“It’s a little early for lunch, isn’t it?” I asked a woman about to bite into a huge sandwich. She hesitated.
“Gee, do you think so?”
“Yeah, but don’t mind me. You’re too thin anyway.”
“Gee, do you think so?”
“Look,” I said. “I was told outside that the person in charge of the Loftus Clinic at Entropist Hospital could be found here. Is that right?”
“Mr. Dundree? Yeah, I guess he’s who you want. But he’s not in the office right now.”
“Where can I find him?”
“Well, he’s over at Research Three, but you can’t get in there because it’s inside the security perimeter and he isn’t expecting you. Hey, unless you’re somebody important, then I can probably get you through. You somebody important? You don’t look important.”
“I’m important,” I said. I get so few opportunities.
“Well, in that case I’ll write you a pass that will get you through the gate, but you’ll have to sign in and out.”
“Tight security, is it?”
“Pretty tight. There was some trouble about ten years ago, and people wanted Sir Jeff to have a big mop-up; search everybody going in and out and that sort of thing, but he wouldn’t do it.”
“No?”
“No, Sir Jeff feels that you’ve got to trust the worker to get the best out of him.”
“Except you had some trouble ten years ago. . . .”
“Yes, but Sir Jeff decided that was people from the outside. Now we have fences and guards checking who goes in and out. I.D.s and that kind of thing.”
“Must get pretty rushed when the shifts change.”
“Well, a lot of them are staggered, but the workers have two gates of their own they go through and the guards get to know the faces. It’s strangers they worry about. And you’re a stranger. You’re sure you’re important?”
“I’m sure.”
“Well, that’s O.K., then.” She held out a yellow card. “Hey, wait, I didn’t put your name on it. What’s your name?”
I told her.
“O.K.,” she said, and handed it to me. “Of course, if any of the workers do get caught stealing pills or anything, it’s pffft.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah. But with free medical care and free prescriptions, they’d be crazy to do it anyway, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes,” I said. “Crazy.”
“At least that’s what Sir Jeff thinks. And it seems to work.”
Loftus Pharmaceutical Company occupied a large area west of Meridian on the south side. I had turned in to the main entrance and found a mixture of buildings, some new and some old, clearly marked for administration and sales. A patrolling guard cum parking attendant had steered me to the Clinical Research section.
He acknowledged me as I left the building carrying the yellow card. “Going inside? Down the road, show the card to the guard in that little building, you see?”
I walked the two hundred yards to the round brick building, with windows on all sides like a gazebo. On its right, from where I stood, there was a high link fence; on its left, a pivoted barrier blocked vehicular access. Beyond that, more link fence. As I crossed the road to the gate, I saw a large parking lot on the left, several hundred cars. Clearly the notion of security was strict enough that “the workers” walked in and didn’t drive.
At the Security Building I was challenged by a tall guard who studied my yellow card. It seemed all right to him and after he signed me in, he asked, “Do you know your way to Research Three?”
I didn’t, so he gave me instructions.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You sign in and out there, too. A book just inside the front door.”
“Oh. O.K.”
“And check out here when you leave.”
“What happens if I forget? You chop me up and feed me to Sir Jeff for breakfast?”
It was a poor remark to make; taking Sir Jeff’s name in vain. The guard growled and said, “Just don’t forget.”
I found Research Three easily enough. The building was a two-story shoe box, of recent vintage. Most of the other non-factory buildings I’d passed had been relatively old, modernized and adapted. But the temptation to sweep the area clear and build all new had clearly been resisted at various stages.
Inside the door, alone on a small wooden table, I found the book I was supposed to sign. There was nobody there to make me do it. So I did.
The corridors on my right and left were empty. Even the walls, a kind of light marine green, were bare except for four telephones, two in each direction. At the end of each corridor were what looked like showers.
I didn’t feel unclean, but I walked down to have a look. A gray steel stirrup hung from a chain. Behind it a plate read “Statutory Emergency Shower. Pull handle sharply down. Stand directly under spigot. Remove affected clothing.”
Not much privacy, but you can’t have everything in a statutory emergency.
For the first time since I’d entered the building, I heard human voices, which seemed to come from above me. I walked back toward the stairs; as I did, a man in a white lab coat came down them. I ran the remaining distance to him.
“Excuse me, a Mr. Dundree is supposed to be here. Do you know where I can find him?”
“I am Dr. Dundree,” he said.
“I’d like a few minutes of your time,” I said. “I’m a private detective and I think you can help me out.”
He hesitated but then led me to the privacy of a small room nearby where he had a desk and a couple of chairs. For all the people around to overhear us, we’d have been just as private under the shower. He was a smallish man, tending to overweight. He had a round face and bright brown eyes. “You say you’re a private detective.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m representing a member of the family of John Austin Pighee.”
“Pighee?” The name had tensed him in an instant.
“That’s right.”
“You’re not an insurance investigator, are you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you could be,” he said reflectively. “Anyway, the lab was refitted within two weeks. There’s not much sign left that anything happened.”
“Where did it happen?” I asked.
“Upstairs.”
“This building?”
“Yes.” He hesitated. “But if you’re not . . . What exactly is it that you want?”
