Michael Gray Novels

by Henry Kuttner

  “All right.” She set her jaw firmly. “Let’s start. How do I begin?”

  “You already have. Remember, though, you’re entirely free to do just what you want. Let’s just talk a while.”

  He explained some of the techniques of free association, in which a person speaks whatever comes into his mind, no matter how seemingly irrelevant.

  “I don’t see how that can help,” Karen said.

  “Let’s try it, anyhow.”

  She laughed a little and then looked at him blankly. “I can’t think of a thing.”

  “Do you know why?”

  She shook her head. “I’m just not thinking at all. Does there have to be a reason?”

  “It’s something that often happens,” Gray said. “Don’t worry about it. It’s like trying to force yourself to sleep. When you feel you have to, there’s apt to be a conflict. You don’t have to think or talk at all. Want a cigarette?”

  She smoked for a while in silence. Her eyelids began to look heavy. She said in a slow, soft voice, “Isn’t it funny—I’m beginning to feel sleepy again. And I just woke up a few hours ago.”

  Gray watched her with interest. She was blocking herself off from communicating with him in every way her unconscious mind could devise. Taking refuge in sleep was an obvious escape.

  “You can relax if you want to,” he said. “Sleep if you feel like sleeping. Do just what you feel like.”

  “It’s a wonderful feeling,” she said. “I can close my eyes without being frightened.” She put out her cigarette and settled more comfortably in her chair, her head leaning against the high back.

  “Funny,” she murmured. “Coming here just to take a nap.”

  “It’s all right,” Gray told her.

  “You’ll be here?” she asked, her eyes closed. “You’ll wake me if …”

  “I’ll be here,” Gray said, when she let the question die unfinished. She smiled without opening her eyes.

  Gray sat quiet, waiting. Presently her breathing deepened to long, even intervals. She was lightly asleep. Gray sat motionless, watching her. In her sleep her lips trembled. Her eyelids twitched as if her eyes followed unseen figures in her dreams.

  Once her hand gripped convulsively at the arm of her chair.

  Gray waited.

  Ten long minutes went by. Then Karen stirred and sighed. The even rhythm of her breathing changed and she opened her eyes drowsily. For a moment a flash of alarm showed on her face.

  “I’m still here,” Gray said reassuringly.

  She smiled. “So real,” she said. “Funny.”

  “What?”

  “The dream …”

  “Tell me about it,” Gray suggested.

  “It was silly. I was back home. With Mother and Dad and Judy.” She gave him a dazed look. “Judy? I mean Dennis. He had just come home from the hospital. He’d been away a long time.” She paused, looking puzzled.

  “Go on,” Gray said.

  “I don’t know. You know how mixed up dreams are. It seemed as if Dennis had been in the hospital before. He’d get better and come home, and then he’d start screaming and hitting me. He chased me up a mountain. Then he fell off, into the snow. And I was afraid I’d fall off, too….”

  “Why were you afraid?”

  “Because I was getting sleepy. I couldn’t hold on. And if I fell asleep, I’d—I’d—”

  “What?”

  She laughed. “How silly can you get? I’d get sleeping sickness. In the dream it terrified me. As if sleeping were a sickness in itself. That was how Dennis got it. That’s why he had to be sent to the hospital.” She frowned, staring into space. “What can you possibly tell from a dream like that?”

  Gray said, “Tell me about Dennis. How did he look?”

  She smiled. “Dreams are so ridiculous. He was only a year or two older than I. And he was wearing a kind of smock and he had long curls.” She lowered her head. “That’s craz—silly. A dream like that doesn’t mean anything. How could it?”

  “Crazy?” Gray asked, watching her.

  Her face tightened angrily. “No! Just a dream! And I—” She looked away from him. “Maybe I didn’t dream it at all. Maybe I’m not telling the truth. How can you ever know whether I am or not? So what good can all this possibly do?”

  “More than you may think,” Gray said. “We’ll talk about your telling—not telling the truth—if you want to.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “All right. What do you want to talk about?”

