other word
about the PC powers of that fraud."

* * * * *

I let a week go by after that, not quite able to figure out what I
should do. One night, after a dinner that Pheola had cooked for me as
part of her transparent scheme to convince me she was God's own gift
to Lefty Bupp, I raised a question with her.

"You are still sure," I said, loading the dishwasher, "about Pete
Maragon?"

"Yes," she said. "He'll have a heart attack."

"All right. Exactly when?"

"The nineteenth. Thursday," she said.

"We've got to pin point this thing," I said as we went back to her
living room. "Do you think you are ready to do some serious
diagnosis?"

"Of the Grand Master?" she asked me.

"Sure. I can get you into his office without too much trouble. What I
want you to do is feel around inside his heart. The sawbones from the
clinic can't find anything out of line, and I think you can. Can you
PC that?"

She smiled at me. "Of course," she said. "You'll take me there in the
morning."

I did, of course.

Maragon gave us an appointment when I assured him that I wanted to
show him some aspects of Pheola's healing powers and that PC wasn't
going to enter into the discussion. His spooky clairvoyant let us in
with a knowing smile and we found the old goat pouring over some
papers in front of him on the big slab of walnut.

He was really quite nice to Pheola. "Well, well, young woman," he
said, "Lefty tells me that you are coming along."

"I hope so, Mr. Maragon," she said.

"Well, Lefty," he said, after he had shown us both into the handsome
chairs he had drawn up in front of his desk, "you were going to have
Pheola give me some kind of a demonstration."

"Sure," I said. "First off I want you to know that she can qualify as
a TK. Her healing powers are a subtle form of that. But as proof,
she'll give a demonstration with weights."

I drew the carrying case from my pocket and laid four pith balls on
his desk, as well as a ten-gram standard TK weight.

"Ten grams?" he said, interested.

"Maybe," I grinned. "We haven't tried this outside our own company.
Pretty big emotional quotient here, you know."

He shook his head. "It has to be reproducible, Lefty," he said, but in
a kindly tone. "Let me see it, Pheola."

She was really pretty good, and the pith balls behaved quite well. The
first time around, the ten-gram weight stopped her cold, but by laying
it on my palm, she got a good grip an