by Barbara Paul
“I’m nervous about this,” Gus told her frankly. “I’ve never seen anyone hypnotized before.”
“Nothing much to it, really—Megan will just look as if she’s resting. You’re here to give moral support, remember.”
“What do I do?”
“Just be here. It’s your comforting physical presence that’s wanted. I’ll take care of the rest of it.”
“Food’s ready,” Megan announced. “Everybody sit down—Snooks, you take that chair by the wall.” And realized she too had omitted the “Doctor.”
The psychiatrist didn’t seem to notice. The kitchen smells were good, but still she took her place at the table with misgivings. She heaved an audible sigh of relief when Megan placed a big bowl of fettuccine Alfredo before her.
Everybody dug in. Megan took a bite of chicken and noted with amusement that she had two enthusiastic eaters on her hands.
“Hm,” Snooks said, swallowing a mouthful of fettuccine. “Nothing beats real cream for white sauce.”
“Glad you like it,” Megan smiled. She’d used two-percent milk with a large dollop of safflower oil added.
“And this eggplant casserole—what gives it that marvelous nutty flavor? Is it the bread crumbs?”
“That’s right.” Wheat germ.
When they’d finished eating, Snooks was not too wrapped up in her own gustatory delights to notice that the pile of pasta on Megan’s plate was only a little smaller at the end of the meal than it had been at the beginning. Megan was starting to pour the coffee when the phone rang.
“I’ll do that,” Snooks said. “You get the phone.”
Gus leaned in the kitchen doorway, watching Snooks pour the coffee. He’d never seen her before tonight, but she looked totally out of place in a domestic setting.
“Hello,” Megan said to the phone.
“How do you take it, Gus?”
“Black.”
“Yes,” said Megan.
“Spartan,” Snooks grumbled, dumping cream and sugar into her own cup.
“No,” Megan said.
Gus turned his head toward her.
“Here you are,” Snooks said, handing him a cup.
Megan hung up the phone. “Wrong number,” she told them, though nobody had asked.
Gus felt suddenly uneasy. Yes, no, wrong number. It had happened again—about the fourth or fifth time since he’d started coming to Megan’s apartment. Innocent-sounding enough. But too frequent. Far too frequent.
“Look, before we get started, I have to make a phone call,” Snooks said. “I promised a patient I’d call him at ten and it’s almost that now.”
“Would you like to use the extension in the bedroom?” Megan said. “More private.”
“Yes, thanks. This way?” She left the living room.
Gus cleared his throat. “Who was that on the phone, Megan?”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“Just now?”
“You answered the phone about a minute ago. I was just wondering who it was.”
Megan was looking at him strangely. “What are you talking about, Gus? I didn’t answer the phone. It didn’t ring.”
Oh wow. Oh wow. Gus felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. He floundered after something to say. “Thin walls again, I guess. I must have heard the phone next door—I thought it was here.”
Megan didn’t quite believe his explanation, but she accepted it. Nothing else she could do. Strange.
Snooks came back from the bedroom. “All right, let’s get started. Both of you take a seat.” She noticed how Gus automatically headed toward the largest piece of furniture in the room and then perched on the edge. Megan moved just as automatically toward an armchair. Satisfactory; Snooks herself would sit on the sofa with Gus.
They got down to the main business of the evening. Gus watched fascinated as the psychiatrist arranged the lights just so, made sure Megan was comfortable, and started her incantation.
Megan went into a trance almost immediately. By now the procedure was so familiar to both women that only a few key phrases were needed to bring about the desired state of relaxation. Snooks had been right: Megan looked as if she were just resting.
Then the question-and-answer period began, and Gus’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. Under hypnosis, Megan Phillips had almost total recall. He listened to her describing in detail what he himself had been wearing the Sunday she came limping home from the golf course. But of the weekend itself—nothing. Not one word.
“I don’t know,” Megan said without any sign of inner disturbance.
