The Syndrome (47 page)

All the rooms on the ward had large windows facing out on the corridor. The windows were made of the kind of glass that was embedded with a kind of chicken wire.

Shaw opened one of the doors, and stepped inside.

The room contained a built-in console with drawers against one wall and a bed against the other. A television was mounted on the wall facing the bed, and there was a video camera affixed to the ceiling. A small toilet in the corner. And that was that.

McBride lay in the bed, his head propped up on a pair of pillows, staring at a soap opera. He hadn’t moved when they entered the room, and now she saw that he couldn’t: his wrists were belted to the bed.

Adrienne was shocked. “Take those off!” she demanded, moving quickly to McBride’s side.

“Soon enough,” Shaw promised, gently lifting her hand from one of the restraints. Stepping closer, he laid a hand on McBride’s shoulder. “Lewis,” he said, “I want you to pay close attention to what I’m about to say.”

No reaction.

“It’s important,” the psychiatrist insisted, “and I’m worried that we don’t have a lot of time.”

Nothing from McBride—who looked as if he’d aged ten years since Adrienne had seen him, years in which he’d undergone some terrible ordeal. His face was drawn and his cheeks were covered with stubble. Hollow eyes that averted her own.

Frustrated, Adrienne reached up and snapped off the TV.

McBride turned his head toward her. “Thanks,” he said. “I hate that fucking show.”

Adrienne giggled, delighted to get a reaction—any reaction—from him.

“Listen to me, Lewis,” Shaw demanded.

The patient shook his head, closed his eyes. “Let me alone, Doc.” His voice had all the resonance of a stone.

“I’m going to release you,” the psychiatrist announced.

It took a moment for the words to penetrate the insulation in which McBride had wrapped his understanding. Then his eyes blinked open, and he turned to Shaw with a sidelong glance.

“But you have to pay attention,” Shaw told him.

He was.

The psychiatrist cleared his throat.

“You didn’t do it!” Adrienne blurted. “You didn’t kill anybody.”

“Let me handle this,” Shaw insisted.

Adrienne put a hand on McBride’s cheek and, turning his head to her, looked him in the eyes. “No—I checked the papers. And it’s all a lie. There was nothing! No murder, no police—”

McBride shook his head. “I know what happened, kiddo. I know what I did.”

“But you’re wrong. You weren’t even married. There wasn’t any baby!” She paused. Should she tell him he was supposed to be dead? “It’s like Nikki,” she said. “They’ve given you one of these memories—”

“
Who
has?”

His question took her aback.

“Who has?” he repeated.

She didn’t know what to say. Looked to Shaw for help. Got none. Shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Someone.”

McBride looked away. “I can feel it,” he told them. “I can feel the bat in my hands …”

“Lew,” Shaw began—

McBride turned back to Adrienne. “So, what you’re saying is: I’m just a screen for someone else’s projector.”

Adrienne weighed the metaphor. Shrugged. “Right,” she said.

McBride swung his eyes toward the psychiatrist. “Okay, let’s say you’re right. Then:
what’s the point?
Why would anyone want to make me think I killed my wife and child?” When Shaw frowned, McBride turned angrily to Adrienne. “What’s the point?” he repeated.

The question hung in the air, floating through the weird silence of that empty and sterile room. It was a good question, a tough question and, for a moment, Adrienne despaired of an answer. Then it came to her, and it was so simple. She cleared her throat. “So you’d kill yourself,” she said. “Like Nikki.”

Once the restraints had been removed, and McBride had seen the clipping from the
Examiner
, Shaw told him that “I want to put you in a trance.”

“No, thanks, Doc. Been there—done that. If you don’t mind …”

“There’s no way that I’m going to release you,” Shaw said,
“until I’m certain you’re free of posthypnotic suggestions—whatever the source.”

McBride chewed on that, a defiant look in his eye.

“Let me be honest with you,” Shaw continued. “After what you’ve been through, it’s going to take a long time for you to get well. Under any other circumstances, I’d recommend counseling and therapy—and lots of it.” He paused, and heaved a sigh. “But we don’t have that luxury. As Adrienne can tell you, I’ve been contacted by a government agency. They say they have ‘equities’ in the matter. That may be so. I don’t know. But what I do know is that they don’t have
your
best interests at heart. In fact, I got the distinct impression that they don’t care about you, at all.”

