Fear carries a scent with it that most humans can't detect. Most, but not all. The Four-Hour Fugue Alfred Rester By now, of course, the Northeast Corridor was the Northeast slum, stretching from Canada to the Carolinas and as far west as Pittsburgh. It was 'a fantastic jungle of rancid violence inhabited by a steaming, restless population with no visible means of support and no fixed residence, so vast that censustakers, birth-control supervisors and the social services had given up all hope. It was a gigantic raree-show that everyone denounced and enjoyed. Even the privileged few who could afford to live highly-protected lives in highly-expensive Oases and could live anywhere else they pleased never thought of leaving. The jungle grabbed you. There were thousands of everyday survival problems but one of the most exasperating was the shortage of fresh water. Most of the available potable water had long since been impounded by progressive industries for the sake of a better tomorrow and there was very little left to go around. Rainwater tanks on the roofs, of course. A black market, naturally. That was about all. So the jungle stank. It stank worse than the court of Queen Elizabeth, which could have bathed but didn't believe in it. The Corridor just couldn't bathe, wash clothes or clean house, and you could smell its noxious effluvium from ten miles out at sea. Welcome to the Fun Corridor. Sufferers near the shore would have been happy to clean up in salt water, but the Corridor beaches had been polluted by so much crude oil seepage for so many generations that they were all owned by deserving oil reclamation companies. Keep Out! No Trespassing! And armed guards. The rivers and lakes were electrically fenced; no need for guard's, just skull and crossbones signs and if you didn't know what they were telling you, tough. Not to believe that everybody minded stinking as they skipped merrily over the rotting corpses in the streets, but a lot did and their only remedy was perfumery. There were dozens of competing companies producing perfumes but the leader, far and away, was the Continental Can Company, which hadn't manufactured cans in two centuries. They'd switched to plastics and had the good fortune about a hundred stockholders meetings back to make the mistake of signing a sales contract with and delivering to some cockamamie perfume brewer an enormous quantity of glowing neon containers. The corporation went bust and CCC took it over in hopes of getting some of their money back. That take-over proved to be their salvation when the perfume explosion took place; it gave them entree to the most profitable industry of the times. But it was neck-and-neck with the rivals until Blaise Skiaki joined CCC; then it turned into a runaway. Blaise Skiaki, Origins; French, Japanese, Black African and Irish, Education; BA, Princeton; ME, MIT; PhD. Dow Chemical, (It was Dow that had secretly tipped CCC that Skiaki was a winner and lawsuits brought by the completion were still pending before the ethics board.) Blaise Skiaki; age, thirty-one; unmarried, straight, genius. His sense of scent was his genius, and he was privately, referred to at CCC as "The Nose." He knew everything about perfumery; the animal products, ambergris, castor, civet, musk; the essential oils distilled from plants and flowers; the balsams extruded by tree and shrub wounds, benzoin, opopanax, Peru, Talu, storax, myrrh; the synthetics created from the combination of natural and chemical scents, the latter mostly the esters of fatty acids. He had created for CCC their most successful sellers: "Vulva," "Assuage," "Oxter" (a much more attractive brand name than "Armpitto"), "Preparation F," "Tongue War," et cetera. He was treasured by CCC, paid a salary generous enough to enable him to live in an Oasis and, best of all, granted unlimited supplies of fresh water. No girl in the Corridor could resist the offer of taking a shower with him. But he paid a high price for these advantages. He could never use scented soaps, shaving creams, pomades or depilatories. He could never eat seasoned foods. He could drink nothing but pure water. All this, you understand; to keep The Nose pure and uncontaminated so that he could smell around in his sterile laboratory and devise new creations. He was presently composing a rather promising unguent provisionally named "Correctum," but he'd been on it for six months without any positive results and CCC was alarmed by the delay. His genius had never before taken so long. There was a meeting of the top-level executives, names withheld on the grounds of corporate privilege. "What's the matter with him anyway?" "Has he lost his touch?" "It hardly seems likely;" "Maybe he needs a rest." "Why, he had a week's holiday last month:" "What did he do?" "Ate up a storm, he told me." "Could that be it?" "No. He said he purged himself before he came