The Madman's Tale

by John Katzenbach

  Quiet, she said to herself, is as unsettling as a scream.

  The echoes faded around her, and she listened to the raspy sound of her own breath. She waited until a complete silence had enveloped her. She leaned over the black iron banister, searching up and down, to make certain she was alone. She could see no one. The stairwell was well lit, and there were no shadows to hide in. She waited another moment or two, trying to shake off a sense of narrowing that overcame her. It was as if the walls had closed in ever so slightly. There was a chill in the stairwell, which made her think that the heating system in the dormitory didn’t penetrate to that space, and she shivered, and then thought that was completely wrong, because she could suddenly feel sweat dripping beneath her arms.

  Lucy shook her head, as if by force of vigorous motion she could clear the sensation from within her. She attributed the clammy feeling that she could feel in her palms with the hospital and her role in it. She reassured herself that being one of the few completely reasonable persons around was undoubtedly likely to make her feel nervous, and that it was only the accumulation of all that she had seen and felt in her first days in the hospital that had come back to visit her.

  Again, exhaling slowly, she scraped her foot against the floor, making a scratching sound, as if to impose a sense of something ordinary and routine in the stairwell.

  But the noise she made chilled her.

  Memory scorched her, like acid.

  Lucy swallowed hard, reminding herself that it was a rule in her heart to not dwell on what had happened to her so many years earlier. There was no profit in revisiting pain, recollecting fear, or reliving a hurt so profound. She reminded herself of the mantra she had adopted after being assaulted: You only remain a victim, if you allow it. Inadvertently, she started to lift her hand to her scarred cheek, but was stopped by the bulk of the file box she carried. She could feel where she had been damaged, as if the scar glowed, and she remembered the tightening sensation of the emergency room surgeon’s stitches, as he’d pulled the separated flaps of skin back together. A nurse had quietly reassured her, while two detectives, a man and a woman, had waited on the other side of a white floor-to-ceiling curtain, while the physicians tended first to the obvious wounds that bled, and then to the harder wounds, that were internal. It had been the first time she’d heard the words rape kit, but not the last, and within a few years, she would have both a professional and personal knowledge of the words. She breathed out again, slowly. The worst night of her life had started in a stairwell much like that one, and then, as quickly as that awful thought arrived, she dismissed it harshly.

  I am alone she reminded herself. I am all alone.

  Gritting her teeth, her ears still edgily sorting through every ancillary sound and noise, she pushed to the doorway, and shouldered her way into the second floor of the dormitory. Her room—Short Blond’s former room—was adjacent to the stairwell. Doctor Gulptilil had given her a key, and she set the box down, while she retrieved it from her pocket.

  She slipped it into the lock, and then stopped.

  Her door was open. It slid forward an inch or two, revealing a strip of darkness around the edges.

  She stepped back sharply into the corridor, as if the doorway was electrified.

  Her head pivoted right and left, and she bent forward slightly, trying to spot someone else, or hear some telltale sign that told her someone was close by. But her eyes seemed suddenly blind and her hearing deafened. She took a quick measurement of all her senses, and they all answered warnings.

  Lucy hesitated, unsure of what to do.

  Three years prosecuting cases in the sex crimes unit of the Suffolk County prosecutor’s office had taught her much. As she had swiftly risen through the ranks to become the assistant chief of the unit, she had immersed herself in case after case, relentlessly pursuing all the minutia of assault after assault. The constancy of crime had created within her a sort of daily testing mechanism, where each and every little act of her existence was held up against an invisible internal standard: Is this going to be the small mistake that gives someone an opportunity? In the larger scheme of things, this meant she was aware that she shouldn’t walk alone through a darkened parking lot at night or answer an unexpected knock at her door by opening it. It meant keeping windows locked, being alert and aware and constantly on guard and sometimes it meant carrying the handgun that she was authorized by the prosecutor’s office to keep, in her hand. It also meant not repeating the innocent mistakes she herself had made one terrible night when she was a law student.

  She bit down on her lip. That weapon was locked in a case inside her bag within the room.

  Again she listened, telling herself nothing was amiss, when everything irrational and terrified within her insisted the opposite. She set down the box of patient files, nudging it to the side. The side of caution within her screamed implacably, a din of warning.

  She ignored it, and instead, she reached forward for the door handle.

  Then, hand on the brass fitting, she stopped.

  Had the metal been hot to the touch, she would have failed to notice it.

  Breathing out slowly, she stepped back.

  She spoke to herself, as if by slowing the speed of consideration, she would give it more weight: The door was locked and now it is open. What are you about to do?

  Lucy stepped back a second time. Then she abruptly turned, and started walking quickly down the corridor. Her eyes searched right and left, her ears sharpened, listening. She picked up her pace, so that she was nearly running, a fast jog through the carpeted floors, her feet making a muffled sound beneath her. All the other dormitory rooms on that floor were closed, and silent. She reached the end of the hallway, starting to breathe hard, then tossed herself down the stairwell at that end, her shoes beating a drummer’s tattoo against the risers. The stairwell was identical to the one at the other end, that she had climbed up a few minutes earlier, empty and echoing. She pushed through a heavy door, and then, for the first time, heard some voices. She moved toward the sound, taking the steps two at a time, and came upon three young women, standing by the first floor front entrance. All wore white nursing outfits beneath cardigan sweaters of different hues, and they looked up, surprised, as Lucy launched herself in their direction.

