I felt as though I had eaten a portobello. “All right, let’s get this over with. Exactly why are you here now?”
“We’ve learned that she can read minds. Is that right, sir?”
“Why? Is that illegal?”
“How does she do that?”
“She says it has something to do with electromagnetic waves. Otherwise, I haven’t a clue.”
“We need to talk to her. Would that be all right with you, Dr. Brewer?”
“It’s not that simple. I don’t run the hospital. As a matter of fact, I’m retired. And technically, she’s not a patient. You’ll have to speak with Dr. Goldfarb about that.”
“We already have.”
“Well? What did she tell you?”
“She said we should talk to you about it.”
I thought: I don’t need this shit, Virginia. But what the hell—I was certain that fled could handle herself in any situation. “I’ll ask her if she wants to speak to you. What, exactly, do you want to get from her?”
“We need to know how she can read minds, sir. Critical to our national security. With your permission, we’d like to bring in a neuroscientist to examine her.”
Dartmouth suddenly whipped out his enormous weapon and stuck it into a bush. After wiggling it around for a moment and drawing no response, he sheathed it again.
“What if she refuses to talk to him?” I asked nervously.
Wang’s features hardened. “I remind you, sir, that this is highly sensitive material. We would appreciate your speaking to her about this. And it would be wise not to discuss the matter with anyone else. Do you understand?”
“No.”
He sighed. “Consider this: if our enemies could learn to read our minds…”
I thought about Walt Kelly, but kept that to myself. “What about my wife?” I inquired. “Okay if I discuss it with her?”
“That’s up to you, Dr. Brewer. But if you do, we’ll find out about it. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s turn around very slowly and return to the house, shall we?”
I complied, but before I had gone six feet I heard my companions crashing through the brush.
* * *
Will called Sunday evening. He was obviously excited. I thought: that’s probably the way I used to sound. “You could make a videotape of fled under hypnosis!” he suggested. “If you could get her chimpanzee alter ego—if that’s what she is—to utter something, or even to make a facial expression or gesture of some kind, maybe fled could make some sense of it and identify her.”
“Sounds like a good idea, Will!” It occurred to me that Dartmouth and Wang might think so, too. But I couldn’t think of anything catastrophic they could possibly do with this information.
“Want me to set something up for you?”
I didn’t know whether to be grateful for this suggestion or to resent it; Will knows I’m not particularly adept in the technical department. “Thanks, son. I’d appreciate that.”
“Fled’s gone again, by the way.”
“Any idea where?”
“Probably back to Africa. She seems to like it there. But she said she’d be available tomorrow for your meeting with her. And that you should expect a surprise.”
“What kind of surprise?”
“She didn’t say. I suppose if she had told me, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted any more surprises from fled.
“What are you guys planning for this evening?”
“Not much. We’re probably going to sit around and plot the overthrow of the government.”
“Huh?”
“Just a joke, son. Actually, we dearly love all three branches of our leadership. Executive, legislative, judicial—they’re all magnificent. And they’ve been keeping the elephants out of the neighborhood, too!”
“Dad, did you have some mushrooms for dinner, by any chance?”
CHAPTER FIVE
It was such a nice day when I left the house for MPI on Monday morning that I remembered again why I had retired. But for now I put the weather out of my mind—I had work to do.
As soon as I entered the building I ran into Laura Chang. It was almost as if she had been waiting for me. When she joined us a few years ago Laura was just out of her residency. Now in her mid-thirties, she’s an old hand, and one of the best psychiatrists in the business. Not only because of her intelligence and insight, but because, like Virginia Goldfarb, nothing fazes her. I could well imagine that, in a few years, she would be running the hospital. At this moment, however, she seemed a tad perturbed. But it sometimes takes her awhile to get to the point.
“How are you getting along with your new patient, Gene?”
“Well, she’s not really a patient, but—not so good. This time I think Virginia’s bitten off more than I can chew. How about you? All your patients behaving themselves?”
“Hard to tell. They’re all so focused on fled that it’s interfering with their protocols.”
“Really? I thought they were trying to ignore her as much as possible.”
“They try to, but they can’t. When she’s here she seems to occupy all the space around her.”
“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“What makes you think I wanted to talk to you about something?”
“I felt as if I were being ambushed when I came in.”
“You haven’t completely lost your, touch, doctor. It’s Claire.”
“What about her?”
“She’s become interested in fled. She wants to examine and analyze her.”
“You mean—”
“That’s right. She wants to set up a regular time every week for interview sessions with fled. She seems to think our alien visitor is delusional.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her that fled already has a doctor.”
“What did she think about that?”
I thought I detected a faint hint of a smile. “She wants to replace you. She thinks you’re over the hill and shouldn’t be seeing patients anymore.”
“She’s probably right about that, though she’s no spring chicken herself. Did you remind her that fled isn’t actually a patient of mine? So I probably can’t do her too much damage.”
“Well, no. But that isn’t the point, is it? I don’t want to encourage Claire to believe she’s competing with anyone on the staff here. She’s already convinced most of the patients that she’s a real doctor.”
“Sometimes even I forget that she’s a patient. She’s very sensitive about it, though. The problem is, she might take serious offense if she’s denied the opportunity to ‘practice.’”
“Exactly. She already has. She’s threatening to quit her ‘job’ here and go elsewhere.”
At that moment Cliff Roberts hurried by. “Maybe we ought to encourage her to do that!” he suggested before disappearing up the stairs. As Karen is fond of reminding me, life gets sillier every day. But then it occurred to me that Cliff could be right for once. Maybe a pink slip would snap her out of her delirium. But perhaps he was only joking. “So what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you might have a suggestion.”
I tried to come up with one, but the best I could do was: “Status aside, why not encourage Claire to speak with fled on an informal basis? It probably can’t do either of them any harm, and it might even be beneficial for Claire. Maybe fled can spot something in her behavior that we’ve missed.”
“That’s what I thought, too, but I thought you might want to tell fled what to expect. Thanks, Dr. B! Got to run—time for the Monday meeting. You coming to that?”