Box Nine

Chapter Four

Lenore grabs a black coffee in a small white Styrofoam cup. She walks over to the window side of the conference room and looks out over the highway. The speed is bothering her a little today, making her feel slightly claustrophobic. To take her mind off this trapped, breathless feeling, she thinks about how much she despises the architecture of the police station.

The biggest problem is the windows. Back when headquarters was down on Kristie Place, there were these gorgeous old floor-to-ceiling windows with arched tops. During the May riots of’69, someone lobbed a bomb through one. It happened to land on the dispatch board. No one was seriously hurt, but radio contact with all the cruisers was lost for days. With that incident in mind, and combined with the energy crisis of the late seventies, when they finally built the new building at Tubman Square, they brought in these bizarre skinny strips of windows, maybe only two or three inches in width, bulletproof and Thermopane, but also incapable of being opened to let in fresh air.

There are a lot of days when Lenore just wants to bring her Magnum up from the bunker and empty the chamber into one of those skinny windows until it shatters and falls to the ground. Today is one of those days.

The conference room is on the top floor of the police station and from where she stands she can look at the sparse traffic rolling down the interstate. She’d love to be out there now, out of this stupid briefing, in a metallic-teal Porsche, clocking one twenty-five toward no destination in particular. Instead, she’s drinking bitter coffee, which she knows will only aggravate the speed jag, and hoping Zarelli doesn’t come over and try to start a conversation.

Richmond, Shaw, and Peirce are grouped next to the side table that’s crowded with the coffee urn and a cardboard platter of cheese and lemon Danish. Richmond is telling the women some long, confusing joke that has to do with a hooker and a talking parrot. No matter what the punch line is, there’s no way it can warrant the effort he’s giving the story.

Zarelli comes in the door with his hands in his pockets, wearing a dark grey suit, a strange white shirt with a long, pointy collar, and a red-and-grey-striped tie equipped with both tie tack and collar pin. He looks like he’s headed to a funeral, Lenore thinks. Why the hell did he dress like this? Who is he trying to impress?

It’s apparent that everybody else is a little confused by his clothes. Shaw and Peirce break their concentration from Richmond’s story and give funny, squinty looks.

Peirce says, “You got somewhere to go after this?”

Zarelli shakes his head deliberately and says, “I like to dress up on occasion. Problem?”

Richmond, annoyed at the interruption, says, “You look like a Bible salesman from ten years back.”

Zarelli just says, “Thanks, Rich,” and moves to the table to pour himself a coffee. He nods over to Lenore a little too formally as he adds packet after packet of sugar to his drink. She thinks he seems nervous and unsure of himself, nothing like the Zarelli she knows and is tired of. As he lifts the coffee cup to his lips, she can see his hands tremble. She has two responses to this. The first is to wonder if somehow he’s already picked up on her plans to sever the relationship, through vibrations in the air or some unconscious telepathy. The second is to wonder how those shaky hands can possibly cover her if they get caught in any life-or-death situations.

He starts to cross the room toward her. Her curiosity is a little piqued and now talking to him doesn’t seem as unpleasant as it had moments ago. He looks like he’s wearing rented shoes that are a size too big for his feet. He seems to shuffle across the floor, the coffee cup at his lips the whole time. There’s a sheen of sweat glowing on his forehead. His shirt is buttoned at the neck and pushes against his Adam’s apple. Lenore feels like gagging just watching it.

He reaches the window and stares out at the highway and begins to talk.

“Okay, Lenore,” he says. “This is it.”

She thinks about turning mute, not responding at all, letting him summon up all his powers of language and communication to no avail. Instead she says flatly, “This is what?”

“This is for real,” he says, his eyes starting to blink too fast. “I’ve got an appointment, all right? I’ve made a goddamn appointment.”

“That’s swell,” she says, “an appointment.”

“It’s the truth,” he says. “I told you I was going to do it. Today’s the day. This is the day. My life changes at noon today, all right? This is for real.”

She has to ask. “What happens at noon today?”

He clears his throat, tries to wipe sweat from his top lip with his thumb. “I’m meeting Marie today. For lunch. At noon. Today. I’m meeting Marie and I’m telling her it’s over. The marriage is over. I’m breaking free. I’ve given it eight years and today it ends. I’m telling her to get a lawyer. At lunch. I’m meeting her at Fiorello’s, okay?”

Lenore would like to drive a knee into his groin. The man dressed up in his best clothes to walk out on his wife. She knows that Fiorello’s is where he proposed to Marie. And it’s where he first took Lenore for drinks. She thinks Zarelli must be the never-ending soap opera for all the help at Fiorello’s.

She takes a breath and gets ready to say, “Like hell you are, you idiot,” but Miskewitz’s voice booms around the room, “Okay, people, can we get down to business, the mayor is a busy man.”

