Over the Edge

26

A BORED-looking desk sergeant opened the door of the interrogation room and told Milo he had a call. He left to take it, and I picked up the black book and started to read.

What Old Man Skaggs had believed to be poetry was, in fact, a collection of impressionistic jottings, Black Jack Cadmus's version of a journal. The entries varied from incomplete sentences to several pages of inspired prose; on some days he'd written nothing. The handwriting was expansive and backslanted, so ornate as to verge on the calligraphic.

He was most expressive when writing about land purchase and management: how he'd cadged three hundred acres of orchard out of a San Fernando farmer at a bargain price by charming the man's wife "told her the pie was the best I'd ever eaten and complimented the baby. She leaned on the rube and we cut the deal that afternoon"; the maximum number of bungalows that could be constructed on a desert plot in the east end of the Valley; the most economical way to supply water to his projects; a Mexican crew boss who knew where to get cheap labour.

By comparison, his personal life had received short shrift in the sections that I read; his marriage, the births of his sons, even the beginnings of his wife's mental deterioration were most often relegated to single-sentence status.

One exception was a rambling August 1949 analysis of his relationship with Souza:

Milo returned, green eyes suffused with excitement.

"That was Platt. The blood tests are positive for anti-cholinergics. Lots of it. He was blown away, wanted to know when it would be okay to write it up for a medical journal."

He sat down.

"So now" — he smiled — "we've got more than theory."

"When will they be giving Jamey the Antilirium?"

"Definitely not today, probably not tomorrow. The head injury complicates things; it's hard to know how much of the stupor comes from the concussion and how much from the dope. They want him to be stronger before they give his nervous system another jolt."

He eyed the book in my hands.

"Learn anything?"

"So far only that Jack Cadmus's and Souza's view of their relationship don't jibe."

"Yeah, well that sometimes happens, doesn't it?"

He held out his hand, and I gave him the diary.

"Now that we've got method, it would be nice to firm up some motive before I call in Whitehead and the gang. How far'd you get?"

"August ninth 'forty-nine."

He found the place, backtracked, a few pages, read for a while, and looked up.

"Arrogant son of a bitch, wasn't he?"

"The scars of a self-made man."

Twenty minutes later he found the first entry on Bitter Canyon.

"All right, here we go — October twelfth 1950:"

Milo turned a page.

"Let's see, now he's off on something else — a downtown office building… he's going to have to bribe someone to get a zoning variance… okay, here it is again:"

Milo hunched forward and peered at the diary.

"Back to the office building again." He frowned, running his index finger over the yellowed pages. "The bribe worked… Here's something on the wife. They were invited to a party at the Huntington Sheraton, and she stood in a corner and wouldn't talk to anyone. It pissed him off… C'mon, Bitter Canyon, where are you… Wouldn't it just be my luck for that to be all of it?"

He perused silently through September and October, pausing from time to time to quote a passage out loud. The quotes painted Jack Cadmus as the quintessential robber baron — ruthless, single-minded, and self-obsessed — with occasional lapses into sentimentality. The man's feelings toward his wife had been a combination of rage, bafflement, and compassion. He professed his love for her but viewed her weakness with contempt. Terming his marriage "deader than Hitler", he described the mansion on Muirfield as "a damned crypt" and berated Antoinette's doctors as "Harvard-educated quacks who pat my back with one hand while dipping into my pocket with the other. All they have to offer are idiot grins and jargon." He'd escaped the emotional void by embracing work, power brokering and putting together one deal after another, playing the high-stakes poker game known as big business with an almost erotic zeal.

"Aha, here we go again," said Milo. "Wednesday, November fifteenth:"

"Ever hear of this Kaltenblud?" asked Milo. I shook my head. He thought for a moment.

"The Simon Wiesenthal Centre keeps tabs on those assholes. I'll give them a call soon as I finish this." He returned to the diary. "Oh, shit, another digression. Now he's into a land swap with a bunch of Indians from Palm Springs. Old Blackjack was everywhere." He flipped pages impatiently.

"Okay," he said several minutes later, "this sounds like the showdown. November twenty-ninth:"

"Poisoned earth," I said. "Plumes. Jamey was making sense all along."

"Too much sense for his own good," said Milo, standing. "I'm gonna make that call."

He left and returned a quarter of an hour later, holding a scrap of paper between thumb and forefinger.

"The folks at Wiesenthal knew him right away. Herr Doktor Professor Werner Kaltenblud. Head of the Nazis' chemical warfare section, posion gas expert. He was supposed to be indicted at Nuremberg but disappeared and was never heard from again. Which could make sense if the army kept its bargain with Blackjack."

"Blackjack would have demanded it."

"True. So the prick's definitely dead. The researcher I spoke to said he's still on the active file, considered one of the big ones who got away. He pressed me for what I knew but I stonewalled him with vague promises. If this thing ever resolves, maybe I can keep them."

He began to circle the room.

"A power plant built on tons of poison gas," I said. "Now you've got your motive."

"Oh, yeah. Seventy-five million dollars' worth. Wonder how the kid got hold of the diary."

"It could easily have been by accident. He was a voracious reader, liked to go rummaging around old books. The night he was committed to Canyon Oaks he tore apart his uncle's library, which could indicate he'd found something there before and was looking again."

"Buried for forty years among the limited editions?"

"Why not? After Peter died, Dwight was Black Jack's primary heir. Suppose he inherited the old man's books but never bothered to look at them? He didn't impress me as a bibliophile type. If he and Heather had come across the diary, they would have destroyed it. It was undisturbed because no one knew it existed. Until Jamey found it and realised how explosive it was. Chancellor had got him interested in business and finance, put him to work doing securities research. He had to know how heavily Beverly Hills Trust had invested in the Bitter Canyon issue, and he went straight to Chancellor and told him he'd bought a lot of potentially useless paper — twenty million dollars' worth that couldn't be unloaded without attracting unwanted attention."

Milo had stopped pacing to listen. Now he stood with one palm pressed against the tabletop, the other rubbing his eyes, digesting.

