“He is?” Malone said, puzzled. Senator Lefferts was not one of his favorite people. Nor, as far as he knew, did the somewhat excitable senator hold any place of honor in the heart of Andrew J. Burris.
“I mean his story,” Burris said. “I’ve never heard anything like it— at least, not since the Bilbo days. And I’ve only heard about those,” he added hurriedly.
“What story?” Malone said. “He talked about inefficiency—”
“Not exactly,” Burris said carefully. “He said that somebody was out to get him—him, personally. He said somebody was trying to discredit him by sabotaging all his legislative plans.”
“Well,” Malone said, feeling that some comment was called for, “three cheers.”
“That isn’t the point,” Burris snapped. “No matter how we feel about Senator Lefferts or his legislative plans, we’re sworn to protect him. And he says ‘they’ are out to get him.”
“They?” Malone said.
“You know,” Burris said, shrugging. “The great ‘they.’ The invisible enemies all around, working against him.”
“Oh,” Malone said. “Paranoid?” He had always thought Senator Lefferts was slightly on the batty side, and the idea of real paranoia didn’t come as too much of a surprise. After all, when a man was batty to start out with ... and he even looked like a vampire, Malone thought confusedly.
“As far as paranoia is concerned,” Burris said, “I checked with one of our own psych men, and he’ll back it up. Lefferts has definite paranoid tendencies, he says.”