Legion (14 page)

“The psychiatrist wants to finger the neurologist, but he doesn’t want to do it openly.”

“Why not?” the detective asked. “Remember, this man is obstructing justice

“He’s guilty of something. He’s involved. But if he’s seemingly covering for someone else, you would never suspect him.”

“He should live so long. But I agree with your opinion. In the meantime, I have something more important to tell you. In Beltsville, Maryland, years ago they had this hospital for patients who were dying of cancer. So they gave them big doses of LSD. Couldn’t hurt. Am I right? And it helps the pain. Then something funny happens to all of them. They all have the same experience, no matter what their background or their religion. They imagine they are going straight down through the earth and through every kind of sewage and filth and trash. While they’re doing it, they are these things; they’re the same. Then they start to go up and up and up, and suddenly everything is beautiful and they are standing in front of God, who then says to them, ‘Come up here with Me, this isn’t Newark.’ Every one of them had this experience, Atkins. Well, okay, maybe ninety percent. That’s enough. But the main thing is one other thing that they said. They said they felt the whole universe was them. They were all one thing, they said; one person. Isn’t it amazing that all of them would say that? Also, consider Bell’s Theorem, Atkins: in any two–particle system, say the physicists, changing the spin of one of the particles simultaneously changes the spin of the other, no matter what the distance is between them, no matter if it’s galaxies or light years!”

“Lieutenant?”

“Please be silent when you’re speaking to me! I have something else to tell you.” The detective leaned forward with glittering eyes. “Think about the autonomic system. It does all of these seemingly intelligent things to keep your body functioning and alive. But it hasn’t got intelligence of its own. Your conscious mind is not directing it. ‘So what directs it?’ you ask me. Your unconscious. Now think of the universe as your body, and of evolution and the hunting wasps as the autonomic system. What is directing it, Atkins? Think about that. And remember the collective unconscious. In the meantime, I cannot sit and chit–chat forever. Did you see the old lady or not? It doesn’t matter. She belongs to Georgetown General Hospital. Give a call and have her sent right over. She’s a psychiatric patient there. She’s a lifer.”

“The old lady is dead,” said Atkins.

“What?”

“She died this afternoon.”

“What killed her?”

“Heart failure.”

Kinderman stared; then at last he lowered his head and nodded. “Yes, that would be the only way for her,” he murmured. He felt a deep and poignant sadness. “Martina Otsi Lazlo,” he said fondly. He looked up at Atkins. “This old lady was a giant,’’ he told him softly. “In a world where love doesn’t last, she was a giant.” He opened a drawer and took out the barrette they had found at the dock. He held it in his hand for a moment, staring. “I hope she is with him now,” he said quietly. He put the barrette in the drawer, which he closed. “She has a brother in Virginia,” he said wearily to Atkins. “Her last name is Lazlo. Call the hospital and make the arrangements. The contact is Temple, Doctor Temple. He’s the Chief of Psychiatry there, a
goniff
. Don’t allow him to hypnotize you. He can do it on the telephone, I’m thinking.”

The detective stood up and walked toward the door, only to stop and come back to his desk. “Walking is good for the heart,” he said. He picked up the binder containing the Gemini file and threw a look at Atkins. “Impudence is not,” he warned. “Do not speak.” He walked to the door, pulled it open, then turned. “Run a computer check for succinylcholine prescriptions written in the District this month and the last. The names are Vincent Amfortas and Freeman Temple. Are you going to Mass every Sunday?”

“No.”

“Why not? As they say among the blackrobes, Nemo, you’re ‘a three sprinkle job’? Baptism, wedding and death?”

Atkins shrugged. “I don’t think of it,” he said.

“Most illuminating. In the meantime, one final little question, Atkins, then I throw you to the torturers forthwith. If Christ hadn’t let himself be crucified, would we have heard of the resurrection? Don’t answer. It’s obvious, Atkins. I thank you for your effort and your time. Enjoy your voyage to the bottom of the sea, in the meantime. I assure you you will find there only fish looking stupid, except for their leader, a giant carp weighing thirteen tons and with the brain of a porpoise. He’s very unusual, Atkins. Avoid him. If he thinks we’re connected, he might do something crazy.” The detective turned and walked away. Atkins saw him pause in the middle of the squad room, where he cast his gaze upward while his fingertips touched at the brim of his battered hat. A policeman with a suspect in tow bumped into him, and Kinderman said something to them. Atkins couldn’t hear it. Finally, Kinderman turned and was gone.