"Your basic extortion/elimination scenario," he said softly. "With a bunch of extra zeroes tacked on. Chancellor confronts Uncle Dwight with what he's learned from the diary. Maybe Uncle knew about the gas, maybe not. In either case, Chancellor's chafing to get rid of those bonds and demands that Uncle buy them back. Uncle baulks; Chancellor threatens to go public. So they arrange a buyout. It would have to be gradual, under the table, to avoid scrutiny. Maybe Chancellor even tacks on interest to compensate for pain and suffering."

"Or demands a premium price."

"Right." He thought for a while, then said:

"Fast Talker told you there's been some slow selling of the bond, which could mean Uncle's letting a little trickle back onto the market, but just like Chancellor, a little's all he can afford to let go of. That leaves him doubly at risk — building a plant on all that gas and paying for it himself."

"Tight squeeze," I said.

Milo nodded. "Time pressure, too. Uncle can't keep buying those bonds back without the corporate ledgers eventually starting to smell bad. He searches for a way out, finds himself thinking how nice life would be if Chancellor — and the kid — were out of the picture. Tells his troubles to wifey-poo, who's an expert on blitzing people out with herbs, and they cook up a plan that will eliminate all their problems: Cut up Chancellor and set the kid up for the murder."

He stopped, thought, continued:

"You realise, that this doesn't mean the kid didn't kill anyone. Only that he might have been under the influence when he did it."

"True. But it does say something about culpability. He was set up, Milo. A disturbed kid pushed over the edge slowly, with exquisite care, until he was ready for a locked ward. After hospitalisation the poisoning continued; the Cadmuses found themselves a doctor who'd do anything for a buck, including breaking his own rules to allow a private nurse to work there. Ten to one, Surtees's real job was administering the daily dose. Under Mainwaring's supervision."

"Surtees," he murmured, writing in his notepad. "What was her first name?"

"Marthe, with an e. If that's her name at all. None of the nursing registries have ever heard of her. She vanished the day after he broke out. Just like Vann, who just happened to have stepped away from her desk. The whole thing stinks, Milo. He was allowed to break out, then taken to Chancellor's house and… "

"And?"

"I don't know." Translation: I don't want to think about it.

He put the notepad down and said he'd put a trace on both the nurses.

"Maybe we'll even get lucky."

"Maybe," I said gloomily.

"Hey, don't overwork your empathy glands." Gently: "What's the problem, still thinking about guilt and innocence?"

"Don't you?"

"Not when I can avoid it. Gets in the way of doing the job." He smiled. "Course, that doesn't mean you civilised types shouldn't."

I stood up, pressed my palms against the green walls ol the interrogation room. The plaster felt soft, as if weakened by the absorption of too many lies.

"I was hoping there'd be a way to find him truly innocent," I said. "To show that he hadn't killed anyone."

"Alex, if it turns out he was under the involuntary influence of drugs, he'll never see a day in jail."

"That's not innocence."

"But it is, kind of. There's something called the unconsciousness defence — applies to perps who commit crimes while unaware of what they're doing: sleepwalkers; epileptics in seizures; head injury victims; the chemically brainwashed. It's almost never used because it's even harder to prove than dim cap; real unconscious felonies are pretty damned rare. Only reason I know about it is an old guy I busted several years ago. Strangled his wife in his sleep after his doctors had fucked up his medicines and derailed his circuits. It was bona fide, backed up by real medical data, not just psych stuff — no offence. Even the DA bought it. They let him off at the prelim. Free and sane. Innocent. Souza'll be sure to jump on it."

"Speaking of Souza," I said, "there's something else to consider. He was the one who found Mainwaring. And Surtees. What if he's in on it and the whole defence is a sham?"

"Then why would he call you in and subject it to scrutiny?"

I had no answer for that.

"Listen, Alex, I like the general flavour of what we've come up with. But that doesn't mean we're even close to know what actually happened. There are lots of question marks. How did the diary get from Chancellor to Yamaguchi? How did Radovic know to look for it? Why was he following you around? And where do Fat and Skinny figure in? And what about all those other Slasher victims? I'm sure I could come up with a few more if you gave me some time. Point is, I can't afford to sit around and speculate, can't keep cowboying this thing much longer without clueing in Whitehead and the others. And before I'd do that, I'd prefer something more solid than old books to back me up."

"Such as?"

"A confession."

"How do you plan on getting that?"

"The honourable way. By intimidation."

The STORM continued to rage, battering the coastline and dressing it in graveclothes of fog. Pacific Coast Highway was closed to nonresidents past Topanga, because of mud slides and poor visibility. The highway patrol was out in force, setting up roadblocks and checking IDs. Milo grabbed the magnetic flasher from the dash, opened the window, and slammed it onto the roof of the Matador. Having returned a drenched arm to the wheel, he steered onto the shoulder and sailed past the jam of high-priced buggies.

He braked at the command of a CHP captain, engaged in the ritual exchange of police banter, and drove on. As we hit the highway, the Matador's tyres spun and skidded before attaining traction. He slowed down, squinted, and followed the taillights of a BMW with vanity plates proclaiming it HALS TOY. The police radio belched out a litany of disaster: fatal crackups on the Hollywood and San Bernadino freeways; a disabled truck obstructing the Cahuenga Pass; killer surf jeopardising what remained of the Santa Monica Pier.

"Goddamn city's like a spoiled brat," he growled. "Minute things aren't gorgeous it falls apart."

To the left was the ocean, roiling and black: to the right, the southern edge of the Santa Monica Mountains. We passed through a section of highway that had been decimated by slides two years ago, the hillsides skinned like a slaughterhouse steer. Art and chemistry had come to the rescue: The denuded earth had been preseved under an immense sheath of pinkish brown fibreglass — the kind of trompe l'oeil topography used on movie sets, complete with moulded furrows and simulated scrub. A Disneyland solution, synthetically perfect.

The house was two miles into Malibu, on the wrong side of the Pacific Coast Highway, segregated from sand and sea by four lanes of blacktop. It was a small fifties ranch structure, a single storey of white texture-coated stucco under a low, flat composition roof, the entry side coated with used brick, the sole landscaping beds of ice plant that hugged a rising asphalt driveway. Attached to the house was a double garage. Where the front lawn should have been was all oil-stained concrete.

