The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

the glass, and again, he felt the chill stir harshly up his legs. Yanking a blanket from the pile of bedding on the floor, he wrapped it about his waist, then snapped up the parka's hood.

He brought the heel of his hand down on the candle, and blackness fell from the skylight. Tearing aside the paper, he leaned to the glass. Even through the paint, the freezing pane burned his palm. Ah, the nick of time, as they say. Arcing from the roof, the cigarette scattered embers as it plunged along the lattice. He watched a dim form pitch recklessly down the fire escape; then the curtains thrashed briefly. He could see nothing more, barely any hint of light now, and another shudder sluiced through him, a damp tremor that seemed to begin in the floor beneath his feet. She was smoking too, the morning I killed her. He let his vision drift out of focus, while the memory curled around him.

Where had everyone gone that morning? Oh yes. Another excursion. Some dull museum perhaps, or a matinee concert, another thinly disguised reward for placid behavior. But he hadn't been allowed to go with them that day. Dr. Leland had requested he stay behind for an interview--an unscheduled interview--and any break with routine alarmed him then.

'Mr. Chandler, do come in. You don't mind if I call you Ramsey? You didn't really mind not accompanying the others today, did you? No, I shouldn't think you would. You don't really enjoy these outings the way the others do. That's been evident for some time, to me at least. Of course, you feign a certain enthusiasm, but then you feign a great many things, do you not?' She sucked on the cigarette, her eyes glinting like those of a shrewd rodent. 'Is that not the case?' She exhaled an impressive cloud of smoke and leaned into it.

Even then, he tried to smile, nodding affably and shuffling his big feet.

'And you can stop that playacting, Ramsey. At least, I assume you can. Correct me if I'm mistaken.' A prideful fascination lay behind her stare, as though she'd discovered some new and astonishing germ beneath her microscope. 'And don't simply lean there in the doorway. Take a seat.' She stubbed her cigarette out in a marble bowl, immediately lighting another. 'Does the smoke bother you? No, that's right, you never complain about anything, do you? The perfect patient. So cooperative.' She smiled thinly. 'Small wonder your treatment has progressed so remarkably.'

He kept his face blank while he studied her expression for clues as to how this scene should progress. Her features bore their customary expression of brittle intellect and slight malice, but a new line etched the flesh around her mouth, as if those muscles strained to suppress a smirk.

'I asked to see you here, away from my office'--she gestured vaguely at the bay window--'because I thought you might be more comfortable on your own home ground, so to speak.' She waited for him to meet her gaze, but his eyes had followed her gesture, straying to the window, then to the main building on the hill. 'I'd hoped that, here, you might feel more inclined to, shall we say, a certain candor.' She emphasized the last word with a wave of the cigarette, and ashes dribbled. 'I realize you've a battery of behavioral tricks upon which to fall back, answers you've trained yourself to give. Amazing'--she nodded--'all this time, you've been getting away with that. Truly amazing. It must have involved a tremendous amount of study on our part, did it not? I wonder how much of it was observation and how much reading and research.' Her tone of voice might have been appropriate to a lecture hall. 'Hmm? Still we can't expect explanations for everything right away, can we? We have time. A great deal of time in fact. And you're a great deal more intelligent than you've ever let anyone realize, isn't that so?' Despite the smile, her voice held only speculation, edged with just a touch of eagerness.

Outside, the trees swayed, flaming with color in the autumnal sunlight: flashes of gold, a surge of red on the gray hospital grounds.

'...for your own good. Don't you agree?'

'I beg your pardon, Dr. Leland. I'm afraid I was admiring the trees. What were you saying?'

The soft rustle of his voice startled her, as it often startled people, emerging from his immense bulk as though some hapless child he had swallowed suddenly spoke. She sat back. 'You do see that, do you not?' she repeated with a visible attempt at patience. 'You've not really helped yourself through these pretexts, have you?' She tapped a cigarette pack gently against the arm of the chair. 'What you've in fact accomplished is precisely the opposite--the evasion of help. But we're going to correct that situation now, are we not? I intend having you transferred out of this residence and back into the main wing, where you'll be under my direct supervision. I believe that's best. We'll meet daily. And I believe we will make significant accomplishments. Don't you agree?' She paused, as though counting off the seconds. 'Ramsey? I asked you how you felt about this.'