McBride thought about it. Finally, he asked, “And you think I’ve been given posthypnotic suggestions—”

“Absolutely! That’s why I was having such a helluva time getting through to you. Anytime you came close to your past—your real past—this brutal figment, this
syndrome
—would begin to surface. And when it did, you’d sense it and, psychologically, you’d start to panic. Fight or flight. It’s brilliant. They created a false memory so toxic that it gave you a built-in aversion to your real self.”

Even with the restraints removed, McBride remained where he was, in a sink of depression. “Maybe you’re right,” he said in a skeptical voice. “Then again, isn’t it more likely that I just got away with it?”

“No,” Adrienne exclaimed, her voice trembling with anger. “It isn’t more likely! You know somebody fucked with your head. Wake up! You didn’t kill Eddie, you didn’t blow up the house, you didn’t trash my apartment—”

“Who’s Eddie?” Shaw asked, his voice thick with alarm.

Adrienne ignored him. “And you aren’t the one who’s trying to kill me.”

“Oh, Jesus—” Shaw muttered.

“So placing your bets on the ‘more likely’ explanation is kind of stupid, isn’t it?” she asked. Then she wrapped her
arms around her body, turned away, and walked toward the opposite side of the room.

“Who’s Eddie?” Shaw asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Adrienne told him, her back to the psychiatrist. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. “Wait a second,” she said, turning toward him. “I thought hypnosis was benign. And it was impossible to make hypnotized people do something that would cause harm. I heard you couldn’t make a person hurt anyone—let alone kill himself.”

“That’s a myth,” Shaw said, dismissing the idea. “PR from the hypnotism industry.” He gestured toward McBride. “Lewis can tell you all about it. He’s in the field.”

“What do you mean, it’s a myth?” Adrienne asked.

Shaw glanced at his watch, then ran his hand through his hair. “It’s all a question of context,” he explained.

“What context?” Adrienne asked.

“Well, for example: if the patient believes he’s in a war, and that the war is a just one, he could probably be made to kill someone that the hypnotist tells him is the enemy. Or if he’s persuaded that someone is intent on killing
him
, and that he’s acting in self-defense—”

“I get the point,” Adrienne said, “but it’s all theoretical.”

“Hardly,” Shaw replied. Turning to McBride, he asked: “What was that case? The one in Denmark?”

“Palle Hardrup,” McBride answered. “Bank robbery—in the Fifties—a guard was killed.” Adrienne noticed that McBride was alert now, the discussion having overcome his indifference.

“Right!” Shaw said, with a congratulatory smile. “You’ve got an excellent memory.”

It took a second, but they all smiled. Then Adrienne looked from one man to the other. “His name was Hardup? And he robbed a bank? Is this some kind of shrink in-joke?”

McBride smiled.
“
Haar
-druup
,” he corrected. “He was arrested after a bank robbery. Shot a guard, and killed him. Which puzzled the police because he didn’t really need the money, and he wasn’t a violent guy. He was pretty ordinary,
in fact. A good citizen. So the question was, why did he do it?” McBride looked at Shaw, who nodded for him to continue. “It was totally out of character. But then they found out that he’d been hypnotized by his therapist—and that the therapist had ordered him to rob the bank and shoot the guard.”

“And the judge bought this?” Adrienne asked, her voice larded with the skepticism of a good attorney.

“Yes, he did. Because the therapist confessed. Said he’d engineered the crime as a test of his powers.”

“Huh,” Adrienne remarked, uncertain if she believed the story.

“It’s a famous case,” Shaw told her. “It came up in the Manson trial.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because the therapist wasn’t on the scene when the crime was committed—and yet, the gunman was obviously under his influence and control.”

“So how did he do it?” Adrienne asked. “The therapist.”

“Do you remember, Lew?” Shaw asked.

McBride nodded. “He created a persona, a supernatural persona, that he called ‘X.’ ‘X’ was like God. And it was X who told Hardrup what to do.”

“And he did it?” Adrienne asked. “He shot the man?”

“Of course,” Shaw replied. “He was a very religious man.”

Adrienne thought about it. “And that’s what you mean by ‘context,’” she said.

“Right. As far as Hardrup was concerned, he was an instrument of divine will.”

“And you think that would work for suicide?”

