Robert Bloch's Psycho

by Chet Williamson

  Reed then surveyed the framed diplomas that are part of the decor of every medical man’s office. In Goldberg’s case they were few, only a couple advanced degrees from American psychiatric schools in the late 1940s. There was nothing from Goldberg’s early years in Vienna before the war. The Nazis hadn’t allowed doctors to take their diplomas into the death camps.

  The door to the office opened and Goldberg entered, holding a cup of coffee. Even at the end of the day, his shirtfront and suit still seemed crisp and freshly pressed, his full beard neatly trimmed and bristling. “Felix!” His voice was loud and heavy with the accent of Mitteleuropa. “Sit! Please. Do you need more coffee?”

  “No thanks, Dr. Goldberg, I’m fine.”

  Goldberg sat behind his wide desk as Reed perched on the edge of the chair opposite. “Perhaps a cookie?” The older man opened a desk drawer and brought up a package of Oreos. “I love them, eh?”

  “Not for me, thank you, but you go ahead.”

  “I will. A tiny dessert.” As Reed watched, Goldberg took an Oreo, separated the two halves, dunked the dry one in his coffee, popped it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed, and then ate the other half with the sweet filling without dunking it first.

  “Now,” he said, touching a white handkerchief to his lips, “I trust you have closely observed my method of eating an Oreo cookie, and that you have come to some conclusion about my psyche as a result.”

  Reed stared at Goldberg for a moment, then saw the corners of the man’s mouth twitch upward and realized he was joking. Reed laughed. “I do the same thing, only I lick the icing off before I eat the second cookie. If I could somehow keep the icing separate, I’d eat it last.”

  “Ah! So we are both practitioners of delayed gratification, but in slightly different ways. I compromise by eating both final cookie and icing simultaneously, while you are willing to have the relative bitterness of the second cookie replace the pure and undiluted sweetness of the icing alone.” Goldberg raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps we should collaborate on a paper, ja?” Reed chuckled politely, and Goldberg went on. “Well, now. I really asked you here to chat about your patients. One in particular. Bates.”

  Reed nodded, fearing what might be coming. “Norman Bates.”

  “Ja. Have you had any breakthrough, anything at all?”

  “He is … responsive in that he reacts to physical stimuli more than he did before.” Reed described how the nurse and attendants could move Norman around with just touches. “I also know that he’s hearing me when I speak to him, and when the nurse does too. There are physical responses.”

  “But speech?”

  “Not … yet. I feel certain it will come.”

  Goldberg sat back in his chair, placed his elbows on the arms, and steepled his fingers. “I wish I shared your optimism, Felix. As you know, I suggested quite a different treatment for Bates.”

  “I know, Doctor. I just feel that I can reach Bates without … those methods.”

  “They are not dirty words,” Goldberg said, frowning. “Electroshock therapy, even the now-discarded insulin shock … these are treatments that have been used for many years to great effect. I have seen the efficacy of them, in Vienna and here in the United States. Oh, I know that among the younger crowd,” he said, waving his hand dismissively, “these methods are considered cruel, but temporary discomfort in the service of a long-term improvement—”

  “It’s more than discomfort, Doctor. It can be traumatic. There’s the risk of seizure complications, and other things can happen as well.” Reed leaned toward Goldberg. “Once, in the state facility where I trained, a patient received succinylcholine, but they forgot to administer the sedative. The patient couldn’t breathe or move, but she knew everything that was happening, and she felt all the pain. It was devastating.”

  Goldberg sighed and nodded his head. “Ja, I am aware of what happens when sedation is not used in the presence of a paralyzing agent, Doctor. I am not a student. It is like being buried alive. Unpleasant, I grant you. But that has never happened here during my tenure.” A thin smile creased his face. “Often a shock to the system is what is needed, what is required, for certain patients to improve, Felix.”

  “I understand that, sir. I just don’t think it’s necessary in the case of Norman Bates. He’s essentially a very gentle person. I truly think I can reach him, and can do so without traumatic shock.”

