In The House Of Secret Enemies m-9

by George C. Chesbro

  "Is that right? What about the case Garth was working on? The grand jury is supposed to hear it day after tomorrow. What happens now?"

  "Nothing. They won't be hearing anything from this department."

  "Why can't the hearing be postponed until Garth is better?"

  "Because it wouldn't make any difference. Boise says we don't have a case."

  "Now why would Boise say a thing like that?"

  "Ask him."

  I did.

  "You know about that?" Boise asked.

  "Garth mentioned it to me."

  Boise carefully stirred the coffee in front of him. The sound of the spoon bouncing off the sides of the cup grated on my nerves. "There was never a case to begin with," he said evenly. He punctuated the sentence by dropping the spoon on his saucer. "I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but this whole affair was a result of paranoia on your brother's part, and that's all."

  "Uh-uh. He wasn't the one who asked to initiate the investigation."

  "No. We were asked to investigate-we did, and found nothing. Everything Zwayle Labs had done was on the up-and-up. They just worked faster and cheaper than the Whalen people. Certainly we found nothing to present to a grand jury. Some circumstantial evidence, a little hearsay, most of which was sour grapes from staff members who hadn't been able to handle the competition within their own departments. Nothing concrete. The evidence just wasn't there."

  "Garth said it was tricky, and you'd have to corroborate each other's testimony."

  Boise had finished his coffee and was signaling for another. "What can I tell you? Somewhere along the way your brother took a real strong dislike toward the guy who runs Zwayle Labs, a man by the name of Hans Mueller. Don't know why, but that's the way it happened. Guess whatever it was that finally put him away was working on him even then. He swore he'd get Mueller, and he started inventing evidence in his mind to do it."

  The second cup of coffee was served and Boise started clanking around in it with his spoon.

  I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. "Why didn't you tell MacGregor all this before?"

  "Because I didn't want what happened to Lancey and Q.J. to happen to me. With me it could have been worse; I was alone with him all day. Besides, Garth's a brother officer. I wasn't about to tell him-or anybody else-that he was crazy. I was hoping he might straighten up after the grand jury shot us down."

  "What's going to happen to him now?"

  "They'll probably give him an extended leave of absence."

  "It's more likely he'll lose his shield."

  "Probably," Boise said, averting his eyes to his coffee. He didn't have to tell me that the camaraderie between police officers did not extend to asking taxpayers to keep a psycho cop on the payroll.

  I didn't like it; all of the pieces seemed to fit, but the finished puzzle was ugly, misshapen.

  "You mind if I look at the files?"

  That stopped the stirring. "I think I would," Boise said after a pause, "and I think MacGregor will back me up. First of all, you're close to calling me a liar. Second, it's not the policy of the New York Police Department to let private citizens-especially private investigators-examine its files."

  I bit off my next remark, rose and turned to go. I was stopped at the door by one of those inspirations I usually know enough to keep to myself. I walked slowly back to the table wearing my innocent, concerned-brother face. It hurt like a mask of nails.

  "Mueller. That's a kraut name, isn't it?"

  Boise's eyebrows flicked upward. His eyes followed. "How's that?"

  "Mueller," I said. "Isn't that a German name?"

  "Yeah, I guess so. Why?"

  I shook my head. "Nothing, really. I was just trying to figure why Garth would flip out like this. Now I think I know the reason."

  "Which is?"

  "Germans," I said easily. "Garth hates Germans, It's a real thing with him. He's been that way ever since he was a kid. Too many cheap comic books and war movies. I guess. Anyway, when he was fifteen he almost killed a German classmate. That cost him six months in an institution. I guess it would've been better if they'd kept him a little longer."

  I knew I had heard of anethombolin, so I canceled my evening class and went to the university library to find out where. By closing time I'd found what I'd been looking for in the scientific journals. I photocopied the appropriate articles and stuck them into my pocket. Then I went to an twenty-four-hour diner and ate a full meal. It was going to be a long night.

  I was about to try my hand at reconstructing a sequence of events, a sequence that, for the moment, existed only in my mind: a play-a drama in which at least one of the players would be an unwilling participant. To make matters more difficult, that player would also be the most critical of audiences. One act-or even one line-out of place and the curtain would come crashing down. If I was right-if there was more fact than fiction in the scenario I was about to produce-my brother's sanity could hinge on the success of my improvisation; his sanity and possibly his life.

  At the moment Garth was drowning in a black sea of madness, and his flailing hurt people. Now he was no more than a dangerous animal. Of course, it would not be the first time a good man had gone mad; a psychiatrist would have a field day expounding on the probable causes of Garth's breakdown. Still, I knew something the psychiatrists didn't; I knew my brother. If he was lost in a drowning pool of the mind, and all evidence suggested that he'd jumped in by himself, I still suspected he'd been pushed.

  It was dawn by the time I finished. I slept for an hour, rose and ate breakfast, then sat down at the telephone. I tried unsuccessfully to control the trembling of my hands as I dialed the number of Zwayle Labs, but I did better with my voice. It was Mueller who sounded tense as he agreed to meet me in an hour.

  Act One appeared to have been well received.

