Praying for Sleep

  Kohler once again--for the fourth time, by Heck's count--glanced at the Walther automatic. The doctor asked, "Led you off? What do you mean?"

  Heck explained about the false clue--dropping the clipping that contained the map of Boston.

  The doctor was frowning. "I saw Michael in the hospital library yesterday. Tearing clippings out of old newspapers. He'd been reading all morning. He was very absorbed in something."

  "That a fact?" Heck muttered, discouraged once again at Hrubek's brainy talents. He continued, "Then he pulled a trick I've only heard about. He pissed on a truck."

  "He what?"

  "Yep. Took a leak on a tire. Left his scent on it. The truck took off for Maine and the dogs followed it 'stead of going after his footsteps. Not many people'd know about that, let alone psychos."

  "That's not exactly," Kohler said coolly, "a word we use."

  "My apologies to him," Heck responded with a sour laugh. "Funny thing: I was just falling asleep--you know how this happens sometimes?--and I heard a truck horn. It just come to me--what he'd done. Emil's good but following airborne scent of a man hanging on to a tractor-trailer? Naw, that didn't seem right. For that many miles? I drove back to the truck stop and sure enough picked up his backtrack. That's a trick of the pros. Just like he hid that clipping in the grass. See, I wouldn't've believed it, it'd been lying out in the open. He's clever. He's fooled dogs before, I'll bet."

  "No. Impossible. He's never escaped from anything in his life. Not a calculated escape."

  Heck looked at Kohler to see if he could spot the lie. But the doctor seemed sincere, and Heck added, "That's not what I heard."

  "From who?"

  "From my old boss at the state police. Don Haversham. He's the one called me about the search. He said something 'bout seven hospitals your boy'd hightailed it outta."

  Kohler was laughing. "Sure. But ask Michael which ones. He'll tell you they were prison hospitals. And when he escaped he was on horseback, dodging musket balls. See what I mean?"

  Heck wasn't quite sure that he did. "Musket balls. Heh. We've gotta head through this brush here."

  They plunged down a steep dirt path into a valley below. Kohler was soon winded by the arduous trek. When they reached flat ground, he caught his breath and said, "Of course you don't know for certain that he isn't headed for Boston."

  "How's that?"

  "Well, if he was smart enough," the doctor pointed out, "to fool you into thinking he was going east, maybe now he's fooling you into thinking he's going west. Double bluff."

  Well. This was something Heck hadn't thought about. Sure, why couldn't Hrubek just do the same thing all over again and turn east? Maybe he did have Boston in mind. But he thought for a minute and then told Kohler the truth: "That might be but I can't search the whole of the Northeast. All I can do is follow my dog's nose."

  Though he was painfully aware that this particular nose presently had no notion of where his prey was.

  "Just something to think about," the doctor said.

  They followed the path through a valley beside an old quarry. Heck remembered in his youth, a solitary boy, he'd taken an interest in geology. He'd spent many hours pounding with a hammer in a quarry similar to this one, snitching honest quartz, mica and granite rocks for his collection. Tonight, he found himself staring at the tall cliffs, scarred and chopped--the way bone was gouged by a doctor's metal tools. He thought of the X-rays of his shattered leg, showing where the bullet cracked his femur. Why, he'd wondered at the time, as he wondered now, had the goddamn doctor shown him that artwork?

  The hound turned abruptly several times, paused then turned again.

  "Has he got the track?" Kohler asked, whispering.

  "Nope," Heck replied in a conversational voice. "We'll know when he does."

  They walked behind Emil as he snaked along the base of the tall yellow-white cliffs around pools of brackish water.

  They emerged from the rocky valley and climbed slowly. They found themselves once again back at the disabled MG. Heck was grimacing. "Hell, back to square one."

  "Why're you out here by yourself?" Kohler asked, breathing heavily.

  "Just am."

  "There's a reward for him."

  Heck looped the track line for a moment. Finally he said, "How'd you know that?"

  "I didn't. But it explains why you're out here by yourself."

  "And how 'bout you, Doc? If you spotted him, how come you didn't call out the Marines?"

  "He panics easily. I can get him back without anybody getting hurt. He knows me. He trusts me."

  Emil suddenly stiffened and turned to the forest, tensing. In an instant Heck drew and cocked his pistol. The underbrush shook.

