Transorbital Read online

  “Well good for you,” I said sipping heartily at my drink, enjoying the fine vintage Chris’s salary afforded him. “You’re one of the few.”

  “Even using an experimental treatment, it is imperative to exercise the utmost care and caution. I’ve said that since day one.”

  “So you always sterilized your hands and instruments before surgery?” I asked.

  “What?!” he spat, nearly choking, “Of COURSE I did! What sort of a crazy question is that?! What kind of doctor doesn’t sterilize before surgery?”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said with a shrug. “You would be surprised.”

  “I just keep thinking about Egas Moniz,” he said, pouring himself another drink. “It may be nothing, but he’s been on my mind a lot recently.”

  “Because one of his own patients attacked him?”

  “Mostly.”

  “You think it’s a patient?”

  “I’m just thinking out loud.”

  “Pretty unlikely,” I said, trying to plot the right time to excuse myself for a moment. I never officially announced my Thorazine habit to Chris, but I didn’t exactly work too hard to keep it from him either. The need wasn’t urgent just yet, so I decided to play it cool for the time being. It’s all about pacing. And to be sure, my conversational skills were bound to take a nosedive once I got it in the vein.

  “If what you think is actually going down is,” I said, “there is no way even the most high-functioning lobotomy patient would be able to pull this off in secret, for this amount of time, over such a large stretch of geography. It’s kind of the nature of the operation that this sort of thing can’t happen. You know?”

  “True enough,” he said, “but there is the Mary Watson situation to consider.”

  Dr. Marshall Tannen of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was one of the seventeen. On June 3, 1964 he was found dead in his car, stabbed repeatedly in his chest with what forensic specialists claimed was likely a serrated hunting knife. His wallet and wedding band were taken, as was a very expensive leather briefcase. Not long after news of the crime hit the papers a former patient of his, Mary Watson, came forth and confessed to the murder. After she confessed, her nephew and his wife who Mary lived with at the time claimed that, at the estimated time of the killing Mary was in their dining room, seventy miles away, working on a puzzle. Their story was backed up not only by their children, but several neighbors who were visiting at the time.

  “Mary Watson proves my point exactly,” I said. “When she was asked what she used to kill Dr. Tannen with, the old girl brought out a pair of plastic salad tongs.”

  “Right,” Chris said, “Of course. But what I’m saying is; a patient, under the suggestion of a trusted, charismatic—”

  “Come on, Doc,” I said, I said with a sigh. I knew where he was going with this.

  “Let’s say someone, someone the patient trusted, someone who could easily influence them—”

  “Someone like Dr. Freeman maybe? That’s what you’re getting at. Why would he do that? What could his motivation possibly be for having his former students killed?”

  “What is Freeman’s motivation for anything he does?”

  “To heal,” I said. “That’s his motivation.” I wanted to believe that. It sounded as far from convincing as it felt.

  “The transorbital lobotomy has lost its respectability over the last few years,” said Chris. “And so has he. Maybe he blames them for souring his shiny apple.” I thought it interesting that he said them instead of us. “I don’t know. Like I said, I’m just thinking out loud here. But it is suspicious how physically nearby he has been when so many of the deaths occurred. And…let’s be honest, he’s not long for this world. His health is deteriorating rapidly. If there were any chance left to polish up his tarnished legacy, it would have to happen now. Having a patient clear out the clutter would keep his own hands clean.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “That’s all bullshit.”

  “Probably,” he said with a shrug. “But we need to know. We need to speak with patients. That’s what I think.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a colder chuckle than I had intended. “THAT’ll sure be productive, all right.”

  “With your help, I’d like to meet with a few of Doctor Freeman’s old charges. Just to see.”

  “To see what exactly? What do you hope they’re going to tell us?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out. I’ve attempted to contact a number of Freeman’s former patients on my own,” he said, “and they are reticent to speak with me…those of them who are even capable of doing so.”

  I hated hearing that. I had deluded myself into thinking that the bulk of our former cases had gone on to lead moderately successful lives. Deep in the darker parts of my mind I suspected that it was a false notion, but I tried to convince myself all the same.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” Chris continued, “but there is something of a cultish air that continues to hang about Walter Freeman’s reputation. His former patients appear very distrustful of doctors…except for The Man himself. And that makes me all the more suspicious. And it should do the same to you, quite frankly.”

  “He’s got a certain thing about him,” I said.

  “But you’re the inside man. They’ll trust you, maybe. Or at least agree to a talk with you.”

  “So you want me to take a stab at it.”

  “I wouldn’t have phrased it that way,” he replied. “But yes. If you could.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “I’ll make a few phone calls. No promises, but what could it hurt.”

  We sat for a moment as the wind rustled in the leaves. Just beyond where his yard met the tree line I thought I saw movement in the brush. Looked almost like the shape of a person. But as soon as it came it was gone. I shrugged it off as a trick of the eyes, and a bit of buzz from the booze. Chris must have seen it too, however. He squinted his eyes as he peered out into the dark thatch of trees.

  “Something?” he asked.

  “Not sure,” I answered. Whatever it was, it disappeared, and we didn’t see it again.

