Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester (7 page)

“We have a long night ahead of us. At the end of it you will be dead, but I intend to take my time about it. It’s so rare I get to do this, these days.”

He took another sip of the wine, rubbed his good hand on his permanently clenched one.

“Shall we begin?”

He had frozen Jem’s vocal cords, so all the thug could make was a sort of clucking noise. But his brain-ah, that was filled with panic, with a beautiful sort of terror.

Just a bad trip, Jem was telling himself. Not real…

Bester inserted his thoughts like a scalpel into butter.

No, I’m afraid not. This is more real than you can imagine.

And with the scalpel he began to cut, to whittle Jem away, piece by piece.

He made sure that the thug felt himself die, watched what he had lost slip away. His wide eyes faded and misted, his throat pulsed with the urge to scream, but Bester wouldn’t give him that.

And then he was dead, though his body was still working. Everything that had actually been Jem was cut away from him.

Bester took a break, sipping a little more wine while the breathing corpse stared at the ceiling. He moved away, since Jem’s bowels and bladder had emptied themselves, opened a window for a bit of fresh air. He stretched, tried to work the crick out of his neck, flipped on the TV to see what, if anything, had been reported about the fire. It got a ten-second spot on the local update. The footage showed the hotel, Louise, the fire trucks, but he didn’t see himself.

He went to the kitchen and made some coffee, then returned to where the body lay, specter-eyed. Then, with due consideration, he started putting Jem back together.

It was almost morning when he returned to the hotel. The broken window had been boarded up. He used his key to open the door and was greeted with a pungent, wet, burned smell.

A single lamp was on, on one of the unburnt tables. Louise sat in its light, an empty bottle of wine in front of her. She looked up wearily.

“You’ve made other arrangements, I take it, and come to get your things?”

“No. I thought I would get some sleep, instead.”

She shook her head.

“The hotel is closed.”

“Why? The damage is only cosmetic.”

“There’s nothing cosmetic about a firebomb tossed through the window.”

“You don’t want to close the hotel.”

“Who are you to tell me what I want? You know nothing of me.”

“I know the woman I first saw, defending what was hers. I know she would not give in so easily.”

“There’s nothing easy about it. About any of it. For five years I’ve tried to keep this place going. Five years, watching my savings dwindle. It’s enough. I’m finished.”

“You don’t have the money to clean up a little fire damage?”

“What would be the point? They’ll only do it again, or worse-unless I start paying them again, which I also can’t afford.”

“You might be surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that you might be surprised, that’s all. Things happen. Things change.”

“Some things don’t.”

She patted her hand slowly on the table.

“You know, at first I thought you were hoping for something from me. To share my bed. Is that it? Is that why you persist?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“I need a place to stay, that’s all. And I don’t like bullies. I don’t like being told what to do.”

“I suppose you don’t. You were in the war, weren’t you?”

He froze, uncertain what to say. Which war did she mean?

“Yes,” he finally settled on.

“I thought so. You have a way about you. I think you have already seen the worst thing you could ever see, and it ate all of the fear in you. And maybe more than your fear.”

She looked up at him, but he didn’t think she was expecting an answer.

“Have you ever been in love, Mr. Kaufman?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to her?”

“Nothing I want to talk about.”

“I was in love, once. Crazy, stupid in love. Now all I have is a broken-down hotel.”

She picked at the table.

“He left me. See, that is none of your business, but I tell you anyway. I don’t know why-the wine, maybe. He left me with my debt, and my empty room, and he left me with no notions of love whatsoever. I no longer believe in it, I think. Is that what happened with you? Did you leave her? Are you hiding from your old life?”

Bester nearly echoed that it wasn’t her business, but instead, he sighed.

“No,” he said, remembering Carolyn the last time he had seen her alive and conscious, wired and meshed with Shadow technology.

Worse than dead. But he hadn’t left her.

“No, I tried everything I could to be with her. I… went to great lengths.”

He smiled briefly.

