Twisted

remember? You asked if a ghost could come to one of our sessions? That was very funny. But the psychiatric literature defines humor as ironic juxtaposition of concepts based on common experience. Of course that’s contrary to the mental processes of psychotics.”
    “What the hell does that mean?” Patsy spat out.
    “That crazy people don’t make jokes,” he summarized. “That cinched it for me that you were sane as could be.” Harry looked through the attaché case once more. “Next . . .” He looked up, smiling. “After I read that article and decided you were faking your diagnosis—and listening to what your subconscious was telling me about your marriage—I figured you were using me for some reason having to do with your husband. So I hired a private eye.”
    “Jesus Christ, you did what?”
    “Here’s his report.” He dropped the folder on the bed. “It says basically that your husband was having an affair and was forging checks on your main investment account. You knew about his mistress and the money and you’d talked to a lawyer about divorcing him. But Peter knew that you were having an affair too—with your friend Sally’s husband. Peter used that to blackmail you into not divorcing him.”
    Patsy stared at him, frozen.
    He nodded at the report. “Oh, you may as welllook at it. Pretending you can’t read? Doesn’t fly. Reading has nothing to do with psychotic behavior: it’s a developmental and IQ issue.”
    She opened the report, read through it then tossed it aside disgustedly. “Son of a bitch.”
    Harry said, “You wanted to kill Peter and you wanted me to establish that you were insane—for your defense. You’d go into a private hospital. There’d be a mandatory rehearing in a year and, bang, you’d pass the tests and be released.”
    She shook her head. “But you knew my goal was to kill Peter—and you let me do it! Hell, you encouraged me to do it.”
    “And when I saw Peter I encouraged him to antagonize you. . . . It was time to move things along. I was getting tired of our sessions.” Then Harry’s face darkened with genuine regret. “I never thought you’d actually kill him, just assault him. But, hey, what can I say? Psychiatry’s an inexact science.”
    “But why didn’t you go to the police?” she said, whispering, close to panic.
    “Ah, that has to do with the third thing I brought for you.”
    I can help you and you can help me. . . .
    He lifted an envelope out of his briefcase. He handed it to her.
    “What is this?”
    “My bill.”
    She opened it. Took out the sheet of paper.
    At the top was written For Services Rendered. And below that: $10 million.
    “Are you crazy?” Patsy gasped.
    Given the present location and context of theirconversation, Harry had to laugh at her choice of words. “Peter was nice enough to tell me exactly what you were worth. I’m leaving you a million . . . which you’ll probably need to pay that slick lawyer of yours. He looks expensive. Now, I’ll need cash or a certified check before I testify at your trial. Otherwise I’ll have to share with the court my honest diagnosis about your condition.”
    “You’re blackmailing me!”
    “I guess I am.”
    “Why?”
    “Because with this money I can afford to do some good. And help people who really need helping.” He nodded at the bill. “I’d write that check pretty soon—they have the death penalty in New York now. Oh, and by the way, I’d lose that bit about the food being poisoned. Around here, you make a stink about meals, they’ll just put you on a tube.” He picked up his attaché case.
    “Wait,” she begged. “Don’t leave! Let’s talk about this!”
    “Sorry.” Harry nodded at a wall clock. “I see our time is up.”

B EAUTIFUL

    H e’d found her already.
    Oh, no, she thought. Lord, no . . .
    Eyes filling with tears of despair, wracked with nausea, the young woman sagged against the window frame as she stared through a crack in the blinds.
    The battered Ford pickup—as gray as the turbulent Atlantic Ocean a few hundred yards up the road—eased to a stop in front of her house in this pretty neighborhood of Crowell, Massachusetts, north of Boston. This was the very truck she’d come to dread, the truck that regularly careened through her dreams, sometimes with its tires on fire, sometimes shooting blood from its tailpipe, sometimes piloted by an invisible driver bent on tearing her heart from her chest.
    Oh,