by Barbara Paul
A lot of Bogert’s security precautions were really paycheck precautions: a self-important man kicking up as big a fuss as he could to justify the check he received every other week. He made a lot of trouble for Megan, changing her arrangements and screwing up other shipments she was trying to move. It had gotten so bad that Megan had once gone to her boss, the vice president in charge of marketing and distribution, and asked that Bogert be ordered to check with her first. But the vice president was a don’t-stick-your-neck-out type; he’d given her a lot of clichés about industrial sabotage and the need for security and in the end had ignored the problem of Bogert’s interference.
The ironic part was that Megan felt sure Bogert had nothing against her personally; it was simply that her job made her more vulnerable than most to the security man’s nasty methods of self-justification. The movement of pharmaceuticals from one place to another place was something he could really zoom in on. He ran security at the Bethel Park laboratory like a concentration camp, so rumor said; Megan had heard complaints from the lab workers that they couldn’t go pee without first signing a register. So Bogert had started looking around corporate headquarters for what he called weak-security areas, and had quickly fixed on the distribution manager’s office.
Megan sighed and picked up the computer printout again. The vaccine was scheduled for local shipment, to area hospitals. She checked over the details of the arrangements she’d made, taking note of the “R” in the special requirements column. The two vehicles she’d assigned both had registry numbers ending with the letter “R”, so that was all right. She looked at the registry number of the larger truck Bogert had switched the shipment to.
No “R”.
Megan sat absolutely still, thinking over what that meant. Then she checked the computer. No mistake. “R” meant the material being shipped had to be kept refrigerated. Bogert had switched the vaccine from two small refrigerated vehicles to one large unrefrigerated one.
That’s why she’d assigned two small instead of one large in the first place—the smaller vehicles were the only refrigerated ones available. If that vaccine went out in the unrefrigerated truck, it would spoil in transit. And if the hospital personnel somehow failed to catch it, that meant that hundreds of children would be inoculated with worthless vaccine. Megan reached toward the computer keyboard.
But pulled her hands back. Bogert had warned her he’d be at Bethel Park overseeing the loading of the vaccine. He’d be right there in a position to override her countermanding order. Bogert would have to be told why.
She reached for the phone—and pulled her hand back again. Wait a minute, wait a minute: think it through. Bogert had made a serious mistake, a dreadful one in fact. There must be some way she could use it to get him out of her hair.
If she told him directly, it would go no further; Bogert wasn’t the type to go around advertising his own mistakes. But what if she didn’t notice the security man’s error for another few hours? Not until he was on his way to Bethel Park, in fact?
Since Bogert could override her own instructions, she’d need the backing of someone higher up in Glickman’s chain of authority. She’d certainly be justified in going over Bogert’s head to the vice president in charge of marketing and distribution—no, that wouldn’t work; Megan remembered he was in Boston this week. When the implications of that sank in, she began to smile. She’d once given the vice president the opportunity to prevent just this kind of error and he’d failed to take action. So if that meant Megan had to go straight to the president of the company to save a shipment of vaccine from being ruined because of one man’s meddling and another man’s wishywashyness—why, then, that’s exactly what she’d do.
Megan felt a surge of energy, the first she’d felt since she’d awakened on the Schenley Park golf course. All she had to do was time it right, keep an eye on Bogert and wait until he left before she made her move. She dropped the printout into the bottom drawer of her desk and locked it. Evidence.
Now Megan was able to work. She put both Bogert and blackouts out of her mind and got to it. Having a plan of action can do wonders for one’s morale.
Later in the morning Megan started inventing errands for herself that took her past Bogert’s office. When at twelve o’clock she saw him leave, she went back to her own office. She waited fifteen minutes and went up to the president’s office, the incriminating printout tucked under one arm. If the president was in conference, she would insist that he be interrupted.
He wasn’t in conference. Megan could see him at his desk in the inner office. She walked up to the secretary and said in an urgent voice meant to carry, “I must see Mr. Ziegler. It’s an emergency.”
“Something wrong, Ms Phillips?” Mr. Ziegler called. “Come on in.”
Megan did not close the door behind her, inviting the secretary to eavesdrop. She explained to the president of Glickman Pharmaceuticals that a shipment of perishable vaccine was about to be sent out on an unrefrigerated truck. She explained that Bogert had changed her shipping arrangements without consulting her, and showed him the printout. She explained that this was a recurring problem she had earlier taken to the vice president in charge of marketing and distribution, who had done nothing. She explained that since Bogert would override any instruction she could send through to Bethel Park, only he—Mr. Ziegler—could now stop the unrefrigerated shipment.
Mr. Ziegler heard her out, asked a few questions, then reached for the phone. He called Bethel Park and straightened out the mess with a minimum of talk. He also left word Bogert was to get in touch with him the minute he got there. Then he thanked Megan for catching the error and assured her Bogert would no longer be allowed to interfere; he himself would pass the word on to the vice president when he returned from Boston. Megan barely managed to refrain from grinning.
