Cole Perriman's Terminal Games

by Wim Coleman

  “May I call you Myron?”

  “Of course.”

  “And please call me Harvey.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  A short pause followed. Then Gusfield said, “Listen, Myron, this is kind of awkward, but … this little session is being videotaped, as I’m sure you know, and this is supposed to be a deposition of sorts, and I’ve got to say a few rather formal things to make it—you know, kosher.”

  “By all means,” Stalnaker said eagerly.

  Gusfield looked at his watch. “Um, it’s Saturday, the twelfth of February, two-thirty p.m. I’m Harvey Gusfield and I’m talking to Myron Stalnaker and we are being observed by ... oh, hell, who all’s out there?”

  Gusfield pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and began to read. “Lieutenant Michael Kelsey, Lieutenant Nolan Grobowski, Claude Breckenridge, and Melissa Finch.”

  He wadded up the paper and stuffed it in his pocket.

  “There,” Gusfield said with a grin. “That ought to do it. I hope I didn’t screw anything up.”

  Stalnaker laughed a little.

  “Now,” Gusfield said, folding his hands in front of him, “I understand that you’re deeply concerned about the killing of Howard Cronin.”

  “Yes, very much so.”

  “Why?”

  “I feel like I … was involved in it somehow.”

  “Do you think you actually committed the murder?”

  “No. It was more like I was an accomplice. I’m sorry. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

  Gusfield was silent for a moment. He looked at the table and began to draw little imaginary shapes on it with his forefinger.

  “Myron,” Gusfield continued, “I’ve been told that you belong to a computer network called Insomnimania.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that you’re somehow involved with a cartoon character named Auggie.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you Auggie’s user? His operator?”

  Stalnaker’s eyes shifted nervously. “I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” he said. “It’s more like Auggie uses me.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, if Auggie wants to go somewhere in the network, I sometimes move him around. If he wants to say something, I sometimes type in his words.”

  “What do you mean, ‘sometimes’?”

  “Well, other times, Auggie just appears to be doing these things on his own. Or maybe somebody else is moving him and typing for him. Anyway, his words don’t feel like my words, even when I am typing them. It feels like Auggie is actually saying them. Does that make me sound crazy?”

  Gusfield chuckled softly.

  “It makes you sound very creative, Myron,” Gusfield said. “Novelists say the same thing about their characters. They claim that their characters decide what to do or say, and all they do is write it down. Nobody calls Norman Mailer or Stephen King or Gore Vidal or Jackie Collins crazy, do they? Not on account of that, anyhow.”

  Stalnaker smiled back at Gusfield.

  “No, I guess they don’t,” Stalnaker said, seeming more and more relaxed.

  While this conversation was going on, the occupants of the booth were growing increasingly agitated. The compression of bodies was rapidly raising the temperature in the already overheated chamber. The place was becoming quite suffocating.

  “When’s he going to get down to business?” Breckenridge asked crankily.

  “Give him time,” Kelsey said.

  “I’ll give him five more minutes, and then I’m out of here,” Finch grumbled.

  Nolan kept quiet, but he, too, was starting to feel more than a little impatient.

  “Myron, I understand you want to be hypnotized,” Gusfield said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you sure you want to try this right now? I mean, you look awfully tired.”

  “I am tired. You don’t get a lot of sleep in a jail cell.”

  “I know. It must be awful to be here.”

  “I don’t sleep well, anyway.”

  “Insomnia?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Me, too. It’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is.”

  “Well, we can do this some other time, if you prefer.”

  Finch let out a hiss of indignation. “Some other time?” she said. “Oh, Christ.”

  “Shhh,” Kelsey said.

  Stalnaker shook his head vigorously.

  “No,” Stalnaker said. “I want to do it now.”

  “Okay. But I’m just saying, I don’t want to put you through anything you’re not up to. If you get too tired, just let me know, and we’ll stop.”

  “I will.”

  “Do you know what hypnotism means?” Gusfield asked.

