The Touch

Charles

It's a mistake! It's got to be!

Charles sat before the light boxes, staring at the chest X ray. The PA view on his left was two months old; it showed an irregular white blotch in the right hilar area, a mass of cancerous tissue. The view in the middle had been shot a week ago; the mass was larger, with tendrils reaching out into the uninvolved lung tissue, the hilum swollen with enlarged lymph nodes. The third film, to the right, was still warm from the developer.

It was normal. Completely clean. Even the emphysema and fibrosis were gone.

They're having me on! Charles told himself. They're pissed at being called in at night so they've stuck in a ringer to give me a scare!

He checked the name and date on the third film: Jake Knopf—known to Bulmer as Mr. K—and today's date were printed in the upper right corner. Then he checked the film again and noticed an irregularity of the left clavicle in the third film—an old fracture that had healed at a sharper than normal angle. A glance at the other two studies almost froze his blood—the same clavicle abnormality was in all three!

"Wait a minute now," he said to himself in a gentle tone.

"Just wait a minute. No use getting your knickers in a twist just yet. There's got to be an explanation."

"Did you say something, Doctor?" a voice said from behind him.

Charles swiveled his chair around. Two men, one blond, one dark haired, both in white lab coats that were tight across their shoulders, stood inside the door.

"Who are you?"

"We're your new assistants."

Assistants, my ass! These two were goons. He recognized one of them from the senator's personal security team.

"The hell you are. I don't need any assistants and didn't ask for any."

The blond fellow shrugged. "This is where we've been assigned. This is where we'll stay. Personally, I'd rather be out on the town, but the orders came straight from the senator's office."

"We'll see about that." He jabbed at the intercom. Here he was, faced with the most astounding puzzle of his medical career, and he had to put up with interference from McCready. "Marnie—get me the senator. Now." He was glad he had had her stay tonight; it would save him the trouble of tracking McCready down.

"Uh, Dr. Axford?" she said, uncertainly. "He's already on the line. He called about a minute ago and said you'd be calling him very shortly and he'd hold until you did."

Despite his anger, Charles had to laugh. That sly bastard!

"He's on 06, Doctor," Marnie said.

"Right." He picked up the handset.

"I was expecting your call," McCready said without preamble. "Here's why I must insist on Henly and Rossi staying with you: You are aware no doubt of Dr. Bulmer's penchant for publicity; I want to make sure that none of his test results leak out until you are completely finished. I will not have him use the Foundation and some inconclusive data as a springboard to greater heights of notoriety. And I won't have any of the staff tempted into leaking some of these results to the outside.

"Therefore, Henly and Rossi will be on hand to see that all—and I do mean all—records of Dr. Bulmer's stay remain locked in your office files until you and the Foundation are ready to issue a statement."

"You really think all this is necessary?"

"I do. And I ask you to cooperate with me."

Charles thought a moment. It would be a pain in the ass to have these two characters traipsing around after him, but if all the data were to be confined to his office, where he could have access to it at any time, then how could he object?

"All right. As long as they don't get in my way."

"Thank you, Charles. I knew I could count on you. Any results yet?"

"Of course not! I've only just begun!"

"Very well. Keep me informed."

Charles grunted and hung up. He edited Henly and Rossi from his mind and studied the X rays again. There had to be a mistake there. Somewhere along the line somebody had either screwed up or was trying to make a fool out of him.

He'd find out which, and heads would roll.

Charles just missed Mr. Knopf at the EEG lab.

"He's on his way to radiology," the tech told him.

Charles picked up the thick, fan-folded EEG record and spread part of it out on a desk. He felt his mouth go dry as he pulled more and more of it across the desk.

It was normal. None of the typical irregularities signifying an underlying mass, no hint of a recent grand mal seizure.

He had the tech pull out a previous tracing. Yes, all the usual signs of brain tumor had been there. All gone now.

He rushed down to radiology, idly noting Henly and Rossi entering the EEG lab after him and gathering up all the tracings he had been reading.

Knopf was already in the CT scanner. Charles paced the floor in front of the developer. He was sweating, whether from the extra heat thrown off by the machine or from tension, he didn't know. The radiologist wouldn't be in until morning, but that didn't matter. Charles could read the scans himself. As the films rolled out of the developer, each with four radiographic cuts of Knopfs brain, he grabbed them one by one and slapped them up on the view box.

Normal! One after the other: Normal!

He was almost frantic now. This was a nightmare! Things like this just didn't happen in the real world! Everything had an explanation, a cause and an effect! Primary tumors and their metastases simply didn't disappear because some balmy faith healer put his hands on a head!

