Time Is the Simplest Thing (24 page)

Blaine swung again and yet again, following Grant, blows that started from his knees and landed with an impact that made his arm a dead thing from the elbow down—blows that shook and staggered Grant and drove him back, ruthlessly and relentlessly.

It was not anger that drove Blaine, although there was anger in him, nor fear, nor confidence, but a plain and simple logic that this was his only chance, that he had to finish the man in front of him or himself be finished.

He had gotten in one lucky blow and he must never stop. No rough-and-tumble fighter, he would lose everything he'd gained if he let Grant regain his balance, if he ever gave him a chance to rush him again or land a solid blow.

Grant tottered blindly, hands clawing frantically at the air, groggy with the blows. Deliberately, mercilessly, Blaine aimed at the chin.

The blow smacked hollowly, and Grant's head snapped back, pivoting to one side. His body became a limp thing without any bone or muscle that folded in upon itself. Grant slumped and hit the floor, lying like a rag doll robbed of its inner strength of sawdust.

Blaine let his arms fall to his side. He felt the stinging of the cuts across his knuckles and the dead, dull ache that went through his punished muscles.

A faint surprise ran through him—that he should have been able to do a thing like this; that he, with his own two fists, should have beaten this big brute of a man into a bloody pulp.

He'd got in the first good blow and that had been nothing but pure and simple luck. And he had found the key that unlocked the robe and had that been a piece of luck as well?

He thought about it and he knew that it had not been luck, that it had been good and solid information plucked from the file of facts dumped into his brain when the creature on that planet five thousand light years distant had traded minds with him. The phrase had been a command to the robe to get its clutches off whatever it had trapped. Sometime in its mental wanderings across unimagined space, the Pinkness had soaked up a wondrous amount of information about the cactus people. And out of this incredible junk heap of miscellaneous facts the terribly discerning brain that belonged to humankind had been able to select the one undistinguised fact which at a given moment had high survival value.

Blaine stood and stared at Grant and there was still no movement in the man.

And what did he do now? Blaine wondered.

He got out of here, of course, as quickly as he could. For in just a little while someone from Fishhook would be stepping from the transo, wondering why he had not been delivered, all neatly trussed and gentle.

He would run again, of course, Blaine told himself with bitterness. Running was the one thing he could do really well. He'd been running now for weeks on end and there seemed no end to it.

Someday, he knew, he would have to stop the running. Somewhere he'd have to make a stand, for the salvation of his self-respect if for no other reason.

But that time had not yet come. Tonight he'd run again, but this time he'd run with purpose. This night he'd gain something for the running.

He turned to get the bottle off the table and as he moved, he bumped into the robe, which was humping slowly on the floor. He kicked it savagely and it skidded weakly, almost wetly, into a lump in the fireplace corner.

Blaine grabbed the bottle in his fist and went across the room to the pile of goods stacked in the warehouse section.

He found a bale of goods and prodded it and it was soft and dry. He poured the contents of the bottle over it, then threw the bottle back into the corner of the room.

Back at the fireplace, he lifted the screen away, found the shovel and scooped up flaming coals. He dumped the coals on top the liquor-wetted goods, then flung the shovel from him and stepped back.

Little blue flames licked along the bale. They spread and grew. They crackled.

It was all right, Blaine knew.

Given five good minutes and the place would be in flames. The warehouse would be an inferno and there'd be nothing that could stop it. The transo would buckle and melt down, and the trail to Fishhook would be closed.

He bent and grasped the collar of Grant's shirt and tugged him to the door. He opened the door and hauled the man out into the yard, some thirty feet distance from the building.

Grant groaned and tried to get to hands and knees, then collapsed upon the ground again. Blaine bent and tugged him another ten feet along the ground and let loose of him. Grant muttered and thrashed, but he was too beaten to get up.

Blaine walked to the alley and stood for a minute, watching. The windows of the Post were filling very satisfactorily with the red of roaring flames.

