Thorn

by Fred Saberhagen

  “To be sure,” Thorn said soothingly. “And it was Gliddon who sent you here to get this film?”

  Brandreth nodded. He could feel another faint coming on now, and tried to fight it back. He knew that if he fainted now he was going to be revived. But he didn’t know how.

  “And what were you to do with it?”

  “Destroy it. The film and tape both. Just the ones in the little, hidden safe. Gliddon said there were more in a big wall safe somewhere, the one you blew I guess. But he didn’t care about those. Why these are so important I don’t know. Something big is going on here that I don’t know about … I don’t ask questions. I need help with this arm. Or I’m gonna pass out.”

  “Who helped you with the bombing?”

  “I … do all that on my own. Gliddon just told me to do it.”

  “Not Ellison Seabright?”

  “It was supposed to be what he wanted done. I dunno. I hardly ever talk to Ellison. He’s supposed to be in Santa Fe now. As far as I know, he is.”

  Thorn turned away, to the projector. Brandreth let out a sighing groan. In the next room, Robinson Miller mumbled something but did not wake up. Now the screen darkened, then brightened again with a closeup of Delaunay’s face, talking.

  “This will be Session Thirteen,” Delaunay’s bass voice said, addressing the camera. He was filmed sitting in the laboratory. He was wearing a turtleneck sweater under an expensive sport coat, and looked vastly more competent, somehow, than his half-brother ever did. “Session Thirteen, on the fourth of April. I think we made real progress yesterday, and I hope for more today.”

  Darkness again, and when the scene came back there were two people sitting in the lab. In a soft reclining chair facing Delaunay and what was probably a hidden camera sat a teenaged girl with brown hair, small and slight, demurely dressed. Delaunay was also fully clothed, and it was soon apparent that both participants were likely to remain that way.

  The girl was gazing, dreamily, at a small instrument on Delaunay’s desk that sent a rhythmic, gentle, flashing light into her eyes.

  “—sleep,” Del was intoning gently as the scene started. “Deep sleep. And you will not wake up until I tell you. You will be able to hear me perfectly, and follow my instructions, but you will not awaken until I tell you … Helen? Are you asleep?”

  “Yes,” the girl answered in a calm remote voice. Her eyes were now closed.

  Delaunay brought his hand out from under his desk, where it had perhaps been on a hidden control that served to turn hidden recording devices off and on.

  In Brandreth’s ear Thorn whispered: “Who is the girl?”

  “It must be Helen Seabright. The one who was killed. It looks like her pictures. I never saw her.”

  Thorn stood up straight, emitting a faint sigh.

  “The last time we talked, Helen,” Seabright was now saying, in the voice of a chatty psychiatrist, “you told me that next time you’d tell me why that painting fascinates you so.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that, Uncle Del.” It was a prim, calm voice, the voice of a young lady who knew her mind.

  “But next time is now, Helen,” Seabright prodded gently. When he got no response he tried again. “I’ll make a bargain with you, if you like. How’s this? I’ll leave the painting where you can come and look at it anytime. And in return—what, Helen?” The girl had said something, very low.

  “I said, it was really Annie who liked the painting anyway.” “Oh yes, of course. But you can like it too.”

  “And Annie’s dead now.”

  “No more Annie. That’s quite right. And do you miss her?”

  Helen frowned.

  Seabright said softly and with great certainty: “Annie was always running away. She had no home, no family, no love. Always and forever on the run. Don’t you think it’s really better that she’s dead?”

  “I don’t miss her, really. She’s really better off … but sometimes…”

  “Yes. All right. Now, as I started to say, Helen, I’ll leave the painting out somewhere, where you can look at it. And in return you, now don’t frown, you don’t have to talk about the painting at all if you don’t want to. Only about some other things, that happened to you when you were … much younger than you are now. How does that kind of bargain sound?”

  The girl was troubled. Frowning, she shook her head, and mumbled something.