She turns around to see three people gathered around the lieutenant, just inside the doorway of the conference room. One is Mayor Welby, looking, as always, wise and professorial in a subtle, grey, hand-tailored suit. Welby is a tall guy with a huge dome of a forehead like a Yankee minister, but also a small, always-trimmed mustache that gives him an ethnic look. You might think this would be a drawback for vote-getting, but Welby has grown into the pols’ pol over the years. He plays City Hall like a master musician, knowing instinctively when to stroke, when to kick ass privately, and when to grab headlines with a rabid bashing of department managers and city councilors. He sticks to the basics — delegation of authority, the promise of no tax hikes in election years, and a flawless eye for just the right photo opportunity. He’s a fairly lean guy and he’s in his mid-fifties. The department has no real beef with him, though Miskewitz says he hasn’t taken a stand yet on the pending contract talks. The mayor married later in life and has two kids just now entering high school. His wife is often seen, but never heard, at various dedication ceremonies. Lenore doesn’t really have an opinion of him. She thinks that, like all politicians, he’s a man of often empty words, and since she considers her own life to be one based on action rather than words, she thinks they live on opposite sides of a very thick fence.

Standing next to Welby, looking cocky and impatient, is Lehmann, a Federal cop out of DEA that Lenore has dealt with once before. Once was enough. Lehmann is old-school and not too crazy about women working narcotics. He’s wearing a blue standard-issue windbreaker and jeans, holding his aviator sunglasses in his hands and chewing on the end of one stem.

The third person is a mystery man. He’s the tallest Oriental Lenore has ever seen. She’d put him at six two or three. He looks to be in his mid to late thirties, 175 pounds, all of it tight. Could be a runner, maybe even a marathoner. He’s got a closely cropped head of jet-black hair and a long angular face. He’s dressed in charcoal slacks, a pale blue button-down shirt, a navy knit tie, and a herringbone jacket. Lenore looks to his feet and proves herself right — he’s got on penny loafers.

The guy is carrying a faded leather satchel that bulges slightly in the middle, and as she watches he shifts it from his hand up into his arms to cradle it like a sleeping child. She can’t really guess at his specific nationality. He could be Chinese, Korean, Cambodian. She’s just awful at making the distinctions, even though the Asian population of Quinsigamond has grown tremendously in the past ten years and she knows dozens of Asians personally. She’s embarrassed by this weakness, but doesn’t know how you might effectively cure it. Is there a reference book you could work with?

Zarelli touches her arm and she pulls away at once and moves to the table to sit down between Shaw and Richmond. Mayor Welby sits down in the head seat, Miskewitz on his left and Peirce on his right. The Oriental guy sits down next to the lieutenant. Lehmann takes the end-seat opposite the mayor, and Zarelli slides into the remaining seat.

Miskewitz sits forward and says, “All right, people, I thank you for coming in this morning for this briefing, especially considering how some of you finished up work a few hours ago. Mayor Welby has a few things to say to you.” He sinks back into his chair, clearly uncomfortable with this event.

But the mayor picks up with a casual grace. First he smiles all around the table, lingering, a second too long, Lenore thinks, on Peirce. Then he folds his hands in front of him and says, “Well, you all know who I am. This is Officer Lehmann out from the Boston office of the DEA. Some of you have met him before, I believe. And I’d like to introduce you all to Dr. Frederick Woo, on loan to us today from St. Ignatius, where he’s a lecturing fellow in linguistics and language theory. Have I got that correct, Fred?”

The Oriental guy smiles and gives a small, modest nod.

The mayor continues, “I know that right now you’re all wondering why a bureaucrat is here to waste your valuable time battling what often, I’m sure, seems like an unwinnable situation on our city streets. I wish I could tell you I’m here to bring you some good news”—his voice drops—“but I’m afraid that’s not the situation today.”

He slides his chair back from the table and stands, a little too dramatically. He walks over to the windows that Lenore hates, and gazes outside for a moment, then returns to start a slow, awful pace, in a circle around the table. Lenore can tell Miskewitz hates every second of this.

“I suppose,” the mayor says, “I’m here today as a symbol more than anything else, a suggestion to you of how serious a problem situation we’re in.”

Lenore wonders why the man can’t just say what’s going on. Why does everything have to have a prologue? Why do guys like Welby always have to turn on the dramatics?

“It’s no secret that over the past two years, drug traffic in Quinsigamond has increased geometrically. I’ve got the papers on my desk that prove it. You people don’t need to see papers. You see the real thing, every day, walking around the muck of Bangkok Park.”

Lenore is cringing inside, caught in a spasm between laughter and disgust. What a pathetic actor this guy is. And what an asshole. She thinks he’s taken his dialogue, heart and soul, straight from some low-rent B movie where self-righteous, renegade, vigilante cops fight ethnic, satanic dealers who lurk in the shadows of schoolyards.

“You are an underfunded, understaffed group of civil servants attempting, no, let’s be honest, staking your lives in a battle against what has become in just a few short decades one of our largest, most intricate and ruthless multinational industries. To be frank, people, you are in an absurd situation.”

