James P. Hogan by Bug Park

Author:Bug Park [Park, Bug]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-01-31T19:42:14+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Doug Corfe sat in his second-floor office in the Neurodyne building and stared at the far wall, as he seemed to have been doing for half the afternoon. And that wasn’t good enough. There was work to be done. But he couldn’t get the situation with Vanessa off his mind. Eric and Kevin were too close, too much like family for him not to feel responsible. And even if that had not been the case, it wasn’t something that a person of his makeup could sit by and let happen without at least trying to do something.

But do what? His mind seemed to oscillate between extremes like a beach ball rolling from end to end on a teeter-totter. Part of the time he felt that Michelle was being too cautious – weren’t they talking about somebody’s life being at stake here, for heaven’s sake? He would go to the police himself if she wouldn’t – and who cared whether or not there was enough evidence to make a case, who could prove what, or about all the other lawyer’s technicalities? Several times he had been on the verge of calling them right there, from his office….

And then, like a view of a wire cube, his perspective would shift, and the whole line of thought would appear as no more than a sop to his own conscience – fooling himself that it would mean anything to passively pass over to others what he had already been told would do no good. At that point he wanted to throw aside all caution completely, and would find himself seriously entertaining fantasies about arranging an accident himself – and then shake himself out of it.

Maybe something not quite as drastic, then. Weren’t there supposed to be professionals who specialized in making sure that messages got received clearly – messages like, “Too bad, what happened to Martin’s nice boat; guess what might be next if anything happens to Eric.”?… But no, it was just another fantasy. He wouldn’t even know where to start, even if he were serious. The result of it all was that he was still sitting there more than halfway though the afternoon, with nothing done that was worth speaking of, when Kevin called.

“Hi, Doug. Sorry to interrupt you at work, but I think it’s important.”

“I wasn’t doing anything that you could call interruptible. Anyhow, if it’s about what I think it’s probably about, it’s important. What’s up?”

“Well, er, I don’t think it would be a good idea to go into it now. But could we get together maybe this evening and talk about it?”

“Sure,” Corfe said. “Did you have anywhere in particular in mind?”

“Probably best not at the house. I was thinking, maybe over at Hiroyuki’s. Could you pick me up later?”

Corfe frowned into the phone. “Hiroyuki’s? Why there? Wouldn’t that be almost as bad?”

“It has to do with an idea that Taki had last night – you know, to solve our problem. Well, I don’t know about solve it, so much, but do something that might help, anyway.

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