The Puppet Master

I'd have wondered too. DeSmet's behavior certainly didn't sound like the man who'd dismayed his wife by refusing to be upset when their daughter joined the Gnosties.

Then one day, DeSmet flew back down to Ensenada in his private plane. The two of them had played a round of golf, then eaten supper together, and DeSmet made his pitch again. In the morning, Masters agreed. From that day on, according to Reyes, Masters was a different man. The change was mostly subtle, but on occasion it was glaring: He would do and say things that were very unlike him. The mission to stop Prudential's investigation was an example. Reyes had objected vehemently, but Masters had been the managing partner. After Masters and his team had taken off for L.A., Reyes had called Tischenberg-Hinz, and they'd talked about dissolving the partnership.

I could see Steinhorn's motivation now. His family had been killed by terrorists. He'd been ripe for recruiting. Then things had gone sour, gotten worse and worse, and at the end he'd done what he could toward making it right.

* * *

As far as the LAPD connection was concerned, five second- and third-echelon officials had knowingly and deliberately conspired with the SVI to have the three racketeers murdered. In the project to kill the investigation, they'd operated through several lower-ranking officials who were aware that the orders they were carrying out were illegal, but didn't know the details. A total of eleven officials are in prison on assorted convictions of criminal conspiracy, racketeering, and murder.

Aquilo Reyes, Eustaquio Tischenberg-Hinz, and most of their agents, have been tried and sentenced by the Mexican government on a variety of charges.

Prudential collected the agreed-upon nominal fee from Lane County, and a sizeable fee from the feds, based on a previous court decision. We got substantial payment from the city of Los Angeles for exposing the criminal activities in the department, and settled for goodwill from the Mexican government, which legally owed us nothing. We also collected the completion fee from Butzburger, who came to the hospital and wished me well.

Finally we collected headlines galore. Prudential is now, beyond a doubt, the most famous investigation firm in the world. Joe's having to turn down contracts, while he recruits and reorganizes for a larger scale of operations. He's rented another floor in our building, too. I ended up with a promotion to senior investigator, and mixed emotions. For one thing, terrorism, foreign and domestic, is a curse of our times. And while SVI's activities were themselves a kind of terrorism, they may actually have had the effect of reducing terrorism overall. It's hard to honestly know. At any rate, their original impulse was understandable.

A couple of days after the shoot-out, I had an orderly wheel me in to visit Steinhorn. There was a pair of federal marshals guarding his door. I thanked him for not letting Masters kill me, and he said someone had to do something before things got any worse. After that I apologized for sucker punching him, and he told me to stuff it, that a sucker punch was the least he'd had coming. Then he kind of half grinned, we shook hands, and I left. I couldn't think of anything else to say, and he had stuff on his mind. He's in prison now in Mexico.

Tuuli got to the hospital on the night of shoot-out day. She'd learned about it not by any psychic route, but on the six o'clock news from Phoenix. The only (possibly) psychic element in it was, she'd never watched the six o'clock news in Arizona before. She 'just happened to turn it on that day.' When I asked if she'd influenced the psychic photographer, she said, 'What psychic photographer?,' and made me tell her about it.

Oh, and DeSmet suicided the evening after the shoot-out—shot himself through the brain. Sad. He'd been an able man, and apparently a good one, a decent one, most of his life. But that's history now. I've got a new case, not as interesting as that one, but nowhere near as dangerous. So. Are we done? . . . Good. Then if you can give me the antidote, I'll get out of here and go to Gold's for a workout. My damn weight's slid up five pounds again.

PART THREE:

CLIMAX AND

COMPLETION

PROLOG

Her crepe-soled nurse's shoes stepped quietly on the closely fitted flagstones. It was past time for her employer's breakfast, but sometimes he'd lose himself in contemplation or a book, neglecting to come in at nine o'clock to eat. And if he was meditating, it would be worth her job to disturb him. She didn't expect to find anything wrong, despite his generally poor health. He'd simply been preoccupied lately.

When she saw him on the ground, half out of the arbor, she hurried to him, knelt in brief examination, then as fast as her overweight, middle-aged body would take her, ran back to the house to get help. 

* * *

The physician left the room thoughtfully. He'd done what he could, and considered the prognosis favorable. Next time—who knew? He'd once wanted a brain scan done on his patient, but the man had refused, absolutely, and it seemed now there'd been no tumor, for that had been years earlier. Beyond that, he had no explanation for the seizures. Possibly someone else might, but his patient had expressly forbidden him to bring in consultants. 

He had no illusions that he was medically up to date. As up to date as many, no doubt, but . . . Not much of his reading was professional these days. Hadn't been for years.  

His patient's reclusiveness went beyond a simple preference for privacy. It seemed to reflect some pathological condition, although he was brilliant beyond a doubt.  

Being a house physician for a sometimes crochety recluse was not what he'd visualized as a student, many years earlier. He hadn't known himself well then, hadn't foreseen his susceptibility to alcohol, and eventually cocaine. Or how he would ruin his marriages—one, two, and three—and allow, even cultivate the decay of his practice. 

Then his patient-to-be had found him. No doubt through agents. He was aware, vaguely, that the man had people elsewhere who served him, though as far as he knew, they never came in person. The man, whose health had already been poor, had sat down with him as a friend, not a patient. Had charmed him, impressed him with his knowledge—its breadth, its depth—and his insights into many things. And in a short series of ever-stranger visits and gentle questionings, had given him to see things he'd never imagined. Until he became aware that he no longer wanted to snort white powder or drink amber whiskey. 

Only then had his friend asked him to be his private physician. At a salary ridiculously low for a doctor, but impossible to refuse. He wasn't young himself, though less old than he looked, and his 'future' was past. And after all, the man had saved him, from himself and his addictions. With a signed contract in hand, he'd saved him from his creditors as well, by a remarkable display of bargaining. He'd paid them off in cash, thirty to sixty cents on the dollar!