He takes a breath, comes behind his own chair, grips the back of it like the conference table was a speeding ride in an amusement park.

“And detectives,” he says in a fake-tired voice, “things just got worse.”

He pauses and looks around the table as if he were waiting for people to audibly sigh. No one obliges and he sits back down in his head chair and continues.

“Now, I am not here today to break down what minimal morale you have left. But it is my duty to let you know about the extent of the problem we’re about to face. And I want each and every one of you to feel that we’re facing it together. You have my unlimited support in this effort. We can’t pull any punches here, ladies and gentlemen. The time for polite conversation is long over.”

Lenore wants to lean over the man, scream at him in the same manner she’s grilled dozens of informants and suspects. She wants to be less than an inch from his face, take in a lungful of air, and yell, “Cut the bullshit and tell me what you know.”

“I’m sure I sound melodramatic to some of you. But what you’ll soon hear about today is a worse plague than the crack explosion we suffered two summers ago. Worse than that heroin harvest out of Burma in the fall of …” he trails off, looking to the ceiling for the year.

“Eighty-three,” Miskewitz mutters, and Lenore knows he’s thrown out a random year.

“Eighty-three,” the mayor repeats. “It’s a different animal this time, people.”

He takes a long pause for an effect that just doesn’t pan out and says, “At this point I think it’s best to turn the story over to Agent Lehmann.”

Lehmann stays seated, but tosses his sunglasses out in front of him, like he’s tired of talking before he’s even begun.

“The substance Mayor Welby is talking about is a derivative of methyl-sermocilan. You’ll come to know it more commonly as ‘Lingo,’ the label Dr. Woo has given it.”

Lehmann speaks like a man in a constant, simmering rage over having to walk among inferior people. He slaps a manila folder onto the table and opens it.

“These look familiar to anyone?” he asks, tossing a pile of 8 x 10 black-and-white photos onto the middle of the table. Everyone reaches for a picture. Lenore pulls up a full-body picture of a naked woman, laid out faceup on a silver slab, photographed from above. Even in black and white, maybe more so in black and white, she has that pasty but shadowy look of the dead. There are thick welts and contusions across her abdomen. The standard tag dangles from her toe in the corner of the photo.

Richmond looks over her shoulder and says, “Last week’s murder-suicide up on Grimaldi Drive. Domestic bloodbath. The Swanns, right? He slit her throat and hung himself. Or do I have it backward?”

“You don’t have it at all,” Lehmann says. “Try to follow me on this. About six months back, some of my people based in Boston were asked to put a file together on a married couple, Leo and Inez Swann. Late thirties, both supposedly brilliant, degrees from Princeton, Cornell, and MIT, where they met. They lived here in the Windsor Hills section of Quinsigamond. Money spilling out of both their pockets. They worked, until recently, at the Institute for Experimental Biochemistry. They had a specialty that the doctor here can tell you more about—”

The Oriental guy, Woo, takes this as a signal to speak, though it’s clear to everyone else that it’s not.

“The Swanns were working on advanced drug therapy for treatment of what is termed ‘language delayed’ children.”

Lehmann rolls his eyes.

“Sounds a little off your beat,” Lenore says.

Lehmann shrugs, still looking at Woo, trying to make it clear that he screwed up, that he’ll let him know when it’s his turn to speak. “Like everything else it was strictly accidental. The FBI was doing some standard mob-sitting down San Remo Ave. Had a wire on a midlevel errand boy of Gennaro Pecci. Gennaro and his men go to dinner one night down Fiorello’s Restaurant.”

Lenore can’t help but look over at Zarelli, who’s staring, unblinking, at Lehmann.

“And who are the Don’s dinner guests but the Drs. Swann.”

Richmond states the obvious for everyone. “Unusual pairing.”

Lehmann gives an indulgent smile back at him and goes on. “The wire gave us nothing. They didn’t discuss a damn thing of interest. The weather. Recent vacations. Local politics.”

Mayor Welby snaps into a practiced smile and says, “Should I call a lawyer, Al?”

“Everyone agrees it was a size-’em-up meet. Both parties get a chance to feel each other out. Make an introduction. Establish contacts. Once the bureau got confirmation on the identity of the Swanns, they called us.”

“You think the Swanns were considering a mid-life career change,” Peirce says.

“Or at least a new sideline. There’s definitely a precedent for chemical whiz kids like Leo and Inez turning a good dollar by leasing themselves out.”

“Mob chemists,” the lieutenant says.

Lehmann nods. “Big demand for synthetic kicks lately. Big upswing. I’ve got the numbers. More controllable than run-of-the-mill organic crap. No importation problems. Chemical coke. Supertranqs, designer things.”

“I’m just saying,” Miskewitz says, “two Ivy League yuppies from Windsor Hills seem like a little stretch.”

