Cities of the Red Night

We saw Adam North in one of the interrogation rooms, under fluorescent lights. A table, a tape recorder, four chairs. He was a handsome blond kid with green eyes. The resemblance to Jerry was remarkable. However, while Jerry was described as very bright and quick, this boy had a slack, vacuous, stupid look about him, sleepy and sullen like a lizard resentfully aroused from hibernation. Dimitri explained that we were investigators hired by Jerry's family, and we had a few questions. The boy looked down at the table in front of him and said nothing.

'This man who offered you the quarter-ounce of H. You'd seen him before?' I asked.

'Yeah. When I first came here he steered me to a score. I figure he is creaming off a percentage.'

'What did he look like?'

'Gray face, pockmarks, stocky medium build, fancy purple vest and watch chain. Like he stepped out of the 1890s. Didn't seem to feel the heat.'

'Anything else?'

'Funny smell about him, like something rotten in a refrigerator.'

'Please describe the ritual you witnessed,' I said.

'Allow me,' interrupted Dimitri. He looked at the boy and said, 'Ganymede' and snapped his fingers. The boy shivered and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. When he spoke, his voice was altered beyond recognition. I had the impression he was translating the words from another tongue, a language of giggles and turkey gobbles and coos and purrs and whimpers and trills.

'Ganymede Hotel ... shutters closed ... naked on the bed ... Jerry's picture ... it's coming alive ... gets me hot to look at it ... I know he's in a room just like this ... waiting ... there's a smell in the room, his smell ... I can smell what's going to happen ... naked with animal masks ... demon masks ... I'm naked but I don't have a mask. We are standing on a stage ... translucent noose ... it's squirming like a snake ... Jerry is led in naked by a twin sister ... can't hardly tell them apart. There's a red haze over everything, and the smell—' The kid whimpered and squirmed and rubbed his crotch. 'She's tying his hands behind him with a red scarf ... she's got the noose around his neck ... It's growing into him ... his cock is coming up and he gets red all over right down to his toenails—we call it a red-on....' Adam giggled. 'The platform falls out from under him and he's hanging there kicking. He goes off three times in a row. His twin sister is catching the seed in a bottle. It's going to grow....' The boy opened his eyes and looked uncertainly at Dimitri, who shook his head in mild reproof.

'You still think all this happened, Adam?'

'Well, sure, Doctor, I remember it.'

'You remember dreams too. Your story has been checked and found to be without factual foundation. This was hardly necessary since you have been under constant surveillance since your arrival in Athens. The heroin you were taking has been analyzed. It contains certain impurities which can cause a temporary psychosis with just such bizarre hallucinations as you describe. We were looking for the wholesalers who were distributing this poisonous heroin. We have them now. The case is closed. I advise you to forget all about it. You will be released tomorrow. The consulate has arranged for you to work your way home on a freighter.'

The boy was led away by a white-coated attendant.

'What about the other witnesses, who wore masks?' I asked Dimitri.

'I surmised that they would be eligible for immediate disposal. A charter plane for London leaving Athens the day after the ritual murder crashed in Yugoslavia. There were no survivors. I checked the passenger list with my police contacts in England. Seven of the passengers belonged to a Druid cult suspected of robbing graves and performing black-magic rituals with animal sacrifices. One of the animals allegedly sacrificed was a horse. Such an act is considerably more shocking to the British sensibility than human sacrifice.'

'They sacrificed a horse?'

'It's an old Scythian practice. A naked youth mounts the horse, slits its throat