The Madman's Tale

by John Katzenbach

  His first instinct was to rise, and burst into the doctor’s office.

  He reined this urge in, taking a deep breath.

  Then he heard, penetrating right through the thick wall and wood of the door, “Miss Jones, I am holding you personally responsible for all the disruption here at the hospital. Who knows what other patients might be in jeopardy due to your actions!”

  The hell with it, Peter said to himself, and he rose abruptly, and crossed the room before either Little Black or Miss Luscious were able to react.

  “Hey!” the buxom secretary said, “You can’t …”

  “Sure I can,” said Peter, reaching for the door handle with both his handcuffed hands.

  “Mister Moses!” Miss Luscious cried.

  But the wiry black attendant moved languidly, almost nonchalantly, as if Peter bursting into Doctor Gulptilil’s office was just about the most routine thing in the world.

  Gulp-a-pill looked up red-faced and startled. Lucy was sitting in the inquisition’s seat in front of his desk, a little pale, but icy, as well, as if she had adorned herself with some hardened casing and his words, no matter how enraged were simply rebounding off of her skin. She remained expressionless, as Peter tumbled through the doorway, trailed by Little Black.

  The medical director took a deep breath, regaining some composure, stared coldly across the room and said, “Peter, I will be with you in a moment. Please wait outside. Mister Moses, if you will—”

  But Peter interrupted. “It’s as much my fault as anyone’s,” he said.

  Doctor Gulptilil was in midwave, dismissing him, but he stopped, leaving his hand in the air. “Fault?” he said. “And how so, Peter?”

  “I’ve concurred with every step she’s taken so far. And clearly, to smoke out this killer here, some extraordinary steps must be involved. I’ve urged that from the start, so I’m as much to blame for any disruption.”

  Doctor Gulptilil hesitated, then said, “You ascribe much power to your choices, Peter.”

  This oblique statement left Peter a little befuddled. He inhaled sharply and said, “It is a simple fact of any criminal investigation that at some point dramatic steps must be taken to force the target to act in a way that will isolate him, and make him vulnerable.” This sounded, to Peter’s ears, smug and sophomoric, and, he understood, wasn’t actually all that true, but, he guessed, at least it was something to say right in that moment and he said it with enough conviction to make it at least seem to be true.

  Gulptilil rocked back in his seat, taking a breath, pausing. Both Lucy and Peter looked over at him, and both thought more or less the same thing: What made the doctor a curiously dangerous person was his capacity to step back from outrage, insult, anger, or whatever passion was knocking so eagerly to emerge, and settle instead, into a quiet, observant mode. It unsettled Lucy, for she was more comfortable seeing people act out their rages, even if she was unwilling to do the same. Peter thought this a formidable capacity. It seemed to him that every conversation anyone had with the psychiatrist was really a little more like playing a hand of high stakes poker, where Gulptilil held most of the chips, and anyone sitting across from the doctor was betting money they didn’t have. It seemed to both of them as if the doctor was calculating in his head. Little Black reached out and seized Peter by the arm, to pull him back into the waiting room, but now, abruptly, the doctor seemed to change his mind. “Ah, Mister Moses,” he said, his voice returning to normal, the anger that had penetrated the walls dissolving rapidly. “Perhaps that won’t be necessary, after all. Actually, come in, Peter.”

  He motioned to another chair.

  “Vulnerable, you say?”

  “Yes,” Peter replied. What else, he thought, could he say?

  “More vulnerable, say, than Miss Jones has rendered herself with this childishly transparent attempt to mimic the physical characteristics of the victims that she is interested in?”

  “It is difficult to say,” Peter responded.

  The doctor smiled weakly. “Of course it is. But would you say that if this person she pursues—this possibly imaginary killer—actually exists here within these walls, that she has done something which will, of necessity, gain his immediate and probably undivided attention?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Very good. I suspect so, as well. If this gentleman is here. So, we could postulate, could we not, Peter, that were nothing to happen to Miss Jones in the immediacy of time, that we could reasonably believe that this maybe killer of hers was not, in actuality present in the hospital? That the unfortunate nurse-trainee was in fact killed by Lanky in a fit of homicidal delusion, as the evidence indicates?”