Parked in front was a pea green Mercedes sedan. Through its rain-clouded windows came a flash of white — a doctor's coat, draped over the passenger seat.

"I think I've got it down pretty good," said Milo, parking close to the house and turning off the engine, "but do me a favour and keep your ears open. In case he tries to snow me with technical stuff."

We went out and made a dash for the front door. The bell was out of order, but Milo's knock evoked a quick response — a slice of thin face through a door barely edged open.

"Yes?"

"Police, Dr. Mainwaring. Sergeant Sturgis, West L.A. Division. I believe you know Dr. Delaware. May we please come in?"

Mainwaring's eyes caromed from Milo to me and back to Milo, settling, finally, on a spot somewhere in the middle of my friend's thick torso.

"I don't understand—"

"Be happy to explain it, sir" — Milo smiled — "if we could just step out of this monsoon."

"Yes. Of course."

The door swung open. We walked through, and he backed away, staring at us, smiling nervously. Stripped of his white coat and status, he was far from impressive: a stoop-shouldered middle-aged man, undernourished and overworked, wolf face dotted with a day's growth of white stubble, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. He wore a bulky grey fisherman's sweater over rumpled olive twill trousers and scuffed bedroom slippers. The slippers were cut low and revealed marble-white flesh veined with blue.

The interior of the house was musty and so devoid of style it had been rendered psychologically invisible: a boxy white living room filled with bland furniture that appeared to have been lifted intact from a department store display; walls hung with the type of seascape and landscape that can be purchased by the pound. Beyond the half-open door at the rear of the room was a long dark hallway.

The adjacent dining area had been converted to an office, its table piled high with the same kind of clutter I remembered from Mainwaring's sanctum at Canyon Oaks. A framed snapshot of two sad-looking children — the boy seven or eight, the girl two years old — was propped against a pile of medical journals. There was food on the table: a wax carton of orange juice, a plate of cookies, and a half-gnawed apple, browned by oxidation. On the floor was one of those robot toys — a jet plane — that transform into three other objects when manipulated by small, nimble fingers. Beyond the dining area was a pistachio green kitchen, still resonating with last night's cabbage and boiled meat. A Bach organ fugue streamed out of a Montgomery Ward stereo.

"Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen," said Mainwaring, gesturing toward a cotton couch the colour and texture of congealed oatmeal.

"Thanks," said Milo, removing his slicker.

The psychiatrist took it and my London Fog, regarded them as if they were diseased.

"Let me hang these up."

He carried the garments through the half-open door into the hall and disappeared in the darkness long enough for Milo to grow antsy. But a moment later he returned, closing the door.

"Can I get you anything? Some coffee or biscuits?"

"No, thanks, Doc"

The psychiatrist looked down at the cookies on the table, thought for a moment, then sat down, folding his spare frame into a brown velveteen armchair. After selecting a briar out of a rack on the coffee table, he packed it, lit, sucked, and settled back, exhaling bitter blue smoke.

"Now then, what can I do for you, Sergeant?"

Out came the notepad. Milo flashed a stupid grin.

"Guess it's a switch for someone like you, huh? Me taking notes while you talk."

Mainwaring smiled with just a trace of impatience.

"Let me just get a few details out of the way, Doctor. First name?"

"Guy."

"As in Fawkes, huh?"

The smile widened condescendingly.

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Middle name?"

"Martin." He looked at me quizzically, as if expecting a secret eye signal or other evidence of a camaraderie. I turned away.

Milo put the pad on his knee and scrawled.

"Guy Martin Mainwaring… okay… and you're a psychiatrist, right?"

"That's correct."

"Which means you charge ten bucks an hour more than Dr. Delaware here, right?"

Mainwaring's eyes narrowed with hostility as he looked at me again, unsure what game was being played but aware, suddenly, that I was on the other team. He kept silent.

"The accent's British, right?"

"English."

"Where'd you go to school? In Britain?"

"I attended the University of Sussex," the psychiatrist recited crisply. "Upon earning my M.B.—"

"M.B.?"

"It's the English equivalent of the M.D.—"

"What does the B stand for?"

"Bachelor."

"So you're a Bachelor of Medicine, not a doctor?"

The psychiatrist sighed.

"It's called that, Sergeant, but it's equivalent to an American medical doctorate."

"Oh. I thought they called doctors Mister in Britain."

"Nonsurgical physicians are addressed as Doctor, surgeons as Mister. One of our funny little traditions."

"What do you use here in America?"

"M.D. To avoid the type of confusion you just experienced." When Milo didn't say anything, he added: "It's all quite legal, Sergeant."

"Confusion is right. Probably be more simple if I just called you Guy, huh?"

Mainwaring bit down on the pipe and puffed furiously.

"You were telling me about what you did after you got your… M.B., Doctor."

"I was awarded a residency at the Maudsley Hospital in London and was subsequently appointed to a lectureship there in the department of psychiatry."

"What'd you teach?"

Mainwaring looked at the detective as if he were a dull child.

"Clinical psychiatry, Sergeant."

"Anything in particular?"

"I instructed the house staff in comprehensive patient management. My specialty was the treatment of the major psychoses. The biochemical aspects of human behaviour."

"Do any research?"

"Some. Sergeant, I really must ask—"

"I'm asking 'cause Dr. Delaware has done a lot of research, and when he talks about it, I always find it interesting."

"I'm sure you do."

"So what was your research about?"

"The limbic system. It's a part of the lower brain that's related to emotional—"

"How'd you study it — examine people's brains?"

"On occasion."

"Live brains?"

"Cadavers."

"That reminds me of something," said Milo. "There was this guy Cole; they executed him last year in Nevada; he used to go into sudden rages and strangle women. Killed anywhere from thirteen to thirty-five. After he was dead, some doctor lifted his brain in order to study it, see if he could find something to explain the guy's behaviour. That was awhile back, and I haven't heard if he found anything. Has it been written up in some medical journal?"

