The Madman's Tale

by John Katzenbach

  Big Black told me once, when we were standing idly in a corridor in one of those many moments where there was simply nothing to do except wait for something to happen although it rarely did, that the teenage children of the people who worked at the Western State Hospital, who lived on the grounds had a ritual, whenever they had a Saturday night date; they would walk down to the campus of the nearby college to get picked up or dropped off. And, when asked, they would say that their folks were on the staff—-but that they would wave toward the school, not up the hill to where we all passed our days and nights. Our madness was their stigma. It was as if they feared catching the diseases we carried. This seemed reasonable to me. Who would want to be like us? Who would want to be associated with our world?

  The answer to that was chilling: One person.

  The Angel.

  I took a deep breath, inhaling, exhaling, letting the hot air whistle between my teeth. It had been many years since I actually permitted myself to think about him. I looked at what I had written and understood that I could not tell all those stories without telling his, as well, and that was deeply unsettling. An old nervousness and an ancient fear crept into my imagination.

  And, with that, he entered the room.

  Not entering, like a neighbor or a friend, or even like an uninvited guest, with perhaps a knock on the door and a pleasant, if forced, greeting, but like a ghost. The door didn’t creak open, a chair wasn’t drawn up, introductions weren’t made. But he was there, nevertheless. I spun about, first one way, then the other, trying to pick him out of the still air around me, but I could not. He was the color of wind. Voices that I had not heard in many months, voices that had been quieted within me, suddenly began to shout warnings, echoing in my ears, racing through my head. But it was almost as if the message they had for me was being spoken in a foreign language; I no longer knew how to listen. I had a horrible feeling that something elusive but immensely important was suddenly out of order, and danger very close. So close, that I could feel it breathing against my neck.

  There was a momentary silence in the office. A sudden burst of rapid-fire typing penetrated the closed door. Somewhere, deep within the administration building, a distraught patient let out a long, plaintive howl, unforgiving in its intensity; but it faded away, like the cry of a faraway dog. Peter the Fireman slipped forward in his seat, in the same way that an eager child who knows the answer to a teacher’s question does.

  “That’s correct,” Lucy Jones said quietly.

  These words only seemed to energize the haphazard quiet.

  For a man trained in psychiatry, Doctor Gulptilil prized a certain political shrewdness, perhaps even beyond medical decisions.

  Like many physicians of the mind, he had the uncanny ability to step back and survey the moment from a spot emotionally distant, almost as if he were in a guard tower staring down into a yard. To his side, he saw a young woman with some fiercely held belief, and an agenda that was far different from any he might have. She wore scars that seemed to glisten with heat. Across from him, he eyed the patient who was far less insane than any of the others in the hospital and yet, far more lost, with the possible exception of the man the young woman was hunting so diligently—if he truly existed, which was a question Doctor Gulptilil had serious doubts about. He thought the two of them might have a combustibility that could prove troublesome. He also glanced at Francis, and thought suddenly that he was likely to be swept along by the force of the other two, which, he suspected, would not necessarily be a positive thing.

  Doctor Gulptilil cleared his throat several times, and shifted about in his seat. He could see the potential for trouble at virtually every turn. Trouble had an explosive quality that he spent much of his time and energy defeating. It was not as if he particularly enjoyed his job as psychiatric director of the hospital, but he came from a tradition of duty, coupled with a near religious commitment to steady work, and working for the state combined many virtues that he considered paramount, not the least of which was a steady weekly paycheck and the benefits that went with it, and none of the significant risk of opening his own office and hanging up a shingle and hoping for a sufficient stream of local neurotics to start making appointments.

  He was about to interrupt, when his eyes fell upon a photograph on the corner of his desk. It was a studio-setting portrait of his wife and their two children, a son in elementary school, and a daughter who had just turned fourteen. The picture, taken less than a year earlier, showed his daughter’s hair falling in a great black wave over her shoulders and reaching halfway to her waist. This was a traditional sign of beauty for his people, no matter how far removed they were from his native country. When she was little, he would often simply sit and watch, as her mother passed a comb through the cascade of shiny black hair. Those moments had disappeared. In a fit of rebellion a week earlier, the daughter had sneaked off to a local hairdresser and had her hair cropped to a pageboy length, defying both the family tradition and the predominant style of that year. His wife had cried steadily for two days, and he had been forced to deliver a stern lecture which was mostly ignored and a significant punishment which consisted of banning her from any nonschool activities for two months, and limiting her telephone privileges to homework, which prompted an angry outburst of tears and an obscenity or two that surprised him that she even knew. With a start, he realized that all the victims wore short haircuts. Boyish cuts. And they were all noticeably slender, almost as if they wore their femininity reluctantly. His daughter was much the same, still all angles and bony lines, with curves only hinted at. His hand quivered a little, as he considered that detail. He also knew that she resisted his every attempt to limit her travels around the hospital grounds. This knowledge made him bite down momentarily on his lower lip. Fear, he thought abruptly, doesn’t belong to psychiatrists; it belongs to the patients. Fear is irrational, and it settles parasitically on the unknown. His profession was about knowledge and the study and steady application of it to all sorts of situations. He tried to dismiss the connective thought, but it left only reluctantly.

