Robert Bloch's Psycho (26 page)

“Maybe,” Banning said. “But what do you mean,
nearly
?”

“I cannot tell you who I work for. That I cannot do.”

Banning nodded. “We'll see. Depends on what else you say.”

“All right, then,” Bergmann repeated. He looked over his shoulder at the two officers behind him, then back at Banning. “I prefer to have as few people as possible hear this. Unless you're afraid I can overcome you both with handcuffs on.”

Banning looked at the two men and gestured them out of the room with a jerk of his head. When they were gone, Bergmann continued, “First, I didn't come in here to kill Isaac Goldberg. I came in here to
execute
Kurt Gephardt.”

“The guy in here,” Banning said, holding up the papers.

Bergmann nodded. “Dr. Isaac Goldberg died in 1944 in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in his own country of Austria. He was worked to death. They called it ‘extermination through labor.' The following year, when the Third Reich went up in flames, his identity was taken over by Kurt Gephardt, who, to all intents and purposes,
became
Isaac Goldberg, only,
this
Isaac Goldberg had survived the camps. This happened frequently, and it was easy to accomplish, as nearly all family members and friends of the dead man whose identity was stolen were dead as well. Gephardt—now Goldberg—traveled to America and continued his … career.”

“You mean as a psychologist?” Banning said.

“A psychiatrist,” Bergmann answered. “Gephardt was a psychiatrist as well as Goldberg. With stolen identities, the Nazis tried to make the matches as close as possible.”

Banning shook his head. “So you're saying this Gephardt lived all these years as Goldberg? And nobody ever found out?”

Bergmann nodded. “There was a physical resemblance between them, but it mattered little, since all of Goldberg's documentation had been destroyed by the Nazis, so there were no photographs, at least none that would readily surface. But as you see”—he nodded at the sheaf of papers Banning was holding—“we found one. Enough for our team to determine that the prewar and postwar Goldbergs were not the same man.”

“So then this Gephardt,” Banning said, “is a war criminal? I take it he did something pretty bad for you guys to come after him like this.”

Bergmann took a deep breath. “Have either of you ever heard of Aktion T4?” He gave it the German pronunciation, then said, “Action T4.” Both Banning and Chambers shook their heads. “It has a long history, but I'll keep it concise. It was a program of forced euthanasia for the Nazis to get rid of undesirables.”

“Jews?” Jud Chambers asked.

“There were Jews among the victims.” He smiled bitterly. “There always were, and the Jewish patients were the first to go. But the victims in this case were
anyone
who didn't conform to Hitler's idea of what German genes should contain—people with chronic illnesses, physical disabilities, the mentally ill. Since the best young men of Germany were dying at the front, the weak and sick and insane shouldn't be left to procreate freely at home. A balance had to be reached. That required
Gnadentod
—‘merciful death.'”

“Euthanasia?” Banning said.

“Yes. From 1939 to 1941, seventy thousand people labeled undesirables were put to death under the program. And do you know where these extermination centers were located? In mental hospitals. So psychiatrists ended up sentencing their own patients to death. Dr. Kurt Gephardt was there from the beginning.”

Jud Chambers shook his head. “How were they killed? Gas?”

“Now that,” Dov Bergmann said, “is an interesting story. Children with birth defects were killed by chemical injections, but that wasn't efficient enough for the vast numbers of adults who were to be killed. So they tried carbon monoxide gas, and it worked so well on these ‘mental defectives' that deadly gas quickly became the death of choice for the Third Reich. Aktion T4, in short, was the birthplace of the Holocaust. And Kurt Gephardt was one of its godfathers.”

Banning leaned forward as he spoke. “But you said that it only went until 1941, this Action T4 thing.”

“The policies established in Aktion T4 continued unofficially until the end of the war. Two hundred thousand more people, many of them children, died. And Kurt Gephardt was there all the time, sending them to their deaths with a brief examination and a signature.”

