sleep, but instead he threw his arms back and lifted his legs from the floor so that he was carefully balanced on his stomach and looking in vacant agony at the wall ahead of him. Again he failed to make any impression on the wall except for fingerprints, which joined the pattern of other, older fingerprints at approximately the same point.
“You were wondering why I waited till you woke up to do my exercises, weren’t you?”
“No,” I said, trying to shake the drug dryness from my tongue and brain.
“Truth is I like an audience. I used to feel guilty about that.” He dabbed his perspiring face with the corner of his bright pajamas. “Used to find myself exercising whenever company came over, and my wife would say I was just showing off. I never thought I was showing off. Just did it when the mood took me and didn’t stop to analyze it. The hell with her. I said it then and I say it now.”
We looked at each other in silence for a minute or longer.
“My name is Sklodovich, Ivan Sklodovich,” he said, extending a hand, which I shifted to meet with my unsteady grasp. “Don’t worry, I won’t squeeze. I don’t believe in tests of strength on a first meeting. It creates a competitive tension that’s hard to overcome. You know what I mean?”
“Yes. My name is Peters, Toby Peters.”
“Nice to meet you. Listen, Toby. They call me Cortland around here. The staff, I mean. I don’t like it, but live and let live. It doesn’t cost me anything to be called Cortland, does it?”
“No.”
“You see my father was a welder in Russia and when he came to America he invented a new welding process, Slig. A big tycoon was what my old man wanted to be, so he changed his name to Cortland. But it didn’t help. Nobody wanted Slig welding, and nobody wanted a roly-poly bearded Russian with a name like Cortland. They thought he was a Bolshevik spy or something. For twenty years my family has hidden the solid, black-bread name of Sklodovich behind the chewing-gum name of Cortland. But no more. I am Ivan Sklodovich. Peters. Are you the Peters who paints murals in sewers?”
“No, I’m a detective.”
“A defective?”
“Detective. A private eye.”
“Oh. I couldn’t figure out what the hell a defective was. This is a mental hospital, you know?”
“Yes, I know,” I said and told him my story in condensed form, during which he blinked frequently and ate an orange pulled from under his pillow after first offering it to me.
When I mentioned Ressner, Cortland-who-would-be-Sklodovich paused in his citrus munching and nodded wisely.
“I know Ressner,” said Cortland, after I had finished telling him of how I became a prisoner in Winning. “I used to work in an office, sold carbon paper, Whitney Carbon Paper, the carbon paper that leaves a clean impression on the paper and no smudges on your hand. You’ve heard of them? From salesman, trudging from stationery shop to drugstore to school supply store, I was promoted to North San Diego regional director of sales with a nearsighted secretary and my own office in an old building with windows that looked like rejects from the Union Station bathroom. My secretary, Phyllis, took off her glasses one day, and I fell in love and married her. Carbon paper sales rose in North San Diego, and I moved up to assistant Midwest sectional division manager in charge of complaints. This brought me to L.A., where Phyllis learned to play bridge, and sales boomed.”
At this point I must have made a face, for Sklodovich said: “Be patient, I’ll get to Ressner.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Now that I think about it, I don’t really know what I did those four years in the main office. Then sales fell. Who knows why? Carbon sales depend upon little competition and a triplicate society. In any case, bills mounted, my commission dropped, Phyllis had an abortion, skinny old John Whitney Lickter began to get on me, and I began to worry seriously about Hitler. But Lickter was the worst of all because I had to face his shriveled, frowning face every day with excuses. It got to the point where I couldn’t stand to hear his ‘Is that your total and complete report, Mr. Cortland? It leaves much to be desired.’ If any single thing drove me mad, it was that statement from him each morning while he sipped tea from a mug marked J.W.L. and played with the perpetual mole on his chin, the old fart. You don’t mind if I use a bit of profanity to color my speech, do you?”
“Not at all.”
“We do have to make some allowances for each other. After all we are mentally unwell. You don’t mind if I refer to our mental problem, do you?”
“I haven’t got any mental problem. They’ve made a mistake, I told you.” I tried to sit up and swallow, but the will was not enough. Ressner could be merrily hacking away at Mae West while I pretended to listen to this ranting maniac.
