“Perlsteiner.”
Guma shook hands and gave his cover name. The old man’s grip was surprisingly strong. Dr. Perlsteiner looked through his files and pulled one out. He read it and let out a little snorting laugh.
“Ach, so we have Ganser syndrome again. Ganser syndrome.” He made it sound like the name of a cartoon character on Saturday morning TV.
Perlsteiner looked at Guma sharply, but his eyes still held an amused twinkle. “Mister Trevio,” he said, “you would be surprised how little real mental illness there is in the world. And of that, how little is associated with criminal behavior. Irrationality, we have, plenty. And evil, oh my, we have enough, more than enough of that. But the poor crazy people: They suffer, you understand? They can barely take care of themselves. Plot a crime? Nonsense! They cannot do it. Oh, perhaps, in a frenzy they hurt someone, yes, but as I say, this is rare.
“You know, Mister Trevio, when I was much younger, I had the opportunity to observe, at close hand, a great deal of criminal behavior, people being murdered and tortured, robbed, and so on. And afterward, when people said, ‘This was madness, this was insanity,’ I would say, ‘No, it was not. Evil, surely. Hate and greed, yes, lust for power, yes, fear, perhaps. But not insane. This is a libel on the poor madmen.’
“But, you know, they don’t listen. They wish to make a medical thing of evil. Madness is also such a useful metaphor, for that which we would rather not face, eh? So. I am didactic again. Forgive me. Now, you, my dear man-I see here by your record-wished for some money, heh? And you took it. Very sane. And you were caught, but you do not wish to pay for your crime, heh? Also, very sane.”
Perlsteiner capped his pen, put it in his breast pocket, and got slowly to his feet. “So. I have examined you. You are sane as bread. I will write my report, which I am sure will be ignored, as were the others. But no matter.” He looked around the dayroom and gestured to the inmates.
“You see, I make my examinations here, instead of in my office. Doctor Werner gives me a very small office, which is very inconvenient also. And damp. Much like a cell, you understand? So I do my examining in the open ward. We did the same in the Geisteskrankheitshaus in Vienna. And at Treblinka, of course.”
Perlsteiner made to go and then began to pat and poke all his pockets. “My eyeglasses …?”
“On your forehead,” said Guma.
Dr. Perlsteiner laughed delightedly and adjusted his glasses. “So they are. Thank you very much. Carl Jung was always doing the same. Look, let me give you some advice. We don’t see the delusions characteristic of florescent schizophrenia situationally, with no prior history of the disease. Only in literature. In real life, once you got them, they don’t go away so easy, you understand? Roosters! Ha! Good God!”
Guma watched the old man walk away, humming. He smiled and strolled over to the payphone, put in some coins and dialed.
“V.T.? Good, you’re in. Time to spring me. I think I got a lead.”
The next morning Karp was back in his office, trying without much energy to plow through the piles of paperwork accumulated in his absence. Frank Gelb had dropped by, smiling, to say he had been appointed to the bench and was leaving immediately for a vacation in Europe before assuming his new duties. Karp was acting chief as of that morning.
Karp stared glumly at a set of large computer-generated charts laid out on his desk. They told a worse-than-usual story. Of the fifteen hundred cases arraigned by Karp’s assistants every week, almost seventy percent were removed from the courts immediately, either through plea bargains or skips after release. Of those that got past arraignment, only three percent were ever brought to a full trial, the rest being plea bargained away.
The most depressing figure, however, was the conviction rate. Karp got out the folder that held several sheets of graph paper on which he had plotted the trial rates and the conviction rates in the months since Bloom took over. He added the appropriate points. In Garrahy’s last month, ten percent of the cases passing through the Criminal Courts Bureau reached trial; eighty percent of the trials had ended in conviction, usually for the top count. This past month it had dropped below thirty-five percent. The golden age is gone, thought Karp, ring in the age of brass. Or toilet paper.
By noon, about two-thirds of the pile of papers had shifted from the in-basket to the out-basket. The door banged open and Guma stepped in, smoking a larger-than-usual cigar and holding a cardboard carton.
“All right! Lunch for the cripple. You like corned beef? We got corned beef. You like pastrami? We got pastrami. I got celery tonic, cream, black raspberry. I got dibs on the cream.”
“Goom, glad to see you! I hear you’re not crazy anymore.”
“Yeah, well, that Werner’s a helluva shrink. He’s got the magic touch.”
The door opened again, and V.T. Newbury walked in, followed by Sonny Dunbar. Newbury was wearing a long white lab coat with a stethoscope sticking out of the side pocket. He had a sheaf of manila folders under one arm.
“Looking good, V.T. Where’d you get the outfit? Hey, Sonny.”
“Denny Maher lent it to me. The name tag too,” said V.T.
V.T. leaned over so Karp could read the white plastic tag pinned to his breast pocket.
“Doctor Frankenstein?”
“Yeah. It got me into Bellevue to spring Guma. I guess that says something. And to rifle Werner’s files. And make copies.”
“So what did you learn? Give,” said Karp around his corned beef sandwich.
“What we got is this,” said Guma, pointing to the folders that Newbury had placed on the desk. “Each time Louis was examined, Werner sent up a report. His opinion is that Louis was incompetent, with a confirmation by another psychiatrist. A guy named Edward Stone. The same thing happened to me.”
“So? Where does that get us?”
“Butch, I was examined by three shrinks. Count ’em, three. The third guy was this old dude, Perlsteiner. He’s old but he don’t miss much. He said there was nothing wrong with me.”
“Little does he know,” said Newbury.
“Up yours, Newbury. And, we find, on examining these records here, that Perlsteiner also examined Mandeville Louis on three occasions, and wrote reports saying that Louis was faking it. Reports that never made it into the file.”
“Goom, this is great!” Karp exclaimed. “Great! Werner doesn’t know we have this. We’ll subpoena him for all documents relating to Louis. He’ll never turn over the dissenting opinions. Witholding evidence! I’ll tear him a new asshole on the stand.” Karp turned to Dunbar. “What is that, Sonny? The sworn question and answer statement from Elvis’s girlfriend?”
“Yeah, it looks solid. We got him good, now.”
“Right. He’s looking at so much time now he’s got to give us Louis for a walk.”
“What?” Dunbar said, his voice rising. “Tell me you didn’t say ‘walk.’ ”
“Well, you know we’ll try to get the best deal we can on him, but if he holds out, I’ll tell you right now, I’ll walk him to get Louis.”
“Let me understand this. I bust my black ass hunting down this muthafucka, who has blown up one of your people, your people, and killed my brother-in-law, and near killed you, and you tell me that after all that, you’re thinking of giving him a free ride?”
“Come on, Sonny. Louis is the goddamn target here. Elvis is a tool. It’d be like, in a vehicular manslaughter, putting the car in jail instead of the driver.”
“Don’t give me ‘tool,’ man. I want his ass in jail. His ass.”
“For chrissake, Sonny, the son of a bitch is blind, or close to it. You think he’s going to go back to armed robbery in Braille?”
“Fuck that, man! What, are you the judge and the jury all of a sudden? You saying he’s suffered enough? I thought this was the law around here. You think I sat up with my wife night after night, her crying her eyes out about Donnie, for a deal? I want his ass in jail!”