  Goldberg nodded slowly and pursed his lips. After what seemed an eternity, he inhaled sharply enough to startle Reed, and said, “Since it seems that Bates poses no threat of violence in the near-catatonic state in which he now resides, and his case is such an intriguing one, I can see no harm in allowing you to continue to treat him as you like. But … my patience is not infinite. We cannot afford to keep pets in our cages. The patients here are criminals who in many cases have committed terrible crimes for which they are not truly responsible. Illness is responsible, and it is our task to cure it and banish it from their minds. And if, instead of easing it out, we must cut it out, then so be it.” The older man leaned over his desk toward Reed. “You may ease and cajole, but if you are not successful, stronger measures must and will be used. Do you understand, Felix?”

  “I do. Thank you for allowing me to continue. I promise I won’t disappoint you.”

  “It’s not me you’d be disappointing. It’s Norman Bates.”

  * * *

  He slept.

  The sound was deafening. It roared inside his head like a hundred waterfalls. The room was cloudy, and he felt as though he was walking through a dream. He tried to look down at himself, to see what he was wearing.

  What he was holding.

  But he couldn’t. He could only look straight ahead. Straight toward the curtain.

  On the other side of it, he thought he saw movement. Someone was in there, and when he realized that, he knew that he had to turn around and leave the room. It wasn’t right for him to invade someone’s privacy in that way, to be in the same room when someone was naked on the other side of the thin curtain. That wasn’t good at all. If Mother knew that he was there, she would be very mad.

  But when he tried to turn around and leave, he couldn’t, not any more than he could stop walking, or look down at himself to see what he was wearing.

  Or what he was holding.

  He thought he could see something on either side of his head, but dimly, as though he might be wearing a hood or a helmet of some kind that encroached upon his peripheral vision. Through the mist, he could smell something odd, sickly sweet and dry. Was it powder? The kind his mother wore?

  The curtain was getting nearer, and now he was sure that whoever was behind it was moving, turning as if in a dance, and through the fabric’s translucency he could make out the line of her body.

  For it was a woman, no doubt. The breasts, the swell of the hips, the way the arms lifted as she turned, the way the head bowed. It was true. A naked young woman was behind the curtain, and he was growing excited. He wanted to touch her, caress the soft wet skin, but at the same time he wanted to turn and leave. Leaving was the only thing that could keep him out of trouble.

  He tried to turn, but he couldn’t make himself do it. He could only move closer to the curtain, and he felt the pressure, and he knew that he was helpless. He knew that he would do what he had always wanted to do to a woman but never had before. He would take her, grip her in his hands, and make her love him.

  His left hand rose in front of his eyes and grasped the edge of the curtain, and as it did he noticed that his arm was clad, not in a shirt, but in a cloth printed with a pattern of flowers, with white lace trim at the cuff. The surprising sight made him want to stop and examine more closely what he was wearing, but he couldn’t. He could only push back the curtain.

  But in the split second before he did, the girl’s scream began, piercing through the roar. And then the curtain no longer separated them, and he clearly saw the wet, naked girl revealed, standing in the watery stream, her face twisted to
ward him, her startled eyes wide in shock, her screaming mouth open wider than her eyes.

  Her nudity, her vulnerability, her fear, all inflamed him, and it was when he reached out his right hand to touch her bare flesh that he finally saw it was not empty.

  He saw what he was holding.

  He saw his right arm, festooned with flowers and lace, draw the butcher knife across his field of vision until his right wrist touched his left shoulder, then sweep forward in a backhand slash that sliced across the woman’s neck, severing flesh, windpipe, and arteries. The blow was so powerful that it shattered the bones of her neck, and her head tipped back and dangled from what little tissue remained intact, while blood both poured and jetted from her.

  He looked on in horror as his arm raised the knife again and stabbed the body even as it sank toward white porcelain, piercing white flesh, all growing red. The blood continued to pump, and there was a whooshing sound of displaced air as the lungs battled to keep alive an organism whose heart had already surrendered.

