Praying for Sleep

final presentation of the six case studies and verbatims upon which your proposal was based (Allenton, Grosz, Hrubek, McMillan, Green, Yvenesky). A representative of the Board will contact you directly regarding times for oral presentations of those case studies. . . . ’ ”
    Adler slammed the paper to the desk and Grimes decided that, while his fingerprint paranoia was perhaps misplaced, the hospital director should be somewhat more careful. If Kohler noticed damaged pages he might complain of a suspected theft—to which, Grimes was painfully aware, there’d been a witness. A half hour before, the assistant had summoned an irritable Slavic janitor to open the door of Kohler’s office. Not a seasoned burglar, Grimes had neglected to send him away and had failed to notice that the squat man planted himself on the threshold to watch with amusement the young doctor’s heist from start to finish.
    “Our money. He’s getting our money, on top of everything else! And, look at this. Look at it, Grimes. He’s using our patients to fuck us! He’s selling us out—our patients, our money—for his program.”
    Adler grabbed the phone and made a call.
    As he gazed out the window, Grimes considered Kohler’s scheme and he was both shocked and impressed. Kohler had used Michael Hrubek as a shining example of how his combination of drugs, delusion therapy and milieu resocialization treatment could produce dramatic improvements in chronic, dangerous schizophrenic patients. The Department of Mental Health had agreed to give Kohler a great deal of money and let him create a little fiefdom—carved out of Marsden hospital itself, at Adler’s expense no less. But of course if Hrubek wasn’t captured quietly, if he injured or killed someone, the DMH Board of Physicians would abort Kohler’s plan as unworkable and dangerous.
    Still, it was an admirable scheme, Grimes thought, and he regretted playing a part in the downfall of a talented man, one who probably would’ve been a better choice to hitch his star to—if of course Kohler’s career had survived this evening. Which it surely would not.
    The rain spattered the greasy windows. A huge wail of wind ended in a crash of plate glass from somewhere in the courtyard below. Several other patients had joined Patient 223-81 and a chorus of frightened wailing filled the halls. Grimes looked absently out the window and tried to avoid thinking about the effect on patients if a tornado touched down nearby.
    Adler slammed down the phone and looked at him. “He’s not at the halfway house. Some son of a bitch tipped him off.”
    “Who, Kohler?”
    “He got a call a couple hours ago. He’s out there. He’s after Hrubek right now.”
    “By himself?”
    “He has to go by himself. He has to get Hrubek to come back like a quiet little lamb. Then he’ll claim he simply walked up to him and asked him to come home. And the son of a bitch will. After Kohler hits him with a taser or a tranquilizer gun . . . Shit! The break-in.”
    “I’m sorry?” the assistant asked cautiously.
    “Security said somebody broke into the pharmacy tonight.”
    “Right. Well, they said it was a car accident, looked like. We won’t know till morning if anything’s missing.”
    “Oh, something’s missing, you can bet on it. That son of a bitch lifted a tranquilizer gun. He’s going to . . .” Adler spat out, “Jesus, he’s going to make Hrubek look like the fucking little puppy I’ve said he is all along. Jesus Lord.”
    Grimes impersonated a fish again, chewing water urgently, and wondered aloud what they might do next.
    “I want to be ready to preempt the press. If this . . .” He tried out several words for size before saying, “If this situation becomes critical—”
    “If it’s a worst case.”
    “Yes, if it’s worst-case, we’ll have to go public immediately. I want a release. Write it up—”
    “A press release?”
    “What else would I mean? Can you draft one up? Subject, verb. Subject, verb. That too much for you? And let’s go over it, you and me. Say that, unbeknownst to staff, no, say unbeknownst to administrators and officials, a private physician with privileges here gave Hrubek access to all wards, which allowed him to escape. Say ‘with privileges’; don’t say ‘attending.’ Let’s confuse the morons. Then say that this was in defiance—”
    “Defiance?”
    “—of clear instructions that any transfer of Section 403 patients must be approved by the office