"I really wouldn't know."

"What do you think? Could you look at a brain and say anything about criminal tendencies?"

"The origins of all behaviour are in the brain, Sergeant, but it's not quite as simple as merely looking—"

"So what did you do with those cadaver brains?"

"Do?"

"How'd you study them?"

"I conducted biochemical analyses on homogenized—"

"Under a microscope?"

"Yes. Actually my use of human brains was infrequent. My usual subjects were higher-level mammals — primates."

"Monkeys?"

"Chimpanzees."

"You figure there's a lot to learn about human brains from looking at monkey brains?"

"Within limits. In terms of cognitive function — thinking and reasoning — the chimpanzee brain is significantly more limited than its human counterpart. However—"

"But so are some people's brains, right? Limited."

"Unfortunately that's true, Sergeant."

Milo inspected his notes and closed the pad.

"So," he said, "you're quite an expert."

Mainwaring looked down with forced modesty and polished his pipe with the edge of his sweater.

"One tries one's best."

My friend swivelled toward me.

"You were right, Dr. D. He is the right person to talk to." Back to Mainwaring. "I'm here for a little medical education, Doctor. An expert consultation."

"Regarding what?"

"Drugs. How they affect behaviour."

Mainwaring tensed and glanced at me sharply.

"In relationship to the Cadmus case?" he asked.

"Possibly."

"Then I'm afraid I can't be of much help, Sergeant. James Cadmus is my patient, and any information I have is privileged."

Milo got up and walked over to the dining room table. He picked up the photo of the two children and examined it.

"Nice-looking kids."

"Thank you."

"The girl kind of looks like you."

"Actually both of them resemble their mother. Sergeant, ordinarily I'd be pleased to help, but I have a staggering amount of work to do, so if—"

"Homework, huh?"

"Pardon me?"

"You took the day off to work at home."

Mainwaring shrugged and smiled.

"Sometimes it's the only way to get through the paper work."

"Who takes care of the patients when you're gone?"

"I have three excellent psychiatrists on my staff."

Milo returned to the living room and sat down.

"Like Dr. Djibouti?" he asked.

Mainwaring tried to hide his surprise behind a veil of smoke.

"Yes," he said, exhaling. "Dr. Djibouti. And Drs. Kline and Bieber."

"Reason I know his name is when I called the hospital to talk to you, they hooked me up with the psychiatrist on call, who was Dr. Djibouti. Very nice guy. What is he, Iranian?"

"Indian."

"He said you'd been out for four days."

"I've had a nasty cold." As if illustrating, he sniffled.

"What do you do for it?"

"Aspirin, fluids, rest."

Milo snapped his fingers and gave an aw-shucks grin.

"That's it, huh? For a minute I thought I might pick up a medical secret."

"I wish I had one to offer you, Sergeant."

"What about chicken soup?"

"As a matter of fact, I cooked a pot last night. A noble palliative."

"Let's talk about drugs," said Milo. "On a theoretical level."

"Really, Sergeant, I'm sure you're aware that my position as a defence witness for Mr. Cadmus precludes any discussion of his case with the police."

"That's not exactly true, Doctor. It's only your conversations with Cadmus, your notes, and your final report that are off-limits. And once you testify in court, even those will be fair game."

Mainwaring shook his head.

"Not being an attorney, I can't evaluate the validity of that assertion, Sergeant. In any event, I have nothing to offer by way of theoretical speculation. Every case must be judged on its own merits."

Milo leaned forward suddenly and cracked his knuckles. The sound made Mainwaring flinch.

"You could call Souza," said the detective. "If he decides to be straight, he'll admit I'm right and tell you to cooperate. Or he might advise you to stonewall while he pushes enough paper to stall me — to avoid looking like a patsy; lawyers like to play power games. In the meantime, you'd be wasting time: taken out of this nice warm house; forced to take a long ride in this kind of weather; sitting in an ugly room down at the West L.A. station; cooling your heels while Souza and the DA sling fifty-dollar words at each other. All at the expense of your paperwork. And after it's over, chances are you'll still be required to talk to me."

"To what end, Sergeant? What's the purpose of this?"

"Police business," said Milo, opening the pad again and writing in it.

Mainwaring bit down hard on the pipe.

"Sergeant," he said between clenched jaws, "I do believe you're trying to bully me."

"Far from it, Doc. Just trying to show you your options."

The psychiatrist glared at me.

"How can your ethics allow you to participate in this type of outrageousness?"

When I didn't answer, he stood and walked to a phone resting on an end table. He lifted the receiver and punched three digits before putting it down.

"Just what is it you want to know?"

"How different drugs affect behaviour."

"On a theoretical level?"

"Right."

He sat down again.

"What kind of behaviour, Sergeant?"

"Psychosis."

"Dr. Delaware and I have already discussed that, as I'm sure he's told you." Wheeling on me: "Why in blazes are you pursuing a dead issue?"

"This has nothing to do with Dr. Delaware," said Milo. "Like I said, it's police business."

"Then why is he here?"

"As a technical adviser. Would you rather he wait in another room?"

That suggestion seemed to alarm the psychiatrist.

"No." He shrank back defeatedly. "What's the difference at this point? Just get on with it."

"Great. Let's talk a little about LSD, Doc. It stimulates schizophrenia, doesn't it?"

"Not very effectively."

"No? I thought it was a pretty good psychotomimetic."

The use of the esoteric term raised Mainwaring's eyebrows.

"For research purposes only," he said.

Milo stared at him expectantly, and he threw up his hands.

"It's difficult to explain in a brief discussion," he said. "Suffice it to say that an educated party would never confuse LSD toxicity with chronic psychosis."

"I'm willing to be educated," said Milo.

Mainwaring started to protest, then straightened his shoulders, cleared his throat and assumed a pedantic tone.

"Lysergic acid diethylamide," he intoned, "evokes an acute, rather stereotypic psychoticlike reaction that once caused some researchers to view it as an attractive tool for study. Clinically, however, its effects differ significantly from the symptoms of the chronic schizophrenias."