  He wanted to stop but could not, and he raised the knife and brought it down over and over and over again, until he was blinded by blood and steam, blinded by the water still pouring from the shower.

  Blinded by his own tears.

  Oh, Mother, he said deep inside himself, as the arm slowed and finally stopped its up-and-down, up-and-down motion. Oh, Mother, why?

  Because you had to see, Mother answered. You kept telling them that I did it, when it was you. You were drunk before, but now you see, don’t you? You see through your own eyes what your own hands did.

  No … no …

  Well, if you don’t believe me, boy, then I’ll have to show you again. I’ll show you every night until you finally accept it. And all the doctors in all the hospitals in the world won’t be able to make my truth a lie.

  Mother … please …

  He awoke.

  * * *

  “I think Dr. Reed will reach him somehow. I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t.”

  It was Saturday night, and Marie Radcliffe and Ben Blake were sitting across from each other at a table in the Stockyard Steakhouse, the best and most expensive of the several dining establishments in Fairvale, the county seat, about twenty miles from the state hospital.

  Even though they had worked together for months, this was their first actual date, so their conversation was tentative, centering around the hospital and their jobs there. It hadn’t taken long to get to Norman Bates.

  “I’ve got to confess, I’m surprised at the kid-gloves treatment he’s been getting,” Ben said.

  “Dr. Reed doesn’t want anything to traumatize Norman,” Marie said. “I’ve noticed how carefully he has you and Dick shower and shave him.” She gave a lopsided smile. “A whole lot different than the way other patients are treated.”

  “Hey, don’t lump me in with Myron Gunn and that bunch. I don’t like the way they treat patients any better than Doc Reed does.” Ben took a drink from his beer glass.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Marie replied. “You’re good with Norman, I know.”

  “Well, you can’t help but feel sorry for the guy. He seems like an oversized kid.” Ben’s smile faded and he shook his head. “But when you think about what it was he really did…”

  “What Mother did,” Marie said.

  “Yeah, I know. But Mother’s still rattling around in there somewhere. Crazy as a loon and violent as a shark. And even if she was gone for good, after what Norman did, he’s never going to get out of the hospital.”

  “I know. But at least his life can be a little better.” Marie sipped from her glass of Chablis and Ben watched her. She was sure easy on the eyes, as his dad always said about his mother, and she was as nice a person as he’d ever run into, in the state hospital or outside of it.

  “I never asked you,” he said, “how you got into this line of work.”

  “After I got my nursing degree, I worked in Montrose Hospital for a few years. It was handy, because my home was there in Montrose. My mother died when I was fifteen, of cancer—that was partly why I wanted to be a nurse—and I kept living at home with my daddy. No rent to pay, you know? Well, Daddy started changing the second year I was at the hospital. Forgetting things, at first. Then it got worse. One time he turned on the gas for the stove and then just walked away from it and sat on the porch. I found him there when I got home, the house full of gas. Another time he started filling the tub with water and, again, just walked away. Ruined the floor, the water came down all over his books…” She waved a hand.

  “Dementia?” Ben asked.

  “Oh, yeah. And it just got worse. I knew I either had to stop working and take care of him full-time or … have him put somewhere.”

  “So what did you do?” Ben saw tears glimmering in Marie’s eyes, though none had fallen down her cheek.

  “I didn’t have to decide,” she said. “He had some moments—not often, just sometimes—when he was lucid, when he knew what was happening to him, and those were the worst. His face … it was like he was horrified to find himself the way he was. He’d ask, ‘What’s happening to me, honey?’ And I couldn’t tell him. We went to doctors, and they put him on some medication, but it didn’t really help.

  “I’d pretty much made up my mind to stay with him at home for a while, but he’d already made the decision. I got home one day and found him dead.” She stopped talking.

  “Gas?” Ben asked quietly.

  Marie shook her head. “I turned off the gas outside every day when I left. He went upstairs and got a … a 22 pistol we used to plunk tin cans with. Then he went down to the basement and shot himself in the head.”

