The Institute

by James M. Cain

  At last the door opened and a nurse was whispering to the nurse standing with us. Then one by one, after checking against the card, they led us into a large room with beds head to the wall, a doctor walking around, and another nurse directing us. She said something to Mrs. Mendenhall and led us to a bed at one side halfway down the room, and finally we were with Hortense—if the wraith in the bed was her. I hardly knew her, she was so pale. Her hair was combed out in a strange, unnatural way, she had a hospital jacket on, and tubes led down to her arms from bottles above her head. Mrs. Mendenhall whispered to her: “Horty, it’s your mother, and here’s Dr. Palmer.”

  She patted one of Hortense’s hands, and I patted the other. She didn’t open her eyes, but I could tell that she heard what we said and felt what we did.

  “We’re pulling for you,” I said softly; “I love you.”

  “Yes, we both do,” Mrs. Mendenhall said.

  That made a family matter out of something I meant as personal; but I let it pass. Then a doctor came by holding his watch up at us, and we left after whispering: “See you tonight.” Then we were out in the hall. I told Mrs. Mendenhall that I hadn’t had breakfast and asked her to join me. But she said she had to get on to Watergate and “get myself organized there. They caught me in Chester with it. I can’t say I was much surprised, since Richard was playing with fire, as I, for one, tried to tell him. Yet when a thing like this happens, it’s like bricks falling on you. I drove straight here; I haven’t even been to the apartment.”

  She seemed to know where we were going, and I went along without paying much attention, down a flight of stairs and along a hall to a large window with a lighted room behind it. She tapped on the glass and a nurse appeared inside. The nurse disappeared, then came back pushing a bassinette. Then we were staring down at a tiny, sleeping infant under a blue blanket.

  “He’s simply beautiful,” Mrs. Mendenhall said. “The spitting image of Richard.”

  To say I was stunned would be the understatement of my life. I suppose, little by little, my mind caught up with what this woman had known, that before surgery could be performed to remove the bullet, this baby had to be taken out. My mind also caught up with the remark she had just made about the child’s resemblance to Garrett, which seemed to say that she had no idea of its relationship to me. I still stood there. Suddenly she said “Be back” and fluttered down the hall. Then she was back, but a whiff of her breath told me what she had been doing, no doubt from a flask in her handbag, in the ladies’ room.

  26

  THAT NIGHT WAS A repetition of the afternoon, but the next day at two, I was there again in line outside the door of Intensive Care. In a minute here came Mrs. Mendenhall in a neat, navy-blue dress that showed off her very good figure, which was much the same as Hortense’s but, if I do say so, it was perhaps a little better on the fine points of curve and proportion. She certainly wasn’t bad-looking. She walked down the hall and for the first time gave me some of the dope on what the surgeon had been up against while probing for the bullet and performing the Caesarian to deliver the child.

  “The shock was simply frightful,” she said, whispering professionally. Then I remembered that she had once been a nurse. “He had to handle the whole small gut, letting it slip through his hands and closing each perforation as he came to it. But the real crisis will come in three days—from peritonitis. What leaked out of the gut, of course, fouled the whole abdominal cavity, and there’s no way of cleaning it adequately. The surgeon did the best he could. Only time will tell. Her temperature will mount and mount; it will simply be a test of her strength.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ve got the idea.”

  We went in. It wrung my heart to see the shape Hortense was in. Her temperature had gone up, anyone could see that, and she kept whimpering when we touched her in a pitiful, frightened way. Then we were out in the hall again and down to the nursery. Mrs. Mendenhall kept talking about the baby’s resemblance to Mr. Garrett, though what resemblance it bore to anyone, including me, I couldn’t for the life of me see. To my eye, it wasn’t an infant that stirred me to my heels. It just looked like an infant.

  We went our separate ways and met again that evening. This time, it turned out, her car had to go in the repair shop to have its right turn light fixed, so she arrived in a cab. So when we left, I ran her over to Watergate, and when she asked me up, I went. I seemed to dread being alone.

