“Sure,” Lou said. He was puzzled and elated at the same time. “Come on down.”
Laurie hung up the phone, grabbed her briefcase, opened it, threw in some half-finished records, snapped it shut, snatched her coat, and literally ran down to the elevator.
A slight rain was falling as she stepped out onto First Avenue. She despaired of catching a cab, but as luck would have it, one pulled up to the curb and let off a passenger right in front of her. Laurie got in before the passenger had a chance to close the door.
Never having been to New York City police headquarters, Laurie was surprised to find it a relatively modern brick structure. Entering the front entrance, she had to sign in while a security person called up to Lou to make sure she was expected. Then they went through her briefcase. Armed with a visitor’s pass and directions, she found his office. Like the entire building, it reeked of cigarette smoke.
“Can I take your coat?” Lou asked as she stepped inside. Lou took the coat and hung it on a coatrack. While he was doing so he caught Harvey Lawson giving him a dirty look from across the hall. Lou closed his office door.
“You sounded excited on the phone,” Lou commented as he went around behind his desk. Laurie had taken one of the two straight-backed chairs. Her briefcase was on the floor next to her.
“I need your help,” Laurie said. She was intense and obviously nervous, clutching her hands in her lap.
“Oh, really?” Lou commented. “I was hoping this excitement had something to do with dinner tonight, like you had changed your mind.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice. He was obviously disappointed.
“My “series’ has doubled,” Laurie said. “There are now twelve cases, not six.”
“That’s interesting,” Lou said flatly.
“I was hoping that you might know some way we can warn the public,” Laurie said. “I think we’re about to see a flood of these cases unless something is done, and done soon.”
“What would you have me do?” Lou asked. “Have an ad posted in The Wall Street Journal: “Yuppies, Just Say No’?”
“Lou, I’m serious,” Laurie said. “I’m truly worried about this.”
Lou sighed. He took out a cigarette and lit up.
“Must you smoke?” Laurie asked him. “I’ll only be here a few moments.”
“Jesus Christ,” Lou snapped. “It’s my office.”
“Then try to blow the smoke away, please,” Laurie said.
“I’ll ask you again,” Lou said. “What do you want me to do? You must have had something in mind if you bothered coming all the way down here.”
“No, nothing specific,” Laurie admitted. “I just thought the police narcotics squad might have some way of warning the public. Couldn’t they make some kind of announcement to the press?”
“Why doesn’t the medical examiner’s office do it?” Lou asked. “The police are around to arrest people with drugs, not help them.”
“The chief refuses to take a public stand so far. I’m sure he’ll come around, but in the meantime lives are being lost.”
Lou took a drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke over his shoulder. “What about the other medical examiners? Are they as convinced as you about this thing exploding into a glut of dead yuppies?”
“I haven’t polled them,” Laurie said.
“Don’t you think you might be a little overly sensitive about these deaths because of your brother?” Lou offered.
Laurie became enraged. “I didn’t come down here for you to play amateur psychologist. But while we’re on the subject, sure, I’m sensitive. I know how it feels to lose a loved one to drugs. But I would say that kind of empathy is a boon to my work. Maybe if a few more jaded policemen like yourself had a little more empathy, we civil servants would be in the business of saving lives instead of picking corpses’ pockets.”
Lou held his temper. “Frankly, Dr. Montgomery, I’d love to be in the lifesaving business. In fact, I already consider myself to be in the lifesaving business. But unless you furnish me with more proof as to this grand contaminant theory of yours, I’m afraid Narcotics won’t do anything more than laugh me back to Homicide.”