Mind-Altering Murder

by William Rabkin

  "For years our executive structure has been simple and direct," D-Bob said. "There's me and then there's everyone else. Sure, some of you have bigger offices or fancier titles. You've probably noticed we've got a lot of vice presidents in our company. But in terms of decision making, it's been you wonderful people coming up with ideas, and me choosing whether or not to implement them. And it didn't matter if that idea came from a senior vice president or the parking attendant in the garage. A good idea is a good idea and a bad idea can spark a good one."

  The crowd cheered at the sound of D-Bob's favorite saying, but Gus was still stuck on the earlier part of the paragraph. There was no difference in the company between a vice president and a secretary? Had all his progress been meaningless? Was he simply fooling himself when he believed that he'd really found a place where he was valued?

  "Our love of ideas isn't going to change," D-Bob said. "No matter what else happens, I can assure you of that. But I've realized it's wrong for me to be the sole decision maker in this company. It's time for me to start sharing some of those responsibilities, so that if something does happen to me, the company can still go on the way we all envision it. And that's why I'm announcing that I am stepping aside as president of Benson Pharmaceuticals."

  For a moment, the audience was completely still. Then it erupted into murmurs, and then shouts of "No!" and "We love you!" D-Bob let the noise build, and then held up his hands for quiet.

  "Don't worry. I'm not leaving you," he said. "I will be keeping my position of CEO and chairman of the board. But I'm tired of talking only to myself. So at our company-wide annual retreat next week in Santa Barbara, I will be announcing that I am appointing one person to be president of Benson Pharmaceuticals."

  The murmur now was mostly confusion and some concern. No one knew what this was going to do to their own jobs, or if they should even care.

  Gus cared. He had fought his way to the level of executive vice president, which was the highest office in the company below D-Bob himself. Now he was going to be shoved down in the ranks, forced to answer to some corporate lackey. He'd had unbelievable freedom in his job, almost as much as he had with Psych. But he knew a little about corporate politics from his position in his old pharmaceuticals company and there was no way the new executive was not going to clamp down on everyone beneath him. Sure, he'd play the game, pretending to hold to D-Bob's ideals, but at the same time he'd be spending every waking hour consolidating his own power base. This had been a dream job for Gus, but there was no way that was going to last once the new guy took over.

  Gus was so lost in thought he missed D-Bob's next few words.

  "... a man who has shown not only wisdom but compassion," D-Bob was saying. "Who understands what our business needs, but also what the world needs from our business. I have come to admire and even love this man, and as you see what he brings us I know that you will love him as much as I do."

  Sure, Gus thought. Kiss up and kick down. That's what they'd be getting. The new corporate hack would make sure to echo D-Bob whenever the boss was around, but as soon as his back was turned, out would come the knives. First order of business would be to start eliminating any potential competition. One by one he would find reasons why the vice presidents had to be demoted or transferred to Kabul or forced out of the company. There would be a crisis overseas that only this longtime executive could handle, an incipient scandal that could only be prevented by the immediate firing of a vice president who could be made to take the fall. Gus wondered which excuse the new president would use to get rid of him, but deep down he knew it didn't really matter.

  "I'm sure that many of you already do love this man, as you've had the opportunity to get to know him over the past few weeks," D-Bob was saying. "For the rest of you, you've got something great to look forward to. As I said, the official announcement will be made at our company retreat, but I wanted you all to have a chance to get to know our new president before he takes on that title. Friends, employees, partners, I'd like to introduce you to the president of Benson Pharmaceuticals: Burton Guster!"

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Gus must have walked back to the Benson building, but he had no memory of the trip. The past two hours had gone by in a blur. From the moment D-Bob had called his name Gus had barely been able to think or even to breathe. He'd been mobbed at the meeting and every one of Benson's employees had shown him the love that D-Bob had urged. They pressed food and drinks on him, they hit him with ideas for moving the company forward, or they just came up and hugged him.

