The Prodigal Son(42)

Carmine shook his head, a dissatisfied look on his face. “At the banquet he would have been behind every man in the row of diners, there was no one to notice what he did with his hands apart from the women opposite, who saw hands on shoulders every time a man got up to go to the bathroom. Ingenious and effective.”

“Yet you don’t think it was used?” Delia asked.

The cork went into a tiny baggie; the device was put into a lidded jar, where it rolled around like a fallen top.

“How did he fill it?” Donny asked.

“The same way we rinsed it — injected the substance into the saucer with a hypodermic,” Carmine said.

“Then filling it was a bitch.”

“Speaking of filling things, Donny, aren’t you supposed to be doing homework on the Parsons? You see them at two.”

“I haven’t forgotten, Captain,” said the culprit hastily, before Delia could go to bat, “I read your Ghost case notes and sweet-talked a newspaper morgue librarian into searching all the Parson articles out. Looked to me as if all hands were needed at Ivy Hall, begging your pardon.”

Carmine grinned. “Forgiven, but get your ass moving now.”



“He’s a good man,” said Delia after he had gone.

“You are not wrong,” Carmine said.

She returned to the device. “I didn’t know you could solder stainless steel,” she said.

“Soldering is like most things, Deels. Be scrupulous in cleaning your surfaces — wipe them down with ether, say — and solder will hold for long enough.”

Paul and his technicians were packing up to leave; only Carmine and Delia stood at apparent leisure.

“Where did he get the saucer thing?” Delia asked.

“I have no idea, but it must be part of a piece of lab equipment,” Carmine said.

“Ah, the Hunters again,” said Delia.

“Or workshop people like printers,” said Carmine.



Only something vital would have dragged Carmine away from the interrogation of Dr. Jim Hunter, but when the Captain sent him a second wheel in the shape of a uniform cruising the pool of potential detectives, Buzz Genovese understood that he was to continue. Because Dr. Jim had already coughed up most of his guts on the sinus surgery, Buzz decided to settle the new face into Dr. Jim’s world by pressing for more details.

“There’s more to it than just a simple operation, Doctor,” he said as the uniform endeavored to disappear into the woodwork.

“Simple operation?” Hunter stared. “It was anything but, Sergeant. I was in the O.R. for eleven hours and unbeknownst to me, Zimmerman the surgeon had brought in a facial plastic surgeon named — uh — Feinberg or Nussbaum or something. So when I came out of the O.R., I needed a new picture on my driver’s license — the pair of them had changed my face. Oh, I didn’t turn into Sidney Poitier, but I sure didn’t resemble a gorilla any more. Still ugly, but they gave me my own face. It didn’t remind anyone of anything.”

“Were you pleased?” Buzz asked.

“That’s putting it mildly! I was — I was very grateful. For that gift alone I could never lay a hand on John Hall. The surgeons insisted it wasn’t cosmetic surgery, just a full reconstruction of the sinuses that altered the exterior of my face, as apparently it does. If there was any genuine plastic surgery involved, it was to my nose. They gave it some shape and grafted me new nostrils.”

“How did your wife feel about all that?”

“She was delighted, especially when I lost most of the nerve pain. I went from several attacks a day pre-operatively to one every six months or so post-operatively. And my face felt — oh, kinda light. I could breathe properly, even in deepest sleep.”

“Remind me, when was the operation?”

“June of 1959. It was real pioneer surgery, so I got written up in a couple journals.”

Hunter had been in the room now for two hours, suffering the oft-repeated questions as most highly intelligent people did, in some bewilderment that his interrogators could be so dense, a sentiment that inevitably led to irritation. It is a rare genius who can continue to put up with the questions of fools unruffled, a fact Carmine and Buzz were relying on. Though Jim Hunter had endured the slings and arrows of racial prejudice, he was also a campus idol. In his workplace he was the source of all knowledge, the boss of a whole team of “acolytes” as Dr. Millie called them, and universally adored. He was tolerant, humorous, forgiving and permanently afire with enthusiasm, which made him a wonderful research team leader; no one who worked for him would say or do anything that might incriminate Big Jim, as they called him. It was a sobriquet of total love.