Thin Air

by George Simpson

  Hammond parked the car and walked with Yablonski across to the Psychiatric Center. He had a twofold purpose in bringing Yablonski along. Perhaps the sight of an old shipmate might stir something in Olively—or vice versa. Hammond needed more information from Yablonski and he was hoping to get it without Cohen's and Slater's methods.

  The Psychiatric Center was a three-story complex with one whole floor devoted to the care of permanent government wards. Hammond and Yablonski were met by a civilian resident and Hammond briefly outlined his purpose. They were sent along to the recreation ward in the company of an attendant named Hanson, who had a pale face and an egregious grin and looked more like an inmate than a guard.

  The huge recreation hall resembled every nuthouse Hammond had ever seen in the movies. These men really did exist on the fringes of humanity. They were pathetic shells. Hanson agreed: "These are the hard cases. None will ever get out of here. They're all victims of arrested development or regression. You won't find any gross errors in here: everyone belongs."

  There were patients everywhere: on couches, at card tables, around the TV, dancing to records. Two of them were on a caged balcony, building castles in a sandbox. A few were grouped at the far end of the hall, attempting calisthenics under the supervision of another attendant. While most did their best with toe-touching exercises, one old fellow insisted on doing knee-bends instead.

  "Now, let's see, you want George Olively. Right over there." Hanson guided them toward a table near the arts-and-crafts counter, at which was seated a small, fiftyish man resting his chin on his hands and staring into space.

  Hammond heard labored breathing and realized after a moment that it was Yablonski. His face had become yellowish and he was sweating. He seemed to be fighting back nausea. He fell behind as they came up to George Olively. The little man gave them an empty look as they stepped into his line of sight. His hair stood up in disarray and his white pajamas were rumpled.

  Hanson said, "We're making great progress with him. Watch." He went to the crafts locker and Olively immediately sat up, smiling eagerly. Hanson brought him a set of crayons and a big pad of paper and Olively fell happily to work, scrunched over his table like a little gnome...or a child. He drew in slow sweeps, then changed colors to fill in his people.

  Then Olively paused, having difficulty with his drawing. He made little moaning sounds and picked at a sore on his cheek.

  Hammond examined Olively's work—stick figures at the level of a first-grader. He looked closer. The drawing was a set of curved lines converging at a point in the background. In the foreground were the stick figures of men with their arms raised, a few of them holding hands, big smiles on their moon faces.

  Olively would start to draw a figure then stop before it was complete, rock back in his chair, and growl to himself. Then he would dive in again, draw another figure...

  Hanson let this go on .for perhaps five minutes, then he said, "George? George, look at me. Look up." Olively was bouncing in his seat. He stopped and focused slitted eyes on Hanson, then laughed uproariously.

  "George, how are you today?" asked Hanson, ignoring the laughter.

  Olively stopped laughing and set his crayons down in a neat row. Then he rubbed his head, grinning foolishly, and said, "All gone."

  He jumped out of his chair and ran to the wall, pressed his back hard against it and covered his face with his hands.

  "It's a game," explained Hanson. "What's the game, George?"

  "Nah-here! Nah-here!"

  "Oh yes, you are here. I can see you, George!"

  "NAH-HERE!" Olively insisted. He shook his head and clapped his hands. "All gone!"

  Hammond had the chilling feeling he knew precisely what Olively was talking about. Yablonski moved around the table and stared at the stick-figure drawing.

  "Hammond!" he croaked. He pointed at the sketch and now Hammond was certain. The converging lines were the forward section of a ship, the point of convergence obviously the bow. The figures were crewmen standing in a circle, arms outstretched, holding hands. And the incomplete figures were meant to be disembodied men in various stages of invisibility!

  Olively leaped back to his Work and stood in front of it, frantically pushing Yablonski away and making hand motions to indicate danger. Yablonski stumbled back and Olively calmed down.

  "It's a classic case of childhood regression," Hanson explained, oblivious to what was really going on. "We're lucky we managed to stop him at age-level five...."

