The mattress lay on the floor, and the sheets had that lived-in look. A rancid glass of orange juice sat beside the bed, next to a sound-only phone and a disorderly pile of recent newspapers all opened to the society page.

  She really did have manners. She kept a poker face, made no comment at anything she saw, just looked around at each room and nodded. Perhaps she had lived in worse. Finally my shoulder hurt too much. I decided I had milked it for all it was worth and took her back to the outer office.

  She lit a Peter Jackson. “By the way, how many names have you got, Sam?”

  “How many are there? Sit over on that desk, ‘Sharon.’”

  She complied.

  “Now lift your feet off the floor, completely, and keep them there.”

  I waited until she had done so. Initiating dislock sequence while there is additional human-size mass anywhere in the room except on the four places where those desk legs meet the floor will cause the room to be blown out of the warehouse. When she was seated correctly I turned to the desk nearest me. I opened the middle drawer. Then I crossed the room and flipped the switch for the ventilation fan that no longer works. On, off, on. I went back to the desk and closed the drawer. What looked just like a battered old Royal manual typewriter sat on a rubber pad on the desk’s typing shelf; I typed some words. Karen watched all this without expression, but I could tell that she was wondering if I had sustained any head injuries in the scuffle with Wishbone.

  I walked over in front of the bust of Kennedy and smiled at it. Its right eye winked at me. A large section of floor hinged back and up like a snake sitting up, soundlessly. Carpeted stairs led down into a place of soft lights.

  “Now I’ll show you where I really live.”

  “You bastard,” she said.

  I bowed and gestured: after you.

  “You bastard,” she said again softly. “This you did enjoy.”

  I lost control and grinned hugely. “Bet your ass.” I gestured again. “Come on. You can get down off there now. Or do you want to spend the night up here?”

  She came off the desk with a you’ll-get-yours grin, tugged her skirt around, and whacked dust from it. “The secret temple of Karnak. Do I have to take my shoes off?”

  “Not even your dress.” Perhaps an indelicate joke, but I had found that she liked being kidded about her occupation.

  She grimaced. “That’s another buck for ironing, chump.” She came to the stairs and went down. I followed. I didn’t crash into her on the bottom step because I was expecting her to stop dead. I waited while she stared, and when she finally stepped into the l
iving room I moved past her.

  She was still staring around her, with an astonishment that refused to fade. No matter where she looked, she could find nothing unremarkable. I drank her astonishment thirstily.

  Perhaps I am excessively houseproud. But I have some reason to be. The location is a large part of its value, of course—but as a conventional apartment it was worth two and a half of hers, and she had not been living cheaply by any means. I seldom indulge my weakness; Karen was the fifth person to come down those stairs with me. Almost all of the others had lived with me upstairs for at least a week before I let them into my real house.

  She would not say a word.

  “This is the living room,” I said, and she jumped. “If you’ll step this way…?” Oh, I was disgusting.

  She remained resolutely silent during the rest of the tour, but it cost her. It took a good ten minutes; my house has a little more than twice the cubic of the office complex that sits on it.

  As we walked I flipped switches and brought the house back up to active status, started the coffee program, and turned up the fans to accommodate her inevitable cigarettes.

  The message light on the phone panel was not lit. Maybe one day I will come home and find it lit. When that happens I will drop to the floor and pray that the end is quick.

  At last my shoulder made me cut it short. I led us back to the living room and dropped into the nearest Lounger, drawing its attention to my shoulder. “Excuse me,” I said. “This won’t wait any longer.”

  She nodded. The chair began doing indescribable things to my shoulder girdle, and I closed my eyes. When I could open them again, she was standing on the same spot in the same stance, looking at me with the same lack of expression. My chair cut back to subliminal purring. I tried the shoulder and winced, but decided against repeating the massage cycle.

  “Joe,” she said finally, “you are a good burglar.”

  “I’m a very good burglar.”

  “If that grin gets any bigger, you’re gonna split your face clear back to your ears. Just before that happens, would it be all right if I were to ask some of the obvious questions?”

  “I’ll tell you anything I can.”

  “All right.” She took out cigarettes and lit up. Then she put her fists on her hips. “What the fuck is this place?”

  “Are you familiar with the expression, ‘to go to the mattresses’?”

  “Sure. Are you trying to tell me that all this”—she swept her hand around the room—“is some kind of gangster’s command post?”

  “No. But I am telling you that big multinationals sometimes have to go to the mattresses too.”

  Her eyes widened. “But—that’s silly. Multinationals don’t have shooting w—well, yes they do, but not in New York.”

  “Not on page one, no. They tend to be much neater, much subtler.”

  She thought it through. “So it’s a corporate command bunker. What corporation?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It looks like it would make a great fortress. How come the original owners aren’t here?”

  “My guess is undeclared war, a sneak attack. The secret of this place would naturally be known only by a few—presumably ‘one grenade got them all.’ I estimate that it has been abandoned for almost fifteen years, since about ’85. I found it about ten years back, and nobody’s come around since, that I know of. Could happen any time, of course.”

  “So how the hell could you happen to ‘stumble across’ that song-and-dance routine you did upstairs to open the door?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  She frowned. “Conversation with you certainly has a lot of punctuation. Forget I asked.” She looked around again. “Who pays the utilities? Since you don’t exist, I mean.”

  “Nobody.”