“It just didn’t work out.”

He remembered what was left of Carolyn, after a rogue terrorist had bombed the facility. Remembered how angry he had been, because he had promised her that he would make things all right. But putting a shattered body back together was quite different from rebuilding a psyche. Some promises shouldn’t be made, because they couldn’t be kept.

“No,” he repeated, softly, “it didn’t work out.”

Because of Byron. Because of Lyta. And most of all, because of Garibaldi, whose engineers had doubtless built the weapon that had killed his love.

“Yes, well, that’s life, isn’t it?” she said.

“It doesn’t work out. We grow old, we die. The universe doesn’t care.”

“You’ve had too much wine.”

“I haven’t had enough. Did you know I wanted to be a painter? I studied at the Paris Academy d’Art. I was very serious about it, but I gave it up. For love. For this.”

She swept her hands disgustedly around the room. He sat silent, gripped by the unaccustomed feeling of not knowing what to say.

“You still paint?”

“Hmm. Yes. Walls and doors, mostly. This room most recently. Do you think it needs a new coat of black?”

She indicated the film of carbon that coated the once-white walls.

“I think you should go to bed and think more clearly about it later. And I think I should do the same.”

“I would prefer to sit here and feel sorry for myself for another day or so. Would you care to sit with me? You seem to feel at least as sorry for yourself as I do.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Your every word and expression. The way you study things.”

She frowned.

“Except the other day in the square, when that man drew you. You were different, then. What was different? What occurred to you”

Again, he tried to think of something to say. Because he knew what the painter had seen in his eyes. He had seen Louise.

“I don’t remember,” he answered.

She shot him a skeptical glance, but didn’t dispute him.

“I got a job,” he offered.

“Really.”

“Yes. As a literary critic.”

“That’s a strange job for someone who was in your line of work. Your papers say you were a salesman.”

“A boyhood dream. I’m retired, and now it’s time to live out my fantasies, I suppose. Live in Paris, write.”

“Well, Mr. Kaufman. Welcome to your fantasy.” She hesitated.

“This writing job. Is it full time?”

“No.”

“How would you like free rent for a while?”

“That depends, of course.”

“Help me clean up this mess. I’ll pay you a day an hour. It’s a good deal.”

“So you aren’t throwing in the towel, after all.”

“I suppose not.”

He nodded.

She rose, steadying herself with the table.

“I suppose I’ll catch a few winks.”

“Good night-or morning, rather.”

“Yes. To you, too. And… thank you.”

The words surprised him so much he didn’t know what to say. That seemed to happen to him a lot, talking to Louise. What had he done to be thanked for? Had he been sympathetic ? To a normal?

He went back over the conversation in his head and realized that he had. What had made him do that? He would think about it later. Destroying and rebuilding Jem had taken a lot out of him. He would be more reasonable after a few hours’ rest.

He woke with the remains of a headache, something like a hangover, but otherwise felt pretty well. He got up, splashed cold water on his face, and began to plan his day. Well, he was a reviewer, now. So he needed something to review.

And something to review it on-a desktop AI or something of the sort. His pocket computer could take dictation, but somehow he felt he ought to use an old-fashioned keyboard, if not pen and paper.

Over the years, writers had generally agreed that the disjunction created by the mediation of fingers between thoughts and the written word was necessary. Writing was a different form of communication than speaking, a different way of thinking-a more considered one. It looked as if the day was going to be a warm one, and all he had was his leather jacket and black pants. Another thing he needed to do something about: he needed to acquire a wardrobe.

Louise was downstairs, already scrubbing the walls.

“Ah. Good morning,” she said, taking in his outfit with an up-and-down glance.

“I have some work clothes I think will fit you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are going to help me fix all of this, aren’t you?”

“I distinctly remember that I did not agree to help you,” he replied.

“And I distinctly remember you talking me into staying here, which makes you responsible. So. Are you going to help or not?”

He eyed the room distastefully.

“I would rather not,” he replied.

