The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Eight Read online

  Polly patted her on her shoulder and walked off. Tonya shivered, and wondered how she was going to break the news to her household that on top of everything else, the Council had now exiled her to Siberia.

  (4)

  Focus Dixon was a twit. With a first name like RueAnn, probably short for Ruth Ann, twitness was to be expected. She had been a Focus for six years, long enough to be considered real, but short enough not to be one of the old guard. RueAnn was probably having a grand old time refusing to commit herself to Tonya’s or Lori’s candidacy. Tonya wondered if she had set up today’s mess on purpose or whether this was one of RueAnn’s classic screw-ups. In any event, the grand lost Transform emergency delayed both Focus’s scheduled meetings with RueAnn, and stuck the two of them in the same sitting room, suffering from the overzealous attentions of RueAnn’s household. Together.

  Things could be worse. She could be stuck here with RueAnn herself. At least Lori was intelligent.

  Tonya had actually come to like Lori more during the younger Focus’s rebellion. To Tonya’s surprise, there seemed to be some real substance behind Lori’s highbrow theorizing and detachment from the real world. Most of her conversations with Lori still ended up in Lori-land, but she now knew there was more to the Boston Focus than Lori’s World’s Fair style version of gloom and doom science.

  “I hear Polly’s stuck you with the new Focus mentoring job. That’s a lot of work if you do it right. I assume you’re going to be doing more delegating than Focus Corrigan?” Lori said, sipping tea. She glowed today, more than the normal healthy pregnancy glow that served as a walking advertisement for her Cause and her rebellion.

  They had just about exhausted all possible small talk in the past three hours. Letting business interfere with pleasure was inevitable.

  Tonya raised an eyebrow. “What, you want me to give up because Polly gave me a big job?”

  Lori smiled. “No hope of that, I take it.”

  “Any hope of convincing you that you’ve endangered your household because of your rebellion?”

  “They’ve been the ones pushing me,” Lori said, a twinkle in her eye. “If I hadn’t said ‘no’ the rebellion would have started years ago.”

  “That doesn’t make it better.” Lori had to realize Tonya would report this conversation to their boss, Suzie Schrum, and how nothing got under the skin of the ruling first Focuses faster than unsquashed household Transform agitation.

  Time to change the subject. “Have you been able to come up with any real proof the Transform kidnappings are being done by Chimeras?” Lori didn’t have any evidence not labeled ‘from the Crows’, which meant ‘worthless evidence’. As far as Tonya knew, she was the only Focus Lori had confided in about the evidence she did have.

  “No.” Lori frowned, then turned and asked RueAnn’s servile Transform to fetch them something with a little more substance than the petits fours littering the low coffee table. Like a half pound of fried bacon. The Transform got up from her kneeling position, uttered some heartfelt “yes, ma’am’s”, and scurried off. “I’d hoped the Frasier kidnapping would have served as a wake-up call to the Council instead of just another piece of evidence to be swept under the rug.”

  The Frasier kidnapping bothered Tonya more than she let on. “Prove it was done by these Chimera boogiemen, then.” Whoever did the dirty deed had left ample evidence behind, none of which made any sense. Including a note in Tonya’s own house stationery implicating her.

  Lori nodded. “Easier said than done,” she said. Tonya read frustration, and a desire to change the subject, fast. Which meant Lori was dealing with the Arms again.

  “You do understand how much trouble you’re going to be in with Suzie for pushing your own candidacy?” She wondered, actually, what Suzie had on Lori, and why she hadn’t used it yet. Unfortunately, one can’t ask that sort of question in polite company. Tonya was, as always, oh so curious.

  “Suzie’s a pushover. Sure, she’s one of the first Focuses, and she’s got her dark withdrawal imprinting tricks, but if it wasn’t for those, she’d be an absolute nobody. She doesn’t have any of the extra zip, the extra charisma, that it takes to be a leading Focus these days. I mean, the two of us have been banging on each other for what, four years now, and I know you’ve gotten better because of our, um, tussles.” Lori turned away, and sighed. “Besides, she’s the only Focus who calls me Dr. Rizzari.”

