“His delusions are remarkably clear,” continued the doctor, giving up this information in an apparent strike against doctor-patient confidentiality. “Disturbingly clear, really. They’re nothing like the disconnected images that one usually associates with BD. They’re more like fully rendered memories — he can recall specific names and places, the minutiae of daily life, a level of detail one associates with ordinary memory, not at all what one expects in patients suffering from his condition.”
“And what do you
“I, well . . . I’ve been thinking,” said the doctor in a reluctant sort of way, “just in a preliminary way, of course — it’s not even a working theory, really — just an idea I was on the verge of dismissing . . . but now that you’re here, and, well, with the theft of his records and so forth it all seems to fit, I mean —”
“Spit it out, Doc,” said the inspector. I thought he should have added “you dithering fathead,” but he didn’t.
“I can’t be sure of course,” said the doctor, persisting in his shilly-shallying, “but I’ve been thinking . . . well, I’ve been thinking that Ian Brown might be at the centre of some conspiracy.”
The inspector blew his nose in what was, no doubt, a skeptical sort of way, and I shared his sensible doubts. Indeed, the moment Peericks had unleashed his “Ian-centred conspiracy” nonsense, I shook the Feynman bean and furrowed the brow with incredulity. Ian Brown, at the crux of some conspiracy? Preposterous. Had some blighter tugged my sleeve and said, “Ho, Rhinnick, how about that Brown fellow, doesn’t he strike you as a bimbo who’s apt to be wrapped up in a spot of cloak-and-dagger?” I’d have said, “Don’t be absurd, Wilson,” (or Beasley, Robinson, or Smith, whatever the name may be) “you’ve got the wrong man!” Ian couldn’t be the nucleus of a conspiracy, if nucleus is the word I want. He’s not cut out for it. If you want someone to shuffle about and say “Oh, ah” with a look of dumb bewilderment on his map, Ian’s your man. If you’re looking for someone to eat more than his share at the dinner table, Ian Brown is amply qualified. But skulking about in a furtive manner and keeping a step ahead of authorities? Not our Ian.
Nevertheless, Dr. Peericks had worked up a full head of steam and seemed intent on spilling his theory. “That’s right,” the ass was saying, “a conspiracy. And I think the whole thing centres upon that wife of his. Penelope. According to Ian she was — or probably is, I suppose — some sort of powerful financier. She apparently dealt in government contracts, corporate finance, plenty of high-net-worth clients, and what have you. There’s no telling the sort of trouble a person like that might get into. And from the memories I’ve recorded in our sessions, it seems as though she involved Ian in her work — he once helped her, I recall, in some sort of investigation against a municipal official. They may have made enemies,” said the doctor. “Someone might have wanted to make Ian disappear. And now that he’s back, now that he’s with us in the hospice, Ian’s records could have clues concerning whatever it is the conspirators want to hide. They could —”
The inspector had been trying to flag down the doctor with a hanky for quite some time, apparently intent on interrupting Peericks’s rambling. He finally interjected audibly. “But what do you mean ‘make Ian disappear’?” he said. “You said
And what the doctor said next was a bit of a bombshell, so it’s best if you sit down before you read it.
“I’m beginning to think they are,” said Dr. Peericks.
Beginning to think they are?
This utterance smote me amidships. I was aghast, or perhaps agog. Indeed, I briefly forgot myself and uttered a sudden, sharp cry. It wasn’t one of those full-blown exclamations along the lines of “Abe’s drawers!,” “I’ll be blowed!” or even a simple gosh or golly, it was more of an “Erp!” or possibly just a sharp intake of breath. I couldn’t be sure at the crucial moment, but rest assured that whatever it was, it carried an exclamation point and conveyed astonishment.
I clasped a hand over the Feynman mouth and clung to the desperate hope that my outburst went unnoticed.
“Did you hear that?” said the inspector.
I gulped.
“I think I did,” said Dr. Peericks.
