"Of course it is."
"Gold?"
Smith said nothing.
Big Dick Brull smiled grimly and said, "Fork it over."
Harold Smith was trembling now. He looked like a man in the autumn of life, gray with age, thin from the spare appetite of his years. His eyes disappeared behind the steam coming from every pore to cloud up his lenses. He made no move to doff his coat, watch or wedding ring.
"You will take my wedding ring over my dead body," he said in a voice as thin as his lank frame.
What Big Dick Brull would have said to that was never known. A drumbeat sounded somewhere close.
Doom doom doom doom...
"There it goes again," Agent Phelps moaned.
"Who's making that?" Brull demanded of Smith.
"If I knew, I would put a stop to it this instant."
The sound seemed to come from around the corner, so Dick Brull said, "Follow me."
They followed the drumming by sound and not sight. Nothing up and down the corridor seemed to be the source of the sound.
The drumbeat led them to a hospital-room door. Two agents pulled out Delta Elite pistols and rammed rounds into the chambers. They took up positions on either side of the door. At a nod from Brull, one flipped open the door while the other went in, pistol held before him in a two-handed grip. The other swept in right behind him.
"Freeze!" they shouted a beat apart.
"Oh, God," one said.
The other began retching.
Dick Brull shouted, "What is it? Did you corner it?"
A voice wavered, "Mr. Brull, you'd better see this yourself."
Brull hesitated. So Harold Smith broke free and barged into the room. Brull mustered up his courage and followed a pace behind him.
A low, strangled sound came from Harold W Smith.
Behind him Big Dick Brull bounced on his heels trying to see over Smith's tall, lanky frame. "What is it? I can't see. Stand aside so I can see."
Harold Smith obliged.
Big Dick Brull got a good look at the room. His eyes were drawn to the quivering steel Delta Elites in the two IRS agents' hands. They were pointing to a hospital bed. On the bed lay IRS Special Agent Jack Koldstad.
Koldstad was scratching himself. It looked as if he had been scratching himself for over an hour. The tips of his fingers were bloodied, and the side of his face that itched was a raw wound. It leaked blood like a sponge. Nevertheless, he kept scratching at the itch that his fingernails must have long ago conquered.
"What's wrong with him?" Brull croaked.
"Disinhibition combined with perseveration," said Harold Smith. "I recognize the symptoms."
"Make him stop, dammit! Somebody make him stop. It's making me sick just to look at him."
Harold Smith moved in and took Jack Koldstad's restlessly scratching right hand by the wrist. He had to use both hands because that was the only way to get the man to stop scratching his face. When the fingers came away, they could see what looked like a pulsing blister in the bloody rawness of the cheek. It moved, questing like a red slug. After a moment they realized they were looking at Jack Koldstad's tongue, visible through the wound he had excavated in his own face.
Big Dick Brull plunged out of the hospital room holding his hand to his mouth. A spray of watery vomit came out from between his fingers, and the chunks of his lunch began bouncing off his polished shoes.
When the doctor came, Big Dick Brull demanded in a hot voice, "Why wasn't this man under constant watch?"
"Because someone fired half the orderlies," he was told.
"What moron did that?" Brull roared.
From his hospital bed, Jack Koldstad lifted a weak hand.
The doctor quickly strapped it down along with the other so the patient wouldn't injure himself further.
MRS. HAROLD W SMITH wondered if she should call Folcroft Sanitarium.
Normally she would not have hesitated. Normally she called dutifully if her increasingly absentminded husband failed to call her. Usually Harold was very good about calling if he was going to be late. Sometimes he slept over at work. Lately he'd fallen into that habit quite a bit. She had begun to wonder if Harold had taken an unprofessional interest in his secretary.
As a consequence, Mrs. Smith, who answered to Maude but was affectionately called Irma by her husband, had begun to feel neglected.
So when her Harold-he was never Harry or Halonce again forgot to call her, she decided to let him get around to it in his own good time.
But it was a day later, and there had been no call. This was too much. Not that it hadn't happened before. It had. But Mrs. Smith was starting to feel taken for granted. And another carefully prepared meat loaf was congealing in the refrigerator, untasted.
Mrs. Smith was pacing the living room eyeing the beige AT ephone, wondering if she should call Harold or hold her ground until he remembered to call her, when a very loud knock came at the door.
Mrs. Smith went to answer it. The door was no sooner unlatched than several white-shouldered men in neat suits and drab ties began pouring in.
"Mrs. Harold W. Smith?" one demanded in a gruff voice.
"Yes. What is it?"
"Internal Revenue agents. We are seizing this property in settlement of outstanding federal taxes." He handed over an official-looking document.
Mrs. Smith tried to reason with the men. "I'm afraid you have the wrong house. My Harold has always paid his taxes."
"You have five minutes to gather up any belongings you can carry in two hands and go."
"Go? Go where?"
"Anywhere. This is a free country."
"But this is my home."
"This dwelling is government property, and you have four and one half minutes left."
Shocked to the bone, Mrs. Smith watched as the unfeeling IRS agents began rifling through cabinets and drawers. She grabbed her purse off the end table and bolted from the house, sobbing.
What was the world coming to?
HIS FACE TURNING PURPLE, Big Dick Brull swung on Harold W Smith and roared, "Confine this man to the brig!"
"You are mad," said Smith.
"And clap him in irons if you can find any!" Brull added.
"You are overstepping your lawful authority," Smith warned.
"I am IRS. IRS is the supreme authority. We have more manpower than the CIA, FBI and the Pentagon put together. We have an Intelligence-gathering capability that makes Red Chinese Intelligence look like Canadian Intelligence. Our annual budget is 6.5 billion dollars-the largest in human fucking history. We can do anything we want in the taxpayer's name. And we answer to no one."
"Wrong. There is one agency more powerful than yours. And you will answer to it, I promise you that."
"This is no such entity."
Harold Smith compressed his lips. He had already said too much.
"Big talker," Brull said contemptuously.
Two IRS agents grabbed Harold Smith by his elbows and pulled him down the corridor as much for his own safety as in response to the direct order.
"This way, Dr. Smith," one said.
Smith obeyed, walking stiff spined, his face the color and texture of the New England rock from which he sprang.
Dick Brull's voice roared after him. "By close of business today, Smith, I'm going to have the goods on you. IRS has the goods on every citizen. It's only a matter of digging up the dirt. You'll see, you noncompliant bastard."
Harold Smith said nothing. But his glasses had begun to steam up again.
They escorted him to the psychiatric wing. Smith groaned aloud when he saw the doors ajar up and down the main corridor.
"Where are my patients?" he demanded.
"Deinstitutionalized," said an agent unconcernedly.
As they escorted him along, Smith mentally tallied the missing patients. He saw with relief that the door to Jeremiah Purcell's padded cell was firmly shut. The sound of a television was coming from the other side. But when he saw the Beasley door ajar, Smith repressed another aggrieved groan.