Snooks felt the usual letdown that came when they reached this stage. She hadn’t really put any faith in the familiar-environment approach, but there was always a chance. It was the last thing she could think of to try before giving credence to an unpleasant possible explanation that had occurred to her. She brought Megan out of her trance.
Megan didn’t have to ask; their faces told her the experiment had failed. Oddly, she felt compelled to try to soothe them. “In case anyone’s interested, I’ve decided I can live with not knowing why I blacked out. We gave it a good shot. It’s not so terrible. It hasn’t happened again and …” She trailed off when she realized Snooks wasn’t listening.
Snooks was trying to think of a tactful way of telling her; but since diplomacy had never been the psychiatrist’s long suit, she settled for her usual head-on approach. “Megan, listen carefully. There is an explanation for what happened. I don’t know if it’s the right one, but every time we go through this song and dance I have to consider it a little more seriously. You aren’t going to like it. Here it is—I think you were hypnotized before you ever came to me.”
A beat, then Megan and Gus both said “What?”
It wasn’t easy. “What’s more, I think you’re under the influence of posthypnotic suggestion right now.” This time neither of them said a word; they just stared. “I could be wrong—there are no tests I can run, no way to check up. But what I think we’ve got here is an example of the law of temporal precedence.”
Megan was frowning. Gus said, “Can you explain?”
“The law of temporal precedence states that when all other things are equal—the subject’s physical condition, the depth of the trance, and so on—well. If all these things are the same—when two antagonistic suggestions are given, the subject will follow the first suggestion and ignore the second. In other words, if someone put you into a deep trance and planted the suggestion that you wouldn’t remember anything that happened during the weekend, then my later suggestion that you could remember wouldn’t even get through to you. You see?”
“My god,” Megan said, appalled. “Why would anyone do such a thing to me?”
“That sounds pretty fanciful, Snooks,” Gus said dubiously.
“It’s not fanciful at all,” Snooks said. “In fact, it’s a standard way of checking on trance depth in experimental studies. The second suggestion can’t cancel out the first if the depth of the trance is the same. And Megan is such a responsive subject that taking her into deep trance would be child’s play for any trained hypnotist. Also, there’s the possibility that drugs were used during that missing weekend. There are so many that can increase suggestibility—paraldehyde, pentothal, scopolamine. Megan, think back carefully. When you woke up on the golf course, did you notice any unusual physical symptoms? Blurred vision, a feeling of lethargy—”
“I was a little woozy when I first woke up, but mostly I was stiff from sleeping on the ground. Nothing in particular.”
“Hm. Well, I’d like to know, but I guess it doesn’t really matter at this point. I’d say somebody was on that elevator with you when you left work Friday. Maybe gave you an injection right there. And then sometime before you were released, you were told to forget the encounter—to forget the whole thing, in fact.”
“But why?” Megan burst out. “A … a calculated attack? Somebody lying in wait for me on the elevator, shooting me full of
god-knows-what, then telling me to forget it ever happened. What’s the purpose?”
Snooks hated to say it, but she’d gone this far. “Megan. Isn’t it possible that the suggestion to forget was not the only suggestion you were given?”
A look of such horror came over Megan’s face that Gus quickly moved to her side and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. Megan said in a shaky voice, “You mean that right now I’m carrying around in my head some command … that I don’t even know about?”
The psychiatrist lit her first cigarette in almost an hour. “That’s about the size of it. I hate to sound alarmist, but if I’m right we’ve got a far more serious problem than just a blackout. Because there’s no way to find out what that command is until you obey it.”
“But that’s terrible!” Megan stood up and began to pace about the room. “My god, it could be anything! You mean somebody just came along and programmed me as if I were a machine—”
“Now wait a minute,” Gus objected. “Snooks, you’re the expert, but from what I’ve read I got the impression the subject had to cooperate with the hypnotist before a trance state could be achieved. How could anyone hypnotize her without her even knowing about it?”
