Michael Gray Novels Page 4

  “What’s Farragut like?”

  “He’s the kind of bastard who’ll never be neurotic,” Dunne said viciously. “Nothing ever bothers him. He’s broke half the time and doesn’t give a damn. He does everything he wants to. Including sleeping with Mary. If Sam ever found out about that … or maybe he does know.” Dunne looked quickly at the psychoanalyst. Then he looked away, took out a new pipe, and began stuffing it with dark tobacco. His manner changed. Gray realized that he had missed a chance. Somehow, he had not responded in the right way.

  Gray said casually, “I’m not sure I understood what you meant. What is it you think Sam may know?”

  “Maybe he knows I’ve been running around. I told you I need more than one woman. He doesn’t. I don’t mean he’s impotent—but he’s sterile. He was wounded, when we were overseas.” Dunne’s voice became more brisk as he moved away from disturbing subjects.

  “I met him in Italy. He was a major. I never got higher than captain. I couldn’t stay out of trouble. Women again. Sam was a lot older than I was, but we had a hell of a good time. After the war I didn’t have any family left. My mother died during the war. So when I reached San Francisco, I gave Sam a ring, and he said to come on out. But he was married.” Dunne hesitated. “It wasn’t the same. A family, a job, responsibilities … I guess that’s when I decided the war was over, and I’d have to settle down. So I got a job, and—well, after a while I married Mary. That’s all there was to it.”

  “All?” Gray asked mildly.

  Dunne scowled.

  “You can’t trust women,” he said. “Mary’s sleeping with Farragut, and Eleanor—what a damn fool Sam was! Everybody else knew what a whore his wife was. But not Sam. I’m not going to let that happen to me. Mary’s not going to divorce me and marry Farragut. Even if she has me put in a sanitarium, she wouldn’t be free to marry that bastard.”

  Gray said, “Is that why you’re afraid Mary might sign commitment papers?”

  Dunne sighed.

  “Sometimes I know there’s nothing to worry about,” he admitted. “She wouldn’t do that. Even if …”

  “If what?”

  “If Sam insisted. She almost thinks her brother’s God Almighty. But not quite. Oh, hell. Sam’s not as big as he thinks he is.”

  “When did you find that out?” Gray asked sympathetically.

  “I’ve been handling some advertising for the Pope House restaurants,” Dunne said. “You know, for a guy who’s supposed to be such a hot shot, Sam Pope’s a hell of a phony. Without Maurice, he’d get completely fouled up.”

  “Who’s Maurice?”

  “Maurice Hoyle—his general manager. A dried-up little man—a machine. But he’s the one who keeps Pope on the rails. I was talking to Hoyle today—I had to get some photographs for the layout—and he checked over my figures on expense and figured out a way to save two hundred bucks. That’s probably why Sam keeps him on. Usually Sam’s got to have yes-men around, but I guess Hoyle’s an exception.”

  “Do you like Hoyle?”

  “Not especially,” Dunne said. “Oh, well, compared to Sam, yes. Hoyle’s a quiet fellow. Whenever Sam starts yelling, he just gets quieter. I wish I could. But … my father used to blow off a lot. You’re pretty quiet yourself.”

  He stopped. The silence lengthened. Finally Gray said, “Our time’s almost up for today.”

  “Yeah,” Dunne said. “And I’ve wasted part of it just sitting here saying nothing.”

  “You didn’t waste the other part of it.”

  But Dunne’s face was clouded. He stood up.

  “We haven’t done much so far,” he said.

  Gray had risen.

  “Perhaps we can get further next time.”

  “Maybe,” Dunne said. He hesitated. Then he said abruptly, “I guess I was wrong in not wanting you to see Sam. He’s not…. If you want to talk to him, go ahead, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “All right,” Gray said. “Thank you.”

  Gray closed the door behind his patient. He waited a moment, sorting his thoughts and gathering his impressions. They confirmed his earlier opinion. There was danger here. Dunne was precariously close to the edge, and the violent aggressions buried in his mind would be dangerous if the edge were crossed.