Bergmann had gone pale, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before opening them again. “Do you suppose I could have a cigarette?”

Banning took a Camel from his pack and handed it to Bergmann, who took it with handcuffed hands and put it in his mouth. Banning lit it for him. “So Dr. Goldberg is really Gephardt,” he said.

“We have undeniable proof.”

“And you were coming in here to, what, assassinate him?”

Bergmann inhaled smoke and blew it out. “I think it best not to discuss our plans in that regard.”

There was silence in the room for a moment, then Jud Chambers whispered, “Goddamn…”

The word seemed to bring Banning to life. “The first thing we need to do is confront Dr.… whoever he is with this. You've made a serious accusation, Mr. Bergmann, one that you were ready to kill him over. He's got to be allowed to respond to it.”

“Oh, by all means,” Bergmann said lightly. “Perhaps you should call him on the telephone and inform him…” He paused and his face grew stern, his words icy, “… so that he can
escape.
Honestly, do you believe that Gephardt is going to just come in here to answer these accusations? He'll
run.
As soon as they get a whiff that something isn't right, they're gone. Gephardt's been lucky. We had no idea of the truth until information recently came into our hands. We don't want to lose him.”

Banning nodded. “Okay. He's not in the building now, we know that, but—”

“What?”
Bergmann cried, trying to leap to his feet. “He was here when I broke in—his
car
was here! Are you saying he left between the time I came in here and now? When all the…” He seemed to be searching for the English word. “…
fuss
was going on?”

“Well,” Chambers said, “now I think on it, I might've seen his car heading out the road when I was coming in. Big light-colored Lincoln, isn't it?”

Dov Bergmann spat out some foreign words that the other two thought might have been curses. “He's
gone!
” he said. Then more softly, he added, “Why was I so impatient?” He shook his head and answered his own question. “I suppose I just didn't want to waste another night. And now … see what I've wasted now…”

Banning and Chambers saw tears in his eyes. Banning turned and barked toward the closed door, “Keene! Harris!” The two troopers came back in. “I want you to go to Dr. Goldberg's house and see if he and his car are there. If he is, tell him he's needed out here right away and bring him back—in your car. Don't let him out of your sight for a second, got it?”

Keene and Harris nodded and left. “If he's there, they'll bring him back,” Banning said.

“He won't be there.” Bergmann took a final drag on his cigarette and crushed the butt in the ashtray. “Honestly, I don't think any of you will ever see your Dr. Goldberg again.”

 

14

When the police arrived at the home of the man known as Dr. Isaac Goldberg, they found neither the man nor his car. After receiving this news, Captain Banning allowed Dov Bergmann to call the nearest Israeli consulate, with the caveat that he should speak only in English.

After several minutes of conversation, Bergmann told Banning that the consul-general was connecting him with the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, and then, after he further explained the situation, Bergmann looked at Banning again. “They're getting in touch with the U.S. Department of State. They'll want to speak to you.”

Several minutes passed during which, Banning assumed, the embassy was speaking with the State Department. Finally someone came on the line identifying himself as Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles, who told Banning that the State Department would send several agents to bring Dov Bergmann to Washington. He also told Banning that Bergmann was to be isolated, and that absolutely no one was to speak to him further. “The State Department would prefer,” said the officious voice on the phone, “that as few people know of this occurrence as possible. These events must
not
be made public in any way. May we count on your cooperation in this regard, Captain Banning?”

“Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

“Excellent. Our agents will be coming from the nearest field office. They should arrive before noon. Again, thank you for your efficiency. And your silence. Let me give you our number. In the event that the person known as Isaac Goldberg should return to the hospital, you are authorized to hold him, and you will notify us immediately.”

Banning wrote down the number and hung up. He followed the orders, seeing to it that the Israeli was given food and a comfortable room with reading material. Then he and Sheriff Chambers waited for the agents, whatever agency they might be from. Banning guessed the CIA, while Chambers hazarded the FBI as his choice.

