Identity Crisis td-97

by Warren Murphy

  The patient had growled, "Go fuck yourself."

  What was interesting was that the voice sounded exactly like that of the long-dead Uncle Sam Beasley-except, of course, the real Beasley would never have descended to such harsh language.

  As Dr. Gerling peeked in, the patient-he was listed as Sam Beasley on Gerling's patient roster by order of Dr. Smith-was seated at a card table sketching. The walls of his room were littered with sketches. They depicted the patient climbing down a rope of knotted bed sheets though a broken Folcroft window and making his escape from the sanitarium. It was quite a detailed series of drawings, and included a self-portrait of himself cutting Dr. Gerling's throat with his pirate hook. The hook was real. The patient had been brought in with his right hand a blunt stump, so Dr. Gerling had taken the liberty of having a hook fitted. It was currently under lock and key because Beasley had tried to cut the throats of two different male nurses, after which Dr. Smith had decreed that the hook was too dangerous to remain attached to the patient's wrist stump.

  Dr. Gerling had protested. "Removing the hook will only force the man to withdraw into himself, to become uncommunicative."

  "The hook goes," said Smith, who placed a written reprimand in Dr. Gerling's file for endangering the staff.

  So it went. Dr. Gerling had never agreed with the decision, but it wasn't his to reverse. As director of Folcroft, Dr. Smith ruled with an iron hand.

  Still, the patient was doing quite well with his good hand. His drawings were excellent. It was amazing how deeply and thoroughly he had thrown himself into the role of Uncle Sam Beasley. The drawing looked uncannily like the real Beasley's work. Dr. Gerling had asked the patient to draw him a Monongahela Mouse, and the likeness was exquisite, right down to the perfectly matched black lollipop ears.

  "You could easily find work in the Beasley animation studios," Gerling had clucked, unthinking.

  "I built the Beasley Studio, you quack," the pseudo-Beasley roared back, snatching the drawing from Gerling's hand and tearing it to shreds between his good hand and his teeth. The look of animal ferocity in his one good eye was frightening to the extreme.

  As these memories passed through Dr. Gerling's mind, the patient caught sight of him.

  "You! Quack! How is Euro Beasley doing? Is the attendance up or down?"

  "Down. Sharply."

  "Damn those pip-squeaks. Can't they run anything in my absence? Tell them they're all fired. They should have known better than to try to appeal to those snobby French. Damn frogs think Jerry Lewis is some kind of creative genius and they dismiss me as a mere cartoonist."

  "I will see you tomorrow," Dr. Gerling said pleasantly.

  "And I'll see you hanging by your stethoscope," Beasley ground out, returning to his drawings.

  "Remarkable case," Dr. Gerling murmured as he passed on, scribbling a note to the head nurse to increase the patient's dose of Clozaril, along with a reminder that his blood be tested every week in the event his white count bottomed out from the powerful drug.

  The remaining patients were unremarkable. As he looked in on them, Dr. Gerling's thoughts drifted to the events of the day.

  Folcroft lay under a very dark cloud. There was a problem with the Internal Revenue Service, which had swooped down like buzzards with guns at the crack of dawn.

  When Dr. Gerling had arrived for work, he found a dead man lying on the lawn, and the wounded-who had included Dr. Smith, technically speaking-had been placed under the care of Folcrofts finest physicians.

  Dr. Gerling had been challenged by representatives of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the IRS. The two agencies had fought over the right of first interrogation-whatever that was. The DEA had won. And so Dr. Gerling had submitted to a grueling three-hour interrogation, which consisted of repeating the same denials over and over again.

  Finally the representative of the DEA had been forced to surrender him to the IRS. There ensued another long interrogation consisting of the same tiresome questions and heated denials.

  At the end of it, he was told to report to work.

  He had found Folcroft in tatters, staff wise. The lower-echelon staff had been told to go home, and a number of personnel, including Smith's trusted secretary, Mrs. Mikulka, had been terminated.

