Over the Edge (28 page)

An impressive synopsis, worthy of a grant application and, considering the purpose of my visit, gratuitously detailed, even for Sarita. But the memo's true message insinuated itself between the lines: Jamey was a fluke, Alex. Look at what I've done with the rest of them.

The door swung open, and two young men came in.

David, whom I remembered as undersized and soft, had turned into a linebacker - six-three, about two thirty, most of it muscle. His ginger hair was styled in a new-wave crew cut - cropped short on top with a long sunburst fringe at the nape of the neck - and he'd produced sufficient blond fuzz to constitute a droopy moustache and chin beard. He wore rimless round glasses, baggy khaki pants, black running shoes with Day-Glo green trim, a stingily collared plaid shirt open at the neck, and a ribbon of leather tie that ended several inches above his belt. His hand gripped mine like a vapour lock.

'Hello, Dr. D.'

Josh had grown to lanky middle size, the teen-idol cuteness solidifying to masculine good looks: shiny black curls trimmed in a neat cap, a valance of heavy lash over large hazel eyes, chin square, strong, and perfectly cleft, skin seemingly poreless. He was dressed mainline preppy: cuffed flannel trousers, dirty bucks, button-down shirt collar peeking out over a maroon crew-neck sweater. I remembered him as one of those fortunate creatures blessed with looks, brains, and charm, and seemingly devoid of self-doubt, but this morning he looked tense.

He forced a smile and said, 'It's great to see you again. The smile faded. 'Too bad it has to be under these circumstances.'

David nodded in agreement. 'Incomprehensible.'

I asked them to sit, and they slumped down across from me.

'It is incomprehensible,' I said. 'I'm hoping you guys can help me make some sense of it.'

Josh frowned. 'When Dr. Flowers told us you wanted to meet with us to learn more about Jamey, we realised how little we knew about him, how much he'd chosen to distance himself from the group.'

'It went beyond distancing,' said David, sinking lower and stretching his legs. 'He excluded us. Made it very clear that he had no use for human beings in general and us in specific' He stroked his moustache and frowned. 'Which doesn't mean we don't want to help him, just that we're probably a poor source of information.'

'The only one he ever talked to was Gary,' said Josh, 'and even that was rare.'

'Too bad Gary won't be here,' I said.

'He's been gone for a while,' said David.

'Any idea where I could find him?'

They exchanged uncomfortable looks.

'He moved out of his parents' house last summer. Last we heard he was drifting around downtown.'

'Dr. Flowers said he developed an interest in art. That's a switch, isn't it?'

'You wouldn't recognise him,' said Josh.

I remembered Gary as a neat, Sansei boy, a perfectionist with a passion for engineering and urban planning. His hobby had been constructing meticulously designed mega-communities, and Sarita's private nickname for him had been Little Bucky Fuller. I wondered what changes time had wrought, but before I could ask him about it, the door opened and a short, frizzy-haired girl stepped into the room. She held a large cloth purse in one hand and a sweater in the other and seemed confused. Hesitating, she stared at her feet, then self-consciously began walking toward me. I got up and met her halfway.

'Hi, Dr. Delaware,' she said shyly.

'Hi, Felicia. How have you been?'

'I've been fine,' she singsonged. 'How have you been?'

'Just fine. Thanks for coming.'

I realised that I'd lowered my voice and was talking especially gently, as if to a fretful child, which was exactly what she looked like.

She sat off to the side, away from the boys. Swinging her purse onto her lap, she scratched her chin and examined her shoes. Then she started to fidget.

She was the project's youngest and most precocious subject and the only one who resembled the stereotype of genius. Small, dreamy-eyed, and timorous, she inhabited an ethereal world of numerical abstractions. Unlike Josh and David, she'd changed little. There'd been a smidgen of growth - to five feet perhaps - and some evidence of physical maturity - a pair of hopeful buds asserting themselves beneath the white cotton of her blouse, a forehead grained with patches of pimples. But otherwise she still looked childlike, the pale face broad and innocent, the pug nose saddling thick-lensed glasses that made her eyes seem miles away. Her crinkly brown hair was devoid of style and tied in a loose ponytail, her short limbs padded with lingering layers of babyfat. I wondered which would arrive first, her Ph.D. or the completion of puberty.