Blaine turned and padded softly down the alley.

Now, he told himself, would be a splendid time to make a call on Finn. In just a little while the town would be agog with the burning of the Post and the police much too busy and officious to bother with a man out on the street in violation of the curfew.

TWENTY-SIX

A group of people were standing on the hotel steps, looking at the fire, which roared into the nighttime sky just two blocks away. They paid Blaine no notice. There was no sign of police.

“Some more reefer business,” said one man to another.

The other nodded. “You wonder how their minds work,” he said. “They'll go and trade there in the daytime, then sneak back and burn the place at night.”

“I swear to God,” said the first man, “I don't see why Fishhook puts up with it. They needn't simply stand and take it.”

“Fishhook doesn't care,” the other told him. “I spent five years in Fishhook. I tell you, the place is weird.”

Newsmen, Blaine told himself. A hotel crammed full of newsmen come to cover what Finn would say tomorrow. He looked at the man who had spent five years in Fishhook, but he did not recognize him.

Blaine went up the steps and into the empty lobby. He jammed his fists into his jacket pockets so that no one could spot the bruised and bloody knuckles.

The hotel was an old one and its lobby furnishings, he judged, had not been changed for years. The place was faded and old-fashioned and it had the faint, sour smell of many people who had lived short hours beneath its roof.

A few people sat here and there, reading papers or simply sitting and staring into space, with the bored look of waiting imprinted on their faces.

Blaine glanced at the clock above the desk and it was 11:30.

He went on past the desk, heading for the elevator and the stairs beyond.

“Shep!”

Blaine spun around.

A man had heaved himself out of a huge leather chair and was lumbering across the lobby toward him.

Blaine waited until the man came up and all the time there were little insect feet running on his spine.

The man stuck out his hand.

Blaine took his right hand from his pocket and showed it to him.

“Fell down,” he said. “Stumbled in the dark.”

The man looked at the hand. “You better get that washed up,” he said.

“That's what I intend to do.”

“You know me, don't you?” the man demanded. “Bob Collins. Met you a couple of times in Fishhook. Down at the Red Ghost Bar.”

“Yes, of course,” Blaine said, uncomfortably. “I know you now. You slipped my mind at first. How are you?”

“Getting along all right. Sore that they pulled me out of Fishhook, but you get all sorts of breaks, mostly lousy, in this newspaper racket.”

“You're out here to cover Finn?”

Collins nodded. “How about yourself?”

“I'm going up to see him.”

“You'll be lucky if you get to see him. He's up in 210. Got a big tough bruiser sitting just outside his door.”

“I think he'll see me.”

Collins cocked his head. “Heard you took it on the lam. Just grapevine stuff.”

“You heard it right,” said Blaine.

“You don't look so good,” said Collins. “Don't be offended, but I got an extra buck or two …”

Blaine laughed.

“A drink, perhaps?”

“No. I must hurry and see Finn.”

“You with him?”

“Well, not exactly …”

“Look, Shep, we were good pals back there in Fishhook. Can you give me what you know? Anything at all. Do a good job on this one, they might send me back to Fishhook. There's nothing I want worse.”

Blaine shook his head.

“Look, Shep, there are all sorts of rumors. There was a truck went off the road down by the river. There was something in that truck, something that was terribly important to Finn. He leaked it to the press. He'd have a sensational announcement to the press. He had something he wanted us to see. There's a rumor it's a star machine. Tell me, Shep, could it be a star machine? No one knows for sure.”

“I don't know a thing.”

Collins moved closer, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “This is big, Shep. If Finn can nail it down. He thinks he has hold of something that will blow the parries—every single parry, the whole concept of PK—clear out of the water. You know he's worked for that for years. In a rather hateful way, of course, but he has worked for it for years. He's preached hate up and down the land. He's a first-class rabble-rouser. He needs just this one to cinch his case. Give him a good one now and the entire world tips to him. Give him that clincher and the world will shut its eyes to the way he did it. They'll be out howling, out after parry blood.”