back to work." "Is he having trouble here at CCC? Difficulties with middlemanagement?" "Absolutely not, Mr. Chairman. They wouldn't dare touch him." "Maybe he wants a raise." "No. He can't spend the money he makes now." "Has our competition got to him?" "They get to him all the time. General, and he laughs them off." "Then it must be something personal." "Agreed." "Woman-trouble?" "My God! We should have such trouble." "Family-trouble?" "He's an orphan, Mr. Chairman." "Ambition? Incentive? Should we make him an officer of CCC?" "I offered that to him the first of the year, sir, and he turned me down. He just wants to play in his laboratory." "Then why isn't he playing?" "Apparently he's got some kind of creative block." "What the hell is the matter with him anyway?" "Which is how you started this meeting." "I did not." "You did." "Not." "Governor, will you play back the bug." "Gentlemen, gentlemen, please! Obviously Dr. Skiaki has personal problems which are blocking his genius. We must solve that for him. Suggestions?" "Psychiatry?" "That won't work without voluntary cooperation. I doubt whether he'd cooperate. He's an obstinate gook." "Senator, I beg you! Such expressions must not be used with reference to one of our most valuable assets." "Mr. Chairman, the problem is to discover the source of Dr. Skiaki's block." "Agreed. Suggestions?" "Why, the first step should be to maintain twenty-four-hour surveillance. All the gook's--excuse me-the good doctor's activities, associates, contacts." "By CCC?" "I would suggest not. There are bound to be leaks which would only antagonize the good gook-doctor!" "Outside surveillance?" "Yes, sir." "Very good. Agreed. Meeting adjourned." Skip-Tracer Associates were perfectly furious. After one month they threw the case back into CCC's lap, asking for nothing more than their expenses. "Why in hell didn't you tell us that we were assigned to a pro, Mr. Chairman, sir? Our tracers aren't trained for that:" "What a minute, please. What d'you mean, `pro?"' "A professional Rip:" "A what?" "Rip, Gorill, Gimpster, Crook." "Dr. Skiaki a crook? Preposterous." "Look, Mr. Chairman, I'll frame it for you and you draw your own conclusions. Yes?" "Go ahead." "It's all detailed in this report anyway. We put double tails on Skiaki every day to and from your shop. When he left they followed him home. He always went home. They staked in double shifts. He had dinner sent in from the Organic Nursery every night. They checked the messengers bringing the dinners. Legit. They checked the dinners; sometimes for one, sometimes for two. They traced some of the girls who left his penthouse. All clean. So far, all clean, yes?" "And?" "The crunch. Couple of nights a week he leaves the house and goes into the city. He leaves around midnight and doesn't come back until four, more or less." "Where does he go?" "We don't know because he shakes his tails like the pro that he is. He weaves through the Corridor like a whore or a fag cruising for trade-excuse me-and he always loses our men. I'm not taking anything away from him. He's smart, shifty, quick and a real pro. He has to be; and he's too much for SkipTracers to handle." "Then you have no idea of what he does or who he meets between midnight and four?" "No, sir. We've got nothing and you've got a problem. Not ours any more:" "Thank you. Contrary to the popular impression, corporations are not altogether idotic. CCC understands that negatives are also results. You'll receive your expenses and the agreedupon fee." "Mr. Chairman, I-" "No, no, please. You've narrowed it down to those missing four hours. Now, as you say, they're our problem." CCC summoned Salem Burne. Mr. Burne always insisted that he was neither a physician nor a psychiatrist; he did not care to be associated with what he considered to be the drek of the professions. Salem Burne was a witch doctor; more precisely, a warlock. He made the most remarkable and penetrating analyses of disturbed people, not so much through his coven rituals of pentagons, incantations, incense and the like as through his remarkable sensitivity to Body English and his acute interpretation of it. And this might be witchcraft after all. Mr. Burne entered Blaise Skiaki's immaculate laboratory with a winning smile and Dr. Skiaki let out a rending howl of anguish. "I told you to sterilize before you came." "But I did, Doctor. Faithfully." "You did not. You reek of anise, ilang-ilang and methyl anthranilate. You've polluted my day. Why?" "Dr. Skiaki. I assure you that I-" Suddenly Salem Burne stopped. "Oh my God!" he groaned. "I used my wife's towel this morning." Skiaki laughed and turned up the ventilators to full force. "I understand. No hard feelings. Now let's get your wife out of here. I have an office about half a mile down the hall. We can talk there." They s...
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