Now Harrison Burke lay supine on the damask-covered contour couch, his fists clenched tightly at his sides.
“Tell me about your proof.”
“They broke into my house last night. They came to kill me. But I was too clever for them. I sleep in my den now and I have extra locks on all the doors so they can’t get to me.”
“Did you report the break-in to the police?” Judd asked.
“Of course not! The police are in it with them. They have orders to shoot me. But they wouldn’t dare do it while there are people around, so I stay in crowds.”
“I’m glad you gave me this information,” Judd said.
“What are you going to do with it?” Burke asked eagerly.
“I’m listening very carefully to everything you say,” Judd said. He indicated the tape recorder. “I’ve got it all down on tape so if they do kill you, we’ll have a record of the conspiracy.”
Burke’s face lit up. “By God, that’s good! Tape! That’ll really fix them!”
“Why don’t you lie down again?” Judd suggested.
Burke nodded and slid onto the couch. He closed his eyes. “I’m tired. I haven’t slept in months. I don’t dare close my eyes. You don’t know what it’s like, having everybody after you.”
Don’t I? He thought of McGreavy.
“Didn’t your houseboy hear anyone break in?” Judd asked.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Burke replied. “I fired him two weeks ago.”
Judd quickly went over in his mind his recent sessions with Harrison Burke. Only three days ago Burke had described a fight he had had that day with his houseboy. So his sense of time had become disoriented. “I don’t believe you mentioned it,” Judd said casually. “Are you sure it was two weeks ago that you let him go?”
“I don’t make mistakes,” snapped Burke. “How the hell do you think I got to be vice-president of one of the biggest corporations in the world? Because I’ve got a brilliant mind, Doctor, and don’t forget it.”
“Why did you fire him?”
“He tried to poison me.”
“How?”
“With a plate of ham and eggs. Loaded with arsenic.”
“Did you taste it?” Judd asked.
“Of course not,” Burke snorted.
“How did you know it was poisoned?”
“I could smell the poison.”
“What did you say to him?”
A look of satisfaction came over Burke’s face. “I didn’t say anything. I beat the shit out of him.”
A feeling of frustration swept over Judd. Given time, he was sure he could have helped Harrison Burke. But time had run out. There was always the danger in psychoanalysis that under the venting of free-flow association, the thin veneer of the id could blow wide open, letting escape all the primitive passions and emotions that huddled together in the mind like terrified wild beasts in the night. The free verbalizing was the first step in treatment. In Burke’s case, it had boomeranged. These sessions had released all the latent hostilities that had been locked in his mind. Burke had seemed to improve with each session, agreeing with Judd that there was no conspiracy, that he was only overworked and emotionally exhausted. Judd had felt that he was guiding Burke to a point where they could begin deep analysis and start to attack the root of the problem. But Burke had been cunningly lying all along. He had been testing Judd, leading him on to try to trap him and find out whether he was one of them. Harrison Burke was a walking time bomb that could explode at any second. There was no next of kin to notify. Should Judd call the president of the company and tell him what he felt? If he did, it would instantly destroy Burke’s future. He would have to be put away in an institution. Was he right in his diagnosis that Burke was a potentially homicidal paranoiac? He would like to get another opinion before he called, but Burke would never consent. Judd knew he would have to make the decision alone.
“Harrison, I want you to make me a promise,” Judd said.
“What kind of promise?” Burke asked warily.
“If they are trying to trick you, then they want you to do something violent so they can have you locked up… But you’re too smart for that. No matter how they provoke you, I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything to them. That way, they can’t touch you.”