Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5)

by Dean C. Moore

  Manny found it mildly amusing that Renee and Margie, both beauty queens in their own right, had evolved such different yet complementary mechanisms for coping with unwanted attention.

  The hospital ward had its own character. It did more than serve as a backdrop for the other dramas; it helped shape them. Under a relentless flat lighting that cast no shadows, leaving no place to hide and everything exposed, people had to make sure their game face was on at all times. The dry air harassed the eyes, and the smell of antiseptic assaulted the nasal cavities. The feeling of being constantly under duress added to the curtness of the staff, which felt taxed to their limits just swimming about in this rarefied atmosphere.

  The high ceilings pulled people out of their heads, left many of the patients feeling disembodied, spacy, as if in the middle of astral traveling to the very scenes in their lives that had left them traumatized. No amount of drugs helped to tether them to their bodies effectively enough to keep their attentions from sailing away. Those high ceilings did more to circumvent therapy than drugs. But set any lower, and the sense of claustrophobia would have triggered wave after wave of violence.

  The identical halls and rooms spun one’s compass until only a Navy Seal could hope to find his way about. A feature which added magnificently to the patients’ codependence with the staff, who needed to steer most of the inmates to and from their rooms. Saverly would go on at length about how the labyrinthine halls helped to clear the patients’ heads by encouraging them to get lost, then turning them around on themselves every which way, until the constant reorientations with respect to the Earth’s magnetic fields did what the medicine could not: clear their heads. Manny wasn’t buying it. It only added to his sense of panic. He figured that was the real point. People preoccupied with fear were easy to corral as so much sheep: It was Big Brother 101.

  Then there was the hospital’s star attraction: Saverly himself. Saverly’s breezy manner underlay everything. It was as much public relations front, directed at the outside world, as polished diplomacy, directed at his in-house staff and patients alike. He had in all likelihood never been out of the spotlight, not since birth. He was a master manipulator who no one would ever figure for such because he understood the importance of not letting them see him sweat. Polish was the essence of his control. He was, by way of his interminable charm, able to take all sense of control and return it to the patient or the staff he was addressing, making him come off as only there to empower anyone he encountered. With just the dark anima manifest, he was a one-sided version of Drew. Anima was a term for unconscious projection; one more word that had made it into Manny’s mental glossary of psych-ward terms.

  Manny listened in on the exchange between Fontanegro and Saverly. “What is Eckerman going on about with proper parenting of his inner child?” Fontanegro demanded, her patience clearly at an end. “He shooed me out of the room, claiming I was a bad influence.”

  Eckerman was diagnosed as unipolar depressive. His personality functioned very much like a bottomless well; no matter how much positive ego-stroking you poured down it, you still came up empty. He was gaunt and ghostly and Saverly was fond of getting him to drink ginseng tea in hopes of stimulating his adrenals to produce more hormones. Saverly just laughed at Fontanegro’s exasperation with Eckerman.

  “I’m afraid I hit him with a hefty dose of Transactional Analysis during our last appointment,” Saverly confessed. “I advised that it’s very important we each cultivate a healthy inner child, a healthy inner adult, and a healthy inner parent component of our psyches, because proper functioning in any social situation necessitates we know which role to slip into. And if one or more of them isn’t healthy, we resist shifting gears to get up the hill, unnecessarily putting yet more strain upon one or another aspect of ourselves.”

  “I guess that means he wants fewer needling reminders from me to tidy up after himself. I suppose I owe it to him to role-model a healthier parent so it can be that much easier for him to manifest his healthier inner child.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Ms. Fontanegro.” He smiled. “But don’t you go being too hard on yourself, for fear of getting caught up in the same vicious circle.”

  After Saverly turned his back on her, the instant she felt he’d fallen out of earshot, she mumbled sarcastically, “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

  Manny watched Saverly work his charm on patient after patient, intuiting whose shoulder he could reassuringly rest his hand on, and who he would just freak out for violating their personal space. He made each one of them laugh in turn, zeroing in on their unique way of seeing the world and framing the joke to tickle their particular funny bone.

