It was getting sticky. I was skating perilously close to the brink—once I revealed to a Normal that I had the Stigma, my days as an attorney were done. "This organization—I'll call it the Lodge, if I may—has to have an attorney to represent it in Court. And you know as well as I do they can't hire a Psi attorney—the Bar Association has taken care of that. They came to me because...."
"Yes, yes," he interrupted, taking his eyes off his nails, and showing some real interest at last. "If you only knew how much I want to believe you, Maragon. But I will never believe that Psis would permit themselves to be represented by a Normal. Too bad, but the social workers, and not your mythical Lodge, will get Mary Hall. That or a Federal Grand Jury."
Well, this was the fork in the road, I had been kidding myself, and now I knew it. Persist in my masquerade as a Normal, and I'd never get Mary off the hook. But reveal myself as a Psi, and I was through as an attorney. It really wasn't much of a decision—I had made it when I revealed myself to Keys, Mary and Elmer.
I looked at the humidor of tobacco on his desk. Without changing expression, I aimed a lift at it. The container came up smoothly from the polished walnut and hovered in the air before us.
Passarelli looked at it blandly. I don't think anything in my life has ever been a greater shock than his unconcern. He should have dropped his teeth. Slowly I let the lift break, and lowered the humidor to his desk.
"Fairly good TK, if that's all you're capable of," Passarelli said. "Or can you do better, Maragon?"
"You slimy Normal!" I exploded. "You tricked me into exposing myself!"
"What am I, an idiot?" he snapped. "I had to know."
I stood up. "Until now, I never really hated Normals," I began.
"Oh, sit down, for Heaven's sake," he said testily. "Now don't get emotional and lose all your perspective. Doesn't it occur to you that there's been just too much coincidence in this whole thing?"