"I appreciate your candor, Doctor, and I'm beginning to understand why you. . come so highly recommended. All right, then, what about medication? Antidepressants?"
"They might work to some degree," Slycke said thoughtfully, "but it's doubtful that they'd provide any significant or long-lasting relief for the sort of core personality disorder your brother is displaying. I may approach Garth on the subject; we'd need his permission to medicate. My guess is that he'll firmly reject the idea."
"Nobody's going to dispute the fact that Garth is seriously disturbed. Why do you need his permission to medicate him? I'll give you permission, if you think it might help in any way."
"You can't. He's now conscious, aware of his surroundings, not a threat to himself or others, and functions rationally within a construct of reality that includes this facility and his own treatment. Even if correct therapy didn't dictate that he participate in a decision concerning chemotherapy, which it does, state law insists on it."
"Then what happens now?"
"We wait, and we continue to observe closely to see if more changes take place. Also, we hope. As long as traces of nitrophenylpentadienal show up in his urine, we know that the drug is continuing to pass out of his system as it metabolizes. If Garth's brain chemistry were eventually to return to normal-" Slycke paused, shrugged. "Who knows?"
"You mean we may simply be waiting for him to get over one long, humongous hangover?"
There was a quick smile, reflecting genuine amusement. Then it was gone. "I don't want to raise any false hopes, Frederickson."
"You're not."
"Your somewhat bizarre analogy may not be beyond the realm of possibility. We're just going to have to wait and see, and in the meantime deal with Garth honestly."
"Thank you very much for your time, Doctor," I said, rising to my feet. "You've been very kind, and I appreciate your concern."
"Frederickson. .?"
Slycke had begun to shuffle nervously through some papers on his desk. Finally he looked up at me, said: "Mr. Lippitt really is a close personal friend of yours, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is," I replied evenly. "Why?"
The psychiatrist shuffled more papers. "Have you spoken to him, uh. . lately?"
"No," I replied, my curiosity aroused. None of the former hostility, resentment, or suspicion remained in the psychiatrist's voice; it had been replaced by what sounded like anxiety, and not a little uncertainty. "I haven't spoken with Mr. Lippitt since the arrangements were made for placing Garth here."
"I see," Slycke said quietly, then cleared his throat. "I thought. . maybe you had."
"Is there some reason why you think I would-or should-have, Dr. Slycke?"
Slycke looked at me sharply, and something dark moved in his eyes. "No," he said curtly. "Why do you say that?"
"I know that somewhere you got the notion that I might be spying on you for Mr. Lippitt, but that was never true. It got us off on the wrong foot at the beginning, which is something I still regret. As I've said repeatedly, my only concern is that Garth get well; I don't care about anything else." I paused, wanting to choose my next words carefully. "Even if there were something funny going on here, I wouldn't want to know about it. That's not to say that I think there is; I'm just trying to make my priorities and position crystal clear."
Slycke studied me for some time, his face a blank, then abruptly looked down at the papers on his desk. "Good night, Dr. Frederickson," he said tersely.
"Good night, Dr. Slycke."
After my talk with Slycke, I returned to Garth's room. I'd been concerned that some of the things I'd said earlier might have upset my brother, but I found him where I'd left him-contentedly sitting at the table, staring out the window and humming softly along with the music coming through his earphones. Siegfried. I sat with him for a half hour, until it was time to change the tape. Forcing myself to flash a big smile, I rose, patted him on the shoulder, and told him I'd stop by next day to see how he was doing. Garth said that would be fine, and then went back to listening to his music.
Distracted, self-absorbed, and decidedly upset about Garth's condition and my possible role in causing it, I could easily have been killed if my knife-wielding attacker had been slightly more skilled and slightly less impatient. I was halfway back to the staff building, taking a shortcut around the back of the chapel, when a figure wearing a gray, hooded sweat shirt leaped out at me from behind the trunk of a huge oak tree. The man's right hand described an arc heading for my chest, and moonlight glinted off the six-inch blade of the hunting knife he held. I dropped to my knees; as the blade passed through the air over my head, I planted both hands on the ground, kicked up and back at the man's midsection. I missed his stomach and groin, but caught him solidly on the left hip. The man cried out in surprise and pain as he flew backward through the air and landed hard on his back. The knife landed on the grass in the darkness somewhere off to my right, and I decided not to waste time looking for it. I scrambled to my feet, darted back to where the man still lay on the ground, and kicked him in the head. Then I sat down hard on his chest. With my left hand I pulled back the hood, brought back my right with the index and middle fingers stiffly extended, ready to strike at his eyes or larynx. I stopped when I found myself looking down into the startled, frightened face of Dane Potter. Blood was running from his mouth. He coughed, turned his head to one side, and spat teeth.
"You hurt me," the boy mumbled thickly, gasping for breath.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Dane?"
"You're not allowed to hurt me! My parents will sue you!"
"Dane, that's a really crazy thing to say to me," I replied, and stomped on his stomach as I was getting off him. He doubled up, turned over on his side, gagged, and threw up.
When Dane Potter had finished being sick, but before he could completely catch his breath, I stripped his sweat shirt off him, used it to tie his hands firmly behind his back. I pulled him to his feet, gripped the folds of the sweat shirt, and dragged him backward along with me as I searched in the grass. I found the knife, slipped it into the waistband of my jeans. I also picked up his teeth-three of them-and put them in my pocket. Dentists can do wonders these days.
"I want to go back to the hospital now, Frederickson," the boy wheezed over his shoulder in a kind of mewling, simpering moan. His breath whistled through the gaps where his teeth had been.
"That's where you were headed before you decided to take this little detour and try to kill me, right?"
"Frederickson, I-"
"And that was you in the pickup trying to add me to the paint job on the bridge this afternoon, right? Don't try to bullshit me, Dane, or I'll kick out some more teeth."
The boy swallowed hard, nodded. "I'm sorry, Frederickson. Please take me back."
"In a few minutes," I said, dragging the limping teenager into the moon shadows at the rear of the chapel. "Maybe. Then again, maybe I'll break your arms first. I hate to think of what would have happened to me if you'd gotten your hands on a gun. That's your weapon of choice, right?"
The boy's eyes were wide with pain and fear; I decided my words were having a therapeutic effect on him.
"You can't do this," the boy whimpered, craning his neck back and spraying blood over me. "It's against the law; it's abuse."