  “Miss Jones,” he said stiffly, “precisely what is it you propose?”

  Lucy took a deep breath before answering, giving herself a moment to array her thoughts with machine-gun-like precision. “What I propose is to uncover the man who I believe committed these crimes. These are the murders in three different jurisdictions in the eastern part of the state—followed by the murder that took place here. I believe that the killer remains free, despite the arrest that has been made. What I will need, to prove this, is access to your patient files and the ability to conduct interviews on the wards. In addition”—and it was here that the first hesitation crept into her voice—“I will need someone who will work at uncovering this individual from the inside.”—she glanced over at Francis—“Because I think this individual will have anticipated my arrival. And I think his behavior, when he knows I am investigating his presence, is likely to change. I’ll need someone able to spot that.”

  “Exactly what do you mean by anticipate?” Gulp-a-pill asked.

  “I think the person who killed the young nurse-trainee did so in such a manner because he knew two things—that he could easily blame it on another person, the unfortunate fellow you call Lanky; and that someone very much like me would still come searching for him.”

  “I beg your pardon …”

  “He had to know that if investigators of the other crimes were hunting for him, then they would be drawn here, too.”

  This revelation created another small silence in the room.

  Lucy fixed her eyes on Francis and Peter the Fireman, examining both with a distant, detached gaze. She thought to herself that she could have found far worse candidates for what she had in mind, although she was concerned about the volatility of the one, and the fragility of the other. She also glanced over at the two Moses brothers. Big Black and Little Black were poised in the rear of the room. She guessed that she could enlist them in her plan, a
s well, although she was unsure if she would be able to control them as efficiently as she could control the two patients.

  Doctor Gulptilil shook his head. “I think you ascribe a criminal sophistication to this fellow—whom I am still uncertain actually exists—that is beyond what we can or should reasonably expect. If you want to get away with a crime, why do you invite someone to look for you? You only raise the potential for being captured and prosecuted.”

  “Because killing for him is only a small part of the adventure. At least, that’s what I suspect.”

  Lucy did not add to this statement, because she did not want to be asked what she feared were the other elements of what she called “the adventure.”

  Francis was aware that a moment of some depth had arrived. He could feel strong currents at work in the room, and for an instant had the sensation that he was being pulled into water beyond his touch. His toes stretched forward inadvertently, like a swimmer in the surf, searching in the foam beneath for the bottom.

  He knew that Gulp-a-pill no more wanted the prosecutor there than he did the person she believed she was cornering. The hospital was, no matter how mad they all were, still a bureaucracy, and subject to pencil pushers and second-guessers throughout state government. No one, who owes their livelihood to the creaky machinations of the state legislature, wants anything that in any way, shape, or form, rocks the proverbial boat. Francis could see the physician shifting about in his seat, trying to steer his path through what he guessed was a potentially thorny political thicket. If Lucy Jones was correct about who was hiding in the hospital, and Gulptilil refused her access to the hospital records, then Gulp-a-pill opened himself up to all sorts of disasters—if the killer chose to kill again and the press got wind of it.

  Francis smiled. He was glad that he wasn’t in the medical director’s position. As Doctor Gulptilil considered the rather difficult canyon he was in, Francis glanced over at Peter the Fireman. He seemed on edge. Electric. As if he’d been plugged into something and the switch had been turned on. When he did speak, it was low, even, with a singular ferocity.

  “Doctor Gulptilil,” Peter said slowly, “if you do what Miss Jones suggests, and subsequently she is successful at finding this man, then you will get to claim virtually all the credit. If she, and we who help her, fail, then you are unlikely to get any of the blame, for the failure will be of her own making. That will land on her shoulders, and those of the crazy folks who tried to help her.”

  After assessing this, the doctor finally nodded.

  “What you say, Peter”—he coughed once or twice as he spoke—“is probably true. It perhaps is not completely fair, but it is true, nevertheless.”

  He looked at the gathering. “This is what I will permit,” he said slowly, but with each word gaining confidence. “Miss Jones, certainly you can have access to whatever records you need, as long as complete patient confidentiality is maintained. You may also select from whatever group you isolate as suspicious, people to interview. Either myself, or perhaps Mister Evans, will need to be present during any interviews you conduct. That is only fair. The patients—even those who might be suspected of crimes—have some rights. And should any object to being questioned by you, then I will not force them. Or, conversely, will recommend that they be accompanied by a legal advocate. Any medical decisions that might arise from any of those conversations must come from the staff. This is fair?”

  “Of course, Doctor,” Lucy replied, perhaps a little rapidly.

  “And,” the doctor continued, “I would urge you to move with dispatch. While many of our patients, indeed, the majority, are chronic, with little chance at release without years of attention, a significant portion of the others do become stabilized, medicated, and then do successfully apply to return to home and families. There is no way that I can immediately discern which of these categories your suspect is in, although I might have suspicions.”

