Delirious (28 page)

“Well, it’s simple. I am Rudy Gomes. And trust me when I tell you that I’m not missing. And with all the hot, young tail prancing around this place, half dressed, I’m not missing anything at all.”

C
harlie and Rachel were seated in one of three private therapy rooms accessible off the main floor. The shades were drawn. It was midafternoon, and a few slivers of light were all that illuminated the cramped quarters. Charlie kept his eyes closed as instructed. Rachel spoke in a low, soothing tone. She was going through a series of relaxation exercises.

“I want you to feel your hands, Charlie. Clench them tightly into balls. Tense the muscles, don’t let go, hold it … hold it … now relax,” she said. She had done the same for his toes, ankles, calves, thighs, hips, and torso and was now working the arms and hands. “Are you relaxing your hands?” she asked. Her voice, barely a whisper, was remarkably calming. The tension escaped from his body, as she had promised it would.

“Yes.” He could barely manage even that much of a response as the process continued to work.

“Good. Let’s work your neck and your shoulders.”

Rachel continued feeding Charlie verbal commands, all part of a prehypnosis routine designed to get him to relax and open his mind to the power of suggestion. Fifteen minutes into the relaxation portion of the session, Charlie could feel his mind wandering freely, his thoughts drifting peacefully away to restful places, which had been more than a bit elusive of late.

“I want you to imagine that you are standing at a door,” Rachel said. “The door is large. It is a red door, Charlie. Can you see it?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good. Now I want you to go to the door and try to open it. It should open easily. Can you open it, Charlie?”

In his mind Charlie did as instructed. Picturing the large red door, Charlie added to it a steel handle, which he gripped and pulled, opening it with the ease Rachel had promised.

“Directly in front of you is a staircase. It’s dark, but there are some candles that will help you to see each stair. I want you to start climbing the staircase. As you start to climb, you will relax more and more. All your worries and concerns will begin to fade to the back of your mind as you get higher and higher,” Rachel said.

With each step, Charlie felt himself relaxing. The idea of hypnosis was not his. Joe had suggested it, and Rachel had volunteered for the job. She had learned the technique as part of her progressive neu-ropsychological program at Harvard. Joe had used it on several occasions and found its insights remarkable. After Randal’s revelation about Gomes’s apparent well-being, Charlie felt open to suggestions he’d have discounted before.

Rachel had explained that it might help Charlie unlock potentially damaging thoughts that could be contributing to his delusions. She used the analogy of uncorking a bottle of wine. To get to the sweetness of self-awareness, you first had to remove all blockages. The contradiction between seeing Gomes’s dead body and hearing his voice playing through Randal’s tape recorder had left Charlie in such a vulnerable state that he would have considered a seaweed wrap if someone had thought it could help.

Rachel had him ascending a staircase that seemed to have no end. He climbed and climbed and climbed until the softness of her voice receded further into his relaxed consciousness. He emerged from the darkness of the stairwell and was standing on a platform, atop an enormously tall tower. Rachel told him that tied to his hands were two balloons, both the same color red as the door. As the balloons lifted higher, so did his hands. His eyes closed, Charlie imagined his hands rising, dragged upward by the gentle pull of the balloons. He was in an early stage of deep hypnosis and was not aware that his hands were in fact playing out the scene in his mind, rising off his lap and eventually over his head.

The balloons continued to pull Charlie skyward, carrying him
high above the Boston skyline. He flew over his apartment in Beacon Hill, raced along the Charles River, drifting out toward the suburbs.

“Where are you now, Charlie?” Rachel asked.

“I’m … I’m somewhere outside Boston. I can see my mother’s house.”

“Good. Now, Charlie, I want you to pay close attention to me. I want you to have the balloons take you somewhere. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes. I think so,” Charlie said, his voice even and trancelike. “Where?”

“I want you to go to a place that you don’t want to go. They can take you any place that you decide. But it must be someplace you don’t want to see.”

“But where is that?” Charlie asked, his voice weakening with a presleep torpor.

“Your mind is open now, Charlie. Let it stay open. Let yourself feel how good it feels to be free, to have your thoughts unencumbered by fear.”

