Bad Thoughts

by Dave Zeltserman

  Shannon sat across from the psychiatrist. “I’ll tell you, Ron, I really don’t know.”

  “Tell me about your blackouts—are drugs or alcohol involved?”

  “I was drinking heavily before it happened.” Shannon hesitated. “But I don’t think the booze had anything to do with it.”

  “Uh huh.” Chaucy scribbled something into his notepad. “Why’s that?”

  “I just don’t think so.”

  “How often do you have these blackouts?”

  “Once a year.”

  Dr. Chaucy blinked several times. “What do you mean, once a year?”

  “I black out every year around this time. I usually come out of it a week later.”

  “Every year . . .” Some more scribbling. “Going back how far?”

  “I don’t know, probably about ten years now.”

  “You don’t remember when it first happened?”

  “It’s been going on for ten years now.” Shannon tried to smile. “I kind’ve gotten used to it by now.”

  “How frequently do you have these blackouts?”

  “As I said, once a year.”

  Chaucy pushed a hand across his face. When it passed over his mouth a deep scowl was left behind. “You have no memory at all during these episodes?”

  “None at all.”

  “And the duration’s usually a week?”

  “Usually. Sometimes it’s a day or two longer, sometimes a day or two less. This last time it was less.”

  Chaucy’s scowl deepened. His eyes glazed over as he stared at Shannon. “What’s behind these blackouts , Bill?”

  “I don’t know.” Shannon forced a sick smile. A heavy weariness passed through him like a chill. All he wanted to do at that moment was find a place to lie down. “My mom was murdered February tenth. I was thirteen at the time and I discovered her body when I came home from school. My therapist thinks I black out to get through that day. I don’t know what I think anymore.”

  “How was your mother murdered?”

  “She died of asphyxiation.”

  Chaucy was nodding slowly. A transformation had occurred. It was subtle, but obvious. Shannon realized the psychiatrist was now viewing him as some sort of specimen instead of as a colleague.

  “What do you think you do during your blackouts?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have some idea.”

  “I really don’t know.” Shannon shrugged weakly. “What usually happens when a person blacks out?”

  “What do you think happens?”

  “I don’t know. Does another personality take over?”

  “You think you have multiple personalities?”

  “That’s not what I said. I was just asking what usually happens when people black out.”

  Chaucy rested his notepad on his lap and brought his hands up to his chin, pushing his fingers together and forming an apex. His jowls drooped softly over the tips of his fingers. “Why do you think another personality is taking over when you black out?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Yes, you do, Bill,” Chaucy stated softly, expressionless, his eyes staring at Shannon as if he were a lab animal. “Do voices tell you about these other personalities?”

  “Ron, I don’t hear any voices—”

  “Or do you see them in your dreams?”

  Shannon felt his heart drop to his feet. He tried to say something but couldn’t.

  “What do they tell you, Bill? What do they tell you about Phyllis Roberson or Linda Cassen or Rose Hartwell?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shannon pushed himself out of his chair. When Chaucy listed those dead women, Elaine Horwitz’s name popped into Shannon’s mind. A sense of urgency got him to his feet. “I have to go,” he said as he stumbled forward. “We can finish this later.”

  Dr. Ron Chaucy looked alarmed. “Bill, please, sit down.” He started to get up but Shannon was already out the door.

  Chapter 23

  Charlie Winters had a nice, warm feeling inside as he lay curled up in the back of Elaine Horwitz’s metallic blue Saab. It had gotten overcast and a thin drizzle of freezing rain had started to fall. Winters knew she wouldn’t bother looking in the backseat. She’d notice him eventually, but not until it was too late. At least for her.

  He inched his way up and peered out the side window before sinking back down. The layout was picture perfect. The car was parked behind the brownstone Horwitz had her office in. The lot was small—only four cars parked in it—and secluded from view. No witnesses, no one to hear her scream.

