You wanted to sound me out. Then you tried to block me."

"You had a reputation as a persistent young man," he said. "Things were piling up."

"Things? Don't you mean bodies?"

"There's no need to be melodramatic." He talked like a Disneyland android: flat, without inflection, devoid of self - doubt.

"I'm not trying to be. It's just that multiple murder still gets to me. The Nemeth boy. Handler. Elena Gutierrez. Morry Bruno. Now, Bonita Quinn and good old Ronnie Lee."

At the mention of the last name he gave a small, but noticeable start.

"Ronnie Lee's death bother you, in particular?"

"I'm not familiar with that name. That's all."

"Ronnie Lee Quinn. Bonita's ex. Melody's father. R.L. A blond fellow, tall, crazy - looking, with a bad left side. Hemiparesis. With McCaffrey's southern accent it may have sounded like he was calling him Earl."

"Ah," he said, pleased that things made sense once again, "Earl. Disgusting fellow. Unwashed. I remember meeting him once or twice."

"Piss - poor protoplasm, right?"

"If you will."

"He was one of McCaffrey's bad guys from Mexico, brought back to do a dirty job or two. Probably wanted to see his kid, so McCaffrey found her and Bonita for him. Then it dawned on him how she could fit in. She was a bright one, Bonita, wasn't she? Probably thought you were Santa Claus when you got her the job managing Minassian's building."

"She was appreciative," said Towle.

"You were doing her a big favor. You set her up so you could have access to Handler's apartment. She's the manager, she gets a master key. Then the next time she's in the office for Melody's checkup, she 'loses' her purse. It's easy to do, the lady's a scatterbrain. She didn't have it together. That's what your office girl told me. Always losing things. Meanwhile you lift the key and McCaffrey's monsters can get in whenever they want - look for tapes, do a little smashing and hacking. No sweat off poor Bonita's back, except when she becomes expendable and ends up as food for next season's zucchini crop. A dull woman. More piss - poor protoplasm."

"It wasn't supposed to happen that way. That wasn't in the plan."

"You know how it is, the best - laid plans and all that."

"You're a sarcastic young man. I hope you aren't that way with your patients."

"Ronnie Lee finishes off Bonita - he may have done it because McCaffrey told him to, or perhaps it was just settling an old score. But now McCaffrey has to get rid of Ronnie Lee, too, because fiend that he is, even he may balk at watching his own daughter die."

"You're very bright, Alex," he said. "But the sarcasm really is an unattractive trait."

"Thanks for the advice. I know you're an expert on bedside manner."

"As a matter of fact, I am. I pride myself on it. Obtain early rapport with the child and family no matter how disparate your background may be from theirs. That's the first step in delivering good care. It's what I instruct the first - year students when I proctor the pediatric section of Introduction to Clinical Medicine."

"Fascinating."

"The students give me excellent ratings on my teaching. I'm an excellent teacher."

I exerted forward pressure with the .38. His silver hair parted but he didn't flinch. I smelled his hair tonic, cloves and lime.

"Start the car and pull it to the side of the road. Just behind that giant eucalyptus."

The Lincoln rumbled and rolled, then stopped.

"Turn off the engine."

"Don't be rude," he said. "There's no need to try to intimidate me."

"Turn it off, Will."

"Doctor Towle."

"Doctor Towle."

"Is it necessary to keep that thing at the back of my head?"

"I'll ask the questions."

"It seems needless - superfluous. This isn't some cheap Western movie."

"It's worse. The blood is real and nobody gets up and walks away when the smoke clears."

"More melodrama. Mellow drama. Strange phrase."

"Stop playing around," I said angrily.

"Playing? Are we playing? I thought only children played. Jump rope, Hopscotch." His voice rose in pitch.

"Grownups play too," I said. "Nasty games."

"Games. Games help the child maintain ego integrity. I read that somewhere - Erikson? Piaget?"

Either Kruger wasn't the only actor in the family or something was happening that I hadn't been prepared for… "Anna Freud," I whispered.

"Yes. Anna. Fine woman. Would have loved to meet her, but both of us so busy… Pity… The ego must maintain integrity. At all costs." He was silent for a minute, then: "These seats need cleaning. I see spots on the leather. They make a good leather cleaner now… I saw it at the car wash."

"Melody Quinn," I said, trying to reel him back in. "We need to save her."

"Melody. Pretty girl. A pretty girl is like a melody. Pretty little child. Almost familiar…"

I talked to him but he kept fading away. Minute by minute he regressed, the rambling growing progressively more incoherent and out of context, so that at his worst, he was emitting word salad. He seemed to be suffering, the aristocratic face crowded with pain. Every few minutes he repeated the phrase, "The ego must maintain integrity," as if it was a catechism.

I needed him to get into La Casa but in his present state he was useless. I started to panic. His hands remained on the steering wheel but they trembled.

"Pills," he said.

"Where?"

"Pocket…"

"Go ahead," I said, not without suspicion, "reach in and get them. The pills and nothing else. Don't take too many."

"No… two pills… recommended dosage… never more… nevermore… quoth the raven… nevermore…"

"Get them."

I kept the gun trained on him. He lowered one hand and drew out a vial not unlike the one that had held Melody's Ritalin. Carefully he shook out two white tablets, closed the vial and put it down.

"Water?" he asked, childlike.

"Take them dry."

"I shall… nuisance."

He swallowed the pills.

Kruger had been right. He was good at adjusting dosages. Within twelve minutes on my watch he was looking and sounding much better. I thought of the strain he underwent each day maintaining himself in the public eye. No doubt talking about the murders had hastened the deterioration.

"Silly of me to miss… the afternoon dose. Never forget."

I observed him with morbid fascination, watching the changes in his speech and behavior as the psychoactive chemicals took hold of his central nervous system, making note of the gradually increasing attention span, the diminishing non sequiturs, the restoration of adult conversational patterns. It was like peering into a microscope and watching a primitive organism mitose into something far more complex.

When the drug was still in its initial stage he said:

"I've done many… bad things. Gus had me do bad things. Very wrong for a… man of my stature. For someone of my breeding."

I let it pass.

Eventually he was lucid. Alert, seemingly undamaged.

"What is it, Thorazine?" I asked him.

"A variant. I've managed my own pharmacologic care for some time now. Tried a number of the phenothiazines Thorizine was good but it made me too drowsy. Couldn't have that while conducting physicals… Wouldn't want to drop a baby. No, nothing like that. Dreadful, drop an infant. This is a new agent, far superior to the others. Experimental. Sent to me by the manufacturer. Just write away for samples, use M.D. after the name, no need to justify or explain. They're more than happy to oblige… I have a healthy supply. Must take the afternoon dose, though, or everything gets confused - that's what happened, isn't it?"

"Yes. How long does it take to kick in?"

"In a man my size twenty to twenty - five minutes - remarkable, isn't it? Pop, down the hatch, wait, and the picture tube regains clarity. Life is so much more bearable. Things hurt so much less. Even now I feel it working, like muddy waters turning crystalline. Where were we?"