Thin Air (18 page)

He stopped. Hammond was getting to his feet, his face white. An image was running through his mind: Harold Fletcher's body slumped over a coffee table in the apartment at the Watergate—the chain-smoker who would never question the offer of a light from his own
doctor.

That's why the ashtray was empty: McCarthy had
cleaned it.

Hammond turned to Slater. "Are you sure it leaves no trace? We've got a body that might have to be exhumed."

"Waste of time. Let the poor guy rest."

Yablonski stood up, staring first at Hammond, then at the ominous cigarette lighter. "Fletcher?" he asked.

"I'm almost sure," Hammond replied with disgust. He nodded at Slater. "What about fingerprints on that thing?"

"Nada
. And none on his stolen car, either. Personally, I'd say the guy doesn't have fingerprints, or maybe he burns them off regularly."

Cohen and Slater spread their hands simultaneously and Slater said, "That's all, folks." They wrapped up, stacking all the originals, tapes and reports, on Hammond's second desk and chucking duplicates back into their suitcase. Hammond asked them to take the videotape and run it for Gault, and to keep going on their content analysis of Yablonski's Zethacide session.

As soon as they were gone, Hammond turned back to Yablonski. He was tense with anger. "How do you feel about McCarthy now?" Hammond asked.

"I'd like to settle up." He got to his feet. "Nobody runs my life for me."

They sent out for coffee and doughnuts, which arrived just ahead of a yeoman from the NIS Data Center with the results of investigating the names taken from Yablonski's tape.

Butler and Martin were both deceased. So was Terkel: he'd committed suicide in 1967. They were still checking on Rinehart. Of the handful of names checked through BUPERS, only one turned up alive and available: Olively, listed as a patient at the Navy Psychiatric Center, Bethesda, Maryland.

Hammond thanked the yeoman and looked at Yablonski. "Remember anything about Olively?"

"No. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry." Hammond reflected a moment, then said, "I think we should pay turn a call. Feel up to it?"

"Okay."

They were just leaving the Pit when the receptionist motioned Hammond to the phone. It was Jan Fletcher, calling from Dulles Airport. She was going back to L.A. to straighten out her husband's affairs and get his will filed. Hammond barely listened—he still had images of her husband taking the light offered by Dr. McCarthy. But he couldn't tell her that. He asked for her home phone number.
      

"Why?"

"I want to keep in touch," he replied.

There was a silence from her end and Hammond found himself listening to the airport terminal sounds over the line, then a set of digits came across in a hurried Voice: "Four-seven-three, seven-three-oh-four." She hesitated another second, then said, "Thanks for showing me you haven't changed at all."

She hung up and Hammond scowled with confusion. Was that a compliment or an insult? "

An insult, he finally decided, as they drove up Wisconsin Avenue to the National Naval Medical Center. And she
w
as right. He hadn't changed. His job still came first. But what was she supposed to be to him now? Friend? Sister? Conscience? He decided he would get in touch with her...someday...if only to get in the last word. But if he contacted her again, wouldn't he be obliged to tell her the truth about her husband?

Hammond parked the car and walked with Yablonski across to the Psychiatric Center. He had a twofold purpose in bringing Yablonski along. Perhaps the sight of an old shipmate might stir something in Olively—or vice versa. Hammond needed more information from Yablonski and he was hoping to get it without Cohen's and Slater's methods.
      

The Psychiatric Center was a three-story complex with one whole floor devoted to the care of permanent government wards. Hammond and Yablonski were
met by
a
civilian resident and Hammond briefly
o
utlined his purpose. They were sent along to the recreation ward
in the company of an attendant named Hanson, who had
a pale face and an egregious grin and looked more like an inmate than a guard.

The huge recreation hall resembled every nuthouse Hammond had ever seen in the movies. These men really did exist on the fringes of humanity. They were pathetic shells. Hanson agreed: "These are the hard cases. None will ever get out of here. They're all victims of arrested development or regression. You won't find any gross errors in here: everyone belongs."

There were patients everywhere: on couches, at card tables, around the TV, dancing to records. Two of them were on a caged balcony, building castles in a sandbox. A few were grouped at the far end of the hall, attempting calisthenics under the supervision of another attendant. While most did their best with toe-touching exercises, one old fellow insisted on doing knee-bends instead.

"Now, let's see, you want George Olively. Right over there." Hanson guided them toward a table near the arts-and-crafts counter, at which was seated a small, fiftyish man resting his chin on his hands and staring into space.

Hammond heard labored breathing and realized after a moment that it was Yablonski. His face had become yellowish and he was sweating. He seemed to be fighting back nausea. He fell behind as they came up to George Olively. The little man gave them an empty look as they stepped into his line of sight. His hair stood up in disarray and his white pajamas were rumpled.

Hanson said, "We're making great progress with him. Watch." He went to the crafts locker and Olively immediately sat up, smiling eagerly. Hanson brought him a set of crayons and a big pad of paper and Olively fell happily to work, scrunched over his table like a little gnome...or a child. He drew in slow sweeps, then changed colors to fill in his people.
      

Then Olively paused, having difficulty with his drawing. He made little moaning sounds and picked at a sore on his cheek.

Hammond examined Olively's work—stick figures at the level of a first-grader. He looked closer. The drawing was a set of curved lines converging at a point in the background. In the foreground were the stick figures of men with their arms raised, a few of them holding hands, big smiles on their moon faces.

Olively would start to draw a figure then stop before it was complete, rock back in his chair, and growl to himself. Then he would dive in again, draw another figure...

Hanson let this go on .for perhaps five minutes, then he said, "George? George, look at me. Look up." Olively was bouncing in his seat. He stopped and focused slitted eyes on Hanson, then laughed uproariously.

