The Pinocchio Syndrome

by David Zeman

  “I don’t know anything about that,” she said. “I wasn’t aware of any connection. I didn’t know they even knew each other.”

  Karen nodded, mentally counting the other woman’s denials. Three of them. That meant she was lying. Protesting too much. An easy denial to see through, for a seasoned reporter.

  “You never saw them together?” Karen asked.

  “Certainly not. Never.”

  “You never heard Goss mention Michael Campbell?”

  “Never. Why would he?”

  “You’re sure?” Karen probed.

  “Absolutely.” Pat Broderick spoke firmly. But her eyes told Karen she knew more than she was saying.

  “You’ve been a great help,” Karen said. “As I say, I promise I’ll never mention your name in connection with this. By the way, do you know any other women who took part in Goss’s games? I’d like to get confirmation on deep background if I could.”

  “No.” Pat Broderick shook her head. “No, I don’t.” She looked afraid.

  Pat drove Karen back to her office. The two women shook hands in the parking lot.

  “I appreciate your honesty,” Karen said. “And I’ll respect your confidences. I’ll never mention your name to anyone.”

  A change had come over Pat Broderick’s face. “I’ll tell you something for your own good,” she said. “If you ever got to the point of publishing any of this, especially under your own name, you wouldn’t have any more chance than I would.”

  Karen nodded. “I’ll remember it.”

  Pat seemed to relax slightly.

  “Do you think they’re going to get Susan Campbell back alive?” she asked Karen.

  “I don’t know,” Karen replied. “I hope so. I’m trying to help. If we can find the right connection in time, it might save her.”

  “And you think Colin Goss is part of the connection?”

  “I think he may be,” Karen said. “He wants to be president, after all. Susan Campbell is the wife of a man who stands in his way.”

  “I’ll tell you something else off the record,” Pat said. “If Colin Goss ever gets his hands on that kind of power, this country will be finished.”

  Karen looked interested. “What makes you so sure of that?”

  “This is a free country,” Pat said. “Colin Goss has never believed in freedom for anyone else but Colin Goss.”

  She looked past Karen at the lovely Seattle skyline. “These politicians getting sick and dying . . . That could be Goss’s work. There’s nothing he’s not capable of.”

  Karen said, “But it seems as though the bad things that have happened have benefited Michael Campbell. Haven’t they? He’s about to become vice president, isn’t he?”

  Patricia Broderick turned back to Karen. “Yes. You’re right.”

  “And, to hear Goss talk, he hates Michael Campbell more than anyone alive.”

  The look on the older woman’s face was ambiguous. “Yes, you’re right. I don’t know, then.”

  Those words were still echoing in Karen’s ears as she watched Patricia Broderick walk quickly back into the realty office.

  58

  —————

  AN HOUR after leaving Patricia Broderick, Karen was on a flight to D.C. Cocktails were being served, and the tempting aromas of bourbon, blended whiskey, and gin were wafting through the cabin. Karen was trying to forget the fact that she would not have a cigarette for the next five hours. She had put down her tray table and was using it as a desk. Her pad was before her, covered with notes in her crisp, cautious handwriting.

  If he ever gets that kind of power . . .

  There’s nothing he’s not capable of.

  Karen thought back over her interview with Patricia Broderick. Everything the woman said had the ring of truth. She was revealing things she had kept hidden for years. She was afraid.

  The only time she had become evasive was when Karen had asked about Michael Campbell. Her denials about Michael had the hollow ring of deception.

  And there was the faraway look in Pat’s eyes when Karen had reminded her that the removal of Everhardt and Palleschi and Stillman benefited Michael Campbell. It was the look of a person who is hiding something and does not want to be seen through.

  Karen wrote on her pad:

  Colin Goss ↔ Michael Campbell

  Once again she was up against the contradiction that had been pointed out to her by Joe Kraig. If Colin Goss hated Michael Campbell as much as he claimed to, why would he do things behind the scenes that had the effect of helping Michael?