  "No!" Kohler shouted, glancing at the gun. He started forward into the bush.

  But Heck gripped him by the arm and whispered, "I'd be quiet there, sir. Let's don't give our position away."

  There was silence for a moment. Then the muscular doe bounded in a gray-brown arc over a low hedge and vanished.

  Heck put the gun away. "You oughta be a little more careful. You're kinda trusting, you know what I mean?" He looked south along the road, where the gray asphalt disappeared into the hills. Emil'd shown no interest in that direction but Heck thought they ought to try it nonetheless. He started to hold the plastic bag containing Hrubek's shorts down to the dog once more. But Kohler stopped his arm.

  "How much?" the doctor asked.

  "How's that, sir?" Heck stood.

  "How much is the reward?"

  Emil was aware that a scent article was dangling over his head and he shivered. Heck closed the bag up again to keep the dog from growing too skittish. He said to the doctor, "That's sort of between me and the people paying it, sir."

  "Is that Adler?"

  Heck nodded slowly.

  "Well," Kohler continued, "he's a colleague. We work together."

  "If he's a buddy then how come you don't know 'bout it? The reward?"

  Kohler asked, "How much, Mr. Heck?"

  "Ten thousand."

  "I'll give you twelve."

  For a moment Heck watched Emil rock back and forth, eager to run. He said to Kohler, "You're joshing."

  "Oh, no. I'm quite serious."

  Heck snorted a laugh but his face grew hot as he realized that he was looking at a man who could actually write a check for twelve thousand dollars. And probably have some left over afterward. "Why?"

  "Thirteen."

  "I'm not bargaining with you. What do you want me to do for that kind of money?"

  "Go home. Forget about Michael Hrubek."

  Heck looked slowly around him. He noticed in the west, far away, a diffuse flash of lightning. It seemed to stretch for a hundred miles. He gazed at the huge expanse of countryside, the muddy horizon against the black sky. He found the view disturbing, for the very reason that this unexpected money was so appealing. How could he possibly find one man in that vast emptiness? Heck laughed to himself. Why did God always drop temptations in front of you when you wanted them the most?

  "What's in this for you?" Heck asked again, to stall.

  "I just don't want him hurt."

  "I'm not going to hurt him. Not necessarily."

  "You were about to use that gun."

  "Well, if I had to I would. But I'm not going to shoot anybody in the back. That's not my way. Wasn't when I was a trooper. Isn't now."

  "Michael isn't dangerous. He's not like a bank robber."

  "Doesn't matter if he's dangerous like a crazed moose protecting her calves or dangerous like a Mafia hit man. I'm looking out for me and my dog and if that means shooting the man's coming at me with a rock or tire iron so be it."

  Kohler gave a little smile that made Heck feel he'd somehow lost a point.

  "Look, he's set out traps for dogs. I don't give much quarter to a man like that."

  "He did what?" The smile vanished from Kohler's face.

  "Traps. Spring animal traps."

  "No. M
ichael wouldn't do that."

  "Well, you may say that but--"

  "Have you seen any?"

  "I know he took some. Haven't found any yet."

  The doctor didn't speak for a moment. Finally he said, "I think you're being used, Mr. Heck."

  "What do you mean by that?" He was ready to take offense but the psychiatrist's voice was suddenly soothing, the voice of someone on his side, trying to help.

  "Adler knows that a dog'll make a schizophrenic snap. Chasing someone like Michael is the worst thing in the world for him. A patient like that, cornered? He'll panic. He'll panic bad. You'll have to shoot him. Adler wants this whole thing wrapped up as smooth as possible. Fourteen thousand."

  Lord. Heck squeezed his eyes shut and opened them just in time to see another flash of lightning. At his feet Emil rocked on his paws and had just about had it with this human-conversation stuff.

  Take the money and go back home. Call up the bank, feed them a big check. Fourteen'd buy him another nine, ten months. Maybe in that time HQ'd find money to reinstate all the troopers let go in the last three years. Maybe one of the thirty-six security companies that had Heck's resume would find an opening.

  Maybe Jill'd come home with her knuckleball and tip money and her lacy nightgowns.

  Fourteen thousand dollars.

