Rip foster rides the gra.., p.15
The Moment of Truth, page 15
“I told you that Huw would be useful, didn’t I? Yes, Dr. Victory, their plans include Lilith. She’s been working with the Sons for a long time, if she’s not actually behind them. I wouldn’t put that past her, although the person supposedly pulling her strings will doubtless be displeased if she goes into business for herself. This whole scheme might even have been her idea, in the beginning. If so, everyone’s been betrayed, all along the line. How amusing!”
“Monsignor Torricelli said that he believed in the literal truth of Genesis,” Victory observed. “Are you as versatile as he is, able to believe in Eden and in evolution.”
“Now that’s good,” Asmodeus said. “You’re making progress, Dr. Victory. A little while longer, and you might be nearly ready to believe the truth. Better make haste, though—Monday morning’s only eighty-some hours away. For what it’s worth, I’m much more versatile than Torricelli; he’s a prisoner of the Church’s dogma, as I said. I know the whole truth about Eden, even though I wasn’t there. Gwynplaine only thinks he does, because he was. If you ask him about it nicely enough, he might explain. Listen very carefully to what he says, if he condescends to answer you, even though you won’t be able to believe it. You might even be able to work out what he’s aiming at, and where he’s coming from, if you’re clever enough. What you and he believe isn’t really that important, though, no matter what either of you may think—the point is to figure out what you want, and to go for it, if you can. You think I’m talking nonsense, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Victory said.
“Well, I’m not,” Asmodeus retorted, and rang off.
Victory put the phone down gently, feeling even more tired than he had when he picked it up.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE FIFTH DAY: LATE MORNING
On Friday morning Victory made haste to the hospital in order to be on time for his appointment with Mrs. Gregory K. Allison. The news was still focused on parliamentary affairs, apart from a routine update on the GEM’s predictions and a delayed report of a brawl between the Humanist crusader and the neo-Marxist on the steps of Broadcasting House following their contretemps with the makers of Newman and Saxon.
As anticipated, Mrs. Allison’s husband was waiting with her. The billionaire shook the surgeon’s hand enthusiastically.
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to accompany my wife when she came to Harley Street,” Allison said. He was a tall man, who had already been under the knife himself, but the work that had been done on him was elementary. His neck needed a complete overhaul, and his jaw line needed tightening. His eyebrows were neat enough, but Victory could see a lot of potential in them. On the other hand, his was a face as different from the imaginary Adam’s as it was possible to imagine; his lumpen Anglo-Saxon features belonged to an entirely different genre. He and his wife were a conspicuous mismatch, in that respect.
“I’m glad to report that the first operation was a great success,” Victory told him. “The programming work for the second is complete, and I’ve no doubt that everything will go smoothly. Would you like to see the figures or the updated preview?”
“We’ll skip the figures,” Allison said. “Put the preview on the wallscreen, though—we’d both like to check that out.”
Victory plugged his key ring fob into the tower beside Mrs. Allison’s bed and instructed the system to display Mrs. Allison’s future face on the wall opposite her bed. The image was not significantly different from the one he had displayed on the screen in his consulting room, but the sheer size of it made it seem far more impressive. It seemed positively regal.
A face like that, Victory thought, could demand anything of any heterosexual man between the ages of fifteen and seventy-five, and be sure that he’d move heaven and earth to comply.
“Very impressive,” Allison said, approvingly. “I’ve always known, of course, that my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world, but this is sheer perfection. Your Ms. Legrange is very anxious that I should allow you to take full credit for your work, as soon as the residual bruises have healed.”
“That’s not necessary,” Victory assured him. “Success of this sort is its own reward.”
“I don’t doubt it—but Ms. Legrange is right. You deserve the credit for your artistry. Will you be able to work a similar miracle with Amahl?”
“I hope so,” Victory said. “I haven’t finalised his program yet, but I’m very satisfied with his progress since the penultimate series of operations. You’ve volunteered to pay for the boy’s future care, I believe?”
“More than that,” Allison assured him. “We’re obliged to complete what you’ve begun, don’t you think—by we I mean Britain, of course. We’ve assumed responsibility for him, and must honour our obligation. He’ll have the best life we can make for him, doctor. Education, a career…the sky’s the limit.”
“I’m sure it is,” Victory said. “Do you have any instructions for me, in respect of Amahl’s final series of operations?”
“Certainly not. You’re the expert, and the artist. I trust your judgment implicitly. Do whatever’s best for the boy. You know his face very intimately by now; you know what potential it has. Do what you will.”
Mrs. Allison, whose bandaged face was still sore enough to inhibit her speech slightly, had so far said nothing, but now she added her assent to what her husband had said. She was far too old school merely to grunt, so she took the trouble to formulate her words as perfectly as she could. “We want you to do great work, doctor,” she said. “We believe the time is ripe.”
“Overripe, according to the GEM,” Victory murmured.
“Well,” said Gregory K. Allison, “if the modern Oracle is right and the world really is about to end, and the ecocatastrophe does take humankind and all our interdependent species down, no one will be able to say that we didn’t do great things before we went. Personally, I think we’ll survive—precisely because we’re capable of such great things. The universe would be a poorer place by far without us.”