“Why not?” Shaw answered. “People commit suicide all the time. Under the right circumstances—in the proper context—it can seem an honorable, and even reasonable, thing to do.” He glanced at his watch, and turned to McBride. “Are you up for it?”

McBride looked uncertain.

“We really don’t have a lot of time.”

McBride looked at Adrienne, and sighed. “Yeah, why not?”

Shaw smiled, and turned to Adrienne. “If you don’t mind waiting for us in the cafeteria … I have an exorcism to do.”

She was sitting at a square table in the cafeteria, working her way through the Business section of the
Times
, when Shaw strode in past the steam table, almost an hour after she’d left him. A little ripple of attention followed his progress across the room, with several nurses and doctors greeting him. He stopped to speak to a short, red-haired man in scrubs but otherwise just waved, smiled, mimed looking at his watch, and continued moving in her direction. She could tell from the response that Shaw was well liked.

“Where’s Lew?” she asked.

He sat down across from her. “He’ll be squared away in a few minutes. I signed the release, but … there’s paperwork.” He paused, and then went on. “Speaking of which: this is for you.” He pushed a file across the table.

“What is it?” she asked.

“His medical file.” Another pause, and then he explained: “If I don’t have it, no one can take it from me.”

Adrienne frowned. “I’m not so sure about releasing him,” she said. “I mean, how do you know he’s okay? What if—”

“Look,” the psychiatrist told her, “here’s the deal. I think he’s going to be all right now. I really do.” He tried a little smile that didn’t make it. “There’s no reason to keep him here. And as interesting as it has been … well—my involvement has to come to an end.” He stared at his fingernails for a moment. “You haven’t seen it, but I’m catching hell about ‘proper channels’ …” He shrugged. “I’m sure you understand: I’m not an independent operator. Not at all.” He tried a smile. It wasn’t successful.

What Shaw was saying was not unreasonable, but there was something wrong with
the way
he was saying it. He wanted her to say that she understood, but she wasn’t in the mood.

“So you’re bailing,” she decided.

The psychiatrist winced. “No. Come on. I have other responsibilities, you must know that.” He looked up at the ceiling, let the air seep from between his lips.

Adrienne managed a smile. “I know I’m not being fair,” she told him. “You’ve been incredible. But … I’m just not sure … what to do now.” She pushed her hair back from her forehead.

“I have a name for you,” Shaw said, patting his pockets. Finding what he was looking for, he removed a yellow Post-it from his shirt, and handed it to her.

Adrienne saw that it was imprinted with the word Health-Source and, below that, Shaw had scribbled a name:

“Sidney Shapiro …” She looked up. “Who’s he?”

Shaw thought about it. “He’s a man who knows about these things.”

“What? You mean—memory?”

A funny little look came over Shaw’s face. “No. I mean about your sister—and Lewis.”

She still didn’t understand. “He knows what happened to them?”

Shaw shook his head, and got to his feet. “He knows about implants,” he told her. “The ways they’re used and misused. He knows more about that than anyone in the world.” The psychiatrist hesitated for a moment, as something occurred to him. “Or maybe not.”

Adrienne studied the name on the Post-it. “But who
is
he?”

Shaw thought about it. “He’s … a retired civil servant.” Then he chuckled. Ruefully.

“And you think he’ll talk to us?”

Shaw shook his head. “I don’t know. If you show him that file, he might.”

“Okay, but … do you have a number for him?”

The psychiatrist shook his head for the second time. “He lives in West Virginia, near Harpers Ferry. I suspect he’s in the book.”

“All right,” Adrienne said. “Sid Shapiro. We’ll give it a shot.” She got to her feet, and put out her hand to shake.

He took her hand in his own, then covered it with his other hand. “If he asks where you got his name …”

“What should I tell him?”

Tight little smile from the nice shrink. “Well, don’t mention me. Just tell him you heard about him in a documentary on A&E.”

“Which one?” she asked.

“I think it was about ‘mind control.’”

McBride was waiting for them in the lobby, and it was obvious that the two men had already said their good-byes, because Shaw gave him a little salute, then hurried off down the corridor.

Maybe it was her imagination, but Lew McBride looked different somehow. He looked taller, his posture at once more athletic and relaxed. He smiled at her as she walked toward him and the smile seemed different too—less guarded. Happier. And there was something in his eyes. Maybe he is all right now, she thought.