Sternly, he told himself to get back to business. The elevator stopped at the lobby and he got out and started down the street, feeling that consideration of the Lady Known As Lou was much more pleasant. After all, what did he have to work with, as far as his job was concerned?
So far, two experts had told him that his theory was full of lovely little holes. Worse than that, they had told him that mass control of human beings was impossible, as far as they knew.
And maybe it was impossible, he told himself sadly. Maybe he should just junk his whole theory and think up a new one. Maybe there was no psionics involved in the thing at all, and Boyd and O'Connor were right.
Of course, he had a deep-seated conviction that psionics was somewhere at the root of everything, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. A lot of people had deep-seated convictions that they were beetles, or that the world was flat. And then again, murderers often suffered as a result of deep-seated convictions.
On the other hand, maybe he had invented a whole new psionic theory--or, at least, observed some new psionic facts. Maybe they would call the results Maloneizing, instead of O'Connorizing. He tried to picture a man opening a door and saying: "Come out quick--Mr. Frembits is Maloneizing again."
It didn't sound very plausible. But, after all, he did have a deep-seated conviction. He tried to think of a shallow-seated conviction, and failed. Didn't convictions ever stand up, anyhow, or lie down?
He shook his head, discovered that he was on Sixty-ninth Street, and headed for the FBI headquarters. His convictions, he had found, were sometimes an expression of his precognitive powers; he determined to ride with them, at least for a while.
By the time he came to the office of the agent-in-charge, he had figured out the beginnings of a new line of attack.
"How about the ghosts?" the agent-in-charge asked as he passed.
"They'll be along," Malone said. "In a big bundle, addressed to me personally. And don't open the bundle."
"Because I don't want the things to get loose and run around saying _Boo!_ to everybody," Malone said brightly, and went on.
He opened the door of his private office, went inside and sat down at the desk there. He took his time about framing a thought, a single, clear, deliberate thought: