The doctor closed his eyes with a brief impatience and consigned the concepts to the limbo of oversimplified analogies. “What do you want?”
Newell raised his eyebrows a fraction. “I thought you knew. Oh, I see,” he supplemented, narrowing his eyes shrewdly. “One of those flash questions that are supposed to jolt the truth out of a man. Now let’s see, just what did pop into my head when you asked me that?” He looked at the top of the window studiously, then leaned forward and shot out a finger. “More.”
“More?”
“More—that’s the answer to that question. I want more money. More time to myself. More fun.” He widened his eyes and looked disconcertingly into the doctor’s. “More women,” he said, “and better. Just—more. You know. Can do?”
“I can handle only so much,” said the doctor levelly. His thighs ached. “What you do with what I give you will be up to you.... What do you know about my methods?”
“Everything,” said Newel off-handedly.
Without a trace of sarcasm, the doctor said, “That’s fine. Tell me everything about my methods.”
“Well, skipping details,” said Newell, “you hypnotize a patient, poke around until you find the parts you like. These you bring up by suggestion until they dominate. Likewise, you minimize other parts that don’t suit you and drive them underground. You push and you pull and blow up and squeeze down until you’re satisfied, and then you bake him in your oven—I’m using a figure of speech, of course—until he comes out just the proper-sized loaf. Right?”
“You—” The doctor hesitated. “You skipped some details.”
“I said I would.”
“I heard you.” He held Newell’s gaze soberly for a moment. “It isn’t an oven or a baking.”
“I said that, too.”
“I was wondering why.”
Newell snorted—amusement, patronization, something like that. Not irritation or impatience. Newell had made a virtual career out of never appearing annoyed. He said, “I watch you work. Every minute, I watch you work; I know what you’re doing.”
“Why not?”
Newell laughed. “I’d be much more impressed in an atmosphere of mystery. You ought to get some incense, tapestries in here. Wear a turban. But back to you and your bake-oven, what-do-you-call-it—”
“Psychostat.”
“Yes, psychostat. Once you’ve taken a man apart and put him together again, your psychostat fixes him in the new pattern the way boiling water fixes an egg. Otherwise he’d gradually slip back into his old, wicked ways.”
He winked amiably.
Not smiling, the doctor nodded. “It is something like that. You haven’t mentioned the most important part, though.”
“Why bother? Everybody knows about that.” His eye flicked to the walls and he half-turned to look behind him. “Either you have no vanity or you have more than anyone, Fred. What did you do with all the letters and citations that any human being would frame and hang? Where’s all the plaques that got so monotonous on the newscasts?” He shook his head. “It can’t be no vanity, so it must be more than anyone. You must feel that this whole plant—you yourself— are your citation.” He laughed, the professional friendly laugh of a used-car salesman. “Pretty stuffy, Freddy.”
The doctor shrugged.
“I know what the publicity was for,” said Newell. “A fiendish plot to turn you into a personality kid for the first time in your life.” Again the engaging smile. “It isn’t hard to get you off the subject, Freddy-boy.”
“Yes, it is,” said the doctor without heat. “I was just making the point that what I do here is in accordance with an ethical principle which states that any technique resulting in the destruction of individual personality, surgical or otherwise, is murder. Your remarks on its being publicly and legally accepted now are quite appropriate. If you must use that analogy about taking a patient all apart and putting him together again in a different and better way, you should add that none of the parts are replaced with new ones and none are left out. Everything you have now you’ll have after your therapy.”
“All of which,” said Newell, his eyes twinkling, “is backed up by the loftiest set of ethics since Mohandas K. Gandhi.”
The twinkle disappeared behind a vitreous screen. The voice was still soft. “Do you suppose I’d be fool enough to put myself in your hands—your hands—if I hadn’t swallowed you and your legendary ethics down to here?” He jabbed himself on the chest. “You’re so rammed full of ethical conduct you don’t have room for an honest insult. You have ethics where most people carry their guts.”
“Why did you come here,” asked the doctor calmly, “if you feel that much animosity?”
“I’ll tell you why,” smiled Newell. “First, I’m enjoying myself. I have a sense of values that tells me I’m a better man than you are, law, fame and all, and I have seventy-odd ways —one of which you were once married to—to prove it. Why wouldn’t anyone enjoy that?”
“That was ‘first.’ You’ve got a ‘secondly’?”
“A beaut,” said Newell. “This one’s for kicks, too: I think I’m the toughest nut you’ve ever had to crack. I’m real happy about the way I am—all I want is more, not anything different. If you don’t eliminate my lovable character or any part of it—and you won’t; you’ve stacked the deck against yourself—you’ll wind up with just what you see before you, hi-fi amplified. And just for a little salt in the stew, I might as well tell you that I know you can’t operate well without hypnosis, and I can’t be hypnotized.”
“You can’t?”
“That’s right. Look it up in a book. Some people can’t be hypnotized because they won’t, and I won’t.”
“Why not?”
Newell shrugged and smiled.
“I see,” said the doctor. He rose and went to the wall, where a panel slid aside for him. He took up a shining hypodermic, snicked off the sterile sheath and plunged the needle into an ampoule. He returned to the desk, holding the hypodermic point upward. “Roll up your sleeve, please.”
“I also happen to know,” Newell said, complying readily, “that you’re going to have one hell of a time sorting out drug-reaction effects from true responses, even with neoscopolamine.”
“I don’t expect my work to be easy. Clench your fist, please.”
Newell did, laughing as the needle bit. The laugh lasted four syllables and then he slumped silently in his chair.
The doctor took out a blank case book and carefully entered Newell’s name and the date and a few preliminary notes. In the “Medication” column, he wrote, 10 cc neutral saline solution.
He paused then and looked at the “better” man and murmured, “So you can run a mile faster than Einstein.”
“All ready, Doctor.”
“Right away.”
He went to the rack in the corner and took down a white coat. Badge of office, he thought, cloak of Hippocrates, evolved through an extra outdoor duster we used to wear to keep the bodily humors off our street clothes . . . and worn today because, for patients, the generalization “doctor” is an easier departure point for therapeutics than the bewildering specific “man.” Next step, the ju-ju mask, and full circle.
He turned into the west corridor and collided with Miss Thomas, who was standing across from Newell’s closed door.
“Sorry!” they said in unison.
“Really my fault,” said Miss Thomas. “I thought I ought to speak to you first, Doctor. He—he’s not completely dismantled.”