"What do you mean by significantly?"

"LSD intoxication is characterised by florid visual distortions — arrays of colours, often dark green or brown; dramatic changes in the shapes or sizes of familiar objects — and overwhelming delusions of omnipotence. LSD users may feel huge, godlike, capable of anything. Which is why some of them jump out of windows, convinced they can fly. When hallucinations occur in schizoprenia, they are typically auditory. Schizophrenics hear voices, are tormented by them. The voices may be muddled and indistinct or quite clear. They may admonish the patient, insult him, tell him he is worthless or evil, instruct him to carry out bizarre behaviours. While omnipotent feelings can exist in schizophrenia, they usually ebb and flow in relation to a complex paranoiac system. Most schizophrenics feel worthless, entrapped, insignificant. Threatened." He sat back and smoked, trying to look professional but not succeeding. "Anything else, Sergeant?"

"I've seen LSD trippers who were hearing things," said Milo. "And plenty who were pretty paranoid."

"That's true," said Mainwaring. "But in LSD abuse the auditory disturbance is generally secondary to the visual. And quite often subjectively positive. The patient reports sensory enhancement: Music sounds fuller, sweeter. Humdrum sounds acquire richer timbres. The paranoia you cite is typical of the unpleasant LSD experience — the so-called bum trip. The majority of LSD reactions, however, are experienced as positive. Mind-expanding. Which is in stark contrast with schizophrenia, Sergeant."

"No happy madmen?"

"Unfortunately not. Schizophrenia is a disease, not a recreational state. The schizophrenic rarely experiences pleasure. On the contrary, his world is bleak and terrifying; his suffering, intense — a private hell, Sergeant. And prior to the development of biological psychiatry, that hell was often permanent."

"What about PCP?"

"Cadmus was tested for it. As he was for LSD."

"We're not talking about Cadmus, remember?"

Mainwaring blanched, blinked, and struggled to regain pedagogic aloofness. His lips tightened, and a white ring formed around them.

"Yes, of course. That's exactly why I didn't want to have this discussion—"

"How's that cold?"

The white ring expanded, then disappeared as the psychiatrist forced his face to relax.

"Much better, thank you."

"Figured it had to be 'cause I haven't heard you sniff since that first time. Four days, you say?"

"Three and a half. The symptoms have just about disappeared."

"That's good. Weather like this, you have to be careful. Stay away from stress."

"Absolutely," said Mainwaring, searching the detective's face for hidden meaning. Milo responded with a blank stare.

"Is there anything else I can help you with, Sergeant?"

"We were talking about PCP," said Milo.

"What would you like to know about it?"

"For starters, how well it mimics schizophrenia."

"That's an extremely complex question. Phencyclidine is a fascinating agent, very poorly understood. No doubt the primary site of activity is the autonomic nervous system. However—"

"It drives people crazy, doesn't it?"

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"That's correct. Individuals vary greatly in their sensitivity. Some habitual PCP abusers experience euphoria; others become acutely psychotic after a single dose."

"Psychotic as in schizophrenia?"

"It's not that simple, Sergeant."

"I can deal with complexity."

"Very well." Mainwaring frowned. "To discuss schizophrenia intelligently, one must bear in mind that it isn't a single disease entity. It's a collection of disorders, with varying symptom constellations. Moderate-dose PCP reactions conform most closely to the type we call catatonia — disturbances of body posture and speech. But even catatonia is divided into subtypes."

He stopped, as if waiting for his words to crystallise. Hoping he'd said enough.

"Go on," said Milo.

"What I'm trying to emphasise is that phencyclidine is a complex drug with complex, unpredictable reactions. I've observed patients who manifest the mutism and grimacing of stuporous catatonia, others who display the waxy catalepsy of classical catatonia — they become human manikins. The ones you'd be most likely to come into contact with display symptoms that uncannily resemble an agitated catatonia: psychomotor agitation; profuse but incoherent speech; destructive violence directed against the self and others."

"What about paranoid schizophrenia?"

"In some patients large doses of phencyclidine can cause auditory hallucinations of a paranoid nature. Others respond to high-dose abuse with the kind of grandiosity and hyperactivity that leads to a false diagnosis of unipolar affective psychosis — mania, in lay terms."

"Sounds like a hell of a psychotomimetic to me, Doc."

"In the abstract. But by itself that's meaningless. All the commonly abused drugs are potentially psychotomimetic, Sergeant. Amphetamines, cocaine, barbiturates, hashish. Even marijuana can cause psychotic symptoms when ingested in sufficient dosage. That's precisely why any psychiatrist worth his salt will observe his patient carefully and test for drug history and the presence of narcotics in the system as a differential prior to establishing the diagnosis of schizophrenia."

"That kind of screening is routine?"

Mainwaring nodded.

"So what you're saying is that although drug reactions can mimic schizophrenia, it would be hard to fool a doctor."

"I wouldn't go quite that far. Not all doctors are sophisticated about psychoactive agents. An inexperienced observer — a surgeon, a general practitioner, even a psychiatric resident who lacked familiarity with drugs — might conceivably mistake drug intoxication for psychosis. But not a board-certified psychiatrist."

"Which is what you are."

"Correct."

Milo got up from the couch, smiling sheepishly. "So I guess I've been barking up the wrong tree, huh?"

"I'm afraid so, Sergeant."

He walked over and looked down at Mainwaring, put away his pad, and began extending his hand. But just as the psychiatrist started to reciprocate, he pulled it back and scratched his head.

"One more thing," he said. "This routine screening, does it include anticholinergics?"

The pipe in Mainwaring's mouth trembled. He used one hand to hold it still, then removed it and made a show of examining the tobacco within.

"No," he said. "Why would it?"

"I've done a little research of my own," said Milo. "Found that atropine and scopolamine derivatives have been used to drive people crazy. By South American Indians, medieval witches."

"The classic belladonna potion?" said Mainwaring offhandedly. Both hands were shaking now.

"You got it."

"Interesting concept." The pipe had gone out, and it took three matches to relight it.

"Isn't it?" Milo smiled. "Ever seen it?"