“Too bad. The clothes are on the counter over there.”

“I have things to do.”

“You can do them later.”

“But…”

Bester frowned.

Up went the brush, down went the brush. Bester watched the thick paint streak over the grey beneath. At this rate, it would take him all day to paint a single wall.

“You’ve never painted before,” Louise said.

It wasn’t a question.

“No, as a matter of fact. Am I doing it right?”

“No. You use the brush to do the trim work, then roll the large sections.”

“Trim work?”

“Here.”

She stepped over and took the brush from his hand, then knelt down next to him.

“See? I’ve put tape on the floor next to the baseboard. Now I paint the baseboard, like so.”

Her hair, caught up in a kerchief, smelled clean, and faintly of lavender. Also of paint-she had managed to coat a few hairs with it, despite her head-cover. He realized that it had been a long time since he had been so close to a woman.

He hadn’t had much luck with women. As a boy he’d had a crush on a girl-another telepath in his cadre. He had unexpectedly come upon her and another boy, kissing, and had the unpleasant experience of psionically sharing the pleasure they got from one another.

Later, as a cadet, he had truly fallen in love, with fiery Elizabeth Montoya, whose passion for him had nearly swept him away. But she hadn’t loved him enough-not enough to stay in the Corps with him. She had tried to go Blip, to run away, and he had been forced to turn her in. He had been so angry at her, for forcing him to do that.

Now he felt nothing at all. He couldn’t even remember her face. The Corps had arranged a marriage, of course, a genetic match guaranteed to produce telepathic offspring. There had never been love there, though for a time he had thought there might be at least companionship. Until he had come home to find Alisha in the arms of another man.

He supposed he was married still, and his son-if indeed it was his son, which he much doubted-was a stranger. No, probably during or after the telepath wars Alisha had sued for a divorce. Who would want to be married to the terrible criminal, Alfred Bester?

And Carolyn. He had loved her. She had proved to him that his heart wasn’t as empty as he had thought. Which in the end only proved he could still be hurt. It wasn’t worth the trade. So why was he noticing the smell of Louise’s hair, the way her fingers gripped the brush, the stray, white-coated hairs straggling across her face?

Ah. That would be because he was an idiot. She was less than half his age, still young and beautiful. His body was responding to her, that was all, a last gasp of hormones. Or maybe he liked the fact that she needed him, if only a little. He had once had thousands of people who depended upon him, and he had been without that for years. Empty nest syndrome? It was an elementary fact that you could make more friends by making them feel like you needed them than the other way around.

Yes, simple physiology and psychology. He wasn’t really attracted to her. And she certainly was not attracted to him. Why was he wasting time with this? Perhaps because, against his will, he was painting for the first time in his life.

There was a knock at the door. Her head jerked up, and her cheek brushed against his. He banged his head into the wall jerking away.

“You!” Louise shouted her voice trembling with rage and fear. Jem stood in the doorway. Louise picked up a piece of charred chair leg from a pile of rubble.

“Get out. Get away from here.”

Jem’s face spasmed with sudden pain. He looked confused. Bester frowned. Maybe he had been more tired than he thought. Maybe…

But then Jem cleared his throat.

“Look, ah, madame, I’m… I went too far. I’m sorry. This isn’t good business, this kind of thing, and I shouldn’t have done it.”

“What? Don’t play with me. I’m sick of you. So help me…”

She hefted the makeshift weapon. Jem withdrew a card from his pocket and held it out.

“There’s eight thousand credits on that. If it doesn’t cover the damage and the lost business, I’ll transfer more. Okay?”

Louise just stared for a moment, utterly amazed. Then her expression took a turn back toward suspicion.

“What are you up to, Jem?

Are you going to snatch that away from me, maybe grab my hair, try to give me a good beating? If you do, you’d better kill me.”

Jem set the credit chit carefully on the counter.

“There it is,” he murmured.

“Check it out. It’s real.”

His eyes flickered once to Bester, and his face spasmed again. Then he turned and left.