I tried to make eye contact, but she'd already taken out a spiral notebook and buried her nose in it. Like Jamey, she was a loner, but whereas his detachment had been born of anger and bitterness, hers was the product of constant mental activity. She was sweet-tempered and eager to please, and though her efforts to be social were generally aborted by a tendency to drift into flights of theoretical fancy, she wanted desperately to relate.

'We were just talking about Gary,' I said.

She looked up, as if thinking of something to say, then returned to her book. The boys began talking to each other in low tones.

I looked at my watch. Ten after eight.

'We'll wait a few more minutes for Jennifer and then begin.'

Josh excused himself to make a phone call, and David stood and began circling the room, snapping his fingers

and humming off-key. A minute later Jennifer arrived, breathless and apologetic.

'Hi, Alex!' she said, bouncing over and planting a kiss on my cheek.

'Hello, Jen.'

She stepped back, sized me up, and said:

'You look exactly the same!'

'You don't.' I smiled.

She'd cut her long hair in a boyish bob and lightened it from dishwater to tawny gold. Heavy plastic pendants drooped from her ears, framing a high-cheeked gamin face. She wore a loose-fitting sky blue top, fashioned like a serape and cut off-centre to reveal one bare shoulder. Below the top was a snug denim miniskirt that exposed long, slender legs tapering to stack-heeled plastic sandals. Her half-inch fingernails were glossy pink, with toenails to match; her skin was the colour of heavily creamed coffee. At first glance, just another trend-chasing California mall bunny.

'I should hope not,' she said, and sat down on a folding chair. 'Well,' she said, looking around the room, 'at least I'm not the last one here.'

'Think again.' David grinned, and he went to fetch Josh.

'Sorry,' she said, feigning a cringe. 'I was grading papers and got stuck with one that was illegible.'

'Don't worry about it.'

The boys returned. Fusillades of nervous banter shot back and forth across the room, followed by silence. I looked out at four young, solemn faces and began.

'It's great to see all of you again. Dr. Flowers gave me a rundown on what you've been doing, and it's impressive.'

Obligatory smiles. Get down to business, Alex.

'I'm here because I've been asked to participate in Jamey's defence, and part of my job is to collect information about his mental status. You're the people he spent his days with for four out of the last five years, and I thought you might remember something that could shed some light on his breakdown. But before we get into that, let me say that I know all this has to be very upsetting for

you. So if anyone wants to talk about that, please feel free.'

The silence continued. Surprisingly Felicia was the one to break it:

'I think it's obvious,' she said, speaking in a near-whisper, 'that we're all extremely upset by what's happened - on multiple levels. We empathise and sympathise with Jamey, but at the same time the fact that we spent four years with him is frightening. Were we in danger during any of that time? Could some precaution have been taken to prevent what happened? Is there anything that we, as his peers, might have done? And finally, a more egocentric issue: His crimes have raised the risk of adverse publicity for the project and threaten to disrupt our lives. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been constantly harassed by reporters.'

Josh shook his head.

'My home number's unlisted.'

'So's mine,' said Jennifer. 'A couple of calls came in to Dr. Austerlitz's lab, but he told them I was out of the country.'

'I'm in the book, and they were on my case for three days running,' said David. 'Mostly tabloids, very low-level stuff. Saying no had little effect - they kept calling back - so I started answering them in Latin, and that did the trick.' To Felicia: 'Try it next time.'

She giggled nervously.

'You summed things up beautifully,' I told her. 'We can discuss any or all of the points you raised. Any preferences?'

Shrugs and downward glances. But I wasn't willing to let it go that easily.

They were geniuses but adolescents nevertheless, caught up in all the narcissism and fantasies of immortality that came with that territory. Time and time again they'd been reminded of their mental gifts, told they could handle anything life dished out. Now something had happened that had shattered their omnipotence. It had to be traumatic.

'Well, then,' I said. 'I'll start with this one: Do any of

you feel you could have done something to prevent what happened to Jamey, and if so, are you feeling guilty about it?'