  She closed her eyes and then opened them and looked at him hostilely. “Nothing. All I can think of are silly things. They don’t mean anything.”

  “They might.”

  She said defiantly, “All right. I came here to sleep. That’s all I’m thinking right now.”

  “Fine. Keep on talking.”

  She glared at him. “All right. You’re like a sleeping pill. Can I get any sillier than that?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m thinking of—of poetry.” The hostility faded a little under Gray’s quiet gaze. She had been trying to provoke him to answering aggression with anger. But when he didn’t respond, she seemed in spite of herself to feel a flicker of interest in the process they were trying to get under way.

  “Why do I think of poetry? Maybe because I want to keep other thoughts out of my mind—is that how it works?”

  “What poetry?”

  “Oh—to seek the seclusion that a cabin grants, and so do his uncles and his cousins and his aunts. That’s from Pinafore, isn’t it? I expect remembering about Dennis and the mountain lodge brought that one up.” She yawned. “The Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady—oh, this is too silly!” She was silent. “Dennis was a colonel in the last war, you know.”

  “What does O’Grady make you think of?”

  “Degrade,” she said. “Grade … school. Promotion … the older I got, the more I got like … like … I might be downgraded. Like falling. Like—” She caught her breath and broke into a fit of coughing.

  When it was over she stood up abruptly.

  “I want to leave now,” she said.

  “All right.” Gray stood up agreeably.

  At the door she hesitated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything—insulting. I just—”

  “I know,” Gray said. “It isn’t easy for you. But you’re doing very well. Really, very well. Would you like to come back?”

  She nodded.

  Gray reached for his appointment book.

  After she had gone Gray sat quiet for awhile, staring into space and frowning a little. Finally he reached for the telephone and dialed Dr. Ettinger’s number.

  “Mike Gray, Bob,” he said. “Have you got a minute? I’ve just been talking to Karen Champion. How long have you known her?”

  “Just since she married Dennis Champion, about five years. Why?”

  “Is she an only child?”

  “I think so. Wait a minute. I’ll look up her records.”

  Gray waited, drumming on his desk.

  “Here we are,” Ettinger said. “That’s right. No brothers or sisters.”

  Gray was silent a moment. Then he said, “Bob, do yon know that quotation from Pinafore about the uncles and the cousins and the aunts?”

  “Yes, I know it. Wait a minute, though. I always thought it was sisters and cousins and aunts.”

  “It is,” Gray told him.

  “Look, Mike,” Ettinger said in an exasperated voice. “I’m being very patient, wouldn’t you say? But what the hell is all this about?”

  Gray laughed. “It’s about Karen Champion. I—some things came up I thought you could help me clarify. I wish I could discuss the whole thing with you, but I can’t, yet. For one thing, I wouldn’t want to without her permission, and if I ask for that now she may shut up on me entirely. I wish you’d answer a couple more questions without having to have an explanation yet. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Ettinger said resignedly. “Shoot.”

&
nbsp; “Question one—do you have any X-rays of her arms? I want to know if she ever broke her arm. And if it failed to heal quite straight.”

  “I’ll have to check up on that one. Wait.” Ettinger spoke briefly to someone in the office and then said to Gray, “My nurse is looking it up. What’s your other question?”

  “Does Karen have any record of encephalitis?”

  “Encephalitis? Good God, no. There isn’t much of that around any more. But—wait a minute. I remember she did once ask me to check on her and see if she had it. She didn’t, of course. But it was odd.”

  “Why did she ask you that? Had she been exposed? Or do you catch it by exposure? I don’t know a lot about it.”

  “There have been epidemics of it, in the past. But so far as I know Karen was never anywhere near anyone who had it. And if you’re thinking of postencephalitic syndrome, you’re away off. She doesn’t show any of the symptoms.”

  “What are they?” Gray asked.

  “Well, they vary. Parkinson’s disease is one. In children they’re especially severe. Behavior changes can be very serious—anything from restlessness and aggressive behavior to cruelty, destructiveness, sexual aberrations, even homicide. Doesn’t sound much like Karen, does it?”