  Zwayle Labs stood in the middle of a lower West Side block like a chrome and glass box tied together with ribbons of plastic. I paused outside on the sidewalk, activated the miniature tape recorder and microphone in my jacket pocket, then went in. The recorder was compact, and sensitive enough to pick up a normal speaking voice thirty feet away. The only problem was that, even running at low speed, there was only about twenty minutes' worth of tape on the tiny reel. I was going to have to do my talking in a hurry.

  Mueller did a double take on me in the hall. I brushed past him and walked into his office.

  "Ten thousand dollars," I said as Mueller was in the process of nervously offering me a chair. "That's how much I'll take not to blow this whole deal wide open. Considering the stakes you're playing for, that's peanuts. But then I like peanuts."

  Mueller's pale Teutonic features were suddenly mottled with patches of red, but I couldn't tell whether they were caused by anger or fear. Thin and professorial-looking, smelling of greed, Mueller wasn't exactly an imposing figure. Still, looks can be deceiving; at least, in my own case, I liked to think so. I was sitting in on the biggest poker game of my life, against a man I didn't know, and I was bluffing blind. I didn't know of any other way to do what I had to do. There just wasn't time.

  "My time is valuable, Mr. Frederickson," Mueller said quickly, avoiding my gaze. "Please come to the point."

  "You knew my point when you heard what I had to say over the phone." I watched him carefully, very conscious of the time limit imposed by the machine in my pocket, fighting the urge to rush my words. "I didn't know the whole story when I was talking to Boise yesterday. Then I went up to Garth's place and looked around. He'd made some notes on this case, private notes that he hadn't shown to anyone else for obvious reasons. Did you know that? Garth is a very conscientious policeman; he likes to have all the facts before he makes any accusations. That cost him this time."

  I punctuated my words by slapping down my manila folder in front of Mueller. He opened his mouth to speak. I spilled the photocopies out onto the polished mahogany surface of the desk and ran right through whatever it was he was going to say.


  "Remember these? You should. They're reports on research done in this very lab-research done by you. Before this anethombolin fuss you were well known for your work in isolating and synthesizing drugs that were thought to trigger various emotional responses; all very experimental, but you'd had great success-with rats. The thinking was that the drugs might or might not affect men, but that a lot more research would have to be done. You decided to take a shortcut."

  "What are you getting at?"

  His voice gave him away. The fact that he had agreed to see me at all had been the first indication that I was on the right track. The fact that he hadn't already thrown me out of his office was, to me, conclusive proof. I'd hooked him. Now the problem was to reel him in before the plastic line of the tape in my pocket broke; or before I made a mistake.

  "My brother was your first human subject." Which was precisely why my charade was so important; if I was right, I had to obtain samples of whatever it was Mueller had given Garth so that the lab boys could find some way to neutralize it.

  Mueller seemed in perfect control. His eyes were like two opaque marbles. "What you are saying has no basis in fact, Mr. Frederickson," he said quietly. "Even if it did, I find it highly unbelievable that you would accept money to remain silent about something which could gravely affect your brother's health."

  I laughed harshly. "That's because you're not a dwarf. In case you haven't noticed, my brother's bigger than I am. Bigger, and better able to take care of himself. It's always been that way, and its going to have to stay that way. He's just going to have to take care of himself-that is, if you cough up the money. What's ten thousand dollars when you're anticipating millions from the exclusive rights to anethombolin? In fact, I suggest that you hurry up and complete the deal before my conscience starts to bother me. Or before I up the ante. Maybe I'll ask for twice what you're paying Boise."

  Thin, white lines were appearing around the corners of the other man's mouth. "Boise? Isn't that your brother's partner?"

  "You know damn well who Boise is. He's the man you bought off. He's the man who's been dumping your drugs into Garth-probably by way of his coffee. Garth's testimony was needed at that grand jury hearing. He couldn't be bribed; it wouldn't take much checking to find that out. Therefore, he had to be put out of commission by a man who could be bribed: Boise. Then Boise could do his number about the whole thing being nothing more than paranoia on my brother's part and you'd be home free-with the anethombolin process you stole from Whalen Research Associates. The testimony of a madman wouldn't hold up very well against that of a perfectly sane partner. It will still work, except that now it's going to cost you a little more money. You don't pay, and I take my story to MacGregor, along with Garth's notes."

  Then MacGregor would throw me out of his office. There were, of course, no notes and, thus far, the tape contained not much more than a not-too-brilliant Mongologue, though Mueller was sweating. I'd pulled the handle on this particular slot machine as far as it would go, and there wasn't much more I could do but stand and watch the cylinders spin. One lemon and it was all over.

  Mueller tried to juggle the machine. "You're forgetting one thing," he said breezily. "Your brother has suffered bouts of paranoia before. Our own investigation shows that your brother was institutionalized for a homicidal attack on a German youth. I happen to be German, and my associates and I have suspected all along that your brother's persecution of me had something to do with my national origin."

  I turned away quickly so that Mueller couldn't see the flood of emotion in my eyes. The last number had come up and it spelled jackpot. I turned back and allowed myself a weak smile. "You lose, Mueller," I said easily. "I figured Boise would call you with that choice bit of information. The fact of the matter is that my brother has a special fondness for Germans. He should-both our parents are German."