  But none of it meant as much to him as when Jerry Fellows came up and took his hand. "I'm so happy for you," he said. "Chanterelle and I both are."

  And indeed Chanterelle did seem impressed. She was gazing at him with an intensity he'd never noticed before, at least not when her eyes were pointed in his direction.

  "Thanks," Gus said, pulling his own gaze away from hers.

  "No, I'm the one who should be thanking you," Jerry said. "Because you're in a position now where they'll have to listen to you. I've seen so many people take a stab at the orphan drugs issue, and they've all fallen short. But I know you won't. You'll make us all proud. Won't he, Chanterelle?"

  She nodded, still staring at Gus with eyes that seemed to see straight through to his musculoskeletal system. "It's my da's passion, you know," she said. "And now you're in a position where you can do something about it."

  Gus felt an odd tingling at the base of his skull and turned back to Fellows. But the elfin gentleman was still smiling happily at him. He was nothing but pleased. How could Gus ever have been so crazy as to think of him as a killer?

  Finally the party had broken up around three. D-Bob had told everyone to take the rest of the day off, and the employees filtered out to enjoy the perfect afternoon. Gus had tried to find D-Bob to talk to him about this promotion, but when he was finally able to extricate himself from the mass of well-wishers the boss was nowhere to be seen.

  Gus hadn't planned to go back to the office. Actually he hadn't planned anything at all. He felt incapable of thinking. He just wanted to experience this day, to feel the uncomplicated joy that this expression of confidence in him brought. Later, he knew, there would be nothing but complications. There would be the terror of facing the new job, the difficulties of dealing with the other executives who had been passed over in favor of him, the responsibilities that came with the presidency. But for now he wouldn't worry about any of it.

  When Gus stepped back into his own office he was feeling so good he didn't even notice that the duct tape had been peeled from the carpet and the curtains were now open. If the window had fallen out, Gus felt he could have floated down to the ground and landed like a feather.

  He also didn't notice that he had a visitor.

  "I think they bought it," Shawn said, popping up from the couch he'd been lying on.

  Until this moment Gus hadn't realized what was missing about this day. He'd had no one to share it with.

  "You will not believe what happened today," Gus said, delighted that the afternoon's deficiency had been addressed. And then he felt that delight dissolve into confusion as he realized what Shawn had said. "Bought what?"

  "But you realize this was only the first step," Shawn said.

  "The first step toward what?" Gus said. "What are you talking about?"

  "I think you know," Shawn said.

  "If I knew I wouldn't be asking," Gus said.

  "I think you would," Shawn said.

  "I've had enough of this," Gus said.

  "I think you haven't," Shawn said.

  "Stop that!" Gus shouted.

  "I think you--" Shawn said, then broke off. "You're seriously interfering with my rhythm here, you know."

  "And you're seriously interfering with my life," Gus said. "Here I was all excited to tell you my big news, and you start talking like Darth Vader."

  "Vader, really?" Shawn said. "At least you mean the Darth Vad
er from the first films, right? Because if you're comparing my silk-smooth delivery to that whining little punk from the sequels, we are going to have serious issues."

  "We can deal with your issues later," Gus said. "I want to know what was bought and who bought it and what you're doing here when you're supposed to be in Santa Barbara."

  "Can I take the second part of that question first?" Shawn said.

  "Whatever," Gus said.

  "Okay," Shawn said. "What was the second part again?"

  Gus tried to reconstruct his thought: Although he'd only uttered it seconds before, the sequence was completely jumbled in his mind. "Just tell me what you're talking about."

  "They did," Shawn said.

  "Who did what?"

  "I remembered the second part of your question," Shawn said. "It was 'Who bought what?' and the answer is, 'They did.' "

  "That's not an answer," Gus said. "It's not even a hint. It's completely meaningless. 'They' only has any value if there's a precedent in the sentence."

  "There is a precedent," Shawn said. "That's you."