  Gesturing a little wildly, Lucy grabbed some breath and said, “Excuse me …”

  The three nurse-trainees stared at her.

  “… I’m sorry to interrupt your conversation,” she said, “but I’m Lucy Jones, the prosecutor sent here to …”

  “We know who you are, Miss Jones, and why you’re here,” one of the nurses said. She was a tall black woman, with athletic, broad shoulders and dark hair and matching complexion. “Is something wrong?”

  Lucy nodded, and inhaled before replying, trying to regain some composure. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I returned here and found my dormitory door unlocked. I’m sure I left it locked this morning when I went over to the Amherst Building …”

  “That’s not right,” one of the other nurses said. “Even if building maintenance or the cleaning service went in there, they’re supposed to lock up afterward. That’s the rule.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lucy said, “but I was alone up there and …”

  The tall black nurse nodded, in understanding. “We’re all a little jumpy, Miss Jones, even with Lanky’s arrest. These sorts of things just don’t happen in the hospital. Why don’t we three accompany you back to the room and check it out.”

  No one had to expand on the phrase these things to understand it.

  Lucy sighed. “Thank you,” she said. “That is kind of you. I would really appreciate it.”

  The four women then turned and walked up the stairwell, marching together, a little like a squad of waterbirds paddling across a lake in the early morning. The nurses continued talking, gossiping really, about a couple of the doctors working in the hospital, and making jokes about the weaselly appearance of the latest group of legal adv
ocates who had arrived at the hospital that week for a round of quasijudicial commitment hearings. Lucy led the way, moving rapidly right up to the door.

  “I really appreciate this,” she repeated, and then she reached out and grabbed the door handle, twisted it, and pushed.

  The door lock stopped her in her tracks. The door ratcheted back and forth, but did not open.

  She pushed again.

  The nurses looked at her a little oddly.

  “It was open,” Lucy said. “It was definitely open.”

  “It seems locked now,” the black nurse said.

  “I’m sure it was open. I put my hand on the handle and put in the key and before I turned it the door opened just a little,” Lucy said. Her voice, however, lacked conviction. She was suddenly filled with doubts.

  There was a momentary, awkward pause, and then Lucy removed her room key from her pocket, slid it into the lock and opened the door. The three nurses hovered behind her. “Why don’t we go in and make a quick check?” one said.

  Lucy pushed the door open, and stepped inside the room. It was dark inside and she flicked the switch for the overhead light. Abruptly the small space lit up. It was a sparse, narrow area, a monklike room with nothing on the walls, a sturdy chest of drawers, a single bed, and a small brown wooden desk and hard backed chair. Her suitcase remained open in the center of the bed, on top of a red corduroy bedspread, which was the only splash of vibrant color in the room. Everything else was either oaken brown, or white, like the walls. As the three nurses watched, Lucy opened the small closet on one wall, and peered inside at its emptiness. Then she walked over to the small bathroom, and checked the shower stall. She even dropped to one knee and checked under the bed, although they could all see that there was no one concealed under there. Lucy rose up, dusted herself off, and turned to the three nurses. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m quite certain the door was open, and I had the sensation that there was someone in the room waiting for me. I’ve put you out and …”

  But all three nurses shook their heads. “Nothing to apologize for,” the black nurse said.

  “I’m not apologizing,” Lucy said sturdily. “The door was open. Now it’s locked.”

  But inwardly, Lucy was unsure whether this was true.

  The nurses were silent, until the black nurse shrugged and spoke slowly, “Like I said before, we’re all a little jumpy, and it makes more sense to be safe than sorry.”

  The others murmured in agreement.

  “You okay now?” the nurse asked.

  “Yes. Fine. I appreciate your concern,” Lucy said, a little stiffly.

  “Well, you need help again, you just find anyone. Don’t hesitate. Best to trust your feelings in times like these.”

  The nurse didn’t elaborate on what she meant by times like these.

  Lucy locked the door behind the nurses, as they walked back down the hallway. She was a little embarrassed, as she turned and leaned up against the door, pushing it with her back. She looked around and thought to herself: You weren’t wrong. Someone was here. Someone was waiting.

  She glanced over at her bag. Or someone was just having a look. She stepped to the modest collection of clothes and toiletries that she had brought with her and realized, in that second, that something was missing. She didn’t know what, but she knew something had been taken from her room.

  It was you, wasn’t it?

  Right there, right at that moment, you tried to tell Lucy something important about yourself, and she missed it. It was something critical, and something frightening, far more frightening than anything she felt as she closed that door behind her with a satisfying thud. She was still thinking like a normal person, and that was to her great disadvantage.

