It was time to talk to Morales.
I stopped off at a drive-in for dinner, took out three hamburgers and a chocolate milk shake intended as a bribe for my outrageously oversized brother. The food wasn't enough. A half hour later, after threats, shouts and appeals to familial loyalty, I was transformed from a dwarf private detective to a dwarf lawyer and taken to see Esteban Morales. The guard assigned to me thought it was funny as hell.
Esteban Morales looked like an abandoned extra from Viva Zapata. He wore a battered, broad-brimmed straw hat to cover a full head of long, matted gray hair. He wore shapeless corduroy pants and a bulky, torn red sweater. Squatting down on the cell's dirty cot, his back to the wall, he looked forlorn and lonely. He looked up as I entered. His eyes were a deep, wet brown. Something moved in their depths as he looked at me. Whatever it was-curiosity, perhaps-quickly passed.
I went over to him and held out my hand. "Hello, Mr. Morales. My name is Robert Frederickson. My friends call me Mongo."
Morales shook for my hand. For an old man, his grip was surprisingly firm. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Mongo," he said in a thickly accented voice. "You lawyer?"
"No. A private detective. I'd like to try to help you."
"Who hire you?"
"A friend of yours." I mouthed the word "senator" so the guard wouldn't hear me. Morales' eyes lit up. "Your friend feels that his daughter needs you. I'm going to try to get you out, at least on bail."
Morales lifted his large hands slowly and studied the palms. I remembered Janet Mason's Kirlian photographs; I wondered what mysterious force was in those hands, and what its source was. "I help Linda if I can get to see her," he said quietly. "I must touch." He suddenly looked up. "I no kill anybody, Mr. Mongo. I never hurt anybody."
"What happened that night?"
The hands pressed together, dropped between his knees. "Dr. Edmonston no like me. I can tell that. He think I phony. Still he let me help his patients, and I grateful to him for that."
"Do you think you actually helped any of them?"
Morales smiled disarmingly, like a child who has done something of which he is proud. "I know I did. And the patients, they know. They tell me, and they tell Dr. Edmonston and Dr. Johnson."
"Did you give drugs to anybody?"
"No, Mr. Mongo." He lifted his hands. "My power is here, in my hands. All drugs bad for body."
"Why do you think Dr. Edmonston said you did?"
He shook his head in obvious bewilderment. "One day the police pick me up at university. They say I under arrest for pretending to be doctor. I no understand. Dr. Mason get me out. Then I get message same day-"
"A Thursday?"
"I think so. The message say that Dr. Edmonston want to see me that night at seven-thirty. I want to know why he mad at me, so I decide to go. I come in and find him dead. Somebody cut throat. Dr. Johnson come in a few minutes later. He think I do it. He call police. ." His voice trailed off, punctuated by a gesture that included the cell and the unseen world outside. It was an elegant gesture.
"How did you get into the office, Esteban?"
"The lights are on and door open. When nobody answer knock, I walk in."
I nodded. Esteban Morales was either a monumental acting talent or a man impossible not to believe. "Do you have any idea why Dr. Edmonston wanted to talk to you?"
"No, Mr. Mongo. I thought maybe he sorry he call police."
"How do you do what you do, Esteban?" The question was meant to surprise him. It didn't. He simply smiled.
"You think I play tricks, Mr. Mongo?"
"What I think doesn't matter."
"They why you ask?"
"I'm curious."
"Then I answer." Again he lifted his hands, stared at them. "The body make music, Mr. Mongo. A healthy body make good music. I can hear through my hands. A sick body make bad music. My hands … I can make music good, make it sound like I know it should." He paused, shook his head. "Not easy to explain, Mr. Mongo."
"Why were you upset near the end of the project, Esteban?"
"Who told you I upset?"
"Dr. Mason. She said you were having a difficult time affecting the enzymes."
He took a long time to answer. "I don't think it right to talk about it."
"Talk about what, Esteban? How can I help you if you won't level with me?"
"I know many things about people, but I don't speak about them," he said almost to himself. "What make me unhappy have nothing to do with my trouble."
"Why don't you let me decide that?"
Again, it took him a long time to answer. "I guess it no make difference any longer."
"What doesn't make a difference any longer, Esteban?"
He looked up at me. "Dr. Edmonston was dying. Of cancer."
"Dr. Edmonston told you that?"
"Oh, no. Dr. Edmonston no tell anyone. He not want anyone to know. But I know."
"How, Esteban? How did you know?"
He pointed to his eyes. "I see, Mr. Mongo. I see the aura. Dr. Edmonston's aura brown-black. Flicker. He dying of cancer. I know he have five, maybe six more months to live." He lowered his eyes and shook his head. "I tell him I know. I tell him I want to help. He get very mad at me. He tell me to mind my own business. That upset me. It upset me to be around people in pain who no want my help."
My mouth was suddenly very dry. I swallowed hard. "You say you saw this aura?" I remembered the Kirlian photographs Janet Mason had shown me and I could feel a prickling at the back of my neck.
"Yes," Morales said simply. "I see aura."
"Can you see anybody's aura?" I had raised my voice a few notches so that the guard could hear. I shot a quick glance in his direction. He was smirking, which meant we were coming in loud and clear. That was good. . maybe.
"Usually. Mostly I see sick people's aura because that what I look for."
"Can you see mine?" I asked.
His eyes slowly came up and met mine. They held. It was a moment of unexpected, embarrassing intimacy, and I knew what he was going to say before he said it.
Esteban Morales didn't smile. "I can see yours, Mr. Mongo," he said softly.
He was going to say something else but I cut him off. I was feeling a little light-headed and I wanted to get the next part of the production over as quickly as possible. I could sympathize with Dr. Edmonston.
I pressed the guard and he reluctantly admitted he'd overheard the last part of our conversation. Then I asked him to get Garth.
Garth arrived looking suspicious. Garth always looks suspicious when I send for him. He nodded briefly at Esteban, then looked at me. "What's up, Mongo?"
"I just want you to sit here for a minute and listen to something."
"Mongo, I've got reports!"
I ignored him and he leaned back against the bars of the cell and began to tap his foot impatiently. I turned to Esteban Morales. "Esteban," I said quietly, "will you tell my brother what an aura is?"
Morales described the human aura, and I followed up by describing the Kirlian photographs Janet Mason had shown me: what they were, and what they purported to show. Garth's foot continued its monotonous tapping. Once he glanced at his watch.
"Esteban," I said, "how does my brother look? I mean his aura."
"Oh, he fine," Esteban said, puzzled. "Aura a good, healthy pink."
"What about me?"
Morales dropped his eyes and shook his head mutely.
The foot-tapping in the corner had stopped. Suddenly Garth was beside me, gripping my arm. "Mongo, what the hell is this all about?"