An Affair Of Sorcerers

me the weekend-almost. I went to the 42nd Street library and checked through the newspaper files for more information on the murder of Dr. Robert Samuels, but there wasn't anything important in the papers that I hadn't already learned from Janet and Senator Younger. I took a workout at the New York Athletic Club, cooked in the sauna for a half hour, then went to a movie.

I was in the middle of the Sunday Times Arts and Leisure section when Winston Kellogg called me.

'Good morning, Mongo,' Kellogg said in his clipped British accent that ten years of living in Boston had done nothing to alter. 'I have some information for you.'

'I said inexpensive snooping, Winston; not haphazard. What the hell can you find out about a man in a day and a half, on the weekend?'

'Oh, you'd be surprised,' Winston said, a faint trace of hurt in his voice.

'Try me,' I said drily, activating my desk recorder and fastening the suction-cup attachment to the telephone receiver.

'Well, after my first lead, the best information I got was from contacts I have in New York and L.A. Very colorful stuff.' He sniffed. 'You will pay for my phone calls, I trust?'

'C'mon, Winston. For Christ's sake, I'll pay for the calls. And I apologize for questioning the quality of your investigation. Okay?'

'Very well,' he said archly. 'First of all, Smathers was eased out of Harvard because he insisted on continuing a research program the administration didn't approve of. He was into something called sensory deprivation.'

'It doesn't surprise me. Look, Winston; keep on digging. You can even spend some-'

'Hey, wait a minute! I haven't gotten to the juicy parts yet.'

Rumors. I felt my stomach muscles tighten. 'Go ahead.' I said quietly.

'Your man's a chicken hawk.'

'Jesus,' I whispered. 'He likes boys?'

'Oh, not just boys. He likes little girls too; and big boys and big girls. He may like goats and sheep, for all I know. He doesn't seem to have any particular preference.'

'A real swordsman, huh?'

'That's what I'm told. One of my police sources tells me that Smathers' name turned up on a list of a very select clientele for one of the kinkiest cathouses you've ever heard of. I'll bet it beats anything you've got in New York. Anyway, the man's got some far-out sexual tastes; kids, necrophilia-you name it and he's probably tried it.'

'Winston,' I said softly, 'are you serious?'

'Yes, Mongo, I'm afraid I am. You'll be getting my report-and some interesting photostats-in the mail. None of this stuff I'm giving you ever made the papers because of Smathers' reputation in the scientific community; he was protected. It seems he's a specialist in kinky behavior-but he's a goddamn weirdo himself. Watch yourself, my friend; I don't know how he feels about dwarfs.'

Kellogg gave me some more particulars while I sat and listened, my eyes closed, breathing rapid with tension and distaste. When he'd finished, I thanked him and hung up. I took the tape off the machine and locked it in the small safe I kept in the apartment. Then I took a hot bath; I felt dirty.

On the spur of the moment, I decided to clean out my head by spending the afternoon reading poetry and listening to Medieval music at The Cloisters. When I passed 4D, I suddenly remembered that I had a third client, of sorts-one who'd hired me for fifty-seven cents. With luck, I hoped I could get that matter out of the way fast. I'd ring the bell, look for an invitation from Marlowe for coffee-and hope that Kathy would tell me it had all been a joke and demand her money back. I decided I'd keep a nickel just to teach her a lesson.

If the fear was still in Kathy's eyes, I'd ask Marlowe to let me take his daughter to the movies. One way or another, I hoped to find out what was on the little girl's mind.

The exercise was wasted; there was no one home. I spent the afternoon at The Cloisters, then went down to the Village in the evening to play chess.

Someone was calling my name. It was a child's voice, crying and terrified, a small wave lapping at the shore of my consciousness.

Suddenly I was running down a long tunnel, slipping and falling on its soft, rubbery surface as I struggled to reach the small, frail figure at the other end. Kathy's image seemed to recede with each step I took, and still I ran. She was dressed in a long, flowing white gown buttoned to the neck and covered with strange, twisted shapes. Then time blinked and she was before me. As I started to reach out for her, Kathy burst into flame.

I sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat. My first reaction was an immense surge of relief when I realized I had only been dreaming. Then came terror as I smelled smoke.

Or thought I smelled smoke. Part of the dream? I started to reach for my cigarettes, then froze: there was smoke coming from somewhere. I leaped out of bed and quickly searched the apartment, but could find nothing burning. I yanked open the door of the apartment and stepped out into the hall.

Smoke was seeping from beneath the door of Frank Marlowe's apartment.

I sprinted to the end of the hall and broke the firebox there, then ran back and tried the door to 4D. It was locked, and I didn't waste time knocking. I braced against the opposite wall, ran two steps forward, doubled up in the air and kicked out at the door, just above the lock. The door rattled on its hinges. I picked myself up off the floor and repeated the process. This time the door sprang open.

The first thing that hit me was the stench. The inside of Marlowe's apartment was filled with thick, greenish smoke and smelled like a sewer. There was a bright, furnace glow to my right, coming from the bedroom. I started toward it, then stopped when I saw Kathy lying on the couch. What she was wearing filled me with a different kind of terror; despite what seemed to be the vivid reality of the stench and heat, I was certain I had to be in my bed, still asleep.

Kathy was clothed in the same gown I'd seen in the dream.

I screwed my eyes shut, shouted at the top of my lungs and drove my left heel into my right shin. My voice sounded real, pain shot through my ankle-and Kathy was still lying unconscious on the couch when I opened my eyes.

The child was the only reality that mattered, and I pushed the dream dilemma out of my mind as I bent over her and put my ear to her chest. Her breathing seemed normal and her heartbeat was regular, but she was completely unconscious, not responsive to either my voice or my touch. I gathered her up in my arms and carried her out into the hall. I gently laid her down on the worn carpet, then hurried back into the apartment.

There was nothing I could do there. Covering my mouth and nose with a handkerchief, wincing against the furnace heat, I stood at the entrance to the bedroom and gazed in horror at the bed, which had become a funeral pyre. The naked, shriveling body of Frank Marlowe was barely discernible inside a deadly ring of greenish-white fire that was burning too bright, too steady, to be a normal blaze. It was a chemical fire.

Back out in the hall, I checked Kathy's vital signs again. They remained steady, but her eyes, when I lifted her lids, were glassy and unseeing. I shouted at one of the stunned onlookers to keep everybody away from her, then sprinted back to my apartment and threw on some clothes. The fire department still hadn't arrived by the time I got back. Ambulance service being what it is in New York City, I picked Kathy up in my arms and carried her down to the underground parking garage. I laid her across the back seat of my Volkswagen, then raced to the university Medical Center, horn blaring all the way. She was immediately admitted through Emergency, and I nervously sat down to wait.

A few hours later a young black doctor emerged from the inner sanctum. 'Excuse me, Doctor,' I said, grabbing his sleeve. 'How's the little girl? Kathy Marlowe?'

The doctor was frail and walked with a slight limp. He had thick, curly black hair and large brownish-black eyes that weren't yet glazed over by the endless pain one encounters in a New York City hospital. His flesh tone was a glistening ebony. The name tag on his white-smock identified him as Dr. Joshua Greene. At the moment, he looked somewhat surprised to see a dwarf standing in front of him.

'Who're you?'