Atkins walked over to the desk and sat down. He opened the drawer and looked at the barrette and wondered what Kinderman had meant about love. He heard footsteps and looked up. Kinderman was standing at the door. “If I find so much as one Almond Roca missing,” he said, “then it’s no more Batman and Robin. In the meantime, what time did the old lady die?”

“Around three fifty–five,” answered Atkins.

“I see,” said Kinderman. He stared into space for a while, then abruptly he turned and left without a word. Atkins pondered the meaning of his question.

Kinderman went home. In the foyer he removed his hat and coat, then went into the kitchen. Julie was sitting at the maple table reading a fashion magazine while Mary and her mother puttered at the stove. Mary looked up from a sauce she was stirring. She smiled. “Hi, sweetheart. Glad you made it for dinner.”

“Hi, Dad,” said Julie, still engrossed in her reading. Mary’s mother turned her back on the detective and wiped the kitchen counter with a rag.

“Hello, dumpling,” said Kinderman. He gave Mary a kiss on the cheek. “Without you, life is little glass beads and stale pizza,” he said. “What’s cooking?” he added. “I smell brisket.”

“It has no smell,” grunted Shirley. “Fix your nose.”

“I am leaving this to Julie,” said Kinderman darkly. He sat opposite his daughter at the table. The Gemini file was on his lap. Julie’s arms were folded and propped on the table, and her long black hair touched the pages of Glamour. She absently pulled back a tress and turned a page. “So what’s this about Febre?” the detective asked her.

“Daddy, please don’t get excited,” said Julie laconically. She turned to another page.

“Who’s excited?”

“I’m just thinking about it.”

“Me, too.”

“Bill, don’t bug her,” said Mary.

“Who’s bugging? Only, Julie, this will make for us a very big problem. So one person in a family changes names. This is easy. But when three all at once make a change, and all different, I don’t know; this could finally lead to mass hysteria, not to mention a minuscule confusion. Could we maybe coordinate all this?”

Julie lifted her beautiful blue eyes to her father’s. “I don’t understand you, Dad.”

“Your mother and I, we are changing our name to Darlington.”

A wooden ladle slammed into the sink, and Kinderman saw Shirley walking quickly from the room. Mary turned to the refrigerator, silently giggling.

“Darlington?’’ said Julie.

“Yes,” said Kinderman. “Also we are converting.”

Julie covered a gasp with her hand. “You’re becoming Catholics?” she asked in amazement.

“Don’t be foolish,” said Kinderman blandly. “This is as bad as being a Jew. We are thinking now Lutheran, maybe. We’re all finished with those swastikas on the temple.” Kinderman heard Mary racing out of the kitchen. “Your mother is upset a little bit,” he said. “Change is always hard in the beginning. She’ll get over it. We don’t have to do this all at once. We’ll make it gradual. First we change the name, after that we convert, and then we are subscribing to The National Review.”

“I don’t believe this,” said Julie.

“Believe it. We are entering the blender of the times. We are becoming puree, if not Febre. Never mind. It was inevitable. The only question now is how we coordinate this business. We are open to suggestions, Julie. What do you think?”

“I think you shouldn’t change your name,’’ Julie told him emphatically.

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s your name!’’ she said. She saw her mother returning. “Are you serious about this, Momma?”

“It doesn’t have to be Darlington, Julie,” said Kinderman. “We’ll pick another name that we all can agree on. What about Bunting?”

Mary nodded sagely. “I like it.”

“Oh, God, this is gross,” said Julie. She got up and flounced out of the kitchen as Mary’s mother was coming back in.

“You’re all through talking all your craziness?” asked Shirley.
“
In this house I can’t tell who is a person and who’s not. It’s all maybe some dummies talking
shtuss
to torment me and make me hear voices and then put me in a home.’’

“Yes, you’re right,” said Kinderman sincerely. “I apologize.”

