Gene Wolfe - Free Live Free

“I’m not a patient.”

“You are.”

“Can you just do that? Take somebody and sock her away?”

“If you mean confine someone permanently, no. There has to be a sanity hearing, and this isn’t even a permanent facility; we don’t keep anyone, under any circumstances, for more than six weeks. But we can admit anyone whose behavior is dangerous to society or to himself, on a temporary basis.”

“That’s what you did with the cop, huh?”

“Cop?”

“Sergeant Proudy. He was in the Consort, and somebody—I forget now who it was—called about him. Jim, I guess.”

“You know him then. The policeman.”

“I didn’t really know him. I helped bandage him.”

“I saw the dressings. I gave him his entrance interview, just as I’m giving you yours. That was a very professional job.”

“Thanks.”

“You did it?”

“I did part of it, yeah. I helped.”

“I would have said the stitches in his scalp had been made by a surgeon.”

“You took the bandages off, huh? Yeah, a doctor sewed him up.”

“You were working for the doctor?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Are you a nurse?”

“No.”

“Not necessarily a registered nurse. A practical nurse, perhaps.”

Candy snorted with laughter. “An impractical nurse. That’s me.”

“I wonder if you could tell me who the doctor was. Possibly I know him.”

“I’ve forgotten his name. He told me—or somebody did—but I forget. That’s a problem I have, a real bad problem.”

“I see.”

“Another problem is remembering. You’d think the two of them would get together and cancel out, wouldn’t you? But they don’t. I’m always remembering things I want to forget—you know, like what happened last night—and forgetting stuff I need to remember, like somebody owes me twenty.”

“Perhaps we should begin at the beginning, then. I suppose that’s what we ought to have done all along. What is your name?”

“Candy Garth. Listen, I didn’t really do anything so bad, did I? Just shook that girl up a little. When are you going to take these straps off me and let me go?”

“Candy is your legal name?”

“Catherine. Catherine M. Garth, all right? The M is for Margaret.”

“Do you know what day of the week this is?”

“You mean like is it Monday or Tuesday? I guess not. Usually I keep track, but sometimes I forget. See, I don’t have a regular job, and I don’t go to church, so it’s all about the same to me. The stores are open all the time anyway, and so are the bars.”

“Guess, please.”

“You mean just take a stab at it?”

“That’s right.”

“Wednesday. How’s that?”

“And what is the day of the month, please?”

“Well, this is January. I had one hell of a hangover after New Year’s, but that was back a couple of weeks ago anyway. I’d say about the fifteenth.”

“This is Friday the twenty-first, Candy. Where do you live?”

“You mean right now?”

“Yes.”

“I just don’t have what you call a fixed address right now. I’ve been staying with friends.”

“I want to be quite open with you, Candy. When you were admitted here, we went through your purse. We weren’t snooping, we—”

“Oh, God! The kid!”

“Yes?”

“I had a kid with me, Little Ozzie. Is he okay? My God, I forgot all about him.” Candy tried to sit up, the straps indenting her soft flesh, her round face red with the strain.

“Don’t worry about the little fellow. I saw him myself a few minutes ago, and he was just fine.”

“You’ve got him in here?”

“We’re trying to locate his father.”

Candy mumbled something, and Dr. Bob leaned forward. “What did you say?”

“Shut up. I’ve gotta think. Jim sent him to see that doc, but I can’t remember his name.”

“I’m sure it will come to you as we talk.”

“I don’t know where Jim will be either. What’s the time?”

Dr. Bob glanced as his watch. “A quarter to three.”

“Will you still be here at six?”

“I can be, if there’s a reason for it.”

“At six, phone the Consort. Ask for Madame Serpentina’s room. Ozzie ought to be there then. We were going to meet there.”

“Madame Serpentina is rather an odd name.”

“Really. She’s a pretty weird woman too, so I guess it fits her.”

“Is she an American?”

“Why not? Every geek who can get one foot on the beach is American now. She can speak English, if that’s what you mean. Half of them can’t. I don’t think she was born here.”

“You don’t like her, do you?”

“What the hell business of yours is that?” Candy hesitated. “I guess I do, a little. Sometimes. When are you going to take off these straps?”

“Tomorrow. I think I mentioned that.”

“I got to go to the john.”

“When I leave, I’ll send in a nurse and an attendant. Until then, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. Have I mentioned that we went through your purse? We did. You were carrying no identification whatsoever.”

“There were some of my calling cards in there.”

“You are John B. Sweet, Executive Vice President of Mickey’s Jawbreakers Incorporated?”

“Oh, him. Jesus, I’d forgotten about him. Don’t call him. No, I meant the candy bars. People call me Candy, see? So I always say those are my cards. I leave the wrappers behind, anyhow.”

“But you had no real identification.”

“I used to have one of those little cards that come with the wallet, but I lost it.”

“Can you drive a car, Candy?”

“Uh huh.”

“You didn’t have a driver’s license in your purse.”

“I got ripped off once. He took everything—my money, my license, all that crap. I never got another one. What for? I don’t have a car.”

“I had a friend in college who went to Italy. He stayed in a very nice hotel in Sorrento, and the bellboy there told him he could get him a girl. Do you know what I mean, Candy? For so many hundred lira or thousand lira or whatever it was.”

“I know what you mean, all right. I guess better than you do.”

“So my friend said okay, and the bellboy came back with a very beautiful Italian girl … .”

“And when he woke up next morning his wallet was gone.”

“Yes, it was. His passport too. How did you know?”

“How would anybody know? The woman needed some extra money, or she didn’t like the way it had gone the night before or something. What are you after, advice for next time? You shouldn’t have gone to sleep while she was still in the room. You shouldn’t have done it at all.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Really. I never knocked on anybody’s hotel room door late at night either. One of my friends told me about it. Anyway, ever since it happened, you think the john’s the only one that ever gets ripped off. Bullshit. There isn’t a damn thing a woman carries with her that I haven’t got stolen from me one time or another—my purse, my shoes, my clothes, you name it. I’ve been slapped around plenty. I’ve had enough guns and knives pointed at me to start a war.”

The door opened; a woman’s voice said, “A Dr. Makee to see you, Dr. Roberts.”

The room in which Barnes and Dr. Makee waited was much like the one in which Dr. Bob had talked to Candy, though it was not the same room. An examination table with restraining straps had been pushed to one side. There were several very light folding chairs. Barnes sat primly, knees together, hands clasped in lap, his sample case half hidden behind the chair. Dr. Makee almost sprawled, his old brown tweed overcoat cast off and gaping behind him, his old gray herringbone jacket open to show his tattersall shirt and black string tie.