  Stalnaker shrugged. “A way to get at the truth, I guess,” he said. “A way to reach parts of the mind you’re not normally aware of. I guess it always seemed so obvious that I never thought about it very much.”

  “‘Obvious’ is a good word for it, Myron,” Gusfield said, speaking quite softly now. “It’s got to do with suggestion. It’s a matter of accepting an idea that’s been suggested to you. Hypnosis happens when I say something and you act as if you believe what I say. It’s pretty much that simple. In fact, it’s so simple that a lot of people don’t even believe it exists.”

  Stalnaker was looking at Gusfield intently. The psychiatrist’s voice became markedly slower. “A lot of perfectly good scientists and researchers think it’s a con job, a fraud, a snake oil kind of deal. Me, I’ve practiced it hundreds of times, and I still consider myself something of a skeptic about the whole thing. I still don’t know what to believe. For example, what would happen if I told you, right here and now, that your right hand was a balloon filled with helium? That it was lighter than air? That it was so light, you found it hard to hold it down on the table? That all you had to do is relax just a little and your hand would float right up into the air?”

  Stalnaker stared at Gusfield blankly for a moment. Then his right hand and forearm rose slowly up off the table.

  “Close your eyes, Myron,” Gusfield said. “And your hand isn’t light anymore.”

  Myron closed his eyes and lowered his hand.

  Breckenridge gasped slightly. “That shrink’s good,” he said.

  “No,” Finch replied with a cynical edge. “Your client’s good.”

  Nolan wondered.

  One of them’s good. We’ll have to wait and see which one it is.

  Excerpt from an unsworn statement made by Myron Stalnaker to Harvey Gusfield, M.D. while under hypnosis; videotaped 2:30 p.m., Saturday, February 12:

  GUSF1ELD: Myron, I want you to go back to the very early morning hours of Wednesday, the ninth of February. I’m talking about the time that’s been worrying you, the time you can’t account for. Return to wherever you were at that time. (pause) Are you there now, Myron?

  STALNAKER: Yes.

  Gusfield: Where are you?

  STALNAKER: I’m watching what Auggie’s doing.

  GUSFIELD: Where is Auggie?

  STAINAKER: He’s in a … small … enclosed. (pause) It’s a confessional booth. A church confessional.

  GUSFIELD: And where are you watching Auggie from?

  STALNAKER: Behind his eyes.

  GUSFIELD: From inside Auggie?

  STALNAKER: That’s right.

  GUSFIELD: What is Auggie doing?

  STALNAKER: He’s pretending to be a priest. He’s giving comfort to a man. The man is making a confession.

  GUSFIELD: What is Auggie wearing?

  STALNAKER: A priest’s outfit. And a ski mask with a clown’s face on it.

&
nbsp; GUSFIELD: Where did Auggie get the priest’s outfit?

  STALNAKER: He stole it one night from a local community theater.

  GUSFIELD: Did you watch him steal it?

  STALNAKER: Yes.

  GUSFIELD: From behind his eyes?

  STALNAKER: That’s right.

  GUSFIELD: And where did Auggie get the ski mask?

  STALNAKER: He knitted it himself.

  GUSFIELD: And you watched him knit it?

  STALNAKER: Yes.

  GUSFIELD: How did he do it?

  STALNAKER: With my hands.

  GUSFIELD: Do you know how to knit, Myron?

  STALNAKER: No.

  GUSFIELD: Do you know where Auggie learned to knit?

  STALNAKER: No.

  GUSFIELD: Are you … is Auggie still in the confessional?

  STALNAKER: Yes.

  GUSFIELD: What’s happening now?

  STALNAKER: The man making the confession is becoming agitated. He stands up. He yanks away the … the lattice between himself and Auggie. He looks at Auggie. Auggie holds a little flashlight up to his own face. Auggie … shoots the man … in the chest.

  GUSFIELD: Now what’s happening?

