I grimaced with frustration and irritation, kept my anger to myself. "It's all right; I'm scheduled to teach today, anyway. As I keep saying, I'm not interested in telling Slycke his business, or getting in his way. I'm just sorry this whole thing has become so confrontational."
"He's suspicious of you; he doesn't care much for the Director of the D.I.A., and he thinks the man may be out to get him by sending you here as a spy-notwithstanding the fact, of course, that Garth is here legitimately."
"So Slycke told me."
"Anything to it, Mongo?" he asked in a disarmingly casual tone of voice.
"You've got to be kidding me, Tommy."
"There's word on the grapevine that you, Garth, and the Director are old friends who go back a long way together."
"I haven't even been in touch with Mr. Lippitt since I got here."
"It's all wrong," Garth said to the ceiling. Once again, tears were streaming from his eyes.
"Garth?" I said, again leaning over him. "What's all wrong?"
There was no reply; but then, I knew the answer.
"Garth," Tommy Carling said as he walked around to the other side of the bed, "we have to take you to the infirmary so the doctors can run some tests on you. Can you walk there, or would you prefer that I get a wheelchair?"
Garth gave no indication that he had heard. Carling started toward the telephone, then stopped and turned back when Garth abruptly sat up and got out of bed. He picked up the leather bag filled with tapes and batteries, walked the length of the room and stood waiting by the door. Carling took slippers and a woolen robe from a wardrobe in the corner, slipped the robe over Garth's shoulders. My brother put his feet into the slippers.
"Why don't we leave the tapes and the player here?" Carling continued quietly as he gently slipped the earphones from my brother's head and took the Walkman from his hand. "You won't need them where you're going, and they'll probably get in the doctors' way. I'll hang on to everything myself, so you know they'll be here when you get back."
Garth didn't seem to think much of the idea; he turned, took back the Walkman, put the earphones on his head and the player in the pocket of his robe. I almost smiled.
Carling looked at me, shrugged. "He'll be back around dinnertime, Mongo-six, probably seven at the very latest. You want me to order you up a tray?"
"Order me up some time with Dr. Slycke, Tommy," I said, staring at Garth's back. "At his convenience, when all the tests are done."
"I'll tell him-and I will order you a tray. It's roast beef tonight, and it'll be good."
"See you later, Garth," I said loudly.
Garth did not reply. Carling put his hand on my brother's arm, and without any further prompting Garth walked from the room.
The big news on the cottage sheets was that Dane Potter had somehow escaped from the locked facility during the night.
Having a psychotic, potentially murderous teenager on the loose in the county wasn't anyone's idea of a happy event; the local police had been notified; and a search was in progress. RCPC wasn't exactly Folsom prison, and kids sometimes ran away-but usually when they were outside on the grounds. Potter wasn't allowed outside, and no one was sure how he had managed to get away. There was some speculation that the boy had stolen a staff member's keys, or that a door had inadvertently been left unlocked. Whatever had happened, Dane Potter was long gone.
Tense and anxious, wondering if I had done the right thing in exposing Garth to the Ring with all of its attendant emotional shocks and associations, I didn't have a particularly good day at the school. I was moody and snappish, and probably hurt the feelings of a number of kids who'd come to look for fun and games from me in addition to their lessons. It wasn't a performance that would win me a nomination for Mental Health Worker of the Year, and I tried to make amends by staying after school and going back to visit with some of the children in their cottages on the two floors at the rear of the building. I talked with Kim Trainor, Chris Yardley, and a few other older adolescents who were walking by the reservoir, and then played checkers with an eight-year-old boy by the name of Steven Wallis.
Steven, with his doe eyes and dark, silky hair, was a beautiful child who, for some years, had been the object of sexual abuse by both his father and his uncle. He had managed to tolerate the abuse until he entered the third grade, when his marks had begun to fall precipitously. A bright boy, Steven had been able to function in his nightmare world at home because of his success in school, and with failure had come a complete loss of self-esteem and desire to live. He had tried to kill himself by drinking close to a quart of gasoline.
Garth hadn't been too far off the mark when he'd said it was all wrong.
It wasn't quite four thirty when I left the children's hospital; not feeling like hanging around Garth's room until he was brought back, I headed for my apartment. Still anxious and agitated, I was pleasantly surprised to find Veil waiting for me outside the staff building. The yellow-haired man with the glacial blue eyes was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and he was lounging on a bench set on the grass a few feet back from the sidewalk. He saw me coming down the street, stood up and waved with his good arm.
"Hello, my friend," Veil said as I came up to him. "I figured it was time to get out into the country for some fresh air, so I rented a car, and here I am."
"Hi, Veil," I said, gripping his hand. "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't been in touch."
"Don't be ridiculous. You've got a few things on your mind."
"How's the arm?"
"The cast comes off next week." Veil's smile vanished. "How's Garth?"
"You want a drink or something, Veil?"
"Not really."
"Neither do I," I said, and we sat down together on the bench. I brought Veil up to date on everything that had happened, shared my misgivings about Slycke's behavior-and my own.
Veil was silent for some time when I had finished, staring out over the grounds where patients and staff members were walking in groups of two and three. "This is the first time I've been back here," he said at last. "It's been more than twenty years since I was committed. The place hasn't changed much-except, of course, for the fact that we didn't have a children's hospital then, and we were housed in these buildings with the adults." He paused, pointed down the street. "I was in Building 11-just around the corner from the fire-house."
"God, you must feel spooky sitting here."
"Yes and no," Veil replied easily. "It's like something that happened to a different person, in a different world." He paused, looked at me. "My point is that I have a lot more experience being certifiably crazy than you do. I hear you loud and clear when you say you're worried about Garth. Of course you are. But you can't press. That nurse is right when he tells you that you really have no idea what's going on inside Garth's head. It sounds to me like something close to a miracle has happened virtually overnight, and you're bitching about it. Think of where Garth has been."
"I know where he's been, and I know I'm probably being childish and ungrateful. But to have Garth simply ignore me now that he's up and around is upsetting."
"Are you sure he recognizes you?"
"No. . I'm not sure. But I think he recognizes me, and he just doesn't seem to give a damn. His responses are totally flat, if you know what I mean."
Veil nodded thoughtfully, then pointed to my forehead. "How's the cut?"
"Clean as a whistle. You do good work."
Veil reached out and gently peeled back the small bandage, grunted. "You should have listened to me and gone to see a plastic surgeon, Mongo. You're going to have a pretty nasty scar there."
"Veil, I really don't give a shit."
"Anyway, the wound seems to have healed. I think you can have the stitches taken out now."