  And if Colin Goss was truly in bed with Michael Campbell, for reasons which were unknown to the public, why would Goss abduct Susan Campbell and demand that Michael withdraw from consideration as vice president?

  Karen closed her eyes with a sigh. The key to the Sphinx’s riddle was right in front of her, but she was not sharp enough to see it. Not yet, anyway.

  She opened her eyes and scribbled some more thoughts at random.

  Everhardt dead.

  Palleschi sick.

  Michael chosen by president.

  Susan Campbell kidnapped.

  Karen crossed out the line about Susan, but left it where it was.

  Susan Campbell kidnapped.

  Then she wrote:

  Pinocchio Syndrome stops in USA. This benefits president.

  Does not help Goss. Goss losing in polls.

  She chewed her pen, moistening it with lips that wanted a cigarette even more than a drink. Then she wrote:

  President likely to remain in office.

  Unless Campbell withdraws.

  She thought for another minute.

  Goss in bed with Campbell,she wrote.

  “Come on,” she said aloud. “Connect the dots.”

  Suddenly the unseen connection popped up before her.

  Goss wants Michael as VP. Hence others removed.

  GOSS WANTS TO LOSE.

  Karen exhaled abruptly. Her seatmate glanced at her. Karen forced a polite smile to show she was all right.

  Her hand trembled as she wrote the next proposition.

  Goss wants MICHAEL to win.

  Karen pushed the call button. When the flight attendant came, she asked for a double Jack Daniel’s.

  “Sure thing.” The flight attendant bustled away toward the kitchen area.

  Karen did not move until her drink was brought. She inhaled the nutty aroma of the liquor with a sigh of relief. This would be her only drink until she got home tonight.

  She sat back and closed her eyes.

  Ask him what happened at Harvard. Ask him about the Donkey Game.

  When he answers, watch his eyes.

  Karen tried not to think. She did not succeed. The truth, someone once said, is both inescapable and hard to grasp. Slipping through our fingers like quicksilver, it seeps through our pores, into us, like a disease. No matter how blind we try to be, we can’t escape it.

  Karen kept her eyes closed. The roar of the engines harmonized with the throb of the liquor inside her.

  The truth hit her like a slap. She almost knocked over the drink as she grabbed the pad.

  Abduction NOT part of the plan,she wrote.

  Now she understood the voice on the phone at Susan Campbell’s house.When the time comes, it will be up to you, Susan .

  The person who abducted Susan was not trying to stop Michael in order to help Goss. Michael and Goss were on the same team.

  The person on the phone knew something that neither Susan nor the authorities had yet suspected: that the accession of Michael Campbell to the White House was precisely what Colin Goss wanted.

  Colin Goss ↔ Michael Campbell

  Again Karen exhaled, this time from relief. The dots were connected, the gestalt was complete. Even if she could never convince anyone else of it.

  Pinocchio Syndrome ↔ Donkey Game

  She wanted to order another drink, to celebrate. But she knew she must wait. She had a lot of thinking to do before she hit the
bottle again.

  She closed her eyes. The ideas on the page before her grew dim. The voice on Susan Campbell’s phone came forward, eclipsing everything.

  When he answers, watch his eyes.

  59

  —————

  SUSAN WAS sitting in the little bedroom whose corners she had now come to know very well. The place was too dark and cloistered to feel like home, but there was something curiously womblike about it. She felt isolated from the world here.

  Justine was seated in the rocking chair across from the bed. She had played Susan a tape of the CNN news broadcast on which the telephone demand was aired.

  Susan was thoughtful.

  “Why did you make it so public?” she asked. “Why didn’t you just send them a cassette tape, or something like that?”

  “The demand had to be public,” Justine said. “I had to make the call to the media to insure that.”

  “Why did it have to be public?” Susan asked.

