“Know what a sibyl-pill is?” Reedeth snarled “You ought to-you watched Lyla Clay performing here the other day.”
“Of course I do. What’s that got to do with Madison?”
“Last night he and Lyla Clay were kidnapped by a gang of bully-boys from a party of, Michaela Baxendale’s. Do you know her?”
“Oh my God,” Flamen said All the color suddenly vanished from the world.
“Seems she’d sent them out to drag in a mixed-race couple to play some kind of game with. Only it wasn’t a game. They forced one of the sibyl-pills down Madithroat and he went berserk. He wound up throwing a man out of a forty-fifth story window.”
There was a terrible silence. Eventually Flamen said feebly, “But if they were kidnapped.”
“If you’d kept your word it needn’t have happened!” Reedeth roared. “I’ve been stalling the busies all mornwith that argument and it’s damned nearly worn out! I know what a sib does to the mind-I’m in that line of business. But Madison’s a knee, and the busies are still furious about the X Patriot riots the other night It’s a blind miracle they sent him and the girl back here instead of straight to jail. I can get the girl out, but I’m damned if I’m going to hang myself for Madison when you’re legally responsible for him. Move it over here, fast!”
“Good God,” said Conroy from behind Flamen. “It is Jim Reedeth! I thought I recognized the voice. How are you?”
Beaming, he marched up to the comweb.
Reedeth looked totally blank. He said “Prof, what in heaven’s name are you doing there?”
“Flamen invited me to New York for the weekend So what’s the trouble and can I help at all?”
“You know each other,” Flamen muttered.
“Sure,” Conroy nodded. “A former student of mine. Bright too-except that he fell in behind Mogshack and gave up thinking for himself. So anyway: what’s wrong?”
“Ah.” Reedeth glanced past him at Flamen. “I’m not sure whether I ought to-”
“The hell with it!” Flamen snapped. “My private life is going to be all over the hemisphere by Monday anyway, so what’s the difference? Tell him! Tell him everything! Maybe he’ll come up with some brilliant idea.”
He turned his back, scowling.
At first reluctantly, then with fluency, Reedeth rewhat had happened to Lyla and Madison. He concluded, “And now here they are, back in the hospital, and if Mogshack discovers I discharged a patient into the care of someone who completely disregarded his obligations, I’ll be ruined!”
With a look of terrible distress, Conroy said “Oh, Jim, you are following in your boss’s footsteps, aren’t you? I’d have hoped that any student of mine would talk first about the patient’s plight and then about his own.” Then, hastily as Reedeth bridled: “Never mind, never mind! Just tell me honestly-in your judgis this man Madison fit to be let loose or not?”
Reedeth bit back an angry retort. Shrugging, he said, “I think he was fit for release months ago. In fact I somewonder if he was ever as crazy as they claimed when they committed him.”
“Good start,” Conroy nodded. “And you could plead in any court in the world that forcing a sibyl-pill down someone’s throat is enough to cause temporary insanity. I’ve been looking into that; I gave the pythoness pheto my students as a class assignment a few days ago. Presumably there are witnesses to the kid
Reedeth was looking a little more cheerful. “Only the girl herself. But I’m sure we could impeach the testiof the kidnappers. For instance, she has a stab-mark on her thumb, and Madison has one on his shoulder. They took them by surprise on the street and gave them each a shot of Narcolate.”
“Hmmm!” Conroy rubbed his beard with the back of his hand. “Tell me, Mr. Flamen, can even such a-well -notorious poetess as Michaela Baxendale get away with drugging and kidnapping strangers to amuse her guests?”
“I can make damned sure that she doesn’t,” Flamen assured him. “I’ve been looking for an angle on her for months, because she revolts me so much. And I don’t care what kind of a “broken home’ she came from, being raped by her brother and all that garbage.”