  Bingo. Lori just wasn’t paranoid enough. The fact Suzie was the only one who used Lori’s honorific should have been a clue to her about how dangerous Suzie was, and what she risked. Suzie had basically told Lori that her PhD was her weakness, implying Suzie had something on Lori that if publicly released, would cost Lori her teaching position, if not her academic career. Tonya weighed telling Lori, and decided not to. Eventually, she would need Lori on her side, when the time finally came to push the issue of control of the Council. A few more of life’s hard knocks would serve the younger academic Focus well in the meantime.

  “Interesting,” Tonya said, blank of mind and face.

  Lori shrugged. “You know, I’ve found a new translation of a southern India myth cycle that echoes our current situation. You might find it interesting that…”

  Here we go again, Tonya sighed to herself.

  From Gail’s Second Phone Call With Tonya

  “I’m glad to hear the visit went well,” Tonya said. “Did Beth give you any pointers?”

  “Yes,” Gail said, and tried to push the image of Tonya torturing Transforms out of her head. “Yes, she did.”

  “What kind of pointers?”

  “Well, a bunch of stuff.” Most of which Gail had a hard time trusting. She wondered if they were the generally accepted wisdom of the Focuses or just Beth’s personal opinion. “Like bodyguards.”

  “What about bodyguards?”

  “Well, she said you should always have a Transform bodyguard. And if you have two, it’s best one of them be a Transform and one of them a normal, just in case you’re badly injured and far from home. I shouldn’t worry about shorting the Transforms in an emergency, because I’d be pumping them like nobody’s business. She said I needed people who will take a bullet for me.” Not bodyguards assigned by the household because they were unemployed and male. Real true bodyguards. “She also mentioned the bodyguard training the various Focuses pass around.”

  “Good, good. All definitely true,” Tonya said.

  Beth was probably right, at least on this. But still…

  “But do you really need those bodyguards?” Gail said. “I have trouble with the whole bodyguard thing.”

  “Bodyguards are important – your Transforms might die if you’re killed, or even if you’re badly injured,” Tonya said, firm. “Hopefully you’ll never be attacked, but if you are, you’ll need those bodyguards. As a Focus, you’re much more of a target than you are as a normal.”

  Gail shook her head. “Have you ever been attacked?”

  “Well, I’m a little high profile for a Focus, but yes, twice so far this year,” Tonya said.

  This year! “You’re serious?” Gail said, her discomfort with Tonya forgotten, replaced by an itchy fear. “What happened?”

  “The first attack was by the brother of a Transform. The Transform died because no Focus had a slot free to take him, and the brother went round the bend. He started shooting at the first Focus he was able to find, which happened to be me. Fortunately, he missed his first shot, and my bodyguards handled the problem.”

  “Holy cow,” Gail said. “What did they do?”

  “Well,” Tonya said, “My normal bodyguard covered me, and the Transform killed the man.”

  “Oh,” Gail said, shocked to find the danger so real. “So everyone was all right on your side?”

  “We were all fine. The legal hassles afterwards were a serious pain in the neck, though. Connie Webb over in California is good with legal stuff, if you ever run into a similar situation yourself.”

  “Oh. Ah,” Gail sai
d, and furrowed her eyebrows. “I’ll keep that in mind. What about the second incident?”

  “The second was a few months ago. You know we had race riots here in Philadelphia after Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated?”

  “Yes,” Gail said. As a journalism major, she had caught the news bug, and she still followed the news religiously. She knew about the Philadelphia race riots.

  “Well, there’s a lot of buried anger and fear around Transforms that gets mixed into the whole race business. So, when the riots started, they went after Transform households along with everything else. Our household was outside the worst, thank heavens, but I got caught in my car on the way home from visiting another Focus. My guards covered me as we got out, but we lost the car.”