“You forgot that I'm a parry.”

“So was Lambert Finn—at one time.”

“There's too much hate,” Blaine said wearily. “There are too many derogatory labels. The reformers call the paranormal people parries, and the parries call the reformers reefers. And you don't give a damn. You don't care which way it goes. You wouldn't go out and hunt someone to his death. But you'll write about it. You'll spread the blood across the page. And you don't care where it comes from, just so it is blood.”

“For the love of God, Shep …”

“So I will give you something. You can say that Finn hasn't anything to show, not a word to say. You can say that he is scared. You can say he stubbed his toe.…”

“Shep, you're kidding me!”

“He won't dare show you what he's got.”

“What is it that he's got?”

“Something that, if he showed it, would make him out a fool. I tell you, he won't dare to show it. Tomorrow morning Lambert Finn will be the most frightened man the world has ever known.”

“I can't write that. You know I can't.…”

“Tomorrow noon,” Blaine told him, “everyone will be writing it. If you start right now, you can catch the last morning editions. You'll scoop the world—if you've got the guts to do it.”

“You're giving me straight dope? You're—”

“Make up your mind,” said Blaine. “It's true, every word of it. It is up to you. Now I've got to get along.”

Collins hesitated. “Thanks, Shep,” he said. “Thanks an awful lot.”

Blaine left him standing there, went past the elevator and turned up the stairs.

He came to the second floor and there, at the end of the left-hand corridor a man sat in a chair tilted back against the wall.

Blaine paced purposefully down the corridor. As he came closer, the guard tilted forward in his chair and came to his feet.

He put his hand out against Blaine's chest.

“Just a minute, mister.”

“It's urgent I see Finn.”

“He ain't seeing no one, mister.”

“You'll give him a message?”

“Not at this hour, I won't.”

“Tell him I'm from Stone.”

“But Stone—”

“Just tell him I'm from Stone.”

The man stood undecided. Then he let his arm drop.

“You wait right here,” he said. “I'll go in and ask him. Don't try no funny stuff.”

“That's all right. I'll wait.”

He waited, wondering just how smart he was to wait. In the half-dark, rancid corridor he felt the ancient doubt. Maybe, he told himself, he should simply turn around and walk rapidly away.

The man came out.

“Stand still,” he commanded. “I've got to run you down.”

Expert hands went over Blaine, seeking knife or gun.

The man nodded, satisfied. “You're clean,” he said. “You can go on in. I'll be right outside the door.”

“I understand,” Blaine told him.

The guard opened the door, and Blaine went through it.

The room was furnished as a living room. Beyond it was a bedroom.

There was a desk across the room, and a man stood behind the desk. He was clad in funeral black with a white scarf at his throat and he was tall. His face was long and bony and made one think of a winter-gaunted horse, but there was a hard, stern purpose to him that was somehow frightening.

Blaine walked steadily forward until he reached the desk.

“You are Finn,” he said.

“Lambert Finn,” said the man in a hollow voice, the tone of an accomplished orator who never can quite stop being an orator even when at rest.

Blaine brought his hands out of his pockets and rested his knuckles on the desk. He saw Finn looking at the blood and dirt.

“Your name,” said Finn, “is Shepherd Blaine and I know all about you.”

“Including that someday I intend to kill you?”

“Including that,” said Finn. “Or at least a suspicion of it.”

“But not tonight,” said Blaine, “because I want to see your face tomorrow. I want to see if you can take it as well as dish it out.”

“And that's why you came to see me? That's what you have to tell me?”

“It's a funny thing,” Blaine told him, “but at this particular moment, I can think of no other reason. I actually can't tell why I bothered to come up.”

“To make a bargain, maybe?”

“I hadn't thought of that. There's nothing that I want that you can give me.”