  “I’ve noticed,” he said switching gears, “that a lot of your fellow orderlies at Riverside call you ‘kid,’ even though many of them are considerably younger than you are.”

  “Yeah, that actually came from a former patient of Walter’s. Of ours. Doc Freeman always called me ‘lad,’ and the patient heard it, misremembered it as ‘kid.’ Like a dummy I mentioned it in conversation one time and it stuck. Lucky me.”

  “Who was the patient?”

  The question took me out of myself for a moment. Yes, who was the patient? It had been so long since I had given it any thought that when the memory came back to me, it struck with a hard jolt.

  “Salvador Reed,” I said, more to myself than to Chris. “Yeah…yeah. Salvador Reed. Jesus Christ…You may have heard the name. He made the papers way back when. Before me and Doc got a hold of him.”

  “Sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “Raging psychotic. Good god-a-mighty. I’ve seen the batshit and the berserk in my time, believe me. But nothing like that guy. Tormented by violent hallucinations and paranoia. Said he could hear his dead relatives fucking and eating each other in Hell, and that government assassins had infiltrated the Vatican. Or maybe it was the other way around.”

  “It is interesting how many seriously disturbed patients I see who are Catholic. Or had been at one time.”

  “Well,” I said, “with Salvador it was quite a bit more severe than being slapped around by a couple of warty old nuns. And his psychosis wasn’t really the Church’s fault…at least at first.”

  “The parents,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Isn’t it always?”

  “No. Not always.”

  “No doubt about it,” I said, “that guy was destined to meet his end on death row for sure.”

  “Did he ever kill anyo
ne?” Chris asked. I half-expected him to pull out a little spiral notebook and start jotting down some second-hand profile of Salvador Reed on the fly. It’s actually rather surprising that he did not.

  “It would only have been a matter of time,” I answered. “Killed and mutilated several dogs, though. He did do that. Including a full-grown bull mastiff, which he ripped apart with his teeth and bare hands.”

  “It so often starts with animals,” he said nodding, a bit of a twinkle in his eye.

  “From the age of two his father had raped him and burned him with cigars,” I continued. “Scorched him with boiling water, tossed him out a first-floor window when he was still in diapers.”

  “No mother?”

  “Oh sure. He had a mother all right. And when he told her about what his father had done to him, she threw him down a flight of stairs. Both ma and pa were shot to death right in front of little Sal at age six by his mother’s jealous lover. Story was, Salvador Reed had to be picked up and removed from their funeral because he started laughing. And he wouldn’t stop. Just howling with laughter at the sight of their dead bodies. Imagine that, some little shaver at his folks’ funeral just cackling like a mad thing.”

  “I can imagine it.”

  “He ended up in some Catholic orphanage where they beat him and locked him in his room for screaming out blasphemies in his sleep.”

  “You were raised in a Catholic orphanage too,” Chris said, “were you not?”

  “Yeah…” I answered, a bit put off by the question. “I was. What of it?”

  “Just asking. Tell me more about Reed.”

  “He had to be isolated permanently as an adolescent for attempting to molest younger boys.”

  “Classic reflexive behavior for that type,” Chris said. I sensed that he enjoyed the process of psychological profiling, regardless of the circumstances or content. I suppose that is why someone would go into this line of work after all.

  I shuddered a bit, remembering Salvador Reed for the first time in over a decade. I suppose I had buried the memory under some old laundry in the back of my head. But there it was, there he was, and there was no shaking the image now. The wild, bloodshot eyes, the gnashing of gray, broken teeth, that hoarse bellowing…day and night…to only hear him from a distance you would have thought him a rabid animal instead of a human being.

  “He surely was a monster, I’ll tell ya that much,” I said. “A made monster. Man alive was Walter proud of him.”

  “Proud of him?”

  “Salvador was one of the first prefrontal lobotomies I ever assisted on. And he’s what made me a true believer.”

  “Why is that?”

  “First time I saw that guy I thought, Goddamn, somebody just kill this fucking beast and put it out of its misery. The only cure here’s a shotgun blast to the face. I’ve never quaked in my boots harder, and that’s no jive. ‘You sure these leather restraints are gonna hold him?’ I kept asking. ‘We’re sure about that, right, Doc?’ Walter just smiled. Never nervous. Always confident. He loved the challenge.”

  “Sure.”

  “So we shocked him under, Walter began the old pop n’ scramble, and a half an hour later, Salvador Reed awoke…a brand-new man. Just as calm, kind, and soft-spoken a gentleman as you’d ever like to meet.”

  “Any cognitive awareness?”

  “Completely. Deeply remorseful of past offenses, fully self-aware, determined to start over fresh. He was truly and completely…healed.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “As I live and breathe…to the extent that I do either.” I chuckled a bit at the memory. “First thing he said when he came to,” I said, “you’re gonna love this…very first words out of his mouth…I forgive them.”

  “I forgive them,” Chris repeated. He did not chuckle along with me. I could tell he was mentally jotting down notes.