  “Not the Karen we know,” Gray said. “Did any of her family ever have encephalitis?”

  “No record of it.” Ettinger interrupted himself. “Wait a minute, here’s the X-ray record on Karen. Hm-m. No, Mike, no break in either arm. Certainly no sign of a break that didn’t set properly. She been feeding you more of her tall stories?”

  “I expect so,” Gray said. He thought briefly. “I guess that’s about all I want to ask just now. I may have to call back later. Thanks a lot, Bob.”

  He laid the phone down and sat pushing a pencil around on the desk blotter, frowning. He was testing a hypothesis, and the hypothesis was this:

  Karen hadn’t been an only child. Once she had had a sister. That seemed like a pretty reasonable guess, from the material that had emerged. A sister named Judy. And perhaps a sister who had had sleeping sickness—encephalitis. Whatever pattern of memories clustered around the sister was a painful pattern, so painful Karen had had to suppress all memory of it.

  The possible existence of the sister wasn’t hard to guess. Changing the Pinafore quotation from sisters to uncles, quoting Kipling—the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady—but leaving off the rest of it—are sisters under the skin. She had almost stated it herself. Dennis Champion had been a colonel, which made Karen the colonel’s lady. And she’d almost told Gray she had a relative named Judy—a relative quickly switched over to a husband incongruously dressed in a smock and long curls.

  There was much more to it. Her terror of falling—falling asleep—sleeping sickness—the words led into each other like links in a chain. Almost certainly another link in the chain would be the pathological lying. But Karen wasn’t ready yet to be questioned about that. She could scarcely bear to speak of it, even now.

  It might be of paramount importance to discover what lay behind this compulsive lying. But Gray didn’t dare make any open move toward it until Karen was ready. Normally he could wait for months, if necessary. But this was no normal case. A murderer had struck once—perhaps twice—when Karen was very near. And who could say whether the thing was over even yet?

  Belatedly, it occurred to Gray at this point that not once had Karen mentioned during her session the shattering events of the day before. Even when she left his office, going out through the room where always before Albano had waited for her when he was alive—even then she had shown no reaction.

  How much was she suppressing? And why?

  21

  Wesley Turk came to a halt two feet away from Perry Brand’s desk and stood solidly, his thick body unmoving, gazing at Brand. Behind him the middle-aged nurse fluttered uncertainly. She knew there was something wrong here, but not what to do about it.

  Brand said, “It’s all right. Leave us alone.” He waved her aside with his left hand. His right rested inside the slightly open desk drawer. Things like this had developed with patients’ husbands a time or two before. By now Brand was prepared.

  Turk studied the bulky, silver-haired man facing him.

  “Mr.—Turk, is it?” Brand said. “I suppose you want to see me about your wife?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Very well. Go ahead.”

  Turk said, “I stopped in on my way to the police. I’m not sure what you’ll be charged with. Fraud, I suppose, or—”

  “Just what are you talking about?” There was practiced bluster in Brand’s voice.

  Turk asked quietly, “Do you think your treatment of my wife was really worth twenty thousand dollars?”

  Brand said, “You’re exaggerating a little, aren’t you? But the answer is—yes, I do think so.”

  “There isn’t a thing wrong with her. There never was. You know that.”

  Brand sighed. “Mr. Turk, I’m going to talk to you frankly. Mrs. Turk has gone from doctor to doctor for a good many years now, hasn’t she? How much do you think that’s cost you? Did you ever figure it up?”

  “Not twenty thousand.”

  “Not yet, maybe. In the long run, it would. Mrs. Turk will go right on shopping from doctor to doctor until she finds the one she wants. Now, isn’t that right?” Brand’s voice was richly persuasive. He gave Turk a chance to agree with him. Turk said nothing. But at least he didn’t disagree. Brand threw a little more persuasion into his voice. This was something he really enjoyed. This flirting with danger, testing his own power over another human being. Not one of the sick people, but a well man. Brand knew he could do it. He always had. But it was exhilarating each time, and now and then he had run awfully close to the line.