“Yes. But where am I going?” Charlie asked.

“Ask the balloons to bring you someplace where you don’t feel this good. Ask them to carry you to someplace else. Can you do that?”

At that instant a gust of wind caught the balloons and Charlie felt himself jerk forward. Rachel actually had to lean forward herself to steady him in his chair, else he might have fallen onto the floor. Within an instant, as if he’d been teleported, Charlie found himself floating high above Rudy Gomes’s house.

“Where are you, Charlie?”

“I’m at Rudy’s house.”

“Good. How does it feel?”

Charlie could see the ground fast approaching. “I’m falling,” he said, still in a whisper.

“That’s okay, Charlie. Trust everything. You will be fine. Don’t have any fear. I want you to leave that place now. Remember the door and the staircase. It took you up high. I want you to forget about Rudy Gomes and his house. It does not exist anymore.”

“Yes. The house is gone. There is just a hole in the ground now,” Charlie mumbled.

“Good. Are you floating higher?”

“I am. I’m floating higher.”

“Great. That’s great, Charlie. You’re doing so well. Now, I want you to do the same thing again. I want you to go someplace else. The same rules apply. It has to be someplace where you don’t feel good. Again, it can be any place at all.”

The line between reality and something akin to a living dream had blurred beyond distinction. With Rachel’s voice serving as a quiet guide in the background, a gust of wind erupted from the east and pushed Charlie at near sonic speed toward the Pacific coast.

“Do you know where you are, Charlie?” Rachel asked.

Charlie’s answer was barely audible. “Yes.”

“How does this place make you feel?”

“I don’t like it here anymore.”

“But you once did?” Rachel asked.

“Yes. I once did.”

“Tell me, Charlie, are you looking down at SoluCent? That’s the place you once worked.”

“No.”

Charlie was in a deep hypnotic state and couldn’t see Rachel’s expression change to one that was both troubled and curious.

“But you say you recognize this place. Can you describe it to me?”

“I don’t have to,” Charlie said.

“Why is that, Charlie? Is it because you can’t describe it?”

“No. It’s because you know what it is.”

“And what is it, Charlie?”

“I’m back in San Francisco. I’m floating over the Golden Gate Bridge. And I don’t like it here anymore.”

J
oe Giles walked in erratic circles, looking both at Rachel and Charlie as they discussed the session. “That’s the weirdest thing ever. I can’t believe it. You were floating?”

“Yes, Joe,” Charlie said. “I was floating. But it wasn’t real. It was simply another state of consciousness.”

“I know what hypnosis is, you jerk. I’m not stupid,” said Joe. “What’s getting me is that you actually went under!”

“What are you talking about?” Charlie said. “You’re the one who suggested hypnosis in the first place.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it. Let alone have an experience.”

“It wasn’t an experience, you jackass. It was a—”

“Different state of consciousness. I know. I know. But still. My brother was hypnotized.” Joe rubbed at his temples as though he were embedding the visual in his mind.

“Boys, are you done?” Rachel asked.

“What?” Joe said defensively. “Didn’t you grow up with brothers?”

“As a matter of fact, no,” she said. “But I did grow up with harried parents, both of whom worked and taught me that time was not to be wasted. And I believe we are dangerously close to breaking that cardinal rule.”

Charlie and Joe took their seats and looked at Rachel, who offered only a small conciliatory smile.

“Good,” she said. “Now that we’ve settled that, let’s get back to the task at hand. Before the session we agreed that Joe should be
present for the analysis. He has the most history with you, and we thought he might be able to help explain some of your experiences while hypnotized.”

Rachel glanced over at Joe, who nodded. “Glad I can be of service,” he said.

“But it’s not necessary,” Charlie said. “Although I have no problem if Joe stays for this, I can tell you exactly why I was over the Golden Gate Bridge.”

Rachel leaned forward. “And the reason is?”

“I can answer that for him,” Joe said. “I never took Charlie for such an emotional person. I mean, to carry this around with him for all these years.”

“Carry what?” Rachel asked.

“I mean, is it really possible a bad experience can manifest as psychosis years after the incident?” said Joe.

