George Chesbro - Bleeding in the Eye of a Brainstorm

"Rockefeller Center."

"Yeah. She parked at the curb of a street in the next block. Then she got up and came back through the bus, dividing up the capsules she'd brought with her in the plastic garbage bag. She told us she'd taken as many of the meds as she could find, and she hoped there were enough to get all of us through the next few weeks, at least until Christmas. She said each of us had a decision to make. She said she was afraid that the people who owned the hospital might send men after us to kill us, so we shouldn't help to identify ourselves by talking to anyone about Rivercliff. She said that if men were sent after us, the only way we could be safe was if we went to social workers or the police, told our story, and then asked them for their help and protection. But she also said there was no guarantee anyone would believe us, and she warned us that if we told the police or social workers about our meds, all of our meds might be taken away for testing, and we almost certainly wouldn't get them back in time to take the next day's dose. She said that if that happened, we'd get sick like we used to be, and might never be well again."

"Did she warn you that some or all of you might die if you didn't take your meds?"

"No. She just said we'd get crazy again. That was bad enough. So that's why each of us had to make a choice. She couldn't look after all of us-Emily was the only one she was taking with her. She said she was going to try to get more meds for us, but she wasn't sure she could do it. Any one of us could go to the police or social workers if we were willing to risk having our meds taken away. If any of us chose to take our chances living on the streets, then she would meet us by the Christmas tree next to the skating rink on Christmas Eve. She said she hoped she'd have a fresh supply of meds for us by then, and these would keep us going until she could come up with some kind of a plan for bringing us all in safely, maybe with a guarantee that we could keep taking our meds."

"You'd have had a better chance of being believed by the authorities if your psychiatrist had been with you. Why didn't she offer to go with you to the police?"

"I don't know. Maybe she needed time to come up with a plan. Maybe she was afraid they wouldn't believe her either, or that they'd still take away our meds."

And maybe arrest her, I thought. There had to be some very powerful people behind the operation at Rivercliff, and in the four hours or so it had taken Sharon Stephens to drive to the city they would almost certainly have found out what happened, and taken steps to protect themselves from exposure. They could have put out some kind of cover story to various agencies around the state, including key social welfare and medical authorities, and the police would have been waiting for this shepherdess and her lost flock. The capsules would have been confiscated, and then there wouldn't have been any need to send assassins; all of the patients would have died within forty-eight hours and Sharon Stephens would have been isolated. I wasn't willing to give this keeper at Rivercliff much credit for anything, including her rather belated acquiring of a moral sensibility and her heroics, but she obviously wasn't stupid, and she could think clearly under pressure.

I said, "She probably did the right thing."

"I know all of this sounds kind of weird, Mongo. Do you believe me?"

Nothing in the man's story sounded a bit weirder than what I'd already seen with my own eyes, and I said, "Yes, Michael, I believe you. And your Dr. Sharon knew what she was talking about. I believe people have come here to track you down and kill you, and I believe your meds would have been taken away if you'd gone to the authorities for help. To your knowledge, how many of the other patients made the same decision you did, to take your chances on the street and try to make it until Christmas Eve?"

"All of us did the same thing. It wasn't a hard choice to make, Mongo. Sometimes, even if you've been crazy for years, you can experience little snippets of memory, even if they only come in dreams, of what it was like to be able to think clearly, to be able to act normally and be with normal people, to not hear voices or screaming in your head all the time. Just those little pieces of memory can be so. . sweet. Then, to be able to function normally all of the time is like the most wonderful gift you've ever been given, and it's something you never take for granted. You never forget the torment of the craziness; to call it hell isn't an adequate description. It's worse than hell. All of us had maybe a month or more of sanity in our pockets, and it was worth being cold and hungry-and yes, maybe even dying-to keep that sanity for as long as was possible. To risk having our meds abruptly taken away from us was just. . unthinkable. I don't think you can understand."

I had a few vivid memories of my own, of the time when my brother's mind had gone over a very high cliff as a result of his being poisoned with "spy dust," a mysterious substance called nitrophenyldienal. I had suffered with him, in a very real way probably more than he did. I remembered him comatose, remembered how his consciousness had been warped when he'd recovered, his loss of "I," and his long, harrowing journey back to sanity. Garth had been changed forever, in many subtle but still distinct ways, but at least he could function again as a rational human being. I never again wanted to lose my brother to madness, didn't want to see anyone lost to madness. So I thought I could indeed understand what his meds meant to Michael Stout, but I didn't contradict him.

I asked, "Any sign of Raymond when you got off the bus?"

"No. Mongo, you're not going to tell anybody about me, are you?"

"No, Michael, I'm not going to tell anybody about you-at least not anybody who would do you harm. Where do you keep your supply of meds? Are the capsules back at Theo's place?"

"No. I never leave them anywhere, because I'm afraid somebody might steal them. I always carry them with me."

"Good. When Dr. Sharon dropped you all off at Rockefeller Center and told you to meet her on Christmas Eve, did she give any indication of just how she planned to get a fresh supply of your meds?"

"No."

"Did she or any of the other doctors ever mention who actually owned the hospital?"

"No."

"Did anyone ever tell you where the meds came from, or what company manufactured them?"

"No."

"When you split up, did Dr. Sharon give even a hint of where she and Emily might be going?"

"No. I've told you everything I know, Mongo. Can I go back now? Theo's really going to be angry at me for staying away so long. He'll call me a freeloader, say I'm costing him money."

"You can stop worrying about what Theo calls you, Michael," I said as I rose, picked up the fifty-dollar bill, and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. "Also, your career as a chess hustler is over, at least for the time being. You're not going back to Theo's place. You're coming to live with me for a while."

With two recovering schizophrenics in residence, the brownstone was beginning to resemble a halfway house. After introducing Michael to Francisco and Margaret Dutton, and leaving instructions for my bemused but sympathetic secretary to bring them anything they wanted, I ensconced myself in my private office on the ground floor and settled in for a good long, hard think. Although I hoped I had put up a cheerful, optimistic front for Francisco and my two guests, the fact of the matter was that I felt shaky, not only made sick to my stomach by what I had witnessed and heard but also not a little overwhelmed by the responsibility I had taken upon myself and the position I had put myself in. I needed time to center myself, and then figure out what I was going to do for my next trick. Of one thing I was certain, and that was the need for extreme caution.