  STALNAKER: Auggie is coming out of the booth and looking at the man. I think the man is dead. Auggie pulls the man forward. I think Auggie wants to see whether the bullet came out through the man’s back. It didn’t. Auggie begins to wrap the man up in … a heavy plastic sheet with … red stripes. (pause) It’s my shower curtain. I’d wondered what happened to my shower curtain.

  GUSFIELD: Myron, I want you to leave that scene now. I want you to come back to the present, to this room. I want to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Auggie.

  STALNAKER: All right.

  GUSFIEID: Why did Auggie kill Howard Cronin?

  STALNAKER: I can’t answer that question.

  GUSFIFID: Why not?

  STALNAKER: Because I’m just a cell. A cell doesn’t make decisions. A cell doesn’t understand.

  GUSFIELD: Could you explain that a little more clearly for me, Myron?

  STALNAKER: Can a cell on the tip of your finger tell you why you fall in love or why you smoke too much? A cell bears witness. A cell sees, smells, tastes, touches, hears. A cell carries out its role. And a cell remembers. A cell can’t claim to understand.

  GUSFIELD: So you are a cell in Auggie’s body.

  STALNAKER: That’s right.

  GUSFIELD: Does a cell feel guilt or remorse over the actions of the rest of the body?

  STALNAKER: Of course not.

  GUSFIELD: It seems to me that “cell” is a strange metaphor, Myron. It seems to me that you are actually Auggie’s body—his hands, his arms, his legs.

  STALNAKER: It’s not a metaphor at all. I’m a cell. That’s a literal fact.

  GUSFIELD: I see.

  STALNAKER: No, you don’t see.

  GUSFIELD: Can you explain it more clearly, then?

  STALNAKER: No.

  GUSFIELD: Do you know who created the Snuff Room performance of Howard Cronin’s murder?

  STALNAKER: I didn’t know there was one.

  GUSFIELD: There was.

  STALNAKER: I didn’t know it.

  GUSFIELD: Who do you think created it?

  STALNAKER: I suppose Auggie did.

  GUSFIELD: You didn’t see him do it?

  STALNAKER: I told you I didn’t know there was one. Maybe somebody else saw him do it.

  GUSFIELD: Myron, I would like to talk with Auggie now.

  STALNAKER: How?

  GUSFIELD: I was hoping he might speak to me through you.

  STALNAKER: He won’t do that.

  GUSFIELD: Why not?

  STALNAKER He’s not here.

  GUSFIELD: He’s not inside you?

  STALNAKER: No.

  GUSFIELD: Where is he?

  STALNAKER: In the Basement.

  GUSFIELD: What is the Basement?

  STALNAKER: Auggie’s home.

  GUSFIELD: Where is the Basement?

  STALNAKER: I can’t tell you that.

  GUSFIELD: Is that because you don’t know, or because you’re unwilling to tell me?

  STALNAKER: I can’t answer that question.

  GUSFIELD: Why not?

  STALNAKER: Because I can’t.

  The questioning went on for at least another half hour. Dr. Gusfield periodically tried different methods of induction, taking Stalnaker into progressively deeper hypnotic states in hopes of getting more lucid answers. None came. Again and again, Gusfield asked to speak with Auggie. And again and again, Stalnaker said that Auggie was not present.

  In the meantime, the four behind the one-way mirror were perspiring from the heat. The air in the booth seemed to be getting thinner. Nolan actually began to wonder if they would run out of oxygen before the interview came to an end. Breckenridge and Finch didn’t help matters much by muttering profanities at each other throughout the whole ordeal. Nolan wished they wouldn’t breathe so much.

  At last, Gusfield brought Stalnaker out of his trance. Stalnaker sat shaking in his chair, stunned and horrified and on the brink of hysteria. Gusfield soothed and comforted Stalnaker until he became calmer.

  Then Gusfield came into the observation booth and closed the door behind him. The place was preposterously crowded now. It reminded Nolan of some old college prank—like cramming as many students as possible into a telephone booth.