Lehmann gets annoyed. “Today’s labs, Lieutenant, are a hell of a lot more complicated than they were just three years back. But more importantly, it’s unlikely the Swanns were dining at Fiorello’s for the lasagna.”

It’s a line that would only come out of the TV and Lenore hates Lehmann for saying it. But Miskewitz shuts up and Lehmann goes on.

“A month after the dinner meeting with Pecci, the Swanns resign their positions at the Institute. There were a lot of bad feelings. A lot of interoffice politics. A lot of fighting over grant money and allocations. The Swanns broke off and rented office space at the new industrial park up near the airport.”

“Place is a ghost town,” Richmond says. “Developer’s supposed to go Chapter Eleven any day now.”

“I don’t think Leo and Inez were too interested in neighbors. They set up shop as consultants. They tried to make contacts with the bigger pharmaceutical boys. They called themselves Synaboost Inc.”

“You’re saying,” Zarelli tries, “that they were going through the motions. That the real contact was down San Remo with Pecci and family.”

Lehmann ignores him for some reason. “Anything bother you about those photos?” he asks the table in general.

Lenore tosses her photo back onto the original pile and says, in a bland, bored voice, “Nobody’s throat is cut.”

Richmond sits up in his chair and looks toward Miskewitz. “I swear homicide said a cut throat. I had lunch with Berkman. ‘Cut throat,’ he says.”

“Some facts about the Swann case,” Mayor Welby says, “have been altered.”

“Within the department?” Richmond says, showing too much concern. Lenore feels like sliding a note to him that reads, Shut up now.

“Both bodies,” Lehmann says, “were found hanging. The housecleaner called police when she couldn’t get in on the second day in a row. Both bodies were tortured extensively, in very particular ways, before they were hung. The FBI was notified and the domestic dispute story was cooked up immediately.”

He pauses, reaches down, and shuffles the photos back into an ordered pile. “We’ve seen the method of execution before. Definitely gangland. Definitely immigrant. There’s some dispute as to whether we’re talking Hong Kong or Panama.”

He pauses again, like he’s learned an important lesson from Welby, then says, “The tongues were cut out of both their heads. My people came in on the heels of the bureau. We sent a team in, sealed off the house, and spent two days combing it over. We found two of these”—he reaches into his windbreaker pocket—“hidden inside a spice jar labeled ‘garlic salt.’”

He pulls from his pocket a small plastic ball, like a bubble, like one of those clear round containers found in the candy-dispenser machines at discount stores. Sealed inside it and held solidly in place by some kind of clear gel, is a small, scarlet-colored pill, cut in the shape of the letter Q. Lehmann places the bubble on the table and gives it a roll. All their eyes follow it as it spins down an awkward, wobbly path and finally drops off the table’s edge and into Lenore’s lap.

She looks around the table at everyone, then picks it up, weighs it in her hand, holds it up close to her eyeball like it was a jeweler’s loupe. Whatever the gel is inside the bubble, it makes everything she sees seem hyper-clear, more colorful, solid, more real than her normal vision. She turns her head till she’s looking at Zarelli’s pleading, anxious face popping from the knifelike collar of his shirt. She pulls the bubble away, places it back on the table, and gives it a small push. It rolls across to Dr. Woo, who lets it drop over the edge into his waiting palm.

As if taking this as a cue, Lehmann says, “The doctor can give you some idea of what’s inside the container,” and starts wiping the lenses of his sunglasses on the fleecy inside of his jacket.

Dr. Woo nods and puts the bubble back on the table in front of him and stabilizes it with his hand. It sits like some weird egg, some freak produced by a marriage of nature and technology. He lifts his satchel onto the table and takes out a stack of papers that he hands to Miskewitz, indicating that they should be passed around. Each handout has a couple dozen pages. The lieutenant takes one for himself and hands them down the table.

Lenore takes her copy and thumbs through it. The printing is too small, she thinks, it’d give anyone a headache by page two. There are also graphs, charts, columns of numbers, and illustrations. The last page is filled with a large and very intricate picture of a brain. The page is crammed with writing and dozens of black lines that stretch between areas of the brain and definitions of what the areas are called. Lenore thinks the odds are pretty good that she won’t read a single word. If the doc can’t give her the basics in conversation, he’s in trouble. She’s got a backlog of reading of her own at home, stuff that could refine the direction of her life, give her even more of an edge than she’s already got.

Dr. Woo prepares to speak by making his hand into a fist, bringing it up in front of his mouth, and forcing himself to cough a few times. Lenore interprets this to mean that he’ll speak too softly and be a boring pain in the ass. But as soon as the first words flow from his mouth, she knows she’s completely wrong. He’s got a beautiful speaking voice, low, distinct, strong but rich with hints of emotion and emphasis.

“As Mayor Welby said, my name is Frederick Woo, and I’ve been asked to come here today for two reasons. First, to try to give you a brief and intelligible explanation of what the small red pill that you see inside this capsule can do to the human brain. And second, because I consulted briefly with Leo and Inez Swann during their tenure with the Institute.”