  Hammond did not contradict him. There was no reason to. He heard a groan beside him and turned to see Yablonski backing off, driven away by a silly grin that had come over Olively's face. Yablonski whirled suddenly and bolted across the room, crashing into a crowd of dancers and knocking them to the floor.

  Instantly, the men in the room were on their feet, screeching and hurling epithets. Yablonski made a halfhearted attempt to help one of the men he'd knocked down, but the man kicked him and screamed and Yablonski backed away in revulsion, racing to the exit.

  Hanson quickly became a forceful shepherd, screaming back at the men, wearing them down, then calming them. Hammond was left with Olively, who was supercharged with excitement. While patients rushed about in every direction, Olively dove at the table, snatched up his drawing and ripped it to shreds, howling with glee. Hammond moved to stop him, but he was too late. In the pandemonium around him, Hammond succumbed to a wave of frustration and slammed Olively up against the wall.

  Olively screeched in fright. He threw his head back and forth and struggled to escape Hammond's grip.

  "Olively, listen to me!" Hammond ordered him harshly. "Listen to me! The Sturman, Olively...Sturman!"

  A flicker of recognition, then that silly grin again.

  An alarm went off somewhere outside the hall and attendants came running in. One of them raced right up to Hammond and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry, sir," he said, "you'll have to leave!"

  Hammond held Olively a moment longer, then turned him loose. Olively dashed to his table and grabbed a crayon. Hammond shook free of the attendant and stared at the pad of paper as Olively drew three numbers in the unsure hand of a five-year-old child.

  1 6 6.

  Then he looked up at Hammond with that crazy smile. As the attendant whisked him to safety, Hammond heard Olively muttering, "All gone...all gone..."

  10

  Hammond found Yablonski outside, sitting on a bench in one of the Center's expansive parks,

  "McCarthy had him committed in 1965," said Hammond. "Signed the papers himself, as a civilian, psychiatrist."

  Yablonski said nothing. His hands were motionless at his sides and his face was turned up into the warming sun. Slowly, his chin came down and he stared at the grass in front of him. Then he looked up and met Hammond's gaze. "We should have left it alone. McCarthy was doing us a service by burying this thing."

  Hammond bristled. "Oh, no, he wasn't. He was killing you by inches. You can't purge a real experience from someone's mind. You can shove it into a closet and bolt the door, but it's still going to be there, waiting to get out. You might have gone another ten years with McCarthy, but some morning you'd wake up in terrible trouble and he wouldn't be there anymore...because I'd have nabbed the sonofabitch!"

  Yablonski stared at him.

  "You can't just think about yourself, Yablonski. There are still other people walking around with the same problem. We've got to find them—and McCarthy."

  Yablonski was very still, then he got up and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "All like Olively...?" he asked in a cracking, beseeching voice.

  "No!" Hammond snapped. "He's one of McCarthy's failures! It could just as easily have been you."

  Yablonski nodded dumbly, then his body shook with a sudden tremor. He kicked the bench and stared at the psychiatric building. "It's so crazy...I almost think I belong here."

  Hammond took him to Hogate's, a restaurant in southwest Washington. Yablonski had nothing to say on the drive to the restau
rant, and once they were seated at a table, Hammond had to order for both of them. Hammond tried to draw him out, but Yablonski's conversation was restricted to monosyllabic grunts.

  Their table overlooked the Potomac and finally that seemed to help. The placid river had a soothing effect: Yablonski could relate to it. He began to ramble about his love for the ocean. From boyhood he'd been involved with the sea, first as a poacher off private docks on the eastern seaboard, then in his teens as a crewman aboard deep-sea boats. He had enlisted in the Navy to keep out of Korea, thinking he could do a nice, easy tour as a yardbird.

  "And then they got to me," he said. "Volunteer for this, volunteer for that. Come on, ya big Polack, what're you afraid of? There's a war on."

  "You volunteered for this experiment?" asked Hammond.

  "Must've," shrugged Yablonski. He screwed up his eyes and struggled to clear away the cobwebs. "Damnit, I still can't get it straight. I volunteered: I know I did."

