“And if you don’t work hard?”
She dipped forward and slapped herself sharply on the bottom. “No reward. But I’m smart. I don’t cop out easy. There’s generally something to work for at the end of a day — a facial, a sauna, ultra-vi. Motivation — it’s a well-tried principle. There should be a towel hanging on the wardrobe rail. Would you be so kind?”
“Don’t you ever rebel against it?” He found the towel and prepared to hand it to her, but she was already out of the shower and turning for him to put it around her shoulders.
“How do you mean?”
“Tell them you’ve had enough — you want to be taken down to L.A. to see a movie or look at department stores?”
“But I don’t,” answered Goldine. “I want to win the Olympics three times over. I can watch movies for the rest of my life.”
And buy the stores, never mind what’s in them, she might have added.
“You’re dedicated to it, then. What do you expect to get out of it — setting aside the Wall Street Journal for once?”
“That’s unfair!” she chided him, and tossed her hair, flicking water in his direction. “It’s my right. I was born to do this. I’m a natural.”
She said it in a categorical way that made him think of the Teutonic side of her parentage, but it didn’t irritate him. She had been brought up to believe in a birthright.
“If you have a talent, why neglect it?” she went on, and added as a taunt, “What’s yours?”
“Making money for talented people. That’s why they sent for me.”
“Name one.”
“Have you heard of Jim Hansenburg?”
“The Grand Prix driver?” She picked a small towel off the rail and made a turban for her damp hair. “He’s a dream! You’ve actually spoken to him?”
“I’m his agent,” Dryden answered. “How did you hear of him up here?”
“I have a portable TV in my bedroom. I get too tired at night to watch much, but I’ve seen him on ABC news. And that gasoline commercial. Could I get to meet a guy like that, do you think?”
“After Moscow, who knows?” said Dryden. “You could be into commercials yourself.”
She finished drying herself and wound the towel round her body. “I’d have to work on that. I get a little uptight about PR.”
“You handled the press-simulation session this afternoon like a pro,” said Dryden.
“I have to be tuned in first,” she said. “Maybe Sammy will help me.”
“Sammy?”
“Doc Lee. My shrink. Listen, I like talking to you. I’m due for a massage now. Sit in and talk some more.” She opened the door Ingrid had come through. “This doubles for massage and facials.” She led him into a narrower room with the same pinewood finish. Ingrid was standing beside a massage table in the center, pouring Huile Clarins from a large bottle into her cupped hand. “Mr. Dryden is going to talk to me as you do the rubbing, Ingrid,” Goldine told her firmly. To Dryden, she added, “She’s a fantastic masseuse. We have all kinds of tone-up gear in the cupboard, but Ingrid’s hands beat them all.” She unwrapped the towel and lay face down on the table, which was spread with a yellow blanket.
Dryden propped himself against the wall — there was no chair — and for the first time learned the practical difficulties of conversation with a naked girl under massage. On Goldine’s side, everything was communicated in bursts of telegraphese between Ingrid’s kneadings. When he understood enough to respond, he usually found that Goldine’s head was turned the other way as he began to speak. Ingrid did it from malice, he was certain. The panties incident had done him no good at all.
But there was one moment to savor early on, when Ingrid was applying the oil. At Goldine’s right buttock she slowed, staring at a pinker area of pigmentation — the imprint Goldine had made when she slapped herself. The outline of a hand was clearly defined. Ingrid glared malevolently at Dryden, sniffed with indignation, and polished the flesh with the righteous vigor of a maid clearing up after a party.
Dryden tried a different tack. Up to now she had said nothing he could interpret as uncommitted. “You’ve got a strong backup — Lee, Klugman and your father.”
“My father by adoption,” she pointed out. “He’s Doc to me.”
“You wouldn’t recollect much about your mother, being so young at the time of the accident.”
“That’s personal,” she warned. “Keep off.” As Ingrid paused in the rubbing, she added. “Doc provided all this. The least I can do is measure up to it.”
