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staircase dressed like Robin Hood. At the end of the wait the porter stepped in front of the view at the end of the hall and beckoned to me.
    Ashraf Naheen rose from behind a big polished desk cluttered with executive toys and walked around it to take my hand. He wore a brown pinstripe three-piece suit tailored to make him look less small and less round. He had thick black hair combed straight back, showing the marks of the comb, round rimless glasses, and a moon face poured into the mold of a pleasant expression. I had a feeling a tidal wave wouldn’t change it. A crooked scar above his lip, the result of an old surgery to correct a cleft palate, marred the smooth polished surface of his milk-chocolate-colored skin.
    “I’m sorry I kept you waiting, Mr. Walker. I was just finishing a conversation with a guest.”
    “Not a patient?”
    “We try not to use language that would make anyone feel he or she has been institutionalized.”
    “Which they are not.”
    “Admission to Balfour House is strictly voluntary. We are a private facility, and somewhat exclusive.”
    “That must explain why most of the locals don’t know it from Brigadoon.”
    He adjusted his glasses and looked pleasant. “We treat cases of nervous disorder, as well as substance abuse. In some circles that is regarded as a badge of celebrity and fair game for the media. Our guests don’t belong to those circles.”
    “I’m not a tabloid reporter, Doctor.”
    “You certainly don’t look like one. Of course, that raises the strong possibility that you are one. I assume you have the usual identification.”
    I showed him the investigator’s license with my picture and my carry permit with my fingerprints. He wrinkled his brow at the latter.
    “I hope you’re not armed at present.”
    I shook my head. “I never met a horse I couldn’t talk out of homicide.”
    The wrinkle vanished. “Understand, no one here is violent. Still—” He smiled pleasantly. “Will you have a seat?” He gestured away from the desk, in the direction of a cozy little conversation area in the opposite corner. This consisted of a brace of slingback chairs covered in coarse nubby green fabric, tough as steel, and a couch that was just a couch, not something to stretch out on while the nice doctor opened his steno pad and grilled you about your mother; that might have led to feelings of institutionalization.
    The office was good-sized, not cavernous, and in an earlier incarnation had probably been a bedroom for the more important visitors, such as George III or Chief Pontiac. Cabbage roses bloomed on the pale green paper on the walls, which wore some good abstracts in rosewood frames and Dr. Naheen’s diploma from the University of Michigan School of Medicine. The carpet was sculptured, a mottled pattern in beige and green, and the lamps on the desk and the glass-topped table in the conversation area were burning. They were necessary. Heavy curtains over the window behind the desk blocked out the sunlight, also the rest of the view of Lake Huron that began at the end of the hallway outside the room. No worldly distractions to upset the guests.
    I sat down, found with surprise and pleasure a glass ashtray the size of a wheel cover on the low chrome-and-glass coffee table, and offered Naheen a Winston from the pack. He declined, slipping the band off a long green cigar he took from his pocket by way of explanation, and offered it to me in return. Having established that we were both satisfied with our own smokes, we fired them up and poisoned the air for a few seconds in silence.
    I broke it. “Neil Catalin was a guest last year?”
    “I’m afraid I cannot answer any questions about Mr. Catalin’s case. I explained that when you called.” He hiked up his trouser cuffs and sat on the couch, reinhaling through his nose the fumes he’d just exhaled. An addictive type, Dr. Naheen. Most cigar smokers didn’t take the stuff into their lungs even once.
    “You wouldn’t be