  It was the first time I had been to Hortense’s apartment, and it gave me an odd feeling. It was full of pictures—of Hortense, of Mr. Garrett, of Mrs. Mendenhall, and of me, mostly in football attire, with the bare brisket showing.

  We were hardly in the door, though, before Mrs. Mendenhall said: “I simply have to get out of these clothes and into something comfortable. If you’ll excuse me.” And she disappeared, going out through what looked like a dining room beyond a large arch. Then “Woo-hoo” came her voice. “You could keep company, Dr. Palmer.”

  I decided it was time to leave.

  When I took my place in the hall one day, the nurse beckoned to me. “She’s been moved,” she said and gave me the new room number. I found my way there and tapped on the door. Mrs. Mendenhall came out.

  “She’s better,” she whispered. “The fever’s down and she’s well past the crisis, but she’s horribly depressed. She keeps talking about her baby, the one she thinks she lost. We haven’t told her yet, the way things turned out—thought the surprise would be nicer if we took her down to look and then all in one swoop, she’d see what we’ve been saving for her.”

  I agreed that it was a nice way to handle it, and we went in. Hortense hardly noticed that I was there.

  “I’m just a thing,” she wailed. “Not a woman at all anymore. Just a thing that looks like a woman but isn’t any more. My sweet little baby, the last one I can have. They took it from me that night. It’s not in me any more. I can feel with my hands: it’s not there. And I can never have—”

  She kept it up until I motioned Mrs. Mendenhall. “O.K., Horty,” she said, “you’ll feel better in a moment. We’re taking you out for a ride. A little ride around so you have a change. Now, isn’t that going to be nice?”

  “All right,” Hortense said listlessly.

  The nurse instructed her carefully after pushing up the wheelchair on what she was to do: lock her hands on her neck and hold on while the nurse lifted her. “And then—”

  “Hold it,” I said. “I have a better idea.”

  I peeled the covers down, sat beside Hortense, put one arm around her back, the other under her knees, and lifted exactly the way I lifted her that first time when I had carried her back to the bedroom from my living room. It worked fine again. I slid her down in the chair with no trouble, hoping for a pat or smile or kiss—or something, at any rate, something that would tell me that she remembered. All I got was nothing. The nurse wheeled her out in the hall where Mrs. Mendenhall and I joined them, and off we went, to the elevator, with the nurse pushing Hortense down the hall toward the window of the nursery I had come to know so well. When we were almost to it the nurse stopped, leaving Hortense in the chair, and skipped ahead to the window where she tapped. The other nurse nodded and disappeared. Then our nurse came back and pushed Hortense to the window. The nurse inside was there, pushing the same bassinette. Mrs. Mendenhall said: “O.K., Horty, there’s the big surprise we’ve been saving for you. You didn’t lose your child. They saved it and here it is, right in front of your eyes. There he is—your little son.”

  Hortense just stared.

  “Isn’t he beautiful?” And then as she had said twenty times: “He’s the spitting image of Richard.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mother,” Hortense snapped, “he’s not Richard’s child; he’s Lloyd’s. Be your age, will you?”

  Mrs. Mendenhall shot a look at the nurse and then said quickly: “Horty, in this hospital, he’s Richard’s—or he’d better be, if you know what’s good for you and for him. He’s registered as Richa
rd’s, and any move on your part to change that is going to raise a stink that will last his whole life. So, unless you want to ruin it—”

  “All right.”

  Our surprise was a bit of a flop.

  When we got back to the room, Sam Dent was there. At first Hortense seemed glad to see him, smiling a bit when she told him to turn his back as I lifted her back in bed. But after some friendly moments, while he asked how she was and she told him, “well as can be expected,” it all exploded once more when he half-cleared his throat and began: “Hortense, as soon as you’re able, I’d like for you to read some papers and stuff like that. One or two things have come up—”

  That was as far as he got. She didn’t even let him finish, screaming at him in a weak voice that sounded all the worse for being so ghostly.

