the of shop, let alone relate to you on a therapeutic basis. But Carl doesn't care. He's beyond all that. He's a proper civil servant now. Maybe there was a time when he wanted to save the world, effect great cures, write up great cases, apply psychiatric theory to social problems, reform penology, rehabilitate irreversibles. But he gave up on all that long ago. He thinks you've given up on it, too, doesn't know that you're here looking for a tool and that in about five minutes you're going to find yourself one in young Diana Proctor, murderess.
How did she know? Even now she couldn't tell you, though Diana had been in continuous training with her for more than a year, and there'd been five years of weekly therapy sessions before that, before she could get her out of Carlisle and under full-time supervision.
It was the whole gestalt, she often told herself, recalling the moment of their first encounter, so clear in her mind it could have taken place within the hour instead of years before.
It was her need, she reeked of it, she told herself. I could smell her hunger the way you smell bread in a bakeshop. She'll be my tool And so now she has become…
It was one of those mysterious encounters that takes place once in a lifetime if a person is lucky, like finding your dreamboat sitting beside you on a tour bus or like accidentally pressing the shutter of your camera at the very moment a prominent politician is assassinated.
Of course, it wasn't that accidental. She'd been working at the hospital all those years just waiting for the right tool to come along.
Diana was perfect. The hard part would be to get her out.
Shhhh. Here she comes now. Up the stairs on tippytoe, just like a little lynx. She pauses in the bedroom doorway, silhouettes herself the way you trained her against the light of the hall. An elegant black form against a warm yellow rectangle, waiting, waiting for your order.
'Come in, my dear. Feeling better?'
The little thing nods as she scampers toward you. The tai I ends of her wet hair, slicked straight back, comb lines visible, cling seductively to her sinewy little neck. She sits down on her stool and helps herself to a cup of tea. You watch her as she blows on the hot liquid, smile at the sight of her pink little tongue as it darts out between her lips to test the temperature.
'I'm going to reward you for your very good obedience, Diana. Tomorrow at dusk you'll enter Central Park, dressed in black, dressed to kill.
You'll carry two bolstered ice picks strapped to your arms and several bulletin board-type pins, you know the kind, with the little colored knobs on the ends.'
The lynx nods eagerly.
'The first part of your mission will be to pick out a person on one of the paths. Your target should be alone, big, male. A jogger would be fine, but a walker or an ordinary tourist will do as well.
Stalk him for at least fifteen minutes. Make sure he's the one you want to hit. Then, when you see an opportunity, execute an attack. Don't kill him; just stab him with one of the pins. A quick jab in his rump will do the trick. But remember, it won't count unless it makes him squeal. Approach from the back; stick him; then retreat and lose yourself in the woods. Move rapidly toward the West Side.
Go to some stores; hang out awhile; then take a bus back. Don't come home on foot. So, girl-think you can do all that?'
The little lynx smiles. 'Piece of cake.'
'Is it now? I guarantee it won't be so easy. A hundred things can go wrong. Pick on an off-duty cop and you're in trouble. He'll shoot you if you don't run fast enough. Or what if your target shouts for help and there happens to be a Good Samaritan around the bend? See, you have to think of everything, analyze the mission. Tell me, what are your most important decisions?' Lynx gazes up at you. Her ice blue eyes burn with predatory lust. 'Choosing the target,' she whispers. 'And deciding when to prick him.'
Smart girl! Sometimes you're so proud of her you want to kiss her all over. But instead you stroke her head, pet her the way Mama used to stroke and pet you, offering affection in exchange for loyalty and obedience. What the tool needs is tough love, not sex; sex she can provide for herself.
'Okay, go on back down to your room now, lie on your bed, close your eyes, and think the whole thing through. Remember, he's got to squeal. You'll take my little tape recorder with you, so you can bring me back some proof. Wear rubber gloves, of course, and leave the pin in. That'll slow him down in case he's the pursuing type.
