Shaw put on his reading glasses, glanced at the photograph, nodded, and focused. After a while, the psychiatrist looked up. “How can you be sure—”
“I went through every article on Nexis that mentioned anyone named McBride and San Francisco—‘95 through ‘97. There were hundreds of them, and there was nothing even remotely like the fairy tale he told you. And if I missed it, somehow—which I didn’t—it would certainly have been in the story about the plane crash—if it ever happened.”
Shaw leaned back in his chair, contemplating the ceiling. “And if he had a common-law wife? And a baby with a different last name? And if he was never a suspect in the murders… ?”
“Doc. Please. You’re reaching.”
The psychiatrist thought about it. “I suppose I am.”
They agreed to meet at the hospital the next morning. In the meantime, Shaw said that he’d instruct the nursing staff to keep McBride under restraints, but desist from any further sedation.
Returning to the Mayflower, Adrienne changed into her running clothes, slipped a $10 bill into her right shoe, and took the elevator down to the lobby. Someone was taking down the Thanksgiving decorations. Rubbing his gloved hands together, the doorman shook his head in admiration as she stepped out into the freezing cold. “If I’m not back in an hour,” she told him, “send a St. Bernard for me.”
Overhead, the bare branches of ancient oaks and sycamores framed the sky. Mounds of dung lay on the powder-soft, equestrian trails. And then, a long hill, leading to a dark pond on the southern-most edge of Harlem. Clusters of private-school kids stood together, tieless and smoking—laughing, conspiring. The slur of Rollerblades on the pavement. Thwockk of tennis balls in the distance. Then the Reservoir, ringed with Cyclone fencing, the sun behind it, setting. Light flickering through the fence as Adrienne ran beside it, thinking about McBride.
How do you imagine a family, she asked herself, imagine it so perfectly that you become suicidal in the belief that you’ve killed them? And why now—why would McBride recall an imaginary and toxic past after the implant had been removed?
It didn’t make sense. Unless, of course, that was the point: to make “Duran” commit suicide if and when the device should ever be removed, if and when he should ever recover his memory. His real memory.
And now the men in trenchcoats…
Adrienne arrived at the hospital the next morning, almost half an hour early, refreshed from a long and dreamless sleep. She was hoping to see McBride before Shaw arrived, but the nurse at the reception desk rebuffed her. “We don’t allow visitors on A-4. I’m sorry, but there are no exceptions.”
To the nurse’s irritation, she insisted on waiting.
It was ten A.M. when Doctor Shaw stepped off the elevator, looking gloomy and determined. He barked at the supervising floor nurse, who objected to Adrienne following him through the heavy doors that gave entry to Ward A. Nearby, a bank of television monitors flickered with the images of a dozen, small, white rooms, each of which held a single person, none of whom were moving much.
“You know the regulations, Doctor—”
“You’re right,” Shaw told the nurse. “I do. And if we weren’t in a hurry, I’d transfer the patient to another room—but we don’t have time for that.”
We don’t? Adrienne thought.
“Well, if you’re going to violate protocol,” the nurse began, “I should think—”
“Why don’t you just make a report?” Shaw asked, striding away. “I’ll be releasing him in short order, anyway.”
“Releasing him? Mr. McBride isn’t in any condition—”
But Shaw wasn’t listening. He was walking so fast that Adrienne had to move at double-time, just to keep up with him.
All the rooms on the ward had large windows facing out on the corridor. The windows were made of the kind of glass that was embedded with a kind of chicken wire.
Shaw opened one of the doors, and stepped inside.
The room contained a built-in console with drawers against one wall and a bed against the other. A television was mounted on the wall facing the bed, and there was a video camera affixed to the ceiling. A small toilet in the corner. And that was that.
McBride lay in the bed, his head propped up on a pair of pillows, staring at a soap opera. He hadn’t moved when they entered the room, and now she saw that he couldn’t: his wrists were belted to the bed.
Adrienne was shocked. “Take those off!” she demanded, moving quickly to McBride’s side.
“Soon enough,” Shaw promised, gently lifting her hand from one of the restraints. Stepping closer, he laid a hand on McBride’s shoulder. “Lewis,” he said, “I want you to pay close attention to what I’m about to say.”
No reaction.
“It’s important,” the psychiatrist insisted, “and I’m worried that we don’t have a lot of time.”
Nothing from McBride—who looked as if he’d aged ten years since Adrienne had seen him, years in which he’d undergone some terrible ordeal. His face was drawn and his cheeks were covered with stubble. Hollow eyes that averted her own.
Frustrated, Adrienne reached up and snapped off the TV.
McBride turned his head toward her. “Thanks,” he said. “I hate that fucking show.”
Adrienne giggled, delighted to get a reaction—any reaction—from him. “Listen to me, Lewis,” Shaw demanded.
The patient shook his head, closed his eyes. “Let me alone, Doc.” His voice had all the resonance of a stone.
“I’m going to release you,” the psychiatrist announced.
It took a moment for the words to penetrate the insulation in which McBride had wrapped his understanding. Then his eyes blinked open, and he turned to Shaw with a sidelong glance.
“But you have to pay attention,” Shaw told him.
He was.
The psychiatrist cleared his throat.
“You didn’t do it!” Adrienne blurted. “You didn’t kill anybody.”
“Let me handle this,” Shaw insisted.
Adrienne put a hand on McBride’s cheek and, turning his head to her, looked him in the eyes. “No—I checked the papers. And it’s all a lie. There was nothing! No murder, no police—”
McBride shook his head. “I know what happened, kiddo. I know what I did.”
“But you’re wrong. You weren’t even married. There wasn’t any baby!” She paused. Should she tell him he was supposed to be dead? “It’s like Nikki,” she said. “They’ve given you one of these memories—”
“Who has?”
His question took her aback.
“Who has?” he repeated.
She didn’t know what to say. Looked to Shaw for help. Got none. Shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Someone.”
McBride looked away. “I can feel it,” he told them. “I can feel the bat in my hands…”
“Lew,” Shaw began—
McBride turned back to Adrienne. “So, what you’re saying is: I’m just a screen for someone else’s projector.”
Adrienne weighed the metaphor. Shrugged. “Right,” she said.
McBride swung his eyes toward the psychiatrist. “Okay, let’s say you’re right. Then: what’s the point? Why would anyone want to make me think I killed my wife and child?” When Shaw frowned, McBride turned angrily to Adrienne. “What’s the point?” he repeated.
The question hung in the air, floating through the weird silence of that empty and sterile room. It was a good question, a tough question and, for a moment, Adrienne despaired of an answer. Then it came to her, and it was so simple. She cleared her throat. “So you’d kill yourself,” she said. “Like Nikki.”
Once the restraints had been removed, and McBride had seen the clipping from the Examiner, Shaw told him that “I want to put you in a trance.”
“No, thanks, Doc. Been there—done that. If you don’t mind…”