by Barbara Paul
“But providing them with the information they asked for would open the door a little wider?”
“That’s what we’re hoping. Mr. Unruh is working on it now.”
Megan didn’t understand. “Excuse me—what do you mean, he’s ‘working’ on it?”
A note of impatience crept into Mr. Ziegler’s voice. “I mean he’s working on compiling the information, of course.”
Megan placed the printouts on his desk. “Here it is.”
He looked startled. “That can’t be all of it.”
Megan pointed to a photocopy clipped to the top printout sheet. “Mr. Unruh’s secretary said these were the questions raised in Boston. If that list is complete, then the printout information is complete.”
The president studied the photocopy. “Yes, it’s the same list I have. But Unruh told me it would take him at least two weeks to dig up everything they wanted to know.”
Megan waited a moment and then said, “Mr. Ziegler, it took me less than an hour to fill out the instruction sheets for the computer room. Then somebody else spent maybe ten minutes pushing the right buttons. The machine did the rest.” She chose her next words carefully. “I don’t think Mr. Unruh always appreciates the capabilities of our computer.” She did not add that the information had been just as available last week as it was this; Mr. Ziegler could figure that out for himself. “I didn’t know Mr. Unruh was working on it—I’d have taken these printouts to him if he’d told me,” she half-lied.
“Leave them with me,” the president said shortly.
Megan was dismissed; she left him studying the printout sheets, not even trying to conceal the fact that he was angry.
Back in her office, Megan closed the door and let out the breath she’d been holding. She had no compunctions at all about undercutting the vice president; the man was a bungler and not to be trusted. She hadn’t set him up—he’d created the circumstances of his trouble himself. Just as Bogert had done. Everybody made mistakes; that didn’t bother Megan. But Unruh’s risking the loss of the contract rather than admit he needed help made her see red.
Two hours later Megan was just returning from lunch when the phone rang. It was the president’s secretary: Mr. Ziegler would like Ms Phillips to come to his office immediately, please.
He came straight to the point. “I’ve just talked to Boston,” he said. “Your printout sheets may get us the contract yet. There’s just one hitch. I can’t go. There’s no way I can get away from this desk for at least a week. Somebody else is going to have to take care of it. You’re the logical one to follow through.”
Megan’s heart gave a leap; this was more than she’d hoped for. She forced herself to calm down and realized Unruh’s name hadn’t even been mentioned. “I’d love to go,” she said truthfully.
“But there’s another hitch. The Lipan shipments start the day after tomorrow, and Lipan’s potential is far more important to this company than the Boston contract. What if some of the shipping arrangements break down and you’re not here to take care of it?”
Here it was: the sink-or-swim test of Megan’s faith in her own work. She took a deep breath and said, “I can’t see that there’ll be any problem. I have at least three contingency plans for every shipment scheduled, and as many as six for the larger ones. I’ve been over each one a dozen times. They’re solid.”
“They’re all in the computer?”
“Yes. If something does go wrong—an airport gets fogged in or the like—the computer will automatically kick through the alternate plan that will cause the least loss of time. I’d meant to keep a close eye on it, of course—but that was mostly for my own satisfaction. The computer can handle it.”
Mr. Ziegler studied her through slitted eyes for a moment—and then nodded once, abruptly. “You leave tomorrow,” he said.
Gus Bilinski wrote in Persian: We took the rug off the carpet and under it we put our money. He pushed his book aside. He was worried about Megan.
Gus was seated at a big table in the University of Pittsburgh’s determinedly modern Hillman Library, directly under one of the numerous signs listing the phone number of the Rape Crisis Center. The library wasn’t crowded; not many girls about. Gus gathered up his books and left. The place depressed him.
