Liars and Tyrants and People Who Turn Blue Read online

  Best for which one of you? Max wondered, but said nothing.

  “I need your help,” Eric went on. “I want you to ask Tee to talk to Shelby. Persuade her to try it my way.”

  “Wait a minute. You want me to ask Tee to ask Shelby to give up her police work? Why not just ask her yourself?” Either “her.” “Why this roundabout approach?”

  “Tee will listen to you, and Shelby will listen to Tee. Shelby doesn’t always hear me,” Eric said bitterly. “Look, Max, I’m trying to save my marriage. It’s Shelby’s aura reading that’s driving us apart.”

  “You knew about it when you married her.”

  “I didn’t know it would make me a laughingstock with the men I work with.”

  Uh-huh, that was it. “I can see how it’d be rough,” Max conceded. “But surely Shelby’s more important to you than they are? Couldn’t you just, well, be proud of her?”

  Eric’s eyes were slits. “Try putting yourself in my place. How would the men you work with treat you if they knew you could never lie to your wife? Or are they all like Vincent?”

  Max laughed, refusing to take offense. “Vincent would be fascinated. But I know what you mean. I’d be in for some ribbing.”

  “It’s more than just ribbing. There’s nothing good-natured about it.” Eric paused to collect his thoughts. “You’re married to a gifted woman too, but there’s nothing special about her gift. No, that didn’t come out right. What I mean is that as talented as Tee is, her talent is one that’s shared by other people. There’s no oddity connected with it. Even if she does go back to the concert stage and become the most famous pianist in the world—well, you’d be the husband of a celebrity, that’s all. You wouldn’t be laughed at because of it.”

  So Eric looked upon his wife as something of a freak. Max tried to turn the conversation. “That may happen yet. I thought I had Tee talked into accepting an engagement with the New Orleans Symphony, but she balked at the last minute. But I think she’s coming round—”

  “Will you ask her? To talk to Shelby?”

  Max shook his head. “I can’t do that, Eric. That’s asking her to conspire against her own sister. You know how close they are.”

  “Then just tell her that I asked for her help. Let her make up her own mind.”

  Max thought it over. “All right, I guess I can do that. I’ll tell Tee what you want her to do.”

  “That’s all I ask,” said Eric.

  Once that was settled, the two men found they didn’t have anything more to talk about. They left the bar separately, each slightly disappointed in the other.

  CHAPTER 14

  ECCE FEMINA

  “We’d put her on retainer if we could get funding,” Sergeant Luis Delgado was explaining. “As it is, we just call her in as often as the budget lets us. On a consultant basis, you understand? It’s not good—too hit-and-miss. One of these days we’re gonna need her real bad and she’ll be out in the boonies working with some other police department.”

  “How come she’s never mentioned in the papers?” Kevin Gilbert wanted to know.

  “Her choice. It’s part of our agreement that we never release her name to the news media.”

  “Can you put a percentage figure on her accuracy?”

  “Easy,” grinned Delgado. “One hundred.”

  “A hundred per cent accurate?”

  “That’s right. The way she explained it to me, it’s all pretty automatic. Either that red glow is there or it isn’t. She doesn’t have to evaluate anything, make judgments. Just yes or no.”

  “But how do you know she’s right all the time?” Gilbert persisted. “If she says somebody is lying, and he says he isn’t—isn’t that just a matter of deciding which one to believe?”

  A flicker of irritation crossed the Sergeant’s face. “We don’t take anybody’s word for anything. Shelby Kent’s say-so isn’t evidence. But when she tells us a suspect is lying, then we know where to look for evidence. She’s saved us a helluva lot of work by steering us away from one line of investigation and toward another. She takes the guesswork out of it, you understand?”

  “So all she does is save you a little time and effort.”

  “Hey, don’t sneer at that, man! And no, that isn’t all she does. Lotsa times we’d have missed out altogether if it wasn’t for some lie she uncovered. And every time—every time—we got the evidence we needed. I’m telling you, she never misses.”

  “Never misses.” I’ll take vanilla.

