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We walked back toward the Frames of Mind Cinema in silence. I waited for him to unlock the car and proceeded to get in and buckle up.

On the way back to my apartment, I inquired: "Agent Bradley, do you mind if I ask about what the personal reasons are, to which you alluded earlier, for taking me on this little jaunt this morning?"

"No," he indicated. "I don't mind you asking, as long as you don't expect an answer - at least, not at the present time ... perhaps, never."

To either change the subject or to offer some sort of compensation to me for his abruptness concerning the issue being raised, he said: "You may be interested to know we have determined that the guy who came to your hotel room while you were taking a shower was not an employee of the Balmer House. Whether he is the perpetrator of anything beyond impersonating a hotel employee, illegal entry and, apparently, being responsible for the lifting of your key card is not known at this time.

"Of course," he added, "we can't rule out the possibility this person may have been known to you and you are covering for him. If its any comfort to you, while Agent Williams is favorably disposed toward this idea, I've disinclined to entertain it seriously."

"Does this mean you don't consider me to be a prime suspect any longer?" I asked.

"Let's just say," he remarked, "that you seem to have more potential as someone who, for whatever reason, is caught up in the turbulence of some interesting, albeit illegal, activity."

"That sort of sounds like you are considering me to be a form of bait," I observed.

"You should be happy to have the chance to serve the community," he countered.

"Both the worm and the one who fishes serve the community," I indicated, "but, unlike the bait, the fisherman gets to receive the deep appreciation of the community in living color."

"Not to worry, Dr. Phelps," he consoled me. "If necessary, I'll make sure they spell your name right on whatever memorial may be erected on your behalf.

"Besides," he added, "if you've read Melville, Hemingway, Kipling or Benchley, then, you should know that the ones who do the fishing don't always come back alive. Fate, sometimes, is very egalitarian in the way in which it treats the life at both ends of the fishing pole."

"That may be true," I acknowledged, "but at least the one who does the fishing has some idea why he or she is out on the water. Meanwhile, the poor, dumb worm is drowning and wondering why all these sharp teeth are whizzing by."

Agent Bradley pulled up in front of my apartment building. Looking over at me, he said: "Thanks for coming, Dr. Phelps. I'll be in touch."

"I'm sure those must be the sentiments with which the worm is left just after being skewered," I replied. Unbuckling my belt, I debated whether to tell Agent Bradley about what Rip had said concerning the nature of my, at least partially, intertwined destiny with the one who would be of assistance to me in Chicago.

I decided to let the matter go for now. Agent Bradley probably only would interpret such a tale as the ramblings of a waterlogged worm.

********

After a good night's sleep, I got up early on Monday morning. Before meeting with Mary Streeter, there were a few domestic chores and financial loose-ends to look after.

I had finished all my errands in plenty of time to make my way over to the newspaper offices where Mary worked and walk through the front doors at about five to one in the afternoon. I told the receptionist who I was and whom I had come to see, and she placed a call to Mary.

Three or four minutes later, Mary appeared from around a corner. Smiling, she walked toward me and, upon reaching me, game me a hug, that I returned.

Mary was blond-haired and with a color of greenish-blue eyes that were mesmerizing. One easily could become lost in the alluring depth of those eyes as well as by the way light seemed to dance about them when she looked at you.

She was as intelligent as she was beautiful, and her beauty was considerable. I felt lucky to have become friends with her over the years.

We left the building exchanging pleasantries. Once outside, she took the lead and guided me to a restaurant several blocks away.

Since Mary had made reservations, we were ushered to a table in fairly quick order. Although the restaurant was moderately busy, our seats, at least for the moment, were somewhat removed from most of the other patrons.

In a few more minutes we each had ordered and were sipping water from the glasses provided by our waiter. While waiting for the food to arrive and during the first part of the meal, I filled Mary in on everything which had taken place - from the time that Beth Idaho had first walked into my office, until the time when Agent Bradley had dropped me off in front of my apartment yesterday morning.

When I had finished my account, she said: "I've already made quite a few inquiries about the individuals, organizations and leads that you gave me from Chicago. Nothing has come back yet, but I'm expecting some results in the next day or two. I hope you'll appreciate the fact, David, that I've called in a lot of I.O.Us on this one."

"You've also created a new I.O.U.," I offered, "if that is any consolation."

"Not much," she sniffed. "An I.O.U. from you is like a lot of junk bonds - full of promise, volatile, and often of more value to the one who is supplying them than to the one who is receiving them."

"Remind me not to ask you to speak at any testimonial dinner given in my behalf," I noted.

"Although the latter is unlikely to happen," Mary countered, "nonetheless, I feel deeply honored you have entrusted me with such a sensitive responsibility."

"My, my," I remarked, "we are feisty for a Monday, aren't we. Your research on ecology must not be going all that well, so you've decided to add the names of your few remaining friends to the red list of endangered species."

Smiling, Mary remarked: "You psychologist types are so clever, but, as usual, only by half. In reality, the research is going extremely well, but, unfortunately, it is too much of a bad thing.