Back in her office Megan stirred the papers on top of her desk and decided there was nothing that couldn’t wait. So she leaned back in her chair and indulged in a mini-orgy of gloating. She’d made two enemies today—well, no: Bogert had always been an enemy. It was just more out in the open now. But balanced against that was the fact that she’d scored points with the big boss, and that was worth something, she guessed. But none of that mattered nearly so much as getting Bogert off her back. And the vice president would have to listen the next time she went to him with a problem. All Megan wanted was to be allowed to do the work she was being paid to do.
You liar, Megan told herself, and laughed. What she wanted was the vice president’s job. She’d wanted it ever since she first realized she was ten times as efficient as he was. But today was the first time she’d ever taken an active step toward dislodging him. She was amazed at how easy it had been.
Megan had come in like a wilted daisy that morning, but now she had her confidence back. Enough so that she was able to turn her attention dispassionately to that other problem that was bugging her. The missing thirty-eight hours.
I need an outside opinion, Megan thought. Her two closest friends were both out of town, one in New York and the other in England. Calling Rich was out of the question; Megan no longer trusted his judgment. Somebody in her apartment building then. Andrea on the second floor was a woman Megan had become friendly with, but Andrea was a bit of a prima donna and might not take to the role of confidante too well. The Fraziers were nice people, but they were both too eager to be liked; they’d probably say whatever they thought she wanted to hear. The others in the building Megan knew only to say hello to, with the possible exception of Gus Whatshisname in the basement.
Megan smiled to herself as she thought of their brief encounter in the lobby Sunday morning. His concern had cheered her up a little; somehow she couldn’t think of ulterior motives in connection with Gus. He looked about twenty, but he had to be older than that. Such an unfortunate appearance—hook nose, bulging eyes, frizzy hair. But it was the shape of his head that was so unusual: it was mostly front-to-back, very little side-to-side. As if someone had pressed hi
s head in a large book. That fit; there was a bookish air about him. For the first time Megan wondered what he did for a living.
She’d almost accepted his invitation to tea. (To tea!) But her natural sense of caution had warned her against spilling out her anxieties before she’d had a chance to think. His gesture had been friendly; but as much as Megan would like a friendly ear, common sense told her what she really needed was someone totally objective, totally disinterested. She looked up a listing in the phone book and punched out a number.
“Pittsburgh Psychiatric Clinic,” the voice on the phone announced.
“I’d like to make an appointment to talk to a psychiatrist,” Megan said. “Do you have somebody who specializes in blackouts?”
CHAPTER 2
Dr. Henrietta Snooks was sixty years old and annoyed by that fact. She had short, straight, iron-gray hair; she was overweight; she smoked too much. Her appearance did nothing to inspire confidence in her patients and she knew it. She’d stopped worrying about it years ago.
Dr. Snooks was blunt sometimes to the point of rudeness; she didn’t always have the patience for the soothing, I-understand approach most people expected of psychiatrists. She’d once overheard a nurse refer to her as “the dragon” and was surprised to find she was not offended. If the truth was told, she rather enjoyed being a dragon. She was not popular with her colleagues. She was successful in her work.
Part of her success, Dr. Snooks was convinced, lay in her cards-on-the-table approach. She looked Megan Phillips straight in the eye and said, “My name is Snooks, ess en oh oh kay ess. Any joke you can make I’ve already heard a dozen times and yes I’m defensive about it. Now what’s all this about blackouts?”
Her new patient looked startled, but then they all did at first. “Blackout, singular,” Megan said. “Just one, but it was a lulu. It lasted a night, a day, and another night.”
“Ever happen before?”
“No, never.”
“Not even in childhood?”
“It’s never happened before. Dr. Snooks, I think I should tell you I have no intention of going into analysis. I don’t want to spend either the money or the time. I just want to find out what the causes of blackouts are.”
The psychiatrist nodded and lit a cigarette. “Have you had a physical exam?”
Megan shook her head; she hadn’t thought of it.
“Then that’s first on the agenda. Who’s your doctor?”
“Dr. Lacey. Eugene Lacey.”
“I know him. Tell Dr. Lacey you’ve had a sustained blackout and you want to find out if there’s an organic cause—he’ll know what tests to run. If he gives you a clean bill of health, then we’ll start looking for other causes. But the physical has to come first. Right now, tell me what happened.”
Megan told her. “The first inkling I had that anything was wrong was when that groundskeeper started yelling at me. I didn’t even know where I was. I don’t know how I got there, and I don’t know what I was doing before I got there.”
“You say you don’t drink. What about drugs? Are you taking anything?”
“No, nothing.”
“Pot?”
“No. I don’t smoke anything.” Megan glanced disapprovingly at the burning cigarette in Dr. Snooks’s ashtray.
“Are you taking any medication?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
Megan shrugged. “Aspirin for headache, that’s all.”
“How frequently?”
“Four, five times a year.”
Dr. Snooks laughed shortly. “You’re abnormal.” She studied Megan closely. “You don’t smoke, you don’t drink, you don’t pop pills. Are you really that virtuous?”
“Absolutely,” Megan grinned. “I don’t always eat my green vegetables, though.”
“That’s encouraging. Are you under any particular stress at the moment?”
