It takes maybe a week, no more, when Teddy shows up with a notebook full of stuff he's written down. He's got the names of all the guys Willie Brevoort had a meet with during the week and where they work.
Don't ask me how Teddy does it. I told you he was good, didn't I? But anyway, none of the men Willie met work at Mcwhortle Laboratory, so we got zip there.
'But here's something cute, Mr. Gurk,' Teddy says. 'This Willie putz likes to do drag. He belongs to a private club where the guys all wear women's clothes.'
'No shit? ' I says, 'You know, I always thought he might be a flit.
He dresses too good.'
'I'm not sure he's a flit,' Teddy says.' He's got two broads on the string.'
'Two?' I says. 'I know one of them. Laura Gunther. I paid her to pump Willie, but so far she's come up with zilch. Who's the other twist?'
Teddy puts on wire-rimmed cheaters and looks in his notebook.
'Her name's Jessica Fiddler. A real pretty blonde. Looks like a high-class hooker. That's all I got on her.'
'Teddy,' I says, 'we're getting nowhere fast. Well, let's give it some more time. Keep on Brevoort's ass, there's still a chance he might meet with the Mcwhortle chemist. And while you're at it, see what you can dig up on the blond hooker.'
He comes back to me two days later.
'This Jessica Fiddler…' he says. 'Just for kicks I called Hymie Rourke in Miami Beach. He's been in the skin game all his life and knows every pro in South Florida. He made this Fiddler dame right away.
She used to dance in a nudie club in Miami and then quit to free-lance at the convention hotels.
Rourke says he hasn't seen her around for at least a couple of years.'
'That's inarresting,' I says. 'I wonder if she's hustling up here.' , 'If she is,' Teddy says, 'she's making out like gangbusters because she owns her own home.'
'That don't sound kosher,' I says. 'You can't buy a house from turning tricks in this burg.'
'I went out there,' Teddy says. 'Good neighborhood. I talked to an old lady who lives across the street and likes to watch her neighbors more than she likes to watch television. I told her I was a private dick working for a married woman who thought her husband was cheating with Jessica Fiddler and wanted to get evidence for a divorce.
'Well, the old bitch wouldn't talk until I slipped her fifty bucks for an outfit she belongs to. It's called SOS, for Save Our Salmon. Then she tells me Fiddler has two guys who visit her maybe two or three times a week. They both drive big cars, one silver, one white. I figure the silver is Willie Brevoort. He owns a silver Infiniti. I don't know who drives the white.'
'So what do we do now, Teddy?'
'I want to get inside Fiddler's house to look around. I'll use a con that's worked for me before. I got a fake ID with my picture on it.
It says I'm from the property tax appraiser's office, and I tell her I want to come inside for a little while just to count the rooms.'
'Slick,' I says.
'It's always worked,' Teddy says. 'But if she wants to check me out, I'm going to give her your phone number. Will you be here at noon tomorrow?'
'Sure,' I says. 'What do I do?', 'Just tell her it's the property tax appraiser's office, and yes, John R. Thompson is a legit appraiser.
That's the name on my fake ID.'
'Got it,' I says.
The next day my phone rings about five minutes after twelve.
I pick it up and says, 'Property tax appraiser's office.'
A woman asks, 'Have you got a John R. Thompson working for you?'
'Oh, yes, ma'am,' I says. 'One of our best appraisers.
He's been with us seventeen years now.'
'Thank you very much,' she says, and hangs up. Teddy O. comes strolling into my office about an hour later.
'It went like silk,' he reports. 'That's a nice place she's got there.
Two bedrooms and a swimming pool. And the furniture didn't come from the Salvation Army.'
'Find out anything?'
'Yeah. She's got like a jillion jars and bottles in her bedroom and bathroom. They look like perfumes and lotions and makeup stuff – Most of them have plain white labels on them that just say Mcwhortle Laboratory with a code number.'
'Son of a bitch!'
'So I says to the Fiddler broad, You must like perfume.' And she says, Free samples. From my boyfriend.' I look at him. 'How do you figure it, Teddy?'
'I'm guessing the boyfriend is the guy in the white car.
He's the chemist at Mcwhortle Laboratory you been looking for.
Willie Brevoort isn't getting his information from the chemist, he's getting it from Jessica Fiddler.'
I think about that awhile. 'Yeah,' I says, 'that makes sense. She pumps the chemist and sells Willie everything the guy tells her.' , 'That's how I see it.'
'So all we gotta do is find out who's driving the white car.
Once we do that, we can offer him a piece of change for the ZAP pill.
And if that don't work, you can lean on him.'
'What if I can't find out who's driving the white car?
'Then you can lean on Jessica Fiddler.'
'I'd like that,' Teddy says. he development of Cuddle was taking more time Tand effort than I had anticipated.
As a professional perfumer, I have always believed that scents have the ability to alter moods. But now I was working on a fragrance that would, if successful, alter behavior. And I found that prospect somewhat disturbing.
I was familiar with pheromones, of course, those chemical substances secreted by animals that have the power to alter behavior of other animals of the same species. It seemed to me that in developing Cuddle I was attempting to create a human pheromone, and I wasn't certain of what the final effect might be.
During our drive to the laboratory one morning in August, I asked Gregory Barrow if he had ever worked with psychoactive drugs that affected behavior and personality. I think the question startled him.
'I've had limited experience,' he said. 'Why do you ask?' , 'I was wondering if you had any strong feelings about them, for or against.'
'I think they can be a benefit,' he said carefully, when properly used.'
'But you see nothing ethically wrong in psychochemicals per se?'
'No,' he said. 'If drugs can be used to alleviate physical pain and treat human disease, I see no reason why they shouldn't be used to ease mental pain and psychic disorders. If a drug was developed to cure or control schizophrenia, for instance, how could one possibly object to it.'
'I suppose you're right,' I said doubtfully. 'But drugs that alter behavior and personality make me a little uneasy. It's like playing God, isn't it?'
'So is prescribing aspirin,' he said.
'I'm not doing a very good job of explaining what I mean,' I said.
'What about things like marijuana, LSD, heroin, and cocaine. They affect mood, behavior, personality. Would you defend them?'
'Of course not. They can be psychologically or physiologically addictive and do a great deal of harm. But psychochemicals that benefit the subject, that enable him or her to function as a normal human being, are certainly defensible.'
I looked at him. 'What is a normal human being?' I asked.
'Please define.'
He gave me a half-smile, but he didn't answer.
