Ed McBain - Long Time No See

He was, however, the sort of man who, once presented with an idea, would not let go of it until he understood it to his satisfaction. This did not necessarily mean understanding it completely. He still didn’t know exactly how Ballistics figured out the rifling twist or the number of lands and grooves on a suspect bullet; but he had a fair working knowledge of how they went about it, and that was enough. Similarly, he thought he understood the psychoanalytic process as well as a layman might. He did not subscribe to the theory that all homicides were rooted in the distant past; he would leave such speculation to California mystery writers who seemed to believe that murder was something brewed in a pot for half a century, coming to a boil only when a private detective needed a job. The last time Carella had met a private detective investigating a homicide was never.

But this morning Sophie told him that her son had recently contacted an old Army buddy. All right, that was a link to the past, a link to a man Jimmy had not seen, literally, for the past ten years. If he was going back into his past for something — and Sophie seemed to believe it was for assistance with an illegal enterprise — then perhaps Carella should go back into the past as well. Which is why he was here today. To explore that dimly lighted tunnel, to learn whether or not anyone here at the hospital had been able to unravel the nightmares that caused Jimmy to wake up sweating and trembling in the night.

The next mention of the dream came in a report dated six days after Lemarre’s initial memo. The dream was identical in every respect. When Lemarre asked Jimmy what he thought of the fact that in the dream his mother had a penis, Jimmy answered, “Well, it’s a dream. Anything can happen in a dream.”

“Yes, but she has a penis, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you think of her as a particularly masculine person?”

“My mother? You got to be kidding.”

“Then why does she have a penis?”

“It’s a dream,” Jimmy answered.

At their next session, two days later, Lemarre asked Jimmy if it would be all right to tape-record what they talked about. Jimmy wanted to know why, and Lemarre said it would enable him to transcribe their sessions word for word later on, and study what was said, and perhaps reach some meaningful conclusions. Jimmy gave his permission. There followed in the file at least fifty closely spaced typewritten pages dealing exclusively with Jimmy’s exploration of the dream that continued to haunt him night after night. Janet lost interest after they’d waded through twenty pages of the transcript.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“I could use a cup.”

“I think I know where I can find some,” she said, and winked. “Did you plan on going back tonight?”

“What?” he said.

“To the city, I mean.”

“I guess so, yes.”

“Because with all this stuff,” she said, indicating the mountain of papers on the table, “we’re liable to be here all afternoon.”

“You know, I think I can manage the rest of it alone, if you...”

“No, no, I’m enjoying it,” she said. “Let me get the coffee, okay?”

“Sure. But seriously, if you want to go back upstairs...”

“I’m enjoying it,” she said, and her eyes met his, and he knew now that she was flirting and he didn’t know quite what to do about it.

“Well... sure,” he said. “Fine.”

“I’ll get the coffee,” she said.

“Fine.”

“And then later you can decide about going back to the city.”

“All right.”

She nodded. She turned then and went out through the door opposite the one they'd entered. He caught a brief glimpse of the corridor outside, the windows leaping with November sunlight. She closed the door behind her, and he listened to her heels clicking into the distance. He looked at his watch. The time was 3:10 p.m. He turned back to the transcript.

Exploration upon exploration.

Is the Christmas tree a Christmas tree? Is this really your father? Where does he cut himself when he falls? Are you sure your mother has a penis? Over and over again, the same questions and virtually the same answers until the nightmare took on nightmare proportions for Carella himself, making him as eager to be rid of it as had been Jimmy and Lemarre.

He looked at his watch again. It was almost 3:30, he wondered where Janet had gone for the coffee. He wondered what her last name was. Colonel Anderson had said only, “The sergeant will take you downstairs and give you a hand finding what you need.” Maybe the colonel had run into his sergeant in the hallway and demanded that she return upstairs to his office to resume her sergeantly duties.

Carella found it difficult to think of her as a sergeant. A sergeant was Sergeant Murchison who manned the muster desk at the Eight-Seven. A sergeant was any one of a dozen hairbags who rode in radio motor patrol cars checking on patrolmen. Janet What ever -Her-Name was not a sergeant, definitely not a sergeant. He really did find it extremely difficult to think of her that way. He wondered why he was thinking of her at all, in any way, shape or form. Then he wondered how the words “shape” and “form” had crept into his mind as regarded the sergeant, and he decided he’d been reading too many psychiatric reports and was beginning to examine with undue scrutiny his own id, ego or libido, as the case might be. He sighed and turned back to the file.

The first words he saw were “major breakthrough.” These were Lemarre’s words referring to a session that had occurred a month and a half before Jimmy was released from the hospital and simultaneously discharged from the Army. The major showed no appreciation of the fact that he had inadvertently used the word “major” to describe the breakthrough. Carella smiled, and wondered what Lemarre might have thought of Janet’s little joke about the General Hospital. There was Janet again, but where was Janet again? She had undoubtedly gone to Colombia for the coffee. He delayed reading about the major breakthrough; once he solved the mystery of Jimmy’s Christmas nightmare, he would have to climb into his car and start the long drive back to the city. He delayed, he delayed, he delayed for three minutes. When he began reading the word-for-word transcript, the time was 3:35.

LEMARRE: All right, Jimmy, let’s talk about this one more time.

HARRIS: What for? I’m sick to death of talkin about that fuckin dream.

LEMARRE: So am I.

HARRIS: So let’s forget it, Doc.

LEMARRE: No, let’s not forget it If we forget it, you won't be able to forget it.

HARRIS: Shit.

LEMARRE: Tell me about the Christmas tree.

HARRIS: It’s a Christmas tree.

LEMARRE: What kind?

HARRIS: A regular Christmas tree.

LEMARRE: And your mother and father are decorating it, is that right?

HARRIS: Right, right.

LEMARRE: And you and your friends are sitting on the floor watching them.

HARRIS: Right.

LEMARRE: How many of you?

HARRIS: Five, countin me.

LEMARRE: Just sitting there, watching.

HARRIS: On the couch, yeah.

LEMARRE: You said on the floor.

HARRIS: What?

LEMARRE: You said you were all sitting on the floor.

HARRIS: The floor, the couch, what’s the difference?

LEMARRE: Well, which was it?

HARRIS: The floor.

LEMARRE: In the living room.

HARRIS: Mm.

LEMARRE: In your living room, is that right?

HARRIS: Right, right, I told you.

LEMARRE: And how old are you in the dream?

HARRIS: I don’t know. Eighteen, nineteen. Something like that.

LEMARRE: But your father died when you were six.