Ashes To Ashes: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online Page B

occasion.
    Also waiting there was an "ice-box snack,"
promised by Kalinsky to hold me until dinner, consisting of cold
chicken, fruit, cookies, and an insulated decanter of coffee. The
room boasted a fully stocked bar, complete with several different
brands of imported beer and wine—had its own hi-fi, television,
whirlpool bath, and outside balcony overlooking the pool. A guy
could live there, sure, in total luxury, and I found myself
wondering what kind of fool it took to turn down a life like
this.
    Maybe it would be worth the trade in
personal freedom. After all, freedom to roam the wilderness all
hungry and dying of thirst would not be too much of a trade for a
cage with plenty of food and water. I could believe Kalinsky's
assurances that my every need would be met if I would just pledge
my soul to the cause. If all these people here were indeed working
under "the same requirements," and I had no reason to doubt it, I
had to admit that they seemed a rather contented bunch.
    Of course, cows in deep pasture usually seem
a rather contented bunch too; I would not trade my life for
theirs.
    So I ate the chicken while the tailor fussed
with the fit. When he departed I headed straight for the bath,
taking the coffee with me and opting for a stinging shower in
preference to the lulling comfort of the whirlpool. It was past
six; dinner was at eight; I wanted a moment with Karen in private
before the festivities.
    I tracked her down via the "Intercom
Directory" and got her on the house phone. She still sounded a bit
upset but in control as she invited me to her "apartment" and told
me how to get there. It was on the same floor, but seemingly a
half-mile distant around several bends of hallway—not too bad,
except that I was wearing only a bulky shower robe (compliments of
management) for the safari.
    Karen was not alone. A nice-eyed man of
about forty and prematurely bald, whom she introduced only as Carl,
was standing in the open doorway and chatting with her when I
arrived. Neither of them blinked at my get-up, maybe because the
three of us were identically attired, but Karen had a bit of
trouble meeting my eyes at first.
    Turns out that Carl was Carl U. Powell,
M.D.—house doctor and resident shrink—which explained the CUP
monogrammed on the breast pocket of his robe, which in turn
suggested that he was a company man "under the same
requirements."
    He looked me over with a
not unfriendly stare, shook my hand, and took his leave before I
could really get his make and model.
    Karen retreated into the depths somewhere,
leaving me alone in the hallway. I went on in and closed the door,
found her standing at a window in the sitting room, hands jammed
tightly into the pockets of the robe, gazing fixedly onto the front
lawn. It was a nice view but, again, I had the feeling that she was
seeing nothing beyond her own eyeballs.
    She spoke to me very quietly and without
altering her position at the window. "Can you forgive me? I feel
really ... crummy."
    I matched her tone and mood as I replied to
that. "I suspect that you have nothing to apologize for."
    She looked at me, then—just a turn of the
head and a sweep with the eyes—and I could see the misery there,
and I started getting mad as hell, a slow burn beginning way down
low in the belly. I knew what she was feeling because I had sampled
a small taste of it during the meeting with Kalinsky, a sort of
formless rage lightly brushed with panic, the recognition that
someone with raw power was making designs on your life-force.
    I turned her about and took her in my arms,
and we just stood there embracing through a long, warmly electric
silence, flowing into each other, meeting somewhere in psyche and
joining thoroughly in a surging transfer.
    I felt her stiffen
momentarily and feebly struggle against it before releasing in
total surrender, mind and body, molding to me, attaching, merging.
We were one body and one mind between the infinities, a single
point of reference in the