BC felt almost jealous as he asked the question, but when Leary shook his head and said, “She was a prostitute,” it was all he could do not to slug the man.
“What do you mean, a prostitute?”
“I only know what Morganthau told me. As near as I can tell, he made her give LSD to her johns in exchange for not having her arrested. She’s been working for him for almost a year.”
BC couldn’t believe it. Even in her emotionally fraught state, the girl had looked like anything but a prostitute— and, as well, the idea that the nephew of the former secretary of defense would have to resort to whores beggared belief. But it also coincided with what Melchior had told him on the train yesterday.
“The girl called him Logan. Was that his first name, or …?”
“We all assumed Morganthau was an alias, especially since he slipped up once and called himself Morganthal.” A little smile flickered over the doctor’s mouth, then quickly faded. “He was a little boy playing at being a spy. Logan could’ve been his real name, or just another alias.”
BC was about to ask if Leary had ever seen Melchior before, but the doctor spoke first.
“Apparently Miss Haverman’s father was what they call a CIA ‘asset.’ In Persia. He provided assistance during the revolution in ’53, but was killed during the fighting, along with her mother and the rest of her family. Naz was barely a teenager then. The CIA brought her to the States and placed her with the Havermans, a wealthy Boston family. They even went so far as to adopt her, but she had trouble fitting in. Morganthau, Logan, whatever his name was, he alluded to the idea that her adoptive father might have behaved inappropriately. She was expelled from private schools up and down the East Coast for drinking and aggressive behavior and, ah, precocity. Morganthau told me he saw her name in a file when he was hired by the Boston office and decided to check up on her. When he found her, she was living hand to mouth, exchanging sex for cash or drink or whatever she could get. He seemed to think the arrangement he created was a step up for her. That he was helping her out.” Leary shrugged. “It seemed to me he was obsessed with her. Even after he brought Chandler here, it was her he talked about. Her he was fascinated with.” The doctor looked up at BC. “Just like you.”
Even as Leary spoke, BC felt his hand in his pocket, fiddling with the ring that Melchior had left for him. It’s not just me and Logan, he thought. Melchior was also caught in Naz’s spell.
“I was going to get to Mr. Forrestal,” he said brusquely, yanking his hand from his pocket. “It’s just …” He shrugged helplessly. “I’m not really sure what to ask beyond, well, what
Despite the gravity of the situation, the smile came back to the doctor’s face, and a look of awe gleamed in his twinkling eyes.
“It’s easiest just to say it. Rippling trees. The Mezquita of Cordoba. Furniture flying across a room of its own accord. These images came from Chandler’s head. Somehow he is able to broadcast his thoughts—his hallucinations—into the minds of the people around him.”
An image of the burning boy filled BC’s brain. “But there were other things. Things that came from
If anything Leary’s smile grew bigger. “His ability seems to be related to the amount of LSD in his body. Seemed to be. Toward the end Morganthau was pumping him with thousands of times the normal dosage.”
“But Miss Haverman said he administered the drug with an eye dropper while Mr. Forrestal was sleeping. How do you get thousands of doses—”
“You have to understand, Agent … Querrey?” Leary paused just long enough to remind BC that Morganthau wasn’t the only young man who’d tried on an alias. “LSD is extraordinarily powerful. Doses are measured not in grams or milligrams but
BC shook his head in confusion. “But LSD’s been around for years. I don’t know much about it, but I know it’s been used in quite a few psychiatric trials. And I assume you’ve taken it a few times. You don’t have any mental powers, do you?”
“It’s not illegal,” Leary said quickly. “Just controlled. But no. No mental powers—yet.” He sounded almost disappointed.
“Was it just the amount?”
Leary shook his head. “I don’t think so. In fact, LSD has analeptic—stimulating—properties, and beyond a certain dosage it really should give you a heart attack. But this is the CIA. Who knows what they added to Morganthau’s LSD? Who knows if it was even LSD at all?”
“And what does all this have to do with the Gate of Orpheus?”
Leary waved his hand. “You should think of the Gate as less object or organ than metaphor. Opening it was meant to lead to higher states of consciousness, not murder.”
“You mean Morganthau?”
“Think how frightened you were yesterday. Imagine if that fear were amplified a hundred times. A thousand.”
BC shuddered. “You think Mr. Forrestal killed him? Made him kill himself? With his mind?”
“I don’t know,” Leary said. “I don’t know what happened here.” His eyes flickered to the ceiling, to the stripped bedroom above. “And my sense is that now we never will. Unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless they make another one.”
“Another—”
“Another Orpheus.”
BC just nodded his head, but what he thought was: they don’t have to make another Orpheus. Chandler Forrestal is still alive. And so was Naz, he thought, reaching for the ring in his pocket. But both of those facts could