He gives this sly, almost mischievous grin, and stares directly at Lenore. For a second, it seems like he’s got nothing more to say, but then he slaps the table with a flat palm and, without taking his eyes off her, continues.

“Well, let’s give it a shot.” He reaches into his satchel again, like a magician going for a rabbit, and he pulls out a plastic model of a brain. Like the kind you’d see in some high school science class, all color-coded and with parts that can be removed. It’s about the size of a softball, maybe a little smaller. Woo puts it out on the table in front of him and Lenore thinks it suddenly resembles a small pet, something the doctor needs for companionship.

“I was formally trained as a specialist in linguistics, then took a detour at the end of my training and went back to square one to get a second degree in neuropsychology. This,” and he places his long index finger on the top of the model brain, “is where those two fields intersect. What I’ve been asked to do this morning is quite impossible. So let’s get started.”

He leans forward, places his whole hand over the top of the brain, and begins to talk rapidly and in a friendly, joking manner.

“Okay. We’ve all got one of these, I’m pretty sure. It’s a very useful piece of equipment. There’s a lot we don’t know about it. A lot we thought we knew that was proved wrong. We guess a lot about this organ. I personally think it scares us a bit. Because so many answers are buried inside it. And we don’t know if those answers will free us up, prove us to be the supermen we really secretly hope we are. Or if the answers will limit us, show us to be animals that know a lot of impressive parlor tricks and little more.”

He takes his hand off the brain and points to a specific area on the left side of the model.

“This little town here is called the anterior speech cortex. That’s its official name. You, like me, can call it Broca’s area. It’s a hell of a town. Got quite a little industry going here. But, you know, like any growing industry, every now and then you have some kind of rough industrial accident …”

Under his breath, Richmond whispers to Lenore, “What the Christ is this dickhead talking about?”

“Guess what happens when Broca’s area has one of those industrial accidents?”

The table is silent. The mayor looks uncomfortable. He stares down at his folded hands like he was praying.

Woo looks at Lenore and says, “Detective …”

“Thomas.”

“Detective Thomas, any idea?”

Lenore sighs and says, “Planeload of lawyers flies in the next day.”

The table laughs and Woo loves it. He gives a huge smile, then moves his tongue in a circle, licking his lips.

“A wonderful guess by Detective Thomas. Close, but no. You have an accident in this area, you can’t speak. You’re an instant mute. You don’t have any choice in the matter.”

He moves his index finger to an area toward the back of the model.

“This is another hot little town call Wernicke’s area. They have an industrial accident here, bingo, you can’t understand language, spoken to you, or written down for you to read, though you might be able to babble, make incomprehensible languagelike noise that no one else can understand.”

“You’re an instant idiot,” Peirce says.

Woo shakes his head. “No, not exactly, though you might be mistaken for one. At this point you’re all asking yourselves why you had to get up this morning to listen to all this.”

He grabs the bubble and places it next to the brain.

“As Agent Lehmann told you, two red pills were found in the course of searching the Swanns’ home. This is the second one. The first one we tested the hell out of. Both in the lab and—” he pauses, smiles—“up at Spooner Correctional Institute …”

The Mayor interrupts and says, “None of you heard that, please,” and Woo goes on.

“Because of the constraints of time and other factors, I’m forced to do some inexcusable generalizing right now. Broca’s area is that part of your brain where language is produced. Wernicke’s area is that part of your brain where language is understood and interpreted. When you swallow that red pill, it does something very interesting to you. It makes a crazy dash straight for both of those parts of your brain. Most drugs can’t do that. Your brain is usually protected by a curtain of protein that acts like a moat. Some things can get through. Like a lot of items from your line of work. Alcohol, cocaine, heroin. This red pill gets through with a vengeance, with an ease I’ve never seen before. And then it seems to know exactly where it wants to go. It seems to have heard all about these places called Broca and Wernicke. It seems to want to move right in, make itself at home. It gets busy right away. What I’m saying is that the drug somehow supercharges those two areas. It gives them a kind of speed and strength and flexibility, if you will, that they just don’t normally have.”

Woo lets his eyes roam around the table, trying to read faces and gauge understanding.

“Now, in its quest to upgrade your standard-issue language equipment, Lingo exhibits some side effects. It sends a few fellow travelers off to the pleasure centers of the brain. I’d consider this an inherent perk in the drug’s main business trip. There’s a big adrenaline release, like a solid amphetamine rush, but it’s very controlled, very regulated, an incremental buildup. It would most likely lack any of the jaggedness or anxiousness produced by the badly processed street speed that you people deal with.”

Woo pauses, takes a breath and smiles slightly.