  “That would be a considerable leap, Doctor,” Peter answered. “The man Miss Jones and I have been pursuing might have more discipline than we have come to believe.”

  “Ah yes. A killer with discipline. A most unusual characteristic for a killer being driven by psychosis, no? You are, as we have discussed, pursuing a man who is dominated by his murderous impulses, but now that is seemingly a less convenient diagnosis? Or, if he is, as Miss Jones suggested upon her arrival here, some Jack the Ripper mythological sort, that might explain things. But, then, in the small amount of reading I’ve managed about this historical fellow, I have learned that he seemed to have precious little in the area of discipline. Compulsive killers are driven by immense forces, Peter, and ultimately incapable of restraining themselves. But that is a conversation for historians of these things to have, and concerns us little here, today. Might I ask the two of you: If the killer you are so persuaded is here were to be able to constrain himself, wouldn’t that make it even more unlikely that you would ever discover him? No matter how many days, weeks, or even years you were to search?”

  “I cannot predict the future any more than you can, Doctor.”

  Gulptilil smiled. “Ah, Peter, a most clever response. And one that speaks of your potential for recovery when we get you into this most progressive program suggested by your friends in the Church. That, I take it, was your actual reason for bursting into my office here today? To signal your desire to take them up on their most generous and thoughtful offer?”

  Peter hesitated. Doctor Gulptilil eyed him closely.

  “That was, of course, your reason?” he asked a second time, his voice precluding any response but the obvious one.

  “Yes,” Peter said. He was impressed with the way Gulptilil had managed to conflate the two issues: an unknown killer and his own legal problems.

  “So, Peter wishes to leave the hospital for a new course of treatment and a new life, and Miss Jones has done something which she believes will encourage the reason for her presence to emerge so that she can bring him to justice. Is that not a fair assessment of the moment we find ourselves in?”

  Both Lucy, who had remained silent, and Peter nodded.

  Doctor Gulptilil allowed himself a small grin, just around the corners of his mouth. “Then, I think, we can safely say that a small, but suitable amount of time will allow us to answer both these questions with certainty. It is Friday. I would think that on Monday morning I will be able to say farewell to both of you. No? That would be more than enough time to discover whether Miss Jones’s approach might bear fruit. And for Peter’s situation to be, well, accommodated.”

  Lucy shifted about. She thought of several things she might say that could alter the doctor’s deadline. But, as she squirmed slightly, she saw that Gulptilil was thinking hard, turning over one thing after another in his own head. She imagined that at the chess game of bureaucracy she would always finish second to the psychiatrist, especially as it played out on his own turf. So, instead, she replied: “Monday morning. Okay.”

  “And, of course, by putting yourself in this hazardous position, you will undoubtedly sign a letter absolving the hospital administration from any responsibility for maintaining your safety?”

  Lucy’s eyes narrowed, and her voice freighted the one word response with as much contemp
t as she could muster. “Yes.”

  “Wonderful. So, that part is settled. Now, Peter, let me just make a call …”

  He pulled a small black leather address book from the top drawer of his desk. After casually flipping it open, he grasped an ivory colored business card. In short order, Doctor Gulptilil read a number off and dialed it. He rocked back in his seat, while the connection was being made. After a second, he said into the handset, “Father Grozdik, please. This is Doctor Gulptilil at the Western State Hospital.”

  There was a small pause, and then, Gulp-a-pill said, “Father? Good day. You will be pleased to learn that I have Peter here in my office and he has agreed to the arrangements we discussed recently. In all regards. Now, I believe there is some paperwork that will need to be processed so that we can bring this unfortunate situation to a speedy close?”

  Peter sat back heavily, realizing that his entire life had just changed. It was almost as if he were outside of himself, watching it happen. He didn’t dare to steal a look at Lucy, who was also on the threshold of something, but was unsure precisely what, because success and failure seemed to have muddied in her head.

