Robert Bloch's Psycho

by Chet Williamson

  “Norman?” Dr. Goldberg said again. “I asked how you’re feeling.”

  “It’s all right, Norman,” Dr. Reed said. “You can talk to Dr. Goldberg. He wants to help you too.”

  But Norman didn’t want to. He didn’t know Dr. Goldberg, and he didn’t feel comfortable with him. He only felt that way with Dr. Reed. He just wasn’t ready to talk to other people. Didn’t Dr. Reed understand that?

  “Norman?” Dr. Reed said. Norman continued to look down. He realized he still had his book in his hand. It was an escape. He opened it to where he had been reading and looked at the words on the paper. He couldn’t concentrate, since all his attention was fixed on the tall man standing over him, but he acted as though he were reading.

  “Don’t you want to talk to me, Norman?” Dr. Goldberg asked. He didn’t sound happy. “Mr. Bates?” he said, but Norman didn’t respond to that either. He heard Dr. Goldberg sigh, an exasperated sigh like Mother always gave to show that she was once again disappointed in him, and Norman saw the tall man’s legs move to the door, past the other doctors and into the corridor.

  Norman didn’t look up, wouldn’t look up as the others left his cell. The last thing he heard was Dr. Reed saying, “All right, Norman, you read. I’ll talk to you later.” The door closed, and Norman was alone. Almost.

  My. That went well.

  Be quiet, Mother. I’m reading. Go away.

  And, to Norman’s surprise, she did.

  * * *

  “Goddamnit, I knew he was going to do that.”

  “Felix—”

  “It was idiotic to bring in a whole panel like that. It took him forever to get comfortable with me.”

  “I’m sorry, but Goldberg requested me to come.”

  “But it wasn’t necessary, Nick! And bringing in the new resident too, well, hell, why didn’t we just have a whole goddamned APA national convention in his cell?”

  Felix Reed threw himself back in his chair and looked at Nicholas Steiner across the desk of Reed’s tiny office. Steiner’s cherubic face, usually wreathed in a quiet smile, was frowning. “I agree with you,” Steiner said. “It was overkill. It should have been you and Goldberg only. Five people in a room that small, and I get claustrophobic. I can only imagine what poor Bates must have felt like.”

  Reed took in a deep breath and blew it out. He wished he smoked like Steiner did. Maybe it would help relax him. “I’m getting the feeling that Goldberg wants me to fail. That he can’t wait to get Norman into electroshock therapy.”

  Steiner took a drag on his Camel before answering. “You may be right,” he said. “Dr. Goldberg is very old school, after all. But, Felix…” Steiner leaned on the desk. “You have to show Goldberg an improvement in socialization skills. Now, I’m betting that he’ll give you some more time, but on the other hand I don’t think you can just keep Norman as your private pet in his cell. You’ve got to expose him to … other patients, perhaps. There’s a reason for social hours, after all.”

  Reed considered it. “Well, maybe. He’s far from ready for the dining hall. He’s barely at the point where he’s eating a meal by himself, let alone engaging in conversation while he’s doing it.”

  “What about the social hall?” Steiner suggested.

  “I just don’t know, Nick. In spite of what Norman’s done, he’s such an innocent in so many ways. I keep thinking some of those other … playmates would eat him alive.”

  “Then keep a watch on him. Observe from a distance, but intervene only if completely necessary. See how—and if—he interacts with others. He’s going to have to eventually. Goldberg won’t stand for him to be alone in his room forever.”

  * * *

  “Only one example, Dr. Berkowitz, of the many challenges we face here at the state hospital.” As he sat behind his intricately carved wooden desk, Dr. Isaac Goldberg took a cigar from a wooden humidor and offered it to the new resident.

  Elliot Berkowitz shook his head. “No, thank you, I don’t smoke.”

  “We all have our vices, I suppose,” Goldberg said. “Do you mind if I…?”

  Berkowitz shook his head again, faster this time. “Of course not.” He was surprised that Goldberg would even ask. The superintendent had so much old-world charm about him that Berkowitz could imagine himself back in prewar Vienna, in the office of one of the early psychoanalysts, even of Freud himself, with whom Goldberg, it was rumored, had studied.