  He lay back down and closed his eyes and listened to the soft patter of freezing rain against the roof of the car. It soothed him. As he relaxed, he visualized what was going to happen. He let it unwind frame by frame, like a movie playing out in slow motion. The clicking of high heels as Elaine Horwitz rushes from her building to get out of the raw weather. Door swinging open. Her sitting in the front seat, too preoccupied to bother looking around. A sock shoved in her mouth and Winters’s hand hard against her throat applying just enough pressure to squeeze the consciousness out of her. Then dumping her limp body into the trunk and hog-tying it with the quickness of a rodeo veteran. All told, no more than thirty seconds elapsing. Winters had done it enough times in the past to know how long it would take.

  His hand inched into his jacket pocket and fingered an envelope containing strands of Shannon’s hair. Earlier in the day, he had visited Shannon’s apartment. The hair was taken from Shannon’s hairbrush. Later, much later, a few strands would be placed on Horwitz’s body. One or two gripped within her dead hand.

  Slowly, he played out in his mind what was going to happen to the psychologist and it brought a genuine smile to his lips. As he lay in the back of the Saab he started to feel nostalgic. It was like when Herbie was alive and they would hide together in their victims’ cars. Most of them never bothered looking in back before getting in. The few that did, well, it didn’t help them any because there was never anyone around to hear their screams. And they never got a chance to scream for long.

  Winters felt a heaviness pull at his eyelids. His body sunk deeply into the plush leather. It was four-thirty. Enough time for a little cat nap.

  * * * * *

  The sound of footsteps woke him. He stretched lazily and sniffed in the air, trying to smell his victim. The footsteps stopped, then someone talking. Two people talking. As he recognized the voices, he froze. From the position he was lying in he could see Shannon and Elaine Horwitz in the rearview mirror. They were less than twenty feet away.

  Winters pushed the rear passenger door open and crawled out. A Honda was next to Horwitz’s Saab. He tried but couldn’t squeeze his thick body under it. To the right was a Dumpster. Keeping on his hands and knees he made his way over to it.

  He pushed himself as close to the Dumpster as he could. From the Saab, with the lights on, he’d be seen. In his mind’s eye he imagined the headlights turning on and Shannon locking eyes on him from the passenger seat. Acting solely on instinct, he boosted himself up until he was hanging halfway over the open Dumpster and then fell in.

  * * * * *

  Shannon took an involuntary step towards the noise. “What was that?”

  Horwitz appeared emotionally wrecked, her face drawn, her lips as bloodless as the thin layers of snow coating the ground. “What was what?”

  “That noise. Something’s in there.”

  “I don’t know. Either a raccoon or a cat. What difference does it make?” A sudden calm relaxed her features. The corner of her mouth pulled up slightly. “Bill,” she said, “this is pointless. I shouldn’t see you anymore as your therapist. I’m not up to it.”

  “I still don’t understand why.”

  “For one, treating multiple personality disorders is beyond my training. You need clinical help—a psychiatrist specializing in this area.”

  “But you’ve been telling me you don’t think that’s my problem.”r />
  “It doesn’t matter, you seem to think it is.”

  “I don’t know.” Shannon was shaking his head. “What else could be happening to me when I black out?”

  “Most people who suffer from extended memory lapses or blackouts do not have multiple personalities. Sometimes it’s physical, most often it’s caused by the subconscious needing to suppress certain memories. Multiple personalities are very rare.”

  Elaine Horwitz stopped and gave Shannon an odd look, almost as if she were seeing him for the first time. “You’ve had these suspicions for a long time, haven’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s . . . it’s just those dreams I’ve been having.” Shannon looked helplessly at her.

  Dammit, Horwitz thought, not the wounded-deer look.

  “All I know,” Shannon continued, “is that right now I’m hanging on by a thread and seeing you is one of the few things keeping me going.”

  “Regardless of Freud, dreams don’t necessarily mean anything.” Elaine Horwitz let out a long sigh. “If I were to continue seeing you, I’d need you to be completely honest with me. You can’t keep holding things back from me.”

  Shannon nodded weakly.

