of the church's disposable income into personal accounts. Butzburger shook his head. 'That's a lie,' he said, 'the sort of thing his enemies write about him.' But he didn't sound confident. He was reciting Christman's PR line, and maybe, for the first time, wondering. I shrugged.
'Could be it is.' I called the backup data to the screen, where he could see it too. It looked convincing. 'Meanwhile I'm using it as a working assumption. And if there's not any will—maybe even if there is one—the church would get none of the money. That could account for Thomas' concern. He may want Christman to show up alive somewhere.'
Butzburger was gnawing on his lower lip. 'That doesn't entirely make sense. If Ray is simply in seclusion somewhere, the Church would . . .'
'Get none of it anyway. True, as far as we know. We're short on information. What I've been doing is accumulating pieces of the puzzle. Some parts of the picture are beginning to take shape. Maybe some photographs from Oregon will give us a major key.
'Now if you want, I can call Mr. Keneely. He's the man you need to tell if you want to drop the investigation.' Butzburger had strong-looking hands. I was willing to bet that his early experience in construction hadn't been at a desk. Just now he was holding them in front of him, looking down at them as if searching for an answer there. 'No, Mr. Seppanen,' he said, 'I'm not dropping out. Not now. I want to know what happened.'
'Thanks. Where are we going for lunch? And when?'
I thought that might release any residual tension, and half expected him to laugh. He didn't.
'Would you prefer noon?' he asked, 'or one o'clock?'
'Noon,' I said. 'I don't like to postpone eating.'
'Noon then.' He got up. 'Thank you, Mr. Seppanen. I appreciate frankness and honesty in the people I do business with.'
I'd recorded the meeting; it was standard practice. When Butzburger had gone, I wrote it to the case file and sent a flag to Joe's terminal so he'd know it was there.
* * *
Next I phoned Dr. Hjelmgaard: he was interested but leery, and wanted to talk to me in person. He also wanted time to investigate the firm; to see how 'Charles' responded to me; and to be assured that his one-in-a- billion ward would not be endangered in any way. And he didn't want any publicity. None at all.
* * *
My lunch with Butzburger was nonbusiness. Despite being from upstate, he's a Dodgers fan, so we talked about them first, then the Raiders. Neither of us mentioned the church—we were both careful about that—and the matter of psychics never came up.
Later that day, Joe said Butzburger had told him he was glad it was me on the case, so our talk had worked out even better than I'd thought.
That afternoon, Hjelmgaard called back. He'd looked into Prudential's reputation, record, and financial condition, and been impressed. He'd also looked into my own record, came across the case of the twice-killed astronomer, and read my debrief and the prosecutor's summary report. And again had been impressed. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of that one. He ended up giving me an appointment for the next afternoon at 3:30—half-past one, Pacific Time—which meant catching a morning flight out of Hollywood-Burbank. So I left the office early and went to Gold's, where I worked out harder than a logger on piecework.
I was optimistic about my Tomasic project. It seemed to me Hjelmgaard would go for it, and that Tomasic would give us something useful. I didn't have any evidence, but that's how it felt.
22
CHARLES TOMASIC
The nonstop flight to Minneapolis took four hours, plus about thirty minutes waiting at the terminal, riding the air shuttle to the Campus Station, and walking to the ultramodern, tile-faced Steinhof Building where Hjelmgaard was located. I got to the departmental office about four minutes early, and the doctor had them bring me right over.
Being the leader of the Savant Project—they avoided the term 'idiot savants'—Hjelmgaard had an office big enough to hold small conferences. He even had a silver tea service—a monument to the prosperity that had begun with the introduction of the geogravitic power converter. Hjelmgaard was a short, pink, balding blond, and wore old-fashioned on-the-nose glasses over blue eyes. I guessed his age at forty-five. He was forward without seeming aggressive, direct without being rude. After seating me and offering tea, coffee, or hot chocolate, he asked me five minutes worth of questions about myself. His questioning was skillful, and when he was done, he probably knew more about me than most people who've been around me for years.
'I think,' he said, 'it's time for Charles to meet you.' Then he keyed his phone and waited long enough for three or four rings. 'Hello, Charles. Do you remember I said a Mr. Seppanen would be here to meet you today? . . . That's right, the detective. . . . Fine. I'd like to bring him over now. . . . Good. We'll be there in five minutes.'
He broke the connection. 'The reason I set our appointment for three-thirty is that Charles is with his tutor till three. Usually he watches television till four, then does his homework.'
'He's quite interested in history and geography,' Hjelmgaard went on, 'but because he reads rather laboriously, with resulting poor comprehension, he listens to his homework on audio tapes designed especially for the disadvantaged. They're a little like learning tapes for the blind, but the language is simpler and the learning gradient easier. And they use visual material, computer-coordinated with maps, simple charts, and photographs or video footage. And some of the better historical and biographical documentaries. In general, our wards do quite well with them.'
The apartments for the Project's savants were in a wing of the same building, across a courtyard from the office wing. In bad weather you could go from one to the other indoors, through the classroom section, which was the main or base section of the U-shaped building.
We shortcut across the courtyard, where the planters and tulip beds were splashed with red and yellow, white and violet. Some of the shrubbery was putting out new leaves. Even the young maples were tinged with green from the bud scales separating. It was about as nice a garden as you could hope for in a climate where the temperature in January averages 11 degrees. (I'm interested in weather and climate: I subscribe to the Weather Service's