  Hammond guided the conversation back to fishing: the last thing Yablonski needed right now was more catharsis. Olively had been enough for one day. He got Yablonski to talk about the years after his Navy duty, land-locked because he had developed a psychological fear of the sea, always afraid to stray too far from Boston because of his need for McCarthy. He had taken a string of unfulfilling jobs. He'd been drunk a lot, too, and the center of several barroom brawls. It wasn't until he met Rosie that his life began to take shape.

  "Who's Rosie?" asked Hammond.

  "Momma," said Yablonski. "We got married in 1961. We were both a little old to have kids, so we didn't. I married her because she got me to talk. I'd been close-mouthed for years. She just dug into me, over and over: What do you love, Cas? What have you ever done with your life that meant something to you?' 'Fishing,' I said. 'Fishing it is, then,' she said."

  He smiled proudly. "She got me back to the sea again."

  "She's a great woman, Cas. And she loves you very much," said Hammond, feeling a twinge of regret at his own emptiness. .

  "I know. She's put up with a lot..." He paused and then grew worried. "But if I become like Olively...I don't know."

  Hammond excused himself and went to call his office for messages. There were none. He returned to find Yablonski working on his fifth cup of coffee. He drained it, squinted through the window at the line of black clouds rolling in from the east.

  "We'd better beat it," he said. "We're in for a hell of a storm."

  Dusk settled over Georgetown along with the first raindrops as Hammond looked for a parking place on Jefferson Street. He dashed up to his fiat and dropped off his briefcase. As he hurried with Yablonski up the wet sidewalk toward the inn, a man in a tattered windbreaker crossed the street and fell into step behind them.

  Walking with his head down to avoid the rain, Yablonski had finally gotten around to discussing McCarthy. "You know what I can't figure?" he said. "How I ever got suckered by that bastard."

  "You weren't the only one," Hammond answered. "He fooled lots of people."

  A car drove past them, scooted into an opening along the curb, and parked by a fire hydrant.

  "But I always thought I had good judgment," said Yablonski. "I can read the weather, the ocean...and most men. Jesus! Talk about being wrong."

  Hammond only half-heard him. He was distracted by movement in the parked car just ahead. A man got out of the passenger side, left the door open, and shambled toward them.

  "Commander?" he said.

  Hammond squinted at him. "Yes?"

  "Help an old Navy man down on his luck?"

  Oh, crap, he thought, the panhandlers are getting bolder. He stopped. Then he heard the footsteps coming up behind. He grabbed Yablonski's arm, muttered "Sorry," and made to pass on the inside.

  The panhandler blocked their way and pulled something from his sleeve. Hammond heard a click and the switchblade snicked open.

  "Guess we'll help ourselves," said a voice behind them. Hammond whirled. Yablonski stopped in confusion. The man in the windbreaker stood about an arm's length away. They heard the click of his switchblade.

  "Wallets," said the panhandler.

  "Okay!" Yablonski shouted, startling everyone. Then softly, he repeated, "Okay...just take it easy...don't stick anybody."

  Insanity, thought Hammond. He could see the rush-hour traffic on M Street less than a hundred feet away. The Dutch Inn was only yards—

  "Now...I don't have a wallet," Yablonski said. "No wallet...just a money belt...."

  "Ain't that convenient," said Windbreaker.

  "I'll wear it home," said Panhandler.

  Hammond felt the movement as Yablonski fumbled with his buckle and started to draw the belt out of his pants. What money belt? wondered Hammond, then got the idea....

  "C'mon, Admiral. You, too!" said Panhandler.

  Hammond reached into his back pocket slowly, careful not to let his fingers tangle in the cloth.

  The knives flashed and both muggers lunged at once. Hammond sidestepped. Windbreaker shot by and Hammond's foot whipped a leg out from under him. He hit the wall.

  Yablonski ripped his belt free and flailed away at Panhandler with the buckle end.

  "Into the street!" shouted Hammond and pulled Cas with him, then yanked off his uniform jacket and wound it around his forearm.

  They stood side by side for a second, Yablonski dangling the belt, scraping the buckle along the blacktop like a rattler threatening his prey. "Come on, you bastards," he muttered.