"Forced atropine intoxication? No."

"Who said anything about forced?"

"I — we were talking about witches. I assumed you—"

"I meant any type of atropine intoxication. Ever seen it?"

"Not for years. It's extremely rare."

"You never did any research or writing about it?"

The psychiatrist grew reflective.

"Not to my recollection."

Milo cued me with a look.

"There was an article in The Canyon Oaks Quarterly," I said, "about the importance of screening elderly patients for anticholinergics so as not to misdiagnose senile psychosis."

Mainwaring bit his lip and looked pained. He stroked the stem of his pipe and answered in a low, shaky voice.

"Ah, yes. That's true. Many of the organic anti-Parkinsonian agents contain anticholinergics. The newer drugs are cleaner in that regard, but some patients don't respond to them. When the organics are used, medical management can get tricky. The article was intended as a bit of continuing education for our referral sources. We try to do that kind of—"

"Who wrote it?" asked Milo, staring down at the psychiatrist.

"Dr. Djibouti did."

"All by himself?"

"Basically."

"Basically?"

"I read an early draft. He was the primary author."

"Interesting," said Milo. "Seems we have a little discrepancy. He says you collaborated. That the original idea was yours, even though he did most of the writing."

"He's being gracious." Mainwaring smiled edgily. "The loyalty of an associate. In any event, why the fuss over a little—"

Milo took a step closer, so that the psychiatrist had to crane his neck to look up at him, put his hands on his hips, and shook his head.

"Doc," he said softly, "how about we cut the crap?"

Mainwaring fumbled with the pipe and dropped it. Ashes and embers scattered on the carpet. He watched them glow, then die, looked up with the guilty terror of a child caught masturbating.

"I have absolutely no idea—"

"Then let me explain it to you. Just a couple of hours ago I had a meeting with a whole bunch of specialists at County Hospital. Professors of medicine. Neurologists, toxicologists, bunch of other ologists. Experts, just like you. They showed me lab reports. Drug screenings. Explained everything in terms a cop could understand. Seems James Cadmus has been systematically poisoned with anticholinergics. For a long time. During the period he was under your care. The professors were pretty damned horrified about a doctor's doing that to a patient. More than willing to testify. They even wanted to file a complaint with the medical examiner's. I held them off."

Mainwaring moved his lips soundlessly. He retrieved the pipe and pointed it like a pistol.

"This is all rubbish. I haven't poisoned anyone."

"The professors thought otherwise, Guy."

"Then they're bloody wrong!"

Milo let him stew for a while before speaking again.

"Talk about your Hippocratic oath," he said.

"I tell you I haven't poisoned anyone!"

"Way the professors figured it, you slipped it to him every time you medicated him. Not only was it subtle, but there was an added benefit: seems Thorazine and the other medicines you gave him supercharged the anticholinergics. Potentiation they called it. The equivalent of a massive OD."

"You put him on a pharmacologic roller coaster," I said.

"The electrochemical properties of his nerve endings were being constantly altered. Which is why he showed such a strange reaction to the medication: settling down one day; going out of control the next. When his body was free of anticholinergics, the antipsychotics did their job properly. But in the presence of atropine they were turned into poisons, which could also explain the premature tardive dyskinesia. Isn't one of the main theories about TD that it's caused by cholinergic blockage?"

Mainwaring dropped the pipe again, this time willfully. He put both hands in his hair and tried to melt into the chair. His face was as white and moist as boiled haddock; his eyes were feverish with fear. Beneath the bulk of the sweater his chest moved shallowly.

"It's not true," he muttered. "I never poisoned him."

"Okay, so some stooge did the actual dosing," said Milo. "But you're the expert. You can the show."

"No! I swear it! I never even suspected until—"

He stopped, groaned, and looked away.

"Until when?"

"Recently."

"How recently?"

Mainwaring didn't answer.

Milo repeated the question, more sharply. Mainwaring sat frozen.

"Have we reached an impasse, Doc?" thundered the detective.

No response.

"Well, Guy," said Milo, opening his jacket to reveal his shoulder holster and fingering the handcuffs that dangled from his belt, "looks like it's you-have-the-right-to-remain-silent time. No doubt you want to dummy up until you talk to a lawyer. Do yourself a favour and get one with heavy-duty criminal experience."

Mainwaring put his face in his hands and hunched over.

"I've done nothing criminal," he muttered.

"Then answer my goddamn question! How long have you known about the poisoning?"

The psychiatrist sat up, ashen.

"I swear, I had nothing to do with it! It was only after the — after he'd already escaped that I grew suspicious. Following my meeting with Delaware. He kept pressing me about drug abuse, badgering me about hallucinatory content, the idiosyncratic response to phenothiazines. At the time I dismissed all of it, but it had been such a puzzling case that I started thinking — about the drug abuse issue in particular, wondering if there could be some merit to it—"

"Where did your thinking lead you?" demanded Milo.

"Back to Cadmus's medical chart. When I reread it, I began noticing things I should have noticed before—"

"Hold it!" I said angrily. "I read that chart. Three times. There was nothing in it to indicate atropine poisoning."

Mainwaring shivered and laced his fingers together, as if in supplication.

"All right, you're right. It's not — wasn't the chart. It was hindsight. Recollections. Things I hadn't recorded — things I should have recorded. Discrepancies. Discrepant symptoms. Deviations from the norm. Flushing, disorientation, confusion. The precocious tardive syndrome. I'd just written the article on anticholinergic syndrome, and it had passed right under my nose. I felt like a bloody idiot. An EEG at the outset might have put me right on it. Atropine causes mixed rapid and slow brain wave activity, reduced alphas, increased deltas and betas. Had I seen that kind of pattern, I would have caught it, known what it meant from the outset. But the EEG never got done; the bloody radiologist baulked. You read the chart, Delaware; that's in there. Tell him about the radiologist's baulking, go on."

I looked away from him, attempting to suppress my disgust, fixing my eyes on a seascape so muddily rendered it had managed to make Carmel look ugly.

"Guy," said Milo scornfully, "am I hearing right? Are you trying to tell me that you — an expert, a board-certified imperial poobah were fooled?"