  And it would have to be crossed. During the course of analysis, Gray would inevitably push Dunne into the so-called “negative transference”—negative, because the emotions involved were hostile ones; transference, because those emotions were transferred from their usual targets and aimed at the therapist, a human lightning-rod.

  Before then, Gray would have to learn to understand Dunne so thoroughly that the danger, to both of them—and to others—could be minimized. It would still be there. But, when Gray pushed Dunne over the edge of darkness, as he must do in order to make him face the hidden forces that were crushing him, there must be a strong bond already forged—a rope by which he could draw Dunne back to safety and the clear light of reality. It would not be easy to do that. It might not even be possible.

  Yet what other choice was there? Gray recalled Dunne’s fear of “being locked up.” So far, there was no evidence that the man needed institutionalization. No competent psychoanalyst or psychiatrist could recommend such a course in Dunne’s case. Yet Dunne himself clearly sensed the buried furies that would explode within him if restrictions were clamped down.

  Gray shook his head slowly. If he accepted Howard Dunne as a patient, he had to feel perfectly sure that he was doing the best thing. And there was never any way to be absolutely certain.

  The only real way was to secure all the necessary facts, and the patient, as well as his friends and relatives, was always unwilling to supply these.

  But there were ways to be as sure as was humanly possible. Without treatment, Howard Dunne would become worse. His past record showed that. Without psychotherapy, Dunne’s buried furies would finally burst free and destroy him.

  Suppose Gray accepted Dunne as a patient? What would be the result, under favorable conditions?

  Dunne could be helped. Gray’s experience told him that.

  But what would be the result of treatment under unfavorable conditions?

  Gray shook his head. Unless the patient cooperates, unless he is willing to tell his thoughts freely, the treatment is blocked. If the patient purposely withholds vital information from the analyst, the therapy may fail. In such a case, the patient is asking for treatment and rejecting it at the same time.

  Gray already knew that Dunne was withholding information. So—he would bring up the question again at the next session.

  Meanwhile, what about Sam Pope? He might interfere with the analysis. It would be wise to take some precautions.

  The psychoanalyst reached for the telephone and called Pope’s number.

  Sam Pope made it as difficult as possible. But Gray was persistent. It ended with Pope’s agreeing to see Gray at the former’s office if the analyst would come right over. Gray called a patient to postpone an appointment, smoked impatiently in the taxi, and then was kept waiting twenty minutes in the reception room of the Pope House Enterprises before he was ushered into a small office walled with metal filing cabinets. From behind a bare desk a thin, pale-haired, middle-aged man rose.

  “Mr. Gray?” he asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m Maurice Hoyle,” the man said. “I’m the general manager here. Can I help you?”

  “Yes,” Gray said. “I’ve an appointment with Mr. Pope.”

  “I know. Something unexpected came up. Mr. Pope asked me to see you.”

  Gray said, “Since the matter’s a personal one, I can’t talk about it to anyone except Mr. Pope.”

  Hoyle said, “You can discuss it with me.”

  Gray said gently, “I’ll wait. Mr. Pope will be free some time.”

  The other man looked faintly baffled.

  “He might be tied up all day.”

  “Then I’ll wait all day. I can probably fin
d him at home tonight, if necessary.”

  Hoyle smoothed back his thin hair.

  “I understand you’re Mr. Dunne’s psychoanalyst,” he said.

  Gray said, “I can’t discuss that either.” Hoyle’s mouth tightened.

  “Apparently there’s very little psychoanalysts can discuss,” he said. “Of course, I can understand why. It isn’t exactly a science, is it?”

  Gray said, “I’ll be waiting outside.” He went back to the reception room. It might be a long wait. But he suspected it wouldn’t be. Sam Pope did not seem to be a patient man.

  Within five minutes another door opened, a big, gray-haired, red-faced man appeared and said, “Well, come in, Mr. Gray. Let’s get it over with.”

  Sam Pope’s office was as cluttered as Hoyle’s had been bare.

  “Sit down,” Pope said. “Now why couldn’t Hoyle handle this? He handles everything else around here.”