  “My God…”

  “I think—I know—it was during one of his lucid moments. He went to the basement because it … it would be easier…”

  The words choked in her throat, and Ben nodded to tell her he understood. It would be easier to clean up.

  Her voice sounded thin and pinched. He saw the tears on her cheeks now. “I should’ve … remembered that gun. Hidden it away somewhere.”

  “It left him a choice,” Ben said. “You can’t blame yourself for it. He did what he thought was best for himself. And for you.”

  She nodded and took a long sip of wine. “I’ve told myself that. And I think it’s true.” She sniffed then and shook herself, like shaking off a bad dream. “But that, in less than a nutshell, is what made me want to get into the field of mental health. To help people like my daddy. So I took the extra courses and got certified. There were no openings at private institutions, but there was one at the state hospital, and I got it.”

  “But a hospital for the criminally insane—wasn’t that a little scary?”

  “Oh yeah,” Marie said with a little laugh. “It still is. But as frightening as it is, it’s also fulfilling. These people are sick in a different way, but they’re still sick.”

  “And mean and violent—some of them anyway. Like Ronald Miller. I wouldn’t turn my back on that guy. Mean as a snake.”

  Marie nodded. “Multiple rape. Horrible man. He’s one of the few that I think belongs in a regular prison. He may be sick, but I don’t know if it’s the kind of sick that can be cured.”

  “Well, I’ve overheard some scuttlebutt that he may not be here much longer. The docs are starting to believe that he’s faking the whole mentally ill thing, and I think they’re right. He manipulates people. Just don’t ever get yourself alone with him.”

  “Believe me, I don’t want to find myself alone with any of them, not even Norman.”

  Their steaks came at last, and they both dug in. Talk was minimal as they ate, only an occasional muttered terrific or delicious passing across the table.

  When steaks, baked potatoes, and salads were nothing but a satisfying memory, they both sat back and smiled in appreciation of each other’s appetite. “Dessert?” Ben asked.

  “Not for a month, at least,” Marie replied, and Ben laughed.

  “Okay, coffe
e then,” he said, and ordered two when the waiter took away the plates. “So … you looking for another job, or are you planning to stay among our particular crazies for a while?”

  “I like the work,” Marie said. “It’s not ideal, but…”

  “How do you like working under Santa?”

  “Santa?” She looked confused.

  “Our Head Nurse Lindstrom.”

  “I’ve never heard her called Santa before.”

  “The patients call her that. Because she’s knows if you’ve been sleeping, and she knows if you’re awake. You can’t pull the wool over Santa’s eyes. Many have tried, to their peril.”

  “Peril is right.”

  “What, you’ve seen an example?”

  “A lot of them,” Marie said. “She’s more Torquemada than Florence Nightingale.”

  “The Spanish Inquisition guy?”

  “That’s the one. She has these little … punishments she doles out, regardless of treatment protocols. For example, you know Warren Russell?”

  “The fat klepto, yeah. Steals anything that isn’t nailed down.”

  “He’s on behavioral modification and meds, nothing else. So one day last week the patients were lined up for their pills, and Warren gets his from Nurse Lindstrom, swallows them, and grabs a sweater that she’s put over the back of a chair and stuffs it under his shirt. He’s so big that nobody notices another few inches around his middle, and he goes back to the social hall.”

  Marie paused as the waiter brought the coffee, then continued.

  “Lindstrom finishes giving out the meds and notices her sweater is missing and figures it out fast. She and Myron Gunn find Warren, make him pull up his shirt, and there’s her sweater … predictably loaded with Warren Russell sweat.”

  “Ouch,” Ben said.

  “Ouch is right. So I’ve been helping hand out meds, and I’ve seen all this play out. I figure they’ll take away his social hall privileges or something, but instead of taking him back to his cell, they go the other way, toward the old hydrotherapy room. I follow them, staying far behind, and they go in and close the door. I can’t see what’s happening, but I can hear just fine. Warren’s squealing, and I hear Myron telling him to strip, and Nurse Lindstrom is saying something I can’t make out, and laughing.”