"George, how are you today?" asked Hanson, ignoring the laughter.

Olively stopped laughing and set his crayons down in a neat row. Then he rubbed his head, grinning foolishly, and said, "All gone."

He jumped out of his chair and ran to the wall, pressed his back hard against it and covered his face with his hands.
      

"It's a game," explained Hanson. "What's the game, George?"

"Nah-here! Nah-here!"

"Oh yes, you are here. I can
see
you, George!"

"NAH-HERE!" Olively insisted. He shook his head and clapped his hands. "All gone!"

Hammond had the chilling feeling he knew precisely what Olively was talking about. Yablonski moved around the table and stared at the stick-figure drawing.

"Hammond!" he croaked. He pointed at the sketch and now Hammond was certain. The converging lines were the forward section of a ship, the point of convergence obviously the bow. The figures were crewmen standing in a circle, arms outstretched, holding hands. And the incomplete figures were meant to be disembodied men in various stages of invisibility!

Olively leaped back to his Work and stood in front of it, frantically pushing Yablonski away and making hand motions to indicate danger. Yablonski stumbled back and Olively calmed down.

"It's a classic case of childhood regression," Hanson explained, oblivious to what was really going on. "We're lucky we managed to stop him at age-level five...."

Hammond did not contradict him. There was no reason to. He heard a groan beside him and turned to see Yablonski backing off, driven away by a silly grin that had come over Olively's face. Yablonski whirled suddenly and bolted across the room, crashing into a crowd of dancers and knocking them to the floor.

Instantly, the men in the room were on their feet, screeching and hurling epithets. Yablonski made a halfhearted attempt to help one of the men he'd knocked down, but the man kicked him and screamed and Yablonski backed away in revulsion, racing to the exit.

Hanson quickly became a forceful shepherd, screaming back at the men, wearing them down, then calming them. Hammond was left with Olively, who was supercharged with excitement. While patients rushed about in every direction, Olively dove at the table, snatched up his drawing and ripped it to shreds, howling with glee. Hammond moved to stop him, but he was too late. In the pandemonium around him, Hammond succumbed to a wave of frustration and slammed Olively up against the wall.

Olively screeched in fright. He threw his head back and forth and struggled to escape Hammond's grip.

"Olively, listen to me!" Hammond ordered him harshly. "Listen to me! The
Sturman
, Olively...
Sturman
!"

A flicker of recognition, then that silly grin again.

An alarm went off somewhere outside the hall and attendants came running in. One of them raced right up to Hammond and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry, sir," he said, "you'll have to leave!"

Hammond held Olively a moment longer, then turned him loose. Olively dashed to his table and grabbed a crayon. Hammond shook free of the attendant and stared at the pad of paper as Olively drew three numbers in the unsure hand of a five-year-old child.

1 6 6.

Then he looked up at Hammond with that crazy smile. As the attendant whisked him to safety, Hammond heard Olively muttering, "All gone...all gone..."

10

Hammond found Yablonski outside, sitting on a bench in one of the Center's expansive parks,

"McCarthy had him committed in 1965," said Hammond. "Signed the papers himself, as a civilian, psychiatrist."

Yablonski said nothing. His hands were motionless at his sides and his face was turned up into the warming sun. Slowly, his chin came down and he stared at the grass in front of him. Then he looked up and met Hammond's gaze. "We should have left it alone. McCarthy was doing us a service by burying this thing."

Hammond bristled. "Oh, no, he wasn't. He was killing you by inches. You can't purge a real experience from someone's mind. You can shove it into a closet and bolt the door, but it's still going to be there, waiting to get out. You might have gone another ten years with McCarthy, but some morning you'd wake up in terrible trouble and he wouldn't be there anymore...because I'd have nabbed the sonofabitch!"

Yablonski stared at him.

"You can't just think about yourself, Yablonski. There are still other people walking around with the same problem. We've got to find them—and McCarthy."

Yablonski was very still, then he got up and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "All like Olively...?" he asked in a cracking, beseeching voice.

"No!" Hammond snapped. "He's one of McCarthy's failures! It could just as easily have been
you."

Yablonski nodded dumbly, then his body shook with a sudden tremor. He kicked the bench and stared at the psychiatric building. "It's so crazy...I almost think I belong here."

Hammond took him to Hogate's, a restaurant in southwest Washington. Yablonski had nothing to say on the drive to the restaurant, and once they were seated at a table, Hammond had to order for both of them. Hammond tried to draw him out, but Yablonski's conversation was restricted to monosyllabic grunts.

Their table overlooked the Potomac and finally that seemed to help. The placid river had a soothing effect: Yablonski could relate to it. He began to ramble about his love for the ocean. From boyhood he'd been involved with the sea, first as a poacher off private docks on the eastern seaboard, then in his teens as a crewman aboard deep-sea boats. He had enlisted in the Navy to keep out of Korea, thinking he could do a nice, easy tour as a yardbird.

"And then they got to me," he said. "Volunteer for this, volunteer for that. Come on, ya big Polack, what're you afraid of? There's a war on."

"You volunteered for this experiment?" asked Hammond.

"Must've," shrugged Yablonski. He screwed up his eyes and struggled to clear away the cobwebs. "Damnit, I still can't get it straight. I volunteered: I know I did."

Hammond guided the conversation back to fishing: the last thing Yablonski needed right now was more catharsis. Olively had been enough for one day. He got Yablonski to talk about the years after his Navy duty, land-locked because he had developed a psychological fear of the sea, always afraid to stray too far from Boston because of his need for McCarthy. He had taken a string of unfulfilling jobs. He'd been drunk a lot, too, and the center of several barroom brawls. It wasn't until he met Rosie that his life began to take shape.