Delirious

by Daniel Palmer

  Rudy Gomes was on his feet in seconds, putting his body between Charlie and the others. Charlie took one step toward Yardley, and Gomes lunged, connecting with Charlie’s sternum with a lowered shoulder, expelling all the air from Charlie’s lungs in a violent burst. The force of the blow was enough to send Charlie crashing into the wall. Stunned, he slumped to the floor and tried to catch his breath.

  “Security! Security!” Gomes called into his radio. “Situation urgent. Send two teams. I repeat, send two teams.”

  Charlie stood as Gomes was putting the radio back. He took a wild swing with a right hook, which Gomes easily dodged. Stepping behind Charlie with a quick feint to the left, Gomes grabbed his elbow and wrist and forced him to the floor. Gomes put his knees on Charlie’s back, while continuing to hold on to his wrist. He kept applying pressure to keep him motionless on the floor.

  “Mac! Mac! This is crazy. Why are you doing this to me? Why! Whatever you get from InVision is mine! To cut me out like this is stealing, Mac! Do you hear me? Stealing!” Charlie cried out in pain as Gomes pressed his knees deeper into Charlie’s spine and gave a slight twist to his wrist.

  “Shut your trap!” Gomes said.

  Leon Yardley was out of his seat and standing in the corner farthest from Charlie.

  “You’re out, Charlie. We’re letting you go, effective immediately,” Mac said.

  “Fuck you, Mac,” Charlie spit.

  “You’re lucky it isn’t worse, Charlie,” Yardley said as the two security teams arrived, four stern-looking men in total. They weren’t armed, but Charlie knew they had permits to carry Mace.

  Gomes let Charlie up.

  Charlie stood, shaky on his feet. The security teams surrounded him and began to escort him out of the office. Charlie swung around, the security teams now pushing him backward out the door.

  “I’m not going to let this go, Mac. You, too, Leon,” Charlie stormed. “I’m not going to quit. I’m going to figure out why you’re setting me up. I’m going to figure it out! Do you hear me?”

  Moments later Charlie was outside. A police cruiser was parked out front, lights flashing, presumably to escort Charlie out of Solu-Cent forever. The police officer and Gomes talked a moment.

  The officer approached Charlie. They exchanged a few words. Charlie showed his ID, and after several embarrassing moments crowds began to gather. Eventually, the officer let Charlie go. Charlie felt the stares burning into his back as he walked away. He walked to his BMW and climbed inside. The police car stayed a good distance away. Gomes could have pressed assault charges if he wanted. He still might, Charlie thought.

  The sun was low in the midmorning sky, making it difficult to see as Charlie drove out of the parking lot. Instead of grabbing for his sunglasses, which were in his bag in the backseat, he pulled down the sun visor. When he did, a shiver of fear shot through him. A yellow sticky note was taped to the inside flap. As with the other note, the one line was written in his handwriting. He had no memory of writing it, but there it was in black ballpoint pen. The sentence was a part of one of his favorites. It was from a Kurt Vonnegut novel, Mother Night, a book he’d discovered in college while putting off studying for a chemistry test.

  It read: We are what we pretend to be!

  Chapter 10

  Joe had never missed a therapy session before, and Rachel was growing worried. She took another sip of coffee, filed some papers, and waited for the wall-mounted clock to read 8:15 a.m. before calling Joe’s house again. Still no answer. If Joe was scheduled to work the overnight, his shift would have ended hours earlier, leaving him plenty of time to make their weekly one-on-one session. Rachel wondered if Charlie’s stunning visit yesterday, his disturbing revelations, and Joe’s unprecedented absence were connected. Her skin prickled at the thought.

  If her meeting with Charlie had in any way derailed Joe’s therapy, it would be an unforgivable breach of trust. Rachel understood the ethical boundary she had tiptoed across by helping Charlie out, yet at the time, she believed her actions to be harmless. Now Joe was a no-show, and her belief was fast giving way to fear.

  Could Charlie have hurt Joe? Could she have unwittingly pushed Charlie over the edge?