“So who's in charge of this place now that Goldberg, or whoever he is, is gone?” Banning asked Chambers.

“Guess it's Nick Steiner. He's been here longest.”

“Let's get him on the horn,” Banning said, picking up the phone. “Somebody's gotta take charge around here, even if we can't tell him why.”

Dr. Nicholas Steiner arrived shortly after Bergmann had been isolated, just after 8:00 a.m. Banning and Chambers took him into the same room in which they'd interrogated Dov Bergmann and told him what they could, which was that a man they had in custody had broken in last night, that some “law enforcement officials” were picking him up later, and that Dr. Goldberg had disappeared along with his car and would probably not be back.

“That's it?” Steiner asked after waiting for more information.

Banning nodded. “That's it. Sorry we can't tell you more.”

“And
why
can't you tell me more?”

“It's, uh … government policy.”

“Government. You mean like
you?
The highway patrol?” He turned to Chambers. “Or the sheriff's office, Jud? You have important state secrets I'm not aware of?”

“State secrets is pretty much it, Nick,” Chambers said. “Captain Banning's being straight with you. This goes … kinda deep. Or pretty high. Both, I guess.”

“Where's Dr. Goldberg?” Steiner asked.

“Pardon?” Banning said.

“Where … is …
Goldberg?
” Steiner repeated, as if to a child. “The superintendent of this hospital? My immediate superior? What in God's name do you mean, he's ‘disappeared?' To where?”

“If we knew that,” Chambers said, “he wouldn't have disappeared.”

Steiner sighed and flopped back in his chair. “Maybe this place really
is
a madhouse.” He sat up again. “I'm just trying to determine where Dr. Goldberg is. Has he been kidnapped? Has he too succumbed to temptation like Mr. Gunn and eloped with a nurse? Or has he run off to become a basso profundo in a traveling opera company?”

“A
what?
” Jud Chambers asked.

Steiner gave a grunt of frustration. “Gentlemen,
please.
Surely you can tell me
something.
”

“Look,” Banning said, giving the sheriff a sidelong glance, “we can tell you this much and no more. It seems he's gone off on his own. Of his own free will. And he won't be back. And that's it, okay? Case closed.”

“You're not looking for him?” Steiner asked.

“
We're
not looking for him, no.” Banning paused. “But if somebody … if anybody saw him again, we'd want to know.”

Steiner frowned and looked intently at Banning. “He's
done
something, then.”

“I didn't say that.”

Steiner nodded. “He's done something…” He sat back again and gazed at the wall and beyond it, into the middle distance. “How little we really know each other…”

*   *   *

Before the car came to take away Dov Bergmann, Drs. Reed and Berkowitz had arrived at the hospital, as had Head Nurse Wyndham and Head Attendant Wiseman. Dr. Steiner called them all into a small meeting room and explained as much of the situation as he knew.

“I wish I could answer the questions you must have,” he told them, “but I don't know the answers myself. I can only assume that Dr. Goldberg had secrets of his own, and they were enough to … drive him away. I don't necessarily subscribe to the scenario that he won't return—this place was his life, as far as we all know, and for that reason I think we should keep his office the way it is indefinitely. As far as I know, it's not a crime scene, so if we need any files that the doctor had there, feel free to go in and get them. I've already contacted the state board and informed them of Dr. Goldberg's … disappearance, and they've appointed me acting superintendent and promise to appoint a new one within three months.” Steiner paused. “Any questions … that I
can
answer?”

Dr. Reed raised an index finger. “Was there any suggestion of, what, foul play? I mean, I heard from an attendant that there was actually a shot fired in the basement.”

“I heard that too,” Steiner said. “I've talked to the attendants involved, and apparently this intruder is somehow involved with Dr. Goldberg's absence, though I don't know how, and no one seems ready to tell us. There is the rather unlikely possibility that this has something to do with … national security, perhaps? But this is only speculation on my part, I really have no idea.”