"You have never been nastier," he assured me expansively. "It must be
that dame with the striped hair who was sitting at ringside. She had
a high-tone way of screaming for your blood that was very smart box
office. Maybe I should step out and give her a couple of free ducats."
I told Leo he needn't bother. "I don't think Panda wants any free
ducats," I said.
He looked surprised. "You mean you are acquainted with this piebald
babe, Freddy?"
"She came with me," I admitted glumly. "She's a Ph.D. and she lives in
Santa Monica."
"Freddy," he murmured, shaking his head in honest admiration,
"sometimes I think you are a much smarter boy than I always figured.
What an act your girl put on tonight!"
"She wasn't acting, Leo," I said. "She really hates me."
"Freddy," he groaned, still shaking his head, "sometimes I think maybe
you are a much stupider boy than I always figured. You drive this girl
up Route One-o-one tonight and tomorrow your body will no doubt wash up
on the rocks at Redondo."
* * * * *
I wasn't so sure he wasn't right. I wasn't so sure Panda wasn't
prowling around the parking area now, a fire ax in each hand.
As it turned out she was sitting quietly in my car. "You unspeakable
beast!" she greeted me when I climbed in. It was the most restrained
statement she had made all evening.
On our way up the coast we stopped at a seafood restaurant. In some of
these roadside joints you can sometimes pick up a lobster loaded with
ptomaine. But either Panda was immune to ptomaine, or else I was just
unlucky that night.
It was while we were in the restaurant that Panda made the request that
was to ruin my career. "Freddy," she said, squinting thoughtfully at
me, "I wonder if you would do me a favor?"
I hesitated. I wanted to be polite, but I wasn't going to cut my throat
with any knife. "Favor?" I repeated cautiously.
She nodded. "I wonder if you would stop in at the Keevan Foundation and
let Dr. MacCluett type your symbiotic waveform. We may be able to get a
waveshape picture of the enmity factor in its pure form. Such a study
might lead to the unlocking of the riddle of the antipathy some ethnic
groups instinctively hold for others. This might easily turn out to be
the dawn of a new era."
Well, as long as she put it that way, I didn't see how I could refuse.
I figure if there's one thing this world can use, it's the dawn of a
new era.
And so that is how I happened to be at the Keevan Research Foundation
early that next evening.
The famous Dr. Stanley MacCluett came as a complete surprise to me.
I was expecting a stoop-shouldered old gentleman in bifocals. But he
turned out to be about my age and almost as big. He had a granite jaw
and brilliant blue eyes that lit up like a pinball machine whenever he
glanced at Panda. He seemed to glance at Panda a lot.
The good doctor opened up the proceedings that evening by giving me
a rapid-fire briefing on mutuality. He went all the way back to the
planarian worms and worked his way up to the primates. He explained
that it was his theory that the pattern of all social behavior was
determined by a complicated meshing of symbiotic waves. According
to him, these waves held the key to the urge of kind to mate with
kind; they were the basis of all physical attraction and all physical
antipathy. It was very scientific. I never understood a word.
When he finished the briefing, he led me into a small lab that looked
like a cross between the cockpit of a B-39 and an operating room for
midgets. There was a big contour chair in the center of the lab.
"Sit in the chair, Freddy," Panda ordered.