Snooks sighed. “I know of at least one case in which that happened. It’s very rare, but it’s possible. If Megan’s hypnotist was quick enough, she just might not have had the time she needed to muster up an effective resistance. Some of those drugs are pretty fast. It can happen.”
Gus looked sick. Megan was still pacing. Finally she stopped and faced the older woman. “And there’s no way you can counteract this command?”
“Not if I don’t know what it is. Probably not even if I did.”
Megan resumed her pacing. “What if it wasn’t just one command? What if it was a whole series of them? I could spend the rest of my life never knowing what I’d do next! I’d have no control, I’d—”
“No, no—that’s not the way it works,” Snooks hastened to reassure her. “Without reinforcement posthypnotic suggestion gradually fades away. As a rule, it lasts anywhere from two months to five years. There’s one case on record of a posthypnotic suggestion surviving for fifteen years. But that’s unusual.”
“What kind of reinforcement?” Gus said quickly.
“Usually additional sessions to repeat the suggestion. Repetition of clue words.”
“Clue words? Then it could be done over the phone?”
“Possibly.” The psychiatrist frowned. “It’s risky, though. Depends on the subject. There have been experiments with reinforcing suggestion by mailing the subject postcards with the clue words written on them. Worked for a couple of weeks, but then lost its effectiveness.”
“But a voice on a phone?” Gus insisted.
“Would have more authority than a written word,” Snooks agreed. “It would have to be the same voice that originally planted the suggestion, I’d think. These things are so variable—it doesn’t work the same way with everybody.”
Gus nodded and turned away, thinking.
Megan came over and stood in front of the psychiatrist. “Snooks,” she said in a small voice, “what are we going to do? What in the hell are we going to do?”
Snooks had been dreading the question. “I’m going to do some reading. There must be literature on the subject I’m not aware of. Then maybe I can take you down, no, I mean back—oof. I’m having trouble thinking.”
Megan looked closely at the psychiatrist: her face was gray and pinched. “I can see why,” Megan said. “You’re so tired you’re about to fall over.” Snooks must be at least sixty, and she wasn’t in what you could call a low-stress profession. Megan wondered what time her day had started. “Go home, Snooks. Go to bed. We’re not going to solve this tonight. Go home.”
The older woman gave a tired sigh. “Yes, you’re right. We’re not going to solve it tonight. I think a small moratorium would do us all good. I need to think. Gus, you’re a nice young man and I’m glad to know you. Now I think I will go home.”
“Do you want me to drive you?” Gus asked.
“Oh no, I’m not that tired. But thanks. Good night, Megan. I’ll call you next week.”
At the door Gus turned to Megan. “Are you all right?”
She smiled sadly. “Still in a state of shock. But yes, Gus, I’m all right. Don’t worry.”
“In that case I think I’ll run along too. Hold up, Snooks, I’ll walk down with you.”
The two of them descended the stairs in silence, each caught up in private thoughts. When they reached the lobby, Gus put a hand on the psychiatrist’s arm. “I know you’re tired, but I wish you’d come down to my place for a few minutes. There’s something Megan doesn’t know—something I think I ought to tell you about.”
Snooks was instantly alert. She followed him down the six steps to the basement apartment. “All right now, what is this mysterious something you want to tell me about?”
“Wrong numbers,” Gus said, and told her.
Saturday night Megan went out with a friend, determined to forget her troubles and have a good time—and she did. Sunday Gus was in an exuberant mood all day long because The New York Times had printed an acrostic puzzle that week. Monday morning Snooks woke up rested and refreshed and raring to go.
Later that same Monday morning Megan sat in Mr. Ziegler’s office listening to just about the sweetest words she’d ever heard.
“What I’m about to say is confidential,” Mr. Ziegler started out. “It goes no farther than this room.” Megan nodded her understanding. “Mr. Unruh is going to be assuming a new position,” he went on, “and the board wants my recommendation for his replacement as vice president of marketing and distribution. I want to know if you’re interested.”
