by Barbara Paul
“You think this is something I want?” Gus yelled back. “You have to take care of me!”
Dr. Algren allowed the tension to build a little further before he started bringing things to a close. The drama ended with Polly at least symbolically reconciled with all the parts of her body.
“How do you feel?” Dr. Algren asked her.
She gave an embarrassed laugh. “Like a fool.”
“Why?”
She just shook her head.
“Because you revealed your fears here?”
“No, because I see I haven’t been very realistic about my problems.”
“Do you feel more capable of dealing with them now?”
Polly’s face lit up in a big smile that made everyone in the room feel better. “Yes, I do. I’m still afraid of losing my sight—but it’s a fear that can be lived with. I don’t have to drown in it.”
A spontaneous cheer broke out among the group. One of their own had just made a bit of progress in controlling her life.
They performed one other psychodrama, in which a big, burly football player revealed his fear of his father. He was even afraid of his father’s voice.
Something clicked in Gus’s mind. You will be able to experience new perceptions and recall buried memories as well, Dr. Algren had said. No wonder his voice had sounded so familiar. Gus had heard it before.
On Megan’s telephone, saying Full fathom five thy father lies; of his bones are coral made.
An even dozen words. That’s all. But Gus could hear them as clearly in his head as if Algren were speaking them right then. Hold it; store it away; think about it later.
Gus went through his part in the football player’s personal drama. This time the group members acted out those things about the father that intimidated the son; Gus was “Disapproval.” The ending wasn’t as satisfying as in Polly’s story, but the football player said he felt better about a few things.
Then the graduate student who’d put Gus into his light trance was standing before him, saying something. Gus suddenly realized he was no longer in a hypnotic state.
“How do you feel?” she asked him.
He felt great. “I feel great,” he said.
She smiled and moved on. He felt great—but at the same time uncertain. Was it Algren’s voice he’d heard on the phone? He was no longer sure. Could hypnosis make you imagine things that weren’t true? He listened to Dr. Algren’s closing remarks and unsuccessfully tried to recapture his earlier certainty.
The two graduate students were distributing checks for twenty dollars each. Then some members of the group started to drift out the door. Gus went up to Dr. Algren and asked him for an appointment.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t take any new patients until this project is completed.”
“A consultation only,” Gus said. “Please. Just long enough for me to explain the problem. I need advice. Perhaps you can send me to someone else if you can’t take on any new cases yourself.”
Dr. Algren shook his head again.
“Fifteen minutes is all I’ll need,” Gus said worriedly. “Ten minutes—you can give me ten minutes, can’t you?”
Dr. Algren looked annoyed. “Very well. My first appointment tomorrow morning is at nine. Be at my office in the Kinderling Building at a quarter till. I’ll give you fifteen minutes.”
Gus thanked him effusively. Then he hurried after Polly to ask for her phone number.
CHAPTER 10
“He was there to see Dr. Gerald Pierce, Snooks,” Megan said into the phone. She and Gus had decided on an ornamented version of the truth to satisfy their nosy friend.
“Dr. Pierce? He’s specializing in hypnotherapy.”
“I know. Gus has a personal problem—he didn’t tell me what it was and I didn’t ask. But when he watched you hypnotizing me, he got to thinking maybe hypnosis could help him. It took him a while to get up the courage to do anything about it.”
“But why Dr. Pierce? Why didn’t he come to me?”
Megan sighed. “He said he didn’t want to get you caught up in his problems when you were already so deeply involved in mine. Personally, I think he’s just shy about revealing himself to you. Some things are easier to tell to a stranger.”
Snooks murmured agreement; that was true enough. “Well, Dr. Pierce is a good man. He should be able to help Gus, whatever the problem is.”
Megan made a sound of regret. “Gus hasn’t gone back. I guess that first interview didn’t go too well. He may end up coming to you after all, Snooks.”
Snooks nodded, and then remembered Megan couldn’t see her. “I’m ready when he is. And Megan, ah, I’m sorry I was so quick with my accusations the last time we talked.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re all a bit edgy.”
Snooks said goodbye and hung up. For someone who claimed to be a bit edgy, Megan Phillips had sounded remarkably calm.
A less self-possessed woman would be screaming and tearing her hair by now. What had been done to Megan would be enough to reduce most people to a blob of jelly. Every day Megan went into Glickman knowing that today might be the day the hypnotist called and instructed her to do something that was undoubtedly criminal, certainly harmful. Not many people could live with that hanging over them. But Megan didn’t even sound angry any more.
She sounded … detached. Snooks was worried. Megan had reached some plateau Snooks didn’t know about. It could be a sort of philosophical acceptance of what was happening, but Snooks didn’t think so. She doubted that Megan had ever taken anything lying down in her life. Megan was used to fighting back.
The phone rang; it was the receptionist at the front desk. “Mr. Minney is here.”
Her ten o’clock appointment. “Send him on back.” Mr. Minney spent the time between sessions making up lurid and salacious dreams he would pretend he’d had. He wanted to think all his problems sprang from a repressed sexuality.
But what could Megan do about her situation? She didn’t know who the man who’d hypnotized her was; she had no way of finding out. If she was turning all her anger and fear inward, there was going to be trouble.