  The mystery of the mind meant that anything was possible—from the benign to the unfathomable. The more Rachel dwelled on it, the more she regretted ever meeting Charlie Giles.

  At quarter to the hour Rachel gave up waiting for Joe and began readying herself for the scheduled staff meeting. Lately, it seemed as though meetings and administrative make-work were consuming more of her time than patient care. It was a disturbing trend that showed no signs of reversing. On her way to the conference room, Rachel spotted Dr. Alan Shapiro, one of several staff psychiatrists on the Walderman payroll, making his way to the same meeting.

  Perhaps, Rachel thought, if Shapiro agreed she’d done nothing wrong, it would lessen her mounting anxiety. Shapiro was a bit irritating at times, with his know-it-all smirk and fondness for rubbing elbows with anybody on the Walderman board of directors, but she respected his abilities and opinions equally. All Rachel wanted was a simple affirmation—along the lines of “I would have done the same.” Hopefully, that would be enough to set her mind at ease.

  Rachel quickened her step to catch up with the slight-framed, short-legged psychiatrist, who favored obnoxious-colored ties and rainbow-hued shirts. After exchanging perfunctory hellos, Rachel kept pace alongside Shapiro as they made their way toward the conference room.

  “Did you get the budget numbers straightened out?” Shapiro asked.

  “Mostly. Well, close enough at least. Budgeting is part art, part pseudoscience, if you ask me.”

  Shapiro laughed warmly. Immediately, Rachel felt more comfortable and approached him about Charlie.

  “Alan, can I ask you something?”

  “Anything,” Shapiro replied.

  “If a relative of a patient of yours came to your office for psychiatric advice, would you give him any?”

  “Treatment?” Shapiro said with noticeable concern.

  “No, just information. Something you could get off the Web if you were researching a topic.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. You said this person is somehow connected to a patient I’m treating?”

  Rachel felt a knot form in her stomach. “Yes. A relative.”

  “What’s the motivation? Is it really research, or is it a personal inquiry?”

  Rachel hesitated a beat. She wanted to lie and say it was for research, knowing Shapiro would take no exception to that.

  “More personal.”

  Shapiro shook his head. “Slippery slope,” he said. “I mean, you don’t really know what they’re after. What if they take whatever information you share as actual medical advice? Not saying it could happen, but suppose something were to happen—a car crash, whatever. A shady malpractice attorney might try to use a meeting in a professional setting without a professional relationship against you. These days I’m a big fan of caution.”

  Rachel nodded her head slowly. Her lingering doubt about inviting Charlie into her office had just mushroomed into full-blown anger at herself for allowing it to happen.

  What was her motivation?

  Did she find him attractive?

  Perhaps, but that was not a conscious factor in her deciding to let the interview continue. More likely, curiosity had got the better of her. There was something about Charlie Giles she found irresistibly intriguing. According to Joe, Charlie was awash with confidence, but to Rachel, he appeared adrift, scared even.

  There was no doubt in her mind that something chemical was happening to Charlie. She was convinced he was in mental distress, perhaps even suffering the onset of some sort of psychotic breakdown. Without thorough testing and a complete medical workup, forming an uneducated diagnosis was not only unprofessional, but it could be dangerous. All she did, she reassured herself, was to give him the names of some doctors to call, including a neurologist. That seemed a harmless outcome.


  Or was it?

  Shapiro now had her thinking about malpractice, which only made her concern over Joe’s whereabouts all the more grave. Clearly Alan Shapiro would have taken a different approach when it came to Charlie’s information gathering. If only Joe had shown up for his therapy session, she might not be so troubled.

  Rachel waited outside the conference room and used her mobile to try Joe’s home number again. She hung up after seven rings.

  Where was he? she wondered.

  Chapter 11

  Wearing a scowl, Charlie walked into Chaps Sports Bar in Ken-more Square. The room was smoke-free, and Charlie, who wasn’t much for frequenting bars—he worked most nights well past last call—wondered how much more time he’d be spending in them since losing his job.

