described those feelings to me years before he had hooked up with Chancellor.
'Where do you get that? I don't buy it.'
'It comes up consistently in research studies.'
'What kind of research?'
'Case histories, surveys.'
'Which means they tell you and you believe them?'
'Basically.'
'Maybe they're lying, trying to justify their deviance as some inborn thing. Psychologists don't know what causes queerness, do they?'
'No.'
'So much for science. I'll go with my nose, and my nose tells me he's a mixed-up kid who got led down the wrong road by a pervert.'
I didn't debate him.
'How did he and Chancellor meet?'
'At a party,' he said with a strange intensity, removing his glasses. Suddenly he was on his feet, rubbing his eyes. 'I guess I was wrong, Doctor. I am feeling pooped out. Some other time, okay?'
I gathered up my notes, put my glass down, and rose.
'Fair enough. When's a good time?'
'I have no idea. Call my girl, and she'll set it up.'
He walked me to the door quickly. I thanked him for his time, and he acknowledged it absently, casting a sidelong glance at the bar. I knew with almost clairvoyant certainty that the moment I was gone he'd head straight for the scotch.
A FERRARI Dino had stalled at Westwood and Wilshire. Two middle-aged beachboys in shorts and tank tops struggled to push it to the side of the boulevard, ignoring uptilted fingers and blaring horns and turning the afternoon traffic to sludge. Sitting in the Seville, I mulled over the interview with Cadmus and decided it had yielded meagre pickings. Too much time had been spent dealing with his defensiveness, not enough on substance; a host of topics hadn't even been broached. I wondered what secrets he was labouring to conceal - it's the ones with the most to hide who build psychic fortresses - and lacking a ready answer. I decided to pursue other avenues before approaching him again.
The Dino finally reached the kerb, and the automotive snarl untangled gradually. At the first opportunity I turned left and cut through the side streets of Westwood until I reached Sunset. Five minutes later I was home.
An envelope from a Beverly Hills messenger service was in the mailbox along with a lot of junk. Inside the envelope
was a cheque for five thousand dollars and a note to call someone named Bradford Balch in Souza's office.
The unproductive interview and the zeroes on the cheque combined to make me feel uneasy. I'd accepted Souza's offer with ambivalence that had never dissipated. Now the doubts rose within me like a rain-swelled river.
I'd developed a rationale for my interviews: By knowing Jamey's past, I'd be able to understand and somehow to help him. I'd believed it when I said it, but now the words seemed hollow. Although history can provide the comfort of hindsight, by itself it seldom unravels the mystery of madness. I wondered if I would ever accumulate enough knowledge to comprehend his deterioration truly, and -more important - if I did, to what use could the knowledge be put? Playing retroprophet, as Souza wanted? Using my doctorate to coat sorcery with a veneer of science?
Even the most brilliant psychiatrist or psychologist who abandons scientific rigour to step into the bog of speculation called diminished capacity can be made to look like a complete idiot on the witness stand by a prosecutor of only moderate capabilities. Yet there's no shortage of psychiatrists and psychologists willing to subject themselves to this type of humiliation. Some are whores, purchased for the day, but most are honourable men and women who've been seduced into believing they're mind readers. I'd always viewed their testimony as - institutionalised quackery, but now I was in danger of joining their ranks.
I couldn't take an oath and say anything definitive about Jamey's state of mind a week, a day, or even a minute ago. No one could.
What the hell had I got myself into?
I knew right then, as I'd known deep down from the beginning, that Souza wouldn't get what he wanted from me. Although I'd made him no promises, I had left the door open for collaboration, and continuing the pretence would be manipulative - his type of game, not mine. I'd have to deal with it soon, but not yet. I simply wasn't ready - out of compulsiveness, sentimentality, or guilt - to walk away from the case, from Jamey.
I stood there, pondering my options, folding and unfolding the cheque until it began to look like abstract origami. Finally I reached a compromise of sorts: I'd finish my interviews, knowing all the while that I was working for myself, but not take the money. Placing the cheque back into its envelope, I went into the library and locked it in a desk drawer. When the time was right, I'd give it back.
I realised suddenly that the house was hot and stuffy. Slipping out of my clothes, I put on running shorts, threw open some windows, and got a Grolsch out of the refrigerator. Bottle in hand, I called Bradford Balch, who turned out to be one of Souza's associates. He sounded like a young man, overly eager, with a high, nervous voice.
'Uh, yes, Doctor, Mr. Souza asked me to call to let you know that the police have approved your visit to the Chancellor estate. Do you still want to go?'
'Yes.'
'All right then. Please be there tomorrow morning at nine.'
He gave me the address, thanked me for calling, and hung up.
I thought about the phone call. It was the first time Souza hadn't called me directly, and I knew why.
For the past week he'd wooed me like an NBA scout pursuing a lightning-reflexed, eight-foot teenager- flattery, the chauffeured Rolls, lunch in his private dining room, and, most important, casting aside the usual crush of underlings and remaining personally accessible. He'd wanted me on his team, but on his terms: He was the captain, and I was supposed to know my place. My insistence upon seeing the murder site had been a bit of unwelcome independence, and although he'd gone along with it, he'd made sure to express his disapproval by having a subordinate deliver the message.
Subtle but pointed. It gave me a small taste of what it would be like to be on his bad side.
When the smog is especially heavy in Southern California, the terrain takes on the illusory look of a photograph shot through a Vaseline-smeared lens. The skies darken to grimy bronze, contours of buildings dissolve into the haze, and the vegetation assumes a malignantly fluorescent hue.
It was that kind of morning as I drove east on Sunset toward the Beverly Hills city limits. Even the grandest mansions seemed to shimmer and soften in the filthy heat, melting columns of Neapolitan ice cream garnished with marzipan palms.
The Chancellor estate sat on five million dollars' worth of acreage, on a hill north of the boulevard, overlooking the Beverly Hills Hotel. Six feet of stone wall topped with three more feet of wrought-iron bars surrounded the property. The bars terminated in gold-plated arrowhead finials that looked sharp enough to eviscerate the overly curious climber.
Arched iron gates bisected the wall. They were flung wide open and guarded by a uniformed Beverly Hills patrolman. I drove the Seville to within an inch of his outstretched palm and stopped. He walked over to the driver's side and, after I'd given him my name, stepped back and muttered into his walkie-talkie. A moment later he nodded and waved me through.
All that was immediately visible beyond the gate was a hairpin curve of gravel drive shadowed by walls of burgundy eugenias. As I rounded the curve, the eugenias gave way to low borders of white sun azaleas and the drive flattened to a broad S that cut through a rising swath of emerald lawn. At the peak of the lawn sat a Greek Revival mansion the size of a stadium - marble steps leading up to a wide colonnade; a formal reflecting pool perpendicular to the steps; strategically placed statuary, all of it celebrating the male figure. Despite the smog, the place shone blindingly white.