  “Do you have to pester me now? Do I have to beg for consideration? Do you know what it means to be shot by a lunatic, to have a child taken out of you, to lie at death’s door for five days—”

  “Three weeks,” Mrs. Mendenhall said.

  “To have a foot in the grave the better part of a month? Do you think I can turn around then and begin reading stuff you bring me? So you can get on with some job?” There was more, but Mrs. Mendenhall and the nurse kept trying to calm her down, and Sam kept saying, “I’m sorry, Hortense; forget it. I didn’t mean to upset you.” When he and I were out in the hall, he tried to explain why he was bothering her about business at a time like this.

  “Lloyd,” he said, “I had to. Legally, she’s it. She’s the only one who can say what goes on this stuff that keeps coming up, that’s going to keep on coming up. Since Mr. Garrett didn’t leave any will—”

  “He didn’t? I thought he did.”

  “He kept talking as though he had, and he certainly meant to, but as far as he got with it was one of those clipboard jobs that he was so fond of—a memo to me about what he meant to put in it. And it leaves her in complete control. There’s things we don’t dare do without an O.K. from her. Like the debentures on the motorbikes. It’s a way to get working capital, but they can’t put them out until she signs the order.”

  “Does she know about the notes?”

  “I gave her a copy of them. It was a memo to me, so I had to keep the original. That’s part of what’s bugging her, maybe. I’ve thought since then that perhaps I shouldn’t have done it. But I had to if she wanted to do what he wanted—I mean, carry out his wishes.”

  “What’s the rest of it?”

  “You mean, why I shouldn’t have given it to her?”

  “Yeah, I’d be curious to know.”

  “Does the name Teddy Rodriguez mean anything to you?”

  “Yes. Teddy’s a very close friend.”

  “He meant to leave her a million.”

  “Ouch.”

  “But I had to show it to her—if she wanted to carry out his intentions, as she kept saying she did, whether he made a will or not.”

  “What other bequests were called for?”

  “Million to me, million to you, million to Mrs. Mendenhall, million to the child if, as, and when born, five million trust fund for Inga, to cease upon her death. But without any will to go by, it’s Hortense—and she has to make decisions, or else some of these companies that ARMALCO is made up of are behind the eight ball.”

  “I get the picture.”

  “He slung millions around like popcorn.”

  “He meant to sling millions around.”

  “Yeah, sure—correction noted.”

  27

  NEXT DAY SAM WAS back with another nut for her to crack. It seemed that Sol Novak, of Novak Bros., a subsidiary in Akron, wanted to incorporate, but had to have her O.K.

  “It’s important for ARMALCO protection,” Sam told her, “because the partnership, as it stands, is a two-for-one thing, two shares to Sol for every share for his brother, Al. Maybe it’s for straight, on the up and up; but maybe Sol’s gypping Al. We can’t leave things to chance. On our end, we can’t have anything out of line or we’re wide open if we get sued. So, much as I hate to bother you, Hortense—”

  She didn’t answer, at least in words. All she did was scream. Just open her mouth and let out ghastly bleats, one after the other. But they got fainter and fainter until she was gasping them out. Then she subsided a bit.

  “I see it now,” she said. “It’s all clear. It means I have to die. Whom the gods would destroy, they don’t make mad any more. They let them dream and then make the dream come true. I had that dream every night. I got so I knew it by heart, knew what was coming each time. He was dead; my husband was dead. And I was the richest woman on earth. I had a yacht like Jackie Onassis’s, a mansion like Jane Du Pont’s, a coat like Frances Vanderbilt’s. I could have whatever I wanted just by waving my hand, anything I wanted, anything at all. Then, pretty soon, I would wake up and he would be in the other bed, snoring. But during the dream I was happy, so happy I wanted to fly!”

  “Horty, stop talking like that!” Mrs. Mendenhall cut in. “You know that’s not true at all. You never dreamed things like that !”

  “I know what I dreamed!”

  “Let her talk!” I snapped, “if she’s to have peace with herself, she has to.”

