The Touch

Charles

Charles looked up and was shocked to see Sylvia wending her way toward him through the tables of the staff cafeteria. In the bright red and white print dress that hugged her waist and bared her shoulders, she was a breathtaking mirage floating across a wasteland of white lab coats. Her smile was bright, but it didn't seem to be for him alone—it was for the world at large.

"You're early," he said, rising as she reached his table. She hadn't been due for another two hours.

"I know." She pulled out the chair across from him and sat down. Her words came rapid-fire. "But it's been three days and I've missed Jeffy and couldn't wait any longer. Your secretary told me you were here, told me how to get here when I asked her not to page you. What's that you're drinking?"

"Tea. Want one?"

She nodded and made a face in the direction of his cup. "But not hot and milky like that. Iced, if you don't mind. And clear."

He went and got it for her, and a refill of hot for himself, conscious of all the eyes on them, wondering no doubt where Charles Axford had been hiding the lovely bird.

She sipped it appreciatively. "Good." She looked around, a mischievous smile playing about her lips. "Never thought of you as the type for the staff caf."

"Every once in a while," he said with his best deadpan expression, "when I feel the approach of a hint of self-doubt, I find it therapeutic to move among the lesser of my fellow creatures. It restores my faith in myself."

Sylvia favored him with a smile. "How's Jeffy?"

She had asked him that question every day since she'd left him here on Monday and he had managed to put her off. Now it was Thursday and he had to answer. He would lay it out straight for her.

"Not good. He's definitely withdrawing. The clinical evaluations confirm it across the board when compared to his last work-up. We did the works on him—CT, PET, and BEAM scans, MRI, waking and sleeping EEGs, and computer generated spectral analysis of those EEGs. All normal. There's nothing structurally or electrically wrong with his brain."

"Which means there's nothing you can do for him."

"Probably not."

Anyone else watching Sylvia's face would have thought it calm, impassive. Charles saw the fleeting twist to her lips, the single prolonged blink, and knew how deeply disappointed she was.

"There's a new medication we can try."

"None of the others worked, not even that last one, whatever it was."

"PPA—phenylpropanolamine. It works in some autistics. Not Jeffy, unfortunately."

"And this one?"

He shrugged. It was a structural analog of PPA—probably useless where Jeffy was concerned. But he wanted to give her hope. "It may help, it may not. At least it won't hurt him."

"How can I refuse?" Sylvia said with a sigh.

"You can't. I'll ring you up later on and come by. I'll drop some off then."

Sylvia glanced away. "Maybe you should know… I have a houseguest."

"Who?" He couldn't imagine what she was getting at.

"Alan."

"Bulmer?" Jesus bloody Christ! Everywhere he went— Bulmer, Bulmer, Bulmer! "What happened? Wife kick him out or something?"

"No. She left him."

Charles held his breath. "Because of you?"

Sylvia looked puzzled, then: "Oh, no. It was because of all this healing business."

"So he came knocking on your door with an empty sugar bowl in his hand, right?"

"Why, Charles!" she said with a humorless smile. "I believe you're jealous! What happened to all that talk of 'no strings' and 'no exclusives'? I thought you promised not to ever get possessive, and above all, never get involved."

"I did and I'm not!" he said, feeling flustered and hiding it well, he hoped. He was jealous. "But I know your weaknesses as well as anybody."

"Maybe so. But he didn't camp on my doorstep in any way, shape, or form." Her face clouded. "It was awful."

She told him about the mob outside Bulmer's house Monday evening, forcing its way in, how he had been bruised and battered and his clothes half torn from his body.

Charles shuddered at the thought of being in that position. All those people reaching, touching.

And then she told him about how they had received word that his house had burned down.

"We went there Tuesday," she said softly. "There was nothing left, Charles! It had rained like crazy the night before, yet the ashes were still smoldering. You should have seen him—stumbling around the foundation like a drunken man. I don't think he truly believed the place had burned until he got there and saw it. Before that it had only been a story from a voice on the phone the night before. But when he pulled up in front of his yard, oh, you should have seen his face."

A tear slid down Sylvia's cheek, and the sight of it, knowing it was for another man, was like a drop of nitric acid slipping down the outer wall of his heart.

"You should have seen his face!" she repeated, volume rising with her anger. "How could they do that to him?"

"Well," Charles said as cautiously as he could, "when you play with fire—"

"You're so damn sure he's a phony, aren't you?"

"I'm absolutely positive." Charles could not remember being more sure of anything else in his life. "Diseases don't disappear at the touch of someone's hand, even if that someone is the wonderful Dr. Bulmer. He's had a lot of free publicity, a lot of new patients, and now it's backfired on him."

"You bastard!"

"My-my!" he said, giving her a dose of her own medicine. "Is this the woman who swore she would never get emotionally tangled up with anyone ever again?"

"He's a good man and he didn't need any new patients! He had all he could handle already!"

"Then he's daft!"

Charles had expected a quick retort, but instead he faced silent uncertainty. Which meant he had struck a nerve. Sylvia herself had questions about Buhner's mental status. Yet she had taken him into her home. Charles realized with a pang he did not wish to acknowledge that her feelings for Bulmer must run deep. Quite a bit deeper than her feelings for him. He could not help but resent that.

