The Collection (45 page)

^"
You think your employer is part of a
plot-ah-against you? You think there is a conspiracy to get you into a
sanitarium?
^"

"I don
^'
t know. Here
^'
s what has
happened since yesterday noon.
^"
He took a deep breath. Then he
plunged. He told Dr. Irving the whole story of his interview with Candler, what
Candler had said about Dr. Randolph, about his talk with Charlie Doerr last
night and about Charlie's bewildering about-face in the waiting room.

'When he was through he said, "That's all.
^"
He looked at Dr. Irving
^'
s expressionless face with more curiosity
than concern, trying to read it. He added, quite casually, "You don
^'
t
believe me, of course. You think I
^'
m insane."

He met Irving's eyes squarely. He said, "You have no
choice-unless you would choose to believe I'm telling you an elaborate set of
lies to convince you I'm insane. I mean, as a scientist and as a psychiatrist,
you cannot even admit the possibility that the things I believe-
know-
are
objectively true. Am I not right?"

"I fear that you are. So?"

"So go ahead and sign your commitment. I
^'
m
going to follow this thing through. Even to the detail of having Dr. Ellsworth
Joyce Randolph sign the second one."

^"
You make no objection?
^"

"Would it do any good if I did?"

"On one point, yes, Mr. Vine. If a patient has a
prejudice against-or a delusion concerning-one psychiatrist, it is best not to
have him under that particular psychiatrist's care. If you think Dr. Randolph
is concerned in a plot against you, I would suggest that another one be named.
^"

He said softly, "Even if I choose Randolph?
^"

Dr. Irving waved a deprecating hand, "Of course, if both
you and Mr. Doerr prefer-
^"

"We prefer."

The iron gray head nodded gravely.
^"
Of
course you understand one thing; if Dr. Randolph and I decide you should go to
the sanitarium, it will not be for custodial care. It will be for your recovery
through treatment.
^"

He nodded.

Dr. Irving stood. "You'll pardon me a moment? I'll
phone Dr. Randolph."

He watched Dr. Irving go through a door to an inner room. He
thought; there's a phone on his desk right there; but he doesn't want me to
overhear the conversation.

He sat there very quietly until Irving came back and said,
^"
Dr.
Randolph is free. And I phoned for a cab to take us there. You'll pardon me
again? I
^'
d like to speak to your cousin, Mr. Doerr."

He sat there and didn't watch the doctor leave in the
opposite direction for the waiting room. He could have gone to the door and
tried to catch words in the low-voiced conversation, but he didn't. He just sat
there until he heard the waiting room door open behind him and Charlie's voice
said, "Come on, George. The cab will be waiting downstairs by now.
^"

They went down in the elevator and the cab was there. Dr.
Irving gave the address.

In the cab, about half way there, he said,
^"
It
^'
s
a beautiful day,
^"
and Charlie cleared his throat and said,
"Yeah, it is." The rest of the way he didn't try it again and nobody
said anything.

He wore gray trousers and a gray shirt, open at the collar,
and with no necktie that he might decide to hang himself with. No belt, either,
for the same reason, although the trousers buttoned snugly enough around the
waist that there was no danger of them falling off. Just as there was no danger
of his falling out any of the windows; they were barred.

He was not in a cell, however; it was a large ward on the
third floor. There were seven other men in the ward. His eyes ran over them.
Two were playing checkers, sitting on the floor with the board on the floor
between them. One sat in a chair, staring fixedly at nothing; two leaned
against the bars of one of the open windows, looking out and talking casually
and sanely. One read a magazine. One sat in a corner, playing smooth arpeggios
on a piano that wasn't there at all.

He stood leaning against the wall, watching the other seven.
He'd been here two hours now; it seemed like two years.

The interview with Dr. Ellsworth Joyce Randolph had gone
smoothly; it had been practically a duplicate of his interview with Irving. And
quite obviously, Dr. Randolph had never heard of him before.

He'd expected that, of course.

He felt very calm, now. For a while, he
^'
d
decided, he wasn't going to think, wasn't going to worry, wasn't even going to
feel.

He strolled over and stood watching the checker game. It was
a sane checker game; the rules were being followed.

One of the men looked up and asked, "What's your
name?" It was a perfectly sane question; the only thing wrong with it was
that the same man had asked the same question four times now within the two
hours he'd been here.

He said, "George Vine."

"Mine's Bassington, Ray Bassington. Call me Ray. Are
you insane?
^"

^"
No.
^"

"Some of us are and some of us aren't. He is.
^"
He looked at the man who was playing the imaginary piano. "Do you play
checkers?"

"Not very well."

"Good. We eat pretty soon now. Anything you want to
know, just ask me."

"How do you get out of here? Wait, I don't mean that
for a gag, or anything. Seriously, what
^'
s the procedure?
^"

"You go in front of the board once a month. They ask
you questions and decide if you go or stay. Sometimes they stick needles in
you. What you down for?
^"

"Down for? What do you mean?"

"Feeble-minded, manic-depressive, dementia praecox,
involutional melancholia-
^"

"Oh. Paranoia, I guess."

"That's bad. Then they stick needles in you." A
bell rang somewhere.

"That
^'
s dinner,
^"
said the
other checker player. "Ever try to commit suicide? Or kill anyone?"

^"
No."

^"
They'll let you eat at an A table then,
with knife and fork.
^"

The door of the ward was being opened. It opened outward and
a guard stood outside and said, "All right." They filed out, all except
the man who was sitting in the chair staring into space.

"Know about him?" he asked Ray Bassington.

