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happened the last few months. You’ve been slipping away. I think you’re sick.”
    Wiley winced. “Sick?”
    Mulcahy was a slim man, gray and graceful. Before becoming an editor, he had had a distinguished career as a foreign correspondent: he had covered two wars and a half-dozen coups, and had even been shot at three times. Wiley had always been envious of this; in all his years as a journalist he had never once been shot at. He had never dodged a real bullet. But Cab Mulcahy had, and he had written poetically about the experience. Wiley admired him, and it hurt to have the old boy talk like this.
    â€œI took all your columns from the last four months,” Mulcahy said, “and I gave them to Dr. Courtney, the psychiatrist. ”
    â€œJesus! He’s a wacko, Cab. The guy has a thing for animals. I’ve heard this from seven or eight sources. Ducks and geese, stuff like that. The paper ought to get rid of him before there’s some kind of scandal—”
    Mulcahy waved his hands, a signal for Wiley to shut up.
    â€œDr. Courtney read all these columns and he says he can chart your illness, starting since September.”
    Wiley clenched his teeth so tightly his fillings nearly cracked. “There’s nothing wrong with me, Cab.”
    â€œI want you to see a doctor.”
    â€œNot Courtney, please.”
    â€œThe Sun will pay for it.”
    Well, it ought to, Wiley thought. If I’m nuts, it’s this place that’s to blame.
    â€œI also want you to go to an internist. Courtney says the mental degeneration has occurred so rapidly that it could be pathological. A tumor or something.”
    â€œA guy who screws barnyard animals says that I’m pathological. ”
    Mulcahy said, “He’s paid for his opinions.”
    â€œHe hates the column,” Wiley said. “Always has.” He pointed at the stack of clippings. “I know what’s in there, Cab. The one I did six weeks ago about shrinks. Courtney’s still mad about that. He’s trying to get back at me.”
    Mulcahy said, “He didn’t mention it, although it was a particularly vile piece of writing. ‘Greedy, soul-sucking charlatans’—isn’t that what you said about psychiatrists?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œIf I’d been here that morning, I’d have yanked that column,” Mulcahy said evenly.
    â€œHa!”
    â€œSkip, this is the deal. Go see the doctors and you can keep your column, at least until we find out what the hell is wrong. In the meantime, every word you write goes through me personally. Nothing that comes out of your terminal, not even a fucking obituary, gets into this newspaper without me seeing it first.”
    Wiley seemed stunned. He shrank into the chair.
    â€œJeez, Cab, why don’t you just cut off my balls and get it over with?”
    Mulcahy walked him to the door. “Don’t write about the Harper case anymore, Skip,” he said, not gently. “Dr. Courtney is expecting you tomorrow morning. Ten sharp.”
    Â 
    Brian Keyes read Skip Wiley’s column as soon as he got back to the office. He laughed out loud, in spite of himself. He had become amazed—there was no other word for it—at how much Wiley could get away with.
    Keyes wondered if Ernesto Cabal had seen the newspaper. He hoped not. Wiley’s column would absolutely ruin the young man’s day.
    Assuming Ernesto was innocent—and Keyes was leaning in that direction—the next step was figuring out who would have wanted B. D. Harper dead. It was a most unusual murder, and robbery seemed an unlikely motive. Dumping the body in a suitcase was like the Mob, Keyes thought, but the Mob didn’t have much of a sense of humor; the Mob wouldn’t have dressed Sparky up in such godawful tacky clothes, or stuffed a rubber alligator down his throat.
    Finding a solid suspect besides Ernesto Cabal wasn’t