Michael Christie - The Beggar's Garden

But this time something about the video was different: the sunlight had a greenish tinge and the train moved with a snarling lurch. Then Saul observed a man on the train, sitting alone, five cars back from Tina, in dark sunglasses and a hat like a reporter from the fifties. As Tina stepped from the train and the social worker said, “How was it, Tina?” and Tina said, “I’ve been riding the train, one … two … three … four … five! Five times!” counting the rides on her fingers for the camera, while real-time Tina counted on the same fingers as she leaned into the screen, the man dismounted the train and left the camera’s view, moving with the very same waddling gait Saul had noted in Luis.

How had he failed to see this before? No wonder Luis was familiar — he’d been watching Saul for years, perhaps through this screen somehow, gathering information, biding his time, and now Saul possessed proof that even Martin Shenck couldn’t deny.

The video concluded and Saul punched Rewind. This was how Columbo did it, his obsession with the case’s even-most-insignificant details always paid off in the end.

“You like watching my movie too, don’t you, Saul?” Tina said.

“Shhhh, I think he can see us now,” Saul said, just as Jacob stalked into the room.

Jacob couldn’t have been more than twenty, huge and meaty, ruddy like a farmboy. Saul felt himself squint from his cologne.

“Time’s up,” Jacob said. “I’m checking the weather channel,” which was on 68 and the news was on 3, so Jacob started clicking the channel button with a frantic, masturbatory intensity. Every second Wednesday, Jacob’s father picked him up and took him on an outing, which involved Jacob pressuring his father into a trip to the mall to buy CDs. He was one of the only family who came and visited any patient regularly.

Tina yelped. “We were, we were watching me! In my movie!”

“I’m sure the mall will be good, weather-wise,” Saul said.

“Yo eat a fat dick, Saul.”

“Jacob,” Roberta said from the door, and Jacob stood, shrugging, ready to receive what passed for a reprimand on the ward. “Your father is here.”

“Dope!” Jacob said, as a short, silver-haired man came in, a mesh cap wadded in his hands. His neck hung meekly, his shoulders hunched toward his large ears.

“Hello, Jacob,” he said, timidly, and Saul realized he could see into the father’s mind. Jacob was an explosive device that could be triggered by ill-chosen words. Saul’s own parents were both elementary teachers, and for the first few years they’d come twice a month with second-hand paperback books, mostly spy thrillers and detective stories. Saul had a younger brother, Isaac, who his parents said had died logging up north. Over the years, their visits dwindled, and now all he got was a Christmas card with their three names, including his brother’s, all signed in his mother’s shaky hand.

“Hello, Doctor Jacob’s Father,” Tina said. Tina had been there so long — the only one longer than Saul — she addressed anyone from the outside as Doctor.

“Dad, here’s what we’re gonna do,” Jacob said, rising to approach his father. “Since it’s my birthday we can go get cappuccinos at the mall, then like sit and talk about feelings and shit, like how I’m doing mentally etcetera.”

“Jacob, have you forgotten?” his father said sheepishly. “Your birthday isn’t for four months.”

“So?” Jacob said, lifting his monstrous white T-shirt to scratch at his back. His trousers were slung below his rear end, vibrantly printed boxer shorts pouting over his belt, skewing his body’s proportions toward those of a toddler.

“Mr. Drubinski, I’m not sure you are aware,” the nurse softly interjected. “We offer only decaffeinated coffee here on the ward, and I would say providing caffeine off the ward would be an unhealthy practice.” She cupped her mouth, “Much more difficult to deal with when they get back.”

“You stay out of this,” Jacob sneered at her, and he placed a large hand on the shoulder of his father’s coat. “Let’s do this, Dad.”

“Well,” Mr. Drubinski fumbled, reinvesting his weight in his other leg, “I suppose we should do what the nurse says, Jake—”

“What the fuck, Dad?” his son bellowed. “What happened to my birthday being mine? Do you know all day I’m stuck in this bugged-out place with all these kooks?” he said, gesturing to Saul and Tina on the couch. Saul squinted and gave his best closed-mouthed smirk, just like Columbo. The nurse’s hand drifted to the object dangling from her belt like a little plastic bat. Jacob saw this too. “So what are you going to do? Push your button? This place is so fucked! We have to go now if we ‘re gonna get back in time for bingo!” Saul saw lithe waves of rage scribble across Jacob’s face and told everyone to be quiet. But they did not react. Then he recognized that he hadn’t said anything — he’d just thought it with an intensity that approached speech. At this he chuckled into his collar.

“Today probably isn’t the best day, Jake,” Mr. Drubinski said, examining his shoes. “Like you said, bingo is tonight—” and at this Jacob palmed the face of his father and drove it through the doorway, sending him limply screeching over the sheen of the hallway linoleum like a floor polisher.

“I want a real coffee,” Jacob said, squeezing in between Saul and Tina, to the gentle clicking of the nurse working away at her button. Jacob’s shoulder was balmy and Saul felt him breathing in quickly and out slowly. Within seconds, the Assassin appeared at the door. He was winded and seemed dazed, less menacing. Saul wondered if he’d seen it all happen through the television.

The Assassin asked Roberta if she was all right and she began briefing him on the situation. More staff came. They encircled the couch.

“Jacob, we’re going to need you to go to the Quiet Room for a while so you can gather yourself,” said a large male nurse from another ward whose name was Pierre.

“I’m calm. What’s on TV, Tina? Let’s put your movie back on,” Jacob said, crossing his arms, plunging his hands in his armpits.

Pierre asked Tina and Saul to go to their rooms. Saul passed the Assassin on the way out. “Shouldn’t you be riding a miniature train somewhere, you wretched bastard?” Saul said, and noted a quiver of recognition in Luis’s cheek, deep beneath the scar. A tense second passed before the Assassin collected himself and thanked Saul for cooperating.

In the hallway, Jacob’s father clutched the arm of a nurse, who led him to the elevator as sounds of a scuffle issued from the TV Room. Then into the hall came a large, white, wriggling caterpillar with Jacob’s reddened face poking from one end. They dragged him like this toward the open Quiet Room door. The intercom said the TV Room was closed for the day. Saul would have to wait to get Tina’s tape so he could mail it to Martin Shenck.

The incident left the ward in unsteady stillness, and the patients retreated to their rooms to escape it. Saul could hear Jacob’s bellowings all the way from the Quiet Room, the sound drawing strength from the dead air and landing furious in his head like crows shut in a closet. To drown it he pressed his face into his pillow and opened his eyes to a great void humming beneath him.

Some time later he glanced at his clock and saw that it was still two hours to dinner. He decided to use up his last pass for the week. He scrawled Saul Columbo in the sign-out book and rode the elevator down.

After his trial, when he was first admitted, Saul had attempted a handful of escapes — curiously, the doors to the outside were the only ones that weren’t locked — but soon stopped trying, because the police picked him up each time within a few hours. “How did you find me?” he’d asked. They only shrugged. Their lack of enthusiasm was dispiriting. Upon his return, the staff made him apologize and agree what a mistake it’d been to leave. This seemed to Saul now the most hateful form of captivity.