  “Debentures—what are they? And corporation. I don’t even know what that is!”

  “Incorporation,” Sam corrected.

  “Incarceration—of me, why don’t you say? Well, why don’t you? I’m the prisoner of my dream, and it’s going to kill me. Oh yes; I know what’s in store for me.”

  It went on and on but at last ran down from her getting exhausted and shutting up. Then Sam and I once more walked out in the hall. A bench was there and we sat down, he mopping his brow which was wet. Then he broke out: “So she dreamed he was dead, so what? We knew that, and it didn’t bother her then. She just thought it was funny.”

  “How do you know what she thought?” In spite of myself, in spite of liking Sam, I sounded a little peevish.

  “All I know is what she said.”

  “To you? She discussed her dream?”

  “No, not to me. To her mother. And Mrs. Mendenhall, at a certain stage in her day, talks. She kept dreaming Mr. Garrett was dead, and that made her filthy rich.”

  “There’s no law against it that I know of.”

  “And there’s no reason for it—except one.” I didn’t ask him what reason. I was afraid to. But he saved me the trouble. “She wanted him dead,” he growled.

  That kind of put an end to the discussion, at least of Hortense’s dream. Perhaps to change the subject, Sam asked me: “When are you coming to work?”

  “Work?” I said. “What do you mean, work?”

  “For the Institute. Well, you started it, didn’t you? And you picked Davis who’s making a God-awful mess of it. He’s got the while place in an uproar. All he knows is one scheme after the other. He’s a born troublemaker, not fit to run anything. So, when are you coming to work?”

  “I haven’t been asked yet.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “And you’re in charge? That’s news to me.”

  “O.K., you win. The one person in charge, I’m afraid to ask, God help me. It’s come to that. She’s the only one who can say, and saying something might kill her.”

  “Listen, she’s still desperately ill.”

  “That’s not all she is.”

  He sat shaking his head, but we both knew we weren’t telling it like it was, or any part of what it was. The whole story, the reason she’d popped out with the dream and all the rest of it, was told by the line, “to Teddy Rodriguez, one million.” We sat there for some time, not talking about it. Then I popped out with what was bugging me, sort of crying on his shoulder, as he had been crying on mine. “Sam,” I said, “what’s got into her? All right, she’s ill. She’s weak from what happened to her. She’s not herself. That we know. But it started before that. It started the night he told her, the night Mr. Garrett let her know where she got off, that
she couldn’t have a divorce and told her why. That night she disappeared. I fell asleep with her beside me, and when I woke up she was gone. Since then, things haven’t been the same. She doesn’t even know me, not the way she did. Something’s gnawing at her more than the dream she would have—in Wilmington, remember. Once she met me, she didn’t have any such dream, that I promise you.”

  “It was handled wrong—the child.”

  “How do you mean, handled wrong?”

  “Keeping the news from her. That was Mrs. Mendenhall’s idea. At a certain time of day, Mrs. M. isn’t very bright. She should have been told right away.”

  “It was handled O.K.”

  “Oh? You think so?”

  “She shouldn’t have been told.”

  “You mean, her condition wouldn’t have permitted it?”

  “She was barely conscious, Sam.”

  “Then, I take it back.”

  “Something’s griping her.”

  “By the name of Teddy Rodriguez.”

  “Yes.”

  This went on for several days, her talking about the dream, how it gave her no peace, how it was going to kill her. Then all of a sudden, she harpooned me with it.

  “So they want you back!” she screamed. “Why don’t you go back, then? What’s stopping you? They’ll pay you enough, won’t they?”

  “O.K.,” I said after a moment. “Since you put it that way, I have to think about it. I did start it; that’s true. I did persuade Mr. Garrett to name it for you. I’ll let you know.”

  “Name it for me? I’m talking about ARMALCO!”

  “ARMALCO? I don’t get it.”

  “You could be president of it! You could take him off my back—that Sam Dent. He’s sitting right there. You could tell me what I think, and then I could tell him. You could, if you had any consideration.”