  The music helped the illusion. As soon as they had entered the office, Goldberg had gone to a console record player at the far end of the room and put a disc on the turntable. A classical overture started playing—Mozart, Berkowitz guessed—and Goldberg had proceeded to his desk and his cigar.

  “So tell me,” Goldberg said, “a bit about yourself, ja? Not your scholastic record, that I know, but your own background, your family. Are they supportive of your career plans?”

  Berkowitz smiled. “My mother is. My father is dead.”

  “Oh?” Goldberg cocked his head to the right as if he wished to hear more.

  “He died in Germany. He and my mother were born there. But after the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935 … you know of them?”

  “Oh yes, I know those laws well. The true beginning of anti-Semitism in Deutschland.”

  “Well, my father saw the writing on the wall. He sent my mother to America. She was pregnant with me, and I was born here. His plan was to stay in Berlin and keep working until he could afford to join us, but after he sent my mother money, there was never enough left for his passage. He never got to the United States.”

  “What happened?” Goldberg seemed to have forgotten his smoking cigar. His expression was sorrowful.

  “Kristallnacht. He was arrested and placed in a camp. A friend wrote to my mother about it. She never heard from my father again. We’re sure he died there, but we don’t know how or when.”

  Goldberg shook his massive head. “Ach, so many. So many.” He seemed to remember his cigar and took a puff. From his expression, Berkowitz thought it must have tasted bitter. “Your mother … did she remarry?”

  “No. It was just the two of us.”

  “I understand,” Goldberg said. “I have experienced much the same kind of loss.”

  Suddenly a burst of song came from the large speaker of the phonograph console, and both their heads turned toward it. Goldberg laughed. “The divine Mozart!” he said. “He never fails to bring levity to any situation! And believe me, my young friend, you will be in great need of levity in this place. Mr. Norman Bates, whom we have just visited, is one of the more gentle tenants here. We have patients that the old, pre-Freudian world would have burned as demons, but it is our task to banish the demonic from them in whatever ways possible.”

  “I see,” Berkowitz said to fill the silence in which Goldberg puffed meditatively on his cigar. “Well, Thorazine, imipramine, and clonazepam are excellent allies there.”

  “They are indeed. But there are other, nonmedicinal ways. Tell me, young man, your feelings on the various shock therapies in the treatment of such conditions as schizophrenia?”

  Other residents who’d been at the state hospital had tipped off Berkowitz about Goldberg’s preferences. “Well,” he said, “even though the general move seems to be away from electroconvulsive therapy, it still seems to be beneficial for patients who meet certain criteria.”

  “It does indeed,” Goldberg said. “During the many years I have worked in this field, I have seen no greater results than those derived from these therapies—even insulin shock, now hardly ever used, alas. The word shock is an unfortunate one, with its negative connotations, but the results—ah, the results are nearly always positive. If you accept that reality, I believe you will fare well here. Now, one other question, if I may be so bold. Regarding your faith.”

  Uh-oh, Berkowitz thought. What now? He’d noticed the menorah and the Star of David, but he wasn’t sure what they meant.

  “You are Jewish, are you not?”

  Elliot
hoped Goldberg wasn’t about to offer the official secret Jewish-doctor handshake he’d never learned. He nearly grinned at the thought, but said only, “Yes.”

  “As am I, as you can see.” Goldberg gestured to the Judaic items. “Are you an observant Jew?”

  “If you mean do I regularly attend temple, no, I don’t. I haven’t since I left my mother’s house.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “No. I still consider myself a Jew—I always will—but as far as observing the rituals, I’m afraid not.”

  Goldberg nodded slowly. “I understand. Don’t be apologetic. It’s difficult to be a good Jew out here. The nearest temple is seventy-five miles away, and as a result I too have become … a private Jew, shall we say. Even though our profession teems with our spiritual brethren, we are somewhat alien in this part of our fair state. As they say, it’s just you and me, kid.”

  “Dr. Steiner?”