  “If I’m lying I’m dying,” I said. “I forgive them. He forgave his parents. First words. He forgave them for what they had done to him. I was flabbergasted. I think even Walter was surprised by the success, although he never let on. I know he would have loved to drag old Sal out on the road with us as a living model for the wonders of the transorbital lobotomy, like he had done to some of the others. But it wasn’t to be.”

  “Whatever happened to him?”

  “Reed’s older, previously estranged half-sister appeared from out of nowhere and swept him off to a quiet little hideaway in Ashburn, Virginia. And that’s the long and the short of it. I’d never seen such a strong case for the lobotomy…Haven’t seen one since either.”

  “So no ill effects whatever?”

  “He could never read or write again, but that was it as far as I know.”

  “Ashburn, you say?” Chris said, tapping his pointed chin with his index finger. “What’s that, an eight-hour drive from here?”

  “Give or take.”

  “I’d love to meet him.”

  “He won’t talk to you, Doc,” I said, polishing off my drink. “Trust me. I doubt he’d talk to me, even though I tried to keep up with him for a while. Don’t get me wrong, he’d be friendly and courteous, and maybe whittle you something out of an old log. But that’d be the end of the line. Salvador Reed doesn’t make new friends. He doesn’t even own a telephone.”

  I pondered for a moment the idea of old Sal as a suspect. It seemed impossible on so many fronts. In his wild, pre-lobotomy state he was hardly one to sneak around and cover up his violence. And the man he was as I saw him last…just didn’t seem the type.

  “It’s like I’m saying, Chris,” I said, “I’ll make the calls and see who’ll chat with us. But I don’t know that there’s anything to find out there.”

  “We have to try,” he said, compulsively crunching his ice cubes. “Another doctor turns up dead and…I don’t know…I will feel personally responsible.”

  “There’s only so much we can do. You know that as well as I do.”

  “And how would you feel,” he said, “if that next victim is Dr. Freeman himself?”

  “I…yeah.” A horrible chill shot through me. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone hurting Dr. Freeman, even as I considered everyone he had hurt. “We’ll do what we can. If there is something out there, we’ll find it.”

  “Or it’ll find us,” he said.

  “Yeah. Or that.”

  I stared out into the brush again, eyes peeled for whatever may be out there.

  Nothing. It’s nothing.

  Chapter 15

  Driving down Route 65 toward the Western Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, I was nearly blown out of my seat for the déjà vu. Time was, this had been a real swanky establishment. Just outside of Pittsburgh, it had all the amenities: Lush, green gardens, croquet courts, a baseball diamond, the works. Seeing old pictures of the grounds, you would have thought it more a country club than a bughouse.

  By the time I ended up working the floors there, however, there was no mistaking that it was a just trash dump for the shunned and the unwanted. Patients wandered the halls unattended, moaning, screaming, soiling themselves, banging their heads against the walls. You wouldn’t believe the smell. I was shocked by the conditions at first, and did what I could to help. But it wasn’t much. Occasionally I got the feeling that I was the only one working there who cared at all.

  And then, thankfully, I stopped caring.

  The hopelessness of it all was oddly liberating. I used to get drunk down in the old in-house morgue, and no one ever noticed. I likely could have stopped showing up for work and still collected a paycheck without much attention on me for a quite a good while.

  In fact, that is precisely what I did.

  When Chris and I arrived I was pleased to see that they were trying to make improvements, but there is only so much that can be done at the end of the day. I predicted they would be shutting the doors before long. Chris concurred.

  “It’s a good thing we made
it here before that happens,” he said.

  They practically shut the doors on us, to tell the honest truth. It was made clear that we were not welcome (or, rather, I wasn’t), and we were more or less shown the exit the moment we set foot on the weedy, unkempt grounds. No matter. The last of Doc Freeman’s patients who had been permanent residents there had died by then anyway, so the trip was nearly a whole lotta nothing for nothing.

  However, we managed to get our hands on a couple of old records that gave us the names of three women all living together in a communal row house in Wheeling, West Virginia. Two sisters and a second cousin. All former patients of Dr. Walter Freeman. All moderately well-functioning. And so, away we went.

  Traveling with Dr. Chris Williams definitely had its perks. Nice hotels, sizable suites, it was a different side of life from what I was accustomed, no doubt about that. Back in the Freeman days it was taken as a given that Walter and I would do our own separate things when we weren’t working, and I think we both liked it that way just fine.

  But, either Chris just really enjoyed my company, or he simply felt no compunction to take in the local color out on the road. We were always together, and nearly always discussing the task at hand. And nothing but. Just as well. But for shoptalk, I doubt he and I would have had much in common anyhow.

  Different from Doc Freeman as well, Chris hated traveling. For the short bursts we were out, I could tell he wanted to get back to Poughkeepsie as soon as possible. Not a problem. Different strokes and all of that. We had planned it out that, when he needed to take the train back to New York so as not to fall too far behind in his duties, I would continue on without him, expenses paid. (How he convinced Riverside to allow me to do this I never found out. And, of course, I couldn’t give less of a shit.) We would then reconvene, powwow on progress (if any), and repeat.

  Fancy digs and an open bar tab…hell. A fella could get used to this detective business.

  “Would you fellows like to join us for brunch?”

  “Yes, could you stay?”