Page 46 of Close Up

“Is that right? Thought he owned a nightclub.”

“Guess you could say Failure Analysis is a sideline of his. He doesn’t advertise it, that’s for damn sure.”

“How does he get his clients?”

“Same way you do,” Pete said. “Word of mouth. From what he told me it sounds like he’s doing occasional consulting work for some of the same people who fired him and his team. He also does jobs for the FBI. He handles investigations that are too sensitive or too damn hot for a government agency or the Bureau. You know how it is. That sort don’t like to get their hands dirty, especially if things go wrong and the cases blow up and land on the front pages.”

Nick smiled. “Sounds like Mr. Pell has created a nice little market for himself. Smart.”

Pete peered at him. “Pell appreciates people like us, Nick. People with certain talents.”

“In our family we don’t call what you and I have a talent. It’s a curse, remember? That’s why you’re still wasting money on every fraud and charlatan who promises a quick fix for the nightmares.”

“Haven’t had any nightmares since I went back to work for Pell. Just the fever dreams that I can control. Feels good.”

“About the fever dreams—” Nick paused and lowered his voice. “I may have found a book with some answers.”

Pete’s expression sharpened. “Yeah?”

“I came across it in an antiquarian bookshop. It’s the journal of a man named Caleb Jones. It was written in the late eighteen hundreds. He was a private investigator who lived in London. He evidently took the existence of what he called psychical talents as a given.”

“Psychical talents?”

“We’d call them paranormal abilities today.”

“Damn it, we’re not a couple of frauds pretending to have psychic powers.”

“What I’m getting at here is that his way of solving a case sounds like a version of the Sundridge family curse. But he figured out how to control the visions, at least to some extent.”

“Booze? Drugs?”

“No. Meditation.”

“Bah. I tried that. Spent good money on a quack who promised to teach me how to meditate. Every time I tried it the nightmares got worse.”

“I know—I’ve wasted some money that way, too. But this technique is a little different. Jones writes that our abilities are actually a kind of intuition. The trick is to control it.”

There was cautious interest in Pete’s eyes now. “You’re sure this Jones character wasn’t one of those charlatans who claims to be able to read minds and see the future?”

“All I can tell you is that it seems to be working for me.”

“But you still get the fever dreams?”

“Yes. The difference is that I have fairly good control over them. I can go into one and out at will.”

“Yeah?” Pete looked skeptical. “How’s that work?”

“I line up the things I want to analyze and then I go into a self-induced trance.”

“You hypnotize yourself?”

“Maybe. I think so. But I control the trance.”

Pete squinted, still dubious. He snapped his fingers. “The answers pop up just like that?”

“No, what pops up, assuming I have enough information going into the trance, is the right question, the one I should be asking.”

Pete nodded in a knowing way. “Ask the right question and the answer is a hell of a lot easier to figure out.”

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