When I stood before the gray, translucent door of Dr. John Cunningham's penthouse apartment, I was something less than the eager, efficient, young Dr. Klinghammer of the remarkable stability. From bed-rock to quicksand in one easy tunnel.
A man answered. He was at least one cut above the most adored idol of video and movie screen, his slacks even more unpressed and his beach shirt even gaudier. He looked me in the eye for a moment and said, "Dr. Sledgehammer, I presume?"
"Klinghammer," I corrected.
"Sorry. Sue seemed a little confused on several details. Come in, please."
Sue. Sue Calicoo. Out of the blue. Blueboids. John Cunningham. This was a disrupting thought. So this is the guy she's really in love with. Malpractice? Without a doubt.
I followed him into a spacious, skylighted room, a corner of which instantly caught my eye, first, because it contained Sue, and second, because it was the only orderly spot in the whole littered place. Sue sat in the tiny office-space at a small desk, furiously filing a fingernail over a blue wastebasket. She didn't look up.
The look of tidiness ended there. The balance of the chamber gave a fair impression of a wholesale video-repair shop on moving day. Benches and racks were spaced at random, and each was loaded with electronic gear, meters, cable and tools. Unassembled units squatted in a semicircle before a large framework at the far end of the laboratory.
"May we be alone?" I asked.
"Alone?"