  “Because now everyone will know what the demand is.” Justine smiled. “If I hadn’t made sure the call was recorded, the authorities would have lied about the demand. They would have said it was something else.”

  Susan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Now that your husband has been chosen, the president will almost certainly remain in office,” Justine explained in a patient voice. “All the powers are lining up behind that proposition. They won’t want Michael to withdraw, with the White House at stake. They would lie about my demand if they could.”

  Susan nodded uncertainly. “I still don’t really understand,” she said.

  “Think, Susan.” Justine might have been talking to a child. “Use your common sense. If none of this was public, if all of it was hushed up, it would end up like a dozen other political mysteries. Even if you died, the real reason would never see the light of day. That’s how they operate, Susan. When they want things a certain way, they cover up how they did it.”

  “And now they want Michael to be in the White House?” Susan asked.

  “Precisely.” Justine smiled. “It’s at times like this that the truth becomes a casualty of men’s self-interest. They’re getting ready to write a history in which Michael Campbell became vice president, then went on to greater and greater things, while certain minor mysteries never got cleared up. Such as the deaths of Everhardt and Palleschi and Stillman—and a disease called the Pinocchio Syndrome.”

  Susan’s eyes were wide. “You can’t mean . . .”

  Justine waved away the question. “But now, Susan, now your husband is going to have to make his response to my demand public. He can’t hide it. It’s too late.”

  Susan asked, “And what will his response be?”

  Justine stood up and took a brief walk around the room. She looked at the TV, which was not hooked up to the cable and could only be used to show videotapes. She looked at the small collection of videos.

  “You like the old movies,” she smiled.

  Susan nodded, her face expressionless.

  “You long for simpler times,” Justine observed. “Times when good and evil were easier to tell apart. Isn’t that right?”

  Susan was surprised. “How did you know that?”

  “Times when it was easier to love and be loved,” Justine said. “You see that when you look at John Garfield’s face, don’t you, Susan? And James Stewart, and Gary Cooper . . . Have I understood you correctly?”

  “Yes,” Susan said, a bit sadly.

  Justine came to Susan’s side and sat down on the bed. She took Susan’s hand.

  “Are you ready, Susan?”

  “For what?”

  “To hear the truth?”

  Susan looked into the tortured eyes, the face prematurely aged by pain. She did not want to hear the truth. She just wanted to be left alone, to be left in peace. But she was so tired of running away.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  “I was eighteen years old,” Justine said. “I was a high school senior. I was with my friend Jane. We both lived outside Boston. We took the train downtown one Saturday night. We had told our parents we were going to the movies, but we were really cruising the downtown area, looking for boys.”

  She paused. “We had done this before. Sometimes with other girls, sometimes just the two of us. We were a little bit wild, Jane and I. We both had trouble with our parents, and we were not very mature emotionally.”

  She smiled. “We weren’t as daring as we pretended. We were both virgins, in fact. We hadn’t had much luck in our downtown outings, but we kept at it.”

  “Boston,” Susan said.

  “Yes. Boston.” Justine gave Susan a hard look.

  “We hung around the downtown area for a while,” she continued. “We tried to seem desirable, but not much happened. We stopped into a McDonald’s for fries and Cokes. Then we began to get discouraged. We were on the point of getting the train home when a young man came along and spoke to us. He was very good-looking. He asked us if we were college girls, and we said no. We giggled, I remember. He told us he was on his way to a party, mostly college kids but some younger, and he invited us. He promised we would have a good time. He said there would be liquor there, and he hinted there might be grass. He said there would be unattached boys there.”

  She paused. “I’ve had a lifetime to think back on that moment,” she said, “and to wonder why we didn’t say no. We were a bit wild, Jane and I, but we were basically innocent teenagers. We were the kind of girls who would never go anywhere with a stranger.”

  She shrugged. “It was because of him,” she said. “He was handsome, he was charming. He seemed so young, almost vulnerable. He had a way of looking into your eyes as though there was nothing so important to him as his need to impress you favorably, to gain your approval. As though your opinion meant everything. This was irresistible to two naive girls, coming from a man that handsome. We went with him.”

