The Collection (41 page)

He looked at Candler and Candler wasn't kidding. Candler was
strictly deadpan.

He began to laugh, and then he stopped laughing. He leaned
forward across Candler's desk. "Ellsworth Joyce Randolph,
^"
he said.
^"
You
^'
re talking about Ellsworth Joyce
Randolph?
^"

Candler nodded.
^"
Dr. Randolph was in here
this morning. He told a rather strange story. He didn't want me to print it.
He did want me to check on it, to send our best man to check on it. He said if
we found it was true we could print it in hundred and twenty line type in red
ink." Candler grinned wryly. "We could, at that."

He stumped out his cigarette and studied Candler
^'
s
face. "But the story itself is so screwy you're not sure whether Dr.
Randolph himself might be insane?
^"

^"
Exactly.
^"

^"
And what
^'
s tough about the
assignment?
^"

"The doc says a reporter could get the story only from
the inside."

"You mean, go in as a guard or something?" Candler
said, "Something."

"Oh."

He got up out of the chair and walked over to the window,
stood with his back to the managing editor, looking out. The sun had moved
hardly at all. Yet the shadow pattern in the streets looked different,
obscurely different. The shadow pattern inside himself was different, too.
This, he knew, was what had been going to happen. He turned around. He said,
^"
No,
Hell no.
^"

Candler shrugged imperceptibly. "Don't blame you. I
haven't even asked you to. I wouldn't do it myself.
^"

He asked,
^"
What does Ellsworth Joyce
Randolph think is going on inside his nuthouse? It must be something pretty
screwy if it made you wonder whether Randolph himself is sane."

^"
I can't tell you that, Vine. Promised him I
wouldn
^'
t, whether or not you took the assignment."

"You mean-even if I took the job I still wouldn't know
what I was looking for?"

"That's right. You'd be prejudiced. You wouldn't be
objective. You'd be looking for something, and you might think you found it
whether it was there or not. Or you might be so prejudiced against finding it
that you'd refuse to recognize it if it bit you in the leg."

He strode from the window over to the desk and banged his
fist down on it.

He said,
^"
God damn it, Candler, why
me?
You
know what happened to me three years ago."

"Sure. Amnesia.
^"

"Sure, amnesia. Just like that. But I haven
^'
t
kept it any secret that I never got
over
that amnesia. I'm thirty years
old-or am I? My memory goes back three years. Do you know what it feels like to
have a blank wall in your memory only three years back?

"Oh sure, I know what's on the other side of that wall.
I know because everybody tells me. I know I started here as a copy boy ten
years ago. I know where I was born and when and I know my parents are both
dead. I know what they look like-because I
^'
ve seen their pictures. I
know I didn't have a wife and kids, because everybody who knew me told me I
didn't. Get that part everybody who knew me, not everybody I knew. I didn't
know anybody.

"Sure, I
^'
ve done all right since then. After
I got out of the hospital-and I don't even remember the accident that put me
there-I did all right back here because I still knew how to write news stories,
even though I had to learn everybody
^'
s name all over again. I wasn
^'
t
any worse off than a new reporter starting cold on a paper in a strange city.
And everybody was as helpful as hell."

Candler raised a placating hand to stem the tide. He said,
"Okay, Nappy. You said no, and that
^'
s enough. I don't see what
all that
^'
s got to do with this story, but all you had to do was say'
no. So forget about it."

The tenseness hadn't gone out of him. He said, "You
don't see what
that's
got to do with the story? You ask-or, all right,
you don
^'
t ask, you suggest-that I get myself certified as a madman,
go into an asylum as a patient.

When-how much confidence does anyone have in his own mind
when he can
^'
t remember going to school, can't remember the first time
he met any of the people he works with every day, can
^'
t remember
starting on the job he works at, can
^'
t remember anything back of
three years before?
^"

Abruptly he struck the desk again with his fist, and then
looked foolish about it. He said, "I'm sorry. I didn
^'
t mean to
get wound up about it like that.
^"

Candler said, "Sit down.
^"

"The answer
^'
s still no.
^"

^"
Sit down, anyway."

He sat down and fumbled a cigarette out of his pocket, got
it lighted.

Candler said, "I didn
^'
t even mean to mention
it, but I
^'
ve got to now. Now that you talked that way. I didn't know
you felt like that about your amnesia. I thought that was water under the
bridge.

"Listen, when Dr. Randolph asked me what reporter we
had that could best cover it, I told him about you. What your background was.
He remembered meeting you, too, incidentally. But he hadn't known you
^'
d
had amnesia."

^"
Is that why you suggested me?
^"

^"
Skip that till I make my point. He said
that while you were there, he
^'
d be glad to try one of the newer,
milder forms of shock treatment on you, and that it might restore your lost
memories. He said it would be worth trying."

"He didn't say it would work."

^"
He said it might; that it wouldn't do any
harm."

He stubbed out the cigarette from which he'd taken only
three drags. He glared at Candler. He didn't have to say what was in his mind;
the managing editor could read it.

Candler said, "Calm down, boy. Remember I didn
^'
t
bring it up until you yourself started in on how much that memory-wall bothered
you. I wasn
^'
t saving it for ammunition. I mentioned it only out of
fairness to you, after the way you talked."

^"
Fairness!"

Candler shrugged. "You said no. I accepted it. Then you
started raving at me and put me in a spot where I had to mention something I
^'
d
hardly thought of at the time. Forget it. How's that graft story coming? Any
new leads?
^"

"You going to put someone else on the asylum
story?"