  To Ronald, the antisocial one: “I’m thinking of going with one of these bubble boy kits, for a greater sense of privacy when I come rolling through here. What do you think?” Saverly showed him the options to choose from in his Newsweek magazine photo spread. Ronald howled on cue better than a trained Chihuahua.

  To Manny, the paranoid one: “What do you think, Manny?” Saverly pointed to the latest cameras the maintenance guys were installing. “I hired George Orwell to handle the interior decoration. Figured I’d get more bang for the buck.” Manny stifled his smirk; the nerve of the guy, making light of his well-justified loathing of authority like that. Saverly’s jokes always seemed to Manny two-edged. They could cause you to lighten up and take yourself less seriously, or confirm your worse fears; often both at the same time. Saverly maintained the charged space between poles as his “operational theater.”

  To Renee, sexual provocateur: Saverly covertly held up the S&M magazine. “I’m thinking of ordering this all-leather Cat Woman outfit for you, just to drive Atterman completely nuts, what do you think?” Renee blushed. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to screw with her sense of control.” Renee’s laugh escaped her lips despite her best techniques for keeping it chained.

  Renee: “I’m in.”

  Saverly: “That a girl.”

  Manny noticed Saverly was a plain, unexceptional man physically, who anyone would be tempted to overlook. Maybe some of that master manipulation had evolved to get eyes and attention back on him. Maybe the ones he wanted to attract were forever going for the pretty ones, so he had to find a way to dial up his gravitational pull. Most of the smart ones Manny had known did indeed respond rip-roaringly to beauty, out of all proportion with reality. Brains and Beauty, as they say… probably even more of a match than Beauty and the Beast, Manny thought. Then again, there was plenty of the beastlier side of human nature around here, as well, for Saverly to attract to himself by getting the patients and staff alike to focus on his inner beauty. All the while, Saverly underplayed the codependence, the way the sun sheds light on the planets, alleging its own impunity in the matter of planetary evolution.

  Saverly was Zen and the art of leadership, as Robin would say, the idea that to lead is to serve. But Manny had spent enough time in the hospital now to see the slightest cracks in the façade. Saverly liked the power that being able to reach patients like no one else could gave him. What exactly he would do with that power wasn’t exactly clear. Manny had grown increasingly suspicious of his motives over time, however. He still couldn’t be a hundred percent certain; Saverly was that good. But if he was right; then this hospital, or at least the psych ward under Saverly’s purview, was primed to be one magnificent pressure cooker.

  Manny wondered if even he, ever on his guard, could survive the dialing up of temperature once Saverly and his loyal minions decided to focus their mind-bending games on him. That loyalty was hard-won, owing to their own trust issues and deeply ingrained dysfunctional behaviors, suggested how easily Saverly could cut through anyone’s resistance. What chance would Manny have against Saverly, who was empowered by a personal retinue which allowed him to have eyes everywhere, even where the cameras couldn’t reach?

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Captain Boroughs,” Robin said, “even after my long absence, I’m still not at a h
undred percent. Maybe there’s a way to ease me back into the job.”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Only… Well, here’s the thing… it’s the Regents you see, always, and forevermore, the Regents. They’re strangling the life out of me, I tell you. The irony, of course, is we really don’t answer to them, but it is a college town.”

  “Maybe I can make that work for us. What if I were to write a book about the Hartman case? Make you look good, make the department look good, make the Regents look good.”

  “Well, you definitely have my attention, but…”

  “I would insist all profits go to the department, of course, for hiring more police, paying the ones we have more money.” He said that last part just loud enough to reach beyond Boroughs’ office walls. Couldn’t hurt to have a few cops nudging Boroughs to toe the line when the chief’s confidence waned in his scheme.

  “Well, maybe if it were…”

  “A bestseller? On Hartman? I could write it in pig Latin and it’d fly off the shelves.”