He'll have to pull it out first, and by then you'll be gone in a puff of smoke. So, tomorrow night?' 'Please, yes, Doctor,' the little tool begs.
The plan was to make Carl think it was his idea, that recommending Diana for release had never crossed your mind. Sure, you'd done wonders with the little murderess, vacuuming out her brain, servicing and reinstalling her superego, instilling remorse for her evil acts and a strong desire for redemption. You'd even made her into a leader in the wards, a girl the others turned to for settlement of minor disputes.
And she'd become virtually indispensable in the hospital library, not to mention earning straight A's in her extension courses in library science. The little murderess has proved herself reliable, trustworthy, contrite, but no, Carl, it has never occurred to you she should be released.
'Jeez, Bev…' Carl turns away, starts stroking his pointy little beard. The wimpy mustache wasn't enough; this year he sees himself as Freud. 'I mean, what're we doing here if we're not preparing them for release? Isn't our purpose to save their broken little souls?'
'Yes, of course… You furrow your brow. What a hoot, but you have to appear sincere. 'Don't forget, Diana committed three murders, Carl. She axed her own mother. The public won't stand for it if all she's got to do is spend five years in cushy old Carlisle.' I 'Think so, Bev? I'm not so sure myself.'
You can't believe it! He's actually thought the whole thing through! 11… those kinds of objections, you know, don't come from the public. It's the survivors who usually put up the stink. they write the judge. they lost their loved ones, and the killer's got to pay.' Carl twinkles. 'But here,' he says, 'we've got a unique situation. There are no survivors. There aren't any cousins, aunts, anyone who cared for any of them or even gave a rusty shit. Diana finished off her whole family. So what I anticipate is a quiet hearing in the judge's chambers with a sympathetic prosecutor going along. Let's go to the wall for her, Bev, and, while we're at it, show the state we can do what they pay us for.
Diana's barely twenty-five. I hate to lose her, but she's entitled to a future. I talked to her this morning. She refers to the 'old me who did that very bad thing' and how, though she knows that 'old me' was definitely her, and wouldn't dream of not taking responsibility for her actions, she feels emotionally disassociated from the person she used to be and thoroughly incapable of doing what she knows she did.
Thanks to you, Bev, she's practically cured! And I thought I'd never see the day. Anyway, you know that people who kill close family members are almost never dangerous to anybody else.'
Ha! That's what you think, twerp!
Carl turns slowly toward you again, places his hands ceremoniously on his desk. 'Look, she's your case. Whatever you decide I'll back you up. But think about this: If you don't want to take on responsibility for ini ating a release, and be 1 ve me, I can un(erstan w you might not, I'll be happy, with your consent, to take that upon myself. Believe me, Bev, every shrink on staff will join the cause.' Carl's eyes dance merrily in their sockets.
Remember what she was like that first time? Young Murderess Ready to Strike. She had the killer eyes, the kind you'd seen so often in sociopaths, the fear and hatred raging to get out. Those kinds of eyes tell you there's no compassion, no identification with another human's pain. You have those very eyes yourself sometimes but never show them to the world. They're turned inward, and over the years you've worked up a mask so you can play the healer and make the troubled girlies think you care about their wearisome anorexia or tedious bulimia attacks.
She, Diana, Tool-to-be, had the true killer's glow and, fairly rare in combination with that, a deep, deep need to submit. She was a storm trooper waiting impatiently for orders, a gladiator frothing at the mouth to fight. She craved authority, a coach, a savior, and as she met your eyes, she knew you would be the one to give structure to her rage, focus it down until it became a pure blue torch point of fire.
How could you both tell so much from just a glance? Because you'd been looking for each other all your lives. You'd been rummaging for years in prisons and mental hospitals, searching always for a certain look, and Diana had been seeking you, too, even though she didn't know she had. So when you walked into that little room, she saw in you the governess of her dreams, and you saw in her a fine young ward who would help you balance up all your old accounts. It was, as,they say, love at first blush.