  Dr. Gerling wondered if he too was going to be fired when all was said and done. It was a distinct possibility, he decided.

  In the interim, he made his rounds. Perhaps nothing dire would happen and all would be restored to the status quo.

  But he knew in his heart this was unlikely. The Internal Revenue Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration both had come down on Folcroft Sanitarium like avenging angels. It could not all be a mistake. These were very powerful, very important, very professional governmental agencies. They did not make mistakes.

  And if there had been any doubt in Dr. Gerling's mind, it was dispelled by Dr. Smith's state.

  He had been asked to evaluate it and, after conferring with the Folcroft doctors-who could find nothing organically wrong with Smith-Gerling was forced to conclude one thing.

  "It appears psychosomatic," he'd told the IRS agent named Jack Koldstad.

  "You mean he's faking?"

  "No, I mean that his mind has created this condition because Dr. Smith cannot face an unpleasant reality."

  "What causes this usually?"

  "Different external problems. Fear. Depression."

  "How about guilt?"

  "Yes, guilt. Guilt is a very strong emotion. It could be guilt over something in his past."

  "He's guilty of evading Uncle Sam's lawful levies, that's what he's guilty of."

  "I do not think I have ever heard of a patient who would fall into a paralytic state over underreporting federal taxes."

  "You just said guilt. I'm writing up guilt in my report."

  "Yes, I said guilt. But it is a possibilty and no more. Dr. Smith might have other emotions causing this condition."

  "Guilt makes sense to me. We found evidence he's guilty of tax evasion. We confronted him with it. He's guilty-end of story."

  "Should not that be for a court of law to decide?" Dr. Gerling had asked.

  "The IRS decides who is guilty of tax evasion," Jack Koldstad had snapped as he turned away. "Not the damn law."

  That was when Dr. Gerling gave up all hope for Harold Smith. The man must be guilty, after all. It was too bad. He was an excellent administrator, even if he was a nickel-squeezing tightwad.

  Completing his rounds, Dr. Gerling was walking back to his office when he heard a sound that made his heart skip a beat.

  It was the drumming. Doom doom doom doom doom over and over again. Monotonous, relentless and distressingly familiar.

  Reversing course, he made a beeline for the sound. It was coming from very close by, but the sound was muffled. The skirts of his white physician's coat flapping about his knees, Dr. Gerling moved with a waddling alacrity, his round head swiveling from side to side.

  Very close, yes. The sound was close enough that he could almost reach out and touch it.

  Gerling slowed his gait. Yes, quite close. Then he had the sound fixed. It was apparently coming from Purcell's room.

  Cautiously Aldace Gerling slipped up to the square window with its thick wire-mesh-reinforced glass. Trying to keep from being seen, he used one bespectacled eye to look inside.

  Jeremiah Purcell was watching television. Whatever it was, the program made his pale face light up with glee, and a cackle dribbled from between his laughing lips.

  The drumming was definitely emanating from this room.

  Dr. Gerling angled his head around, trying to spot it.

  Then he saw it. The television set was the source of the monotonous drumming. A commercial. Dr. Gerling caught the last few seconds of it, just as the plush pink bunny narrowly escaped being trampled by a giant gorilla.

  He marched into the sunset beating on his drum, the battery on his back showing.

  "My word!" said Gerling. "I wonder
if it was that silly commercial making the drumming after all?"

  He decided not to speak of this to anyone else. The IRS had control of Folcroft Sanitarium now, and there was no telling on what flimsy grounds they would terminate someone.

  Or worse, Gerling thought with a shiver, audit them.

  After all, if a man were judged not in his right mind, would not his tax returns also be suspect?

  Chapter 9

  In the basement of Folcroft Sanitarium, the Master of Sinanju fumed and paced like an impatient hen.

  Where was Remo? He had promised not to be gone long. And it was his turn to guard the gold that now belonged to Sinanju.

  The door at the top of the stairs opened. Perhaps this was he.