“Anything is possible where the mind is concerned,” Rachel said. “But what happened in San Francisco?”

“Eddie Prescott killed himself,” Joe said before Charlie had a chance to answer.

“And who is Eddie Prescott?” asked Rachel.

“Eddie is … was … my business partner,” Charlie began. “We met at MIT. We had the same economics professor and the same dislike for economics. We started cutting class and talking. I learned more in those meetings with Eddie than I think I did all year. He was brilliant. An intellect beyond anyone I’d ever known. He was a mechanical wizard and an idea man. Best of all, for someone as genius as Eddie Prescott was, he had the follow-through. Eddie had more drive than anyone I’ve ever known. Even me.”

“Then what happened?” Rachel asked.

“There was a technology gold rush happening out West, and after MIT we moved and started our company. Eddie’s prototypes led to our first big breakthrough and patent. We didn’t know that we would end up in the consumer electronics business. But we did know that we were on to something big.”

“It got bigger than anyone thought,” Joe said. “I still have your
Forbes
interview in my room. Did you know that?”

Charlie blushed at his brother’s unfiltered admiration. As distant and unavailable as he had been, it still surprised him that his brother held no grudge.

“And you said Eddie killed himself. Why?” Rachel asked.

“Because I found out that he was stealing money from the company and using it to gamble. It was as simple as that,” Charlie explained. “Then he sold some company secrets to a competitor for cash. I fired him and blacklisted Eddie from any big-name tech player in the valley. The only job that Eddie could have gotten within a twenty-mile radius of where he lived was at the mall. Not to mention the stock options Eddie lost out on because he violated the terms of his contract.”

“But it was his company. How could you push him out?” Rachel said.

“Because Eddie might have been the brains behind our operation, but I had the smarts. My lawyer was better than his lawyer. And Eddie didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. The contract ensured that.”

“So what happened after you fired him?” Rachel asked.

Joe couldn’t stay quiet for long. “That’s the best part. Or the worst,” he said. “Depending on whose family you belong to.”

“Oh? And how’s that?” Rachel asked.

“SoluCent came a-knocking a few months after Eddie got fired,” Joe said.

“It was a major payout for the stakeholders. Without any stock in the company, the deal was worthless for Eddie,” Charlie added.

“And what did Eddie do?” Rachel replied.

“He threatened me. A bunch. He even broke into my apartment with a gun,” Charlie said.

“To kill you?” Rachel asked.

Charlie nodded. “Presumably. But he just stood in the living room, pointing the gun at me and shaking. Then, just as I was about to dive for cover, he turned around and left. It was the last I heard or saw Eddie Prescott until they recovered his body.”

“He jumped off the bridge, I’m guessing,” Rachel said.

“Yes,” Charlie said.

“Verified?” Rachel asked.

“Dental records. But yes, verified by the medical examiner’s office. Eddie had no relatives to speak of. I guess he thought of our company as family. And me as a brother.” Charlie peered at Joe but turned away when he caught a flash of hurt in Joe’s eyes. “I went down to the ME’s office to identify the body. It was unrecognizable really, bloated from salt water and decay.”

“And do you blame yourself for Eddie’s death?” Rachel asked.

“A t first I didn’t,” Charlie said. “But as I got more successful and the company continued to grow, I couldn’t help but think that without him, none of that success would have happened.”

“How did that make you feel, Charlie?” Rachel asked. She looked over at Joe, her eyes suggesting that if Joe were to leave the room, now would be an appropriate time.

“It’s okay,” Charlie said. “He can hear this. He should hear this.”

Rachel nodded. “Okay, Charlie. But I’d like for you to share whatever you feel comfortable sharing.”

Charlie took in a deep breath before he spoke. “I felt a bit like a fraud, I suppose,” he said. “I mean, Eddie was brilliant. He had the most amazing mind for technology that I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. I took Eddie’s idea and ran with it. Without Eddie there would have been no business. The technology that InVision is based on would never have been brought to market, and who knows where that would have left me.”

Joe shook his head at that. “But it was you who made the company happen, Charlie. Not Eddie,” he said. Rachel shot Joe a disapproving look.