  “We call it professional ethics, I suppose,” Gray said, grinning.

  “Well, if it’s about Howard, there’s nothing I can do. He won’t listen to me. I’m ready to wash my hands of the whole thing.”

  “Are you?” Gray asked.

  The big man stared at him.

  “What the devil do you mean by that?”

  “I mean it might be the most helpful thing you could do,” Gray said. “When a patient—”

  “Hold it,” Pope interrupted. “I can guess what you’re going to say. Howard’s been telling you what an interfering bastard I am. Well—I wanted him to see somebody like you. Now he’s done it. I’m satisfied. You were going to ask me to mind my own business, weren’t you?”

  Gray said, “I’m going to ask if you’re willing to cooperate. That will mean letting Howard Dunne work out his problems in his own way. That won’t be an easy—”

  “He’s your problem,” Pope said. “I want to see him cured. Sure, I’ll cooperate. Is that all?”

  Gray said carefully, “It’s quite a lot. I’d like to tell you what you can probably expect from Mr. Dunne while he’s in analysis. Because you’ll need a good deal of patience sometimes.”

  “I’m afraid that’ll have to wait,” Pope said. “I’m really jammed up today. Maybe later—”

  “All right. When?”

  “I’ll have to call you.”

  Gray nodded.

  “Here’s my card,” he said. “I hope you’ll phone me soon. Anyway, please call me—or Dr. Bronson—if you have any questions at all. I think you will have.”

  Pope dropped the card on his desk and held out his hand. “Okay. I’ll keep my hands off. All I wanted was to know something was being done. It’s a deal.”

  The two men shook hands. Pope glanced down pointedly at the clutter on his desk.

  Gray nodded.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” he said, and went out.

  As he went through the reception room, he heard Maurice Hoyle’s voice, shrill and sharp, and in strange contrast to it another voice, heavy and sluggish. Gray glanced toward Hoyle’s office. The pale-haired manager of Pope House Enterprises was just closing the door, but Gray caught a glimpse, before the door shut, of the man with the sluggish voice. For an instant Gray thought that the man was deformed. Then he knew he was wrong. But the impression lingered. What was it?

  The face? It was harsh and cold, with deep lines around the mouth. The eyes, with their drooping lids? No. The face was, somehow, set too low. The man’s neck and shoulder muscles were so over-developed that his head seemed to be drawn down, lowered, like the head of a charging bull.

  All the way back to his office Gray kept remembering that face.

  8

  The analysis had begun. Almost from the first, Gray had been able to guess some of his patient’s more basic problems. But he could not tell Dunne what he suspected they were. For one thing, he might be wrong. For another, the patient himself must, of his own volition, recognize and appraise the buried secrets of his own soul. And only in the psychoanalyst’s office could Dunne find strength enough to find and understand his own deepest terrors.

  Little by little, Gray must search more closely. It was like peeling an onion: layer after layer had to be removed until the core conflicts were reached. Too swift an approach to the hidden nightmares would rouse Dunne to panic. Too slow an approach would lull him into a false and dangerous feeling of security.

  But already there were hopeful signs. Dunne’s initial dream had had more than one significance. It showed that he had begun to turn to Gray, to trust the psychoanalyst—not much, at first, only a tentative, wary reaching-out that could very easily be unintentionally rebuffed. A single word or movement might do it. And sometimes Gray made such errors. When he did, he immediately tried to retrieve them. He made it clear to Dunne that he could and did make mistakes—an early reminder that the therapy situation was an artificial one, and that eventually the patient must leave it and five in the real world again.

  But not yet. In the quiet office, Dunne gradually lost his wariness a little. He did not quite trust Gray yet, and, until he did, the basic conflicts in Dunne’s mind could not be uncovered. Before that could happen, there would probably be a critical negative transference. There was a danger that could not be avoided. But it could be minimized somewhat by building in advance a strong positive relationship between Dunne and Gray. When Dunne was ready to turn on Gray all the hostility he had previously felt for those who had presumably injured him, he must already have transferred to Gray some of the affection he had felt for others in his troubled past.