  He spotted Randal Egan slouched over the bar, clutching a half-drunk pint glass of Guinness stout. Randal and Charlie had been friends since high school. A soccer teammate who’d grown up in Waltham, Randal was the better of the two at staying in touch and regularly sent Charlie e-mail, even while buried in law books. After a few years in private practice, he’d ended up taking a job with the FBI in the Boston field office for less than half his pay, saying he felt a need to do something more tangible to help people. He’d been there ever since. “A lifer,” he often joked. Charlie agreed—Randal was a lifer when it came to helping people.

  Charlie had few people left to turn to. He had called Lawrence in IT from the car. As expected, Lawrence had reneged on Charlie’s search request, passing up the Sox tickets in exchange for keeping his job. Charlie assumed that as word got out, more and more people would turn their backs on him. Randal wasn’t like that.

  Charlie approached the bar. He was still grappling with how he would explain to Randal what had happened to him without seeming totally insane. He felt he could trust Randal, but he wasn’t sure what benefit a full disclosure would bring, other than release.

  The bottom line was, he had to talk to somebody or he’d explode.

  “Hey, stranger,” Charlie said, placing a firm hand on Randal’s broad shoulder.

  “Giles! Giles! Holy shit. What’s up, amigo!” Randal stood and gave Charlie a warm embrace. He called to the bartender, who was washing glasses at the other end of the bar. “A Guinness for my friend here, when you have a minute,” he said.

  “And a shot of Jack,” Charlie added

  “Whoa. Okay. I got it, fella. And a shot of Jack,” Randal called out.

  The bartender grunted and began pouring the Guinness from the tap. He reached for the Jack on the top shelf.

  “Thanks for coming to meet me,” Charlie said. “Sorry I’m a bit late. Parking in Kenmore isn’t easy.”

  “Tell me about it,” Randal said. “I’m way down Beacon.”

  “You look great, man. How have you been? It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah. It’s been a while. Too long,” Randal said, poking Charlie’s shoulder with his finger. “Everything is good with me. Jenny and the kids are fine. But it’s you I’m worried about. Midafternoon cocktails aren’t exactly your MO, if you know what I mean.”

  Charlie nodded. “I just needed to talk to somebody, Randal. I didn’t know where else to turn.”

  The boy who’d played varsity striker three years at Waltham and fullback for BC was still present in Randal’s dark Italian eyes and smooth olive complexion. The familiarity comforted Charlie, especially in a world where nothing seemed familiar anymore. The bartender dropped two shots in front of Randal and went to finish the Guinness pour.

  “Talk,” said Randal, pushing a shot toward Charlie, who picked up the fingerprint-stained tumbler and downed it with a single gulp. Without being prompted, Randal ordered another.

  “I’ve been fired,” Charlie said.

  “What? What for?”

  “Let’s see … surfing porn and corporate espionage,” Charlie said.

  “Oh, is that all?” Randal laughed as though that were the punch line.

  Charlie didn’t flinch.

  “No, really. What for?” Randal asked.

  “I told you,” Charlie said.

  Two more shots came along with the Guinness round Randal had ordered. This time Randal downed one before Charlie even lifted his off the bar.

  “Are you serious?”

  Charlie nodded.

  “What were you thinking?” Randal asked.

  “I’m thinking I don’t remember any of it. I’m thinking that fucked-up things are happening to me.”

  “Like what?” Randal asked.

  Charlie told him about the e-mail exchange and subsequent meeting with Anne Pedersen. Then about the PowerPoint presentation that supposedly Jerry Schmidt had authored but that somehow it had his name and not Jerry’s in the document’s “created by” property, and how Anne Pedersen apparently didn’t even work at Solu-Cent to begin with. He confided about the strange cryptic notes he’d been leaving himself, about his meeting with Dr. Rachel Evans at Wal-derman, and lastly about the morning’s confrontation in Mac’s office.

  “I’m screwed,” Charlie said. “Totally screwed.”