  The clump of footsteps coming down told otherwise. Even in his most crude days, back before the grace of the sun source came upon him, Remo had not climbed like that. This was the tread of a clod, and so the Master of Sinanju glided from the triple-locked door of the basement vault room to meet this interloper.

  "Who intrudes?" he challenged.

  A stiff voice responded. "IRS. Who's down here?"

  "No one. Go away."

  "I am an agent of the IRS. We never go away."

  "Never?"

  "Never."

  "That is too bad. No doubt you are here to confiscate wealth."

  "What's down here?"

  "No gold, despite what you may have heard."

  "Gold? Who said anything about gold?"

  The agent had reached the bottom of the steps and was splashing the beam of a flashlight about like a blind fool.

  "No one said anything about gold," Chiun countered. "And if you turn around and poke your long nose elsewhere, no harm will befall you"

  The agent was dashing the light about, trying to pin down the source of the Master of Sinanju's voice. He seemed not to realize that it was impossible to touch the Master of Sinanju even with a harmless beam of light if the Master of Sinanju did not choose to be touched.

  Still, he persisted with both his light and his prying questions. "What's down here?"

  "It is a simple basement. No more."

  "I smell something funny ...."

  "It is beef. You reek of it."

  "Smells like burned plastic."

  "You have a good nose, considering its length."

  "Look, as an agent of the Internal Revenue Service, I order you to stop horsing around and step into my light!"

  "This is an order?"

  "It is."

  "I hear and obey."

  The Master of Sinanju stepped into the light. It touched his chest, swung up and illuminated his wise face.

  The man blurted, "You're that crazy Chinaman."

  "I am neither crazy nor Chinese, beef-brained one."

  "I hereby place you under arrest."

  "You cannot do that."

  "As an agent of the Treasury Department, I am empowered to detain any United States citizen."

  "Then it is too bad that I am not a United States denizen."

  "You'll have to prove that in court. You're under arrest."

  The Master of Sinanju said, "Cuff me, if you dare."

  "I don't carry handcuffs" And the white man from the IRS reached out to profane the Master of Sinanju's outstretched wrists with his unwashed hands as if to haul him away like some common thief.

  The Master of Sinanju made quick, dazzling motions with his hands that momentarily confused the white clod, whose fingers became entangled in one another. It was plain from the look on his face that he did not understand what was happening to him.

  And so when the Master of Sinanju sent out a tiny fist that was as hard as a wooden mallet, the white's dull wits never saw the blow coming that struck his chest and jellied his heart.

  He collapsed, his nostrils leaking a sigh like a balloon losing air.

  The Master of Sinanju left him at the foot of the steps as a warning to others of his ilk that to trespass into the basement of Fortress Folcroft was to die.

  He hoped he would not have to dispatch too many before they understood the meaning of this act. White corpses emitted the most disagreeable odors after the fourth day, and he did not want his gold to pick up the stink, like butter left near beef.

  "YOU KILLED an IRS agent," Remo exploded when he nearly tripped over the body at the foot of the stairs. "For God's sake, why?"

  "He offended me," said Chiun, turning away.

  "You don't kill a government agent because he offended you."

  "I did not kill the wretch," Chiun sniffed. "He killed himself. He reached out to profane the Master of Sinanju's personage with his grubby hands. Were he educated, he would have understood such an act to be the equal to committing suicide. It is the fault of your public schools, where they teach useless trivia like geometry and speaking the tongue of the French."

  "So you're just going to leave him here?"

  Chiun made a dismissive gesture with the flapping sleeve of his kimono. "Of course. Let it be a warning to the others."

  "Warning? They're the IRS. You can't wave them off. They keep coming and coming. Like killer bees."

  "I do not fear their sting, for I am not an American denizen, and thus not subject to their burdensome taxes."

  "Yeah? Well, if they find that gold down here, they're not going to tax it. They'll confiscate it all."

  Chiun whirled, face hard. "They cannot do that. It is my gold."

  "Some of it is Smith's, remember? He got his share of Friend's gold, too. And some of it is mine."

  Chiun made his tiny mouth tinier. "The smallest portion is yours."

