Chase: Roman

this afternoon and talk about it, all of it?’ Cauvel asked, adopting his fatherly tone. Even in that role, his underlying smug superiority came through.
        ‘No,’ Chase said.
        ‘When should we, then?’
        Chase said, ‘I'm not coming in again.’
        ‘But you have to!’ Cauvel said.
        ‘I don't believe I do. The psychiatric care was not a condition of my hospital discharge, only a benefit I could avail myself of.’
        Cauvel thought a moment, abandoned any thought of using implied threats, and said, ‘And you still can avail yourself of it, Ben. I'm here, waiting to see you-’
        ‘It's no longer a benefit,’ Chase said. He realized that he was beginning to enjoy this. For the first time he had Cauvel on the defensive for more than a brief moment, and the switch in positions had a delightful quality of triumph to it.
        ‘Ben, you are angry about what I said to the police. That is the whole thing, isn't it?’ He was certain that he had the situation analyzed now, all carefully broken down into neat compartments by his clever reasoning powers.
        ‘Partly,’ Chase said. ‘But there are two other reasons.’
        ‘What?’
        ‘Your articles, for a start.’
        ‘Articles?’ Cauvel asked, playing the idiot either consciously or out of confusion.
        ‘You surely did glorify the treatment you gave me, didn't you? In your piece for Therapy Journal, you come off like a Sigmund Freud or even a Jesus Christ.’
        ‘You read my articles?’
        ‘All of them,’ Chase said. He had almost said five of them before he realized that two of the articles had not yet seen print but were only rough drafts in Cauvel's files.
        ‘How did you know they were concerned with your case? I didn't use any real names.’
        ‘A colleague of yours tipped me off,’ Chase lied.
        ‘Of mine? A fellow professional?’
        ‘Yes,’ Chase said. He thought: That's really not too far off base, though. He was a colleague of yours, in a sense - another madman.
        ‘Look, Ben, I'm sure we can talk about this and reach some sort of understanding -’
        ‘You forgot the third reason,’ Chase said. ‘I told you there were three reasons why I won't be coming back.’
        ‘Yes?’
        ‘Yes,’ Chase said. ‘The third reason is the best of the lot, Dr Cauvel. You are an egotist, a sonofabitch and a monumentally petty man. I can't stand to be around you, and I find you disgustingly immature.’
        He hung up on Cauvel, convinced that he had begun the day in the best manner imaginable.
        Later, he was not so sure of that. He genuinely believed all those things he had said about and to Cauvel, and he actually did find the man disgusting. But making the break with his psychiatrist was, in some way he could not clearly define, more of a definite rejection of his more recent life style than anything else he had done. He told himself that when Judge was located and the police received the conclusive proof that he, Chase, would compile against the killer, he could resume his sheltered existence on the third floor of Mrs Fiedling's house. Now he had decided to cease psychiatric treatment, an admission that he was not the same man he had once been and that the burden of guilt he bore was growing distinctly less heavy. He was a bit disconcerted by that.
        To make matters worse, once he had shaved and bathed and exercised some of the stiffness out of himself, he found that he had no leads to follow in his investigation. So far as he could think, he had been everywhere that Judge had been, and yet he had gained nothing for his trouble except a fairly accurate description of the man, something that would do him no concrete good unless he could connect a name with it or could think of a place where the description might be recognized. He could hardly tramp through the entire city asking everyone he met if one of them had seen a man with those particular characteristics. And short of that, he did not see what he was going to do with the long day ahead.
        Once he had taken breakfast at a pancake house on Galasio Boulevard, however, he was able to think more clearly and more optimistically. He still had two possible sources, no matter how slim a chance might ride on them. He could return to the Gateway Mall Tavern and talk to the real Eric Blentz to see if the man could put a name to Judge's description. It seemed likely