  “What do I look like, an idiot? That’s a full-service phone over there, and two powered chairs, and your tape console alone must draw…not to mention that terminal in the bedroom, and lights and climate and—don’t tell me. There’s an inconspicuous solar collector on top of the abandoned warehouse, no bigger than Washington Square.”

  I smiled. “I misspoke myself. I should have said ‘everybody.’ I get my power and phone from the same place you do—I just don’t pay for it.”

  “But they’ve got hunter programs monitoring for unmetered drain—”

  “Programs written and administered by corruptible, fallible human beings. Whoever built this place built it well. I never get a bill.”

  “I’ll be damned.” She stared at the phone. “But how can anybody call you? You can’t have a number, the switching syst—”

  “Nobody can call me. It’s the perfect phone.”

  Her grin was sudden. “I’ll be go to hell. So it is.” She took off her rucksack and checked to make sure she had broken or crushed nothing when she fell. “Where should I stash my stuff?”

  “I’ll do it. Sit down.”

  I gestured toward the other Lounger. She put down the sack and went to it, stroked the headrest reverently. “For years I’ve wanted one of these. Never could afford it.” She shook her head. “I guess crime pays.”

  “No, but the perks are terrific. Go on, try it.”

  She sat, made a small sound as she realized that it did not hurt her sores, then made another as the chair adjusted to her skeletal shape and body temperature. I set it for gentle massage and took her bag to the spare bedroom. When I got back I had her chair mix a Preacher’s Downfall for me and a rum-and-rum for her. (I had satisfied myself by then that wireheading had cured her of compulsive overboozing. A marvelous therapeutic tool, save that its side effects included death.)

  She did not see me at once; her eyes were rolled back into her head. But after a while her ears told her that ice cubes were clinking nearby, and she came slowly back to the external world. “Joe,” she said, smiling happily, “you’re a good burglar.”

  It was nice to see her sitting back in a chair, with a smile that I liked on her face.

  We drank and talked for an hour or so. Then on impulse I put on some Brindle to see if she knew the difference between music you talk over and music you don’t. Sure enough, three bars in she shut up and smiled and sat back to listen. When the tape was through she was ready to admire my bathroom, and then I showed her her bedroom. By then she was too tired to admire anything. I started to head for my own room, but she caught my arm.

  “Joe…” She looked me in the eye. “Would you sleep with me tonight?”

  I studied her face until I was sure the question was meant literally. “Sure.”

  “You’re a good burglar,” she murmured, peeling out of her tunic.

  It did feel almighty good to have arms around me in bed. I fell asleep no more than five seconds after we had achieved a comfortable spoon. She beat me by several seconds. From that day on, if we slept at the same time it was together.

  I introduced her to the bust of Kennedy, who filed her in his permanents. I showed her the defense systems and emergency exits. I showed her my meditation place down by the river, and how to get there and back safely. She started spending a lot of time alone there, even though she couldn’t smoke while filtered and goggled. She did not discuss what she thought about there, and I did not ask. I could search her home, rifle her strongbox, and milk her terminal—but some things are personal. Four days went by this way.

  I was sitting in the Lounger having my neck rubbed and planning my next job when I heard the dislock sequence initiate. I glanced up, expecting Karen. But when the door cycled up it was the Fader who came down the stairs, with a tape in his hand.

  Fader Takhalous is fiftyish and just as nondescript as a man can be. I have mistaken half a dozen strangers for him, and once failed to recognize him until he spoke to me. He could mug you in broad daylight and rent a room from you the next day. I held much the same relationship to him that Karen held to me, except four years further along. I only saw him two or three times a year, and was surprised to see him now; I hadn’
t been expecting him for another few months.

  But the tape explained it. He nodded hello on his way to the stereo; I nodded back, but he didn’t see it. He fed the tape to the heads and turned the treble back to flat. He sat in the other Lounger, leaving it turned off, and stared at the ceiling. I dialed the lights down and shut my own chair off. The music was almost unbearably good, a synthesizer piece that was alternately stark and lush, spare and majestic; that took chances and succeeded. It reminded me of early-period Rubbico & Spangler. The Fader smoked a joint while we listened, and for once I didn’t mind the faint buzz that breathing his waste smoke brought; the music made it okay.

  And about the time I could tell that the unknown composer was building to the finish, Karen did come home, the music masking the noise of her arrival. I had not thought this through. As she came down the stairs she took in the scene, threw me a hello smile, and headed for the kitchen, carrying groceries.

  When she returned she sat on the couch without a word and listened, staring at the ceiling. The Fader raised an approving eyebrow, then returned his own attention to the music.

  When it had ended we awarded it ten seconds of silence. Then the Fader rose from his chair. He bowed to Karen. “You listen well, Miss—”

  “Karyn Shaw. That was worth listening to.”

  “They call me the Fader. Which is what I’m about to do. A pleasure to meet you.” She offered her hand and he kissed it. Then he turned to me. “Pop me that tape, son. I’ll bring it back for duping another time. I just remembered I left the kettle on.”

  I got the tape and gave it to him. “What’s your hurry?”

  “A small matter of business.” His eyes slid briefly to Karen.

  “She’s okay, Fader. She’s a friend. She’s here, right?”

  He relaxed slightly. “I’ve got a mark up to Phase Two, and I just now thought of a way I could take him straight to Phase Four in one jump. If it works it cuts down the seed-money investment substantially—but it has to happen now. I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

  I grinned. “Ah, the delicious urgency of the creative impulse. Good luck.” He smiled and nodded at Karen again, and was gone.