  “No. Protestant. Although Steiner can be a Jewish name, let us not forget General Steiner of the Waffen-SS.” Goldberg frowned. “He lives as a free man in Germany today. Sometimes one must question God’s justice.” Then a smile broke across the clouded face. “But know, Dr. Berkowitz, that although I am your supervisor, I am also ihr Brüder in the eyes of God.” The smile grew even broader as Goldberg opened his desk drawer. “And now,” he said, “would you care for a cookie?”

  4

  Norman had no idea how much time had passed between the day he was visited by all the doctors and the day Dr. Reed took him to the big room. During those days, the doctor spent much of their time together telling Norman that he wanted him to meet some other people. Norman, Dr. Reed said, kept to himself too much. That was why it was so difficult for him when the other doctors visited him. He wasn’t used to seeing anyone but Dr. Reed and Nurse Marie and Ben and Dick, and he should see some other people. He didn’t have to talk to them if he didn’t want to, but it would be good for him to be around them.

  Mother didn’t seem to have any opinion on the subject, but Norman didn’t want to meet other people. He was happy in his cell with his books and Dr. Reed and Nurse Marie. But Dr. Reed really wanted him to do it, so finally Norman said he would.

  Dr. Reed led him down several corridors so that Norman lost his sense of direction. He had only been out to the showers, and there was a shower area close to his cell. “We’re going to the social hall, Norman,” Dr. Reed told him. “As I told you, there will be a lot of other patients there. Some may want to talk to you, and some may not. If they do, just be polite. I’ll be on the other side of the room watching, so you won’t get into any trouble, and no one will hurt you. After all, they have no reason to. You’re a nice guy, right?… Right, Norman?”

  Norman nodded. “I’m a nice guy,” he said softly. “I’m a nice guy.”

  When Dr. Reed led him through the door of the social hall, Norman froze. There was too much going on to process all at once.

  The room itself was benign enough. There was a green-and-cream tile floor, and against the opposite wall were several windows, covered by a diamond grid screen. Couches and easy chairs were scattered about the room, and several dozen wooden captain’s chairs stood in lines against the walls. Die-cut, thin cardboard pictures of wreaths, snowmen, and Christmas trees hung on the walls, reminders of the season.

  An upright piano stood at the end of the room to Norman’s right, and a man sat on the bench, pecking at one key in a rhythm so uneven as to seem like Morse code. A few magazines dotted the tables, which in turn dotted the floor. At the end of the room opposite the piano was a large fireplace whose opening had been closed off. The wooden fireplace was ornately carved, darkened by years of smoke, the sole reminder of when the facility had been a sanitarium for the disturbed rich.

  Now the room was filled with only the disturbed. There were perhaps two dozen men there, watched by two attendants, one at either end of the room. Some of the men were playing checkers, some were watching a soap opera on the black-and-white television set next to the dead fireplace, some were talking to each other, and several were talking to themselves.

  One in particular, a lanky man who seemed more bones than flesh and who wore a gray baseball cap with his gray prisoner’s shirt and slacks, stood in the center of the room and babbled loudly and nonstop about Communists and how they were going to take over the country and one day everyone would wake up to find themselves enslaved by Communism. At least Norman thought that was what he was saying, since the man spoke so quickly, and seemingly without ever taking a breath, that Norman couldn’t be sure of all the words.

  Another man stood on his head, his feet leaning against the wall, and was chanting what sounded like a prayer. His shirt had fallen down around his chest, and Norman could see dozens of small scars crisscrossing the man’s belly like the diamond grid on the screens that helped imprison them all.

  An instrumental of “Autumn Leaves” was drifting from a portable record player next to the piano. It sounded like Percy Faith or Andre Kostelanetz or some other easy-listening bandleader, and was background only, there to soothe the loonies, Norman thought. With the music and the smoke that hung in the air, it seemed like a lunatic’s version of a nightclub.

  It was far too smoky for Norman’s taste. He had never smoked, and at least half of the men in the room were holding or puffing on cigarettes. He wondered if all these madmen, possibly including pyromaniacs, were allowed matches, but he was relieved to see one of them go to an attendant for a light. Then he realized that Dr. Reed was speaking to him.