"Do you love him? Or is he just another stray you've taken in?"

"No," she said with a sudden ethereal smile that bothered him more than anything else since she had sat down. "He's not just a stray."

Charles found the whole conversation unpleasant and wanted off the subject.

"Why don't we go up to my—"

He stopped in midsentence because he had suddenly noticed that the cafeteria had gone silent. He glanced around and saw that everyone in the room was staring at a point somewhere behind him. He turned to look.

Senator McCready had entered the cafeteria and was heading in their direction. His progress was slow, what with the way he had to lean against his cane, but there was no doubt that Charles' table was his destination.

When he reached the table, Charles stood up and shook his hand—a formal gesture for the sake of the rest of the people in the room. They spoke a few banal words of greeting, then McCready turned to Sylvia, his political twinkle in his eye.

"And who might this be?"

Charles introduced them and then the senator asked if he might join them for a few minutes. After he sat down, the normal buzz of the cafeteria returned, but at a higher volume than usual.

Charles was nearly struck dumb by McCready's appearance. Since the Foundation had bought this building, he had never—never!—shown his face in the staff cafeteria. And to show up in public in the afternoon when his strength was fading was unheard of! Charles knew the physical toll this was taking on him. What the bloody hell was he up to?

"Where are you from, Ms. Nash?" he asked, acting as if this were just another one of his routine daily visits to the caf.

"I'm one of your constituents, Senator," Sylvia said with her half smile that Charles knew to mean that she was amused but not impressed by McCready's presence. "I live in Monroe. Ever hear of it?"

"Of course! As a matter of fact, I remember reading a piece in Tuesday's paper about a house fire in Monroe. Said the place belonged to a Dr. Alan Bulmer. I wonder if that's the same Dr. Bulmer I know."

Sylvia's smile and insouciant manner evaporated. "You know Alan?"

"Well, I'm not sure. There was a Dr. Bulmer who testified before one of my committees a few months ago."

"That's him! He's the one!"

McCready shook his head and tsked. "A shame. Lightning is such a capricious thing."

"Oh, it wasn't lightning," Sylvia said, and launched into her story about the mob. When McCready professed to know nothing about Bulmer's publicity as a healer, she filled him in on what the press had been saying.

Charles folded his arms across his chest, trying to keep a self-satisfied smile off his face. It was all clear now. McCready was here to pump Sylvia about Bulmer. Charles had to admire the way the senator had broached the subject so gracefully without wasting as much as a second. The man was smooth.

"That really is too bad," McCready was saying with a slow, sympathetic shake of his head. "We were on opposite sides of the political fence at the committee hearings, but I deeply respected his integrity and obvious sincerity."

The lopsided smile was suddenly back on Sylvia's face. "Oh, I'm sure you did."

The senator rapped the tabletop with his knuckles as if he had just thought of something.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "If Dr. Bulmer is agreeable, I will put the resources of the Foundation at his disposal to investigate this power he is supposed to have."

Charles watched Sylvia blink in surprise. "You will?"

Charles wasn't the least bit surprised, however. This surely had been the senator's aim all along: Get this Bulmer chap here and see if he's for real. And now that Charles knew where the play was going, he leaned back and enjoyed the performance.

"Of course! The raison d'etre of the Foundation is research. What if Dr. Bulmer truly has some power of healing that is as yet unknown to medical science? We would be negligent of the very purpose of this institution if we did not at least attempt to subject his supposed power to the scientific method. If he has something—truly has something—then I will place my reputation and the full weight of the Foundation's prestige behind vindicating him to the world."

"Senator," Sylvia said, eyes bright, "that would be wonderful!"

She's really got it bad for Bulmer, Charles thought. Otherwise she'd never swallow this load of tripe.

"But be warned," the senator said, his voice turning stern and stentorian. "If we determine that he's a fake, we will publicly expose him as such and advise anyone who is sick, even if they suffer from but a runny nose, to have nothing to do with him. Ever!"

Sylvia was quiet for a moment, then she nodded. "Fair enough. I'll convey it to him in just those terms. And we'll let you know."

Charles felt his jaw clamping. We'll let you know. Already they were a team.

I've lost her, he thought. The realization brought a sharp stab of pain, surprising him with its intensity. He didn't want to let her go. Their relationship had atrophied, but it wasn't dead. He could still revive it.

"And I will assign Dr. Axford to oversee the investigation." He glanced pointedly at Charles. "Providing he agrees, of course."

Nothing could have made Charles refuse. He would take the greatest pleasure in exposing Alan Bulmer as a fraud. Then what would Sylvia think of him?

"Of course," he said without missing a beat. "I'd be delighted."

"Splendid! Let's see… today's Thursday. Most of the week is shot. But if he can come in tonight, we can start the work-up right away. Right, Charles?"

"Whatever you say, Senator."

"There's one more thing," Sylvia said slowly, as if measuring her words. "This power of Alan's is doing something to him."

Power corrupts, my dear, Charles wanted to say. Just look at the senator.

"If he agrees to come in, will you check out his memory?"

"Memory?" Charles' interest was suddenly piqued. "How so?"

"Well, he can recall things from his childhood clear as day. But by lunch he's forgotten what he had for breakfast."

"Interesting," he said, thinking how it could mean nothing, or could be something very serious. Very serious indeed.