“He told me the least he can do is provide facilities worthy of your ability. Sounds to me like a good arrangement.” He let that sink in, confirming his tolerance of the project. “I just have the feeling it’s a shade unnatural for a pretty girl like yourself up here in the mountains with a dozen men in attendance.”
She laughed. “Unnatural! I’d say it was unnatural if they were girls. I’m not complaining.”
She had used repartee like this to coast through the conference session. He didn’t want the discussion back in that groove.
“You have Miss Fryer, of course. I saw the letter F on the schedule against Facial.”
“Yeah. Estée Lauder wasn’t available.”
“Melody seems to do okay,” he persisted. “She does your hair as well, doesn’t she? It should be great for the newsmen to feature. I see it’s natural.”
“You do? Oh, I follow you.” She rested her hand between her legs like a Botticelli Venus. “You’re being personal again,” she warned in a singsong tone that showed she hadn’t taken offense.
“It was Melody who insisted I come,” Dryden went on. “I was planning a quiet weekend on a tennis ranch. She’s too persuasive.”
“Too small,” said Goldine. “We don’t rate small broads, do we, Ingrid?” She turned on her stomach with a force that set her flesh quivering. It was a rebuke for mentioning Melody. Between those two was a wall as high as the camp fence.
“How do you rate Klugman?” Dryden asked. “He looks to me like the masterful type.”
“He has his job to do, same as the others,” answered Goldine coolly. “He coached the Olympic squad a few years back.”
It was difficult to tell whether this was the first hint of disaffection with one of the team. She could still be sulking over the reference to Melody. “They’re in an odd situation, coaches,” Dryden chanced. “Most of them seem to be former athletes who never quite made it. They transfer their ambitions to the next generation, as surrogates, you might say.”
“And so?”
“They drive them even harder than they drove themselves, because if they don’t succeed, it leaves the coach unfulfilled, impotent.”
“You’d better try that theory on Sammy. You’re talking like a shrink.”
He was determined to milk this one dry. “On a quick impression, Klugman strikes me as too intense for his own good.”
“We employ him for my good,” Goldine retorted. “If he has hangups of his own, so what? Turn me over, Ingrid. It’s time you oiled my front.”
Ingrid reversed her like turning the page of a book and lifted her lightly back to the center of the table. She lay relaxed, her eyes closed. Where she had pressed on her breasts and thighs, the white areas became pinker as the circulation of blood was normalized. Dryden confined his attention to the so far unfruitful progress of the interview. “Can I ask you about tomorrow — your plans for the meet at San Diego — or is that confidential?”
“No secret. I have to reach the Olympic qualifying standard in three events. There are five races in the afternoon — that’s heat and final in the two short sprints, and just one run in the four hundred. In club meets you don’t get many girls going for a full lap.”
“The four hundred is the tough one. I recall you told us that in the press-conference session.”
He shouldn’t have mentioned it. He triggered another of her stock responses.
“It’s a popular fallacy that most girls like t
o go the whole way.”
He pulled a face. “Okay, I bought that. So you’re not merely aiming to win tomorrow. You need good times.”
“Uhuh. The plan is to make Olympic qualifying times and take off some of the pressure for the official trials next month in Eugene, Oregon. You’re from England, aren’t you? I don’t know how much you know about track, but we have a beautiful selection procedure here in the States. The first three girls in each event in Eugene get nominated automatically for the U.S. team, no matter what. If the world-record holder gets edged to fourth on electronic timing, she’s out, man, no argument. That suits me fine — I mean, where else could you make the Olympics after just two meets? But there’s one catch, and that’s to do with the Olympic rules. Each nation can send one competitor for each event, no matter how good she is, but if they want to send more, there’s this Olympic qualifying time they have to reach. It’s unlikely, but suppose there was a gale blowing in the trial at Eugene, and we all clocked slow times — or, if you like, windblown fast times, which don’t count. I’d look pretty damned silly if I came second in one of my events and didn’t qualify timewise.” She put up her thumb to Ingrid, who planted a palmful of Huile Clarins between her breasts and spread it assiduously over her neck and shoulders.
