"Interesting," I said casually. "Are you still experimenting with sensory deprivation?"
"No! Why do you ask?"
I raised my eyebrows, said quietly, "It's what you won your Nobel for. Why shouldn't you still be working in the field?"
"Because the research is considered dangerous, and it's no longer approved of by my colleagues." The scientist hesitated; the focus of his eyes shifted until he seemed to be looking through me. I must have pushed the right button, because he suddenly started talking rapidly, with passion. "I was surrounded by fools!" he continued heatedly. "I was on the verge of a medical breakthrough as profound as the work they gave me the Nobel for."
"A cure for the common cold?"
"Don't mock me, Frederickson," Smathers said, breath whistling through his voice. "I'd almost discovered a cure for alcoholism. Alcoholism, like drug addiction, is primarily a psychological problem; despite the gross changes that take place in the body as a result of dependence, the problem is one of the mind. I can literally remold a mind, erase those problems-"
"By erasing the mind," I interrupted. "I've done a little reading on sensory deprivation. To put it simply, a man goes out of his mind; to be more precise, his mind goes out of him. You take away all of a man's sensory landmarks and he'll eventually become like a baby-with no past, present or future. He becomes extremely suggestible; brainwashed, you might say."
Smathers slapped his thigh in an impatient, angry gesture. "Don't use that archaic term with me! You're being hopelessly simplistic. To begin with, the minds of the people I'm talking about have been rendered useless anyway. These men and women are no good to themselves or to anyone else. So don't moralize to me!"
"The thought never crossed my mind, Doctor."
Smathers suddenly thrust his shoulders back and raised himself up ramrod straight. "You will not interfere in my affairs again, Frederickson," he murmured in a quiet growl. "If you do, I'll make certain you regret it. You've been warned."
He spun on his heel and strutted stiffly out of the room, slamming the door behind him. I crumpled my coffee container and tossed it toward the wastebasket. I missed.
The confrontation with Smathers out of the way, I wanted to shift cases and see Esteban Morales. I drove over to Garth's precinct station and had already parked before I remembered that he was away for the weekend. I might have been able to get in to see Esteban on my own, but I didn't want to talk to the healer until I'd spoken with Garth-and I didn't want to talk to Eric Jordon until I'd heard what Esteban had to say. That seemed to leave me the weekend-almost. I went to the 42nd Street library and checked through the newspaper files for more information on the murder of Dr. Robert Samuels, but there wasn't anything important in the papers that I hadn't already learned from Janet and Senator Younger. I took a workout at the New York Athletic Club, cooked in the sauna for a half hour, then went to a movie.
I was in the middle of the Sunday Times Arts and Leisure section when Winston Kellogg called me.
"Good morning, Mongo," Kellogg said in his clipped British accent that ten years of living in Boston had done nothing to alter. "I have some information for you."
"I said inexpensive snooping, Winston; not haphazard. What the hell can you find out about a man in a day and a half, on the weekend?"
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Winston said, a faint trace of hurt in his voice.
"Try me," I said drily, activating my desk recorder and fastening the suction-cup attachment to the telephone receiver.
"Well, after my first lead, the best information I got was from contacts I have in New York and L.A. Very colorful stuff." He sniffed. "You will pay for my phone calls, I trust?"
"C'mon, Winston. For Christ's sake, I'll pay for the calls. And I apologize for questioning the quality of your investigation. Okay?"
"Very well," he said archly. "First of all, Smathers was eased out of Harvard because he insisted on continuing a research program the administration didn't approve of. He was into something called sensory deprivation."
"It doesn't surprise me. Look, Winston; keep on digging. You can even spend some-"
"Hey, wait a minute! I haven't gotten to the juicy parts yet."
Rumors. I felt my stomach muscles tighten. "Go ahead." I said quietly.
"Your man's a chicken hawk."
"Jesus," I whispered. "He likes boys?"
"Oh, not just boys. He likes little girls too; and big boys and big girls. He may like goats and sheep, for all I know. He doesn't seem to have any particular preference."
"A real swordsman, huh?"
"That's what I'm told. One of my police sources tells me that Smathers' name turned up on a list of a very select clientele for one of the kinkiest cathouses you've ever heard of. I'll bet it beats anything you've got in New York. Anyway, the man's got some far-out sexual tastes; kids, necrophilia-you name it and he's probably tried it."
"Winston," I said softly, "are you serious?"
"Yes, Mongo, I'm afraid I am. You'll be getting my report-and some interesting photostats-in the mail. None of this stuff I'm giving you ever made the papers because of Smathers' reputation in the scientific community; he was protected. It seems he's a specialist in kinky behavior-but he's a goddamn weirdo himself. Watch yourself, my friend; I don't know how he feels about dwarfs."
Kellogg gave me some more particulars while I sat and listened, my eyes closed, breathing rapid with tension and distaste. When he'd finished, I thanked him and hung up. I took the tape off the machine and locked it in the small safe I kept in the apartment. Then I took a hot bath; I felt dirty.
On the spur of the moment, I decided to clean out my head by spending the afternoon reading poetry and listening to Medieval music at The Cloisters. When I passed 4D, I suddenly remembered that I had a third client, of sorts-one who'd hired me for fifty-seven cents. With luck, I hoped I could get that matter out of the way fast. I'd ring the bell, look for an invitation from Marlowe for coffee-and hope that Kathy would tell me it had all been a joke and demand her money back. I decided I'd keep a nickel just to teach her a lesson.
If the fear was still in Kathy's eyes, I'd ask Marlowe to let me take his daughter to the movies. One way or another, I hoped to find out what was on the little girl's mind.
The exercise was wasted; there was no one home. I spent the afternoon at The Cloisters, then went down to the Village in the evening to play chess.
Someone was calling my name. It was a child's voice, crying and terrified, a small wave lapping at the shore of my consciousness.
Suddenly I was running down a long tunnel, slipping and falling on its soft, rubbery surface as I struggled to reach the small, frail figure at the other end. Kathy's image seemed to recede with each step I took, and still I ran. She was dressed in a long, flowing white gown buttoned to the neck and covered with strange, twisted shapes. Then time blinked and she was before me. As I started to reach out for her, Kathy burst into flame.
I sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat. My first reaction was an immense surge of relief when I realized I had only been dreaming. Then came terror as I smelled smoke.
Or thought I smelled smoke. Part of the dream? I started to reach for my cigarettes, then froze: there was smoke coming from somewhere. I leaped out of bed and quickly searched the apartment, but could find nothing burning. I yanked open the door of the apartment and stepped out into the hall.