Now it was my brother, strapped to a bed in a psychiatric ward, too doped up even to recognize me.
I made arrangements to have him transferred to a private room and took a cab down to Garth's precinct station house. MacGregor, Chief of Detectives, was floundering around behind a desk strewn with stacks of coffee-stained papers. He was wearing his usual harried expression.
"What the hell is my brother doing up in Bellevue?"
"Easy, Mongo," MacGregor said. "I was the one who called you, remember? How is he?"
"Drugged right up to his eyeballs. I asked you what happened."
"I'm not sure. We're still trying to sort everything out. Garth called in sick yesterday. He came in this morning to go over some paperwork with Boise. You knew he's been working on a big case?" I nodded. "Your brother and Boise were having coffee," MacGregor continued. "A few minutes later Garth comes out and gets into an argument with Lancey over some little thing. Anyway, your brother wouldn't let it go; he broke Lancey's jaw for him, then he tries to pistol-whip Q.J. Took four guys to get him down. We called the hospital, and then I called you. We're just as anxious to know what happened as you are." MacGregor leaned forward confidentially. "He really wigged out, Mongo. You had to be here really to appreciate what he was like. Boise says he's been acting funny for some time now."
"Is that right? What about the case Garth was working on? The grand jury is supposed to hear it day after tomorrow. What happens now?"
"Nothing. They won't be hearing anything from this department."
"Why can't the hearing be postponed until Garth is better?"
"Because it wouldn't make any difference. Boise says we don't have a case."
"Now why would Boise say a thing like that?"
"Ask him."
I did.
"You know about that?" Boise asked.
"Garth mentioned it to me."
Boise carefully stirred the coffee in front of him. The sound of the spoon bouncing off the sides of the cup grated on my nerves. "There was never a case to begin with," he said evenly. He punctuated the sentence by dropping the spoon on his saucer. "I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but this whole affair was a result of paranoia on your brother's part, and that's all."
"Uh-uh. He wasn't the one who asked to initiate the investigation."
"No. We were asked to investigate-we did, and found nothing. Everything Zwayle Labs had done was on the up-and-up. They just worked faster and cheaper than the Whalen people. Certainly we found nothing to present to a grand jury. Some circumstantial evidence, a little hearsay, most of which was sour grapes from staff members who hadn't been able to handle the competition within their own departments. Nothing concrete. The evidence just wasn't there."
"Garth said it was tricky, and you'd have to corroborate each other's testimony."
Boise had finished his coffee and was signaling for another. "What can I tell you? Somewhere along the way your brother took a real strong dislike toward the guy who runs Zwayle Labs, a man by the name of Hans Mueller. Don't know why, but that's the way it happened. Guess whatever it was that finally put him away was working on him even then. He swore he'd get Mueller, and he started inventing evidence in his mind to do it."
The second cup of coffee was served and Boise started clanking around in it with his spoon.
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. "Why didn't you tell MacGregor all this before?"
"Because I didn't want what happened to Lancey and Q.J. to happen to me. With me it could have been worse; I was alone with him all day. Besides, Garth's a brother officer. I wasn't about to tell him-or anybody else-that he was crazy. I was hoping he might straighten up after the grand jury shot us down."
"What's going to happen to him now?"
"They'll probably give him an extended leave of absence."
"It's more likely he'll lose his shield."
"Probably," Boise said, averting his eyes to his coffee. He didn't have to tell me that the camaraderie between police officers did not extend to asking taxpayers to keep a psycho cop on the payroll.
I didn't like it; all of the pieces seemed to fit, but the finished puzzle was ugly, misshapen.
"You mind if I look at the files?"
That stopped the stirring. "I think I would," Boise said after a pause, "and I think MacGregor will back me up. First of all, you're close to calling me a liar. Second, it's not the policy of the New York Police Department to let private citizens-especially private investigators-examine its files."
I bit off my next remark, rose and turned to go. I was stopped at the door by one of those inspirations I usually know enough to keep to myself. I walked slowly back to the table wearing my innocent, concerned-brother face. It hurt like a mask of nails.
"Mueller. That's a kraut name, isn't it?"
Boise's eyebrows flicked upward. His eyes followed. "How's that?"
"Mueller," I said. "Isn't that a German name?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Why?"
I shook my head. "Nothing, really. I was just trying to figure why Garth would flip out like this. Now I think I know the reason."
"Which is?"
"Germans," I said easily. "Garth hates Germans, It's a real thing with him. He's been that way ever since he was a kid. Too many cheap comic books and war movies. I guess. Anyway, when he was fifteen he almost killed a German classmate. That cost him six months in an institution. I guess it would've been better if they'd kept him a little longer."
I knew I had heard of anethombolin, so I canceled my evening class and went to the university library to find out where. By closing time I'd found what I'd been looking for in the scientific journals. I photocopied the appropriate articles and stuck them into my pocket. Then I went to an twenty-four-hour diner and ate a full meal. It was going to be a long night.
I was about to try my hand at reconstructing a sequence of events, a sequence that, for the moment, existed only in my mind: a play-a drama in which at least one of the players would be an unwilling participant. To make matters more difficult, that player would also be the most critical of audiences. One act-or even one line-out of place and the curtain would come crashing down. If I was right-if there was more fact than fiction in the scenario I was about to produce-my brother's sanity could hinge on the success of my improvisation; his sanity and possibly his life.
At the moment Garth was drowning in a black sea of madness, and his flailing hurt people. Now he was no more than a dangerous animal. Of course, it would not be the first time a good man had gone mad; a psychiatrist would have a field day expounding on the probable causes of Garth's breakdown. Still, I knew something the psychiatrists didn't; I knew my brother. If he was lost in a drowning pool of the mind, and all evidence suggested that he'd jumped in by himself, I still suspected he'd been pushed.
It was dawn by the time I finished. I slept for an hour, rose and ate breakfast, then sat down at the telephone. I tried unsuccessfully to control the trembling of my hands as I dialed the number of Zwayle Labs, but I did better with my voice. It was Mueller who sounded tense as he agreed to meet me in an hour.
Act One appeared to have been well received.
Zwayle Labs stood in the middle of a lower West Side block like a chrome and glass box tied together with ribbons of plastic. I paused outside on the sidewalk, activated the miniature tape recorder and microphone in my jacket pocket, then went in. The recorder was compact, and sensitive enough to pick up a normal speaking voice thirty feet away. The only problem was that, even running at low speed, there was only about twenty minutes' worth of tape on the tiny reel. I was going to have to do my talking in a hurry.