Read Online Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester by J. Gregory Keyes - Free Book Online Page B

least companionship. Until he had come home to find Alisha in the arms of another man.
    He supposed he was married still, and his son-if indeed it was his son, which he much doubted-was a stranger. No, probably during or after the telepath wars Alisha had sued for a divorce. Who would want to be married to the terrible criminal, Alfred Bester?
    And Carolyn. He had loved her. She had proved to him that his heart wasn’t as empty as he had thought. Which in the end only proved he could still be hurt. It wasn’t worth the trade. So why was he noticing the smell of Louise’s hair, the way her fingers gripped the brush, the stray, white-coated hairs straggling across her face?
    Ah. That would be because he was an idiot. She was less than half his age, still young and beautiful. His body was responding to her, that was all, a last gasp of hormones. Or maybe he liked the fact that she needed him, if only a little. He had once had thousands of people who depended upon him, and he had been without that for years. Empty nest syndrome? It was an elementary fact that you could make more friends by making them feel like you needed them than the other way around.
    Yes, simple physiology and psychology. He wasn’t really attracted to her. And she certainly was not attracted to him. Why was he wasting time with this? Perhaps because, against his will, he was painting for the first time in his life.
    There was a knock at the door. Her head jerked up, and her cheek brushed against his. He banged his head into the wall jerking away.
    “You!” Louise shouted her voice trembling with rage and fear. Jem stood in the doorway. Louise picked up a piece of charred chair leg from a pile of rubble.
    “Get out. Get away from here.”
    Jem’s face spasmed with sudden pain. He looked confused. Bester frowned. Maybe he had been more tired than he thought. Maybe…
    But then Jem cleared his throat.
    “Look, ah, madame, I’m… I went too far. I’m sorry. This isn’t good business, this kind of thing, and I shouldn’t have done it.”
    “What? Don’t play with me. I’m sick of you. So help me…”
    She hefted the makeshift weapon. Jem withdrew a card from his pocket and held it out.
    “There’s eight thousand credits on that. If it doesn’t cover the damage and the lost business, I’ll transfer more. Okay?”
    Louise just stared for a moment, utterly amazed. Then her expression took a turn back toward suspicion.
    “What are you up to, Jem?
    Are you going to snatch that away from me, maybe grab my hair, try to give me a good beating? If you do, you’d better kill me.”
    Jem set the credit chit carefully on the counter.
    “There it is,” he murmured.
    “Check it out. It’s real.”
    His eyes flickered once to Bester, and his face spasmed again. Then he turned and left.
    “What the…”
    She picked up the chit, looked it over, then went behind the checkin desk.
    “Eight thousand credits, just like he said.”
    Her tone was so unbelieving, Bester couldn’t suppress a small grin. She noticed it.
    “Did you-what did you do to him?”
    “Me? Nothing.”
    “Last night, when you were telling me something might come along you meant this! How did you know?”
    “I spoke philosophically,” Bester said.
    “It’s just that I’ve been around long enough to know you can never guess what’s really around the next corner”
    “No. You knew. How?”
    “I promise you, I didn’t. Don’t _you think it more likely that your policeman friend got some of his buddies together, off duty? That they went and, ah, ”talked some sense” into Jem? Or maybe he really had a change of heart.”
    “No, not Jem. But Lucien-no, I don’t believe that either. He’s too upright, too respectful of the law”
    “He likes you. Maybe this attack was just too much for him.”
    “Maybe. I don’t believe it.”
    “Yes. He knows you don’t like help, like to fend for yourself…”
    “Oh, do I?”
    Her eyes narrowed again, but this time there was