“Perhaps,” said Sklodovich, lying back on his bed. “It wouldn’t be the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. I hope you don’t mind the homilies. Do you? Actually I shouldn’t spend so much time apologizing. That was one of my problems. Always apologizing to my wife, to Lickter, to stationery store owners.”
“You were going to tell me about Ressner?”
“Oh yes. Well, one morning after I had lost my bus transfer and fought with the driver over changing a five- dollar bill, old Lickter called me into his office to grumble and complain about the lack of sales. You wouldn’t think to look at me, but I used to be a real worm; that’s a fact. I was home and office doormat. I handed old Lickter my report as usual and he read it grim-faced, glancing up at me through the smoke of his cigar or the steam of his tea; either of the two was constantly at his mouth. ‘Is that your total and complete report, Mr. Cortland? It leaves much to be desired.’ Instead of nodding in fear for my fragile reputation as I had previously, I grabbed the old man, took his damned cigar, tied him with the cord from his draw drapes, and dangled him out of the window fifteen stories above the sidewalk. He was too frightened to say much at first, but as soon as I tied one end of the cord to his desk I heard him screaming to the sunny sky. ‘The situation does leave a great deal to be desired, doesn’t it, Mr. Lickter?’ I called out the window and peered over to see a crowd gathering. ‘Cut the rope, man,’ someone shouted. ‘No, no,’ said another guy, ‘wait till I get my camera.’ Mr. Seymour, my immediate superior, chief Midwest sectional division manager in charge of erasers, came into the office about five minutes later with a smile on his false and lecherous face. ‘What’s going on here, Craig? Some kind of misunderstanding with Mr. Lickter? Can I help in any way?’ ‘I hung him out the window, you queer bastard,’ I said, tweaking his effeminate nose. I pulled him by the nose to the window and shouted down to the waiting crowd, ‘Mr. Seymour here is a queer.’ ‘Wha’ he say?’ I heard a woman shout. ‘He says Seymour is a fairy,’ said another voice. ‘Which one’s Seymour?’ ‘This one,’ I shouted. ‘Atta boy, Mac, toss him down here.’ Seymour, nostrils stopped, pleaded ‘led me go, please,’ ‘Mr. Lickter, you knew Mr. Seymour here was a queer, didn’t you?’ ‘Let me up, Mr. Cortland, I promise I’ll pay you anything,’ shouted Lickter, whose upside-down face was quite red. I shoved Seymour, the corrupter of office boys, into the large closet behind the huge desk. Next a cop came up and talked to me through the door, though the door wasn’t locked. ‘This is Sergeant Derk, Cortland. What have you done with Seymour?’ ‘He’s in the closet,’ I said, ‘but why you should care is beyond me.’ ‘Now,’ said Sergeant Derk slowly, ‘I want you to listen to me. Cutting that rope isn’t going to solve any problems,’ Do you think this whole thing sounds Freudian? I mean their fear that I might cut the imaginary umbilical cord that bound me to his authority.”
“It does sound a little Freudian,” I said, feeling a little reasonable fear of the orange-eating, talkative lunatic in the next bed.
“I didn’t even think about cutting the cord until he brought it up. But I didn’t answer Sergeant Derk, who went away after a few seconds. ‘Is there anything to be desired out there?’ I asked Lickter. He said nothing, and I noticed that the fire department had spread a net below the window and was busily at work on an additional net a few stories below. I helped Lickter up, and the now-massive crowd groaned. ‘Don’t worry,’ I shouted. ‘He’ll be right back.’ ‘Please Cortland,’ he sputtered, seated upright on the window ledge. ‘I’ll make you a partner.’ ‘Be realistic,’ I said, turning him upside down again when the normal paste color had returned. The crowd cheered. ‘How can you make me a partner? You know as well as I do that if I let you in, I’ll be thrown in jail and fired. You’d have to be crazy to make me a partner.’ Toby-do you mind if I call you Toby?”
“Not at all.”
“Next they sent a priest up to talk to me even though I’m not a Catholic. Why is it they always send a priest even though most people are not Catholics?”
Before I could answer he continued talking.
“The priest was a pleasant, chubby guy who looked scared to death but determined, so I let him in. ‘This is not the way, Craig. You can gain nothing from this. Let them go, and I’ll do what I can to help you.’ ‘You don’t even