A timid knock at the door.
“Come in, Mr. Minney,” Snooks said.
Mr. Minney came in and delicately sat down in the same chair he always chose. “I had a most shocking dream last night,” he started off. “I don’t know if I should tell you about it.”
“I’m all ears,” Snooks said.
Megan had just entered the lobby when Gus’s door opened and he beckoned her down.
“What is it? Something?” she asked when she was inside.
“A question. Have you ever dated someone named Harrison Algren?”
“No. Why?”
“Have you ever met him, do you know him at all?”
“I don’t think so. What’s he look like?”
“Over forty, about five ten or eleven, brown hair and eyes. Solid-looking but not stocky—I’d say about a hundred and eighty pounds. Moves and talks with an air of authority. A sort of professional father figure.”
“Heavens. That doesn’t sound like anyone I know.”
Gus took a breath and let it out again. “Well, then, I think he’s our man.”
Megan stood stock-still, her mouth open.
“If you’re sure you’ve never met him,” Gus said uneasily. “I don’t want to pull another Jerry Pierce.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Harrison J. Algren. He puts up a very respectable front. He has a Ph.D. in psychology, and right now he’s directing a research project at the University Health Center. He also has a thriving private practice. His office is in Oakland, in the Kinderling Professional Building—only two blocks from the Pittsburgh Psychiatric Clinic. He and Snooks probably pass each other in the street.”
Megan made her way to the lumpy armchair and sank down. She was shocked. At last learning the identity of her weekend hypnotist—it was something she’d both wanted and dreaded. Now
the big decision would have to be made. “Gus, how sure are you?”
“About as sure as I can be.” He told her about Algren’s project combining hypnosis with psychodrama and his own participation in it. He told her he was fairly sure Algren’s voice and the one on the phone were the same.
Megan’s eyes were wide. “You actually went there and took part in that thing—just to make contact with Algren?”
“There wasn’t any other way. I couldn’t get an appointment when I called his office. All I got was his answering service saying he wasn’t taking any new patients for a couple of months.”
“And you think his voice is the same as the one that called me?”
Gus hesitated. “When I was in a light trance, I was dead certain. But when I came out of the trance, I wasn’t so sure any more. If my hypnotized memory is more reliable than my conscious one, then it was the same voice. But that’s not all. I got him to give me an appointment. I went to see him this morning.”
Megan leaned forward in her chair.
“When I told him about an unnamed friend’s memory loss,” Gus went on, “he was noncommittal, a little impatient with me for taking up his precious time with something as ordinary as that. Then I showed him your picture. Megan, he turned white. The color just drained right out of his face. He recovered fast—he’s pretty smooth. But there was that one instant when he gave himself away—he was shaken.”
Megan let out the breath she’d been holding. “What did he say?”
“Well, he went from being shocked to being suspicious. He said he couldn’t tell from looking at your picture whether he could help you or not and why was I showing it to him? I let him think you were my girlfriend and I was just proud of you.”
“Did he believe you?”
“I couldn’t tell. Algren’s first instinct was to pull back—natural enough. Protecting himself. He asked how long ago this memory loss had taken place, I said a little over two months, he said he couldn’t help. I said I’d heard time lapse didn’t make any difference and that buried memories could be recalled after fifty years and on and on and on. Algren let me blather away while he thought it over. You could just see the wheels turning in his head. At first he thought my coming there with your picture meant the well-known jig was up. But then he began to see it as a heaven-sent opportunity.”
“So? What happened?”
“He said he’d schedule you for one session, a sort of diagnostic hypnotrip.” Gus grinned at Megan’s expression. “No, he didn’t say that—that’s my word. Anyway, Algren told me he could tell better whether he could help you or not after he’d hypnotized you. We both just sort of forgot about the fact that he wasn’t taking any more new patients.”
“He’ll see me?”
“Yep. You know what he wants to do, don’t you? He wants to check on how well that posthypnotic command is holding up. Perhaps even repeat what he told you that weekend. He’s not about to pass up an opportunity to reinforce the suggestion firsthand.”
Megan shivered. “The man’s a ghoul.”
“A high-priced ghoul, you can be sure,” Gus said. “This guy’s no parlor hypnotist who’ll do anything for a buck. I don’t think it’s just a simple hijacking that’s planned, Megan. Or even several of them. Whoever bought Harrison J. Algren has to have bigger things in mind.” Visions of coast-to-coast drug rings danced in his head. “I told Algren you’d been working long hours lately and asked him how late he was willing to see you. You have a seven o’clock appointment Thursday night.”
“Thursday. This is Tuesday.”
“Two days.”
“Two days to decide.”
They looked at each other and quickly looked away again.
Gus jumped up and walked nervously around the room and came back and sat down again. “Let’s go up to your place. Maybe there’ll be a call. Algren has a distinctive voice, and I’m familiar with it now. If your hypnotist does call tonight, I ought to be able to say for sure whether it’s Algren or not.”
Megan nodded. “Good idea.” She got up to go.
“Just a minute,” Gus said, heading for the kitchen. “I want to bring something to eat.”