  She sighed. “He took us to a big building downtown. A new building. We went up in an elevator. It was very luxurious. Jane and I exchanged a look—we were impressed. We went up to one of the top floors. He took us down a corridor to a sort of lounge. Actually it was a billiard room. There were these two beautiful pool tables, in dark wood. There were also a couple of poker tables. And a bar, a small but well-stocked bar. Very swanky, very clubbish. He offered us a drink. Jane asked him if this was where the party was to be, and he said no, it was on the floor above.”

  She paused. “I remember that Jane had a daiquiri. I had cold feet, I just asked for a Coke. That might have made all the difference. Whatever he gave us might have reacted with alcohol. I never figured that out.”

  She shrugged. “Anyway, after a minute he excused himself, he said he would be right back. Jane and I started to get giggly. At first I thought it was just the situation, the excitement, but then we realized we were getting high on something. We exchanged a look, like ‘Maybe we’d better get out of here.’ Then we both collapsed. We were out cold.”

  She took a deep breath. “The next thing I remember, I woke up naked in a large room full of smoke. Cigarettes, cigars. Music was playing. I heard men’s voices. I was tied to a strange couch or padded table. My head was down, my fanny was sticking up. My hands and feet were bound, so I couldn’t really move anything but my head.

  “I saw Jane. She was tied into a similar thing. She looked like she was unconscious, but her eyes were open. A strange, empty expression. I tried to speak to her, but I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move a muscle. I tried to look out into the room, but there were spotlights on Jane and me, so everything else was invisible. That’s when the game began.”

  Susan was listening, her face expressionless. Justine herself seemed empty of emotion as she talked.

  “There was a sort of fanfare. The music got louder. I could tell something was about to happen. I heard the voices of men calling out to each other. I began to get the impression they were placing bets. I heard movement in the
room. I tried to call out to Jane, but my lungs didn’t seem to work. It was the strangest feeling—being lucid, conscious, but absolutely unable to move.

  “I saw a figure approaching from behind the glare of the lights. Voices were calling out encouragement, laughing. As he came through the lights I saw that it was a middle-aged businessman type, fat, jowly. He was blindfolded. He was naked. He was holding his hands out in front of him, as though feeling his way. He had an erection. Then I saw what he had in his hand.”

  Susan’s eyes had opened wider. She was listening intently.

  “It was a tail. Like the tail of a horse or a donkey. Tight at the top, then flaring out at the bottom. As he came closer the shouts got louder. They were shouting ‘Warmer!’ and ‘Colder!’ I realized they were playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”

  She looked down at Susan’s hand, which was still in her own. On an impulse she let go and stood up. Her eyes bore the cold inward glare Susan had come to know.

  “I tried to struggle, but as I say, I couldn’t move a muscle. The man came gradually closer. The others were calling out to him. I think those who were betting on him were trying to help, and the others were trying to confuse him. Or maybe they were betting on which of us he would get to first. Anyway, it was Jane. He stumbled against her, then he reached out and felt her thigh. He ran his hand over her until he found her ass. He stuck the tail to her ass, I don’t know how. Maybe it had glue attached to it. There was applause. The music got louder. Glasses were clinking. Some of the voices sounded disappointed in a drunken way, as though they had lost their bet.”

  She was silent for a moment, as though gathering her courage to continue.

  “Then he took off the blindfold,” she said. “He looked at Jane. He got down on his knees and started to nuzzle her between her legs. The others were shouting and laughing. His erection got harder. He—” She looked at Susan. “He fucked her. Up her ass, I think; I’m not sure. She never moved, the whole time. Her eyes were pointed at me, but there was no expression on her face. I think she saw me as I saw her, but I’m not sure. He took a long time to finish. When he finally did there were cheers. Glasses clinking, laughter, music.”