“So after tomorrow the secret’s out,” said Dryden. “You’ll be tagged an Olympic hope. Will you know what to say to the press in San Diego?”
“There won’t be many there,” she commented. “Most of them will be in L.A. There’s a big invitational at the Coliseum — for men. The press will make for that. One fast girl in San Diego isn’t news.”
It was another of her payoffs. From the smile and small shudder of pleasure as she delivered it, Dr. Lee’s conditioning worked a treat.
“But your times will go into the ranking lists. Three qualifying times in one afternoon by an unknown girl: there’ll be a stampede to get your story.”
“I don’t mind speaking to any pressmen I meet in San Diego tomorrow, but after that I go on ice again till Eugene,” she told him.
“Do you like being a mystery girl?”
“You make girls sound like books — mystery, romance or Sci-Fi. I like to think I’m a blend of all three.” She flushed as another programmed response slotted in.
Ingrid continued impassively anointing her stomach.
Dryden inwardly recoiled. He could see the prospect of any untutored statement disappearing as fast as the oil. “Won’t the press keep tabs on you? Didn’t you have to supply an address when you filled in your entry for the San Diego meet?”
“I’m P.O. Box Number 505918, Bakersfield.”
“What about your club? Don’t you have to belong to a track club?”
“Hadn’t you noticed? I’m unattached.” Again, the indulgent wriggle of pleasure.
“So after you’ve put up your times tomorrow, you’ll just fly off, leaving the legend of a beautiful unknown blonde who burned up the track in San Diego?”
“You make it sound poetical. I like that.” She gave him a dreamy smile.
“Goldine,” he said as a last throw, “suppose you pulled a muscle in the heats tomorrow?” He had his hand on the door.
“How could I?” she answered. “I’m going to win the Olympics. Don’t go. Try another question.” She propped herself on an elbow and faced him. Her figure belied her. She was suddenly a child pleading for attention. “Ingrid can’t feed me questions. Please think of something.”
He shook his head in defeat. Lee had won this round. Out of compassion he asked her, “How does it feel to stand on the victory rostrum?”
She lay back with a whimper of gratitude. “Proud. Pleased for the American people.” She squirmed on the blanket and brought one of her breasts against the massaging hands. “It really gets you here when you see your country’s flag …” Her eyes closed tightly.
Dryden left.
That evening, a salad meal was served in one of the buildings. By monitoring the state of play on the pool table, he contrived to eat alone. The last thing he wanted just now was Valenti’s company.
He brooded on his failure. In effect, the computer had beaten him by anticipating most of his questions. Once the programed responses started coming, there was nothing he or Goldine could do to control her reflexes. No doubt about it: Lee had harnessed her sexual drive. Somehow he had linked it to the process of question and response. Each question she successfully answered was the equivalent of a caress. The afternoon press conference had suggested something like that was happening; the girl had projected herself in a way his own sexuality had recognized. In her quarters, he had involuntarily confirmed it by supplying her with enough questions to take her to the point of orgasm.
From the PR angle, he should have applauded Lee for a brilliant piece of psychological tinkering, certain to make electrifying occasions of Goldengirl’s press interviews. But he could not put out of his mind her pathetic dependence on him as she had pleaded for another question. He had got it right earlier; her personal life had been sacrificed to Project Goldengirl. Nobody cared about the mess it would be left in, least of all the man who had adopted her as his daughter.
As an attempt to discover how far Goldine was committed to the project, the interview had achieved nothing. Possibly if he had not allowed himself to be put down by her sharp “Keep off!” when he had mentioned her mother, if he had kept to matters that weren’t likely to have been programed, he might have got somewhere, but he doubted it. If she was going to impart confidences, it wouldn’t be in the camp, in front of Ingrid, and to a total stranger. Goldine, more than anyone, knew what was at stake.