Megan seemed healthy enough, and she certainly was in good spirits when she left for Boston. But her second try at hypnosis with that marvelously-named Snooks person hadn’t been any more productive than the first. And Megan had had to cancel the third session—because of her last-minute business trip. So they still didn’t know what had caused the blackout, or whether it might happen again or not.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that there ought to be something he could do. He stood on a corner of Forbes Avenue waiting for a Highland Park bus. If he woke up one morning and found he’d lost thirty-eight hours of his life, he’d probably come down with the screaming meemies. Megan had simply called a cab and gone home.
It wasn’t his problem, as Megan had once told him. But it was a puzzle. And Gus had a hard time leaving puzzles alone.
The bus growled up to the corner and stopped with a great hissing of brakes. It was crowded: standing room only during the evening rush hour. Gus grabbed an overhead bar and planted his feet against the ordeal to come. The bus lurched ahead and took the next corner with all the speed the driver could coax out of the engine, slinging the standing passengers around like so many slabs of meat. The man standing next to Gus ended up in a lady’s lap, to their mutual distress.
Megan had been lucky that nothing had happened to her during her night in Schenley Park. There had been murders in that park, and even a couple of plane crashes on the golf course itself. The first person who saw her was that groundskeeper—or was he? Gus wondered about that, as a fat man lost his grip and came hurtling into Gus’s back. That park was patrolled at night. But if someone had spotted Megan lying there on the golf course, surely he wouldn’t have just left her there.
It suddenly became very important to Gus to know whether Schenley Park had its own guards or whether the patrolling was done by the regular police. Let’s see, to get to the park he’d have to go back to Oakland where he’d just come from and then take one of the Squirrel Hill busses. Gus started inching his way toward the door.
When at last he managed to get off, he saw a bus on the other side of the street taking on passengers, headed back toward Oakland. Gus dodged his way across Fifth Avenue, drawing one angry horn blast en route.
He climbed aboard and fumbled in his pocket for the fare. The driver had watched him get off the bus heading in the opposite direction and said, “You’re sure, now?”
“I’m sure,” Gus said, dropping his money into the box and asking for a transfer.
Thirty bus stops later Gus was at the Schenley Park golf course, and the man in the clubhouse said the park was patrolled by the city police, some of whom were assigned to a special park police detail. Gus asked where the nearest police station was.
The Number Six Station in Squirrel Hill was at the corner of Northumberland and Asbury. Gus explained he wanted to talk to whoever had been on duty in Schenley Park the night of April 29.
“There were a lotta men on duty,” the desk sergeant told him. “That’s a big area. We send some men and the Number Four Station in Oakland sends some men, and the permanent park police detail patrols until one A.M.”
“The golf course, then. Who patrolled the golf course?”
The sergeant squinted one eye at him. “Why do you want to know?”
Gus told the truth. “On the morning of April thirtieth a friend of mine woke up on the fairway of the fourteenth hole, and she has no idea how she got there. She wasn’t drunk, and she doesn’t take drugs. I’d just like to know if the patrolmen saw anything.”
“This happened April thirtieth? Why’d you wait so long to come in and ask?”
Gus grinned sheepishly. “I just now thought of it.”
The sergeant pulled what looked like a rost
er toward him and started leafing through. “Nothing was reported.”
“I’d just like to talk to whoever was on patrol.”
“Okay, try Kirkwood and Fusaro. They come on duty in about an hour. I tell you what—the best way to catch them is to wait by their patrol car. They’re assigned number eleven tonight.”
Gus thanked the sergeant and left. He walked over to Murray Avenue and grabbed a bite to eat, wishing he didn’t have so many books to lug around with him. At the end of the hour he was back at the station, leaning against the number eleven patrol car.
He straightened up when he saw two cops walking toward him. One was big and blond—Kirkwood, no doubt. Fusaro had dark curly hair and lively eyes; he lifted a hand in greeting when he saw Gus waiting for them. Gus introduced himself and told them what he wanted to know.
“Oh, Jeez, I dunno,” Fusaro said. “One night’s pretty much like every other night. The twenty-ninth? What day of the week was that?”
“Saturday. The desk sergeant said you didn’t report anything.”
