Crack-Up (24 page)

I looked around, finding myself on the floor of a small, boxy room on a ridiculously narrow, thin mattress.
 
Within arm’s length was an identical mattress, where a slumbering person snored, not gently and not quietly.
 
With the help of the dawn’s early weak light, seeping in around the edges of a curtained window, I recognized the snoring person as Hideo Mori.

Oh, right.
 
I felt oriented in the world again.
 
I was in Hideo’s bedroom.
 
Inside Hideo’s apartment.
 
A garage apartment in the home of Hideo’s daughter.
 
I was geographically located in
Silver Spring
,
Maryland
, just north of the
District of Columbia
.

I tried recalling my dream—or rather, my nightmare—but all I could remember was being at work in my old office by the
Potomac River
, reading some financial report, when Darth’s voice had taken me by surprise.

“You little shit stain!”

Why did that sound so familiar
?
 
Because, I soon realized, I’d heard Darth say that exact phrase many times before.
 
It was a pet phrase of Darth’s, an old one, which always made me feel small and insignificant, especially when I’d been a young man in my first battle with psychosis.

More recently, I remembered hearing that pet phrase coming from inside the air conditioning vent of my Beemer, back when I’d first told Darth about the warnings—from my father, from that stranger at Randolph House—that my client and friend, John Helms, was plotting to kill me.

“Why you?” Darth had said.
 
“You little shit stain!”

For a sad and silly moment in the dark, I pondered my own insignificance in the eyes of the world—at least in comparison to the wealthiest person in
America
, a flamboyant business legend.

But it was only because I did ponder—it was only because of Darth—that I suddenly realized I had it all backwards.

I threw off my blanket and, in gray darkness, tiptoed across the room in my BVDs, guided by the barely glimmering brass knob of the door.
 
I stubbed my bare toe on a table leg and cursed out loud, which stirred Hideo.

“What is it?” he said.

I knelt down beside his puny futon, my knees cracking loud complaints.
 
“No one’s out to get me, Hideo.
 
I’m just the patsy.
 
The fall guy.
 
It’s John Helms with the enemy.
 
It’s the famous billionaire someone wanted dead.”

“Go back to sleep,” Hideo said, shutting his eyes.

“Not on your life,” I said.

I limped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, flicking on a bank of fluorescent lights overhead.
 
In a low cupboard near the telephone, I found a stash of phone books.
 
I began thumbing through the one with yellow page listings for the nearby city of
Bethesda
,
Maryland
.

The last request that John Helms would ever make to me had been to find a missing employee, his chief technology officer, Jeremy Crane.
 
And my firm had found him.
 
Keisha Fallon had told me so in the visitor’s room of my psychiatric ward on the day of John’s funeral.
 
Keisha had told me all about how Jeremy had been found—wandering naked on a beach, shaved head to toe, covered in silver paint—and where the man was recuperating too—in a private psychiatric clinic in Bethesda.
 
I had to see Jeremy right away.

I found the clinic listed, The Wellness Institute, its address and phone number, and immediately phoned for the staff physician on duty.
 
Impersonating DC Homicide detective Gary Fellows—Mona Strecker’s junior partner—I received permission to interview Jeremy that afternoon as a witness in what I vaguely termed an “official investigation.”

While Hideo prepared breakfast, I walked to a drugstore around the corner to buy some hair dye and a cheap pair of black, plastic-rimmed reading glasses, the weakest prescription I could find, because I see fine.
 
Shortly after breakfast, I emerged from Hideo’s bathroom a four-eyed platinum blond.

“What do you think?” I said.

Hideo grunted.
 
“You not you anymore.
 
Very good.”

I borrowed two hundred dollars in cash from my benefactor and had him drop me off at the
Silver Spring
metro station on his way to work in
Georgetown
.
 
I rode to the
Wheaton
stop, where I knew of a discount store and bought me a police detective’s outfit: blue blazer, khaki pants, polyester tie, and plastic-looking black shoes.
 
I bought a notepad and pen too.
 
All I lacked was a badge.

But two hours later in
Bethesda
I made it through check-in at the front desk without being asked for a badge.
 
As a security expert, I know how to get by security.
 
Simply comporting yourself with authority can do the trick.
 
It also helps to act bored.
 
And there are many other little tricks too.
 
For example, seconds before I’d approached the front desk, I’d shut my eyes tight for a few seconds to make my pupils smaller, which makes a person appear less anxious on a subconscious level.

Jeremy’s private room had a small sitting area beside the bed, two upholstered chairs and a coffee table.
 
Jeremy was a bit short, about five foot seven, with playful blue eyes.
 
His bald scalp was dotted with black bristle points by now, and he’d begun re-growing his goatee and mutton chops too.
 