“We gave a sample of the drug to two”—he pauses—“volunteers at Spooner Correctional. I don’t think I’m overstating the case to say that what I observed in one hour could have a revolutionary impact on fields as diverse as brain biochemistry and neuropsychology, cybernetics, linguistics, all the semiological disciplines, both hard and soft …”

His words trail off as he realizes the futility of trying to make this group share his reverie.

“We administered small amounts of the drug to two inmates and then sequestered them in a lab under absolute physiological and neurological monitoring. After approximately five minutes, we began to perceive certain changes in their general conditions, reflexes and motor responses, this type of thing. Their heart rates increased, but not alarmingly. Their brain activity was slightly elevated. But to cut to the chase, ladies and gentlemen, the evidence that something quite significant was happening within the confines of their skulls came straight from their own mouths.”

He stops speaking, pauses for any questions or comments, making sure curiosity has peaked. Then he reaches once again into the satchel and withdraws a tape recorder. He places it next to the brain model and the bubble, adjusts a volume knob, then hits a button. The cassette inside starts turning and there’s a hiss of noise from a small speaker.

First, Woo’s own voice is heard, in a whisper, saying, “Tape three. Two-fifteen p.m.”

Then there’s a moment of quiet with the exception of some vague rumbling noise, caused, most likely, by the recorder being moved around. There’s some coughing, followed by the slightly echoing sound of a metal door being opened and closed.

Woo says, “James Lee Partridge, age twenty-four, scoring for the WAIS-R — verbal, eighty-one; performance, eighty-four; full scale, eighty-two. Scoring for the WRAT — reading, grade three-point-two; arithmetic, grade four-point-eight; spelling, grade three-point-nine. ”

There’s a pause, then Woo’s voice, quietly.

“All right, now, are you feeling okay, Jimmy Lee?”

A new voice, young, nervous, says, “Just the headache is all.”

“Do you think you can read this? Here, just take a look … Yes, that page there, fine.”

Jimmy Lee Partridge goes through some awful, phlegmy throat-clearing, takes a deep breath in through a clogged nose and reads: “When … the … day … of …”

He reads in small, short blasts, word by word, as if they were meant to stand separately from one another. He reads them without any accent or intonation, in the manner that a sobbing, breath-grabbing child tries to speak.

On the tape, Woo’s voice whispers, “Start over, and concentrate, Jimmy Lee.”

There’s another pause and Lenore imagines the convict is trying to read the words to himself, before saying them aloud. She doesn’t like listening to the tape. For one reason or another, it makes her uncomfortable. But she makes herself, tells herself that, like a lot of uncomfortable things, it’s an important part of her job.

Jimmy Lee Partridge starts again, and this time the words flow together without any noticeable pause or effort: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven …”

Jimmy Lee breaks off into something of a cackle, his voice gets loud and thrilled and surprised and he says, “Pretty goddamn good, huh, Doc?”

Woo just says, “Once again, Jimmy Lee.”

And he reads: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tonguesasoffiredistributedandrestingoneachoneofthemandtheywereallfilledwiththeholyspiritandbegantospeakinothertonguesasthespiritgavethemutterancenow …”

Something happens. Lenore listens and stares at the recorder. She thinks something must be wrong with the recorder. But then she notices the same expression on all the other faces at the table.

Jimmy Lee is reading so fast that it seems like a joke, like those TV ads where the pitchman tries to cram as many words of salesmanship into thirty seconds as is humanly possible. And then some. Jimmy Lee’s voice is going so fast he’s starting to sound like one of the Chipmunks from that cartoon.

“AndresidmtsofmesopotamiajudemndmppadociapmtusandasiaphrygiaandpamphyliaegyptandpartsoflibyabelongingtocyreneandvisitorsfromromebothjewsandproselytescretansandarabianswehearthemtellinginurowntonguesthemightyWorksofgodandallwwereamazezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …”

And the voice turns into something like the sound of a common summer insect recorded at a loud volume with a sensitive microphone. Something you’d hear on a nature show as you switched the channels on the TV on a lazy weekend. It’s just an ongoing buzz, a harsh, nervous-making, buzzing sound, and after a while Lenore can’t tell whether it’s really out there or just in her ear, in her head, a product of her own sinuses and faulty eustachian tube.

Woo punches the recorder off and looks around the table at the troubled faces. He’s enjoying the reaction, Lenore thinks. It allows him to feel both essential to our work and a cut above us. In that moment of watching Woo’s face watching her own, she understands that the doctor has an ego that towers over the mayor’s, and Lehmann’s and Zarelli’s combined.

“He was reading from a Bible that we happened to have handy,” Woo says. “But it could have been any book and the results would have been the same. Let me add to your amazement, all right? If I could go back to the prison today and ask him what he’d read for me, he would repeat it verbatim, at the same speed. And our tests show that his comprehension was one hundred percent.”

He pauses, then says, “Before I answer any of your questions, let me risk poisoning your amazement with fear.”

He ejects the cassette from the machine, flips it over, and inserts the reverse side into the bed. He hits the rewind button until the tape stops, then presses Play.