  "Thanks to you gypping me out of it."

  Chiun shooed the comment away. "He who dwells in the past has no future."

  Remo waved a piece of paper in Chiun's averted face. "Check this out."

  Chiun took it. "Where did you obtain this drawing?"

  "A police artist. It's my mother."

  Chiun looked up from the drawing. "She is very beautiful, Remo."

  Remo's face softened. "I think so, too."

  "Therefore, she cannot be your mother," said Chiun, tossing the drawing over his shoulder.

  "Hey!" Remo said, snatching it from midair between two fingers. "Watch what you're doing to my mother. This is the only picture I have of her."

  "That is not your mother."

  "Look again. She has Freya's eyes. Or Freya has her eyes."

  Chiun peered at the drawing, which Remo held up at a safe distance from the Master's sharp fingernails.

  "Pah!" said Chiun. "Coincidence. Besides, you describe the eyes you wished to see. It is a fragment of your imagination."

  "That's 'figment.' And this morning you were convinced I saw my mother's ghost."

  "This morning I was beside myself with worry over the gold. Now I am serene in the knowledge that it is safe from the confiscators because it is being protected by the greatest assassin to walk the earth since the days of the Great Wang."

  "I want to show this to Smith."

  "Why?"

  "Maybe he can help me find who this face belongs to.

  "If she is dead, what good would that do?"

  "I don't know. All I know is that Smith owes me and I mean to collect."

  "Very well. I have business with Smith, as well."

  "You bring him out of it yet?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I know that he will do himself in if I restore to him the means to do it."

  "Good point. We gotta find a way to get Smith back behind his computer terminal so he doesn't take himself off."

  "It will not be easy," squeaked Chiun, taking the stairs with his hands clasped before him, concealed by the joined sleeves of his kimono.

  Chapter 10

  Harold Smith lay in the darkness, cursing the darkness.

  Folcroft was quiet. The night shift moved past his door, down the two-tone green corridors with the slow, shuffling feet of zombies. No light came through the chinks in t
he door frame, so in his hospital room Smith lay in darkness, unmoving.

  He still could not move, except to open and close his eyes. His stomach churned. The ulcers that had tormented him for years were flaring up, the result of the strain of the past week.

  There was no doubt in Smith's active mind that CURE was through. It was ironic. Only a week before, he had, through his vast resources and superior mind, outwitted one of CURE's most implacable foes. The Friend operation designed to destroy CURE had nearly succeeded. Smith had blocked it, countered it, then smashed it utterly.

  It was one of his greatest victories-measured by how close to the brink the supersecret organization had all come.

  In the end it turned out to be a temporary respite from a plan that continued beyond the grave of its originator.

  By now Folcroft must have been turned upside down in the IRS's blind determination to uncover Folcroft's supposed illicit secrets. In ordinary times there would have been so little to uncover. The secret terminal in Smith's desk. The computers, rendered mute and forever dumb by the Superwipe Program. Nothing more. He had run a totally paperless office. The true secrets of CURE were stored in his own perishable brain.

  But there was the gold in the basement. Even if Remo and Chiun had been able to remove their portion, Smith's own would remain. It amounted to several million dollars in pure bullion. Millions in gold ingots in a sealed room in the basement of a sleepy private hospital, while American citizens were forbidden by law from owning gold except in the form of jewelry.

  There was no way to explain all that gold away.

  So Smith lay in darkness, cursing the darkness and wishing-actually willing-his heart to stop beating.

  And without warning, the darkness around him seemed to swell.

  At first Smith thought it a trick of the irredeemable darkness.

  It was too dark for shadows. He might as well have been set in a block of breathable basalt.

  But the blackness swelled on either side of his hospital bed, even though his frantic, darting eyes couldn't make the shapes resolve. His rimless glasses lay on the side table. Without them, the universe was a painful blur.

  A light flicked on, blinding him.

  And over the needle of pain in his brain, he heard a voice.

  "Hiyah, Smitty."

  Remo!