  Peter the Fireman looked across the dormitory room, trying hard to separate the pain of distant memory from the immediate task at hand. Uncertainty marred his thoughts, and he felt the bitterness that indecision can nurture. He thought of himself at the very least as a man of determination and a man of decisiveness, and he was uncomfortable with doubts. He knew it had been impulse which prompted him to volunteer his and C-Bird’s services to Lucy Jones, and he was still certain that it had been the correct choice. But his enthusiasm hadn’t contemplated failure, and he strained to see a manner in which they could succeed. Everywhere he considered, he saw restraints and prohibitions, and he did not see how they could overcome all those limitations.

  In the world of the mental hospital, he considered himself to be the sole pragmatist.

  He sighed. It was deep into the night and he was leaning up against the wall, his feet stretched out on the bed, listening to the racket of sleep surrounding him. Even the nighttime knew no respite from pain, he thought. The people in the hospital were unable to flee their troubles, no matter how many narcotics Gulp-a-pill had prescribed. He thought this was what was so insidious about mental illness; that it took so much force of will and depth of treatment to simply get to a position where one could consider trying to get better, that the task seemed almost Herculean for most, and well-nigh impossible for some. He heard one long moan, and almost turned in that direction, but then stopped, because he recognized the author. It saddened him, sometimes, when Francis tossed in his sleep, because he knew the young man didn’t really deserve the hurts that emerged unwelcome in the darkness.

  He didn’t think he fit the same category.

  Peter tried to relax, but could not. For a moment, he wondered whether when he closed his eyes, if the same turmoil erupted from his sleep sounds.

  The difference, he told himself, between him and all the others, including his young friend, was that he was guilty, and they probably were not.

  In his nostrils, inexplicably, he could suddenly smell the thick, sweet odor of some indistinct accelerant. The first whiff screamed gasoline, the second, a benzine-based lighter fluid.

  He almost shot up in surprise, launching himself out of bed, the sensation was so powerful. His first instinct was to somehow raise the alarm, organize the men, get them out, before the inevitable fire burst forth. In his mind’s eye, he suddenly saw streaks of red and yellow flame searching the bedding, the walls, the floor beneath their feet, for fuel. He could sense the deep desperate choking that would inevitably follow, as thick curtains of smoke fell across the stage of the room. The door was locked, as it was every night, and he could hear the panicked men, screaming, calling for help, pounding on the walls. Every muscle in his body tensed, and then, just as rapidly, relaxed, as he breathed in, and he realized the smell flitting through his nose was as much a hallucination as any of those that plagued Francis or Nappy or even the particularly dire ones that had afflicted Lanky.

  He sometimes thought that his entire life had been defined by odors. Beer and whiskey smells that followed his father, mingling freely with the odors of dried sweat and dirt from hard work at some construction site or another. Sometimes, too, his father wore thick diesel smells from fixing the heavy equipment. And burying his head into the large man’s chest was to come away with a nose filled with the stale scent of too many of the cigarettes that eventually would kill him. His mother, in contrast, always had a chamomile scent to her, because she battled hard against the harshness of the detergents that she used in the laundry she took in. Sometimes, beneath the heavy smell of the soaps she liked, he could just catch a whiff of the sharp odor of bleach. She wore a far better scent on Sundays, when she was scrubbed, but had spent some time in the kitchen early, baking, so that in her churchgoing finery she combined an earthy, bread-smell, with an insistent cleanliness, as if that was what God would want. Church was stiff clothes beneath the white and gold robes of the altar boy and incense that sometimes made him sneeze. He remembered all those scents, as if they were in the hospital alongside him.

  The war had given him a whole new world of odors to remember. Thick jungle smells of vegetation and heat, cordite and white phosphorous from fire-fights. Clammy smells of smoke and napalm in the distance, that mingled with the
claustrophobic smells of the bush that entwined him. He grew accustomed to the smells of blood, vomit, and fecal matter that mixed so often with death. There were exotic cooking smells, in the villages they passed through, and dangerous smells of swamps and flooded fields that they maneuvered past.

  There was the acrid, familiar smell of marijuana back in the base camps, as well, and the harsh, eye-stinging smell of cleaning fluids used on weapons. It was a place of unfamiliar and unsettling scents.

  He had learned, when he returned, that fire had dozens of different smells at all its different stages and in all its different incarnations. Wood fires were distinct from chemical fires, which had little similarity to fires that gutted concrete. The first licking, tentative burst was different from the moment where it rose up and took flower, and different again from the crackling smell of a fire in control of its own voracious future. And it was all distinct from the heavy odors of charred timbers and twisted metals that followed, when it had been beaten back and defeated. He had known, then, too, the unique odor of exhaustion, as if bone-weary fatigue had a scent all its own. When he had signed up for arson investigator’s school, one of the first things they taught him was how to use his nose, because gasoline that was used to start a fire smelled different from kerosene and that smelled different from all the other ways that people created destruction. Some were subtle, with distant, elusive bouquets. Others were obvious and amateurish, demanding attention from the first moment he stepped onto the rubble of whatever remained.

  When it had come time to set his own fire, he’d used regular gasoline purchased at a filling station barely a mile away from the church. Purchased with a credit card in his own name. He didn’t want anyone to have any doubts as to who authored that particular blaze.