mist, a golden ghost peering through the somber veil—and Julia, beside me, clinging to my arm, crying softly—”
“Hey, kid, I’m in New Jersey. Where are you?” I said nervously.
He blinked. “In California, George. Two years ago. I’m there. Do you understand? I’m really there!”
It was a little embarrassing. I felt like an intruder on a beach picnic. “Well, Hillary, that’s just fine,” I stammered. “I suppose that means that—that you’ve done what you set out to.”
“That’s right.” He nodded slightly. “Total recall, George. Every instant of my existence re-filed under ‘urgent’. Every vision, every sound, every sensation, laid clean and sharp like a sound film ready for running. I’ve done it, George.”
“How long ago did you—”
“Three weeks ago I began heavy dosing with the vitamin. Today—just this last hour—I reached back into prenatal to the first instant of my cellular existence. And it was like ripping a curtain aside. I—I can’t exactly tell you what it’s like. Something like coming out of a black cellar into the noon-day sun. It’s almost blinding.”
He closed his eyes, squinting as though to shut out a glare. His blond hair had grown long, and it lay on the pillow like a woman’s. He had lost some weight, and except for the heavy chest muscles and thick forearms, he had the appearance of a poet, a delicate soul dedicated to some ephemeral plane out of this world.
I figured I’d better provide a little ballast. “Congratulations and all that,” I said, “but what about your work?”
“I’m done,” he said quietly.
“Done? Are you forgetting that you bought a sanitarium?—some eight hundred grand worth? And it’s only half paid for?”
“Oh, that. The royalties will take care of the payments.”
“Hillary, you keep forgetting about taxes.”
“Then let them take it back by default. I’m through with it.”
“Dammit,” I said, “I looked into this deal. People don’t take back sanitariums like over-ripe bananas, especially when they got you on the hook for more than it’s worth. They’ll hold you to the contract. And you can’t get your equity out if you don’t protect it by keeping up your payments. You have a wonderful start, and if you just fill the contracts I have on file now you can pay it off and have plenty left to retire on. But right now you aren’t so solvent, boy.”
Well, he finally came out of his trance long enough to agree to fulfill the commitments I’d made for him, and I thought that once he got started there would be no holding him.
Just to make sure I did something on my own. I let his identity and whereabouts leak out.
It was a sneaky thing to do to him, but I figured that once he got a real taste of the fame that was waiting him he would never let go of it.
The papers splashed it: “Mystery Genius Is Lad of 19!”
They swamped him. They swarmed over him and plastered him with honorary literary degrees, domestic and foreign. They Oscared him and Nobelled him. They wined, dined and adored him into a godhead of the arts.
The acting, publishing, TV, radio and movie greats paid homage to his genius by the most hysterical bidding for his talents their check-books could support. I kept waiting for the Secretary of the Treasury to present him with the key to Fort Knox.
*
Meanwhile, I waited patiently—having no choice, since I started the publicity nightmare myself—for the earthquake to settle down. As his agent I was holding off all new commitments until he fulfilled the ones on hand.
Six months passed, and Hillary was still wallowing in glory, too busy sopping up plaudits to bother turning a hand.
Finally I sent a goon squad after him and dragged him to my office. He arrived in a four-hundred dollar suit and a fifty-dollar tie. Each cuff was decorated by a diamond link and a Hollywood starlet. I shooed out the excess and came to the point.
“Recess is over,” I said gently. “Now we settle down for a few months of patty-cake with your secretaries. They’re here in my offices now where I can keep an eye on things. Okay?”
He grinned his old happy smile, and some of the dewey glaze seemed to peel from his eyes. “You’re right, George,” he said much to my surprise. “I can’t coast forever—and believe me, I never visualized what this would be like. It’s wonderful. The world is at my feet, George. At my feet!”
I had pegged him right. But after all, who could resist the accolade he had received? For all his monomania on this business of mnemonics, he was a red-blooded boy with active glands and youthful corpuscles.
To my further delight he threw off his imported suit-coat and said, “I’m ready right now. Where do we start?”
*
I broached the file and studied my priority list. “First off, Oscar wants a play. That’ll take a week or two, I suppose. Then I have an assignment for a serial—”
I outlined about three months work for him, or what would have been three months work last summer.
I moved him into my own penthouse apartment upstairs and herded him to work the next morning. My squad of strong-arms guarded all entrances, and Hec Blankenship finally convinced the public that we meant business in getting a little privacy for our tame genius so he could hatch some more immortal works.
I had lunch sent in to him in the next office and didn’t see him until five that first evening. I went in without knocking. One secretary was filing her nails, and the other three were putting on their coats. The covers were still on the typewriters and Hillary was asleep or in a coma over in the corner.
I kicked his feet off his desk, and he rocked forward. “Come on upstairs, I’ll buy you a steak,” I said.
He smiled weakly, “I need one. It didn’t go so good.” In the elevator he added, “In fact, it didn’t go at all.”
“Take it easy,” I assured him. “You’re a little rusty, that’s all. What about the total recall? Is it still working?”
He nodded, but he didn’t say any more about it.
Next day I stuck my head in before I went to lunch, and I congratulated myself on not pushing him too hard the first day. Hillary was off in his corner again, but his mouth was moving and all four girls were doing the things that secretaries do when they are about two hours behind in their work.
Eight days later the thing dropped on my desk. I wet a finger with keen anticipation, but the spit wasn’t dry before I was plowing into Hillary’s office trailing loose sheets.
“Are you kidding?” I yelled.
He was out of his chair over by the window staring out. All he did was hunch up his shoulders. The girls were standing around trying to act invisible.
“Hillary,” I said trying to laugh. “Don’t be playing gags on old George.