His whispered, theatrical tape voice comes on, saying, “Tape six, four forty-five p.m. Conversational flow between James Lee Partridge and William Robbins.”

There are two voices talking at once. They’re both speaking extremely rapidly and Lenore can’t separate them or follow the topic of their discussion. She thinks it has to do with women and/or sex, but she’s not sure. She thinks she’s pulled out the words grab, bra, leg, kiss, Carrie, fifteen, Mustang, rubber and screw. But she’s not sure of any of them and the longer the tape goes on the more difficult it gets to distinguish any of it until finally all the language blurs once again into that amplified fly-noise, an endless buzz that makes the hairs on Lenore’s neck stand up.

When it’s clear the buzzing is driving everyone at the table crazy, Woo punches the recorder off.

Peirce is the first to speak. “You’re telling us that those two people on the tape, those two convicts, were speaking just then. Having a conversation, right?”

Woo nods. “That’s absolutely right, Detective. In excess of fifteen hundred words per minute passed back and forth between each of them. And that’s not all of it. There was a level of contact, a level of understanding, passing between them that’s difficult to relay to you. They were completely conscious of and continually integrating body language, changes in musculature, eye signals. There was a degree of speed and comprehension present in that dialogue that you or I …”

Lenore can’t help herself. She blurts out, “Why are we involved?”

Mayor Welby says, “We’ll be getting to that, Detective.”

There’s an awkward beat, then Woo, staring at Lenore, says, “No time like the present, I suppose.”

From the bottomless satchel he withdraws two of his own 8 x 10 black-and-white photos, places them flat on the table, and slides them to Lenore. She picks them up, knowing already what they are. She’s seen too many of this type of photo. She knows this because it’s lost the ability to shock her. The first picture is labeled Partridge. The second is labeled Robbins. They’re both morgue shots, taken from directly above the subject, under the harsh white light of powerful fluorescents. The photos show the subjects from the shoulders up, their heads resting on plain white sheets that Lenore knows are covering stainless-steel slab tables. The subjects’ heads are both shaved. In both photos, there are bullet holes in the head and face. In Partridge’s case, the upper left-hand portion of his forehead has been blown away entirely.

Lenore stares up into Woo’s face and passes the pictures absent-mindedly to Richmond.

“Don’t jump to any conclusions,” Woo says, almost under his breath.

“In tandem with this is an additional effect that I, personally, find fascinating. The pathologist’s studies on both Partridge and Robbins showed an inordinate buildup of sperm cells and seminal plasma in the testes and urethral glands and a severe retraction of the muscles around the ductus deferens.”

“In English, please,” Lehmann says without hiding his impatience.

Woo nods as he speaks. “Both men were sexually stimulated. Very stimulated. Without the presence of any external erotic materials. Again, we were doing language tests.”

“Speed, Spanish fly, and a Berlitz course in one quick pop,” Lenore says.

“Let’s not jump the gun, Officer. We don’t know that these effects would present themselves in a lower dosage—”

Lenore ignores him. “Quite a commodity. You take it to speak in tongues and as a bonus you get sex and power. Who’s going to want TV anymore?”

“And the downside,” Peirce says, refocusing the table’s attention on Woo.

“The downside,” says Woo, still looking at Lenore, “is its unpredictability. At full dosage, you can end up with what you heard on the tape. Homicidal rage. And death.”

He waits until the photos have made their way around most of the table, then says, with his index finger pointed in their general direction, “This is where you people become involved. Because of our limited testing and the complexity of the drug’s chemical base, we’ve been unable to find out what a tolerable dosage might be. It’s theoretically possible that the individual’s language capacities can play a part in the drug’s level of intensity.”

Lehmann pipes in with, “Crack and ice are bubble gum compared with this shit.” Then he glances down toward the mayor and says awkwardly, “Excuse the language.”

The photos come back to Lenore, who says, “How’d this happen?”

Woo takes a deep breath. Lenore thinks it’s for effect.

Woo says, “This is a very powerful, but very unstable substance. From my observations I believe there to be three distinct stages of consequences to ingestion. The first you just heard, phenomenal increases in linguistic ability and comprehension. The second consequence follows directly on the heels of the first, and it’s a stunning, erotic high, a sexual euphoria, a burst of intoxication to rival anything you’ve come across recently, I assure you.”

“And the last …” Lenore pauses, then says, “Consequence?”

Woo gives an awful and smug grin and says, “Probably just what you’re guessing, Detective. Paranoia that increases unchecked, very likely to the borders of schizophrenia, if not beyond. Accompanied by a limitiess and very shocking rage. A homicidal rage.”

There’s silence until Lenore says, “There was no way to prevent this?”

Woo shakes his head. “It’s unlikely in this extreme condition that any tranquilizer would have done much good. But to be honest with you, we were somewhat unprepared for the explosion. The guards overreacted. I’m sure in your line of work you can understand how certain tragedies can be unavoidable. In retrospect we often see options that may not have actually existed at the time.”