^"
No. You're the logical one for it.
^"

^"'
What is the story? It must be pretty
woolly if it makes you wonder if Dr. Randolph is sane. Does he think his
patients ought to trade places with his doctors, or what?"

He laughed.
^"
Sure, you can
^'
t tell
me. That
^'
s really beautiful double bait. Curiosity-and hope of
knocking down that wall. So what
^'
s the rest of it? If I say yes
instead of no, how long will I be there, under what circumstances? What chance
have I got of getting out again? How do I get in?"

Candler said slowly, "Vine, I'm not sure any more I
want you to try it. Let's skip the whole thing."

"Let's not. Not until you answer my questions, anyway.
^"

"All right. You'd go in anonymously, so there wouldn't
be any stigma attached if the story wouldn't work out. If it does, you can tell
the whole truth—including Dr. Randolph's collusion in getting you in and out
again. The cat will be out of the bag, then.

"You might get what you want in a few days-and you
wouldn
^'
t stay on it more than a couple of weeks in any case."

"How many at the asylum would know who I was and what I
was there for, besides Randolph?"

"No one.
^"
Candler leaned forward and held
up four fingers of his left hand. He pointed to the first. "Four people
would have to be in on it. You." He pointed to one finger. "Me."
A second. "Dr. Randolph." The third finger. "And one other
reporter from here."

"Not that I'd object, but why the other reporter?"

^"
Intermediary. In two ways. First, he
^'
ll
go with you to some psychiatrist; Randolph will recommend one you can fool
comparatively easily. He
^'
ll be your brother and request that you be examined
and certified. You convince the psychiatrist you're nuts and he'll certify you.
Of course it takes two doctors to put you away, but Randolph will be the
second. Your alleged brother will want Randolph for the second one."

^"
All this under an assumed name?"

"If you prefer. Of course there's no real reason why it
should be."

"That's the way I feel about it. Keep it out of the
papers, of course. Tell everybody around here-except my-hey, in that case we
couldn't make up a brother. But Charlie Doerr, in Circulation, is my first
cousin and my nearest living relative. He
^'
d do, wouldn
^'
t
he?"

"Sure. And he'd have to be intermediary the rest of the
way, then. Visit you at the asylum and bring back anything you have to send
back."

^"
And if, in a couple of weeks, I
^'
ve
found nothing, you'll spring me?"

Candler nodded.
^"
I
^'
ll pass the
word to Randolph; he
^'
ll interview you and pronounce you cured, and
you're out. You come back here, and you've been on vacation. That's all."

"What kind of insanity should I pretend to have?"

He thought Candler squirmed a little in his chair. Candler
said,
^"
Well-wouldn't this Nappy business be a natural? I mean,
paranoia is a form of insanity which, Dr. Randolph told me, hasn't any physical
symptoms. It
^'
s just a delusion supported by a systematic framework
of rationalization. A paranoiac can be sane in every way except one."

He watched Candler and there was a faint twisted grin on his
lips. "You mean I should think I'm Napoleon?"

Candler gestured slightly.
^"
Choose your own
delusion. But-isn't that one a natural? I mean, the boys around the office
always kidding you and calling you Nappy. And-" He finished weakly,
^"
-and
everything."

And then Candler looked at him squarely.
^"
Want
to do it?
^"

He stood up. "I think so. I
^'
ll let you know
for sure tomorrow morning after I've slept on it, but unofficially-yes. Is that
good enough?"

Candler nodded.

He said,
^"
I
^'
m taking the rest of
the afternoon off; I
^'
m going to the library to read up on paranoia.
Haven't anything else to do anyway. And I'll talk to Charlie Doerr this
evening. Okay?"

^"
Fine. Thanks."

He grinned at Candler. He leaned across the desk. He said,
^"
I'll
let you in on a little secret, now that things have gone his far. Don't tell
anyone.
I am
Napoleon!"

It was a good exit line, so he went out.

He car his hat and coat and went outside, out of the
air-conditioning and into the hot sunlight. Out of the quiet madhouse of a
newspaper office after deadline, into the quieter madhouse of the streets on a
sultry July afternoon.

He tilted his panama back on his head and ran his
hand-kerchief across his forehead. Where was he going? Not to the library to
bone up on paranoia; that had been a gag to get off for the rest of the
afternoon. He'd read everything the library had on paranoia-and on allied
subjects-over two years ago. He was an expert on it. He could fool any
psychiatrist in the country into thinking that he was sane-or that he wasn't.

He walked north to the park and sat down on one of the
benches in the shade. He put his hat on the bench beside him and mopped his
forehead again.

He stared out at the grass, bright green in the sunlight, at
the pigeons with their silly- head-bobbing method of walking, at a red squirrel
that came down one side of a tree, looked about him and scurried up the other
side of the same tree.

And he thought back to the wall of amnesia of three years
ago.

The wall that hadn't been a wall at all. The phrase
intrigued him: a wall at all. Pigeons on the grass, alas. A wall at all.

It wasn
^'
t a wall at all; it was a shift, an
abrupt change. A line had been drawn between two lives. Twenty-seven years of a
life before the accident. Three years of a life since the accident.

They were not the same life.

But no one knew. Until this afternoon he had never even
hinted the truth-if it
was
the truth-to anyone. He'd used it as an exit
line in leaving Candler's office, knowing Candler would take it as a gag. Even
so, one had to be careful; use a gagline like that often, and people begin to
wonder.

The fact that his extensive injuries from that accident had
included a broken jaw was probably responsible for the fact that today he was
free and not in an insane asylum. That broken jaw-it had been in a cast when
he'd returned to consciousness forty-eight hours after his car had run head-on
into a truck ten miles out of town-had prevented him from talking for three
weeks.