  Horwitz felt her resolve melt away as she looked at him. For some reason she didn’t fully understand she felt her eyes starting to tear.

  “I’m getting all wet out here,” she said, struggling to keep from crying and laughing at the same time. She grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Why don’t we go to Harvard Street, get some coffee and continue this?”

  Shannon followed Horwitz to her car. As he opened the passenger door he only half noticed the envelope lying in the rain. Inside, Elaine Horwitz turned to him.

  “Do you smell something?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

  Shannon smelled it, also. A faint odor of something rotting. It was vaguely familiar.

  “Maybe an animal got under the engine and died,” Shannon suggested.

  They opened the hood but didn’t find anything.

  * * * * *

  As the Saab pulled away, Charlie Winters emerged from the Dumpster. Pieces of ice and garbage fell off him as he dropped to the ground. He stood for a long moment in the twilight, his face chalk white, his skin wet and shimmering with rage.

  At first there was nothing but violence swirling within him, but as he stood immobile, his gloved hands clenching and unclenching, he started to feel the withdrawal symptoms; a suffocating tightness filling up his chest and then his body shaking uncontrollably. The anticipation had been building up for days, and like an addict getting a taste of the junk only to then have the needle ripped from his fingers, he now needed his fix more than ever.

  The shaking was hitting him hard, leaving him barely able to hobble out of the lot. Being careful earlier, he had parked his car eight blocks away. Those eight blocks were now an eternity. He cursed Shannon and then the rest of mankind. As he made his way through the neighborhood, walking in short, shuffling steps, the people he passed gave him a wide berth, the more perceptive ones crossing the street at the sight of him. He’d look back over his shoulder at each one of them, a dryness in his mouth, his head pounding, trying to decide if they’d do. Trying to decide how safe they would be. How easy they would be.

  As he hobbled along he spotted her—a college girl, no more than eighteen, struggling with both groceries and the front vestibule door of a small brick apartment building. He swallowed hard as he watched her, his throat constricting. Blindly, automatically, he started to move. A patrol car pulled up next to him. The officer in it shined a flashlight in his face.

  “Sir, I would like to talk with you.”

  Winters turned towards the patrol car, his eyes squinting against the light. Behind him he could hear the vestibule door closing shut. The echo of it vibrated in his head.

  “Did you hear me?” the officer repeated.

  “I heard you,” Winters whispered in a soft, wispy, singsong voice.

  “Do you live in Brookline?”

  The officer holding the flashlight was middle-aged with a square, red face and a marine style crewcut. He involuntarily grimaced as he smelled Winters.

  “Do I have to live in Brookline?” Winters asked, a soft lisp worming its way into his voice.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m walking to my car. Is there a law against that?”

  The officer kept the flashlight aimed at Winters’s face. “Would you like to tell me how you got so dirty?”

  “Poor personal hygiene. Again, is that breaking any law?”

  The flashlight moved up and down over Winters before settling back on his face. Winters was asked for identification.

  “And why do you need that?”

  A shadow dropped over the officer’s eyes. “I’ll only ask you once,” he said. The muscles along his jaw tightened as he reached to open the door.

  Winters handed him the Washington State driver’s license he got after he was released from prison. The officer took it from him and told him to wait. He then rolled up the window of the patrol car and got on the police radio.

  Winters stood in the freezing rain and waited, the water running streaks of dirt and grime down his face. After about five minutes, he knocked on the window of the patrol car. The officer inside gave him a dull stare, his hand resting on his service revolver.

  “Excuse me, Officer,” Winters said, his soft, singsong voice straining to be pleasant. “It’s cold and I’m getting wet. And I think I’m beginning to feel ill. I would like my license back.”

  “You just stay put,” the officer ordered.

  “I would at least like to see your identification,” Winters said, his thin, twisted lips pulled up cheerfully. “I’d like to know who I’m going to sue for this harassment.”

  The officer looked long and hard at Winters and then, with his eyes dulling a bit, flashed him his identification. Winters made a mental note of his name.

