The Inheritors (43 page)

“It’s two weeks since she’s been here,” I said.

“We can’t work miracles,” she said. “We can only try. After all, she’s been hooked for more than three years now and it’s not that easy to get out of her system.”

“That long?”

“Yes,” she said. “Up to now we have had all we could do to cope with her physical problems. We haven’t had a chance to delve into her psychologically. And four times out of five that’s where we find the key to any kind of a cure.”

“What do you suggest I do then?”

“I would like you to see her,” she answered. “She loves you very much and you’re the only person she seems to want to see. But—”

I noticed her hesitation. “But what?”

“That could be because she thinks she might be able to convince you to take her out of here.”

I listened.

“You have to understand that, for the moment, she’s not the same girl you brought here. She’s like an animal driven by the demands of her addiction. She’ll do anything to get out and get the drug she needs. She’s already made two attempts to escape.”

“I wasn’t told about that.”

“I didn’t bother to mention it in our telephone conversations,” she said. “We accept that almost as normal. If I do let you see her, she’ll play on your sympathy in every way she can.

“What she needs from you more than anything else right now is love and understanding. But you have to draw a very fine line. You can’t afford to oversympathize. If you do, you’ll only raise her hopes that she can get out.

“It’s not an easy thing to do. Do you think you can?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What do you think?”

“If it goes right, the visit can be extremely helpful. It can give her an even greater motive to get well.”

“Then I should try.” I put out the cigarette and got to my feet.

Dr. Davis nodded and I followed her into the corridor. “Do not appear surprised at the way she looks,” she said as we went up the steps to the second floor. “She’s lost a considerable amount of weight. Compliment her if you can. Try to make her feel attractive. That can be a big help.”

We stopped in front of Myriam’s door and she knocked on it. The same nurse who had been here the day we first came opened the door.

She turned back into the room. “Now, isn’t that nice, dear,” she said. “We have a visitor. Your young man has come to see you.”

“Steve!” I heard her voice. Then she came running to the door and flung herself into my arms. The door snapped shut as the nurse left the room.

“Steve,” she said, beginning to cry. “Steve, Steve, Steve.”

I held her tightly to me, stroking her hair. “Darling Girl,” I whispered.

She looked up into my face, trying to blink away the tears. “I must look horrible. They won’t let me have any makeup.”

“You’re beautiful,” I said. I felt the pang inside me. She was all skin and bones and her eyes were sunken hollows in her face.

“I know better,” she said. “Even if there isn’t a mirror in the room that I can look into.”

“You look fine.”

She walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge. “Come over here and sit next to me.”

I sat down next to her.

She took my hand and put it inside her gown on her breast. “I’m so horny,” she said, looking into my eyes.

I couldn’t speak. I had all I could do to keep from weeping.

“You know I’ve kicked it, don’t you?” she asked. “They say you don’t want sex until you’ve kicked it.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s true,” she said earnestly. “Feel my cunt. It’s all wet, I’m so horny.”

I shook my head. “The doctor says you’re not strong enough for sex yet. You’re still run down.”

She was suddenly angry. “She would say that. All they care about is keeping me here so they can collect more money. I suppose she didn’t even tell you that I kicked it?”

“She told me you’ve made good progress,” I said cautiously.

“They’re crazy!” she said. She got to her feet. “I could tell you things about this place and the way they treat their patients, you wouldn’t believe.”

She glanced around quickly as if to make sure there was no one else in the room with us. Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know that nurse, Mrs. Graham?”

I nodded.

“You think she’s nothing but a nice old lady, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for my answer. “Well, she’s not. She’s a sadist. She’s beaten me up several times. I’ll show you!”

She pulled her nightgown down from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She stood naked. “See the bruises?”

There wasn’t a mark on her. All I could see were her ribs pressing against her flesh and the pale, almost translucent quality of her skin.

She made no move to pick up her gown from the floor. “Besides that, she’s a dyke. More than once when I was asleep I felt her eating me.”

I picked up her gown. “Put it on,” I said. “I don’t want you to catch cold.”

Silently she let me slip the gown around her. She went back to the bed and sat down, looking up at me. “And that Dr. Davis, with her degrees and her high and mighty airs. Do you know what she does? She takes a couple of patients and a couple of orderlies into her room and has orgies every night. She’s cock crazy. She takes it in the mouth, cunt, and ass, all at the same time. Then during the day she puts on her airs and fools everybody. But she doesn’t fool me. I know better.

I just looked at her.

She was still for a moment, then she threw herself into my arms, sobbing. “You’ve got to take me out of this horrible place, Steve. I’ll go out of my mind if I have to stay here any longer!”

I held her tightly, she was shivering.

She looked into my eyes pleadingly. “You can take me out, Steve. Really. I’ve kicked it.”

“In a little while, Darling Girl,” I said. “First we have to build up your strength again.”

She tore herself away from me and flung herself across the bed. Her sobs racked her whole body.

I went over and placed my hand on her shoulder. Angrily she pushed it away. “Go to hell!”

I stood there, looking down at her for a moment, then started for the door.

“Steve!” she screamed.

I turned and she was on the floor, her hands clasped around my knees. Her eyes were swimming in tears. “Take me out of here, Steve. Please. I’ll be good. I’ll do anything you want. Only take me out!”

I raised her to her feet and held her against me. “It won’t be long now, Darling Girl,” I said.

Her hand went inside my jacket. Before I realized what she was doing, she had pulled my pen from my pocket. She held if over her head like a dagger. “If you don’t take me with you,” she screamed, “I’ll gouge out your eyes!”

I looked at her. She was wild and she seemed perfectly capable of carrying out her threat. “Okay,” I said as calmly as I could. “But how am I going to open the door? I haven’t got a key. I’ll have to call the nurse.”

