Iris met my gaze with a distant stare. Dr. Young sat in the chair Iris had occupied earlier, watching me think.
I was about to give the verdict, but again I got distracted by the question of where we were. It suddenly seemed like a good idea to ask that first. That would allow me additional minute or so to make sure I didn’t look like a fool telling Dr. Young that he needed a doctor himself.
I opened my mouth, but before the question was formed, the door cracked open and a vaguely familiar blond head peered inside. The youth the head belonged to noted our positions in the room and grinned for some reason.
“Sleep well?” he inquired. “Come, you have to see this.” Throwing the door open, the kid disappeared. Through the door I saw the pink wall of a vaguely familiar narrow hallway.
I got up slowly, sending a most quizzical grimace in Dr. Young’s direction, but he only shrugged and pointedly looked at Iris.
“Don’t ask me,” said Iris in a tone suggesting she was not entirely startled to be asked.
My confusion lasted only the time it took me to reach the hallway. Once through the door, I recognized it immediately. We were back at the theater-bar, where, aside from the off chance of Dr. Young being of an alternative sexual orientation, only Iris could have brought us. The blond kid must have worked there. He was the guy who had asked me for a smoke while I waited for Paul in the booth.
The next door on the same side of the hallway was ajar. We entered something like a VIP lounge with a full-size dark green polyester couch, a couple of armchairs, two lagoon-like tables and an aquarium with several long and thick fishes. Fleetingly, I wondered why the hell I had to sleep with knees covering my ears on that loveseat, when there was a couch like that in the next room. The kid, stretched all over one of the armchairs, directed our attention to the screen built into the wall, bookended on both sides by two potted plants.
They were showing a picture of some square-faced guy, and then suddenly my face appeared. I knew at once something was amiss. I was smiling amiably in all the pictures they showed.
“…Still no knowledge of his whereabouts right now, but sources tell us Mr. Whales has been known to sleep late,” the female anchor I haven’t met reported with a smirk. “Perhaps he just joined us. If that is the case…” She leaned closer, smirk turning into a warm smile “…come on back, Luke. We’ve missed you.”
A handsome weatherman agreed. “We certainly have, Joan. And we have even more good news. The next four or five days promise nothing but sunshine…”
“Wait… what happened?” I asked groggily. My gaze wandered from Iris to Dr. Young to Iris and, finally, to the kid in the chair.
“They shot the guy who killed your marshal,” the kid said. “The FBI wants you to show up for the statement, but otherwise you have been cleared of all suspicion. Of course, the cops say they never really made you an official suspect in the first place, but everyone knows it’s a pile of crap.”
I stared him for a long time, then turned and stared at Iris.
“Congratulations,” she said.
I breathed out a cautious chuckle, suddenly wanting to hug her. She must have seen it in my eyes, because she threw open her arms. I ducked in, wrapped my arms around her and squeezed, lifting her into the air. I could have lifted my old Winger right then with as little effort. The blond kid jumped from his armchair, slapped me on the back and, grinning that suddenly infectious grin, left the room.
“Mr. Whales, may I have a word with you, before…”
I put Iris down and turned to Dr. Young, thinking maybe to toss him up a couple of times too. The intense look on his face stopped me. He commanded the TV to shut down, and when that failed, frowned deeply and settled for mute. In the silence I heard a fan in the ceiling, buzzing a nightingale’s song.
Dr. Young began to talk rapidly and I stood there nodding, but, to tell you the truth, I didn’t catch much of it. Funny how the mind works. I recall him saying something about being calm and rational and not making some mistakes twice. But despite the events of the previous night, despite Lloyd, despite what he had said only five minutes earlier, all I could think of was: I can forget it all and go back.
“Choice, Mr. Whales,” Dr. Young said after he’d done some talking. “It was not a coincidence that I’ve mentioned choice to you. Don’t let them choose for you.”
That was one statement that got through to me. It really soured my mood. “Choice, Doc? What choice? I was framed for murder, remember?”
“You were being framed long before Mr. Freud appeared on the horizon.”
“So you say. And maybe it’s true, or maybe it isn’t. Regardless, I didn’t get to choose any of it.”
“You chose to stop the pills.”
“Stopping pills is one thing.”
“You chose to be free, instead of ‘fighting for freedom.’ Are you intending to report to your nearest recruitment center now?”
“No, I’m not. But I don’t need to stay on the run for the rest of my life dancing to some lunatic’s pipe and dodging God knows what creatures to take care of that problem. There are other means.”
“Think of what you know. Think of what you’ve seen—”
“What I’ve seen is two corpses and some other things I would rather forget very soon. As to what I know… I don’t know jack, Doc.”
“You are not five years old. Those ‘things’ aren’t going to cease to exist the moment you put your hands over your eyes.”
“Let them exist. I can’t do nothing about their existence. They existed long before I knew about them; they will go on existing long after I am dead. What do you want me to become, Doc? A vampire hunter? Sorry, I’m a talk show host, not a super hero, not even an ex-soldier like Lloyd. I get paid to talk and look pretty on TV. I think the best chance I got to stay alive is to simply return to my old life—”
“How can you even speak of your old life? Do you think you can just become one of them again? Go back to your advertisements, your shows?”
“I am one of them. And so are you, and she, and Lloyd was, and the blond kid, and even that ten-foot-tall bartender.”
“Why? Why should we be? Because we have the same number of chromosomes? Is that what makes us the same? Is that why we must accept whatever the rest of them accept? To be part of this circus, this zoo. To be ruled by the glass-eyed majority who are prepared to turn into pillars of salt at someone’s whim, as long as they don’t have to make any decisions?”
“See, that’s the thing, Doc,” I said quietly. Dr. Young deflated, embarrassed at the volume of his voice. He peered at me accusingly.
“I don’t believe it,” I said. “The war. The end of the world. I thought about it. It makes no sense. Explain it to me. What could possibly be gained by annihilating the planet? I mean, if you want to rule, there’ll be no one left to rule. If you want the planet, no planet will be left to speak of. Just a piece of radioactive rock. Not to mention making us do it. Why? For what? Amusement?”
He sighed and slid his hands in the pockets of his brown slacks. His shoulders rose in a slow shrug.
“You’re right, Mr. Whales. I can’t explain it. I don’t know why they would do it. Nonetheless, I look at the world, I look at people, events, and I believe it to be true. I believe there is a reason for it. But I am allowed to sometimes believe things. After all, I am a priest.”
He looked up at me with a sudden sad smile. “You know, ever since Mr. Freud introduced us, I was hoping you would be the one to help me put it together.”