  “All right, believe it, don’t believe it, what do I care? What do you want to do, read all the case records?”

  “Yes,” said Kevin Gilbert stubbornly.

  “Eric,” said Shelby, “I’ll go with you to California, I’ll live in California, I’ll even pretend to like California. But don’t ask me to give up my police work.”

  “Come on, Shelby, I’m not asking you to give up some career you’ve spent years preparing yourself for. This whole lie-detecting business—it’s a fluke, and you know it. Is it worth breaking up our marriage for?”

  “Would you ask me to stop singing if I happened to be born with a great voice? That’s a fluke too.”

  “Not a valid analogy. Won’t you even try it?”

  “Try pretending I can’t do something I can?”

  “Maybe we can find some other way to use your gift, something that won’t put you in the public eye.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I don’t know what. But we can look for something. Or don’t you think the marriage is worth the effort?”

  Shelby was silent a moment. Then: “Yes, I think it’s worth the effort. Oh hell, Eric—maybe you’re right. I don’t know, let me think about it some more. I don’t want to give up the police work, but I don’t want to give you up either. Why should I have to choose? It’s not reasonable, what you’re asking me to do.”

  “I know,” he said gently. “But I’m still asking.”

  “Yes, Shelby was down last week,” Dr. Wedner said. “We were running some new neurological tests. What is it exactly you want to know?”

  “I want to know how reliable her ability is,” Kevin Gilbert said.

  “One hundred per cent,” said Dr. Wedner. “You cannot tell her a lie without her knowing it, and she never mistakes the truth for a falsehood. She’s foolproof. I’ve never tested another aura reader who even approaches Shelby in accuracy.”

  “You mean there are others like her?”

  “There are other aura readers in the world, but none of them can read the same aura Shelby reads. She’s the only one who can detect lies. But there are others who can spot physical illness by seeing auras the rest of us can’t see. We’ve tested about a hundred of these people, and the mean for the group is sixty-four per cent accuracy. Still a long way from Shelby’s perfect score.”

  “A policeman in New York told me that it was automatic,” said Gilbert. “That she either saw a red glow or she didn’t. How can that be? Truth and lies are usually mixed up together. How can it be a yes-or-no proposition?”

  “Well, it’s not exactly like that. Shelby sees gradations in the auras, different shades of red, depending on how much of what is being said is false. What you and I call white lies Shelby sees as pink. That’s how it all started—when she entered adolescence she noticed her father glowing pink every once in a while. But the very nature of police investigation is such that the lies told the police are either bright red or dark red. That’s what we’re working on now—trying to figure out the difference between ‘bright’ and ‘dark’.”

  “I suppose you have evidence to document all this.”

  “Tons of it,” the scientist said unscientifically.

  “Then I’d like to send in some people who are qualified to evaluate your testing program and its results. Do you have any objection?”

  “None whatsoever,” Dr. Wedner agreed cheerfully.

  “Eric wants me to do what?” said Tee, appalled.

  “He wants you to help hi
m persuade Shelby to give up her police work,” Max repeated.

  “But I can’t do that! That would … it would be downright immoral for Shelby to hide her talent! She … there’s never been anyone like her, ever before! How could she … and he wants me to … she’d think I … I can’t do it, Max!”

  “Okay,” he laughed.

  “What?”

  “I said okay. I think you’re right.”

  “But you said—”

  “I carried a message, Tee, that’s all. We’re going to have to let Shelby and Eric work it out for themselves.”

  “How many times have you consulted her?” asked Kevin Gilbert.

  “Oh, nine or ten,” said Lieutenant Nicolosi. “It’d be a lot more if she lived here in Pittsburgh, but we gotta pay air fare as well as her fee every time she comes. I tried to talk her into moving to Pittsburgh once, but she’s got a husband who’s tied to New York. Some sort of bigwig with the Jets.”

  Gilbert knew all about Eric Kent and his job. In fact, he’d learned almost everything there was to know about Shelby. “And she’s never been wrong once?” he asked almost desultorily. “Not even once?”

