Thin Air (9 page)

He found himself reluctant at first to tell her the truth. He wanted to make up some story about re-evaluating the psychiatric program for veterans, but somehow he didn't think she would fall for it.

"I have some doubts about Dr. McCarthy's abilities," he said finally, then glanced at her expression. She considered his statement carefully.

"McCarthy's been a godsend," she said, and he sensed she was trying to convince herself. "He'll see Cas any day of the week on twenty-four hours' notice. We couldn't ask for better treatment than that."

"Are you sure?"

She glanced at him uncertainly.

"What about the nightmares?" he asked. "What are they like?"

"Awful."

"Is it one nightmare, Mrs. Yablonski? Always the same?"

She watched the road ahead for a long moment, then said, "It has something to do with a disappearing ship."

Hammond held hack a reckless urge to describe Fletcher's dream: it would only succeed in shocking her.

"He's never been more specific than that about it," Mrs. Yablonski continued.

"How does he go about getting treated?"

"He calls McCarthy on a WATS line, then drives up to the Naval Hospital in Boston. They meet for several hours."
      

"Several?"

"As long as it takes." Her voice shook.

"What about symptoms?" Hammond asked. "Anything physical—?"

"Oh, God—I've seen him wake up in a cold sweat, shaking, even babbling. Sometimes, just for the first few seconds, I could swear he's trying to get it out, to tell me, but he just can't! Then he lapses into this terrible state. He's...so helpless..." She covered her eyes for a moment.

She regained control as they drew abreast of the Hyannis Port docks. She directed Hammond to her husband's pier, then waited while he shut off the engine.

"There is something else," she said. "Several times I woke up and found him out of bed, across the room at the window, or on the floor, or holding onto a chair....Once I woke up before he started screaming....I saw him at the wall..." She stopped, shivering at the memory. "I saw him at the wall. He...he was stepping
through it."
She looked up at Hammond, frightened.
"From the next room."

Hammond was very still. "Through it?" he repeated. "You
saw
him do this?"

She nodded. "I screamed and I don't know what happened next because I shut ray eyes tight. When I opened them, Cas was shaking me and he'd put the light on. He was frightened and demanded to know what I'd seen. When I told him, he flung himself away from me. He insisted
I
was the one who was dreaming...." She stopped and rubbed her eyes. "I've always hoped so."

"Did he make an appointment with McCarthy?"

"Oh, yes. He was gone for three days. He came home and it was like it never happened. Even now, I don't dare mention it."
      

She looked at him anxiously and her voice quavered. "It's getting so I'm almost afraid to sleep with him."

Hammond shuddered.

Cas Yablonski and Harold Fletcher were as inexorably linked as Siamese twins.
      

A thirty-five-foot Bertram Sportfisherman chugged toward the dock, the harbor lights showing off her glassy white hull, varnished woodwork, and the handsome flying bridge.

Mrs. Yablonski pointed out the tall sea dog at the helm. "That's Cas," she said. He was wearing a white shirt open at the collar, a blue pea-coat, and a yachting cap. His face was darkly tanned, tough and lined, his hair iron-gray.

As soon as the boat was tied, Mrs. Yablonski waved to her husband and came down the pier followed by Hammond.

"Had a great day, Momma!" Cas called, in a voice that boomed across the dockside. His client, a cigar-smoking yachtsman of diminishing years, hoisted himself out of his deck chair and stumbled uncertainly to the side.

"Look what Mr. Carey bagged!" Yablonski yelled, and as Mr. Carey proudly displayed a huge fish, Yablonski held up a plastic bag containing empty beer cans, pointed at Carey, and made a drunk-out-of-his-mind face.

"Come ashore," called Mrs. Yablonski. "There's someone here to meet you."

Yablonski smiled and waved again but took a good look at Hammond's uniform. He left the boat to be secured by the McKay brothers, then paused to shake Mr. Carey's hand.

"Send me a bill!" slurred Mr. Carey. Yablonski helped him ashore, handed him his fish wrapped in plastic, and wished him goodbye. "An' I wanna go again next week!" Mr. Carey insisted as he stumbled off into the night.

Yablonski came up to Hammond and stuck out a hand, regarding him warily. "Casimir Yablonski," he said.

"Nick Hammond, sir. Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise. Care for a beer?"

"Sure."

"Hey, Paul!" he yelled. "Get that other six-pack up here."

"Righto, C.L."

Hammond studied Yablonski. Weatherbeaten skin, wide shoulders, powerful muscles, enormous hands—Yablonski didn't seem the sort to suffer from nightmares. He had none of Harold Fletcher's jackrabbit furtiveness.

Yablonski put his arm around his wife and hugged her. He smoothed her hair and pulled her sweater tight. "Cold tonight, Momma."

"Why don't you invite the boys home for the weekend, Cas?" she asked,

"They're planning on it?" Yablonski took the six-pack from Paul McKay and motioned for Hammond to pull himself a can. They cracked beers and stood on the pier, drinking.

"So what does Naval Intelligence want with me, Hammond?"

"Well, I..." Hammond was reluctant to discuss this in front of the McKay brothers.
 

Yablonski persisted. "I'm just an old sailor, Commander. You know, catch-a da fish?" He glanced at Paul McKay and saw him smiling. "I take my boat out, I mind my own business, and I appreciate other people who feel the same way."

"Cas..." Mrs. Yablonski was looking at him oddly.

"It's okay, ma'am," said Hammond. "Mr. Yablonski, would you have any reason to fear an investigation?"

Yablonski expelled his breath. "No...of course not."

"Then let's be friends. I'm here to
help
you."

"How?"

"On the seventeenth of September you went to BUPERS in Washington to examine your 601 file. Did you find what you were looking for?"