Her eyes drifted for a moment to the call button beside the bed. That was all I needed. I grabbed her arm and got the pen away from her. She looked at me, then at her empty hand with unbelieving eyes.

“You tricked me!” she said in a child’s voice. Then she put her hands up to her face and began to cry.

I took her into my arms and soothed her. “I know it’s not easy, Darling Girl,” I said. “But you keep on trying. The sooner you get better, the quicker we’ll be together again.”

“I am better,” she cried. “I am better.”

Then the door opened and the nurse came into the room and the visit was over.

The doctor was waiting for me. “Come into my office,” she said.

I followed her and the door closed behind us. She looked at me. “You could use a drink.” She opened the medicine cabinet behind her and took out a bottle of Scotch and a glass. She gave me about two fingers of the whiskey.

I drank it like water. It burned all the way down, but I began to feel better almost immediately. “It wasn’t easy,” I said.

“I know. We were listening. We have a microphone in every room. It’s the only way we can keep on top of all the patients. You did very well.”

“I hope so.” But I had the feeling that she was just saying that to make me feel better.

She came out to the car with me.

“Mr. Gaunt.”

I stood there. She squinted at me in the sunlight. “I’m not trying to pry into your personal life. But a few answers from you might be very helpful to me.”

“Ask.”

“Exactly what is your interest in her?”

“I’ve known her since she was a child. Her parents and I have been friends for a long time.”

“But you were having an affair with her, were you not?”

“Yes.”

“How long did that last?” she asked.

“About one month at the time I brought her here.”

“One more question, Mr. Gaunt. Are you in love with her?”

I thought for a long time. Finally I answered. “I don’t know.”

She looked into my eyes for a moment. Then she dropped her gaze. “Thank you, Mr. Gaunt,” she said quietly.

I got into the car and started the motor. When I looked up again, she was walking back to the building.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

She refused to see me the next visiting day. “She didn’t tell us until this morning,” Dr. Davis said. “I tried to call you, but you had already left your home.”

“I don’t understand it.”

“It’s all part of the game she’s playing,” the doctor explained. “She’s punishing you for not taking her away. Either that or she has some idea about convincing you to take her out.”

I didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry you had to drive all the way for nothing,” she said.

“That’s all right,” I said.

“In spite of how it appears, we are making progress,” she said. “It’s a month now and her physical reaction to drug deprivation is considerably less. She’s even managed to gain a little weight. But she still refuses psychiatric guidance. She won’t even speak to the therapist.”

“How do you get her to do that?”

“We just keep on trying,” she answered. “Sooner or later she’ll want to talk to someone. If only to get a sympathetic ear. They all do, but right now she is still hostile toward us.

Mrs. Graham came into the office. She placed an envelope on the doctor’s desk. “She gave me this letter to mail for her.”

She looked at me and smiled. “Oh, how do you do, Mr. Gaunt? Our patient is being a little stubborn today, but don’t you worry. We’ll bring her around all right.”

She left the office and Dr. Davis looked down at the envelope. She gave it to me without speaking.

It was addressed to me. I opened it. It was written in pencil in an almost childish scrawl.

“Read that,” I said, giving the letter back to her. “I guess you were right.”

She looked at it without comment. I got to my feet. “I have to go to New York next week for a board meeting,” I said. “So it will probably be at least ten days before I can come up again.”

“Go right ahead, Mr. Gaunt,” she said, rising. “I’ll call you if any problem should arise. But I really don’t expect anything to happen.”

But this was one time the doctor was wrong.

Dan Ritchie had filed his suit against Sam the day before the board meeting. He was asking for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars as his ten percent commission on the package sale of films to us, plus damages and legal costs. And to make the cheese more binding, he included us in the suit. Specifically he charged Sinclair Broadcasting, the corporation, and me, personally, as coconspirators with Sam in an attempt to defraud him of his rightful commissions.

In his statement to the press accompanying his lawsuit, he said that unless his demands were met promptly he would expose what he called “the incestuous practice of business that exists between Sinclair and Samarkand and certain of their executives.”

I arrived in New York the day of the board meeting and Jack was waiting in my office.

“I told you we couldn’t trust the son of a bitch,” he said.

I grinned at him. “Which one?”

He stopped and stared at me. “You’re right. I never thought of that. There’s not much difference between Sam and Ritchie. They’re both greedy bastards.”

“Better not say that in public,” I laughed. “That’s no way to talk about our codefendant.”

“I don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head. “You have the weirdest sense of humor.”

Fogarty brought in the coffee. “Mr. Sinclair would like to see you at your earliest convenience.”

“Is he in already?”

She knew everything. “He’s been in his office since eight o’clock this morning.”

Jack waited until she had left. “He’s probably going through the roof.”

I sipped my coffee without answering.

“Aren’t you going up there?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “In time. Right now we’ve more important things to do than my going up there to hold his hand.”

“Do you think you can stand a little good news?”

“That would be a pleasant change.”

“The rock show is a solid hit,” he said. “We’re getting almost a forty percent share of the audience and the sponsors are killing themselves to get aboard.”

“Good.”

“I was thinking of going to twice a week with the show.”

“Don’t,” I said. “Too many guys get nailed at home plate trying to stretch an extra-base hit into a homer.”

“We need something to pick us up toward the end of the week.”

“You bought those films from Sam,” I said. “Use them.”

“I was saving them for next fall.”

“You have eight months to plan for next fall,” I said. “And only eight weeks left in this season before you go to reruns.”

He looked down at his programming schedule without speaking.

I finished my coffee and got to my feet. “I’ll let you in on the only thing I’ve learned in the years I’ve been in this business. All the sponsors buy is performance. The ratings they see today, they buy for tomorrow. And they’re for yesterday’s show.”