"The whole thing started out," she informed me, "with the idea of doing an interim report on what had happened following the Earth Summit which took place in Rio in 1992, together with a preview of some of the issues that were on the agenda for the upcoming environmental summit being scheduled to take place in Japan. Originally, I thought I would just do an updated version of the three r's - reduce, reuse and re-cycle, but I soon began to see that the problems are beyond the capacity of the three r's to solve.

"Indeed, the three r's are woefully inadequate to take on the killer p's: profits, politics, power, poverty, population, propaganda, procrastination, progress, paradigms, pathology, production, pleasure, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, plastics, as well as other kinds of polymers and pollution. In the context of the killer p's, the three r's seem to be someone's cute, marketing strategy to help keep us in ignorance and denial concerning the real magnitude, and potentially terminal nature, of the problems with which humankind is presently faced.

"Moreover, these problems are not just a matter of how human beings are adversely affecting different eco-systems that are sharing this planet with our species and which play very important roles in our continued physical existence. The problems give expression to ecological concerns construed in the broadest possible terms - spiritual, social, political, legal, medical, educational and economic.

"Because human ecology has become diseased on all levels, a metastasis-like process has been spreading human malignancies throughout the different layers of the Earth's physical environment- from the atmosphere, to the oceans, to the lands, and to the organisms that inhabit various niches of these layers of the environment. The reason this metastasis-like process has been going on, unchecked, for such a long time is because our ecological ignorance begins, first and foremost, with our failure to understand the complexity, intricacy and nature of the human being, both internally, as well as in conjunction with our relationships with one another and our relationships with different eco-systems within our environment.

"If, for the moment, we ignore the human side of the ecological equation, and just look at the physical aspects or symptoms, if you will, of what humanity brings to that equation, the situation is very depressing, if not daunting. Just keep in mind, however, as horrific as the purely outward character of the problem is, the issue doesn't get really scary and nightmarish until we look at the human pathologies being given expression through these symptoms.

"If the problems with which we are confronted were purely technical in character, then we might stand some chance of turning things around through scientific and engineering ingenuity. But, what needs fixing is the human being, and neither science, technology nor engineering have anything to offer for solving the human part of the equation.

"As far as the outward facets of the issue are concerned, one could start almost anywhere. For instance, during the last hundred and fifty years, and especially since the World War II, billions of kilograms of man-made, synthetic chemicals have been pumped into different parts of the environment.

"These chemicals come in the form of over one hundred thousand species of compounds. In addition, there are more than a thousand new synthetic polymers being introduced into nature with each passing year.

"Only a tiny fraction of these compounds have been studied with sufficient diligence to even begin to understand what sorts of problematic impact these chemicals may be having on various ecological cycles. Moreover, whatever detailed studies have been conducted strongly suggest that many industrial chemicals - both in the form of commercial products as well in those that are used in production processes - have properties capable of adversely affecting almost every dimension of the environment, including, most importantly, the numerous species inhabiting an array of interlocking eco-systems within the environment.

"None of this, of course, even begins to take into consideration the many unknowns associated with the introduction of biotechnology into the discussion. We are just beginning to realize that even in the case of synthetic chemicals there are intricacies of ecological dynamics that, as little as twenty or thirty years ago, we neither comprehended nor even imagined.

"Now, we have arrogance and ignorance running about in sullied lab coats, with visions of dollar signs and accolades dancing in their brains, assuring us they are omniscient and we have nothing to worry about despite the fact that what they, and the rest of us, actually know about ecology, both short-term and long-term, is embarrassingly little. I would feel a lot safer if some of these scientists and researchers had a little more humility and common sense, and a little less ambition and technical acumen.

"In any event, if we just limit our conversation to synthetic chemical compounds and reluctantly shelve, for the moment, the additional problems raised by genetic engineering, there is something which every human being on Earth needs to come to understand with their souls, hearts, minds and bodies. In one way or another, eventually, a very large number of the synthetic chemicals being pumped into the environment become part of a toxic cycle that disrupts, undermines, compromises, alters, and/or lethally affects virtually every ecological cycle on earth.

"During production, or while being used, or when being disposed of, these chemicals - either directly or through the by-products of their decomposition - are dispersed into air, water and land. Furthermore, through processes of evaporation, weather patterns and so on, these chemicals become part of the rain and snow that fall to Earth and, as a result become distributed throughout, and accumulate in, every link in the food chain.

"Unfortunately, there simply are not enough dollars or scientists being directed - by independent agencies, institutions, and organizations - to the kind of detailed research that needs to be done to determine the potential toxicity of the tens of thousands of chemicals which have not been subjected to anything but a limited, and cursory, sort of examination by the very people who stand to profit by the commercial sale or use of the chemicals that they are studying. Furthermore, very few of the studies being commissioned, whether by the chemical companies or by independent funding, are studying the possible synergistic effects which the interaction of different synthetic chemicals may be having, once these substances are released into the environment."

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