Lenore ignores the rest of the table and says evenly, “I’m not sure we know very much about each other’s line of work.”

Woo nods and says, in the same tone, “Perhaps we can correct this in the days to come.”

Zarelli comes alive and asks, “Well, what happens now? I mean, the convicts are dead. You burn their files and you burn the pill inside that bubble there, and, I guess, DEA—” he gives a head motion toward Lehmann—“tracks down the deal on the consulting firm and all …”

“Not exactly,” Lehmann says, staring down at his sunglasses. “When we found the pills inside the Swanns’ spice jar they were wrapped in a piece of paper.” He takes a very small piece of crumpled-up paper from his jacket pocket and lays it on the table. “Just a small piece of scrap paper. Except that it had a phone number written on it.”

“That connected to?” Lenore says.

“Hotel Penumbra.”

The detectives all look at each other and Lenore says, “The Capital of Bangkok Par.”

Lehmann says, “Yeah. And I don’t think Leo and Inez were looking to book a getaway weekend, do you?”

“What about Pecci?” Richmond asks.

Lehmann shrugs. “Could be a deal couldn’t be cut with the family and the Swanns started looking elsewhere for connections and backers for their new venture.”

“Is there any indication,” Peirce asks, “that any contact was made between the Swanns and any other Bangkok brokers?”

Lehmann shrugs. “No idea. Bangkok is your sewer. We decided that step one was to get you people involved.”

“If the stuff is out there,” Lenore says, “we’ll know about it soon enough.” She slides the morgue photos back at Woo.

He collects them back into his satchel and says, “I would say that’s a correct assumption.”

The mayor stands up abruptly and says, “I think we all know the critical nature of what we’re dealing with. Now, I’m due back at City Hall. I leave you people to coordinate your efforts, but I want to assure you that if there’s anything whatsoever that my office can do, please, have the lieutenant call at any time.”

He gives a bouncing, loose-necked nod around the table, grabs Miskewitz’s hand, and pumps it fast. He starts to move away from the table, then hesitates and adds, in a lower voice, “Detective Peirce, could I see you privately for a moment?”

Peirce seems to go a little white in the face. She rolls back from the table without looking at anyone and follows the mayor into the outer corridor. Shaw gets Lenore’s attention and motions after them with her head.

“His little friend in the department,” Lenore says in an unhushed voice.

Miskewitz rolls his eyes, runs his beefy hand over the roll of flesh under his jaw, and raises his eyebrows. “Well, people,” he says, “we were getting bored.”

Shaw and Richmond laugh. Zarelli stares down at Lenore. Lenore stares up at Woo. Richmond cracks his knuckles and says, “So how do we work it?”

Lehmann says, “I’m bunking here for the duration. You run everything through me. I want to know every piece of information you trip over. I want to know what you eat for dinner.”

Lenore knows she’s going to have problems with Lehmann.

Lehmann continues, “Dr. Woo will be assisting us throughout because that’s what my boss wants, so include him in all your updates.”

Miskewitz says, “Put everything on hold that you can and junk what you can’t. We’ll work our normal partners with the exception of Thomas and Zarelli. Zarelli, you tag onto Richmond and Peirce. Detective Thomas, you’re to escort Dr. Woo throughout the investigation—”

Lenore comes straight up in her seat and repeats, “Escort?” as if she’d never heard the word.

Miskewitz tilts his head slightly and gives an annoyed smile. “That’s right, Lenore. As of today the doctor is on leave from St. Ignatius and on loan to us—”

“As in report—” Lenore begins, and the lieutenant holds up a hand.

“—As in accompanies you. As in the mayor wants it this way.”

“I can’t take this guy down the Park,” she says in disbelief.

“Look, Thomas, we’re dealing with a new substance here. Dr. Woo is the only one to have seen its effects firsthand—”

“I’ll take pictures for him—”

“—There’s no more discussion, Detective. That’s what the mayor wants and that’s what I’m telling you to do.”

Miskewitz turns back to the rest of the table. “I think it’s safe to say you’ll be putting in a big chunk of overtime, so get that straight at home.”

Miskewitz leans back into his chair, leans his head on his shoulder, and opens his arms to his sides. It’s some weird signal that the meeting is over. Richmond is the first to get up, saying over his shoulder to Lenore, “Jesus, I got to use the can.” Shaw begins to move for the coffee urn. Zarelli and Lehmann mumble to one another with disgusted looks on their faces.

Lenore pushes back from the table. Woo approaches her and says, “Detective,” and pauses.

“Poor short-term memory,” she says. “Maybe you should get your hands on some Lingo.”

“Perhaps,” he says, again trying to flash her the killer smile.

“Thomas,” she says, “Detective Thomas.”

“Detective Thomas,” he says, “of course. I was wondering if possibly we could meet a little later. For lunch, possibly. To discuss the investigation.”