  “We don’t necessarily have to go back very far in the things we talk about. Not right away. Suppose we began with that night when, how shall I describe it, that night when Annie was here for the first time? Would it bother you—I see it would. All right. All right. You needn’t do anything that you don’t want to do. Not at all. Not for Uncle Del. Would you rather talk to me about the painting, then? It’s a nice, fascinating old thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Oh yes, it is.” And Helen’s agitation, that had been growing, eased somewhat.

  “Who painted it, my dear? Who do you think did?”

  Brandreth, somewhat surprised at himself that he still hadn’t passed out again, heard a small, strange sound from somewhere nearby. From Thorn.

  Delaunay Seabright’s image explained: “You see, my dear, some people think it may have been done, long years ago, by a famous painter called Verrocchio. Have you heard of him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now don’t say you have, don’t say anything just to please me. You really did hear of Verrocchio, before I mentioned him?”

  “Yes.”

  Seabright paused, as if hopeful that the girl might say more. When she did not, he went on: “Others, on the other hand, think it barely possible that a certain young boy did that painting. A boy who became quite famous in later life. Most authorities believe the boy was too young when this was painted, that he hadn’t yet started to work in Mr. Verrocchio’s studio. Now I wasn’t there myself and I don’t know. But I’d like very much to find out. If—”

  The girl was toppling forward in her chair. Seabright moved quickly for all his bulk, to catch her, ease her tenderly back into a sitting position. Her face had gone completely pale, drained-looking. “All right, Helen. All right, that’s it for today. You are feeling fine. You are going to wake up soon, when I tell you, as from a deep, refreshing sleep.” It took another minute of careful coaxing and urging to bring the girl back into what appeared to be her original hypnotic state.

  “I’m going to wake you up soon, Helen. First, though, would you like to give Uncle Del his big hug for the day?”

  The girl’s eyes opened for a moment, then closed again. She arose, dutifully, and walked to the man’s chair to bend over him and hug him, gently, almost formally, like some shy distant niece. The huge man patted her back with one hand. His other hand went to the hidden control beneath his desk. The screen went dark.

  * * *

  The ringing phone jarred Chicago police lieutenant Joe Keogh out of sleep. He was lying in his and Kate’s bedroom in their condominium apartment on the North Side, just off Lake Shore Drive. This was not one of the supremely expensive towers down close to Michigan Boulevard, but an older building of modest height, somewhat farther north. The place had large rooms, from the days when they built them that way, and hardwood floors and a fireplace. Joe would have been hard pressed to make the mortgage payments on his pay unaided, let alone trying to furnish and decorate the place the way Kate had. He found it really pleasant to have married into money.

  He rolled his spare, muscular body over in the wide waterbed, establishing waves, and lifted the phone. “Hello, who’s this?” At home he used a more guarded answering technique than the efficient response that was his habit at the office.

  “Joseph, I have some information for you.”

  Joe was fully awake in an instant. He switched on the bedside lamp, and at the same time glanced over his shoulder toward Kate, as if for reassurance that she still slept at his side. He could see, between a mounded blue blanket and a white pillow, a familiar mass of honey-blond hair and the cur
ve of one naked shoulder. For a man with his job, middle-of-the-night phone calls were nothing out of the ordinary, and in six months of marriage Kate had already schooled herself to sleep through most of them.

  Joe was sitting up straight now, running a hand through his sandy hair. The waterbed was no scene for serious drama; it wobbled gelatinously, gently rocking his body and his wife’s. “Are you hurt?” he asked the phone.

  “No, Joseph, not seriously. I appreciate your concern.” The voice sounded much as it had on the comparatively few occasions when Joe had heard it before: precise, slightly accented in a vaguely middle-European way. Good-humored. Still good-humored, after a bombing, oh my God.

  Joe found himself sweating slightly, and turned back the covers a little. “Go ahead, then.”

  “First of all I would like to confirm what I have heard about how it could have been done; how the bomb could possibly have been planted where it was.”

  “Yeah, the bomb. I heard about that. They called me about it. Were you near the car when it blew up?”