  Gail shook her head over the telephone receiver, amazed. Frightened. The danger sounded a lot more real from Tonya’s descriptions than from Beth’s cheery warnings.

  “So what other things did Beth tell you?” Tonya said.

  “Well.” Gail flushed, tempted to avoid the next subject, but she wanted to know if Tonya agreed with Beth. “Uh, well, she said I should let the people in my household do favors for me. Give me special privileges to make me happy, to help me control the juice.”

  “She said that?”

  “Yeah,” Gail said, embarrassed.

  “Excellent,” Tonya said. “A lot of young Focuses have trouble with favors.”

  “They do?”

  “Absolutely. New Focuses often go to extremes on this issue, demanding either her people dance attendance on her every whim, or swearing off all special treatment, and either way will get you into trouble. I’m glad Beth’s giving you good advice.”

  “So this is good advice?” She still needed reassurance on this subject. Special privileges were wrong, even if she didn’t need to torture her people to get them. She didn’t like having people kissing up to her. Her Transforms shouldn’t be treating her like she was some kind of queen of the world or something, like she was Snow White in the glass coffin.

  She remembered what Beth had said about Tonya, though, and decided to reserve judgment on everything Tonya said.

  “This is excellent advice,” Tonya said. “When you’re a few years along as a Focus, your juice control problems won’t be as bothersome, but now…think of this as training. Your Transforms are training you to be a better Focus. Given your power over them, it’s only fair they have some over you.”

  “Mmm,” Gail said. Tonya’s comment echoed one of Melanie’s, when her prim and touchy Focus attendant had attempted to get Gail more engaged with the rest of the household. “So what extreme did you go to when you were young?”

  “I think I’ll take the fifth on that one,” Tonya said, and Gail heard the smile in her voice as she gently dodged the question. “So what else?”

  “Well, we talked about taxes. One of the people in her household is going to help me out with them. He’s a tax accountant who’s good with Focus households.”

  “She’s got a tax accountant specializing in Focus households!” Tonya said, astonished and intense.

  “Um, well, yes,” Gail said, surprised by Tonya’s vehemence. This had been just one of the many pieces of information Beth had given her. “A Transform named Phil. A real nice guy.”

  “I’d kill for someone like him. That’s a skill worth real money. I wonder if she’s willing to hire him out.”

  “Uh, I don’t know. He didn’t seem too busy.”

  “All right, I’ll talk to Beth. There’s probably a dozen Focuses who would be willing to pay for some of his time, including me.” Lust filled Tonya’s voice, and hearing it, Gail began to understand how Tonya got a seat on the Focus Council. Hers was a voice to die for. “A tax accountant. Specializing in Focus households,” Tonya said, marveling.

  “Uh huh.” Tonya sounded as if these other households would hire Phil, for money. Gail hoped she had found an opportunity for her new friend, rather than trouble.

  “Beth also talked about how to get over the Focus blahs with meditation. Practice thinking positive thoughts and putting a smile on your face. Stuff along those lines. Do you meditate?” Beth was so, well, cheerful. It hurt a little, when she realized Beth actually had to practice being cheerful.

  “I don’t meditate. I say the Rosary though, when I find myself getting too tense. Other Focuses do other things, like running or other extensive exercise, or praying, or even things like painting and losing themselves in their art. Each Focus needs to do something, though.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Beth’s advice had made sense anyway.

  “We talked about places to live,” Gail said. “She had some suggestions. We talked about how to make money. She talked about some of the ways other households cope with the money problem. Small businesses, stuff like that.”

  “Good,” Tonya said. “Did it help?”

  “Well, I think so, anyway. I have a couple of ideas.”

  “Did she talk about ways of earning money that aren’t quite so legal?”

  “No,” Gail said, startled and remembering Kurt’s extra activities. “Why?”

  “Some households can get a little desperate for money and slip over to the far side of the law. If you ever get in a money bind, give me a call. We have some people who can help you out. If you ever do find yourself in something illegal, it’s critical you know what you’re doing.”