Yablonski stared at him a moment, then smiled for Paul McKay's benefit. Casually, he sauntered along the dock, nodding for; Hammond to follow. As soon as they were out of earshot, he asked, "What's it to you?"

"I think you found some discrepancy that you can't account for."

Yablonski stiffened slightly but continued walking. He drained his beer and crushed the can. "You tell me," he said.
      

"You thought you were discharged from service in 1955. You found out you're still carried on the Inactive Reserve list."

"Very good. Why?"

"I don't know."

Yablonski stopped and turned, his face flushed with anger. "Does anybody know? Does the Navy know?" he asked with an edge of sarcasm.

Hammond retorted, "Does McCarthy know?"

Yablonski eyed him darkly. "He says it's a mistake."

"When did you ask him?"

"When I came back from Washington."
      

"You saw him after that?"

"Of course I saw him! He's my doctor!"

"Well, I think he's wrong. It's not a mistake. There's a reason why those records are different." Hammond paused. "And yours are not the only ones."

Yablonski glanced at him sharply, then looked away.

"Why did you go to Washington, Mr. Yablonski? What prompted you?"

"The same reason you're here. Curiosity."

"Was it the dream? The disappearing ship?"

Hammond was watching his back and caught a slight twitch of the jaw. "How did you know that?" Yablonski asked.

"Your wife." Yablonski flashed his wife an angry look. "But eventually I could have guessed. I told you, sir, you're not the only one."

Yablonski turned back, his face flooded with terror. He stared at Hammond, searching his eyes, then looked off into space and seemed to be deciding something for himself. "McCarthy said I should forget my preoccupation with the dream...I was being self-destructive..." He looked at Hammond for understanding. Clearly, he didn't understand it himself.

Hammond grunted. "Then he's the first psychiatrist I've ever heard of who's not interested in dreams."

Yablonski got defensive. "Look, he does his job. I get these horrible nightmares, Igo chasing off to him, and he makes me forget about them.
He's
helping me!"

"Then after twenty-odd years, why aren't you cured?"

"There's no cure..."

"McCarthy said so?"

Yablonski moved sullenly to the edge of the dock and stared down into the water.

"Tell me about the dream," Hammond said softly.

Yablonski laughed. "Tell
you?
Where's your couch, Hammond? Did you leave it in the car?"

Hammond regarded him seriously until he stopped laughing.

"I don't need this," Yablonski said through his teeth. "I don't belong to the Navy anymore—I don't care what it says on my records!"

"Wouldn't you like to get it straightened out?"

Yablonski sighed. "You guys. You're like crocodiles with lockjaw! You grab pieces and pull until they come off! I've known people from NIS, Hamfnond. When you decide to pin something on a guy, you find a way to do it!
I don't like what you do!"

Hammond smiled. "I keep telling you I only want to help."

"You want to help yourself." Yablonski smiled back at him knowingly.

They stared at each other, measuring determination. They didn't even hear Mrs. Yablonski pad softly up the dock. She crept to Cas's side and touched his arm. Then she smiled nervously at Hammond.

"Come back to the house, Commander. You can fight better sitting down."

Hammond drove back alone. The Yablonskis took the McKay brothers and went in Cas's jeep. It was nearly midnight when the party tramped back into the house by the pond. The McKays excused themselves and went to the spare room to bunk down.

"We can put you up on our living room couch," offered Mrs. Yablonski. Hammond cast a quick look at Cas and saw abject disapproval.

"Thanks very much. I just have a few more questions," he said.

She made tea and they sat down at the breakfast table. Yablonski leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, regarding Hammond darkly. Physically, he was telegraphing "The hell with you." Hammond didn't need a course in body language to read that message.

"What's McCarthy's first name?" he asked.

"Lester," Yablonski snapped back.

"Could you describe him?"

Yablonski opened his mouth, then froze. His expression switched to astonishment as he searched his mind, then came up with blank fear. Why should such a request frighten him? Hammond wondered.

Unless he couldn't describe the man.

"What the hell is this?" barked Yablonski. "Goddamned third degree?"

"No, sir..." Hammond decided to go easy on him. Stick to facts. "Do you know a man named Harold Fletcher?"

Yablonski shook his head. "No."

Hammond quietly gauged the answer. It was the first question he had thrown that hadn't unnerved the man. He seemed sure. Yet...
      

"You and Harold Fletcher have the same doctor," he said. "And I think the same dream."

Yablonski didn't move. "What are you talking about?" he said hoarsely.

"Two men who have much the same service record, the same Navy psychiatrist, the same neurosis....The only difference is that you're still
alive."

There was a long silence, then Mrs. Yablonski leaned forward, her lower jaw quivering. "Would you please explain?" she asked.

Briefly, Hammond told them about Fletcher and Jan and Fletcher's problem. "I don't want to tell you any details of his nightmare because it's more important for me to hear yours, uninfluenced. When you're ready, of course."

"What happened to this Fletcher?" Yablonski asked. All the antagonism had fled, replaced by pure need-to-know.

"Found dead in his Washington apartment. Apparent heart attack." Hammond refrained from expressing any, suspicions about Flfetcher's death. He left the intimation that somehow Fletcher's problem and his demise were related.

Yablonski got up and walked to the sink, ran himself a tall glass of water, and drank it down. When he turned back, he seemed fraught with anxiety. "I trust McCarthy. Don't you see...?" He choked off. His wife rose and reached for him. He pulled her close and looked at Hammond in silent appeal.

"Do
you
trust him, Mrs. Yablonski?" Hammond asked.

Cas looked down at her. After a long moment, she shook her head. "No...not now...oh, I'm not sure."