Seduction of the Innocent Read Online Free PDF Page A

do-gooders who come along every now then—goes all the way back to Anthony Comstock, doesn’t it?—who tries to control what other people can publish or read. And he’s making a buck at it. Lots of bucks. Pop psychology trash.”
    “Don’t hold back, Jack.”
    “Look, he does do some good work. He works pro bono with poor kids at a Harlem clinic, for example. He testified recently in that Brown versus Board of Education thing, talking about the negative impact segregation has on Negro youths. He’s not all bad. But he’s dangerous.”
    “To society?”
    “To us!” I sat forward. “Maggie, two of the comic book outfits he’s targeting are tied at the hip to Starr—Levinson Publications, with the Crime Fighter comic strip, and don’t forget, we are just about to climb in bed with Entertaining Funnies, his favorite whipping boy.”
    We were in negotiations right now with EF’s owner/publisher, Robert Price, to syndicate a strip based on his new, very successful comic book, Craze, which lampooned TV shows, comics and movies. The idea for the strip version was to do a color Sunday-only page that lampooned other comic strips, the way Hal Rapp took Dick Tracy on in his strip-within-a-strip, Hawknose Harry. Our sales force, feeling out prospective clients, considered it sure-fire.
    The door at the rear of the office opened and a slender male figure in black turtleneck and slacks entered with a tray in hand bearing the Coke and coffee. This was Bryce, a handsome, trimly bearded former Broadway dancer of perhaps thirty, who ruled the little world of the reception area with its tucked-away kitchenette. When a busted ankle had ended his stage career, he got hired on by Maggie as her major domo, and was as loyal to Maggie as Tonto to the Lone Ranger.
    He was also unashamedly flaming. Maybe he’d been reading those Batwing-and-Sparrow comic books.
    He delivered the coffee to Maggie, waited for her to taste and test the warmth and cream content, got a nod from her when she had, then he placed the Coke glass on the waiting coaster, uninterested in any review from me on my beverage, then stood there vaguely petulant, like he was waiting for either a tip or an apology.
    “What?” Maggie asked.
    He spoke in a melodic second tenor; the melody at the moment was in a minor key. “That Dr. Frederick character is in the waiting area. He is, I believe, ten minutes early. Someone should inform him that being ten minutes early is as offensive as being ten minutes late.”
    I said, “Maybe you could wrangle a quickie shrink session out of him. Just ask him a few innocent questions and he’ll never know he’s been had.”
    Bryce’s chin jerked upward. “He’s the last person I’d allow inside here,” he said, tapping his cranium. “He believes people like me are sick. That we are twisted perverts and should either be cured or institutionalized.”
    I shrugged. “What do you expect from a Nazi?”
    That actually made Maggie smile a little, but she said to me, “Don’t egg him on.” Then to Bryce she said, “We’ll take him off your hands. Send him in.”
    Bryce went out with his head still high, and his walk was similar to the bathing-suit competition contestants at the Miss America pageant, only more graceful.
    “Would have been fun,” I said, “to let those two spend a little more time together.”
    “You’re mean,” she said. But she was still smiling.
    Dr. Frederick strode in, a tall, thin exclamation point of a man in his late fifties with white hair, wire-framed glasses and a crisp dark suit with striped red-and-white tie. He might have been a funeral director or a minister. His well-grooved face lived in a narrow, horsey oval, his eyes dark and small but alert, with a wedge of a nose Chester Gould might have drawn.
    I found myself standing.
    “Werner Frederick,” he said with a curt nod, though of course he needed no identification. A distinct German accent turned “Werner” into “Verner.” He moved