  Heck sighed. "Well, sir, I understand you're concerned about your patient and all, and I respect that. But there're other people to think about too. I wasn't a trooper for nothing. Emil and me have a chance to capture this fellow. And I'd say it's probably a better shot than you have--even with your talk about double bluffs and all. No offense."

  "But he isn't dangerous. That's what nobody understands. You chasing him, that's what makes him dangerous."

  Heck laughed. "Well, you psychiatrists have your own way of talking, I don't doubt. But those two fellows he almost killed tonight might disagree with you some."

  "Killed?" Kohler's eyes flickered, and the doctor seemed as badly shaken as when Heck had pressed the black barrel of the gun against his skin. "What're you talking about?"

  "Those orderlies."

  "What orderlies?"

  "He had the run-in with those two fellows near Stinson. I thought you knew about it. Just after he escaped."

  "You know their names?"

  "No, sure don't. They were from the hospital. Marsden. That's all I know."

  Stepping away from Heck, Kohler wandered to the car. He picked up the small skull. He rubbed it compulsively in his hands.

  "So," Heck continued, "I think I gotta turn down your offer."

  Kohler stared at the night sky for a moment then turned to Heck. "Just do me a favor. If you find him, don't threaten him. Don't chase him. And whatever you do, for God's sake, don't sic that dog on him."

  "I'm not looking at this," Heck said coolly, "like a fox hunt."

  Kohler handed him a card. "That's my service. You get close to him, call that number. They'll page me. I'd really appreciate it."

  "If I can, I will," Heck said. "That's the best I can say."

  Kohler nodded and looked around, orienting himself. "That's 236 down there?"

  "Yessir," Trenton Heck said, then leaned against the fender of the car and--with a slight laugh--watched the peculiar sight of this narrow man in a suit and tie, muddy as a ditchdigger, sporting a fine-looking overcoat and a backpack as he strolled down this deserted country road late on a stormy night.

  Dr. Ronald Adler's eyes coursed up and down the Marsden County map. "Made it all the way to the state border. Who'd've thought?" He added with neither elation nor interest, "The Massachusetts Highway Patrol should have him within an hour or so. I want a worst-case plan."

  "Are you talking about the reward?" Peter Grimes asked.

  "Reward?" the director snapped.

  "Uhm. What do you mean by worst-case?"

  Adler seemed to know exactly but didn't speak for a moment, perhaps out of some vestigial superstition that medical training had not wholly obliterated. "If he kills a trooper when they find him. Or kills anybody else for that matter. That's what I mean."

  "Okay, that's possible, I suppose," Grimes offered. "Unlikely."

  Adler turned his attention back to the E Ward supervisor's reports. "Is all this accurate?"

  "Absolutely. I'm sure."

  "Hrubek was in the Milieu Suite? Kohler was doing individual psychoanalysis with him? This delusion therapy he's always boring people with?"

  And publishing about in the best professional journals, Grimes reflected. He said, "So it appears."

  "NIMH guidelines. We all know them. The criteria for individual psychotherapy in schizophrenic patients are that they be young, intelligent, have a past history of achievement. And are more acute than chronic . . . Oh, and that they have some success in a sexual relationship. That's hardly Michael Hrubek."

  The assistant came a half breath away from saying, Not unless you call rape a successful relationship. He wondered if Adler would have fired him or laughed.

  "A history like his"--Adler riffled pages--"and still Kohler puts him in therapy. One way you could view it is that Kohler was more than negligent in this whole matter. Let's just take that tack for a minute, shall we? Is that door open? My door there. Close it, why don't you?"

  Grimes did, while Adler flipped through one doctor's assessment of Hrubek, in which was recorded the patient's plans to remove this therapist's internal organs with a single bare hand--a process that Hrubek described articulately and, all things considered, with an impressive knowledge of human anatomy.

  When Grimes dropped again into his chair, Adler had snapped closed the file and was gazing at the ceiling. His hand dipped into his crotch, where he adjusted something. He said, "You realize what Herr Dr. Kohler has done?"

  "He--"

  "Do you know the case of Burton Scott Webley? Burton Scott Webley the Third. Or Fourth. I don't recall. Do you know about him? Do they teach you such arcane things in . . . Where did you go to school?"