He saw that the red light over the door was out so he rushed into the scanner room. Jake Knopf was sitting on the edge of the roller table.

"What's up, Doc?" he said. "You look like you need a transfusion."

I do! Charles thought. Straight vodka!

"Just want to check your neck, Jake."

"Sure. Check away."

Charles pressed his fingers above Knopfs right clavicle where the lymph nodes had been swollen and knotty. They were gone now. The area was clean.

Nausea rose up like a wave. He felt as if his world were coming apart. He lurched away and hurried toward Bulmer's quarters.

It was true! Knopf was cured! And Bulmer had done it! But how? Jesus H. bloody fucking Christ—!

He cut himself off with a bitter laugh. If Bulmer's power was possible, then anything was possible. Even Jesus Christ was possible. Better watch his tongue. He might really be up there. Or out there. Or somewhere. Listening.

"Nope," Bulmer said with a slow, deliberate shake of his head from where he sat by his room window. "Can't do it."

"Why the bloody hell not?"

"Too late. It only lasts for an hour and then it's gone."

"How convenient."

"I've got no control over it."

"So when will it be back?"

He glanced at his watch. "Sometime tomorrow morning, probably, but definitely somewhere around eight tomorrow evening."

Axford sat down on the bed. He suddenly felt exhausted.

"You're so sure?"

"Been keeping track of it for months." He indicated a manila envelope.

"Records?" Charles said, feeling his lethargy lift slightly. "You've kept records?"

"Sporadically at first, but pretty consistently lately. You want to use them, you can have them. I mean borrow them. I want them back."

"Of course." Axford sifted through the contents—there were index cards, scratch pad sheets emblazoned with the logos of various pharmaceutical companies, even prescription blanks with notes jotted on the back. There were a few audio microcassettes, too. "What is all this?"

"Names, dates, times. Who, what, where, when—when the Hour of Power started and when it ended."

The Hour of Power—sounded like one of those Sunday-morning gospel shows. Charles could feel his excitement growing. Here was something he could deal with—dates, times, data! He could work with these. He could understand and toy with and analyze these. But Jake Knopf…

How could he deal with what had happened to Jake Knopf today?

"You never asked about Mr. K," he said to Bulmer.

"Who?" Bulmer looked genuinely puzzled.

"The chap with the brain metastases. You saw him a few hours ago."

"Oh, yes. Of course." Bulmer smiled. "He's fine, I'm sure. A remarkable 'spontaneous remission,' no?"

"You read minds, too?" Charles blurted in surprise. That had been exactly what he had been thinking.

Bulmer's smile was laconic. "I've heard that one a few times before."

"Right. I'll bet you have."

He looked Bulmer in the eye and hesitated before asking the question. The question. Because he was afraid of the answer.

"Is all this for real?"

Bulmer held his gaze. "Yes, Charles. It's for real."

"But how, dammit?"

Bulmer went on to tell him about a former Vietnam medic who eventually wound up in the Monroe Community Hospital, where he touched him and died.

A fantastic story, but certainly no more fantastic than Jake Knopfs remission. He studied Bulmer. The man's bearing, his laid-back manner, the pile of notes in the envelope, all indicated a sincere man.

But it can't be!

Charles stood and hefted the envelope.

"I'm going to sift this stuff through the computer and see if any correlations fall out."

"There's a definite rhythm to the Touch, but I haven't been able to figure it out."

"If it's there, we'll find it."

"Good. That's why I'm here. You're going to do a work-up on me, aren't you?"

"Starts first thing in the morning."

"Do a good one. The works."

"I intend to." He noticed Bulmer's grim expression. "Why do you say it like that?"

"Because there's something wrong with me. I don't know if it's stress, or if it's something else, but I can't seem to remember things the way I used to. I can't even remember half the people I cured. But I cured them. That I know."

"Short-term or long-term memory?"

"Mostly short-term, I think. It's pretty spotty, but there's definitely something wrong."

Charles didn't like the sound of that, but he reserved judgment until he had some data to work with. "Rest up tonight, because tomorrow and the next day you're going to be tested like you've never been tested before."

As Charles turned to go, Bulmer said, "You do believe me just a little now, don't you?"

Charles saw something in his eyes at that moment, a terrible loneliness that touched him despite his desire to prove Alan Bulmer a cheap fraud.

"I don't believe in believing. I either know or I don't know. Right now I don't know."

"Fair enough, I guess."

Charles hurried out.

It was late, but Charles made the calls anyway.

He had looked through Bulmer's notes and couldn't believe that the man would put all this down in black and white. He had listed dates and times. He named names! He even listed other physicians caring for the patient! If he was a phony, he was either a very naive or a very stupid one. It would be so easy to trace these people and check out their medical records.

