On August 23, 1928, Rancid, the butler in the Drake Mansion on old Beacon Hill, reported a rather distressing fact to his employer. "Good Lord Harry," old Drake cried at first, "is he turning Papist now?" His second question was less rhetoricaclass="underline" "You're absolutely sure?"
"There is no doubt," Rancid replied. "The maids showed me the socks, sir. And the shoes."
That night there was a rattier strangulated attempt at conversation in the mansion's old library. "Are you going back to Harvard?" "Not yet."
"Are you at least going to try another damned alienist?" "They call themselves psychiatrists these days, Father. I don't think so."
"Dammit, Robert, what did happen in the war?" "Many things. They all made profits for our bank, though, so don't worry about them." "Are you turning Red?"
"I see no profit there. The State of Massachusetts killed two innocent men today for holding opinions of that sort." "Innocent my Aunt Fanny. Robert, I know the judge personally-"
"And he believes what the friend of a banker should believe."
There was a long pause, and old Drake crushed out a cigar he had hardly started. "Robert, you know you're sick." "Yes."
"What is this latest thing- glass and nails in your shoes? Your mother would die if she knew."
There was another silence. Robert Putney Drake finally answered, lanquidly, "It was an experiment. A phase. The Sioux Indians do much worse to themselves in the Sun Dance. So do lots of chaps in Spanish monasteries, and in India, among other places. It's not the answer." "It's really finished?"
"Oh, yes. Quite. I'm trying something else." "Something to hurt yourself again?" "No, nothing to hurt myself."
"Well, then, I'm glad to hear that. But I do wish you would go to another alienist, or psychiatrist, or whatever they call themselves." Another pause. "You can pull yourself together, you know. Play the man, Robert. Play the man."
Old Drake was satisfied. He had talked turkey to the boy; he had performed his fatherly duty. Besides, the private detectives assured him that the Red Business really was triviaclass="underline" The lad had been to several anarchist and Communist meetings, but his comments had been uniformly aloof and cynical.
It was nearly a year later when the really bad news from the private investigators arrived.
"How much will the girl take to keep her mouth shut?" old Drake asked immediately.
"After we pay hospital expenses, maybe a thousand more," the man from Pinkerton's said.
"Offer her five hundred," the old man replied. "Go up to a thousand only if you have to."
"I said maybe a thousand," the detective said bluntly. "He used a special kind of whip, one with twisted nails in the ends. She might want two or three thou."
"She's only a common whore. They're used to this sort of thing."
"Not to this extent." The detective was losing his deferential tone. "The photos of her back, and her buttocks especially, didn't bother me much. But that's because I'm in this business and I've seen a lot. An average jury would vomit, Mr. Drake. In court-"
"In court," old Drake pronounced, "she would come before a judge who belongs to several of my clubs and has investments in my bank. Offer five hundred."
Two months thereafter, the stock market crashed and New York millionaires began leaping from high windows onto hard streets. Old Drake, the next day, ran into his son begging on the street near the Old Granary cemetery. The boy was wearing old clothes from a secondhand store.
"It's not that bad, son. We'll pull through."
"Oh, I know that. You'll come out ahead, in fact, if I'm any judge of character."
"Then what the hell is this disgraceful damned foolishness?"
"Experience. I'm breaking out of a trap."
The old man fumed all the way back to the bank. That evening he decided it was time for another open and honest discussion; when he went to Robert's room, however, he found the boy thoroughly trussed up in chains and quite purple in the face.
"God! Damn! Son! What is this?"
The boy- who was twenty-seven and, in some respects, more sophisticated than his father- grinned and relaxed.
The purple faded from his face. "One of Houdini's escapes," he explained simply.
"You intend to become a stage magician? My God!"
"Not at all. I'm breaking out of another trap- the one that says nobody but Houdini can do these things."
Old Drake, to do him justice, hadn't acquired his wealth without some shrewdness concerning human peculiarities. "I begin to see," he said heavily. "Pain is a trap. That was why you put the broken glass in your shoes that time. Fear of poverty is a trap. That's why you tried begging on the streets. You're trying to become a Superman, like those crazy boys in Chicago, the 'thrill killers.' What you did to that whore last year was part of all this. What else have you done?"
"A lot." Robert shrugged. "Enough to be canonized as a saint, or to be burnt as a diabolist. None of it seems to add up, though. I still haven't found the way." He suddenly made a new effort, and the chains slipped to the floor. "Simple yoga and muscle control," he said without pride. "The chains in the mind are much harder. I wish there were a chemical, a key to the nervous system…"
"Robert," said old Drake, "you are going back to an alienist. I'll have you committed if you won't go voluntarily."
And so Dr. Faustus Unbewusst acquired a new patient, at a time when many of his most profitable cases were discontinuing therapy because of the monetary depression. He made very few notes on Robert, but these were subsequently found by an Illuminati operative, photostated, and placed in the archives at Agharti, where Hagbard Celine read them in 1965. They were undated, and scrawled in a hurried hand- Dr. Unbewusst, in reaction-formation against his own anal component, was a conspicuously untidy and careless person- but they told a fairly straightforward story:
RPD, age 27, latent homo. Father rich as Croesus. Five sessions per week @ $50 each, $250. Keep him in therapy 5 yrs that's a clear $65,000. Be ambitious, aim for ten years. $130,000. Beautiful.
RPD not latent homo at all. Advanced psychopath. Moral imbecile. Actually enjoys the money I'm soaking his father. Hopeless case. All drives egosyntonic. Bastard doesn't give a fuck. Maybe as long as 12 yrs.?-$156,000. Hot shit!