  Randal let out a sigh. “Your family history isn’t good, Giles. Tell me again what that doctor said.”

  “She’s not an M.D., but she’s an expert on mental health, especially schizophrenia,” Charlie said. He couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. How could he, an MIT graduate, a successful entrepreneur, be schizophrenic? It wasn’t fathomable. And yet there was his family history to account for. A father and brother both afflicted with the illness. It was an inescapable truth.

  Randal took a healthy sip of his beer and thought a moment.

  “At the Bureau I have my fair share of cases involving that disease, Charlie,” he began. “I have to say, I’m no expert, but you’re a bit late in life to be developing symptoms. Mostly it happens in teenagers and young adults.”

  Charlie nodded. “I know. That’s what Rachel said as well. She suggested I have an MRI. Maybe there’s some sort of lesion, a tumor, or something on my brain. It could cause similar symptoms. It’s a theory, at least.”

  “Any other theories?” Randal asked.

  “Sure. Somebody is out to get me,” Charlie said.

  “Makes sense,” Randal said.

  “It would if paranoia wasn’t a symptom of schizophrenia,” Charlie said.

  “Do you think somebody is setting you up?”

  “Of course,” Charlie said, almost letting out a smile. “That’s why I’m crazy.”

  “Seriously?” Randal asked. His expression was both grave and concerned.

  “I don’t know, Randal,” Charlie said. “I wish it was that. I really do. A few days ago I would have said yes, but now I’m not sure. Nothing is adding up. Mac and Leon deny they had anything to do with it. Not that they’d just go and confess. And I don’t know anybody else who would have such a vendetta. And how does it explain everything—Anne Pedersen, the PowerPoint, the e-mail, the notes? It’s too much for even me to believe somebody could pull that off.”

  “I don’t know,” was all Randal could think of to say.

  “Believe it or not, the espionage is what’s really getting me. I mean, it’s all so unbelievable and out of character for me. You know how strongly I feel about protecting company secrets. You know what I had to do when that trust was broken before.”

  “Have you forgiven yourself for that?” Randal asked. “Do you think it’s catching up with you? Maybe this has all been triggered by some suppressed guilt.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Charlie said. “He made his choices. I didn’t make them for him.” Charlie looked away. He had enough on his plate without reliving that nightmare.

  “So where does this leave you?” Randal asked. He nursed the few remaining sips of his beer.

  “Nowhere, I guess,” Charlie said. “Unemployed. Unemployable. Crazy.”

  “Charlie, you know I’m here for you,” Randal said. “Are you telling me everything? I mean, are y
ou in any legal trouble?”

  “Not yet. But Mac and Yardley have a case against me for the e-mail to Sony. They may come after me. But they said they wouldn’t. Like I said, I don’t know who to trust anymore.” Charlie picked up his Guinness and downed most of it in one long gulp. His hands shook, while his throat closed and his eyes moistened. He hadn’t felt that empty pit feeling since he was a kid, but it was a precursor to tears. Charlie looked away, staring out the window.

  “Brother, you know I’m here for you. Honest,” Randal said after a moment’s silence. He extended a hand to Charlie, who took it, gave him a firm shake. It was the best he’d felt in days.

  Maybe all he needed from Randal was an affirmation of their friendship. For the first time in as long a time as he could remember, Charlie needed to feel close to somebody. He needed someone he could trust.

  “I’ll call when I get the MRI results. Okay?”

  “I’m expecting to hear from you sooner.”

  “Thanks, Randal. I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s the least I could do. Have you talked to Joe or your mother about any of this? I’d think if anyone would know something about what might be happening to you, it would be them.”

  Charlie shook his head. “I can’t talk to Joe, and I wouldn’t want to worry Mom,” he said. “You know that. You know the history.”

  “Yeah. Just a suggestion. Family is always there for you, even when you don’t think they’d be much of a support.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Charlie and Randal stayed in the bar for an hour before Randal looked down at his watch.

  “Gotta run, pal,” Randal explained. “I’m dangerously close to a night of warm beer and a cold shoulder.”