So rotund was the man’s middle, and so spindly his legs and arms, that in his light green hospital pajamas he looked like a huge Granny Smith apple.

“Nice to meet you, Detective,” Jeremy said, shaking hands with a firm grip.
 
He seemed entirely unembarrassed by his circumstances.
 
“Have a seat.”
 
We plopped down across the table from each other.
 
I thought, with a start, that I saw recognition on his face—as we’d met once before, a year earlier—but the moment passed.
 
“Coffee?” he said.
 
“It’s
Jamaica
Blue
Mountain
.
 
I had it shipped in.”

“Thanks.
 
Black.”

He poured my cup.
 
“What’s this all about?”

“Don’t ask me to explain, Jeremy, not yet.
 
I don’t want to influence your responses.
 
I’ll tell you what I can later.
 
Tell me about your disease.
 
How long have you known about it?”

He poured himself coffee.
 
“Well, I’ve known since my first psychotic breakdown at the age of nineteen.
 
I was a sophomore at MIT back then.
 
That would be seventeen years ago now.
 
It was the first and the last time I lost my grip on reality, so to speak, that is, until recent events.”

The gourmet coffee was superb.
 
“Did you ever discuss your disease with anyone at work?”

Jeremy smiled sadly.
 
“No one.
 
There’s still a stigma attached to mental illness, don’t you know.”

“You’re sure you told no one?”

“No one outside my family.”

“I’d like the names and addresses of all your psychiatrists.
 
Everyone you’ve seen since MIT.”
 
I took out a small pad and pen to write the information down.

“Why?”

“Please, Jeremy.
 
It could be important.”

He sighed.
 
“I’ve had only two psychiatrists, I believe.
 
Yes, that’s right.
 
When I lived in
Boston
, I used to see Doctor Thomas Thigpen.
 
His office was in the
Back Bay
.
 
I don’t recall the exact address.
 
Since moving to the
Washington
,
DC
area, nine years ago, I’ve been seeing Doctor Barbara Rosenbaum.
 
Her office is in
Chevy Chase
, at
11145 Connecticut Avenue
, suite number 710.
 
I’m sure she’s in the phone book.
 
I expect Doctor Thigpen is retired by now.”

“What about counseling?”

“My record is spotty in that department,” he said.
 
“I’m always so busy.”
 
But then he provided me a few names.

“Now,” I said, “about your recent psychotic episode.
 
Your first in seventeen years.
 
Any idea what set it off?”

“According to my blood tests, I hadn’t been taking my medication for some time, at least two weeks, I’m told.
 
Which contradicts my own memory, for what that’s worth, which is probably nothing.
 
I was really out there by the time I was taken into custody.”

“I saw the booking photo.”

Jeremy laughed.
 
“So have I, sir, so have I.
 
And I’m sure you’re curious as to what was going through my mind, so I’ll tell you.
 
Somewhere along the madness trail, I became convinced that I was telegraphing my thoughts.
 
Every thought I was thinking, in other words, others could overhear, or interpret, or so I came to believe.
 
Which bothered me no end at first, and caused me to be highly suspicious of anyone who came too near.
 
But then I began to appreciate my extraordinary power.
 
I decided to broadcast my thoughts into outer space.”

“Outer space?”

“My aim was to contact intelligent life on other planets.”

“I see.”

“You shouldn’t be so skeptical.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’ve got to be out there somewhere, Detective.
 
Planetary systems are common in the universe, we know that now, and we already know of one hundred million stars similar enough in composition to the Earth’s sun to support life.
 
All it takes, say the exobiologists, is a planet that’s the right distance from its sun, with a stable orbit, with sufficient planetary mass to hold an atmosphere, with the proper spin axis, and a climate conducive to liquid water, along with carbon dioxide—for photosynthesis—and a few other volatile compounds to—”

“That’s fascinating, Jeremy, but—”

“But what was I doing bare ass naked on the beach at dawn?
 
Shaved from head to toe?
 
And dipped in silver paint?
 
Just what I’ve been saying.
 
Thought broadcasting.
 
Somehow, Detective Fellows, I came up with the idea that if I could just make myself more electro-magnetically conductive, then I could amplify my thought waves, and send them further into space.
 
Being naked and shaving myself and applying a metallic paint and walking on sand, which is loaded with quartz and other types of silica, were all attempts to make myself more conductive.
 
I went out at dawn assuming there would be less emission interference from cell phones and wireless computers, and so forth.
 
Insane, I know, but that’s why I’m here, after all.”

“Let’s get back to why I’m here.
 
Do you know a waitress by the name of Sally Anne Bilchik?”

“A waitress, you say?
 
I don’t know any, except for the ones who serve me in restaurants, and I rarely remember their names.”