“Well, then, if we didn’t turn in a report …” He looked at the other cop, who shrugged.
“Did anything unusual happen that night? Anything at all?”
Fusaro was shaking his head when the big blond cop said, “Hey, wait a minute. The twenty-ninth. Wasn’t that the night some asshole got our tires?”
“Was it? Yeah, I think you’re right. The twenty-ninth, right.”
“What about your tires?” Gus asked.
“Oh, somebody slashed our tires while we were checking out the clubhouse,” Fusaro explained. “We had to call the station for help. We can’t carry four spares.”
“Somebody slashed your tires and you didn’t turn in a report on it?”
“Naw, just a requisition form,” Kirkwood said. “Happens too often.”
Gus felt a surge of excitement. “How long did you have to wait at the clubhouse for help?”
“That I remember,” Fusaro grinned. “They kept us waiting over an hour.”
Gus grabbed Fusaro’s hand and pumped it up and down. “Thank you, Officer Fusaro—you’ve been more help than you know!”
“I’m Kirkwood,” the policeman said. “He’s Fusaro.”
Might have known, Gus thought, and shook hands with the real Fusaro. He told them goodbye and hurried off in search of the nearest bus stop.
Gus had been convinced all along that someone else had been involved in Megan’s missing thirty-eight hours—her car didn’t find its way home by itself. Now what the two policemen had told him about their tires would seem to confirm it. Of course, those tires could have been slashed by anyone—kids, vandals, cop-haters.
But they could also have been slashed by someone who didn’t want the police around while Megan Phillips was being deposited on the fourteenth-hole fairway.
Henrietta Snooks and Megan Phillips sat for a long time without speaking.
Finally Megan stirred herself. “Could my canceling a session to go to Boston have anything to do with it?”
Dr. Snooks shook her head. “No.”
“Maybe we broke a pattern or something?”
“What pattern? We could never get one going.”
They both fell silent again. Dr. Snooks’s fifth attempt at finding Megan’s lost weekend had just failed. During their fourth session Megan had violated a long-held principle and allowed Dr. Snooks to administer a drug. Under the influence of sodium amytal Megan had quickly reached narcosis. But in her drowsy, drug-induced state, she had produced exactly the same answers as in her drug-free hypnotic trances.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” the psychiatrist growled. “According to every rule in the book you should be blabbing your head off by now. You respond to hypnotic suggestion beautifully—you could be Miss Ideal Subject of All Times. You tell me more than I ever wanted to know about everything—except that blasted weekend. I don’t know, that’s all I ever get from you on that!”
“Well, I’m sorry!” Megan snapped. “I’m not doing it on purpose.” Then she realized what she’d said and barked a laugh. “But I am doing it on purpose. That’s what’s causing all the trouble.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Dr. Snooks said quickly. “I don’t think you are doing it on purpose. In fact, I’m as sure as anyone can be when dealing in areas as nebulous as the hypnotized mind. I’m positive it’s not hysterical amnesia—your reactions are all wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“If something happened to you over that weekend that was so horrible you had to blot it out in order to live with it, that would be hysterical amnesia. But that condition would spark a serious conflict every time I instruct you to remember. I say remember, your self-protective instincts say don’t remember—you see? But you experience no conflict at all. You tell me you don’t know just as calmly as you tell me about a shipment of analgesic you arranged on March fifteenth. It shouldn’t work like that. I’m willing to bet next year’s tax refund you aren’t suffering from hysterical amnesia.”
“How much did you get back this year?” Megan asked idly.
Dr. Snooks shifted her considerable weight. “Only seventeen dollars, but that’s not the point. The point is you should be responding when I tell you to remember, and you’re not. There’s only one thing I can think of to try now. Perhaps the hypnosis should be initiated in more familiar surroundings. This office may have bad associations for you.”
Megan looked around her. “Why? It’s just an office.”
“It’s where you came for help when a frightening and disturbing thing happened to you. You may be making an unconscious connection between your blackout and this environment. I know, I know—it’s pretty flimsy. But frankly, Megan, I can’t think of anything else to try. Would you object to trying one more time—in your home?”