  “… go over there and read a magazine,” Dr. Reed said. “Or watch the men playing checkers. There are other board games on that shelf. Maybe someone would want to play.”

  “I, uh…” Norman cleared his throat. “Maybe a magazine.”

  Walking into the smoky room, Norman felt as though he were leaving behind what little remained of the rational world. These people all around him, with their worn clothing, hacked hair, bad teeth, were all crazy in the eyes of the law. And then he reminded himself that he was crazy too, and, whatever they had done, what he had done was probably worse.

  He walked quickly toward the closest table with magazines on it, and looked over the offerings. There were copies of Life, Look, Reader’s Digest, and National Geographic. He picked up a Geographic and walked between the standing men, careful not to brush against any of them, and sat in one of the captain’s chairs. Without looking up again, he opened the issue and started reading at random, trying to concentrate on the words and pictures rather than the fear he felt from being in this room with these people.

  He had hardly covered a page when he felt the presence of someone sitting down in the chair next to him, and smelled breath so foul that it might have been air drifting out of a newly opened grave.

  * * *

  Ronald Miller recognized Norman Bates as soon as he walked into the social hall. He’d seen his photograph in the newspaper they allowed the inmates to read every Sunday, and had read as much of the story as they dared to publish. In fact, Ronald had torn out the article when no one was looking, folded it up, and stuck it down his underpants. He hid it in one of the books in his cell and read it late at night, by the dim light that seeped in through the slot in his door.

  They weren’t allowed to watch the news on television, so Ronald never knew if more details had come out about the story. It didn’t really matter. He had made up his own details. He knew that Norman Bates had killed a young woman named Mary Crane and a detective named Arbogast, but he didn’t give a damn about Arbogast. He thought about Mary Crane a lot. Ronald had never killed anyone, but he’d wanted to. He admitted to himself that he just didn’t have the guts, because he didn’t want to die.

  Prison was okay, though. He’d been in prison before, and the state hospital was a whole lot better. He didn’t think he was crazy, though he pretended to be. The insanity plea was always a winner if you could sell it. The danger was that you could stay in stir indefinitely, but when h
is lawyer told him about the lengthy sentence he could serve as the result of seven violent rapes in as many months, the wacky ward started looking pretty good.

  So he lost no time in setting up a profile as a crazy bastard who’d rape anything that moved or had legs he could get between, including guards and fellow cellmates. Finally they’d put him in solitary and shoved his food through the door, and he’d talked to a lot of nice old doctors who tried to be professional but were scared as hell that he’d jump them next. He played it sweet, though, and got the gig he wanted. It wasn’t paradise, but as long as he played it cool, so did the guards, and Ronald wasn’t above a little ass kissing and wheedling to make things better for himself.

  Problem was, you couldn’t talk to most of the nutcases in here. They’d start out like anybody else, but eventually they’d begin talking screwy. But he had his memories to keep him company and, when that wasn’t enough, his imagination.

  And his imagination dwelt on what Norman Bates had done—what Ronald had always wanted to do. He liked hurting women, and he especially liked the feeling of having power over them. That was why he got so mean when he raped them. But to kill … well, that was something else altogether. That was the ultimate power, wasn’t it? And to kill them while you were taking them … that meant taking everything, and Ronald couldn’t imagine a better feeling than that. He really wanted to know what it was like.

  In his waking dreams, he’d seen Norman Bates doing exactly that, plunging in the knife while doing what Ronald did, in all the different ways and permutations. Ronald could hardly think about it without getting himself all excited.

  And now here he was, in the same room, in the chair right next to Norman Bates, who had done things Ronald had only dreamed of. He had to talk to him. He had to find out his secrets, hear the details, every last bloody, juicy one …

  * * *

  “How ya doin’?”

  Norman didn’t look up. The man was right next to him, his elbow touching Norman’s on the arms of the chairs. Norman moved his arm over onto his lap. He could see the man’s hand, the fingers long and skeletal, with yellow, cracked, untrimmed nails like talons.