"Yes," whispered Mainwaring

"That's a crock," I said.

With a glance Milo told me to back off. He bent over so that his nose was an inch from Mainwaring's. The psychiatrist tried to pull away but was stopped by the back of the armchair.

"Okay," said the detective, "let's go with that for a minute. Let's say you were fooled."

"It's humiliating, but it's tr—"

"You think that kind of ignorance is gonna buy you bliss?" snarled Milo. "You just admitted you figured it out after you spoke to Delaware. You've known about it for over a week! Why the hell didn't you say anything? How could you let that kid continue to go through that kind of suffering?" He waved his notepad in Mainwaring's face. "Intense suffering, bleak and terrifying, a goddamn private hell? Why didn't you stop it!"

"I — I was going to. Took the time off to formulate — to plan how to go about it."

"Oh, Jesus, more bullshit," said Milo disgustedly. "How much did they pay you, Guy?"

"Nothing!"

"Bullshit."

The door to the hallway opened, and a woman stepped into the room. Young, dark, conspicuously voluptuous in a flame red turtleneck and tight jeans. Brassy brown eyes shielded by long black lashes. The sculpted cheekbones and full dark lips of a young Sophia Loren.

"It's not bullshit," she said.

"Andrea!" said Mainwaring, with suddenly renewed vigour. "Stay out of it. I insist!"

"I can't, darling. Not anymore."

She walked over to the armchair, stood next to the psychiatrist, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Her fingers uncurled, and Mainwaring shuddered.

"He's not a coward," she said. "Far from it. He's trying to protect me. I'm Andrea Vann, Sergeant. I'm the one they paid off."

Milo's interrogation of her was as rough as any I've seen him do. She took it unflinchingly, sitting on the edge of the sofa, straight-backed and stoic, hands folded motionless in her lap. Every time Mainwaring triad to intervene on her behalf, she silenced him with a steely smile. Eventually he gave up and withdrew to brooding silence.

"Run that by me again," demanded the detective. "Someone leaves five thousand dollars in cash in your apartment along with a note telling you there'll be another five if you leave your post on a certain night, and you don't ask questions."

"That's right."

"That kind of things an everyday occurrence for you."

"Far from it. It was unreal, like winning the lottery. The first good luck I've had in years. It bothered me that someone had broken into my place, and I knew the money was dirty; but I was dirt poor and tired of it. So I took it, changed my lock, and didn't raise a peep."

"And tore up the note."

"Tore it up and flushed it down the toilet."

"Very convenient."

She said nothing.

"Remember anything about the handwriting?" asked Milo.

"It was typed."

"What about the paper?"

She shook her head.

"The only paper I was looking at was green. Fifty-dollar bills. Two packages of fifty each. I counted it twice."

"I bet you did. Did you ever stop counting long enough to wonder why someone wanted you off the ward that night?"

"Of course I did. But I forced myself to stop wondering."

Milo turned to Mainwaring.

"What would you call that, Guy? Repression? Denial?"

"I was greedy," said Vann. "Okay? I saw dollar signs and blocked everything else out. Turned my brain off. Is that what you want to hear?"

"What I want to hear is the truth."

"Which is exactly what I've been giving you."

"Right," said Milo, and busied himself with note taking. She shrugged and asked if she could smoke.

"No. When did you decide to switch your brain back to on?"

"After Jamey was arrested for murder. I realised then that I'd got myself into something big. I got scared — really scared. I handled it by insulting myself calm."

"What?"

"I kept telling myself I was an idiot to let anxiety get in the way of good fortune. Over and over, like hypnosis, until I calmed down. I wanted the second five thousand, felt I deserved it."

"Sure, why not? Honest wages for an honest night's work."

"Now look here," said Mainwaring. "You—"

"It's all right, Guy," said Vann. "He can't make it any worse than it is."

Milo crooked a thumb at Mainwaring.

"How long have you and he had a thing going?"

"Almost a year. Next Tuesday's our anniversary."

"Happy anniversary. Marriage plans?"

She and the psychiatrist exchanged meaningful looks. His eyes were wet.

"There were."

"Then why all the pissing and moaning about poverty? Soon you would have been a doctor's wife. Until then he could have loaned you money."

"Guy's as broke as I am." She scanned the shabby room. "Do you think he'd be living like this if he weren't?"

Milo turned to Mainwaring.

"That true? And don't bullshit me, I can check out your finances in an afternoon."

"Go ahead. There's nothing to check. I'm bloody busted."

"Bad investments?"

The psychiatrist smiled bitterly.

"The worst. A rotten marriage."

"His wife's an evil bitch," spat Andrea Vann. "Cleaned out their joint accounts, attached his earnings, took the children and every stick of furniture, and rented a twelve room mansion in Redondo Beach — five thousand dollars a month plus utilities. Then she filed a deposition full of vicious lies, claimed he was an unfit father, and had his visitation cut off. He has to undergo a full psychiatric evaluation in order to see his children!"

"Had," corrected Mainwaring. "The matter's moot now, Andy."

She turned on him.

"Don't be so goddamned defeatist, Guy! We've messed things up, but we haven't killed anyone!"

He withered under the heat of her words, gnawed at a knuckle, and stared at the carpet.

"Let's get back on track," said Milo. "You say the second five thousand came a week later."

"Five days," she said. "Same as the other two times you asked. The story won't change in the retelling because it's true."

"And Guy, here, knew nothing about it."

"Absolutely nothing. I didn't want to get him involved, didn't want to jeopardise his custody fight. My plan was to put away the money for a nest egg, so that we could start fresh. I was going to surprise him with it after we were married."

"The Mustang part of that nest egg?"

She hung her head.

"How much did it cost?"

"Two thousand down, the rest on payments."

Milo pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to her.

"This your loan contract?"

"Yes. How did—"

"You registered it in your own name but told the dealer you were Pat Demeter. Gave a Barstow address. How many of those payments did you plan on making?"

She looked up defiantly, eyes the colour and heat of mulled cider.