  Francis walked down the corridor and into the dayroom, looking across past the disjointed knots of patients toward the Ping-Pong table. An old man in striped nightclothes and a cardigan buttoned up to his throat, although it was hot in the room, had taken up a paddle and was swinging it, as if he were playing a game, but there was no opponent on the other side, nor did he have a ball, so that the game was played in silence. The old man seemed intent, concentrating on each point, anticipating each return from the imaginary foe, and had a determined look, as if the score was in balance.

  The dayroom was quiet, except for the muted sound of the two televisions, where announcers’ and soap opera actors’ voices mingled freely with the mutterings of patients who conversed primarily with themselves. Occasionally a newspaper or magazine would be slapped down on a table, and every so often a patient would inadvertently slide into the space occupied by another, which would prompt some words. But for a place that could see explosions, the dayroom was quiet. It was a little bit, Francis thought, as if the loss of Cleo’s bulk and presence had stifled some of the usual anxiety in the room. Death as a tranquilizer. It was all an illusion, he thought, because he could sense tension and fear throughout. Something had happened that made all of them feel at risk.

  Francis dropped himself into an overstuffed and lumpy chair and wondered how he had arrived at where he was. He could feel his own heart racing, because he thought that he alone understood what had taken place the night before. He hoped that Peter would return, so that he could share the observations, but he was no longer sure that Peter would believe them.

  One of his voices whispered You’re all alone. You always have been. You always will be. And he didn’t bother to try internally to argue or deny the sentiments.

  Then another voice, equally soft, as if trying to keep from being heard in the area beyond his head, added No, there’s someone searching for you, Francis.

  He knew who this was.

  Francis wasn’t precisely sure how he knew the Angel was stalking him. But he was persuaded that this was the case. For a second he looked around, to see if he could spot someone watching him, but the trouble with the mental hospital was that everyone watched one another and ignored one another at more or less the same time.

  Francis rose abruptly. He knew one thing: He had to find the Angel before the Angel came for him.

  He started to walk toward the dayroom door, when he spotted Big Black. An idea occurred to him and he called after the attendant. “Mister Moses?”

  The huge man turned. “What is it, C-Bird? Bad day today. Don’t go and ask for something I can’t give you.”

  “Mister Moses, when are the release hearings scheduled?”

  Big Black looked sideways at Francis. “There’s a bunch for this afternoon. Right after lunch.”

  “I need to go.”

  “You what?”

  “I need to watch those hearings.”

  “Whatever for?”

  Francis couldn’t quite articulate what he was really thinking, so instead he responded, “Because I want to get out of here, and if I can watch what other people do in a release hearing, maybe it will help me not make the same mistakes.”

  Big Black lifted an eyebrow. “Well, C-Bird,” he said, “that makes some sense. Don’t know that I’ve ever had anyone else ever ask for that before.”

  “It would help me,” Francis said.

  The attendant looked doubtful, but then he shrugged. He lowered his voice. “I don’t know that I’m believing you fully on this, C-Bird. But tell you what. You promise no trouble, and I’ll take you over and you can sit with me and watch. This might be breaking some rule. I don’t know. But seems to me that all sorts of rules been broke today.”

  Francis breathed out.

  A portrait was forming in his imagination, and this was an important brushstroke.

  Light gray clouds were cluttering the sky, and a sickly, humid heat filled the midmorning air as Lucy Jones, Peter in handcuffs, and Little Black walked slowly across the hospital grounds. She could feel the rain that was an hour or two off. For the first few yards, the three were quiet; even their footsteps against the black macadam pathway seemed muffled against the thickening heat and darkening skies. Little Black wiped a hand across his forehead, glanced at the sweat that had accumulated there, and said, “Damn, but you sure can feel summer coming about,” which was true. They took a few more steps, when Peter the Fireman abruptly stopped.

  “Summer?” he said. He looked up, as if searching the heavens for some sunlight and blue skies, but they were obscured. But whatever he was seeking wasn’t in the steamy air around them. “Mister Moses, what’s happening?”

  Little Black also stopped and eyed Peter curiously. “What do you mean ‘What’s happening?’” he asked.

  “Like, in the world. In the United States. In Boston or Springfield. Are the Red Sox playing well? Are the hostages still in Iran? Are there demonstrations? Speeches? Editorials? Is the economy good? What’s happening to the stock market? What’s the number one movie?”

