By Furies Possessed by Ted White

Author:Ted White
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780575117914
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2012-12-21T05:00:00+00:00

“Why are you so concerned about us?” Bjonn asked, after I felt well enough to sit up and talk. He sat facing me on another cushion. Dian had disappeared into another room. I’d seen no one else.

“In case you’ve forgotten,” I pointed out, “you’re my responsibility.”

“Nonsense,” he smiled. “I am my own responsibility.”

“It’s my job,” I insisted. “I was responsible for you.”

“I’m afraid,” he countered, “that I have been responsible for you. I apologize to you.”

“Why’d you run away?” I asked.

“We didn’t,” he said.

I sat there and glared at him, while he smiled in return. I wanted to get up and hit him. I’d never hit another man in my adult life. But at the thought the pain in my gut redoubled. I leaned over a little more, clenching my stomach a little tighter, and gritted out:

“Let’s not quibble over words. You ran. You grabbed Dian, made the 21:00 HST to Pacifica, took a tube to Santa Barbara, rented a tandem cycle, and hunted down a man named Linebarger, spent the night as his guests, and the next day the four of you—you, Dian, Linebarger and a girl named Mills—took a tube north, rented a car, and drove it as far as Big Sur, where you turned the car over to a kid named Leroy Tanner, and then you dropped out of sight—the four of you—until now. Until last night. On 3-D. Why? Just tell me that, will you? Let me close the damned books on you, huh? Tell me why!”

He waited me out. Then he nodded, slowly. “You’ve compiled an interesting dossier on our activities, haven’t you? None too detailed, but in keeping with your dark suspicions. ‘On the run,’ I believe you put it. I ‘grabbed’ Dian. We ‘hunted down’ Bob Linebarger and ‘a girl named Mills.’ We ‘dropped out of-sight,’ you say. I can understand why you feel that way, Tad, but it isn’t true. None of it’s true.”

He raised a hand to forestall my angry interjection. “Oh, I’m sure you have the bald facts,” he said. “But a collection of facts is in itself no guarantee of truth. The omission of a fact can certainly cast other facts into a different shade entirely. Would you like the truth?”

‘That’s what I’m here for,” I said flatly. “I see. You think you’re here for the truth. But are you? If it contradicts what you think—what you believe? Will you still want the truth then?”

“Look, Bjonn,” I said. “It would be a pleasure—a distinct pleasure!—to hear just a little straight talk from you. Yes, I’d like the truth!”

“Very well,” he nodded, Buddha-like in the shadows.

“To begin with, Dian and I did not ‘run away,’ as you seem to believe. After Dian had confided to me the truth of your assignment it seemed to us both that the necessity of our mission demanded a less hostile setting. Dian knew that a friend of hers was vacationing in Santa Barbara and we determined to visit her.”

“Her?” I interjected.

“Karilin Mills,” Bjonn said.

“This was in the afternoon of that day,” he continued.

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