When The Bough Breaks

"I'm glad he's dead! There, I've said it! It's what I thought the first time I read about it in the paper."

"But you didn't do it."

"Of course not. I couldn't. I run from evil, I don't embrace it!"

"We'll talk to Mrs. Heatherington, Roy."

"Yes. Ask her about the nachos and the wine - I believe it was Gallo Hearty Burgundy. And there was fruit punch with slices of orange floating in it, too. In a cut glass bowl. And one of the women got sick on the floor at the end. I helped mop it up - "

"Thanks, Roy. You can go now."

"Yes. I will."

He turned around like a robot, a thin figure in a short blue druggist's smock, and walked into Thrifty's.

"He's dispensing drugs?" I asked, incredulous.

"If he's not in some whacko file he should be." Milo pocketed his notepad and we walked to the car. "He look like a psychopath to you?"

"Not unless he's the best actor on the face of the earth. Schizoid, withdrawn. Pre - schizophrenic, if anything."

"Dangerous?"

"Who knows? Put him up against enough stress and he might blow. But I'd judge him more likely to go the hermit route - curl up in bed, play with himself, wither, stay that way for a decade or two while Mommy propped his pillows."

"If that story about the Icarts is true it sheds some light on our beloved victim."

"Handler? A real Dr. Schweitzer."

"Yeah," said Milo. "The kind of guy someone might want dead."

We got on Coldwater Canyon before it clogged with the cars of commuters returning to their homes in the Valley, and made it to Burbank by half past four.

Presto Instant Print was one of scores of gray concrete edifices that filled the industrial park near the Burbank airport like so many oversized tombstones. The air smelled toxic and the flatulent roar of jets shattered the sky at regular intervals. I wondered about the life expectancy of those who spent their daylight hours here.

Maurice Bruno had come up in the world since his file had been compiled. He was now a vice - president, in charge of sales. He was also unavailable, we were told by his secretary, a lissome brunette with arched eyebrows and a mouth meant for saying no.

"Then give me his boss," barked Milo. He shoved his badge under her nose. We were both hot and tired and discouraged. The last place we wanted to be stalled was Burbank.

"That would be Mr. Gershman," she said as if discovering some new insight.

"Then that would be who I want to talk to."

"Just one second."

She wiggled off and came back with her clone in a blond wig.

"I'm Mr. Gershman's secretary," the clone announced.

It must be the poison in the air, I decided. It caused brain damage, eroded the cerebral cortex to the point where simple facts took on an aura of profundity.

Milo took a deep breath.

"We'd like to talk with Mr. Gershman."

"May I inquire what it's about?"

"No, you may not. Bring us to Gershman now."

"Yes, sir." The two secretaries looked at each other. Then the brunette pushed a buzzer and the blonde led us through double glass doors into an enormous production area filled with machines that chomped, stamped, bit, snarled, and smeared. A few people hung around the periphery of the rabid steel monsters, dull - eyed, loose - jawed, breathing in fumes that reeked of alcohol and acetone. The noise, alone, was enough to kill you.

She made a sudden left, probably hoping to lose us to the maws of one of the behemoths, but we hung on, following the movement of her swaying butt until we came to another set of double doors. These she pushed and let go, forcing Milo to fall forward to catch them. A short corridor, another set of doors, and we were confronted by silence so complete as to be overwhelming.

The executive suite at Presto Instant Print might have been on another planet. Plush, plum - colored carpets that you had to bargain with in order to re claim your ankles, walls paneled in real walnut. Large doors of walnut burl with names made of brass letters tastefully centered on the wood. And silence.

The blonde stopped at the end of the hall, in front of an especially large door with especially tasteful gold letters that said Arthur M. Gershman, President. She let us into a waiting room the size of an average house, motioned us to sit in chairs that looked and felt like unbaked bread dough. Settling behind her desk, a contraption of plexiglass and rosewood that afforded the world a perfect view of her legs, she pushed a button on a console that belonged at NASA Control Center, moved her lips a bit, nodded, and stood up again.

"Mr. Gershman will see you now."

The inner sanctum was as expected - the size of a cathedral, decorated like something conceived in the pages of Architectural Digest, softly lit and comfortable but hard - edged enough to keep you awake - but the man behind the desk was a complete surprise.