Francis was leaning in, poking his head around the corner.
"Hello, Lucy," he said. "Can I disturb you?"
"C-Bird, come in," she said. "I thought you'd gone to lunch."
"I did. Or I am. But something occurred to me on the way there, and Peter told me to right away come and tell you."
"What is that?" Lucy asked, gesturing for the young man to come into the office and seat himself. This Francis did with a clumsy series of motions that seemed to indicate that he was both eager and reluctant.
"The retarded man," Francis said slowly, "he didn't seem at all like the sort of person that we're looking for. I mean, some of the other guys that have been in here, who have been ruled out, they seemed, outwardly at least, like much better candidates. Or at least, what we think a candidate should look and sound like."
Lucy nodded. "That's what I thought, too. But this one guy how does he have the shirt?"
Francis seemed to shudder, before replying. "Because someone wanted us to find it. And someone wanted us to find this man. Someone knew that we were interviewing and searching, and he made the connection between the two events, and so he anticipated what we were going to do, and he planted the shirt."
Lucy inhaled sharply. This made some sense to her. "Why would someone drag us to this person?"
"I don't know yet," Francis said. "I don't know."
"I mean," Lucy continued, "if you wanted to frame someone for a crime that you'd committed, it would make more sense to plant things on someone whose behavior would be truly suspicious. How can this man's behavior get our interest?"
"I know that, too," Francis said. "But this man is different. He's the least likely candidate I think. A brick wall. So there needs to be another reason why he was selected."
He stood up suddenly, looking skittish, as if a disturbing noise had exploded close by. "Lucy," he said slowly, "there is something about this man that should tell us something. We just need to figure out what it is."
Lucy grasped the man's hospital folder and held it up. "Do you think there's something in here that might help us?" she asked.
Francis nodded. "Maybe. Maybe. I don't know what goes into a folder."
She thrust it across the desk. "See what you can see, because I'm drawing a blank."
Francis reached out and took the folder. He had never actually looked at a hospital file record before, and for a moment he felt as if he were doing something illegal, staring into another patient's life. The existence that all the patients knew about one another was so much denned by the hospital and the day-to-day routine that after a short time confined there, one more or less forgot that the other patients had lives outside the walls. All those elements, of past, of family, of future, were stripped away inside the mental hospital. Francis realized that somewhere there was a file about him, and one about Peter, as well, and that they contained all sorts of information that seemed in that moment terribly distant, as if it had all happened in another existence, at a different time, to a different Francis.
He pored over the retarded man's file.
It was written in clipped and nondescript hospitalese and divided into four sections. The first was background about his home and family; the second contained clinical history, which included height, weight, blood pressure, and the like; the third was course of treatment, outlining various drugs assigned; and the fourth was prognosis. This final section consisted of only five words: Guarded. Long term care likely.
There was also a chart that showed that the retarded man had, on more than one occasion, been checked out of the hospital for weekend furloughs to his family.
Francis read about a man who had grown up in a small town not far from Boston and who had only relocated to Western Massachusetts in the year before his hospitalization. He was in his early thirties, and had a sister and two brothers, all of whom tested normal and lived seemingly humdrum lives of exquisite routine. He had first been diagnosed as retarded in grade school and had been in and out of various-developmental programs all of his life. No plan had ever stuck.
Francis rocked back in his seat, and quickly saw a simple, deadly situation that resembled a box. A mother and father growing older. A childlike son, larger and less able to be controlled with every passing year. A son who was unable to understand or control impulses or rage. Of sexual interest. Of strength. Siblings who wanted to get away, far away, as fast as possible, unwilling to help.
He could see a little bit of himself in every word. Different, but the same, still.
Francis read through the file once, then again, all the time aware that Lucy was watching his face closely, measuring every reaction that he had to the words on the page.
After a moment, he bit down on his lip. He could feel a little quiver in his hands. He could sense things swirling around him, as if the words on the pages combined with the thoughts in his head to make him dizzy. He felt a surge of danger, and he breathed in sharply, then pushed himself away from the file, sliding it across the desktop to Lucy.
"Do you have any ideas, Francis?" she asked.
"Nothing, really," he said.
"Nothing jumps out at you?"
He shook his head. But she could see that this was a lie. Francis did have ideas, she realized. He just didn't want to say what they were.
I tried to remember: What scared me the most?
That was one of the moments, that time in Lucy's office. I was beginning to see things. Not hallucinations, like those that rang in my ears and echoed in my head. Those, I was familiar with, and while they might have been irksome and difficult and helped define my madness, I was accustomed to them and their demands and fears and the things they might or might not ask of me at any given moment. After all, they had been with me since I was a child. But what scared me right then was seeing things about the Angel. Who he might be. How he might think. For Peter and Lucy, it wasn't the same. They understood that the Angel was an adversary. A criminal. A target. Someone hiding from them, whom they were empowered to uncover. They had hunted people before, stalked them and brought them to justice, so there was a different context to their pursuit than what I had suddenly surrounding me. In those moments, I had begun to see the Angel as someone like me. Only far worse. He had taken footsteps, and, for the first time, I believed that I was able to retrace them. Placing my own shoe in his well-trod path was something that everything inside me screamed was wrong. But possible.
I wanted to flee. A chorus within me sang loudly that nothing right was happening. My voices were an opera of self-preservation, warning me to get out, get away, to run and hide and save myself.
But how could I? The hospital was locked. The walls were high. The gates were strong. And my own illness barred me from flight.
How could I turn my back on the only two people who had ever thought that I was worth anything?
"That's right, Francis. You couldn't do that."
I had crept down and huddled in a corner of the living room, staring over at my words, when I heard Peter speak. Relief flooded me, and I pivoted about, searching the room for his presence.
"Peter?" I replied. "You're back?"
"I didn't really leave. I've been here all along."
"The Angel was here. I could feel him."
"He will be back. He's close, Francis. He will get closer still."
"He's doing what he did before."
"I know, C-Bird. But you're ready for him this time. I know you are."
"Help me, Peter," I whispered. I could feel tears flowering in my throat.
"Oh C-Bird, this time it's your fight."
"I'm scared, Peter."
"Of course you are," he said, with the matter-of-fact tones that he sometimes used, but always had the quality of being nonjudgmental. "But that doesn't mean it's hopeless. It only means you need to be careful. Just like before. That hasn't changed. It was your caution, the first time that was critical, wasn't it?"