Stuart Kaminsky - He Done Her Wrong

Our eyes met, and I could tell that I was being humored. I tried to think of a way of breaking through that tolerance, and then I gave up.

“You know what I think I’ll do?” I said.

“No, what?”

“I think I’ll just walk out of here quietly if I can, but if I can’t I’ll bounce you off the wall.”

Winning wasn’t fazed.

“Like a dead echo?” he said and put his hand under the desk. I could hear a buzzing sound in the hall and realized he had hit a hidden button.

I turned to the door as M.C. strode in with Nurse Grace a pace behind him.

“Mr. Pevsner will be staying with us for at least a day or so,” said Winning, tapping his notepad.

“Step out of the way, M.C.,” I said, holding out my arm.

“No trouble,” he said, blocking the doorway.

“I think we’re a little late for that,” I said, easing to the right with the idea of a fast dash past M.C. and a wild end run over Nurse Grace.

“Maybe so,” he said. Everybody in the damn place was reasonable.

“I’m going now,” I said, taking a step forward.

M.C.’s head shook a soft no. I turned to Dr. Winning, who watched with sad paternal eyes. I was one of his now.

I made my move and threw my shoulder at M.C. He side-stepped and grabbed for my arm. He missed. I pushed Nurse Grace and headed down the hall. I got no more than ten feet before M.C. caught me around the waist and lifted me in the air. I felt like a football about to take part in a brutal punt return.

“Go easy, my man,” he said in my ear.

I threw an elbow at his head and felt it connect. My elbow hurt but he didn’t loosen up. Instead he sat me on the ground. I could hear footsteps coming up behind us and caught a glimpse of Nurse Grace’s white shoes.

“You need some help?” she said.

“Just put him out,” said M.C. still softly, as if he wanted this over with so he could get on to more important things. He grabbed my right wrist and clamped it tight. Nurse Grace was on her knees, and I could see something in her right hand, a hypodermic needle.

“I’ve been vaccinated,” I said, struggling to get free.

“Not for this trip,” said M.C., and the needle went into my forearm.

I think Koko tried to stop them. At least he was there almost instantly and happier than ever before. He was beautifully clear and, for the first time, in color. I wanted to open my eyes and tell M.C. and Nurse Grace that Koko had appeared in color, but I couldn’t. Koko took my hand and led me to the inkwell. I had things to do, people to save, but he was not to be denied. We balanced at the end of the inkwell, and just before we plunged in, I could see a pen descending on us. The pen looked suspiciously like a needle.

When I awoke, I had the feeling that just seconds had passed. I was lying on a bed. To my left was another bed. Beyond that bed was a wall with a small, barred window leading to the night. A circular fluorescent light fixture in the low ceiling revealed white walls. On the other bed, a powerful-looking man with brownish-yellow hair reclined comfortably in bright green and red pajamas and read a book. It was Frenchman’s Creek by Du Maurier.

We looked at each other for a few moments before I turned my back and closed my eyes. But I couldn’t sleep and knew it. If anything, I had a headache from too much drugged sleep. When I was feeling under the blanket to find out what I was wearing (it turned out to be a pair of hospital gray pajamas), I realized that since I was a potential psychotic, my roommate must also be a mental patient. I might be unwise to turn my back on him. In turning quickly to face the man in the bright green and red pajamas, I forgot about the stitches in my head.

“You got a headache?” the man said. “You want a drink?” He leaned forward, blinking.

“No. No thanks.”

“Mind if I exercise?” He put his book aside and stood next to me between the beds.

“No.”

The man suddenly disappeared, and it took me a few seconds to realize that he had dropped to the floor. Leaning dizzily over, I found him sitting crosslegged, teeth clenched, and red-faced. He grunted slightly and turned redder. As the red began to turn to white, he relaxed and turned on his stomach. It seemed as if he had gone to sleep, but instead he threw his arms back and lifted his legs from the floor so that he was carefully balanced on his stomach and looking in vacant agony at the wall ahead of him. Again he failed to make any impression on the wall except for fingerprints, which joined the pattern of other, older fingerprints at approximately the same point.

“You were wondering why I waited till you woke up to do my exercises, weren’t you?”

“No,” I said, trying to shake the drug dryness from my tongue and brain.

“Truth is I like an audience. I used to feel guilty about that.” He dabbed his perspiring face with the corner of his bright pajamas. “Used to find myself exercising whenever company came over, and my wife would say I was just showing off. I never thought I was showing off. Just did it when the mood took me and didn’t stop to analyze it. The hell with her. I said it then and I say it now.”

We looked at each other in silence for a minute or longer.

“My name is Sklodovich, Ivan Sklodovich,” he said, extending a hand, which I shifted to meet with my unsteady grasp. “Don’t worry, I won’t squeeze. I don’t believe in tests of strength on a first meeting. It creates a competitive tension that’s hard to overcome. You know what I mean?”

“Yes. My name is Peters, Toby Peters.”

“Nice to meet you. Listen, Toby. They call me Cortland around here. The staff, I mean. I don’t like it, but live and let live. It doesn’t cost me anything to be called Cortland, does it?”

“No.”

“You see my father was a welder in Russia and when he came to America he invented a new welding process, Slig. A big tycoon was what my old man wanted to be, so he changed his name to Cortland. But it didn’t help. Nobody wanted Slig welding, and nobody wanted a roly-poly bearded Russian with a name like Cortland. They thought he was a Bolshevik spy or something. For twenty years my family has hidden the solid, black-bread name of Sklodovich behind the chewing-gum name of Cortland. But no more. I am Ivan Sklodovich. Peters. Are you the Peters who paints murals in sewers?”

“No, I’m a detective.”

“A defective?”

“Detective. A private eye.”

“Oh. I couldn’t figure out what the hell a defective was. This is a mental hospital, you know?”

“Yes, I know,” I said and told him my story in condensed form, during which he blinked frequently and ate an orange pulled from under his pillow after first offering it to me.

When I mentioned Ressner, Cortland-who-would-be-Sklodovich paused in his citrus munching and nodded wisely.

“I know Ressner,” said Cortland, after I had finished telling him of how I became a prisoner in Winning. “I used to work in an office, sold carbon paper, Whitney Carbon Paper, the carbon paper that leaves a clean impression on the paper and no smudges on your hand. You’ve heard of them? From salesman, trudging from stationery shop to drugstore to school supply store, I was promoted to North San Diego regional director of sales with a nearsighted secretary and my own office in an old building with windows that looked like rejects from the Union Station bathroom. My secretary, Phyllis, took off her glasses one day, and I fell in love and married her. Carbon paper sales rose in North San Diego, and I moved up to assistant Midwest sectional division manager in charge of complaints. This brought me to L.A., where Phyllis learned to play bridge, and sales boomed.”

At this point I must have made a face, for Sklodovich said: “Be patient, I’ll get to Ressner.”