  That would be Gray’s chief defense, when the crisis came. For, during the symptoms of negative transference, the psychoanalyst must often give his patient something exactly opposite to the punishment he had always received for showing anger.

  It would not be easy. Something that became more and more evident, and which complicated the situation, was the fact that Howard Dunne wanted to be punished. Over and over, he was trying to atone for some hidden guilt buried in his memory. That guilt forced him into situations where he would be certain to suffer. The reason for that guilt-feeling had to be unearthed. That could happen only after Dunne felt safe with Gray.

  “I think the trouble started when my father left us,” Howard said, during the fifth session. “I was around fourteen then. He went to Spain. Joined the Loyalists. He was killed the next year.”

  “What sort of trouble?” Gray asked.

  “Oh—delinquency. Smashing windows. Stealing things. I went to live with my uncle after a while. If the war hadn’t started, I’d probably have ended up in jail. But it was different in the Army.”

  “How?”

  “Well, every time I went on a combat mission, I felt fine. Except—” Dunne hesitated. “Funny. I hadn’t seen it before, but it wasn’t really so fine. There was something disappointing about it. Each time I went out afterwards and once …”

  “What happened?”

  Dunne said painfully, “I got drunk and—well, I’d been sleeping with my C.O.’s girl friend. I guess I forgot he was with her that night. I walked right in, and the lid blew off. Then I got transferred out so fast my head swam.”

  Gray laughed, and, after a second, so did Dunne.

  “I guess it was funny, at that,” he said. “Anyway, I liked my new outfit better. That’s where I met Sam.”

  “Was there any trouble in the new outfit?”

  “Sure,” Dunne said, and shrugged. “The top brass grabbed the best-looking lays, and they’re the kind I like. I told you I need women.”

  “That’s right,” Gray agreed. “By the way, when did you first start needing them?”

  “Hell,” said Dunne. “I told you I don’t have any sexual problems. I had a perfectly normal life there.”

  “Where wasn’t it normal?” Gray asked mildly.

  Dunne froze. Panic showed, not in his face, but in the unconscious muscular tensions Gray had begun to recognize. The man quickly reached into his pocket and got out the new pipe.

&n
bsp; And the next session brought up the dream of the locked door again.

  “I was trying to get into your office again,” Dunne said. “But it was locked. Everything was dead quiet. It was late at night. I took out my pipe and used it like a key. I opened the door of your office, and you were standing behind your desk with your back to me. Then you turned around, and it wasn’t you at all. It was Sam.”

  Gray waited.

  “There was a letter,” Dunne said. “I knew I had a letter to give to you. But I couldn’t find it. Then I realized that Sam had it.” Dunne closed his eyes. “I smashed his typewriter,” he said, half-audibly. “He never knew. He never found out.”

  Gray said gently, “Tell me about it.”

  Dunne opened his eyes. They had a blank, questioning stare.

  “It was when my father left us,” he said. “He packed up and walked out. And as soon as he got out of the house, I took his typewriter out into an empty lot and—” He couldn’t go on.

  “Smashed it?” Gray asked.

  “Yeah,” Dunne whispered. Then his face flushed deep red. His voice was thick with violence. “I took the God damned thing out and smashed hell out of it. I hammered it into a—a—I smashed it. I smashed it!”

  “You must have had a good reason for feeling that way,” Gray said.

  Dunne stared at him.

  “No. No, I—you see, I couldn’t give him the letter after that. He’d have found out about the typewriter.”

  “What letter was it?”

  “Well—when I got back, my mother gave me a letter. She wanted me to take it to Dad. She was an invalid, you know. I guess that made her short-tempered. But Dad had a temper like … murder. I couldn’t give him the letter.”

  “What did you do after you read it?”

  Dunne gasped.

  “How did you know?”

  “I don’t,” Gray said. “But it would be a natural thing to do, under the circumstances.”

  “Oh, hell,” Dunne said helplessly. “You’re mixing me all up. You’re not—I don’t know what to expect from you.”

  “What would you like me to do?”