"All right, Sergeant, you've made your point. I'm a lying bimbo with the ethics of a—"

"Who's Pat Demeter?"

"My ex-husband! A snake. Beat me and stole every penny I owned and shoveled it up his nose. Tried to turn me into a coke whore and threatened to maim Sean when I refused. I'm not telling you this to get your sympathy, Sergeant. But don't waste any on him either. When they come to him to collect for that car, it won't even start to make up for what he did to me!"

"Demeter's your married name?" asked Milo dispassionately.

"Yes. The first thing I did after the divorce was change my name back. Didn't want anything to remind me of that scum."

"Where's your son?"

She stared at him hatefully.

"You're a sweet soul, aren't you, Sergeant Sturgis?"

"Where is he?"

"With my parents."

"Where with your parents?"

"In Visalia — yes, I know you can get the address. They're good people. Don't drag them into this."

"Why'd you send him away?"

"I was scared."

"Because Cadmus had been arrested."

"No. There's more if you'd just let me get it out!"

"Go on."

She caught her breath.

"It was after the second payoff arrived. Whoever brought it got into the apartment again. Through the new lock — a dead bolt, supposed to be burglarproof. They put the money on the lid of the toilet bowl, left the door wide open. It felt… contemptuous. As if someone wanted to let me know how expendable I was. I drove straight to Sean's school, picked him up and took him to a friend's, went back to the apartment, and packed—"

"By yourself?"

"Yes. There wasn't much." She waited for another question.

"Keep going," said Milo.

"I waited until after dark to put the stuff in the car. Just as I was about to drive away, these two guys appeared out of nowhere, on both sides of the car, yanking on the door handles, saying they wanted to talk to me, trying to force their way in. I barely got it locked in time."

"What did they look like?"

"Scuzzy. Outlaw bikers. I know the type because there are lots of them around Barstow, and during the few times in his life that Pat worked, he pumped gas at a station where they used to hang out."

"Recognise these two?"

"No."

"What did they look like?"

"The one on the passenger side was fat and bearded. The one close to me was a hairy animal. Unshaven, big moustache. Big hands — at least they looked big pressed against the glass. Weird, dead eyes."

"Eye colour? Tattoos? Distinguishing marks?"

"No idea. It was dark, and all I could think about was getting out of there. They were pounding the glass, rocking the car, snarling. I tried to back out, but they'd parked their chopper up against my rear bumper. It was a big bike and I was afraid I'd get jammed up and be trapped. So I screamed and leaned on the horn, and Mrs. Cromarty — the landlady — came out. The hairy one had a hammer; he was about to smash the window in. But Mrs. Cromarty kept shouting, "What's going on?" and coming closer. That scared them off. The minute they were gone I got out of there. Drove around for hours before I was sure I hadn't been followed, finally picked up Sean, and came here to Guy's."

"Who was absolutely shocked by the whole thing."

"As a matter of fact, yes. When he told you he'd been fooled, he was being truthful. It was only after I told him about the money that he started to suspect something. We're not saints, Sergeant, but we're not the people you're after."

"And who might those be?"

"The family, of course. They're the ones who hired that Surtees cow to give him the poison."

"How do you know she did it?"

"She had daily access to him."

"So did others. Including you and Guy."

"We didn't do it. We had no reason to."

"Poverty's a hell of a motivator."

"If we'd been paid off, why would we stick around?"

Milo didn't answer.

"Sergeant," said Andrea Vann, "there was no logical reason for Marthe Surtees to be there. She was weird, poorly-trained. Guy accepted the family's story about wanting one-on-one care, because people in that situation are highly stressed and he was being compassionate but—"

The detective wheeled on Mainwaring:

"How much did they pay you to let her in?"

"Two thousand."

"Cash?"

"Yes."

"The uncle give it you directly?"

"Through the lawyer, Souza."

"These people are filthy rich," said Vann. "Their type runs the world by manipulating people. Can't you see that they manipulated us?"

Milo scowled.

"So now you're victims, right?"

She tried to lock eyes with him but gave up and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Milo let her light up and began pacing the room. From outside came the sweet, liquid tones of a steel-drum symphony — raindrops dancing coyly on hollow stucco walls. When he talked again, it was to Mainwaring.

"Way I see it, Guy, you're in the crapper, ready to be flushed. If you've lied about not participating, I guarantee I'll find out and bust you for attempted murder and accessory to murder. But even if you're telling me the truth, you're up to your neck in malpractice and whatever else they charge doctors with who allow their patients to be poisoned. Hope you know how to whittle or work a cash register or something, 'cause practising medicine sure as hell isn't in your future. Not to mention fatherhood."

"Bastard!" hissed Vann.

"Same goes for you." said Milo. "No more RN; bye-bye. Mustang. And if old Pat ever had designs on getting custody of little Sean, he'll have his chance real soon."

She choked back a cry of rage.

"Damn you, keep her out of this!" shouted Mainwaring.

Milo smiled.

"Now how the hell can I do that, Guy, when she put herself right in it?"

Mainwaring looked at Vann, and what little composure he had gave way. His mouth began to tremble, and the tears that had pooled in his eyes overflowed and trickled down his unshaved cheeks. She ran to him and held him, and he began to sob. It was a pathetic scene that made me want to disappear. I looked at my friend to see if it had affected him and thought I noticed something — a flicker of empathy arcing across the ravaged terrain of his face. But it didn't last — if it had ever existed.

He observed them with clinical detachment, sternly watched them share their misery, before saying:

"On the other hand, maybe there is something I can do."

They broke apart and gazed at him in supplication.

"I'm not talking salvation, you understand. Just a little damage control. Cooperation traded for sealed records. And I'm not guaranteeing I can pull it off, gotta clear it with the brass. Plus, even if we do strike a deal, I doubt you could stay in California. Understand?"

Dumb nods.

"But if you help me get what I want, I'll do my damnedest to keep things quiet enough for you to start up somewhere else. You want to talk it over, that's okay."

"We don't," said Andrea Vann. "Just tell us what you want."

Milo smiled paternally.

"Now that," he said, "is what I call a positive attitude."