'When does the treatment start?' Hypnosis, he was thinking. It must be hypnosis.
'Oh, it already has. It started when we shook hands in the hall. Do you have cigarettes with you, Mr Morrison?'
'Yes.'
'May I have them, please?'
Shrugging, Morrison handed Donatti his pack. There were only two or three left in it, anyway.
Donatti put the pack on the desk. Then, smiling into Morrison's eyes, he curled his right hand into a fist and began to hammer it down on the pack of cigarettes, which twisted and flattened. A broken cigarette end flew out. Tobacco crumbs spilled. The sound of Donatti's fist was very loud in the closed room. The smile remained on his face in spite of the force of the blows, and Morrison was chilled by it. Probably just the effect they want to inspire, he thought.
At last Donatti ceased pounding. He picked up the pack, a twisted and battered ruin. 'You wouldn't believe the pleasure that gives me,' he said, and dropped the pack into the wastebasket. 'Even after three years in the business, it still pleases me.'
'As a treatment, it leaves something to be desired. Morrison said mildly. 'There's a news-stand in the lobby of this very building. And they sell all brands.'
'As you say,' Donatti said. He folded his hands. 'Your son, Alvin Dawes Morrison, is in the Paterson School for Handicapped Children. Born with cranial brain damage. Tested IQ of 46. Not quite in the educable retarded category. Your wife -, 'How did you find that out?' Morrison barked. He was startled and angry. 'You've got no ******* right to go poking around my -'
'We know a lot about you,' Donatti said smoothly. 'But, as I said, it will all be held in strictest confidence.'
'I'm getting out of here,' Morrison said thinly. He stood up.
'Stay a bit longer.'
Morrison looked at him closely. Donatti wasn't upset. In fact, he looked a little amused. The face of a man who has seen this reaction scores of times - maybe hundreds.
'All right. But it better be good.'
'Oh, it is.' Donatti leaned back. 'I told you we were pragmatists here. As pragmatists, we have to start by realizing how difficult it is to cure an addiction to tobacco. The relapse rate is almost eight-five per cent. The relapse rate for heroin addicts is lower than that. It is an extraordinary problem. Extraordinary.'
Morrison glanced into the wastebasket. One of the cigarettes, although twisted, still looked smokeable.
Donatti laughed good-naturedly, reached into the wastebasket, and broke it between his fingers.
'State legislatures sometimes hear a request that the prison systems do away with the weekly cigarette ration. Such proposals are invariably defeated. In a few cases where they have passed, there have been fierce prison riots. Riots, Mr Morrison. Imagine it.'
'I,' Morrison said, 'am not surprised.'
'But consider the implications. When you put a man in prison you take away any normal sex life, you take away his liquor, his politics, his freedom of movement. No riots - or few in comparison to the number of prisons. But when you take away his cigarettes - wham! bam!' He slammed his fist on the desk for emphasis.
'During World War I, when no one on the German home front could get cigarettes, the sight of German aristocrats picking butts out of the gutter was a common one. During World War II, many American women turned to pipes when they were unable to obtain cigarettes. A fascinating problem for the true pragmatist, Mr Morrison.'
'Could we get to the treatment?'
'Momentarily. Step over here, please.' Donatti had risen and was standing by the green curtains Morrison had noticed yesterday.
Donatti drew the curtains, discovering a rectangular window that looked into a bare room. No, not quite bare. There was a rabbit on the floor, eating pellets out of a dish.
'Pretty bunny,' Morrison commented.
'Indeed. Watch him.' Donatti pressed a button by the window-sill. The rabbit stopped eating and began to hop about crazily. It seemed to leap higher each time its feet struck the floor. Its fur stood out spikily in all directions. Its eyes were wild.
'Stop that! You're electrocuting him!'
Donatti released the button. 'Far from it. There's a very low-yield charge in the floor. Watch the rabbit, Mr Morrison!'
The rabbit was crouched about ten feet away from the dish of pellets. His nose wriggled. All at once he hopped away into a
corner.
'If the rabbit gets a jolt often enough while he's eating,' Donatti said, 'he makes the association very quickly. Eating causes pain.
Therefore, he won't eat. A few more shocks, and the rabbit will starve to death in front of his food. It's called aversion training.'
Light dawned in Morrison's head.
'No, thanks.' He started for the door.
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