  “I was in it.”

  “Oh.” Good God. “And you’re … who do you think planted the bomb?”

  “On that I believe I now have information that is accurate, if incomplete. The technician was a man named Brandreth, acting on orders from a man called Gliddon. The very same, I believe, whose aircraft was supposedly lost not long ago.”

  “Ah. That business about the painting. And where are Brandreth and Gliddon now? And how do you spell Brandreth?”

  “Gliddon is probably somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico; I have no precise information. And Brandreth can be found in the Seabright mansion in Phoenix. The place is otherwise unoccupied.”

  “He’s in—”

  “You need make no hurried calls, nor be concerned to write down his name. He will be there.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now about the bomb. By the way, Joseph, is your home telephone secure?”

  “I guess. Internal Investigation doesn’t tap it any more, if that’s what you mean. Since you were here in Chicago they’ve given up. They don’t want to know what’s going on with me.”

  “Then let us discuss the bomb. No one, I think, could have planted it in that vehicle between the last proper functioning of the starter and the explosion.”

  “Okay, I have a couple of ideas. Sometimes I talk shop with a friend of mine who’s on the Bomb Squad. It’s possible to use a detonator that doesn’t function until the second or third time the starter’s used. Or to use a timer. A timer could be set for a specific time, or else not to start running until the engine did.”

  “I see. Yes, that confirms what I have been told. Thank you.”

  Joe glanced again at Kate. She hadn’t moved, and he thought it probable that she was still asleep. He said: “The Phoenix police told me on the phone that it looked like a real professional job. See, your hotel there had a record of a call from your room to my number at the station here in Chicago. So naturally one of the first things Phoenix did in their investigation was to call me.”

  “Naturally. I suppose they named no suspects? Did the name of Ellison Seabright arise at all in your conversation?”

  “No it didn’t. I wouldn’t have expected them to name me suspects even if they had some. You think he was involved too?”

  “Gliddon works for the Seabright family. Or he did. Much is still obscure to me. And there are matters involved that I find personally troubling. I want to be certain about Ellison before I move against him.”

  “Please do.”

  “And what,” the distant voice inquired, with casual brightness, “did you say to the Phoenix police about me?”

  Kate had moved. She was facing Joe now, and at least one of her baby-blue eyes was open, regarding him over a mound of pillow as she waited calmly to find out what was going on. Maybe she had already heard enough to know, or guess, who he was talking to.

  Still watching Kate, Joe cleared his throat. “I told them that a man calling himself Thorn sometimes phones me and gives me information. That I had no idea of this Thorn’s real name or where he lives or where he calls me from. That’s not as crazy as it might sound. There actually are informants who behave like that, and sometimes they give useful information.”

  When the other end of the line remained silent, Joe went on: “Of course the next thing they asked was what you had been calling me about from Phoenix.” He paused again here, thinking carefully. If ever it should come to a choice between getting himself into legal trouble, police trouble, and making an enemy out of the man now on the phone, he knew which choice he’d have to make. Kate’s family could afford the best in legal help, but a lot of good that would do him if— “I said you’d talked to me about a possible lead on the missing painting that’s been in the news, but that you hadn’t given me anything definite on it at all. Is that all right?”

  “Yes, Joe, that is quite all right.” A soothing tone.

  “Of course they quickly discovered that there isn’t any Oak Tree, Illinois. And since your home address was a fake they’ll probably assume that the name Thorn’s a fake too. So most likely they’re stuck as to where to look for you next. Since your body wasn’t found with the car, they’ll assume you weren’t in it. Maybe they think you planted the bomb yourself. By the way, there were parts of a pair of man’s shoes, pretty well destroyed, found in the wreckage.”

  “I am not surprised to hear it. Brandreth’s shoes fit me tolerably well.”

  “They thought the woman’s body was lying on the wrong side of the vehicle for her to have been in the driver’s seat. It was the Mary Rogers you were asking about, I assume you know that. Say, was she a friend of yours? If so, I’m sorry.”

