Finally he said, "Survival."īarrett's heart sank. "Your assignment is to establish the facts."ĭeutsch seemed hesitant about replying, as though he felt it was beneath him. "Your fee will be one hundred thousand dollars." They say you're one of the five best in your field." He drew in laboring breath. "I beg your pardon?" Barrett had stiffened. "You're crippled." Deutsch's voice was rasping.
"Good afternoon." Intriguing that this wasted creature ruled an empire, he was thinking. Rolf Rudolph Deutsch was eighty-seven, bald, and skeletal, his dark eyes peering out from bony cavities. Stopping by the massive bed, he looked at the old man sitting in it. Sanctum of the monarch, Barrett thought as he moved across the rug. The secretary closed the door behind him. He waited while the secretary leaned in through the doorway and announced, "Doctor Barrett, sir." Then he stepped past Hanley, entering the room. "Doctor," he said.īarrett reached for his cane and, standing, limped across the hallway, stopping in front of the shorter man.
The door to Deutsch's bedroom opened, and his male secretary, Hanley, came out. Still, he'd had no way of knowing it would take this long. Edith must be getting restless downstairs. He sat erect on the straight-back chair, staring at the door to Deutsch's bedroom. He was a tall, slightly overweight man in his middle fifties, his thinning blond hair unchanged in color, though his trimmed beard showed traces of white. Barrett lifted his right leg over his left. "Return from the Grave" "The Girl Who Wouldn't Die" - always sensational, rarely factual. The old man's chain of newspapers and magazines were forever printing articles on the subject. What did Deutsch want of him? Something to do with parapsychology, most likely. He drew his watch from its vest pocket and raised the lid. The interminable wait in this corridor while disconcerted-looking men and women hurried in and out of Deutsch's bedroom, glancing at him occasionally. The driving rain, the cold, the two-hour ride from Manhattan in one of Deutsch's long black leatherupholstered limousines. He felt rather like a character in some latter-day Gothic romance. It had been raining hard since five o'clock that morning.
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