complete renovation was going to take about three more minutes. I walked up to Garth and grabbed his arm. That was a mistake.
Now, I have a black belt, second Dan, in karate, and am reasonably proficient in a number of the other lesser-known martial arts; when you're a four-foot-eight-inch dwarf you develop a predilection for such things. Still, a man my size must rely on anticipation, leverage and angles, factors that don't normally spring to mind when you're merely trying to calm down your brother. Consequently, I found myself standing on my toes, Garth's hands wrapped around my neck. The whites of his eyes were marbled with red, while the dilated pupils opened up and stared at nothing, like black circles painted on canvas by a bad artist.
I knew I had only a few seconds to act. At the least, I could very well end up with a cracked larynx; at worst, there was the very real possibility I was going to end up as one dead dwarf, killed by my own brother. I didn't like the options.
I was floating in an airless void, Garth's features spinning before my eyes. I extended my arms, then drove my thumbs into the small of his back, just above the kidneys. That didn't do much except make him blink. I smashed my stiffened fingers up into the nerve clusters in his armpits. The animal that Garth had become grunted; his grip loosened, but it was nothing to cheer about; I still couldn't breathe. Finally I raised one hand up between his arms and poked at his larynx. Garth gasped and his hands came loose. I collapsed to my knees, my lungs sobbing for air. I managed to reach the shattered chair at the opposite end of the room. I grabbed one of the broken chair legs and spun around, prepared to bounce the splintered wood off my brother's skull. It wasn't necessary. Garth was leaning against my desk, staring uncomprehendingly at his hands. His face had changed color like a traffic light, from a brilliant crimson to a sickly yellow-white. His gaze slowly shifted to where I was poised like a statue, my improvised club raised in the air.
'Mongo. .' Garth's voice was a muffled whisper of pain.
'I hope you feel better,' I said, trying to sound sardonic. It didn't come out that way. It was hard for me to sound sardonic with a bruised voice box that felt as if it had been pushed back somewhere in the vicinity of my spinal column.
Garth's lips moved, but no sound came out. He was across the room in four quick strides, trying to lift me up in his arms. Enough is enough-I pushed him away with the chair leg. I was building up a little anger of my own, but it vanished as the door suddenly opened. The man who stepped into the room was of medium height, with close- cropped, warm-yellow hair that tended to clash with his cold gray eyes. I wondered if he dyed his hair.
Garth glanced at the man, then quickly turned back to me. His face was a pleading exclamation mark as he shook his head. The movement was almost imperceptible, but I thought I'd received the message.
'Who the hell are you?' I said to the man in the doorway.
Oddly enough, my voice sounded quite normal, with just the right seasoning of surprise. It hurt only when I swallowed.
'Name's Boise,' the man said, surveying the damage. 'I came looking for my partner here. Saw your name on the directory down in the lobby. Didn't know Garth had a brother.'
Or that the brother was a dwarf, judging from his expression. I knew that look from scores of experiences with potential but unsuspecting clients. I didn't like it. Boise wasn't exactly getting off on the right foot with me.
'Garth doesn't feel well,' I said. 'Why don't you tell MacGregor I've taken him home? I'll call in later and let him know how Garth is.'
Boise didn't move. 'What happened?'
'I'm redecorating.'
'Must be expensive,' Boise said without smiling.
'Look, Boise,' Garth said tightly, turning to face the other man, 'my brother's right. I can't cut it the rest of the day. Cover for me, okay? I'll be in tomorrow.'
Boise glanced once more at the wreckage of the room, then shrugged and walked out into the corridor. A few moments later I heard the whine of the elevator and Boise was gone.
'Where'd you pick him up?'
'We were assigned as a team for a case I've been working on,' Garth said without looking at me. He had begun to tremble. 'I don't know why. Look, get me out of here, will you?'
I went to the desk, took out Garth's gun and slipped it into my own pocket. Garth didn't object. He wheeled and walked out to the elevator ahead of me. I glanced at the clock as I closed the door. Less than ten minutes had passed from the time Garth had walked into my office. It struck me that Boise was a very impatient man.
'Where are you taking me?'
'I don't want you to think I'm being touchy,' I said, guiding my compact out of the parking garage and into the cacophony of New York's midmorning vehicular insanity. 'Still, the fact remains that you did try to kill me back there, and I don't even owe you money.' I glanced sideways. Garth's face was stony, his eyes fixed straight ahead. 'You knew enough to dump the gun,' I said seriously. 'That was smart, but a man doesn't do something like that just because he's feeling a little annoyed. I saw you get out of that car. You looked like Lon Chaney Junior running from a full moon. You climbed right out of your tree, and my guess is that it's not the first time something like this has happened. It's happened before, and you've done nothing about it. That's not so smart. It doesn't take a master detective like myself to figure out that you need a vacation-a long one-and some medical attention. I know a good shrink who teaches up at the-'
'Pull over a minute, will you?'
I debated with myself for a few moments, decided there was no sense in possibly provoking another attack, and pulled over to double-park beside a No Standing sign.
'You're right,' Garth said, still staring straight ahead of him. 'It has happened before-four times in the past three weeks. Each time it gets worse. I can't think of any words to tell you how sorry I am about what happened back in your office, so I'm not even going to try. But I am telling you I can't go to a hospital or see a shrink. Not yet.'
'Like hell!'
Garth shook his head. Still, he remained calm. There was no sign of the terrible rage that had wracked him just a few short minutes before, but my neck still hurt. 'Look,' Garth said quietly, 'you yourself said I knew what was happening. I know I need rest, and I'm going to take it. You can take me to anyone you want, and I'll cooperate fully, but just give me four days.'
'What happens in four days?'
'I have to testify before the grand jury-with Boise. I have to be there. It's very important.'
I grunted and slammed the car into gear. Garth reached out and touched my arm. I tensed, ready to drop him, but his touch was very gentle. 'Just listen, Mongo.' I put the gears in neutral but left the engine running. 'Have you ever heard of anethombolin?'
I'd seen the word somewhere but couldn't place it. I said so.
'Anethombolin is a hormone produced naturally in the body under certain conditions,' Garth continued. 'Recently it was synthesized. Among other things, anethombolin may provide a cure for asthma, male infertility, high blood pressure and a host of other ailments. It also induces spontaneous abortions, and that's what makes it potentially worth millions. I say 'potentially' because, so far, nobody has come up with a way to control certain very unpleasant side effects. A New York laboratory named Whalen Research Associates has spent a lot of money trying to find ways to neutralize those side effects, and they've developed a lot of patents along the way. With the liberalized abortion laws, you can see what a drug like this would mean to some people here in this country, not to mention its value to the governments of underdeveloped, overpopulated nations like India. Because a lot of the work was government-financed, agreements were made that would provide for controlled, low-cost distribution. Those agreements go out the window if some
'A few months ago an outfit calling itself Zwayle Labs announced that it was on the verge of developing synthetic anethombolin fit for human consumption. Whalen claimed that Zwayle couldn't possibly have done the work without violating one or more of the patents Whalen holds-in other words, industrial espionage. A secret investigation was ordered, the results to be presented to a grand jury. I pulled the case, and Boise was assigned as my partner because he'd worked on similar cases before. We started the preliminary undercover work and