“Not really. Oh, there’s always stress of some kind at work, but on the whole things are going pretty well right now. I never have as much money as I think I ought to have, but I’m not in debt. And I’ve got my personal life straightened out now.”
“Tell me about him.”
Shrewd old biddie. “A man I lived with for a little over two years. He moved out last week, at my request. At my repeated requests—it took me a while to convince him I meant business.”
“What went wrong?”
How to explain. “Rich turned out to be, well, something of a vampire. He came on as a strong, confident man—and I bought it. But after a while it was clear my function was to feed his ego, build him up all the time. Except for when I was at work, I was expected to spend every minute of my time making him feel good. He took and took and took, and I finally just got tired of giving.”
“Why did it take you two years?”
Megan thought a minute before she answered, trying to be honest about it. “I guess I just didn’t want to admit I’d made that bad a mistake in judgment. Rich really is an attractive man, and he was good company at first. The sex was good. But the price was just too high. I wasn’t willing to pay it.”
“You haven’t said much in the way of specifics. Is it still a sore spot?”
Megan thought about that too. “No, it’s just something that’s finished. It’s not very interesting. All right, I’ll give you an example. Rich needs an audience. I mean needs one. He’s a newscaster at WJOM, and he’s ‘on’ all the time. Rich is happy only when he’s surrounded by people who hang on his every word.”
Dr. Snooks added newscasters to a mental list headed by actors and evangelical reformers. “And you didn’t want to hang?”
“Oh, I don’t mind a little of that. I like people to pay attention when I’m talking, too. But Rich—well, he’d let it get out of control. When he felt like talking, nobody else was supposed to say a word—that was interrupting. I don’t mean just me. He treated everybody that way. It got embarrassing sometimes. And all the time he was holding forth, I was supposed to watch him adoringly. Frankly, Rich just isn’t that adorable.”
Megan paused. “Do you remember how Pat Nixon used to look when she was listening to her husband speak? Rigid as a statue. The attentive expression, the little half-smile frozen in place. She worked hard at creating the impression of absolutely fascinated concentration—although everybody knew she’d heard it all a hundred times before. What a godawful way to spend your life! Well, I was beginning to feel like Pat Nixon.” Megan was silent a moment, and then said, almost to herself, “I couldn’t let him turn me into Pat Nixon, could I?”
“You asking me?” Dr. Snooks said.
The psychiatrist’s voice drew Megan out of her brown study. “Hell, no,” she said. “I’m telling you.”
That was the sort of upbeat answer Dr. Snooks liked to hear. “How did you feel when he left?”
“Relieved and sorry at the same time. Sorry, because something that had started out so great had ended so unpleasantly. Relieved because the unpleasantness was finally over.” Megan smiled wryly. “I’m not suffering from a broken heart, if that’s what you’re wondering about.”
Dr. Snooks had long since reached that conclusion on her own. “So there’s nothing in your current life that might pressure you into withdrawing from reality?”
“Good heavens, that sounds ominous. No, there isn’t anything. If it turns out to be some buried traumatic childhood experience just now beginning to surface, I think I’ll scream. I really don’t want to go into analysis.”
The psychiatrist waved a hand dismissively. “There are alternatives. But there’s no point in talking about them until you get your physical. Go see Dr. Lacey, and call me when you have the results. Then we’ll see what we can do about recovering your lost weekend.”
When her new patient had left, Dr. Snooks lit another cigarette and thought about this newest problem that had just dropped on her desk. Megan Phillips was obviously a woman who took care of herself. Her very appearance had a cared-for look. Her nails were
manicured, that lovely black hair was carefully groomed and worn in a casual style, the clothes were good. She’d sat in her chair alertly but not tensely. She was worried, of course—who wouldn’t be? It was always a shock to learn what nasty tricks your own mind can play on you.
Dr. Snooks placed a size-ten foot against the middle drawer of her desk and pushed. Her chair rolled backward toward the window; from long experience she was able to swivel at the last moment and stop her progress by the judicious placement of the same foot against the wall under the window. She took pleasure from the fact that there was only one concentrated dirty spot on the wall. She had good aim.
Outside, the Pennsylvania spring day had a hazy look to it, almost like California. Dr. Snooks would be taking a working vacation in San Francisco in a few months. She always arranged working vacations when she could; they were the best kind. This time she’d be reading a paper at a convention/seminar/workshop, whatever they’d decided to call it this year.
Megan Phillips came out of the building and walked toward her car. How straight she held herself! Going by first impressions (which Dr. Snooks thought were damn good things to go by), Megan Phillips would seem to have a sound ego structure, not at all the sort to be given to wiping out two nights and a day of her life. Look how she’d reacted to a disappointing love affair: she’d decided the relationship was destructive and had taken steps to protect herself. All in all, Megan Phillips came across as a competent woman who’d had one uncharacteristic experience and wanted to find out what was behind it.
Dr. Snooks wanted to find out too.
Megan had barely stepped into the lobby of her apartment building when she heard Gus Bilinski’s door open. He’d been waiting for her.
He bounded up his six steps and asked, “How are you feeling now? Okay?”
She assured him she was indeed okay, and something in her manner must have told him she was back in control of herself again because he suddenly became shy.
