The Touch

Charles Axford

McCready had invited him to the upper office for another of what the senator liked to call "informal chats." Charles called them pumping sessions. Which was just what they were. As namesake of the Foundation, McCready seemed to feel it was his prerogative to sit down with his director of neurological research and quiz him on the latest developments in the field. Perhaps it was. But Charles knew the Foundation was the furthest thing from the senator's mind when he asked about neurological diseases. The interest was strictly personal.

As he waited for the senator, he wandered to the huge windows that formed the outer walls of the corner office. If he leaned his head against the panes of the left wall, he could see Park Avenue and its flowering islands twenty stories below.

The door opened and McCready hobbled in. He fell into the big padded chair behind his desk. He wasn't looking good at all these days. His features sagged more than usual, and he had to tilt his head back in order to see past his drooping upper eyelids. Charles made a quick mental calculation: Six months and he'll be in a wheelchair.

He had known the man all these years; he owed his present economic security and prestigious position to him; yet he found he could not dredge up a bloody ounce of pity for James A. McCready. He wondered why. Perhaps it was because he knew what drove the man who had been born with more money than he could spend in two lifetimes. He had been present during some of the senator's most unguarded moments, and had seen the naked power lust shine through. Here was a man who could be President merely by choosing to run. Yet he could not run, and Charles was one of the few people in the world who knew the reason.

Maybe it was all for the best. Men like McCready had brought Great Britain to the edge of economic ruin; perhaps Charles' adoptive country was lucky that this particular senator had an incurable disease.

He seated himself and listened to the questions: Always the same: Any new developments? Any promising lines of research we can encourage?

Charles gave his usual answer: No. He used the Foundation computers to keep tabs on all the medical literature worldwide. As soon as anything of the slightest potential interest to the senator showed up in the most obscure medical journal in the remotest backwater, it was flagged and brought to his attention. The senator could access the information as readily—perhaps more readily; after all, they were his computers—but preferred "a personal touch" from Charles.

In other words, he wanted Charles to predigest it and spoonfeed it to him.

Well and good. Charles kept up on the field anyway. Small price to pay for the latitude he was given in his research at the Foundation.

The conversation followed its usual course to its customary dead end, and Charles was getting ready to make his exit when the senator shifted to a new topic.

"What did you think of Dr. Alan Bulmer when you met him?" His voice was getting weaker and raspier as the afternoon wore on.

"Who?" Charles drew a complete blank on the name for a second.

McCready prompted him: "You met him at that Nash woman's party last month."

"Oh, the G.P.! I don't—" And then it occurred to Charles: "How did you know I met him?"

"There's been some talk about him."

"What kind of talk? This wouldn't have anything to do with his testimony before the committee, would it?" Charles knew that it was not good to get on the bad side of Senator James McCready.

"Not at all, not at all. That's over and done with, gone and forgotten. This talk has to do with healings. Cures. That sort of thing."

Charles groaned mentally. Here we go again: another try for a bloody miracle cure.

McCready smiled. The expression seemed to take a lot of effort. "Now, now, my esteemed Dr. Axford—don't get that cynical look on your face. You know I like to investigate every one of these faith healers. One of these days—"

"Buhner's no faith healer. He's a bloody ordinary family practitioner. And I stress the word ordinary. You're going to drive us both dotty if you keep looking for a miracle!"

McCready laughed. "I could listen to you talk all day, Charles. I wish I had a British accent."

It never failed to impress Charles how easily Americans were impressed with a British accent. It always sounded "classy" to them. But he knew that back in London his accent would have been recognized immediately as Paddington and his class identified as working.

"Still," the senator said, hanging on to the subject, "there's talk."

"What do you mean by 'talk'?"

"You know how things get around. Comments dropped here and there in laundromats and supermarket checkout lines eventually get around to a stringer or a reporter who works for one of my papers. Then it gets to me."

"Fine. But talk about what?"

"About people with long-term illnesses, chronic conditions, progressive disorders, acute illnesses—all sorts of things— cured after he touches them in a certain way."

"That's "bloody foolishness!"

McCready smiled again. " 'Bloody.' How apropos. I was just going to ask you about a very bloody wound sustained by a certain Mr. Cunningham last month."

"Jesus bloody Christ—!"

"There's that word again."

"—Did you have a spy at that party?"

"Of course not. But it would be rather silly of me to own a string of newspapers and have all those editors and reporters at my command and not avail myself of their talents when the need arose, don't you think?"

Charles nodded silently. He didn't like the idea of anyone snooping into his off-hours, but he didn't see any point in protesting. McCready seemed to read his mind.

"Don't worry, Charles. You weren't the object of investigation. I was just having someone look into the incident between my esteemed colleague, Congressman Switzer, and the MTA chief of this fair city. I've found one can deal more effectively with one's colleagues if one is up to date on their improprieties and indiscretions."

Charles nodded again. Looking for dirt on Switzer, he thought. But he said: "Works that way in research foundations, too."

"Right. Unfortunately, the only impropriety on the congressman's part was not turning the other cheek, but rather giving as good—or perhaps better—than he got from Cunningham in the physical abuse department. And to many of his constituents, that would seem a virtue rather than a fault. So the inquiry was dropped."

He paused for a moment. The extended monologue was obviously tiring him.

"But something interesting was turned up serendipitously. One of the guests who saw the struggle mentioned during her interview that she thought Cunningham had received a terrible gash to the back of the head. She spoke of blood spouting like… 'like a geyser,' I believe she said. Yet after this unknown man—later identified as Dr. Alan Bulmer—put his hand over the wound, it stopped bleeding and closed itself up."

Charles laughed. "She was probably drunker than Cunningham!"

"Possibly. That's what this reporter thought. But not long ago, he heard some idle talk about 'miracle cures' at a Long Island doctor's office. The name Bulmer clicked and he told his editor, who told me." His eyes bored into Charles from under their half-closed lids. "You were there. What did you see?"

Charles thought for a moment. There had been an awful lot of blood. He could see it now, spurting against the mantel and the wall. But when he had seen the wound, it had only been a scratch. Could it—?

"I saw a lot of blood, but that means nothing. Scalp wounds bleed far out of proportion to their length and depth. I've seen heads literally covered with blood from a two-centimeter laceration barely a centimeter deep. Don't waste your time looking for a miracle cure from Alan Bulmer."

"I never waste my time, Charles," the senator said. "Never."