  "Columbia, sir. I'm not familiar with the case, no."

  "Co-lum-bi-a," Adler stretched the four syllables out with elastic disdain. "Webley the Third or Fourth. He was a patient in New York. I don't know. Creedmoor perhaps. Or Pilgrim State. Don't let's quibble. No, wait. It was private. Top doctors, like our friend, Sigmund Kohler. Cum laude sort of doctors. Co-lum-bi-a sort of doctors."

  "Got it."

  "You see, Kohler has this idea that our mental hospitals are chockablock with van Goghs. Poets and artists. Misunderstood geniuses, vision and madness locked together--the beast with two backs." When he noticed Grimes staring at him blankly, Adler continued, "Webley was a paranoid schizophrenic. Delusional. Monosymptomatic. Twenty-eight years of age. Sound familiar, Grimes? Delusions centered around his family. They were trying to get him, blah, blah, blah. Felt his father and aunt were having an incestuous relationship. Including bouts of televised sodomy. On network TV, if I'm not mistaken. He had a bad episode and threatened the aunt with a pitchfork. Well, he's involuntarily committed. Insulin-shock therapy is all in vogue and his doctors put him into a hundred seventy comas."

  "Jesus."

  "Then the ECS department third-rails him for six months after his blood sugar becomes an embarrassment. With that much amperage, well, he came out of it rather tattered, as you'd suspect."

  "This was when?"

  "Hardly matters. A little while after they unplugged him, he sees the senior psychiatrist, who does a new diagnostic. Webley is neat and clean and coherent. And very sharp. Astonishing indeed, considering the Smith-Kline cocktails he's on. He's polite, he's responsive, he's eager to undergo therapy. The doctor schedules the full battery of tests. Webley takes, and passes, all twenty-five of them. A miracle cure. He'll be written up in the APA Journal."

  "I can guess what's coming."

  "Oh, can you, Grimes?" Adler fixed him with an amused gaze. "Can you guess that after he was released, he took a taxi to his aunt's house then raped and dismembered her, looking
for the hidden microphone that'd recorded the evidence used to commit him? Can you guess that her fifteen-year-old daughter walked into the house as his little search was in progress and that he did the same to her? Any inkling that the only thing that saved the eight-year-old son was that Webley fell asleep amid the girl's viscera? You look sufficiently pale, Grimes.

  "But I have to tell you the end of the story. The shocking part: it was all calculated. Webley had an IQ of 146. After he took himself off his brain candy, he snuck into the library and memorized the correct answers to each of those twenty-five tests and, I submit, honed his delivery pretty fucking well."

  "You think Hrubek did the same thing to Kohler? What this Webley did?"

  "Yes! Of course that's what I mean! Kohler bought a bill of goods. Lock, stock and barrel. Callaghan's death, any other deaths tonight--they're ultimately Kohler's fault. His fault, Peter."

  "Sure. Of course."

  "Tell me, what do you think of him? Of Kohler?"

  "Pompous little shit."

  Adler was pleased to have someone second this sentiment though it reminded him how much he detested Grimes for being such a toady. "I think there's more to it. Why is he being so blind? Kohler's not stupid. Whatever else, he's not stupid. Why?"

  "I don't really--"

  "Peter, I'd like you to do something for me."

  "Look, sir--"

  "Some detective work." When the otherwise thin Adler dropped his head to look over the top of his glasses he developed an alarming double chin.

  Because it was very late in the evening and he was tired of treading lightly through hospital politics, Peter Grimes chose not to be coy. "I don't think I'd like to do that."

  " 'Like to do that'?" Adler snapped. "Don't give me any of your bluster. I want to see fear in your face, young man. You're not union. If I wanted your fucking balls, I'd have them in an instant and a hell of a lot easier than I could castrate those orderlies. Don't you forget that. Now are you listening? Some detective work. Write it down if you can't remember it. Are you ready?" he inquired sarcastically, forgetting for the moment that he was speaking not to an incompetent secretary but to a doctor of medicine.

  As man and dog returned to the sports car, Heck grew convinced that Hrubek had hitched a ride or snuck into the back of a repair vehicle that had answered the distress call.

  Hiding in trucks for real this time, is he? Heck wondered. He leaned against the car and shivered slightly as a breeze came up.