“I’ll give you something to eat, Gus.”
“Yeah, well, thanks, uh.” He started stuffing salami and corned beef and cheese and dill pickles into a paper bag.
“Oh,” Megan said with a smile. “At least let me supply the bread. Not health food stuff. Good kosher rye.”
“Fine,” Gus beamed.
They went upstairs. Megan made enough salad for both of them while Gus assembled his aromatic sandwiches. While they were eating, Megan asked, “That project Algren’s directing—what’s it like?”
Between bites, Gus described the psychodrama-cum-hypnosis session in detail. He told her about Polly’s fear of losing her sight and the football player’s fear of his father.
“And that sort of thing actually helped those two people?”
“They said it did.”
Megan frowned. “I just don’t see how that kind of communal gut-spilling can have any lasting value. We all need to get things off our chests once in a while, sure—but why institutionalize it? Sometimes I think those experiments are more for the benefit of the experimenters than the people they’re supposed to help.”
“Well, Algren did know the right questions to ask. Without his lead Polly might not have told what was bothering her.”
“And that’s the magic formula? Just tell somebody your troubles and all of a sudden your burden is lighter?”
“It’s worked that way for centuries,” Gus said with a sigh. “But I know what you mean. It does seem a little simplistic in retrospect. But last night it was hard not to get caught up in the enthusiasm. Polly went home feeling a lot more confident she could handle her problem. She felt a lot better about herself.”
“‘She felt better about herself,’” Megan groused. “That’s television dialogue, Gus. The whole thing smacks of faith healing to me.”
Gus laughed. “I guess it is, in a way. But if it works, why knock it?”
Megan put down her fork. “But faith healing’s dangerous. A faith healer can cure a toothache, but he can’t fill a cavity. What faith healers do is remove pain, and pain is the body’s warning system. People can be dying and still think they’re healthy—because some faith healer has taken away their pain. It’s like turning off a fire alarm without throwing any water on the fire. Does Algren have any follow-up procedure worked out? Is he going to check on Polly to make sure she wasn’t harmed by what happened last night?”
“Oh, I don’t think she was harmed.” But Gus stopped eating. “No, there’s no follow-up work—just the sessions. Megan, we all work little con jobs on ourselves. It’s the only way we can cope. The very worst interpretation you can put on what happened last night is to say that with the group’s support, Polly psyched herself up into thinking she’d be able to deal with her fear in the future.”
Megan was unconvinced. “Maybe.”
They finished eating and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Then they settled down with a deck of cards to wait.
The call came at nine-thirty. Megan waited until Gus went into the bedroom to pick up the extension. Then: “Hello?”
“Full fathom five thy father lies.”
“Yes.”
“Of his bones are coral made.”
“No.” Click. “Wrong number.”
Gus came bouncing back into the living room. “It was Algren,” he said with excitement. “This time I’m sure of it.”
“What?” Megan said, puzzled.
Belatedly he remembered she wouldn’t know. “You just got a phone call from the hypnotist. To reinforce the suggestion.”
“When? Just now?”
“Megan. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“We were playing gin.”
“Where?”
“At the dining table.”
“So what are you doing in here by the phone?”
Megan’s face crumpled as he watched. “I know what’s happening, I even know the name of the man who’s doing this to me—but when you tell me I just this minute got a phone call I have no memory of, the first thing I think is he’s lying. And I know you’re not lying, Gus. But it’s hard to accept the fact that my behavior is being controlled by somebody else.”
Gus made a few comforting noises, not really knowing what to say. But even as he fussed, Megan’s dismay turned to anger.
“How dare he do this to me?” she muttered. “How dare he? I will not allow my life to be ruined because some corrupt hypnotist got the jump on me. I will not.” She whirled and hurried into the bedroom.
She was back immediately, carrying a white plastic bag that she put on the dining table among the scattered cards. She sat down at the table and stared at the plastic bag. Wondering what was in her mind, Gus came over and sat down opposite her. Megan reached for the bag.
Inside the plastic bag was a box. Inside the box was a revolver.
They both sat looking at it a long time without speaking. Finally Gus broke the silence. “That’s a gun,” he said.
Megan agreed it was indeed a gun.
Gus cleared his throat. “It’s a lot smaller than I thought.”
“It’s a twenty-two caliber. Derogatorily known as a ‘woman’s weapon.’ Lightweight.”
“Where did you get it, Megan?”
“A pawnshop in Atlanta. Several years ago.”
“Can you use it?”
“I got to be pretty good at hitting beer cans when I first got it. But that was some time ago.”
“No, I mean can you use it.”
Megan didn’t answer immediately. She picked up the revolver and clumsily broke it open. She slowly rotated the cartridge cylinder; every chamber was full. She snapped the gun back together and replaced it in the box. “Yes,” she said.
“Well, it’s a good old American tradition,” Gus said dryly, “solving our problems with a gun. Are you sure you want to go that route?”
“Do I have an alternative?”
“I’ll say it again. Let’s go to the police.”
“And I’ll say it again—you know why I can’t.”
“Because it’ll queer your chances at the vice-presidency. You’re willing to kill to protect a job?”