He turned from the window, his attention fixed on a massive and ornate mirror that covered most of the sunroom wall behind her. 'Ridiculous name, sunroom.'

'I beg your pardon?'

He examined himself in the mirror. The smile, taut on his lips, added a far from reassuring note to his otherwise harmless visage. He adjusted it, nodded at the results. 'Yes, that's much better.'

'I'm not sure I follow you.'

He continued to assess his reflection dispassionately. 'Yes.' The blond hair had receded so evenly from his forehead that his unlined face appeared disproportionately large, gaining an infantile quality, bland and cheery. 'Hardly prepossessing.' His shoulders slumped, almost perfectly rounded, and after years of starchy hospital food, his stomach had grown too soft to stay properly in his pants. 'Who could be afraid?' He smiled harder, showing his teeth, revealing just a hint of the ferocity that his padding cushioned from the world.

'...nothing to be gained by refusing to cooperate. I'd hoped you'd be more...'

'Dr. Leland, I hope you won't mind my asking you a question.'

She waved her cigarette dismissively. 'I'm glad to see you've joined me.'

He nodded an acknowledgment of her little joke. 'For eight years, I've been a model patient here. What in my behavior first triggered your suspicion that all was not--so to speak--as it seemed?' The thin pitch deepened abruptly. 'My motives in asking this, you understand, are purely academic.'

Never before had she heard his true voice, and shock rippled across her features. He also seemed taller suddenly--as though through some internal adjustment--and she stiffened in her seat. 'Well, if you must know, something in the way you've responded to therapy has been troubling me for some time now and I--'

'No, Doctor. I fear you're dissembling. Your suspicions are of fairly recent origin. Since the day you took up your position at this institution, your attitude has been as condescending and patronizing as those of your predecessors, those other good doctors whom I've allowed to believe were helping me.' He laughed--a damp hiss--and her hand twitched toward the phone table beside her.

'You do seem awfully sure of that.' She attempted a supercilious smile. 'Interesting. Whatever could have given you the impression that the staff here were unaware of your true mental condition?' She shrugged with graceful disdain, as though reluctant to mention something petty and distasteful. 'After all, you did kill your mother.'

'Shock tactics, Doctor?' He blinked. 'Hardly up to your usual standards of subtlety. Not that I can't comprehend your enthusiasm. Believe me, I do. You came into this room convinced you'd discovered the case history destined to establish your reputation. Surely you're expecting to get at least one book out of this?' He showed his teeth again. 'No, I'll tell you when you noticed. A little over a month ago, was it not? Things changed then. You see, I've been involved in a little project.'

'This hardly seems--'

'That's when I stopped putting all my energy into deception, you see. Though I must admit, you've demonstrated yourself more perceptive than I would have credited. I don't believe any of the others here have noticed a thing. Have they?' His smile crinkled kindly. 'Such arrogance, Doctor, seeing me alone. Such foolish arrogance.'

'Yes, well, we can discuss this further another time.' Reaching for the phone, she succeeded in keeping most of the quaver from her voice. 'Two of the orderlies will be here in a moment to help you move your things. Perhaps you'd like to get started with your packing?'

'The expression on your face...how shall I put this? It seems quite independent of your words.'

He moved so quickly, she had no time to react. He jumped into her lap, crushing the air out of her, toppling the chair backward. The impact jarred a shattering pain through her skull.

On the floor, he sat on her chest, pinning her arms. 'I don't believe you're being entirely truthful about those orderlies, Doctor. I believe you intended this as some sort of test to prove your theory, which of course you won't have mentioned to anyone else as yet. Wouldn't do to be wrong, would it? Yes, I believe you're just that egotistical.