But, of course, if Bulmer was completely caught up in a delusional system, he could be expected to record his imagined data rigorously.

Charles couldn't say exactly why he had looked through Bulmer's manila envelope before sending it down to data processing, but now that he had, he was compelled to call at least one of the other doctors mentioned within the mess to check out a "cure" Bulmer described.

He picked one at random: Ruth Sanders. Acute lymphocytic leukemia. He called information, found the number of the hematologist Bulmer had listed, and called him. After blustering his way past the answering service, he got Dr. Nicholls on the line.

The hematologist was instantly suspicious and very guarded. And rightly so. He did not want to give out privileged information over the phone to a voice he didn't know. Charles decided to lay his cards on the table.

"Look. I'm at the McCready Foundation. I've got someone here who says he cured Ruth Sanders' leukemia three weeks ago. I'm looking for proof that he's bonkers. I'll hang up. You call me back here at the Foundation—that way you'll know I'm really calling from here—and ask for Dr. Charles Axford. Then give me a few straight answers. I promise you they'll go no further."

Charles hung up and waited. The phone rang three minutes later. It was Dr. Nicholls.

"Ruth Sanders' leukemia is in complete remission at this time," he said immediately.

"What protocol were you using?"

"None. She had refused further treatment due to side effects."

"And her peripheral smear is suddenly normal?"

"It happens."

"What about her bone marrow?"

Dr. Nicholls hesitated. "Normal."

Charles felt his throat go dry.

"How do you explain that?"

"Spontaneous remission."

"Of course. Thank you."

He hung up and pawed through the envelope for more "cures" that listed consultants. He found one that Bulmer apparently wasn't sure about: a teenage girl with alopecia universalis—bald as a billiard ball when she came and left the office. He called her dermatologist. After going through a similar rigamarole with the consultant, he finally got the man to admit reluctantly:

"Yeah. Her hair's growing back. Evenly. All over her scalp."

"Did she tell you about a Dr. Bulmer?"

"She sure did. According to Laurie and her mother, that quack will be raising the dead next."

"You think he's a rip-off artist, then?"

"Of course he is! These guys make their reputations on placebo effect and spontaneous remissions. The only thing about this Bulmer character that doesn't fit in with the usual pattern is his fee."

"Oh, really?" Charles hadn't thought about how Bulmer must be cleaning up on these "cures" of his. "What did he take them for?"

"Twenty-five bucks. I couldn't believe it, but the mother swore that was all he charged. I think you've got a real kook on your hands. I think he may really believe he can effect these cures."

"Could be," Charles said, feeling very tired. "Thanks."

With steadily growing alarm, he made five more calls, which yielded three more contacts. The story was always the same: complete spontaneous remission.

Finally he could not bring himself to dial another number. Each doctor he had spoken to had had only one encounter with a "Bulmerized" patient and had easily written off the incident as a fluke. But Charles had a sheaf of names and addresses, and so far Bulmer was batting a thousand.

Charles fought off a sudden desire to throw the envelope into his wastepaper basket and follow it with a match. If what Bulmer had said about his failing memory was true, he wouldn't be able to recall much of the data. It would be gone for good. And then Charles would feel safe.

He smirked at the thought of Charles Axford, the relentless researcher and pursuer of scientific truth, destroying data to save himself from facing the collapse of all his preconceptions, the repudiation of his precious Weltanschauung.

It was a perfectly heinous idea, yet oh, so attractive.

For the events of the day—first Knopf and now these phone calls with the unbroken trail of "spontaneous remissions" they revealed—were making Charles physically ill. He was nauseous from the mental vertigo it caused him.

If he could destroy the data, he was sure he could make himself forget they had ever existed. And then he could once again return his mind to an even intellectual and philosophical keel.

Or maybe he couldn't. Maybe he would never recover from what he had learned today.

In that case the only thing to do was follow it through.

He looked once more—longingly—at the wastebasket, then stuffed Bulmer's papers back in the envelope. He was locking them in his office safe when his secretary popped her head in the door.

"Can I go now?"

"Sure, Marnie." She looked as tired as he felt.

"Need anything before I leave?"

"Do you have any Mylanta?"

"Your stomach bothering you?" she said, her brows knitting together in concern. "You look kind of pale."

"I'm fine. Something I ate. Crow never did agree with me."

"Pardon?"

"Nothing, Marnie. Go home. Thanks for staying."

How could he tell her or anyone else how he felt? It was as if he were the first astronaut in space, and he had looked down from orbit and seen that the earth was flat.