“You see what I mean?” squealed Shirley. “Mary, tell him to stop it!”

“Bill, stop it,” said Mary.

“I am done.”

Dinner was ready at seven fifteen. Afterwards Kinderman soaked in the bathtub, trying to make his mind a blank. As usual he found himself unable to do it. Ryan does it so easily, he reflected. I must ask him his secret. I will wait until he’s done something right and feels expansive. His mind went from the concept of a secret to Amfortas. The man is so mysterious, so dark. There was something he was hiding, he knew. What was it? Kinderman reached for a plastic bottle and poured some more bubble fluid into the tub. He could barely keep from dozing off.

The bath over, Kinderman put on a robe and carried the Gemini file to his den. Its walls were covered with movie posters, black–and–white classics from the thirties and forties. The dark wooden desk was strewn with books. Kinderman winced. He was barefoot and had stepped on a sharp–edged copy of Teilhard de Cha
r
din’s
The Phenomenon of Man
. He bent down and picked it up and then placed it on the desk. He turned on the desk lamp. The light caught tinfoil candy wrappers lurking in the rubble like gleaming felons. Kinderman cleared a space for the file, scratched his nose, sat down and tried to focus. He searched among the books and found a pair of reading glasses. He cleaned them with the sleeve of his robe and then put them on. He still couldn’t see. He shut one eye and then the other, then he took off the glasses and did it again. He decided he saw better without the left lens. He wrapped his sleeve around the lens and banged it sharply on a corner of the desk. The lens fell out in two pieces. Occam’s Razor, Kinderman thought. He put the glasses back on and tried again.

It was no use. The problem was fatigue. He took off the glasses, left the den and went straight to bed.

Kinderman dreamed. He was sitting in a theater watching a film with the inmates of the open ward. He thought he was watching Lost Horizon, although what he saw on the screen was Casablanca. He felt no discrepancy about this. In Rick’s Cafe the piano player was Amfortas. He was singing “As Time Goes By’’ when the Ingrid Bergman character entered. In Kinderman’s dream she was Martina Lazlo and her husband was played by Doctor Temple. Lazlo and Temple approached the piano and Amfortas said, “Leave him alone, Miss Ilse.” Then Temple said, “Shoot him,” and Lazlo took a scalpel from her purse and stabbed Amfortas in the heart. Suddenly Kinderman was in the movie. He was sitting at a table with Humphrey Bogart. “The letters of transit are forged,” said Bogart. “Yes, I know,” said Kinderman. He asked Bogart whether Max, his brother, was involved, and Bogart shrugged his shoulders and said, “This is Rick’s.” “Yes, everyone comes here,” said Kinderman, nodding; “I’ve seen this picture twenty times.” “Couldn’t hurt,” said Bogart. Then Kinderman experienced a feeling of panic because he had forgotten the rest of his lines, and he began a discussion of the problem of evil and gave Bogart a summary of his theory. In the dream it took a fraction of a second. “Yes, Ugarte,” said Bogart, “I do have more respect for you now.” Then Bogart began a discussion of Christ. “You left him out of your theory,” he said; “the German couriers will find out about that.” “No, no, I include him,” said Kinderman quickly. Abruptly Bogart became Father Dyer and Amfortas and Miss Lazlo were sitting at the table, although now she was young and extremely beautiful. Dyer was hearing the neurologist’s confession, and when he gave the absolution Lazlo gave Amfortas a single white rose. “And I said I’d never leave you,” she told him. “Go and live no more,” said Dyer.

Instantaneously, Kinderman was back in the audience and he knew that he was dreaming. The screen had grown larger, filling his vision, and in place of Casablanca he saw two lights against a pale green wash of endless void. The light at the left was large and coruscating, flashing with a bluish radiance. Far to its right was a small white sphere that glowed with the brilliance and power of suns, yet did not blind or flare; it was serene. Kinderman experienced a sense of transcendence. In his mind he heard the light on the left begin to speak. “I cannot help loving you,” it said. The other light made no answer. There was a pause. “That is what I am,” the first light continued. “Pure love. I want to give my love freely,” it said. Again there was no answer from the brilliant sphere. Then at last the first light spoke again. “I want to create myself,” it said.