He felt his eyes beginning to close. The pills and the hot bath had done their work well. Wearily he pulled himself out of the tub, carefully patted his bruised body dry with a fluffy towel, and put on a pair of pajamas. He got into bed and set the electric alarm clock for six. The Catskills, he thought. It was an appropriate name. And he fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.
At six A.M., when the alarm went off, Judd was instantly awake. As though there had been no time lapse at all, his first thought was, I don’t believe in a series of coincidences and I don’t believe that one of my patients is a mass murderer. Ergo, I am either a paranoiac, or am becoming one. What he needed was to consult another psychoanalyst without delay. He would phone Dr. Robbie. He knew that it would mean the end of his professional career, but there was no help for it. If he were suffering from paranoia, they would have to commit him. Did Moody suspect that he was dealing with a mental case? Was that why he suggested a vacation? Not because he believed anyone was after Judd’s life, but because he could see the signs of a nervous breakdown? Perhaps the wisest course would be to follow Moody’s advice and go to the Catskills for a few days. Alone, with all the pressures removed, he could calmly try to evaluate himself, try to reason out when his mind had started to trick him, when he had begun to lose touch with reality. Then, when he returned, he would make an appointment with Dr. Robbie and put himself under his care.
It was a painful decision to make, but having made it, Judd felt better. He dressed, packed a small suitcase with enough clothes for five days, and carried it out to the elevator.
Eddie was not on duty yet, and the elevator was on self-service. Judd rode down to the basement garage. He looked around for Wilt, the attendant, but he was nowhere around. The garage was deserted.
Judd spotted his car parked in a corner against the cement wall. He walked over to it, put his suitcase in the back seat, opened the front door, and eased in behind the wheel. As he reached for the ignition key, a man loomed up at his side from nowhere. Judd’s heart skipped a beat.
“You’re right on schedule.” It was Moody.
“I didn’t know you were going to see me off,” Judd said.
Moody beamed at him, his cherubic face breaking into a huge smile. “I had nothin’ better to do and I couldn’t sleep.”
Judd was suddenly grateful for the tactful way Moody had handled the situation. No reference to the fact that Judd was a mental case, just an ingenuous suggestion that he drive up to the country and take a rest. Well, the least Judd could do was to keep up the pretense that everything was normal.
“I decided you were right. I’m going to drive up and see if I can find a scorecard to the ballgame.”
“Oh, you don’t have to go anywhere for that,” Moody said. “That’s all taken care of.”
Judd looked at him blankly. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. I always say when you want to get to the bottom of anything, you gotta start diggin’”
“Mr. Moody…”
Moody leaned against the door of the car. “You know what I found intriguin’ about your little problem, Doc? Seemed like every five minutes somebody was tryin’ to kill you—maybe. Now that ‘maybe’ fascinated me. There was nothin’ for us to bite into ‘til we found out whether you were crackin’ up, or whether someone was really tryin’ to turn you into a corpse.”
Judd looked at him. “But the Catskills…” he said weakly.
“Oh, you wasn’t never goin’ to the Catskills, Doc.” He opened the door of the car. “Step out here.”
Bewildered, Judd stepped out of the car.
“You see, that was just advertising. I always say if you wanta catch a shark, you’ve gotta bloody up the water first.”
Judd was watching his face.
“I’m afraid you never would have got to the Catskills,” Moody said gently. He walked around to the hood of the car, fumbled with the catch, and raised the hood. Judd walked over to his side. Taped to the distributor head were three sticks of dynamite. Two thin wires were dangling loose from the ignition.