  “Lieutenant Kelsey,” Gusfield demanded, “you’ve got to get this man out of his jail cell and into a hospital.”

  Breckenridge immediately chirped up gleefully. “I knew it!” he said. “Looney tunes, right? Certifiably bonkers!”

  “Don’t gloat yet, counselor,” Finch said.

  “So what is he, then?” Breckenridge said, badgering Gusfield. “A full blown paranoid schizophrenic?”

  “No,” Gusfield said tiredly.

  “What, then? An MPD case?”

  “It’s too soon to tell.”

  “Come on! You’ve got to have a theory!”

  “I don’t have a theory!” Gusfield barked. “I’m not even saying that Stalnaker’s insane. All I’m saying is that he’s a danger to himself right now, and to no one else. He requires close psychiatric observation. I think he learned a great deal more from that session than any of the rest of us did and he didn’t like what he found out.”

  “I’ll have him transferred to a psychiatric unit,” Kelsey said. “But I want him kept under close guard.”

  “That’s fine,” Gusfield said.

  “Good. Now let’s get out of this hellhole.”

  After they stepped out of the booth, Nolan turned to Gusfield. “Could I ask Stalnaker a few questions?” Nolan asked.

  “That’s not advisable,” Gusfield said.

  “Look, you can stand right behind me. You can stop me at any time.”

  Gusfield groaned disapprovingly. Then he said, “Come on. But go very easy.”

  Nolan sat down across the table from Stalnaker. He could see that Stalnaker was trembling slightly. Nolan introduced himself politely.

  “I just have a few more questions,” Nolan said to Stalnaker.

  Stalnaker nodded silently.

  “Did you ever know a man named G. K. Judson?” Nolan asked.

  “The airline owner?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I read about him in the papers. I saw him in the news. He was murdered, right?”

  “That’s right. You didn’t know him personally?”

  “I don’t exactly travel in those circles, Lieutenant,” Stalnaker replied with just a trace of wryness.

  “
What about a woman named Renee Gauld? In Los Angeles?”

  “I don’t know anyone in Los Angeles.”

  “She was murdered, too, Myron. She was drowned in her own bathtub. After a party.”

  “I don’t remember anything like that.”

  “Did you—did Auggie know somebody named Sapphire?”

  Stalnaker looked at Nolan with interest.

  “Yes, Auggie knew her,” Stalnaker said. “Auggie quarreled with her.”

  “Were you there when they quarreled?”

  “Yes, I was. I typed in the words.”

  “Have you seen Sapphire since then?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea what happened to Sapphire?”

  “No.”

  Nolan paused before his next question.

  “Does Auggie know somebody named Elfie?” Nolan asked.

  Stalnaker thought hard for a moment.

  “Yes,” Stalnaker said. “I believe he does. He seems to rather like her.”

  “Is Elfie ... in any danger from Auggie?”

  A puzzled look crossed Stalnaker’s face.

  “How could she be in danger?” Stalnaker asked with apparent amazement. “She’s only a cartoon character.”

  Nolan felt Gusfield’s hand on his shoulder.

  “That’s enough, Lieutenant,” Gusfield said.

  Nolan thanked Stalnaker, rose to his feet, and left the room.

  *

  A short time later, Nolan and Kelsey were debriefing one another in Kelsey’s office. They really couldn’t find a great deal to say about the case.

  “Sounds like he did the Cronin killing, all right,” Kelsey said. “But it doesn’t sound like he had much of a concept of right or wrong when he did it.”

  “Of course, he could have been faking that whole hypnotism scene,” Nolan said.

  Kelsey shook his head. “Gusfield doesn’t seem to think so. And Gusfield knows his work. We’ve brought him in on more than a few cases.”

  “Gusfield didn’t let me ask Stalnaker a lot of questions.”

  “That’s because Gusfield’s convinced that Stalnaker doesn’t know very much. Stalnaker probably told you everything he had to tell.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Still, I wish I could have talked to Gusfield a bit more. He shot out of here in a hurry.”