“Mr. Pighee is presently a patient in the Loftus Clinic at Entropist Hospital.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I work for Mr. Pighee’s sister. She’s been repeatedly re¬fused permission to visit her brother. I’m trying to find out why that should be, and I’m trying to get clearance for her. Which seems, I must say, only reasonable. Can you clear that up for us? Then I won’t bother you further.”
He seemed displeased. “Your name is?” I told him. “You must understand, Mr. Samson, that what you ask is a medical issue, not an administrative one. I’m only the administrative head of the Loftus Clinic.”
“You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”
He smiled condescendingly. “But a Ph.D. doctor. Not an M.D.”
“Where the hell does the buck stop around this place?”
He put one hand in the pocket of the lab coat. “It’s not something I can help you with.”
I was getting angry. “Now, let’s get this clear. Is there some standing administrative policy at the Loftus Clinic which excludes visitors to all patients there?”
He hesitated. “No . . . Each case is judged on its merits.”
“That’s something. Now, someone said the Clinic is an experimental unit, is that right?”
“Yes.” He seemed to be playing with something in his pocket.
“What kind of experiments have you been doing on Pighee? I wouldn’t have thought that a drug company had much interest in accident victims. No disease to treat. He was in an explosion, I believe.”
“Yes, a lab explosion. Part of our experimental interest in Mr. Pighee has to do with his having suffered from a violent injury. We feel that after initial stabilization of the condition of such a patient, there is not enough known about the possible uses of chemotherapy.”
“So you’re trying out drugs on him?”
He ignored the question. He said, “But we are also concerned to make sure Mr. Pighee has the best possible medical treatment and chance of recovery. He is, one of our own employees, after all. And if his doctor has restricted visiting, I’m sure it’s in Mr. Pighee’s best interests.”
I said, “His doctor is called Merom, I believe.”
“That’s right.”
“At the Clinic this morning, they said he wasn’t there. Do you know where I could find him?”
“Well, Dr. Merom is in this building, I believe.”
“A Loftus employee?”
“We staff the Clinic from our own research personnel.”
“May I talk to him?”
“Her,” he said.
“To her, then.”
He sighed. “We’re all very busy around here, you know.”
“John Pighee is very—”
“All right, all right,” he interrupted me. “I’ll call her and see if she can come down.” He dialed a short number, on the internal phone and waited while the person answering called Dr. Merom to it. “Marcia?” he said. ‘This is Jay. I know you’re busy, but I’ve got a man down here who would like to talk to you about why John Pighee isn’t allowed visitors at the Clinic.” He paused.
“Represents a member of the family. . . . No. Sister, I think.” I nodded. She must have asked a question, because he looked at me and said, “I don’t think there are any ramifications. I think it’s pretty straightforward.”
While I waited for Dr. Merom to come down, I resolved to be as circuitous as I could.
Dundree made conversation hard, while we waited, by standing in his office doorway. We seemed to wait, quietly and uncomfortably, for quite a long time.
At last he stepped back into the room and said, “Here she is.”
An enormously tall man with curly flaxen hair stepped, into the office. “Where is this guy?” he said belligerently to Dundree, though I was the only other person in the room. Perhaps from his height, about six ten or eleven, it was easy to overlook people.
“It’s Marcia we wanted to see, Lee,” Dundree said peevishly.
The tall man didn’t seem impressed, and from behind him a small woman in a dirty lab coat came into the room. She was about thirty and had long brown hair.
“This is Dr. Merom,” Dundree said. “And this”—the tall man—“is Lee Seafield, a colleague of John Pighee’s. We are all, naturally, interested in anything to do with John.”
“Can you make it quick?” Dr. Merom asked. “I’m between test tubes.”
I didn’t know whether she was making a joke or not. I said, “All I’m trying to find out is why John Pighee’s sister isn’t allowed to visit him in the hospital.”
“Because the doctor says she isn’t,” said Seafield sharply.
“He’s been very severely injured,” Dr. Merom said.
“And visitors might hurt him,” said Seafield.
“We are worried about infection,” Dr. Merom said. “His condition is stabilized, but even some small development could tip the balance unfavorably.”
“Besides,” Seafield said scornfully, “who wants to visit somebody who’s in a coma?”
“John Pighee is in a coma?” I said.
“Yes,” Dr. Merom said. “He’s been unconscious ever since he was admitted.”
“Seven months?” I asked.
“He hasn’t regained consciousness since the accident. Didn’t you know?”
“My client didn’t tell me that,” I conceded.
“If it were a matter of visitors keeping his morale up,” Dundree said ingratiatingly, “helping his will to live, then the case might be different. Isn’t that right, Marcia?”
I said, “What about the morale of his relatives?”
“The patient comes first,” said Dr. Merom.
“The patient must come first,” Dundree echoed.
Seafield stood nodding.
“What would you say Pighee’s chances of recovery are?” I asked.
“That’s hard to say,” Dr. Merom said.
“We’ll do our best,” said Dundree.
“Is that all?” Dr. Merom asked. “Can I go back upstairs?”
“Anything else, Mr. Samson?”
I shrugged. “Wouldn’t want to delay the progress of medical science,” I said.
“Hell, come on, Marcia,” Seafield said, and left. She followed him.
Dundree sat down at his desk. “I hope we’ve been of some help.”
I said, “I’ll report back to Pighee’s sister and see what she has to say.”
“Well, that’s good,” he said. “That’s good!” He sounded pleased with himself.