What magnificently casual arrogance! Victory thought. What enormous self-satisfaction, in a man who’s never made anything but money!
What he said aloud, though, was: “I hope you’re right, Mr. Allison. If the Day of Judgment is at hand, I’m hoping for a not guilty verdict—and not by reason of insanity.”
There was just an instant when Gregory K. Allison’s eyes hardened, as if with suspicion—but then the moment vanished, and he was all smiles again. The laugh lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes needed work, but Victory was too polite to point it out.
After a brief, one-sided chat with Amahl Sahman and a not-so-brief debriefing session with Christina Legrange, Victory got back to the reproduction Bentley shortly after ten thirty. He had a trouble-free journey, arriving at his consulting-rooms at a few minutes to eleven.
Claire had no news for him either—but that was because Rachel Rosenfeld had obviously chosen to bypass the orthodox channels of communication that protocol demanded for fellow practitioners. The psychotherapist came into the reception area just as he was about to turn the key in the mechanical lock that kept his inner sanctum doubly secure.
“Could you possibly spare me a few minutes Dr. Victory?” she asked.
“In what connection?” Victory asked.
“In connection with one of my patients. He’s upstairs in my office now. He’d like to see you. I don’t know for sure that you’ll be interested in what he has to say, but I think you might—and I’d rather be present, if you don’t mind. It may help me with his further treatment.”
Victory thought through the implications of this statement in a matter of moments. “You mean that one of your patients wants to share his paranoid delusions with me, and you want to watch?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Dr. Rosenfeld said, blandly—but she didn’t take the trouble to put it any other way.
“Fine,” Victory said. “Lead the way.” To Claire, he said: “If anyone calls, tell them I’ve been delayed. If it’s Mr. Gwynplaine, you can let him into the office.
As they went up the stairs, Rachel Rosenfeld said: “I’m not certain that this is a wise move, Dr. Victory, but my patient is rather insistent, and I got the impression when we talked in the car park on Monday night that you and he have certain interests in common.”
“You can call me Hugo,” Victory said. “You mean the comprachicos, I suppose.”
“I was surprised to hear you ask about them,” the psychotherapist replied, evasive as ever.
“Sufficiently impressed to ask my secretary whether I’d recently been consulted by a man with bad burns. Quite frankly, Rachel, I’m a little surprised by that. Surely you should have spoken directly to me.”
“I was trying to confirm something my patient had told me,” Dr. Rosenfeld relied with no sign of contrition. “I merely wanted to know if the man who was sitting in your office on Monday afternoon had been badly burned; your secretary very properly replied that she couldn’t say. I accepted her judgment.”
“Very scrupulous,” Victory said, as they reached the door of Rachel Rosenfeld’s suite. He nodded politely to the psychotherapist’s receptionist as he passed her desk on the way to the inner office, which was situated directly above his own.
Dr. Rosenfeld’s patient turned out to be a boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years of age. He was sitting in one of two armchairs positioned by the desk, not lying on the couch. He was a little pale, but otherwise seemed to be in perfectly good health. His skin had the tautness of youth, but Victory could see that his jowls would need work in future years, and that he would benefit considerably from the remoulding of his nose and ears. Victory also observed that he was exceptionally well-dressed—not in the trivial sense that his clothes bore fashionable labels, but in the more refined sense that his suit had obviously been made to measure. In a way, the fact that he was wearing a suit at all was just as remarkable, given his age. How many teenagers, Victory wondered, put on their Sunday best in order to meet with their psychotherapists?”
“This is Joseph,” Rachel Rosenfeld said. “Joseph, this is Dr. Hugo Victory.”
Victory took note of the fact that the boy had retained the full version of his given name. He shook the boy’s hand, and sat down in the second chair. “I believe you wanted to see me, Joseph,” he said. “You do understand that I can’t discuss any of my clients, don’t you?”
“I understand,” the boy said. “I’m not trying to find anything out…or rather, I am trying to find some things out, but I understand that you might not be able to tell me even if you knew. What worries me more is that you might not know certain things that I know…or at least suspect. You probably think I’m crazy because of where we are, and I probably am, a little—but my finding certain things difficult has nothing to do…or very little to do…with the things I want to tell you. Dr. Rosenfeld says that you’ve heard of the comprachicos.”
Victory glanced at Rachel Rosenfeld, who was sitting on the other side of the desk in a conspicuously relaxed manner.
“Yes,” Victory said. “I’ve been doing some research into them.”
“So have I,” Joseph said. “More to the point, so has my father. Have you also heard of the Sons of Job?”
“Yes,” Victory said, “and the Visionary Martyrs too. I’ve learned a good deal since Monday, although some of what I’ve been told is rather confusing, and I’m not sure that I believe any of it.”
“The scroll-fragments aren’t all genuine,” Joseph said, “but some of them seem to be. There are other documents too—but as for the story that’s been spun out of the few fragments that are genuine…that’s a completely different matter. Even so, there are people who believe it, obsessively. The Sons of Job and the Visionary Martyrs might have been extinct for the greater part of the last two thousand years, but they exist now. Resurrected or reborn, they exist. The Martyrs allegedly have their visionaries, although I can’t say for sure, and the Sons.…”
“Have fathers?” Victory suggested, when the boy trailed off.