  The long-distance hum of equipment. “We had not grown to know each other well,” Thorn replied at last. “Still, I think a certain rapport was beginning to grow between us. We might have become good friends. One has few good friends even in a long life, and one loses even them. Yes, her death grieves me.”

  Kate reached out to touch Joe’s arm with one finger. When he looked at her, her lips formed a silent, one-word question: Judy?

  Joe shook his head minimally. He had no reason to think as yet that Judy had come into it at all. Then he asked the telephone: “What about that O’Grandison you were asking about, is he connected with this in any way? None of my contacts here seem to know where he is. They say they haven’t seen him for a while. Have you reached him yet?”

  “I have not. I know no more about him now than when I spoke with you last.”

  “Okay. Do you want me to tell Phoenix that I’ve heard from you again? That you blame the bombing on Gliddon and this Brandreth or whoever he is?’

  Thorn took a moment before answering. “If in return, when you hear anything about the whereabouts of Gliddon, you are willing to tell me— then yes, you may tell them that.”

  “On second thought I guess I won’t have to mention Brandreth. But I’ll tell them that you called again, and that you claim Gliddon’s still alive. How’s that?”

  “That will be fine … Joseph.”

  “What?”

  “Do not worry, about me. I mean that I am an old friend of Kate’s family, which is now yours. I know that you are my friend, and mean well. And I am not all that greatly concerned about what you tell or do not tell the police in Phoenix or anywhere else. Trouble with the law does not mean much to me, ultimately. Take care of Kate, and of yourself.”

  And with a distant click the line went dead. Joe had the vague sensation that his ears were burning. As if he had been caught out in cowardice.

  Slowly he hung up the phone, and looked at Kate. He said: “I was going to tell you. I did call your little sister, earlier, trying to warn her not to get involved in this. She got a little angry at me, but I think she knows I’m right.”

  Kate looked doubtful at first. Then she looked worse than doubtful. “I don’t know, Joe. You say you made her angry? Were you issuing orders?”

 
; “Come on, give me credit for a little more sense than that.”

  “Still, I don’t know. She’s quite grown up now. Maybe even suggesting what she ought to do was a mistake.”

  “I figured she must have heard in the news about the bombing. I don’t know if she knows that now he’s calling himself Thorn. I don’t have any idea when they’ve seen each other last, to tell the truth.”

  “I don’t know either.” Kate sighed. “Maybe it’s all over. And her school is at least five hundred miles away from Phoenix.”

  “I don’t think it’s all over for her. She got angry. But as far as I could tell she wasn’t really planning to do anything, like go to Arizona. She’s anything but a wild kid, usually.” Then Joe paused, listening to his own words, what he was saying about a girl who had had an affair with a vampire, however brief.

  Husband and wife lay looking at each other, exchanging hopeful and supportive thoughts. At least Joe was trying to make the exchange hopeful, and he could see that Kate was doing the same.

  “Well,” Joe added at last, “we could call her again in the morning, and tell her that we know for sure now that he’s still alive.”

  “She must know that much at least,” Kate said positively. “There’s still at least that much contact between them, if there’s any relationship left at all.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. That’s spooky.” Joe knew that Kate knew more about the subject than he did. “Give me a hug, Joey.” Joe rolled away from Kate to turn the light off. Then he rolled back again. Kate hugged his face against her bare breasts.

  The telephone rang again.

  For a moment, as he floundered his way back over the quaking mattress to pick up the receiver, Joe’s imagination flickered with a truly horrible suggestion. Suppose, just suppose, that Thorn had been deranged somehow by the bomb’s concussion, and turned into a crank phone caller. To imagine him gone mad, driven out of the state that with him passed for normality…

  “Hello, who is this?”

  In the next moment, puzzlement and fear had a new tangent. It was a woman’s voice on the phone, one that Joe had never heard before. It sounded young, and, of all things, vaguely British. “Yes. Am I speaking to Mr. Joseph Keogh?”