I gulped again.
“Some sort of a sudden, sharp cry?” said the inspector.
“The very thing,” the doctor replied, curse his hide. “It sounded as though it came from the air duct,” he added, and I perceived that he’d added this bit of exposition for two reasons, namely (1) the man was an ass, and (2) the cry had come from the air duct.
Their gazes turned toward my grate.
I don’t know what the record is for the reverse four-metre wiggle, but I shouldn’t be surprised if I lowered it by a good two seconds. A moment later I heard the doctor and the inspector prodding the grate with something-or-other, a policy which persisted for the space of a few loud heartbeats. I don’t mind telling you that I thought my own heart would have leapt up into my mouth but for the obstruction presented by the esophagus, uvula, and other messy business of the upper chest and throat.
“Help me with this stool,” said the doctor, who I reasoned — for we Rhinnicks are adept at deductive reasoning — was on the verge of elevating himself to grate level. This was followed by the usual sounds associated with the moving of furniture.
“Do you have a pocket knife?” he continued, and I felt my colour leave me.
Upon reflection it wasn’t likely that the man intended to stab whomever he might find in the air duct without first instituting inquiries, but times like this are not occasions for sober reflection. I gripped the ductwork like a barnacle, laid as flat as I could lay, and tried my best to look like a duct.
The doctor, it transpired, had acquired the knife he sought, and was now using it to unscrew the ruddy grate. Any moment he would succeed in gaining access to my duct, inserting his bean, and discovering the undersigned in a dashed undignified position.
I think you’ll agree that now was a time that called for action. Yet — dash it all — I found myself unable to act. “Utterly frozen” about sums it up. And so I confined myself to shutting my eyes and trembling like a rabbit. It’s what Attila the Hun would do if faced with a similar situation.
A moment later someone uttered an astonished “hey!” followed closely by a “whoops!” or perhaps a “whoa!” to the accompaniment of a dull, mid-sized crash. Not precisely a deafening crash, nor even a thunderous one, but definitely a “crash” within the meaning of the rulebook. It was exactly the sort of mediocre crash one might expect from a toppling wooden stool followed closely by about 160 pounds of loony-doctor.
“It’s in my hair, it’s in my hair!” cried Dr. Peericks, in a way I found both lily-livered and amusing. I also remember thinking at the time that, whatever sort of sleeping draughts they’d doled out to the patients in the infirmary, the draughts in question ought to receive some sort of medal. I mean to say, all of this bellowing and crashing and not a peep from the infirm.
“Well, how about that?” said the inspector, barely audible over the stricken doctor’s cries. “It’s a rat.”
“Get it off me! Get it off me!” cried the doctor.
“It’s off already,” said the inspector, blowing his nose in a disinterested sort of way. “Making a beeline for those shadows
“I think,” the inspector added, after pausing for a sneeze and a moment of detached reflection, “that it might have been a hamster.”
This was followed by a series of grunts and other assorted noises that one hears when a prominent loony
doctor, having been humbled and brought low by an unexpected mêlée with a rodent, struggles to regain his feet together with any dignity he might muster.
“That sound we heard,” said the doctor, doing his best to sound unruffled, “the cry we heard a moment ago. It didn’t sound like a rat to me.”
“Or a hamster,” said the inspector, sniffing. “Possibly an effect of the ductwork,” he continued, and blew his nose. “Echoey, I suppose. Amplifies small noises.”
“As you say,” agreed the doctor, apparently eager to change the subject.
And it occurred to me, at this point, that no matter how small and helpless they might seem, even the meanest of one’s associates may be a source of aid and comfort in a crisis. Take this heroic hamster, for instance. No doubt this was my Fenny, providing a bit of needed cover for my ill-conceived outburst — though whether he gave this valiant service by accident or design only Fenny could say for sure. In either event he’d earned an extra tuna pellet and a longish jaunt in the hamster ball at my earliest convenience.
