Playboy, of course, puts down the whole idea as ridiculous and gives the standard Encyclopedia Britannica story that the Illuminati went out of business in 1785.
Pat
Pricefixer stuck his head in the cafeteria door. "Minute?" he asked.
"What is it?" Muldoon replied.
"Peter Jackson is out here. He's the associate editor I spoke to on the phone. He just told me something about his last meeting with Joseph Malik, the editor, before Malik disappeared."
"Bring him in," Muldoon said.
Peter Jackson was a black man-truly black, not brown or tan. He was wearing a vest in spite of the spring weather. He was also very obviously wary of policemen. Saul noted this at once, and began thinking about how to overcome it-and at the same time he observed an increased blandness in Muldoon's features, indicating that he, too, had noted it and was prepared to take umbrage.
"Have a seat," Saul said cordially, "and tell us what you just told the other officer." With the nervous ones it
was sound policy to drop the policeman role at first, and try to sound like somebody else-somebody who, quite naturally, asks a lot of questions. Saul began slipping into the personality of his own family physician, which he usually used at such times. He made himself feel a stethoscope hanging about his neck.
"Well," Jackson began in a Harvard accent, "this is probably not important. It may be just a coincidence."
"Most of what we hear is just unimportant coincidence," Saul said gently. "But it's our job to listen."