'It's not guilt exactly,' said Jennifer, 'but I do wonder if I could have done more.'

'In what way?'

'I don't know. I'm sure I was the first to notice something was wrong. Perhaps I could have acted sooner to get him help.'

No one contradicted her.

'He always fascinated me,' she explained, 'because he was so wrapped up in himself, apparently independent of input from other people yet so obviously unhappy at the core. The few times I tried to talk to him he rebuffed me, really rudely. At first I was hurt, but then I wanted to understand him. So I went searching in the abnormal pysch books for something that fitted his behavioural patterns. Schizoid personality seemed to be perfect. Schizoids are incapable of establishing relationships, but it doesn't bother them. They're human islands. The early psychoanalysts considered them preschizophrenic, and though later research showed that most of them don't become psychotic, they're still considered vulnerable.' She stopped, embarrassed. 'You don't need to hear this from me.'

'Please go on.'

Hesitation.

'Really, Jen.'

'Okay. Anyway, I found myself observing him, searching for signs of psychosis but not really expecting to find them. So when he actually began to exhibit symptoms, it shocked me.'

'When was this?'

'Several months before Dr. Flowers asked him to leave. There was a period before then when he seemed more withdrawn than usual - which I've since learned can be a psychopsychotic pattern - but the first time I actually saw him do anything overtly bizarre was around three or four months before he left. On a Tuesday. I'm sure of that

because Tuesday was my free day and I was studying in the reading room. It was late afternoon, and I was the only one there. He came in, went to a corner, faced the wall, and started muttering to himself. Then the muttering grew louder, and I could tell he was being paranoid, carrying on an argument with someone who wasn't there.'

'Do you remember what he said?'

'He was upset at this imaginary person, accusing him -or her - of trying to hurt him, of spreading bloody plumes. At first I thought he'd said "fumes" but then he used the word again several times. Plumes. He repeated the word stink a lot, too, used it as a noun: The imaginary person was full of stink; the earth was full of stink. It was fascinating, and I wanted to stay and listen; but he scared me, so I got out of there. He didn't acknowledge my leaving. I don't think he'd been aware of my presence in the first place.'

'Was there anything in the hallucinations about zombies or glass canyons?'

She drummed her fingers on her knees and grew pensive. "Glass canyons" sounds familiar.' She thought awhile longer. 'Yes, definitely. I remember thinking, then, that it sounded more like poetry than a hallucination. Almost pristine. Which is probably why it didn't register at first. How did you know that, Alex?'

'He called me the night he escaped. He was hallucinating and using phrases identical to the ones you just mentioned. One of the things he talked about was a glass canyon that he needed to escape. The other day I visited him in jail and he said "glass" several times.'

'How did he look?' asked Josh.

'Not good,' I said.

'So it sounds,' said Jennifer, 'as if there's some consistency to the hallucinatory content.'

'Some.'

'Couldn't that indicate that the hallucinations had something to do with a major crisis or conflict?'

Not according to Guy Mainwaring, M.D.

'It's possible,' I said. 'Do any of you know about some event in his life that would relate to plumes or stink?'

Nothing.

'What about zombies or glass canyons?'

They shook their heads.

'I did see him talking to himself,' said Felicia, 'but I never got close enough to hear what he was saying. He frightened me, so whenever I saw him coming, I left immediately. One time I did notice that he was crying.' She hugged herself and stared at her lap.

'Did either of you mention any of this to Dr. Flowers?' I asked.

'Not right away,' said Jennifer. 'That's what bothers me; I should have. But when I saw him two days later, he seemed more normal. He even said hello. So I thought it might have been a one-time thing, maybe a drug reaction. But a few days later he was doing it again - hallucinating and getting agitated. At that point I went straight to Sarita's office, but she was out of town. I didn't know who to call - I didn't want to get him in trouble - so I waited until after the weekend and told her. She thanked me and said she was aware he was having problems and I should stay away from him. I wanted to discuss it with her, but she dismissed me, which seemed pretty cold at the time. Later I realised it was because of confidentiality.'