“That too,” Joseph agreed. “I think my father might have started off as a mere collector, just as he started off as a mere businessman, but he never does anything by halves. In fact, he always goes way over the top. Like a confidence trickster who falls for his own patter, he can get carried away in the oddest directions—so my mother says. She’s known him a lot longer than I have. Sometimes, she says, that makes him vulnerable to people prepared to flatter his illusions—and there are always people willing to flatter a rich man’s illusions. My father thinks he’s cleverer by far than anyone who might want to take him in, and it’s mostly true—but it also means that when he does get taken in, he can’t be persuaded of the fact. Not by anyone, least of all.…”
Again the boy trailed off, and Victory tried again to hurry him along. “So he’s joined the Sons of Job,” Victory said. “He’s been trying to locate the last secret of the comprachicos, I suppose—the book that was supposed to have been lost in the Great Fire of London.”
“He’s been trying very hard for some years,” the boy said. “He’s not a man who tolerates frustration very well.”
“And what makes you think that I can help him in his quest?” Victory asked, bluntly.
“I don’t,” Joseph replied, equally bluntly. “I don’t believe any such book exists—but I do know that my father’s attempts to find one have created an exceedingly tempting prospect for would-be forgers. The problem any such forger would have, though, is convincing my father of the authenticity of his product. He would have to go about that in a very clever—and perhaps very convoluted—manner. There isn’t much that the forger could do by way of establishing provenance in an orthodox manner, so he might be tempted to tackle the problem from another angle, by obtaining a different sort of certificate of authenticity. He might, for instance, attempt to obtain the services of a plastic surgeon in certifying that the operation described by the so-called last secret of the comprachicos was both viable and original.”
Victory frowned, but he had no time to object. “I’m not accusing you of being part of any conspiracy,” Joseph said. “Dr. Rosenfeld assures me that you wouldn’t be party to any fraud, and I can’t believe that a man in your position would stoop to something like that. But everyone is manipulable, Dr. Victory, if the manipulation is clever enough. If my father can be fooled, anyone can. The reason I wanted to see you was to warn you that you might be the victim of a confidence trick—and that you might not realise it, because you might not have been able to see what the people tricking you stood to gain. What I want you to consider is that you might only be an instrument in a plot whose real target is my father; he’s the one who might be persuaded to part with an enormous amount of money for the secret of the comprachicos, if only he could be persuaded that the document containing it is genuine. When I say an enormous amount, I mean it; we’re talking about someone who has more money than he could ever spend—a man who could throw away a sum that any ordinary person would consider a fortune, on a whim or a bet.”
“I see,” Victory said. “And you’re worried about your inheritance?”
Joseph laughed. “Mother and I have already been disinherited, in the sense that we have any claim on his ever-growing fortune,” he said. “The settlements he made following the divorce were very generous—neither of us will ever want for anything—but they’re a fait accompli. I don’t stand to gain a penny by giving you this warning, Dr. Victory, and even if I did…as I said, my father could throw away a few million without it making any appreciative difference to what remained. On the other hand, if he ever did figure out that he’d been conned—and he almost certainly would, eventually—he might be inclined to strike back at anyone involved in the con, if he could find them. I doubt that he’d be able to find the man who brought you the book—assuming that someone has brought you the book—but he’d certainly be able to find you.”
“So your motives are entirely altruistic?” Victory said. “It’s just your spirit of fair play that obliged you to tip me off?”
“I’d like to think so,” Joseph said. “Dr. Rosenfeld thinks that I might be trying to get back at my father because I can’t forgive him for deserting my mother and me. In fact, although she would never dream of saying so, Dr. Rosenfeld probably thinks that I invented this whole scheme as a means of trying to do that. She doesn’t think I’m lying, mind—just that I’ve inherited my father’s talent for getting carried away by the force of my own speculations. She might be right, of course. She’s the doctor—I’m just the patient.”
Victory turned to look at Rachel Rosenfeld, whose face was perfectly impassive. She had been in practice a long time, and had long since mastered the art of non-direction.
Victory pondered the possibilities for a moment, and then said: “What makes you think that someone has brought this forged book to me, in the hope that I can be deceived into providing some sort of authentification? Just because I mentioned the comprachicos to Dr. Rosenfeld on Monday.…”
“I didn’t even know about that until today,” Joseph was quick to say. “It wasn’t until I put that together with the fact that I saw Lilith in your office as I was coming up the stairs for my Monday appointment.…”
This time, it was Victory who interrupted. “You think you saw Lilith in my office?”
“I did see Lilith in your office. I know my own stepmother, Dr. Victory. I may not like her very much, but I certainly know her.”
It was Victory’s turn to put two and two together. “Your father is Gregory K. Allison,” he said, secretly calling himself all kinds of a fool for not having guessed before, “and Mrs. Gregory K. Allison’s given name is Lilith.”
