Gore Vidal - Messiah

Paul shrugged convincingly. "I'm as much in charge now as I would be with him dead," he said with a certain truth. "I'm interested in Cavesword, not in Cave. If his death enhances and establishes the Word more securely then I must do all I can to convince him to take that course."

"There is another way," I said, smiling at the pleasant thought.

"Another way?"

"To convince us of your dedication and sincerity to Cavesword."

"What's that?"

"You kill yourself , Paul."

There was a long silence. I pressed the buzzer and my secretary came in. Without a word, Paul left.

Immediately afterwards, I took the private elevator to Cave's penthouse. Two guards stopped me while I was announced by a third. After a short delay, I was admitted to Cave's study, but not to Cave; instead, Iris received me.

"I know what's happening," I said. "Where is he?"

"Obviously you do." Her voice was cold. She did not ask me to sit down. Awkwardly, I faced her at the room's center.

"We must stop him."

"John? Stop him from what?"

"Doing what Paul wants him to do."

"And what you want as well."

"You're mistaken. I thought I made myself clear the other night. But though my timing was apparently bad, under no circumstances do I want him to die."

"You made your speech to force him."

"And Paul thinks I made it to stop him." I couldn't help smiling. "I am, it seems, everyone's enemy."

"Paul has told me everything. How you and he and Stokharin all decided, without consulting us, that John should die." I was astonished at Paul's boldness. Could he really be moving so swiftly? How else explain such a prodigious lie? I told her quickly, urgently what I felt, what I had said to Paul and he to me. She heard me to the end without expressing either belief or disbelief. When I'd finished she turned away from me and went to the window where, through yellow glass, the city rose upon the band of horizon.

"It's too late," she said, evenly. "I hadn't expected this. Perhaps you're telling me the truth… if you are, you've made a terrible mistake." She turned about suddenly, with a precision which was almost military. "He's going to do it."

The awful words fell like a weight upon a scale. I felt blindly for a chair and sat down, all strength gone. "Stop him," I said, all that I could say. "Stop him."

"It's too late for that." She took pity on me. "I think you're telling me the truth, Gene." She came over to where I was sitting and looked down at me gently. "I'm sorry I accused you. I should have realized Paul was lying."

"You can stop him."

"I can't. I've tried but I can't." Her control was extraordinary. I did not then guess the reason for her calm, her strength.

"Then I must try." I stood up. She backed away at the expression on my face.

"You can't do anything. He won't see you. He won't see anyone but me."

"I thought he told Paul he agreed with me, that he didn't want to… to countenance all this, that he…"

"At first he took your side, if it is really what you yourself feel: then he thought about it and… this morning he decided to go ahead with Paul's plan."

I was confused. "Does Paul know?"

Iris smiled wanly. "John is reserving for himself the pleasure of doing what he must do without Paul's assistance."

"Or knowledge?"

Iris shrugged. "Paul will find out about it this evening, I suppose. There will be an announcement. John's secretary is getting it ready now… one for the public and another for the Establishment."

"When will it happen?"

"Tomorrow. I go with him, Gene."

"You? You're not going to die too?"

"I don't see that it makes much difference what I do when John dies."

"You can't leave us now. You can't leave Paul in charge of everything. He's a dangerous man. Why, if…"

"You'll be able to handle him." It was perfectly apparent to me that she was no longer interested in me or in the others; not even in the fate of the work we had begun.

"It's finished, if you go too," I said bleakly. "Together we could control Paul; alone, I'd not last ten days. Iris, let me talk to him."

"I can't. I won't."

I contemplated pushing by her and searching the penthouse but there were guards everywhere and I had no wish to be shot myself on such an errand.

She guessed my thought and said, quickly, "There's no possible way for you or anyone to get through to him. Sometime tonight or tomorrow he will leave and that's the end."

"He won't do it here?" This surprised me.

She shook her head. "He wants to go off alone, away from everyone. I'm to be with him until the end; then I'll send the body back here for burial… but he'll leave full instructions."

"You mean I'm never to see either of you again? Just like that, you both go?"

"Just like this." For the first time she displayed some warmth. "I've cared for you, Gene," she said gently. "I even think that of us all you were the one most nearly right in your approach to John. I think you understood him better than he did himself. Try to hold on after we go. Try to keep it away from Paul."

"As if I could!" I turned from her bitterly, filled with unexpected grief: I did not want to lose her presence even though I had lost her or, rather, never possessed more of her than that one bright instant years before on the California coast when we had both realized with the unexpected clarity of the lovers we were not that our lives had come to the same point at the same moment and the knowledge of this confluence was the one splendor I had known, the single hope, the unique passion of my life.

"Don't miss me, Gene. I couldn't bear that." She put her hand on my arm. I walked away, not able to bear her touch. Then they came.

Paul and Stokharin were in the study. Iris gasped and stepped back when she saw them. I spun about just as Paul shouted: "It won't work, Iris! Give it up."

"Get out of here, Paul." Her voice was strong. "You have no right here."

"I have as much right as you. Now tell me whose idea was it? yours? or was it John's? or Gene's? since he seems to enjoy playing both sides."

"Get out. All of you." She moved to the old-fashioned bell cord which hung beside Cave's massive desk.

"Don't bother," said Paul. "No one will come."

Iris, her eyes wide now with fear, tugged the cord twice: the second time it broke off in her hand. There was no response.

Paul looked grim. "I'm sorry to have to do it this way but you've left me no choice. You can't leave, either of you."

"You read…"

"I saw the release. It won't work."

"Why not? It's what you've wanted all along. Everything will be yours. There'll be nobody to stop you. John will be dead and I'll be gone for good. You'll never see me again… why must you interfere?" She spoke quickly, plausibly but the false proportion was evident now, even to me: the plan was tumbling down at Paul's assault.

"Iris, I'm not a complete fool. I know perfectly well that Cave has no intention of killing himself and that…"

"Why do you think I'm going with him? to send you the body back for the ceremony which you'll perform right here, publicly…"

"Iris." He looked at her for a long moment. Then: "If you two leave as planned tonight (I've canceled the helicopter by the way) there will be no body, no embalming, no ceremony, no point… only a mystery which might very well undo all our work. I can't allow that. Cave must die here, before morning. We might have put it off but your announcement has already leaked out. There'll be a million people out there in the street tomorrow. We'll have to show them Cave's body."

Iris swayed; I moved quickly to her side and held her arm.

"It's three to two, Paul," I said. "I assume we're still directors. Three of us have agreed that Cave and Iris leave. That's final." But my bluff was humiliatingly weak; it was ignored.