  “Not here she hasn’t. She’s been right on the money every time. Have you talked to the police in New York and Boston?”

  “Yes.” And Philadelphia. And Detroit. And Atlanta. And everyplace else Shelby Kent and her extraordinary ability had added a new dimension to crime-fighting.

  “Anything else you want?” Lieutenant Nicolosi asked.

  “No, I guess not,” said Gilbert.

  CHAPTER 15

  PASTELS ARE CHEAPER

  Winner of the Longest Song Title Contest: “Dear Okie, If You See Arkie, Tell Him Tex Has Got a Job for Him Out in Californy, Pickin’ Up Prunes, Squeezin’ Oil Out of Olives”

  “We’re all outa Cherries Jubilee,” said the waiter.

  “No you’re not,” Shelby smiled sweetly.

  The waiter looked startled. “You calling me a liar?”

  Eric spoke up. “The lady’s saying you’re mistaken. Cherries Jubilee. Care to try again?”

  The waiter muttered something under his breath and trudged off to the kitchen.

  “Now why would he lie about that?” asked Tee.

  “Too much fuss,” Max said. “Pulling the tray over here, lighting the cognac—extra effort for him.”

  “Terrific,” sighed Tee.

  “What’s the matter, Tee?” Eric asked. “You look down in the dumps.”

  “Tchaikovsky,” Tee mumbled.

  “Tchaikovsky?”

  Max said, “Metropolitan Ballet started rehearsing The Nutcracker today. The obligatory Christmas ritual for kids. Tee isn’t exactly overjoyed.”

  Shelby smiled at her sister in sympathy.

  “I sometimes wonder,” Tee said, “whether children enjoy The Nutcracker as much as we like to think they do. It really is a boring ballet. Both to listen to and to watch. And I’m not altogether sure it’s a wholesome thing for children to see. Here we have this rather peculiar little girl who has sexual fantasies about a, ahem, nut-cracker—a nutcracker that’s been brought to her by an uncle who seems to be a sort of pander. In addition, the girl feels threatened by mice! So her way of coping with all this is to go dancing in the snow wearing nothing but a thin cotton nightgown. This child has problems.”

  “Why, Tee,” laughed Shelby, “what a dreadful thing to say!”

  “Tee doesn’t like Tchaikovsky,” Max explained unnecessarily.

  “Hey, we’re supposed to be celebrating, remember?” Eric poured more champagne. “To San Diego!”

  Shelby lifted her glass dutifully. “Which we’ll be calling ‘home’ exactly two months from tonight. To San Diego.”

  “Where I hope you’ll both be very, very happy,” Tee said earnestly.

  “We will be,” said Shelby. Even if it kills us.

  “What are you going to be doing instead of police work?” Max asked Shelby.

  Eric answered for her. “Dr. Wedner gave us the name of a man at Cal Tech. Maybe more tests, maybe something else. He’ll find something for her to do.”

  “Something to keep the little woman busy,” Shelby said.

  “Now, Shel, you agreed,” said Eric, annoyed at her tone.

  “Yes, yes, I agreed.”

  “To sunny California,” said Tee hastily, lifting an empty glass. “Where the skies are blue and the landscape is—”

  “Beige,” finished Shelby.

  Eric forced a smile. “Ecru?” he said hopefully.

  Max laughed. “That reminds me of a technical stage director I worked for once, when I was about nineteen.” Change the subject. “Man named Ace, summer theater in Connecticut. Ace was shade blind. Not color blind—he could tell green from yellow and so on. But he couldn’t distinguish among close shades of the same color. He couldn’t tell beige from ecru, or even sky blue from aquamarine. He was still using the kind of scene paint that comes in powdered form that you mix with size water. Doesn’t cost much that way. And Ace was a tight-fisted son of a gun—he never had us mix up any more paint than he thought we’d need. Which meant we often mixed up less than we needed, and then had to mix some more. So of course there was always the problem of making sure the shades matched exactly. Ace was always asking one of us if the new batch of paint matched the shade we’d already used. He pretended he was just checking to make sure, but he really couldn’t see any difference at all.