  "What?"

  "Precedent Gus," Shawn said. "Didn't Damp Blouse make the announcement?"

  "That's president," Gus said, then broke off. "Wait a minute. How did you know about that?"

  "What do you mean how did I know about that?"

  "If you study my question I think you'll find that there's absolutely no ambiguity about what it means," Gus said tightly. "It is simple, straightforward, and without any possibility of misunderstanding. So the fact that you are stalling and refusing to answer it is telling me that you are up to something."

  "We're up to something," Shawn corrected.

  The thought occurred to Gus that what they were up to was 160 feet above the sidewalk, and if there were a way to get the window open he could count how long it took Shawn to hit the ground. But that brought images of the late Steve Ecclesine to mind. He took a step away from the window.

  "How can we be up to anything?" Gus said. "We don't work together anymore. You're a private detective and I'm the incoming president of a multinational pharmaceuticals company."

  "It's great, isn't it?" Shawn said. "No one's ever going to suspect a thing."

  "Because there's nothing to suspect," Gus said.

  "That's exactly the right tone of outrage," Shawn said. "Keep that up."

  Keeping the level of outrage high enough was not going to be Gus' problem. He took a deep breath and then another before he spoke again. "I need to know what's going on," he said. And then before Shawn could answer he started over. "I take that back. I know what's going on. What I need to know is what you think is going on."

  "Nothing big," Shawn said. "Just your undercover assignment."

  "My what?" Gus said. "We've already had this conversation. I'm not undercover."

  "I realize that the phrase doesn't really do your mission justice," Shawn said. "The way you've burrowed into this company is really inspiring. All I can say is wow."

  "Why?"

  "Why what?" Shawn said. "Why wow?"

  "Yes, fine," Gus said. "What are you talking about?"

  "The way you were willing to walk away from your old life so completely," Shawn said. "Giving up your apartment, quitting your job, pretending that the Echo had been stolen so the company wouldn't insist on taking it back."

  "What about the Echo?" Gus said.

  "Just part of your master plan," Shawn said. "And what a plan it was. I've got to say, if I hadn't known better, there were times when you would have fooled even me."

  "I wasn't trying to fool you," Gus said.

  "Why would you?" Shawn said. "We've been in this together all along, haven't we?"

  "We have not." Gus felt a familiar throbbing at his temples, the special kind of headache that only a particular type of conversation with Shawn could bring on. Although in the privacy of his own skull, he had to admit that now that he was feeling the pain he had missed it a little bit.

  Shawn gave a chuckle of wry amusement, or what he imagined wry amusement would sound like if you were able to experience such a sensation without wearing a smoking jacket. "There is such a thing as going too far undercover," he said.

  "There's also such a thing as getting to the point," Gus said.

  "See, that's what I mean," Shawn said. "You sound exactly like a busy corporate executive when you say things like that. You don't have to keep up the cover when we're alone together. Although if we're together we can't really be alone. Which is either kind of a deep thought or something I read on a Hallmark card."

  "Shawn!"

  "Don't use my name," Shawn said. "They might be listening."

  "Who might be listening?" Gus said, now hopelessly lost. "And why does it matter if I use your name?"

  "Good point," Shawn said. "Since you're the one who's undercover here."

  "You have to listen, Shawn," he said with as much patience as he could muster. "I am not now and have never been undercover here. I'm not on a secret mission. I didn't just pretend to leave Psych and take up a new life as an executive here. This is all true. This is all me."

  Even as he was speaking the words the true meaning of them hit him with a force he hadn't anticipated. It wasn't the restatement of his current reality; he'd more than come to peace with the fact that he'd joined the grown-up world and left childish things behind. But why was he saying them? If Shawn was playing games, trying to get him to come back to Psych, that was okay. But Shawn seemed really convinced that he and Gus were still working together and that all the changes Gus had made in his life had been nothing more than a gambit to solve a case. And if that were true, then something was seriously wrong with Shawn.