  “The Focuses don’t object to illegal activities?” Gail said, a little nervous.

  “The UFA objects to Focuses getting caught. Or ruining their households with legal troubles. But no, other Focuses understand the things you need to do to keep your household afloat, and we’ll help.”

  “Oh. I’ll think about that.”

  “Good. Make sure you don’t go down that road on your own, though. You’re never so vulnerable as when you’re starting out, and don’t know enough to avoid the mistakes. We have people who can show you the ropes. Now, what else did you talk about?”

  Tonya never stopped. She wanted to know everything.

  Tom’s Recruitment

  (Carol Hancock’s POV) [expanded]

  Top talent is difficult to recruit. Oh, I was able to recruit as many smart, willful white-collar types as I could support, no problem. However, I already had one Hank Zielinski, and I couldn’t support any more overly-willful big ego super-successful types. With people like Hank, you had to keep them busy, with everything they needed to do their work properly, or they would cause problems. As Lori and Inferno had found out. When the need arose, for managers, accountants, lawyers and the like, I would just go find what I needed. Houston was a veritable smorgasbord of white-collar prospects.

  The real problem was on the other side of the fence. I had been searching for someone of talent to run the criminal side of my organization for my entire Arm career, and I continuously kept settling for second or third best. Yes, I had checked out heads of successful criminal organizations until my eyes bled, but with them I kept running into a dilemma – the talented goons were beyond untrustworthy, and the trustworthy ones untalented. I would have had to keep a daily eyeball on the talented mobsters if they learned anything real about me, making them useless for a continent-trotting Arm. I did hire such types, as they did have their uses, but never as myself.

  What I needed was a hard case version of Hank, someone I would be able to turn into the Godfather. Given the amount of recruiting I did, you would think I would have found someone already, but I hadn’t.

  Finally, though, my hard work did pay off.

  Tom Delacort was a retired Army Master Sergeant and I found him in late August while trolling for recruits in a bar in Tulsa. He was a black man in a white bar, and they wouldn’t have tolerated him there except for his service in the Army. He was there every Friday night, where he would drink four shots of Jack Daniels over two hours. No more, no less.

  My instincts said he was exactly what I wanted, strong but wounded. I recognized the strength and the will by the way he restricted him
self to those four drinks when he so clearly wanted more. I recognized the wound by the fact he was there at all, both the drinking and the fact he chose a white bar.

  Tom had joined the Army in 1947, at the age of 18. In the modern Army, they most likely would have recognized his talent and made him an officer, but not in ‘47. By the time the Army’s attitude changed, Tom was too old for serious consideration. He dealt with the injustice with no particular resentment and gave his life to the Army.

  He retired after 20 years of service. Retired, he discovered that he no longer knew his children or wife. After three months, she found someone else to sleep with. They divorced within the year. He supplemented his Army pension by working as a gym coach at the local school, but he didn’t like the current generation of kids. They could tell, and returned the favor.

  At thirty-nine years old, he was strong, talented, and slowly sinking into death, hoping for lightning to strike.

  That’s me.

  I didn’t grab him the first night I found him. Instead, I put work into my preparations. I knew I wasn’t going to make him mine by force, or by quickly seducing him into my service. If I attempted to beat him into submission, all I would do would be to activate his tremendous strength of will against me. So, first, I studied him and his past. I interviewed old acquaintances. I prompted his ex-wife into venting to me about Tom. I did the legwork, and came up with a more subtle plan.

  Humans have used all sorts of techniques to manipulate minds and control the way people think. There’s an entire discipline called coercive persuasion, or brainwashing. The Chinese and Russians have made extensive use of the practice. Numerous books on the subject existed, and you can find them at any good library.

  Mostly, they were crap.

  As an expert on the human mind, and the weaknesses of the human mind, I recognized many of the fallacies immediately. The worst seemed to be the assumption you can apply the same techniques to different people with equivalent results. The next was that these techniques would reliably produce permanent change.