“Where were we?” asked the doctor.
“Mumbledemumble,” said the inspector, and I saw, as I inched back into position behind the partially unscrewed grate, that he was flipping through his notebook in the way that coppers do.
“Right, yes, of course,” said the doctor, straightening his white coat which, I surmised, had become dishevelled in his recent tussle with Fenny. “Brown’s memories,” he continued. “As I said, I think they’re not delusions at all. I think they’re real — or partly real, at any rate.”
The inspector now eyed Peericks keenly, as though he suspected that the doctor might have been giving himself a few too many prescriptions. “Um, Doc,” he said, skepticism dripping from his lips, “You think they’re real? I mean,
“No, no,” said Dr. Peericks, waving off the suggestion. “Nothing like that. Don’t be absurd. I’m a man of science, Inspector Doctor. There’s no evidence of the beforelife. None at all. No, it seems to me that Ian’s memories must be drawn from past events that took place here in Detroit. Possibly decades ago. I believe he really did have a wife. I believe that he worked in government. Of course the details are muddled now — he may have confused some names and dates and places, this Canada place, for instance, doesn’t exist as far as I can tell from current records, but —”
“Hold on a second, Doc,” said the inspector, doing his best to follow the threads. “Are his memories real or aren’t they?
“It’s got to be the neural flows,” said the doctor, thinking aloud. “The memories, though — the clear detail, their persistence over time, the consistent recollection of Penelope, of her work, and of his own position in government, the manner of his discovery.” He paced about the infirmary with the urgency of a tot with a full bladder. “And the conspiracy! I mean, I suppose it could be explained by, well, I mean, it’s just a theory but —”
It was at this point that the doctor stepped briskly out of my field of view and, from the sound of things, began jotting notes on a chalkboard in what seemed a frenzied manner. He started rattling off some rot about “neural flows,” “frontal lobes,” “axons,” “synapses,” and whatnot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he included something about molecules and quantum theory.
All of this neural business was, I have no doubt, a pretty nifty bit of medical hoo-haw, and it seemed to have the doctor all atwitter. It’s probably the sort of thing that I should have recorded faithfully for later examination by Ian himself. But, dash it all, this was science, and I’d been forced to listen to it trapped in an air duct. I don’t know whether you’ve been forced to attend an academic lecture while encased in metal tubing, but if you haven’t, let me tell you: the mind wanders.
You can’t blame me for this, really. You’ll recall that my only purpose in entering the ductwork was to have a look at Zeus. Any intelligence I picked up concerning the doctor’s views on Ian was pure gravy. It lay outside my job description. If what you seek is an A to Z account of every fiddly fact that comes one’s way during a given slice of time, I suggest you send a journalist into the ductwork next time ’round.
The doctor droned on for what seemed like eight or nine years before he finally gave it a rest. The inspector, it seemed, was unconvinced.
“All right, Doc,” said the inspector, “so let’s assume that Brown lived in Detroit, and that the
“But that’s just it,” said the doctor, stepping back into my field of view and adopting a conspiratorial posture. “This research — everything I’ve been showing you — it isn’t new. It’s just forgotten. I ran across the basic theory ages ago when I was beginning my research on memory problems. It all revolves around an ancient practice — a treatment for criminals and mental disorders. It was abandoned as, well, as a wholly unworkable theory based on an old, barbaric custom. They used to —”
“Just wait a minute, Doc,” said the inspector, too incredulous to sniffle. “An ancient practice? But you can’t mean — that is, you can’t possibly be referring to —”
He couldn’t possibly be referring to . . .
“Tell me, Inspector,” said the doctor. “What do you know about mindwipes?”
* * *
25Cannibalism had never taken hold in Detroit, and this is understandable. It’s disconcerting to have the appetizer regenerate and come at you seeking revenge by the time you’ve tackled dessert.
Chapter 11
“A mindwipe?” said Ian.