^"
He'll miss a meal tonight.
Manic-depressive, just going into the depressive stage. They let you miss one
meal; if you
^'
re not able to go to the next they take you and feed
you. You a manic-depressive?
^"

^"
No.
^"

"You're lucky. It's hell when you
^'
re on the
downswing. Here, through this door."

It was a big room. Tables and benches were crowded with men
in
gray
shirts and gray trousers, like his. A guard grabbed his arm as
he went through the doorway and said, "There. That seat."

It was right beside the door. There was a tin plate, messy
with food, and a spoon beside it. He asked,
^"
Don
^'
t I
get a knife and fork? I was told-"

The guard gave him a shove toward the seat.
^"
Observation
period, seven days. Nobody gets silverware till their observation period's
over. Siddown.
^"

He sat down. No one at his table had silverware. All the
others were eating, several of them noisily and messily. He kept his eyes on
his own plate, unappetizing as that was. He toyed with his spoon and managed to
eat a few pieces of potato out of the stew and one or two of the chunks of meat
that were mostly lean.

The coffee was in a tin cup and he wondered why until he
realized how breakable an ordinary cup would be and how lethal could be one of
the heavy mugs cheap restaurants use.

The coffee was weak and cool; he couldn
^'
t drink
it. He sat back and closed his eyes. When he opened them again there was an
empty plate and an empty cup in front of him and the man at his left was eating
very rapidly. It was the man who
^'
d been playing the non-existent
piano.

He thought, if I
^'
m here long enough, I'll get
hungry enough to eat that stuff. He didn't like the thought of being there that
long.

After a while a bell rang and they got up, one table at a
time on signals he didn't catch, and filed out. His group had come in last; it
went out first.

Ray Bassington was behind him on the stairs. He said,
"You
^'
ll get used to it. What
^'
d you say your name
is?"

"George Vine."

Bassington laughed. The door shut on them from the outside.

He saw it was dark outside. He went over to one of the
windows and stared out through the bars. There was a single bright star that
showed just above the top of the elm tree in the yard.
His
star? Well,
he'd followed it here. A cloud drifted across it.

Someone was standing beside him. He turned his head and saw
it was the man who'd been playing piano. He had a dark, foreign-looking face
with intense black eyes; just then he was smiling, as though at a secret joke.

^"
You're new here, aren
^'
t you? Or
just get put in this ward, which?"

"New. George Vine's the name."

"Baroni. Musician. Used to be, anyway. Now-let it go.
Anything you want to know about the place?"

"Sure. How to get out of it."

Baroni laughed, without particular amusement but not
bitterly either. "First, convince them you're all right again. Mind
telling what
^'
s wrong with you—or don
^'
t you want to talk
about it? Some of us mind, others don't."

He looked at Baroni, wondering which way he felt. Finally he
said, "I guess I don't mind. I think I'm Napoleon."

^"
Are you?"

"Am I what?
^"

"Are
you
Napoleon? If you aren
^'
t,
that
^'
s one thing. Then maybe you
^'
ll get out of here in
six months or so. If you really are-that's bad. You
^'
ll probably die
here."

"Why? I mean, if I
am,
then I'm sane and-
^"

^"
Not the point. Point
^'
s whether
they think you're sane or not. Way they figure, if you think you're Napoleon
you
^'
re not sane. Q. E. D. You stay here."

"Even if I tell them I'm convinced I'm George
Vine?"

^"
They've worked with paranoia before. And
that
^'
s what they've got you down for, count on it. And any time a
paranoiac gets tired of a place, he'll try to lie his way out of it. They
weren't born yesterday. They know that."

^"
In general, yes, but how-"

A sudden cold chill went down his spine. He didn't have to
finish the question.
They stick needles in you-
It hadn't meant anything
when Ray Bassington had said it.

The dark man nodded. "Truth serum," he said. "When
a paranoiac reaches the stage where he
^'
s cured
if
he's
telling the truth, they make sure he's telling it before they let him go."

He thought what a beautiful trap it had been that he'd
walked into. He'd probably die here, now.

He leaned his head against the cool iron bars and closed his
eyes. He heard footsteps walking away from him and knew he was alone.

He opened his eyes and looked out into blackness; now the
clouds had drifted across the moon, too.
Clare,
he thought;
Clare.

A trap.

But-if there was a trap, there must be a trapper. He was
sane or he was insane. If he was sane, he
^'
d walked into a trap, and
if
there was a trap, there must be a trapper, or trappers.

If he was insane

God, let it be that he
was
insane. That way
everything made such sweetly simple sense, and someday he might be out of here,
he might go back to working for the
Blade,
possibly even with a memory
of all the years he'd worked there. Or that George Vine had worked there. That
was the catch.
He
wasn't George Vine. And there was another catch. He
wasn't
insane. The cool iron of the bars against his forehead.

***

After a while he heard the door open and looked around. Two
guards had come in. A wild hope, reasonless, surged up inside him. It didn't
last.

"Bedtime, you guys," said one of the guards. He
looked at the manic-depressive sitting motionless on the chair and said,
"Nuts. Hey, Bassington, help me get this guy in.
^"

The other guard, a heavy-set man with hair close-cropped
like a wrestler
^'
s, came over to the window. "You. You're the
new one in here. Vine, ain't it?" He nodded.

"Want trouble, or going to be good?" Fingers of
the guard's right hand clenched, the fist went back.
^"
Don
^'
t
want trouble. Got enough.
^"

The guard relaxed a little.
^"
Okay, stick to that
and you'll get along. Vacant bunk's in there." He pointed.
^"
One
on the right. Make it up yourself in the morning. Stay in the bunk and mind
your own business. If there's any noise or trouble here in the ward, we come in
and take care of it. Our own way. You wouldn
^'
t like it.
^"