  “The doctor Mrs. Turk wants,” he went on, fixing Turk with his deep, compelling gaze, “is the one who understands her needs. The man who won’t try to convince her she isn’t sick. The man who goes along with her, gives her what she wants. Since she’s been seeing me, hasn’t she been easier to live with?”

  Turk said, “She’s given up. She’s stopped trying. If that makes her easier to live with—it’s not what I want.”

  Brand smiled warmly. “It’s the best that can be done for her, believe me. In a sense, she’s incurable. She’ll always feel sick. She’ll always be convinced she’s sick. But she’ll be a great deal easier to live with if she’s given sympathy and attentention by someone like me.”

  “And that’s what you call treatment?”

  “The right kind of treatment for her, yes. You’re not a trained man, Mr. Turk. Obviously you don’t understand the deep psychological needs of a woman like your wife. Medical treatment isn’t what she wants. Frankly, she wants the illusion of treatment.” He gave Turk a confident, man-to-man smile. “Women are like that. The important thing is to keep her contented. The fact is, I don’t see what you or I can very well do about it.” Brand shrugged, disclaiming responsibility.

  “If she stopped seeing me tomorrow,” he said, “she’d begin the round of doctors again. It will add up to a lot more than twenty thousand in the long run.” He coughed. He was ready for the next point.

  Fixing Turk with his persuasive smile, he said, “However, I must admit I see your point. I hadn’t realized Mrs. Turk’s treatment had been quite as costly as all this. I won’t deny that my kind of treatment is rare, and therefore expensive. But I think we can come to some sort of agreement for the future. I don’t want to be unreasonable.” He eyed Turk consideringly.

  “I can go on treating your wife for quite a nominal fee,” he offered. “Quite nominal. Naturally, I offer to do this only out of consideration for her. And you. I assure you that you have no possible case against me that would stand in court. But I could sue you for defamation of character if—”

  Turk interrupted. “What it boils down to, then, is just a question of keeping Susan pacified?”

  Brand looked relieved. “That’s actu
ally all it amounts to. Nothing can help her. Because she’s not sick—she just thinks she is. If she doesn’t get what she wants, she can make your life very difficult—as I’m sure you realize. But it needn’t be that way. I can guarantee that you’ll have no problems with her. If anything comes up, simply phone me.” Brand smiled broadly. “I can straighten everything out for you any time. You’ll have nothing to worry about as far as Mrs. Turk’s concerned.”

  “You’ll keep her in line for me?” Turk asked.

  “Exactly.” There was a note of finality in Brand’s voice. This had been almost too easy. “She’ll do just what I—”

  Turk’s hands were under the edge of the desk. Now his thick body seemed to compress briefly. Then the muscles of his back and shoulders bulged as he heaved upward.

  The heavy desk careened, tilted, toppled back, carrying with it Perry Brand, chair and all.

  Papers cascaded over Brand. His hand had gone slack on the pistol in the middle drawer. It slid from under his fingers and hurtled past him as he crashed back. It thudded to the carpet. Turk circled the desk and kicked it into a corner. Then, planting his feet by Brand’s shoulder, he bent again and heaved the desk up. The cursing Brand wriggled free.

  “God damn you—” Brand’s voice was thick with shock. “I’ll have you up for assault so damn fast you’ll never—my ribs! You’ve broken my ribs—”

  Turk’s hand closed on the front of Brand’s white medical coat. He hauled the man to his feet. Then, with cold, stunning blows, he began to slap Brand’s face, right side, left side, back and forth.

  Brand tried to tear free. He tried to swing at Turk. He tried to block Turk’s arm that whipped back and forth with a vicious, machine-like flailing. He couldn’t believe this was happening.

  Turk completely ignored his blows. He stood there, half a head shorter than his opponent, solidly planted, no expression at all oh his serious face, and it seemed that he had literally turned into a machine that could not stop.