Mindbenders Read Online Free PDF Page B

Clearly, she expected that pocket to remain her secret. Her expression changed, a coquettish smile teasing across her kabuki face. “Were you naughty ?” she snarled. You could see her struggling to remember—she might have forgotten a few things over the years but nothing good , dammit!
    She stood uncertain for a long moment. I saw her touch the back of her head for a second, the same place mine went hot in the swamp.
    “Go check,” Mr. Dulles said, in a voice so soft it was like I was just hearing it in my head.
     “I’ll…go check…” she repeated, her words like half a second behind his, more an echo than a reply and suddenly she was on her way out the door.
    I looked around a second later and Tauber had disappeared. “It’ll take her maybe three minutes to check that pocket,” Max warned firmly in the direction of the bedroom. “And then maybe another two checking drawers and cabinets. She came home drunk so she can’t remember where she would have left it.”
    “If I’d paid her,” Tauber’s voice came from the bedroom.
    “If you’d paid her,” Mr. Dulles repeated. “So you’ve got about three minutes to pack.” He turned to me, disappointment on his face. “I guess we’re moving on,” he said, like he expected me to be sorry too.
    Tauber emerged a minute later, zipping his overnight bag. “Not much here I can’t replace cheap,” he said, cracking the door as quietly as he could. We hustled out the front door. Max unlocked the car, Tauber folded himself into the back seat, the landlady threw open the upstairs window and started screaming and chucking stuff out the window at us but her arm was lacking.
    “So where are we going?” Tauber said as we drove away. “Washington surely doesn’t give a shit.”
     “I’ll get the list together and you can decide what you want to do.”
    “What we can do is the question,” Tauber said. “I can’t defend myself against an attack; I’m totally out o’ practice.”
    “That’s up to you,” Max answered. “Dave wanted me to get you together so I’ll do that. Then you’re on your own.”
    “How do you know what he wanted?”  
    Max turned to me. “What’s the next nearest?”
    “Miriam Fine, Durham, North Carolina” came out of my mouth like a belch, a reflex. Max reached for the glovebox; I pulled out the map and unfolded it for him.
    “Miriam! Oh hell,” Tauber said. “Now we’re in for it.”
     
     
    ~~~~
     

Three
     
    We drove for about ten miles and nobody said a thing.
    “Okay, tell me what the fuck’s going on,” I burst finally.
    “You don’t need to know,” Dulles said.
    “They would have arrested him too.”
    “Nobody’s getting arrested.”
    “What the hell—I’m just a vessel anyway.” Dulles shot me a look and swiveled in his seat, which would have flipped me out if I hadn’t already seen him drive with his eyes closed.
    “You’re fortunate to be a vessel. Everything you know about us can be used to hurt you.” He turned to Tauber. “If you’re so concerned about his welfare, you tell him—am I lying?”
    “No,” Tauber said, his face reddening. “That’s true.”
    “If they catch us at this point, you can claim you’re a hostage. Once you know what’s going on, that excuse goes out the window.”
    “Why? How would they know what you told me if I don’t tell them?”
    “These people would know.”
    “How?”
    He threw his hand in the air. “If I answer that, I have to answer the rest. It’s no good.”
    “I have to know,” I said and I meant it. I’d been stuck away in the Everglades for a year or more and what was the point of knowing anything there? But now, I was loose in the world again and all that was left of the reporter I’d once been was the hunger to know. To know what , in this case, I hadn’t a clue—hunger’s unthinking, whether for food or sex. Or knowledge. Whatever is hidden in my sight must be uncovered. I had to know.
    “What about the landlady? You