  Boroughs rubbed his chin. “Well, I’d have to see the weekly output to make sure the time was justified.”

  “Maybe you’d be so kind as to include editorial revisions. I don’t see why you couldn’t be credited in a technical-advisor capacity.”

  “Well, only on a provisional basis, you understand, subject to my changing my mind at any time.”

  “Wonderful.” That was the best bit of politicking Robin had done in his life; he didn’t think he had it in him. Then again, he was plenty motivated not to have to obsess about anything but Hartman until the OCD wore off. The weasely bastard Boroughs would probably cook his meals for him, too, just to keep him writing, and God knew what he really wanted to do with the proceeds of the book. Maybe he had a weasel farm at home he wanted to expand on. No one was that manipulative without also being highly self-serving.

  When he exited the office, the only officer in earshot was Ethan. That was okay; one big-mouthed cop was enough.

  ***

  Robin took longer with his coffee than he needed so he could eavesdrop on what was being said about him. He stirred the powdered cream as if it just wouldn’t dissolve.

  “Did you have any inkling about him being a fruitcake?” Crumley fished a sugar cube out of his coffee with swizzle sticks that he used like chopsticks. He sucked the coffee out of the cube, set it aside. Crumley wasn’t exactly part of Robin’s posse. Just one of the boys in blue, though usually more black and blue. He liked to have his lovers beat him up on a regular basis. He got nearly as much of a rise having guys do it, which, Robin thought should at least have coaxed him to ease off the “fruitcake” moniker. In his early sixties, he worked damnably hard to keep that body toned to take all the punishment, fighting the dual quicksand pits of crumpling genetics and crippling compulsions.

  “Nah.” Riddly played a game of hoops in Robin’s peripheral vision by tossing sugar cubes into a cup of coffee placed at the other end of the desk. “Christ, as if the Berkeley PD isn’t already the laughing stock of the free world.” Riddly was Crumley’s partner. He was plainer than white bread and nearly psychotic about it, considering how far “normal” got him in this town. His physical appearance, from his clothes to his features, echoed his nondescript nature; you could forget about the man, even while looking at him.

  Robin’s echo location not being the best, it was like listening to all the voices bouncing around in his own head. They had him surrounded thanks to the positioning of the coffee machine in the office. The sense-around just added to the torturous effect of their little digs.

  “I’m not going to be able to stick my hand in the glove box riding alongside him without thinking about his makeshift storage container.” That was Beckman. He sounded betrayed for all the accommodation afforded by his words. Robin didn’t really have any intel on him, other than he was one of the same swing shift group currently heckling him, none of whom he’d worked much with. He was balding, paunching, and undergoing male menopause. Right now he felt more betrayed by his own body than anything Robin could do to him; Robin had that much going for him. The igloo of sugar cubes he’d made around the rim of his cup finally collapsed, sweetening the coffee just right.

  Robin was starting to wonder if increased intimacy with this group, and increased exposure, would have done anything to make them an ounce more sympathetic. He had to remind himself they were Berkeley PD, which meant, drill down far enough, you’d find a sensitive nerve somewhere. That meant the insensitivity could still have more to do with the shock of feeling betrayed, making their day-to-day lives feel that much more unsettled, than with any abiding animosity that wouldn’t just fade away with time.

  “It’s just a box the size of his dick, formed when they turned it inside out,” Lance, the failed medical student, explained. Nothing like a guy who’d traded in his dreams for giving it to you straight. He definitely had a surgeon’s hands. Rock solid. Even shivering from a fever, he cut into his steak with the same delicacy Robin would hope would be afforded him come time to excise any tumors. Lance was Beckman’s partner. Unlike Beckman, he’d let himself go physically, an ongoing reminder to Beckman of the life of leisure that could be his the second he gave up his fixations.

  “What do you do if your dick’s too big to fit? Use a space ring?” Crowly was more mechanically inclined than socially inclined. Robin had to smile at his very practical, working man’s solution to the problem. As he eyed Robin over, he serviced his jammed stapler in capable, calloused hands. His own breaking-down body received none of the attention he lavished on the devices on which he depended.