What Dryden knew was still uncertain. That was the thing he found hardest to accept. He was used to making informed assessments, weighing probabilities and reaching decisions. He had spent the last twenty-four hours learning about Goldengirl. They had saturated him with information, shown him the film, told him about her background, declared their ambitions for her, answered his questions, let him see her undergoing physical and mental conditioning and allowed him to interview her himself. Yet paradoxically, the more he learned, the less certain he was that he understood. Earlier in the day he had felt near to achieving a total view of the project. At the end of it he was conscious only of uncharted areas on every side.
Worse, he had to admit that although he knew enough about Serafin and his associates to despise them, he was beginning to waver in his certainty that their scheme was impossible. Already he foresaw the dilemma he would face if he was persuaded that Goldine could win her three gold medals. His present objection — the risk to Dryden Merchandising — would not stand up. He would have the choice of going in with Serafin and condoning everything that was being done to guarantee success, or taking a moral stand and turning down a fortune.
Of course it was deplorable to tamper with a girl’s psychology as they had done, forcing her under hypnosis beyond the physical limits her conscious mind imposed, and transferring her sex drive into a public-relations exercise. But suppose he took a high moral stand and refused to have any part in the project. For whose sake would he do it? Would it make any difference to Goldine? Even if there were some way of sabotaging the project, preventing her from qualifying for the Olympics, was that going to help her? She had been shaped and conditioned for one objective. Remove that objective, and where did it leave her? It could destroy her.
He spent an hour after the meal walking around the perimeter of the camp turning these thoughts over. Whichever way he looked at the problem, it came down to Goldine, and what could be salvaged of her personality. Goldine: he had slipped into the way of using her personal name when he thought of her in human terms. For all the layers of polish Serafin had applied to his “artifact,” she had preserved some individuality. And Dryden liked her. She aroused him sexually — no point in denying it — but he also liked her directness, the way she had asked if her breasts were okay and the quick ripostes. Estée Lauder wasn’t available.
He needed a
chance to speak to her alone, outside the camp, without Ingrid in attendance or the possibility of bugging devices close by. That way he could judge for himself how far she was hooked on the Olympics. Then he could sort out his own priorities. The only chance of fixing it was by staging something at San Diego next day. Something they wouldn’t have allowed for. They were certain to guard her like the President on a day trip to Dallas, but if there was one thing Jack Dryden had a name for, it was the knack of springing surprises.
He returned to the cabin they had allocated him. Earlier, he had just had time to put his bag inside. Now he unpacked. It was a single room with a view across the compound, simply but comfortably furnished, no worse than scores of hotel bedrooms he had stayed in for conferences. The only thing it lacked was a Gideon Bible. He had the feeling these people were not religious.
He lay on the bed trying to work something out for San Diego. Normally, he would prime himself with information. This time, all he had was what Goldine had told him. To compound his difficulties, he had not attended a track meet in years; he was an armchair fan.
How long he had juggled with the problem he did not know, when he heard a movement outside the door. It was well past sundown, but his eyes had adjusted to the fading light. He didn’t need striplighting to think.
He left the bed and swiftly crossed the room to wait between the washstand and the door. The handle turned smoothly, with menacing slowness. There flashed into his mind the possibility that Serafin had decided to have him eliminated. He had asked questions, raised doubts. They couldn’t see him fitting into the plan. Or risk letting him out alive.
Crazy. They wouldn’t do a thing like that. Just the same, he picked up a glass toothmug, the nearest thing to a weapon within reach.
The door opened inward. The movement was stealthy, which was fortuitous, because it gave his keenly alerted senses a split second to pick up a trace of perfume. So, as he grabbed the intruder from behind, his brain telegraphed a reaction quick enough to prevent him crushing the toothmug into Melody Fryer’s skull.
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