  Little Black shook his head. “You ought to be asking Newsman these questions. He’s the one with all the headlines.”

  Peter looked around. His eyes fixed on the mental hospital walls. “People think those are to keep all of us in,” he said slowly. “But that’s not what really happens. Those walls keep the world out.” Peter shook his head. “It’s like being on an island. Or like being one of those Japanese soldiers stuck in the jungle who were never told the war was over and who thought year after year, that they were just doing their duty, fighting on for their emperor. We’re stuck in some Twilight Zone time warp, where everything just passes us by. Earthquakes. Hurricanes. Upheavals of all sorts, man-made and natural.”

  Lucy thought Peter was absolutely right, but still hesitated before speaking. “You’re making a point?”

  “Yes. Of course. In the land of locked doors, who would be king?”

  Lucy nodded. “The man with the keys.”

  “So,” Peter said, “how do you set a trap for a man who can open any door?”

  Lucy thought for a moment. “You need to make him open the door where you can expect him.”

  “Right,” Peter said. “So, what door would that be?”

  He looked over at Little Black, who shrugged. But Lucy plunged deep into thought, and then inhaled sharply, as if the thought that came to her had been astonishing, maybe even shocking. “We know one door he opened up,” she said. “It was the door that brought me here.”

  “Which door do you mean?”

  “Where was Short Blond when he came for her?”

  “Alone in the Amherst Building nursing station late at night.”

  “Then that’s where I should be,” Lucy said.

  chapter 29

  By midday it had started to rain, an erratic drizzle,
interrupted frequently by stronger downpours, or even the occasional overly optimistic light break that spoke of clearing, but which soon enough was swept aside by another line of dark showers. Francis had hurried along at Big Black’s side, dashing between the dampness and sticky humidity, almost hoping that the attendant’s huge bulk would carve a path through the gloomy weather, and that he could remain dry in the big man’s wake. It was the sort of day, he thought, that suggested unchecked epidemic and rampant disease: hot, oppressive, sultry, and wet. Almost tropical in character, as if the usual conservative dry New England world of the state hospital had been suddenly overtaken by some alien, bizarre rain forest sensibility. It was weather, Francis thought, that was every bit as out of place and insane as all of them. Even the light breeze that swept rain puddles from the asphalt sidewalks had an otherworldly thickness to it.

  As was the custom in the hospital, the release hearings were held in the administration building, inside the modestly sized staff lunchroom, which was reconfigured for the occasion into a pseudocourtroom. It had a thrown together, makeshift quality to it. There were tables for the hearing officers and for the patient advocates. Uncomfortable steel folding chairs had been arranged in rows for the hospital inmates and their families. A desk was provided for a stenographer and a seat for witnesses. The room was crowded, but not to overfilling, and what few words being spoken were whispered. Francis and Big Black slid into chairs in a row at the back. At first, Francis imagined the air in the room was stifling, then, upon reflection, thought perhaps it was less the air, than it was the cloud of eager hopes and helplessness that filled the space.

  Presiding over the hearing was a retired district court judge from Springfield. He was gray-haired, overweight, and florid, taken to making large gestures with his hands. He had a gavel which he banged every so often for no apparent reason, and he wore a slightly frayed black robe that had probably seen better days and more important cases some years in his past. To his right was a psychiatrist from the state Department of Mental Health, a young woman with thick eyeglasses, who kept shuffling through files and papers, as if unable to find just precisely the right one, and to his left a lawyer from the local district attorney’s office, who lounged in his seat, with a young man’s bored eyes, clearly having lost some office pool which led to the assignment at the hospital. At one table, there was another young lawyer, wiry-haired, wearing an ill-fitting suit, slightly more eager and open-eyed, who served as the patients’ representative, and across from him, various members of the hospital staff. It was all designed to give an official flavor to the proceedings, to couch decisions in conjoined medical and legal terms. It had the veneer of authenticity, of responsibility, of system and attentiveness, as if every case being heard had been carefully examined, properly vetted, and thoroughly assessed before being presented, when Francis immediately understood the exact opposite was the truth.