  Because Shawn had always been one of those miraculous people who had the ability to shape reality to his own desire. It was a matter of will over the world. Gus saw how things were and he adjusted. But Shawn simply refused to. If things weren't going the way he wanted them to, he acted as if they were. And more often than not, reality got tired of trying to force itself on him and twisted itself into whatever shape he had wanted.

  But this wasn't one of those occasions. No matter how much Shawn wanted to be working on an investigation at Benson Pharmaceuticals with Gus, that simply wasn't the case. And if Shawn was unable to accept that he was leaving behind the territory of will and moving into psychosis.

  Shawn, who had been pacing the carpet while Gus talked, now stopped. He peered closely at Gus. Took a step forward so their noses were nearly touching, then squinted. He stepped back. "I don't mean any disrespect," Shawn said, "but you're not this good an actor."

  "I'm not acting," Gus said.

  Shawn squinted at him again. "You've either gotten a lot better at this kind of thing, or you're really telling the truth," Shawn said.

  "The only thing I've gotten better at in the last few months is being a corporate executive," Gus said. "Which is why D-Bob named me to be the president."

  "You're really serious," Shawn said.

  "Of course I am," Gus said. "I have been all along."

  Shawn took a step back, then collapsed onto the couch. "Then I've made a terrible mistake."

  Gus could see the reality crashing down all around his friend. He knew how this must feel. It had been the same for him in seventh grade when he finally realized that Tanja Traber hadn't been joking when she'd told him she was only going to hold hands with him after school until he finished writing her term paper on Ecuador, and that they really didn't have a future together unless at some point in the far future she decided to become a Latin American scholar and didn't feel like doing the work.

  Gus sat next to Shawn on the couch. "It's okay, Shawn," he said. "This transition has been tough on everybody."

  "No, I mean I made a terrible mistake," Shawn said again.

  "You followed your heart," Gus said. "That's never a mistake." Except, of course, if that heart led you to Tanja Traber's birthday party, even thoug
h you hadn't been invited and she had specifically told you to stay away.

  "You're really not listening very well," Shawn said. "When I said I made a terrible mistake, I didn't mean I misunderstood your motives. If you're not able to express yourself clearly, that's really your problem, not mine."

  "How much clearer could I have been?" Gus said. "I did everything but ask the San Francisco Police Department to have you arrested if you crossed into the city."

  "That would have been a start," Shawn said. "But we're not talking about you now. I'm the one who made the big mistake. And I don't know how to fix it."

  "You could start by telling me what it was," Gus said.

  "I made you president," Shawn said.

  Gus jumped up off the couch, outrage propelling him like a jet pack. "You did no such thing," he said. "I earned this. Me. On my own. You had nothing to do with it."

  "I wish that were true," Shawn said. "Then whatever happened next would be your fault instead of mine."

  "You are just trying to steal my moment," Gus said. "You can't stand that I've been so successful here, so you're going to do whatever you can to make it seem less important."

  "That's pretty good," Shawn said. "And I appreciate your effort to make me feel less guilty. But I did it, and I've got to take the blame."

  "Okay, then," Gus said. "How did you do it?"

  "I told Dem Bones that it was the only way to turn the auras from red to blue," Shawn said. "Or blue to red. Either way, it's amazing how easy it is to talk that man into anything," Shawn said. "Can you believe some clown proposed a new business plan for the company that would drive the whole place into bankruptcy in about six weeks, and because it was delivered with passion, Dil Bert was ready to sign off on it? You can thank me for talking him out of that particular bit of madness."

  This couldn't be happening. First Shawn had taken credit for Gus' promotion; now he was proudly announcing he'd just destroyed Gus' key policy initiative. Shawn had to leave, to leave and never come back. It didn't matter if Gus was going to be lonely without him. There was simply no way that President Gus and Shawn could coexist in the same universe, let alone the same company.