The Dream Master Read Online Free PDF Page B

for that engineering outfit up on the eighty-sixth. She says it was James Irizarry, an ad designer who had offices down the hall from them. That’s a long way to fall. He must have been unconscious when he hit, huh? He bounced off the building. If you open the window and lean out you can see-off to the left there-where…”
    “Never mind, Bennie. Your friend have any idea why he did it?”
    “Not really. His secretary came running up the hall, screaming. Seems she went in his office to see him about some drawings, just as he was getting up over the sill. There was a note on his board. ‘I’ve had everything I wanted.’ it said. ‘Why wait around?’ Sort of funny, huh? I don’t mean funny. . “
    “Yeah… Know anything about his personal affairs?”
    “Married. Coupla kids. Good professional rep. Lots of business. Sober as anybody. He could afford an office in this building.”
    “Good Lord!” Render turned. “Have you got a case file there or something?”
    “You know,” she shrugged her thick shoulders, “I’ve got friends all over this hive. We always talk when things go slow. Prissy’s my sister-in-law anyhow—”
    “You mean that if I dived through this window right now, my current biography would make the rounds in the next five minutes?”
    “Probably”—she twisted her bright lips into a smile—“give or take a couple. But don’t do it today, huh? You know, it would be kind of anticlimactic, and it wouldn’t get the same coverage as a solus.
    “Anyhow,” she continued, “you’re a mind-mixer. You wouldn’t do it.”
    “You’re betting against statistics,” he observed. “The medical profession, along with attorneys, manages about three times as many as most other work areas.”
    “Hey!” She looked worried. “Go “way from my window!
    “I’d have to go to work for Dr. Hanson then,” she added, “and he’s a slob.”
    He moved to her desk.
    “I never know when to take you seriously,” she decided.
    “I appreciate your concern”—he nodded—“indeed I do. As a matter of fact, I have never been statistic-prone—I should have repercussed out of the neuropy game four years ago.”
    “You’d be a headline, though,” she mused. “All those reporters asking me about you… Hey, why do they do it, huh?”
    “Who?”
    “Anybody.”
    “How should I know, Bennie? I’m only a humble psyche-stirrer. If I could pinpoint a general underlying cause—and then maybe figure a way to anticipate the thing—why, it might even be better than my jumping, for newscopy. But I can’t do it, because there is no single, simple reason—I don’t think.”
    “Oh.”
    “About thirty-five years ago it was the ninth leading cause of death in the United States. Now it’s number six for north and South America. I think it’s seventh in Europe.”
    “And nobody will ever really know why Irizarry jumped?”
    Render swung a chair backwards and seated himself. He knocked an ash into her petite and gleaming tray. She emptied it into the waste-chute, hastily, and coughed a significant cough.
    “Oh, one can always speculate,” he said, “and one in my profession will. The first thing to consider would be the personality traits which might predispose a man to periods of depression. People who keep their emotions under rigid control, people who are conscientious and rather compulsively concerned with small matters…” He knocked another fleck of ash into her tray and watched as she reached out to dump, then quickly drew her hand back again. He grinned an evil grin. “In short,” he finished, “some of the characteristics of people in professions which require individual, rather than group performance—medicine, law, the arts.”
    She regarded him speculatively.
    “Don’t worry though—” he chuckled—“I’m pleased as hell with life.”
    “You’re kind of down in the mouth this morning.”
    “Pete called me. He broke his ankle yesterday in gym class. They ought to supervise