  “So one day when we’d just finished the flats for some musical we were doing, we were all standing around admiring our handiwork—airy, cheerful flats, all yellows and light greens and even some pinks, I think. Ace stood there for a minute and then said, ‘One thing you have to say for this set, it sure is loud!’ And in my usual tactful way I said, ‘But Ace, they’re all pastels!’ Ace looked at me, and then looked at the flats, then looked at me again, then looked back at the flats. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘pastels are cheaper!’ And they are—dark shades cost more. But the man was so determined not to admit he couldn’t tell the difference between ‘loud’ and ‘pastel’ that he pretended economy was the reason for his choice of colors.”

  Eric laughed politely while Tee played with her champagne glass; she’d heard all about Ace and his problems.

  “Max,” Shelby said quietly, “why did you tell that story? Something to do with false justification? Finding excuses for our bad choices?”

  The table became ominously quiet.

  Then: “Jesus Christ!” Eric exploded.

  “I thought we were going to let them work it out by themselves,” Tee said to her husband.

  “I thought so too,” Max said miserably. “Me and my big mouth.”

  “Cherries Jubilee,” snarled the waiter.

  CHAPTER 16

  $34.50 STILL OWED ON A GRECIAN URN

  The basic decisions on our participation in any conflict and our response to any threat … will be made by the regularly constituted civilian authorities.

  —John F. Kennedy, in an address to Congress, 28 March 1961

  … to bring you this special bulletin.

  Two near-simultaneous explosions have just taken the lives of an estimated three thousand persons in Greece. One or more bombs were detonated in the UN Militia Supply Headquarters building in Athens an hour ago, destroying the building completely and injuring or killing its staff of over five hundred workers as well as an undetermined number of passersby. The headquarters co-ordinated supply movements for UN Militia installations in the entire eastern Mediterranean area.

  Also bombed was a UN garrison outside Delvinakion, a small town near the Greece-Albania border. Fatality estimates range as high as twenty-five hundred. Early unconfirmed reports attribute the bombings to Greek guerrillas.

  Stay tuned to this station for further details as they become available.

  UN Special Commission Formed

  To Investigate Terrorism

  NEW YORK (AP)—The UN Security Council met in emergency session today to c
onsider the problem of the recent unprovoked attacks on UN Militia installations.

  Council members quickly agreed to the formation of a special commission of inquiry. Announcement of the membership of the commission and the extent of its investigatory powers is expected momentarily.

  The commission’s prime function is to inquire into the two bombings that took place in Greece two days ago. The death toll from those bombings has now reached 3,200.

  Rumors about the formation of an investigating commission have been circulating ever since the aborted Honduran uprising in March. Neither the Honduran nor the earlier Burmese rebellion succeeded because the rebels in both countries had been supplied with defective weapons.

  Pedro Yglesias, arrested as the supplier of the Honduran weapons, has implicated UN Ambassador Mañuel Aguirrez in a plot to support rebel uprisings.

  EYES ONLY

  TO: Sir John Dudley

  Explosives used in Greek bombings were purchased from Franz Meier, a munitions distributor headquartered in Zürich. Meier’s computer tapes of all purchasing records for the past six months have been erased. Meier is being held for further questioning.

  No connection between the Greek bombings and Ambassador Mañuel Aguirrez has been uncovered.

  But he doesn’t know that, thought Sir John.

  … in a bombshell announcement by Sir John Dudley, head of the UN Intelligence Agency. Sir John stated Ambassador Aguirrez has admitted responsibility for supplying Honduran rebels with defective arms but denies responsibility for the Greek bombings.

  Sir John stated that Ambassador Aguirrez has displayed “deep distress” over the slaughter in Greece and is anxious to disclaim all personal responsibility.

  Mr. Aguirrez named two other representatives to the UN as his “partners” in the business of supporting rebel groups in their activities against the UN Militia. The Ambassador says the bombings in Greece were the work of either Li Xijuan of the People’s Republic of China or Heinrich Schlimmermann of West Germany.