  The last resistance went out of him like air whooshing from a crushed lung. He stared at me helplessly. "All right, Frederickson. Perhaps you are due some money. Say, as a 'counseling fee.'"

  "You can call it anything you want. Just get the money up front. Now."

  "Perhaps we could negotiate the exact-"

  "Shut up, Mueller!" Boise's voice came from behind me. I didn't bother to turn; I could feel the barrel eye of a.38 staring at my spine.

  It looked as if the game wasn't over yet. I had counted on Boise calling, but I hadn't counted on his actually being here for the meeting. I was out of cards, and someone had unplugged the slot machine.

  "You're a fool, Mueller," Boise said calmly. Now the cold barrel was pressed against my temple as Boise's free hand flew expertly over my body until he found what he was looking for. He yanked the tape recorder out of my pocket, dropped it on the floor, then crushed it under his heel. "He doesn't want money. He's as straight as his brother. He just wanted you to talk, which you did beautifully."

  Still keeping the gun trained on my head, Boise knelt and fired the scattered tape with his lighter. The room was suddenly filled with an acrid odor that made my eyes water.

  "You're burning a hole in my carpet," Mueller said weakly, staring down at the small pyre of burning plastic.

  "Get this, Mueller," Boise said, backing up so that both the scientist and myself fell into his range of fire, "I want that hundred thousand dollars you owe me, and I want to be free to spend it. If you don't start wising up, I'm going to burn a hole in your brain."

  The tape was destroyed. Boise snuffed out the last glowing embers with the toe of his shoe. I tried to think of some maneuver that would get me closer to Boise, but you don't mess with a man who practices three times a week on a firing range. The gun in Boise's hand was a tight drawstring on any bag of tricks that I might have been tempted to explore.

  Boise wasn't taking any chances either. Slowly he came up behind me. I anticipated the blow and managed to move my head enough to avoid having my skull crushed. Still, it was a long way to the bottom of the rainbow-colored well into which he crudely pushed me.

  It was also a long way up.

  The sides of the well were dotted with faces of my brother. His lips were curled back like an animal's, baring froth-specked teeth. There were large red holes where his eyes should have been. His hands were studded with hundreds of snakelike fingers, and I wept helplessly as they reached for me, curling around my throat, tearing at my eyes.

  I floated up and out of the hole and down onto what felt like a hardwood floor. Finally conscious, my body was a raft cast adrift on a vast, eerie sea of total darkness.

  I was still crying, not as a man cries when touched by some deep emotion, but as a child cries in the grip of some nameless nighttime terror. I sobbed and wailed, my hiccuping moans swallowed up by the dark. In one part of me I was profoundly embarrassed; in another part of me, weeping seemed the most natural thing in the world for me to be doing.

  Gradually I muffled my cries and wiped my tears with the back of my hand. At the same time my muscles seemed to go rigid. I couldn't move or, rather, I dared not move. In the surrounding night I could hear the dry rustle of snakes, large snakes moving toward me, large snakes of the variety that lie in wait along the banks of tropical rivers to crush and eat things that are small and warm.

  There were other things out there too, and they all crushed and squeezed and bit and hurt. I began to cry again, and pray to the God I had known as a child.

  Another part of my mind, a tiny area where the fear had not yet penetrated, began to stir. I listened to it whisper of snakes and other things that crush, big things, a world of giants that laughed and mocked; things that would hurt a dwarf, things that would eat a dwarf.

  It suddenly occurred to me that these fears were somehow familiar, like a scarred rocking horse uncovered in a dusty corner of some attic, an attic of the mind. In this case they were old monsters from the mental storage bin of childhood.

  Then I understood. I remembered Garth and Mueller and Boise, and I knew what they had done. The terrors were from childhood; all those sp
ecial horrors that had plagued me when I had first learned I was small, so different from other children, had come back to visit. Something had dredged them all up from my subconscious and scattered them in the darkness around me. .

  Something like a drug, something like phobetarsin; that was what the fear-producing drug had been called in the research papers I had read.

  At least the drug Mueller had given me had a name.

  The terrible dread was still there, but now I knew its source. That made all the difference in the world; I had labeled the fear-or at least its cause-and that made it, if no less real, at least easier to deal with it. I was sure I had been given a drug, probably phobetarsin. The question remained as to why they had bothered. Perhaps it was an attempt to make me more manageable, or perhaps it was merely gratuitous sadism. Whatever the reason, I knew I needed some defense.

  I closed my eyes against the fear and slowly moved out across the room, crawling inch by inch on my belly. I finally bumped up against a wall and paused, cradling my head in my arms. My clothes were drenched with sweat and, once again, I was crying.

  Still, I had my single psychological weapon; I knew what had unleashed the demons around me. Garth had had no such advantage. Whatever they had given him had somehow had the effect of stripping the scabs off his psyche, simultaneously releasing the thousand and one irritations and frustrations that plague a man every day, bringing them all up in one lump to fester in his conscious mind until a flash point was reached.