  “Do you mind if I sit in the patrol car?” Winters asked.

  “You just stand out there and wait.”

  Ten more minutes passed before the officer rolled down the window and asked for a local address. Charlie Winters gave him the rooming house in Somerville he was staying at. It was another ten minutes before the officer opened the door of the cruiser and stepped out. He walked over to Winters until he was no more than a foot away. If he could’ve stomached it he would’ve gotten closer. Using his right hand he started to slide his handcuffs from his belt.

  Winters spoke quickly, softly , “I’m sure at this point you know about my prison record. I’m sure you also know I’ve paid my debt to society, and that there are no outstanding warrants out for me. What you don’t know is that I spent my twenty years in prison studying law books so I’d be able to sue anyone who chooses not to observe my constitutional rights.”

  The officer hesitated. After a long ten-count the handcuffs slipped back onto his belt. “What are you doing in this neighborhood?” he demanded.

  Winters fingered his malformed chin. “I told you before, I’m walking to my car.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re doing a little shopping.”

  Winters didn’t say anything.

  “Looking for another boy to put in your trunk?”

  Again, Winters didn’t respond. The officer spat on the sidewalk, nearly hitting Winters’s boots. “I don’t want you ever in Brookline again,” he said.

  “I thought this was a free country.”

  “That’s a mistake pedophiles like you make.”

  “I’m not a pedophile,” Winters said with both sincerity and hurt.

  The officer held out Charlie Winters’s license, waited until Winters started to reach for it, and then dropped it. Winters reached down and picked it up off the ground.

  “You’ve kept me out here over a half hour,” Winters said. “I’m wet and I feel ill. Could you give me a ride to my car?”

  The officer didn’t bother answering him. He got
back into his patrol car and then followed alongside Winters as he hobbled the remaining three blocks to his beat-up Subaru.

  The officer pulled the cruiser up to a forty-five-degree angle to the Subaru, blocking it from being able to pull away. He got out and shined his flashlight through its interior.

  “Would you mind opening the trunk?” he asked.

  “Do you have a warrant?”

  The officer shook his head. “If you’d like to wait, I could try and get one tomorrow morning. We could make a night out of it.”

  The trunk was opened. As the officer bent over it and poked around, it was all Charlie Winters could do to keep from slamming the trunk on the cop’s neck. It just wouldn’t work. He’d have the cop but they’d have him. Maybe not right away, but eventually. So all he could do was stand there and take it. Blood boiled in his eyes as he plastered a thin smile across his face.

  When the officer was done he returned to his patrol car and pulled it up and waited for Winters. He followed Winters out of Brookline and halfway through Boston before veering off. All the while Charlie Winters made plans for him. He recited the cop’s name to himself. Ed Podansky. Eddie Podansky. Eddie baby.

  A family man, right, Eddie baby? Yeah, I’m sure you are. Wife and kiddies, right? More the merrier, Eddie, more the merrier. ’Cause we’ll all have a big surprise for you later tonight; me and your fat little wife and your fat little kids. Chips off the old block, are they? Well, their little faces will be burning in the window for you tonight. Guaranteed. The rest of them might be someplace else, but their faces, Eddie, their piece-of-shit, fat, little faces . . .

  As he pulled up to a pay phone he was feeling better. Information didn’t have an Ed Podansky listed in Brookline but did have one in Brighton. He got the number and tried calling it. An answering machine clicked on and then the cop’s tired voice saying he couldn’t come to the phone right now but please leave a message.

  He couldn’t come to the phone . . . The answering machine message shouldn’t have been like that. It should’ve been something about how he and his fat-assed wife couldn’t talk now because they were too busy beating their children or banging away at each other. It should’ve been something like that. Since it wasn’t, the cop had to’ve been divorced with his wife and kiddies living elsewhere. He knew they existed. Charlie Winters could feel their existence. Eventually he’d find them in his dreams, but not for tonight. For tonight it would have to be someone else.