  “I think he’s just half way through. They haven’t chopped off his dick, yet.” Blackman sounded hopeful. Maybe, just maybe, he could indefinitely put off processing his feelings about all this. He was still processing his wife leaving him, ten years ago. He was still processing his feelings on civil rights. He was still deciding how upset to get over the idea that the whole Apollo program might have been a well-staged hoax, shot somewhere on a Hollywood back lot. Robin didn’t know enough about him to ascertain if these still waters made him deep, ultra-conservative, or simply cautious. Blackman was in good company whether he leaned toward a philosophical temperament, or toward a more scientific disposition. But for now, he was in the company of Crowly, his partner.

  “Christ, the dick with the tits just makes it worse,” Woody said. “Which bathroom does he use?” Woody was just predictable. A man of no surprises. The police liked predictable. Even the exoticness of the Berkeley crazies was “predictable” from the proper vantage point. Robin didn’t know him well enough to know if Woody was cut from a mold that time had since broken, or if he was covering for deep-seated insecurities. He might even be passing as “good ol’ dependable” in the way of a serial killer everyone swears up and down after the fact was “just one of the guys.” He had a mechanical way of moving as if his intent was to squeeze all impetuosity out of his smallest gestures.

  “As if we’re not screwed, either way. I don’t need any horror stories coming at me from the woman’s bathroom.” Zappo was convinced nothing happened in this world unless it was to mess with him. Unlike Faraday, who was merely cynical things just never worked out, Zappo was a victim of circumstance. He felt victimized more than he felt jaded. Zappo and Woody had been paired for over a year. He was a thick bodied, barrel chested man, the extra heft needed to carry the psychological burdens of life.

  “Maybe if we just give him enough shit, he’ll leave.” That was Navy. He’d been through military boot camp, before deciding he’d get further in a military academy like West Point. So even before the police academy, he’d been put through the wringer so many times, his solution to everything was to put the person through the wringer. For all the hard edges his mind and body had to offer, Robin sensed something very soft about him on the inside with which he just couldn’t contend.

  “Sounds like a plan.” That was Go-Along Charlie. He was partnered with Navy, the
way Woody and Blackman were partnered. Go-Along Charlie was getting along in years. Too old to be a cop, really. Maybe he hoped no one would point that out if he could just manage to be agreeable enough. He peered out at the world through a pair of thick, black-plastic rimmed lenses, essentially magnifying lenses for each eye.

  Thanks to most of the cops being paired up, Robin got to appreciate the snippets of dialogue versus the isolated one-liners muttered to themselves. Thick skin, Robin. It’s not what happens to you in life, it’s how you react to it. That and a hundred other platitudes should take him through to lunch, when he could slit his wrists. Then again, the drama queen bit would just play to their worst fears. Maybe if they just didn’t have him surrounded. Could he stay sane in an insane world? Was that even a realistic expectation?

  Robin took a deep breath and sipped his coffee. If you’re gonna play straws on a camel’s back, you’re going to end up like Manny and all the other failed psychos.

  Robin pondered what life must have been like back when the social contract required a person only master a reasonable number of names and personalities. Post corporate and bureaucratic America, post the ever-increasing interdependency of an ever-proliferating number of agencies and job descriptions, secondary to ever-more specialization, life had gotten far more complex and socially interactive. The six degrees of separation idea sounded better in theory. He likened the situation to the hobby of doing crosswords; it would keep his mind sharp holding on to this many names and faces, and ensuring it all remained personable, meaning taking the time to delve into all of their lives to the point of knowing what to get whom for Christmas. Not to mention how to disarm people by showing he cared versus his not caring enough to get past a superficial understanding of them. For a bleeding heart like Robin, who refused to debase himself by working the whole maze without making eye contact and treating everyone like faceless drones, the problem was that much more difficult.