  The muggers erupted at them. Windbreaker jabbed at Hammond and his blade went through the jackets getting tangled as Hammond twisted his arm. Hammond kicked back and they went down in a heap.

  Yablonski danced on the balls of his feet, goading Panhandler, who shifted the knife from hand to hand and edged in looking for an opening. Yablonski dodged to the right and, as Panhandler lunged, brought the buckle end of his belt around hard. He tore off a piece of cheek. Panhandler screeched, dropped his knife, and stumbled back. Yablonski swung the belt like a whip, forcing Panhandler back until he stumbled, then Yablonski pounced on him, looped the leather around his neck, and dragged him down.

  Hammond rolled on the street with Windbreaker. He still had the knife arm pinned, but felt punches raining down on his side.

  Panhandler rammed his elbow into Yablonski's gut and knocked the breath out of him. Yablonski let go and fell back against a parked car. Panhandler dove to the ground, scooped up his knife, and, as Yablonski reached for him again, cut him in the leg.

  Cas went down with a pained yell, then rolled under the car.

  Panhandler swore and turned to see about Hammond.

  They were bathed in light as a car turned off M Street and headed toward them. A squeal of tires. The car stopped. Windbreaker released his knife and jumped back, frightened. Hammond struggled to his feet. The driver flicked on his high beams and held down his horn.

  Windbreaker stumbled out of the light. Hammond pulled the knife from his jacket and whirled to confront Panhandler.

  Everyone froze, except the man on the horn. They stood there for an eternal second, bathed in light: Hammond hunched over in the street, Yablonski half-emerged from under the car, clutching his knee.

  Panhandler whirled to his partner, shielding his face from the light. "Fuck it!" he yelled. "Let's go!"

  He raced for their car. Hammond made a move to follow, knowing he couldn't catch up, but prompting the muggers to put on a burst of speed.

  Both men jumped into the car. The motor roared to life and they drove off, fishtailing all the way up to M Street.

  The horn stopped. The persistent driver got out and rushed over. "You need an ambulance?" he asked, determined to be helpful. The street started to fill with people.

  Hammond ignored them and the rain. It was starting to pour. He bent over Yablonski. "How bad is it?"

  Yablonski's teeth were clenched. He felt gingerly around his leg and examined the blood on his fingers. "I always bleed when I'm cut."

 
; Hammond helped him up. "You fight dirty."

  "Not dirty enough. Nice little city you've got here." Yablonski put his weight on the bad leg and winced. "Jesus. Is it open season for muggers all year long, or just when it rains?"

  "Those were not muggers."

  Yablonski stared at him in disbelief. Hammond helped him through the crowd. "It's all over, folks," he said. "Give us an address, we'll mail you some blood."

  Somebody laughed. The crowd broke up. The man from the car was still looking for recognition. He followed Hammond and Yablonski to the curb. "Thanks for the horn, friend," said Hammond, and shook his hand. The man beamed and walked away.

  "What do you mean, they weren't muggers?" growled Yablonski, hobbling painfully.

  "Muggers don't attack crowds. They like one victim at a time. For sure, not two big guys. This was a setup; they were pros and they blew it. They must have followed us from my place."

  "Who—?" Yablonski stopped, catching on. "McCarthy?"

  Hammond nodded.

  Now Yablonski got the point. "My wife!" he said. He pushed away from Hammond and stumbled toward the inn entrance. Hammond followed. They ignored startled looks from the desk clerk and bellman. They rode up six floors with their eyes glued to the indicator.

  Before the elevator doors were fully open, they burst into the hallway and raced to penthouse nine. Hammond banged on the door. "Mrs. Yablonski, open up!"

  Not a sound.

  "Outta the way!" snarled Yablonski and braced his shoulder for a charge. Hammond turned the handle and pushed in. The room was dark.

  "What's the password, wise guy?" came Menninger's voice from within.

  Hammond and Yablonski froze, then Hammond said meekly, "Don't shoot?"

  "I'll think about it, sir. Jesus Christ, use your head next time, will ya—otherwise you'll lose it!" Menninger switched on the light and stuffed his .38 back into its shoulder holster. He closed the door behind them.