Эд Макбейн - Snow White and Rose Red

“And you believe They’re falsifying records?”

“I know they are.”

“How can you know that?”

“They’re constantly taking notes. Why would anyone be taking notes if they weren’t going to be typed up later and made part of the record?”

“How do you know the notes themselves are false?”

“Because I’m still here. If the records weren’t faked, I’d be out of here in a minute.”

“I see.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Matthew. you’re thinking paranoia, the lady’s a bedbug. Is it paranoia when someone is spying on you even when you go to the toilet? Ask Brunhilde if she doesn’t stand outside the open bathroom door every time I pee.”

“Who’s Brunhilde?”

“One of the attendants on North Three. That isn’t her real name. I call her that because she reminds me of a concentration camp matron.”

“What is her real name?”

“Christine Seifert. Five feet eight inches tall, two hundred and twenty pounds, tattoo on her left forearm, ‘Mom’ in a heart.” Sarah smiled. “I made up the tattoo, but the rest is real. Why don’t you ask her why she spies on me whenever I go to the john? Does she think I’m going to strangle myself with the roll of toilet paper? Stick my head in the bowl and drown myself?” She paused. Her eyes met mine directly again. “You didn’t think I knew her real name, did you? You were even wondering if she really existed. You think I’ve surrounded myself with make-believe witches and villains. My mother, Ritter, Helsinger, Cyclops — and now Brunhilde. you’re thinking I may be everything they say I am, and you’re wondering what the hell you’ve got yourself into.”

I said nothing.

“Isn’t that the truth, Matthew?”

“Sarah...”

Across the room, the woman playing checkers said, “King me!”

I turned to look at her. She was smiling pleasantly, but she had captured the attention of a white-coated attendant who stood watching her now, alert to any situation that might develop. None developed. The lady only wanted to be kinged. The man sitting across the board from her moved a checker on top of the one she indicated. The guard relaxed, stifling a yawn.

“You were about to say—” Sarah said.

“I was about to say... Sarah, you realize, don’t you, that you’re suggesting a conspiracy?”

“Suggesting? No, Matthew. Stating it. Baldly and as an absolute fact. I loved my father only as a proper daughter should. I never lusted for him, and I never thought of him as anything but a faithful, generous, decent, hardworking man. Faithful, yes. To my mother and to me. No cuties on the side, Matthew. Generous when he was alive, and even more generous in death. The six hundred and fifty thousand was a gesture, Matthew, one of the nicest gestures anyone could make. He knew I would come into a fortune when my mother died. The additional money — I thought of it as that, additional money, spending money, play money, whatever — was his way of telling me he thought I was a woman responsible enough to handle such a huge sum. Did I feel cheated? I felt rewarded , Matthew! Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars? I was twenty-four years old, and he was trusting me with all that money! With almost a billion more to come when my mother died! How could I have felt anything but intense gratitude for an act of such generosity and faith? I wept for days after he died. He was the most wonderful man I’ve ever known.”

She sighed heavily.

“If I’m crazy,” she said, “then I believe everything that is contrary to what I actually know to be the truth about my father. I believe he was carrying on with another woman. I believe that I could easily have taken her place and suggested this to him. I believe that he was cheating me sexually while he was alive, and that he cheated me monetarily after he was dead — all for this phantom woman. I believe that I tried to commit suicide when I couldn’t find her. I believe all these absolute lies .”

She sighed again.

“Matthew,” she said, “there is a conspiracy.”

“Why?”

“I told you. My mother hates me. Besides, she wanted all of it. All the money. And now she’s got it.”

I nodded. Not in agreement; I was far from agreeing with her completely. The order appointing Alice Whittaker as guardian had specified that she was required to post bond in the amount of $650,000. This meant that $650,000 of her own money was at forfeit. So I could not easily accept Sarah’s flat accusation. I nodded only to indicate that I understood what she was telling me.

“They say I made an obscene suggestion to my father,” she said. “You’ll probably find that in the fake records, Matthew, the suggestion I’m supposed to have made to my father. Worse than Becky wanting to bite her husband’s cock. Far worse than that. Look at me,” she said.

I looked at her.

“I’m a virgin,” she said.

I kept looking at her.

“Twenty-four years old,” she said, “and a virgin. As pure as the driven snow, Matthew. A snow-white virgin.”

Her eyes refused to leave my face.

“I’d have cut out my tongue before saying anything like that to my father. Cut out my tongue first. And drowned myself later.”

Dr. Silas Pearson was indeed blind in one eye, and that eye was covered with a black patch. He was, I supposed, in his mid-fifties, a lanky, Lincolnesque man wearing a pale blue summer-weight suit. He greeted me warmly and asked me to make myself comfortable. He offered me coffee or iced tea. I accepted the iced tea. His office was in Administration and Reception. Through the large, unbarred corner windows, I could see patients and visitors strolling about the lawn. Sarah had been taken back to North Three. She had blown me a kiss as Jake led her away.

“So you’ve been talking to Sarah, have you?” Pearson said. His voice was pitched very low, its effect soothing. I imagined him in conference with patients. I imagined him with Sarah, his soothing voice probing the depths of her illness — if it existed.

“Yes,” I said, “I’ve been talking to her.”

“And to others, I understand.”

Had Helsinger called him? Ritter? Sarah’s mother?

Was there a conspiracy?

“Yes, I have.”

“And what do you think?” he said.

The soothing voice. Brown eyes studying me, long fingers toying with a gold chain that hung across his vest. Was he one of the psychiatrists who hypnotized Sarah?

“Dr. Pearson,” I said, “in my several conversations with Sarah, I’ve seen nothing but an intelligent—”

“Yes, she’s very intelligent,” Pearson said.

“—imaginative—”

“Indeed.”

“—lucid—”

“Quite.”

“—reasoning—”

“Oh yes.”

“—aware—”

“Enormously so.”

“—alert—”

“Always alert,” he agreed.

“—sensitive—”

“Even shy and vulnerable at times.”

“In short, a young woman — I must be frank with you — who exhibits none of the symptoms Dr. Helsinger led me to believe were indicative of paranoid schizophrenia.”

Pearson smiled.

“I see,” he said. “But you are, of course, a lawyer. Not a doctor.”

“That’s true. Still...”

“They can sometimes fool even qualified professionals,” Pearson said. “It doesn’t surprise me — your reaction, I mean. They can be quite charming when they choose to be. The charm, in fact, can be part of the delusional system.”

“I see no evidence that Sarah is deluding herself about anything.”

Pearson smiled again.

“She calls me Dr. Cyclops, did she tell you that?”