the plant, to the spectacular richness of it when Bill Gelb yanked open the door and it came sprawling out of its closet.
"Of course it was the plant," he said. "I mean, it had to have been. I've never written anything that good in my life."
And I could guess who the hero of the piece would turn out to be, but I kept my mouth shut. On that subject, at least. On another one, I thought it prudent to open it.
"In Tina Barfield's letter to me," I said, "she told me that when we read about Carlos's death, not to believe it. Then she said, 'Like the General. ' I repeat: 'Like the General. ' "
"That is utter and complete bullshit," Herb said, but he sounded uneasy, and a lot of the color faded out of his cheeks. "The guy crawled into a goddamned gas oven and gave himself a Viking funeral. The cops found his gold teeth, each engraved with the number 7, for 7th Army. And if that's not enough, they also found the lighter Douglas MacArthur gave him. He never would have given that up. Never."
"So maybe he's dead," Bill said. "According to Roger and John, this guy Keen was dead, too, but he was still lively enough to read the used-car ads in the newspaper."
"Mr. Keen just had his heart torn out, though," Herb said. He spoke almost nonchalantly, as if getting your heart torn out was roughly the same as ripping a hangnail off on the trunk-latch of your car. "There wasn't anything left of Iron-Guts but ashes, teeth, and a few lumps of bone."
"There is, however, that tulpa business," Roger reminded him. All of us sitting around and discussing this stuff with perfect calmness, as though it were the plot of Anthony LaScorbia's newest big-bug book.
"What exactly is a tulpa?" Bill asked.
"I don't know," Roger said, "but I will tomorrow."
"You will?"
"Yes. Because you're going to research the subject at the New York Public Library before you go home tonight."
Bill groaned. "Roger, that's not fair! If there's a military-type tulpa out there, it's Herb's tulpa."
"Nevertheless, this particular bit of research is your baby," Roger said, and gave Bill a severe look. "Sandra's got the joke book and Herb's got the nut book. You owe me an inspiration. In the meantime, I expect you to check into the wonderful world of tulpas."
"What about him?" Bill asked sulkily. The him he was looking at was yours truly.
"John also has a project," Roger told him. "Don't you, John?"
"That I do," I replied, reminding myself again not to go home without diving back into the dusty atmosphere of the mailroom at least one more time. According to Tina, what I'd been looking for was in a purple box, on the bottom shelf, and way back in the corner.
No, not according to Tina.
Chapter CHAPTER SEVEN
According to OUIJA.
"It's time to go to work," Roger said, "but I want to make three suggestions before I turn you loose. The first is that you stay away from the janitor's closet, no matter how drawn to it you may feel. If the urge gets really strong, do what the alkies do: call someone else who may have the same problem and talk about it until the urge goes away. Okay?"
His eyes swept us: Sandra once more sitting as prim and neat as a freshman coed at her first sorority social, Herb and Bill side by side on the floor, Mr. Stout and Mr. Narrow. Roger's baby blues touched me last. None of us said anything out loud, but Roger heard us just the same. That's the way it is at Zenith House right now. It's amazing, and most of the world would no doubt find it flat unbelievable, but that's the way it is. For better or worse. And because what he heard was what he wanted, Roger nodded and sat back, relaxing a bit.
"Second thing. You may feel the urge to tell someone outside this office about what has happened here... what is happening. I urge you with all my heart not to do it."
He doesn't have to worry about it. We won't, none of us. It's ordinary human nature to want to confide a great and wonderful secret to which you have become privy, but not this time. I didn't need telepathy to know that; I saw it in their eyes. And I remembered something rather unpleasant from my childhood. There was this kid who lived up the street from me, not