Tinker's Dam Part 4

"h.e.l.lo, Mother," I said. "You look just wonderful."

Mother smiled at me and reached across the desk again to take both my hands. "_Yosip_," she said in Romany. "What a wonderful long way you have come since you ran away. A lawyer, and now a big man, a _very_ big man, in Was.h.i.+ngton. I am a very proud gypsy."

What I might have said to her was interrupted by a racket outside my office. Voices were raised. I thought I heard what could only be Anita yelling. That's another thing that had never happened before.

Fred burst back into the office, with Anita right on his heels. His face was livid. Mother turned in her chair and looked coldly at him. A gypsy woman can give you the snootiest look in the world, right down her aquiline nose, when she feels like it. It stopped Fred Plaice in his tracks.

"Yes, Fred?" I said quietly.

"If you don't mind, Tinker," he said brusquely. "I'd like to be present for this interview."

"Tinker?"

"I'm sorry, Gyp," he said. "I'm ... I'm upset."

"I'll bet you are, you sneak," Anita said. "Chief," she told me. "He was fit to be tied when you chased us out. The first thing he wanted to know was whatever had made you decide to get Tony Carlucci in here to trick his gypsy snake. I was so mad that I flipped and told him it was _my_ idea."

"Is that why you're back?" I asked him.

"Get this calf-eyed girl Friday of yours off my back," he said stonily.

"Our security certainly doesn't permit your confidential a.s.sistant to be in love with you. We're supposed to be checking each other constantly."

I hardly knew which of his two ideas to blast the hardest. I looked at Anita first. She simply raised her head and looked me straight in the eye. It could mean almost anything.

I tried Fred: "And you consider it's your job to check on me?"

"Of course. Goes without saying," he said. I shrugged. "At any rate," he added, calming down. "I'm staying. Nothing outside of a direct order, which I will protest to George Kelly, will get me to leave." The last thing I wanted was trouble with the Director.

"Stay, Fred," I said. "But we'll have some things to settle afterwards."

"Maybe," he smiled. "It will depend. Right now I'd like to get a load of this motivational research you've got cooked up."

"Don't bother," Mother said. "I've got more sense than to tie the rope around my own neck. I'm not saying a word." She crossed her arms and sat back in her chair with a granitic finality.

"So much the quicker," Fred said. "You can sentence her right now, Gyp!"

"Sure," I said. "Sure I can." I wish I could say that my mind raced to a quick decision. No--I _couldn't_ think. Or almost couldn't. One idea percolated through. Mother had made no "mistake" in calling Tony by my name. She had read Fred's mind in the 'copter on the way from the jail, and Anita's as she was ushered in. Her "mistake" could only mean one thing--_Fred Plaice was not sure she was my mother_.

This much thought took time. Fred knew I was stalling. "Come on," he snapped in a tone he had never dared to use to me before. "Let's have the sentence!"

He was right in one thing. He had me over a barrel. I squeezed my eyelids shut and did something I hadn't done since that day twenty years before when I had run away from home. I opened my mind to my mother.

Unless you have had the experience, you can't imagine what it is like to live with a telepath. It is disquieting in the extreme. One of the concomitants of consciousness is that it is _private_ consciousness. And when this isn't true, when someone, even a loved one, can creep into your mind and know what you think, your insides writhe. Caterpillars course around under your skin. And you resent. Sooner or later you will hate. I ran away from home because I couldn't stand Mother in my mind, and couldn't bear the thought of hating her.

But now I _had_ to know what I should do to her. I let her into my thoughts. _Give me some sign_, I thought, as I waved a hand at Fred for quiet. _Mother, tell me what to do!_

_Poor Joe_, she thought. _He loves me in spite of it all. He can't bear to do what he has to do. Joe!_ her mind shrieked at me. _You read my mind!_

I snapped upright in my chair and grabbed its arms until I could hear my knuckles crack. My mind snapped shut with an almost audible crack. _I was a d.a.m.ned snake!_

I could dimly hear Fred yammering at me. With a sick fear I slowly opened my mind again. His thoughts surged into it. Well, Anita had been right. And Anita!

_Yes_, Mother thought. _She does love you, Joe. A lovely girl. You lucky man._

Fred had me by the shoulder, yelling at me, shaking me, trying to get me to speak. He was almost slavering in his greed. I paid him no heed.

_All right_, I thought. _What's to be done, Mother?_

_Throw the book at me_, Mother thought.

"Shut up, Fred. And sit down." He kept his tight grip on my shoulder.

"Sit down!" I yelled at him. "Three strikes and out, Fred. This is the third order you've resisted today!"

"Now hear this," I said. "Under the powers vested in me ..." I sentenced Mother to indefinite detention in Oklahoma. I threatened her with worse--face it, the only worse thing was death--if she were found in a restricted area again.

"Take her out, Fred," I said. He hadn't counted on my being able to do it, and it left him without a plan. "Four times?" I asked him.

"No. No, Gyp. On my way," he said, taking Mother by the arm.

Anita started to follow him. I stopped her and waited until the door had closed behind Fred and Mother.

"You were right about Fred, Anita," I said. "Thank you for saving my life."

"Oh, Gyp," she said, tears trying to brim over her eyelids. "He's such a cutthroat!"

"Sure," I said. "But now we know it. Get me an appointment with George Kelly, will you, Anita?"

She compressed her lips. "That's more like it!" she said angrily. "Get Fred kicked clear out of the Bureau. George Kelly is a great Director, Gyp, and he'll do it if you insist."

"Maybe," I said. I stewed over what to tell the boss until Anita came back in.

"Mr. Kelly can see you now, Mr. Tinker," she said, all calmed down again.

I got up and came around the desk and took her by the elbow, standing at my door. "Just in case," I said, leaning down to kiss her lightly on the lips. "I love you, too."

"Too?" she said.

I froze. It was the kind of slip that sooner or later trips up every snake. My grin was a sick one. I walked out without another word.

The Director's office is on the fourth floor, I climbed the single flight, and his girl let me in. George affects long slim cigars. I say affects. He seldom lights them, but he waves them like batons, conducting some kind of a symphony of words and ideas all day.

"Welcome, stranger," he said, calling on the fiddles for a little pizzicato. "What's up, Gyp?"

I sat down across from him at his desk and tried to put a smile on my face. "I want to submit my resignation, George," I said. "Effective immediately."

"Not accepted," he said, without a second thought. Then his face grew solemn. "What's this about?" he demanded. "I can't lose _you_, Gyp. My right bower!"