“A mindwipe,” said I, Rhinnick Feynman, still doing the Author’s work by cataloguing my adventures.
“A mindwipe!” said Tonto, making three mindwipes in all.
Having spent the night and early morning hours securely ensconced in ductwork, doing my best impression of an eavesdropping, tinned sardine, I had arrived at the Feynman/Brown barracks roughly fifteen minutes earlier, coming upon those in attendance as they shoved a bit of breakfast into their respective faces. After deftly handling a battery of questions of the “where were you?” and “what were you doing?” variety, I had, through a few well-chosen phrases, laid the facts before my roommate and his guide, apprising them of current events and bringing them, so far as was possible, up to speed.
They were agog.
Or rather, Tonto was agog. Ian was merely puzzled, which I found shabby. I mean to say, I hadn’t expected the man to clap his hands and leap about, as these excesses are beyond him, and I’ll admit the chap had suffered a bit of a blow: he’d heard it suggested, moments earlier, that his wires had been crossed and marbles scrambled by malefactors unknown, and that his much-loved better half — one Penelope Something-or-Other — might be somewhere in Detroit, still imperilled by the very parties who’d meddled with Ian’s mind. A nasty jar I’d imagine, and one that smote this Ian Brown like a tee-shot to the navel. It was for this reason, I perceived, that the above-named Brown, rather than receiving my revelations with excited yips and other demonstrations of the enthusiastic spirit, just sat quietly and goggled in that baffled way of his.
Reviewing his expression from south to north, it featured the slack jaw, the wrinkled nose, the bulged and vacant eyes, the knitted brow. Not the least bit becoming, I assure you — and certainly not the expression one expects from an audience upon which one has dropped a bombshell of
the sort I had unleashed. It was clear to me at a glance that my glassy-eyed roommate had missed the nub of my remarks.
One can, I suppose, understand the man’s reaction. Say what you will about us Rhinnicks, we are not lacking in empathy; on the contrary, our hearts are filled to bursting with the sympathetic humours. I can easily understand why it is that a bean in Ian’s position, having heard what Ian had heard, would find himself standing at one of those things you find in the road — the word escapes me, but I believe that cutlery enters into it somehow.
From Ian’s standpoint it appeared that two possibilities lay before us. In Scenario One, Ian was, like yours truly, a dead chap in the afterlife surrounded by Doubting Thomases who scoffed at the beforelife, dismissed it as a delusion, and preferred to see all princks bunged up in homes for the mentally unhinged. In Scenario Two, a set-up which we shall label “the mindwipe scenario,” Ian hadn’t died, but had merely been laid out by a gang of thugs who’d done a bit of no good to his synapses, grey cells, and other mental doodads, thus giving the bulk of his memories the push. In this mindwipe scenario, what Ian thought of as his “beforelife” was merely mangled strands of memory from his life here in Detroit.
You can imagine the chap’s confusion. Put yourself into Ian’s shoes (I speak metaphorically, of course). Ask yourself the pertinent question: Do you believe Scenario One or, taking things from another angle and weighing this against that, do you believe Scenario Two?
If I’m to judge another’s thoughts, I’d say that Ian — in the depths of his soul or spirit or whatever you like to call the seat of a bean’s beliefs — believed Scenario One. He’d been believing it all along, after all, and had structured his entire foreign policy on the basis that he’d lived a mortal life, been some sort of civic copper, married this Penelope girl, and then biffed off to Detroit when his corpus gave up the ghost. Dashed difficult to abandon such a belief, let me tell you. But here again, earnest reader, reflect upon Scenario Two, the mindwipe business posited by the fathead Peericks. You’ll admit that it would hold a certain appeal for a chap like Ian. I mean to say, if Ian hadn’t lived a mortal life, if he’d been mindwiped by a Detroit-based gang of villains, why then this wife of his, Penelope, would be alive and kicking somewhere in the city.
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