  Again, Lucy nodded affirmatively.

  “In other words,” the doctor said, “there is no way to determine if he will remain here even for an instant, now that you have arrived. Nor will I stop out-processing patients who are qualified for release, just because you are searching through the hospital. Do you understand? The day-to-day operations of the facility cannot be compromised.”

  Again, Lucy looked as if she wanted to say something, but kept her mouth closed.

  “Now, as far as enlisting the aid of other patients in your”—he took a long look at Peter the Fireman, and then at Francis—“inquiries … well, I cannot in any official manner condone such a process, even if I were to see its value. But you may do what you wish, informally, of course. I will not stand in your way. Or their way, for that matter. But I cannot allow these patients any special status or extra authority, you understand? Nor can they disrupt their own course of treatment in any manner.”

  He looked over at the Fireman, and then paused as he stared at Francis. “These two gentlemen,” he said, “you understand that they each have a different status here in the hospital. Nor are the circumstances bringing them here, or the parameters of their stays here, the same. This could cause you some trouble, if you hope to enlist them.”

  Lucy waved a hand in the air, as if some precursor to a comment, but then stopped. When she did respond, it was with a stiff formality that seemed to underscore the agreement. “Of course. I understand completely.”

  There was another brief silence, and then Lucy Jones continued: “It goes without saying, that my reason for being here, and what I hope to accomplish, and how I might achieve that, should remain confidential.”

  “Of course. Do you think I would announce that a vicious murderer might remain loose in our hospital?” Gulptilil spoke briskly. “This would undoubtedly create a panic, and, in some cases, likely set back years of treatment. You must do your investigation as privately as possible, although, I fear, there are likely to be rumors and speculation almost instantaneously. Your mere presence on the wards will create that. Asking questions will engender uncertainty. This is inevitable. And certainly, some of the staff shall have to be informed, to a greater or lesser degree. Alas, that, too, is unavoidable, and how it might affect your inquiries, I am unable to imagine. Still, I wish you luck. And I will also make one of the treatment offices in the Amherst Building, close to the crime scene, available for you to conduct whatever interviews you consider necessary. You need to merely page me or Mister Evans from the nurses’ station nearby prior to interrogating any subjects. That will be acceptable?”

  Lucy nodded. “That makes sense.” Then she added, “Thank you, Doctor. I understand your concerns completely and I will work hard to maintain some secrecy.” She paused, because she realized that it would not be long before the entire hospital—at least those connected enough to reality to care—would understand why she was there. And, she recognized as well, that made her job more urgent. “I also think, if only for convenience, it might be necessary for me to stay here at the hospital for this period of time.”

  The doctor considered this for an instant. For a moment, a quite nasty smile crept in at the corners of his mouth, but was dismissed rapidly. Francis suspected that he was the only one who had seen it. “Certainly,” he said. “There is a bedroom available in the nurse-trainees’ dormitory.”

  Francis realized the doctor did not have to actually identify who its previous occupant had been.

  Newsman was in the corridor of the Amherst Building when they returned. He smiled as they approached. “Holyoke Teachers Mull New Union Pact,” he said briskly, “Springfield Union-News, page B-1. Hello, C-Bird, what are you doing? Sox Face Weekend Series Against Yankees With Pitching Questions, Boston Globe, page D-1. Are you going to meet with Mister Evil, because he has been looking for you and he doesn’t seem very happy. Who’s your friend, because she’s very pretty and I’d like to meet her.”

  Newsman gave a little wave, a little shy grin toward Lucy Jones, then opened up the broadsheet he had stuffed under his arm, walk
ing down the corridor a little like a drunken man, his eyes locked onto the words of the newspaper, his attitude intent on memorizing each word. He passed a pair of men, one old, one middle-aged, dressed in loose-fitting hospital pajamas, neither of whom seemed to have ever brushed or combed his hair in the current decade. Both were standing in the center of the passageway, a few feet away from each other, speaking softly. It was as if the two were conversing, until one took a closer look at their eyes, and realized that each was having a conversation with no one, and certainly not the other, and that each was oblivious to the other’s presence. Francis thought for a moment that people like them were part of the architecture of the hospital, as much a presence as furniture, walls, or doors. Cleo liked to call the catatonics Catos which, he thought, was probably as good a word as any. He saw a woman walking briskly down the corridor suddenly stop. Then start. Then stop. Then start. Then she giggled and went on her way, trailing a long, pink seersucker housecoat behind her.

  “It’s not precisely the world you might expect,” he heard Peter the Fireman say.

  Lucy was a little wide-eyed.

  “Do you know much about madness?” Peter asked.

  She shook her head.

  “No crazy Aunt Martha or Uncle Fred in your family? No weird Cousin Timmy, who likes to torture small animals? Neighbors, perhaps, that talk to themselves, or who believe that the president is actually a space alien?”

  Peter’s questions seemed to relax Lucy. She shook her head. “I must be lucky,” she said.