“I’m interested,” Megan said firmly. You bet your ass I’m interested.
Mr. Ziegler gave her the kind of smile people use when congratulating themselves on their own perspicacity. He proceeded to catalogue the reasons for his choice, whether for her benefit or his own Megan wasn’t quite sure. “I like the way you use the resources of this company to their fullest benefit.” He meant the computer. “You’re well organized, you’re resourceful, and you have that touch of aggressiveness all good executives need. And you’re intelligent, no need to tell you that.”
An afterthought? Megan wondered, but said only “Thank you” with what she hoped was the proper degree of modesty.
Mr. Ziegler gave her a quick, practiced smile. “Twenty years ago you wouldn’t even have been considered for this position, not at your relatively tender years.”
Oh yes, Megan thought, I got that “relatively.”
“But all that’s changed now,” he continued, “and for the better, I think. Young executives are helping plan the futures of hundreds of large corporations in this country. Which means, of course, they’re planning the country’s future. Glickman Pharmaceuticals is a little behind in that respect. I must tell you you do have one strike against you. I want you to be prepared for that.”
Megan’s heart quickened. “What is it?”
“The vice president in charge of marketing and distribution has traditionally been someone with a marketing background. You don’t have that. As you know, we like to promote from within rather than bring in someone from the outside to fill our higher-ranking positions. Up to now the marketing and distribution executive has always been someone who started out in sales and worked his way up. Simply recommending you is itself a break with tradition.”
“Well,” said Megan, “I appreciate your confidence, Mr. Ziegler. I know I can do the job. But the fact that I don’t come from sales—just how big a black mark against me will that be?”
“Hard to say. The board will give prime consideration to anyone I name, of course—but my recommendation doesn’t automatically assure that you’ll be offered the position. The chairman of the board would want to interview you under any circumstances. But he just might ask you harder questions than he’d ask someone from m
arketing.”
“I see.” Megan thought a moment and decided to take a chance. “What sort of questions?”
“Mostly about your plans for the company. Like what you think Glickman should be doing, say, five years from now. And the chairman has no use for vague, glory-filled visions. He likes details. Facts.”
Megan got it: Mr. Ziegler was helping her, clueing her in. She smiled. “Would you be too surprised if I told you I’ve already given that some thought?”
He laughed. “No, not really. I’ve been thinking for some time you were the right person for this job.” Mildly pleased with his ability to read people correctly. “There’s no point in talking salary or stock options until you’ve seen the chairman. I’ll have my secretary set up an appointment for you.”
Megan recognized her cue and stood up. She expressed her gratitude for the chance he was giving her, being careful to keep any note of obsequiousness out of her voice.
“I wish you luck, Ms Phillips,” Mr. Ziegler said. “I want to see you in that vice president’s office.” They shook hands across his desk, and Megan understood she was to be one of “his” people in whatever schism was plaguing the higher echelons of Glickman Pharmaceuticals. Well, she had no objection. Not for the present, at least.
She floated back to her office and stood for a long time staring out the window. So the chairman would want to know what she thought Glickman should be doing five years from now. That was something she’d start working on the minute she came down from her cloud. Megan thought about her lack of a marketing background and wondered how much it would hurt her chances. She appreciated that Mr. Ziegler was taking a risk in recommending her instead of going to the traditional well for his new vice president.
Or was he? In Unruh the president had a perfect example of the weakness of the system. Unruh had probably been a good salesman. He had all the right qualities—nice appearance, pleasant manner, presumably a knowledge of his product. But in an executive position the man was way out of his league. Unruh just couldn’t handle making big decisions.
Megan never doubted for one minute that she could manage the responsibilities of the vice president’s job. And if Mr. Ziegler’s offbeat choice worked out, then he would look good. Mutual back-scratching here; Mr. Ziegler didn’t get to be president of Glickman Pharmaceuticals without making a few deals along the way.