“No, of course not.”
“And it wouldn’t hurt if you had a friend or two present. Somebody you’ve told about your blackout.”
“Ah.” Megan sat up in her chair. “Well.”
The psychiatrist shot her a look. “You have told somebody, haven’t you?”
“Just Gus, but he’s not a close friend. Gus Bilinski, a fellow who lives in my apartment building. He’s barely more than a kid. When I had my blackout both my closest friends were out of town—one of them still is. And I couldn’t tell Rich, since I don’t trust him any more.”
“So why’d you tell this Gus?”
“Well, he was there when I got home that Sunday morning, and he saw what bad shape I was in. And later I was trying to find out from him whether I’d come home at all during the weekend and he caught on right away that something was wrong. Oh, I don’t know—it just sort of came spilling out.” Megan thought a minute. “You know, Gus turned out to be a pretty good person to tell. He never once suggested I was crazy or even looked at me funny. He even went to my office building and tried to find someone who saw me leave Friday evening.”
“Any luck?”
“Unfortunately, no. Gus thinks I had to be with someone during the weekend—because my car was returned but not parked in its usual place. Also, Gus tracked down the policemen who patrolled the golf course area and found out their tires had been slashed that night. He says that could mean someone was trying to keep the police out of the way while I was being left on the fairway.”
“Gus will do,” Dr. Snooks said dryly. “Invite him.” She reached for her appointment book. “Let’s see, this is Wednesday. I finish early tomorrow—what about tomorrow night?”
“Fine—oh. No, Gus teaches on Thursday nights.”
“Then let’s make it Friday. It’ll have to be a little later.”
“Why don’t you come straight to my place from here? I’ll fix us something to eat, that’ll save a little time.”
“Thanks—I’d like that. It’ll be between eight-thirty and nine. Is that too late?”
“On a Friday night?” Megan laughed, and stood up to go. “See you Friday.”
It was
only after Megan had left that Dr. Snooks remembered the menu her patient had once recited. Broiled fish, salad, green vegetable—a good, sensible, low-cholesterol, low-calorie meal.
Dr. Snooks hated food like that.
CHAPTER 5
Late Friday afternoon Megan was just leaving her office when the telephone called her back. Could Ms Phillips be in Mr. Ziegler’s office at ten on Monday morning? Indeed Ms Phillips could.
Megan was humming as she rode down in the elevator; she wondered what the president had in mind now. She’d been the fair-haired girl ever since she’d landed the elusive Boston contract. The mass shipment of Lipan across the country had gone smoothly, as Megan had said it would; she was now deep in arrangements for the first release of the new drug on the international market. Bogert was making himself scarce; maybe she wouldn’t have to worry about getting rid of him after all.
Earlier in the day she’d skipped lunch to make a quick trip to a small Shadyside food store that closed about the time she usually left work. Megan hated supermarkets. The problem had been what to buy: Dr. Snooks didn’t look like a woman who obeyed anybody’s dietary laws. Chicken, of course; that was never hard to disguise as something rich and self-indulgent. The rest of it wasn’t so easy.
It was close to nine when the psychiatrist showed up, looking tired and hungry and skeptical.
“Gus will be up shortly now that he knows you’re here,” Megan told her. “He had some papers he wanted to finish grading.”
“How does he know I’m here?”
“Thin walls. He hears everybody come in.”
Megan was taking care of last-minute preparations when the rat-a-tat-tat on the door came. “I’ll get it,” said Dr. Snooks. “You just keep right on with what you’re doing.” She opened the door to admit a skinny, bug-eyed youngster who stared at her with frank curiosity.
“You’re Snooks,” he said.
“Doctor Snooks,” Megan called from the kitchen.
The psychiatrist waved a big hand dismissively. “Everybody ends up calling me that sooner or later. Hallo, Gus. Glad to meet you.”
