The Bad Place Part 11

"When did you finally sleep again?" Julie asked.

"The next evening."

"Friday evening that was?"

"Yeah. I tried to stay awake with lots of coffee. Sat at the counter in the little restaurant attached to the motel, and drank coffee until I started to float off the stool. Stomach got so acidic, I had to stop.

Went back to my room. Every time I started nodding off, I went out for a walk. But it was pointless. I couldn't stay awake forever. I was coming apart at the seams.

I Had to get some rest. So I went to bed shortly past eight in the evening, fell asleep instantly, and didn't wake up until half past five in the morning."

"Sat.u.r.day morning."

"Yeah."

"And everything was okay?" Bobby asked.

"At least there was no blood. But there was something else They waited.

Pollard licked his lips, nodded as if confirming to himself his willingness to continue.

"See, I'd gone to bed in my boxer shorts... but when I woke up I was fully clothed."

"So you were sleepwalking, and you dressed in your sleep. Julie said.

"But the clothes I was wearing weren't any I'd ever seen before."

Julie blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"They weren't the clothes I was wearing when I came to that alleyway two nights before, and they weren't the clothes I bought at the mall on Thursday morning."

"Whose clothes were they?" Bobby asked.

"Oh, they must be mine," Pollard said, "because they fit too well to belong to anyone else. They fit perfectly. Even the shoes fit perfectly. I couldn't have lifted that outfit from some one else and been lucky enough to have it all fit so well."

Bobby slipped off the desk and began to pace.

"So what are you saying? That you left that motel in your underwear, went out to some store, bought clothes, and n.o.body objected to your modesty or even questioned you about it?"

Shaking his head, Pollard said, "I don't know."

Clint Karaghiosis said, "He could've dressed in his room while sleepwalking, then went out, bought other clothes changed into them."

"But why would he do that?" Julie asked.

Clint shrugged.

"I'm just offering a possible explanation "Mr. Pollard," Bobby said, "why would you have done something like that?"

"I don't know."

Pollard had used those three words so oft that he was wearing them out; each time he repeated them his voice seemed softer and fuzzier than before.

"I don't think I did. It doesn't feel right-as an explanation, I mean.

besides I didn't fall asleep in the motel until after eight o'clock. I probably couldn't have gotten up again, gone out, and bought the clothes before the stores closed."

"Some places are open until ten o'clock," Clint said.

"There was a narrow window of opportunity," Bobby agreed.

"I don't think I would've broken into a store after hours," Pollard said. "Or stolen the clothes. I don't think I'm a thief."

"We know you're not a thief," Bobby said.

"We don't know any such thing," Julie said sharply.

Bobby and Clint looked at her, but Pollard continued to stare at his hands, too shy or confused to defend himself.

She felt like a bully for having questioned his honesty. Which was nuts. They knew nothing about him. h.e.l.l, if he was telling the truth, he knew nothing about himself.

Julie said, "Listen, whether he bought or stole the clothes is not the point here. I can't accept it either. At least not with our current scenario. It's just too outrageous-the man going to a mall or K-Mart or someplace in his underwear, outfitting himself, while he's sleepwalking.

Could he do all that and not wake up-and appear to be awake to other people? I don't think so. I don't know anything about sleepwalking, but if we research it, I don't think we'll find such a thing is possible."

"Of course, it wasn't just the clothes," Clint said.

"No, not just the clothes," Pollard said.

"When I woke up, there was a large paper bag on the bed beside me, like one of those you get at a supermarket if you don't want plastic. I looked inside, and it was full of... money. More cash."

"How much?" Bobby asked.

"I don't know. A lot."

"You didn't count it?"

"It's back at the motel where I'm staying now, the new place. I keep moving. I feel safer that way. Anyway, you can count it later if you want. I tried to count it, but I've lost my ability to do even simple arithmetic. Yeah, that sounds screwy, but it's what happened. Couldn't add the numbers. I keep trying but... numbers just don't mean much to me any more." He lowered his head, put his face in his hands.

"First I lost my memory. Now I'm losing essential skills, like math. I feel as if... as if I'm coming apart... dissolving... until there's going to be none of me left, just a body, no mind at all... gone."

"That won't happen, Frank," Bobby said.

"We won't quit. We'll find out who you are and what all this means."

"Bobby," Julie said warningly.

"Hmmm?" He smiled obtusely.

She got up from her desk and went into the bathroom.

"Ah, Jeez." Bobby followed her, closed the door, and turned on the fan.

"Julie, we have to help the poor guy."

"The man is obviously experiencing psychotic fugues.

doing these things in a blacked-out condition. He gets them in the middle of the night, yeah, but he's not sleepwalking.

awake, alert, but in a fugue state. He could steal, kill-and remember any of it."

"Julie, I'll bet you that was his own blood on his hands.

maybe having blackouts, fugues, whatever you want to call them, but he's not a killer. How much you want to bet?

"And you still say he's not a thief.? On a regular basis he wakes up with a bagful of money, doesn't know where he got it, but he's not a thief.? You think maybe he counterfeits during these amnesiac spells?

No, I'm sure you think he's nice to be a counterfeiter."

"Listen," he said, "we've got to go with gut feelings sometimes, and my gut feeling is that Frank is a good guy. Clint thinks he's a good guy."

"Greeks are notoriously gregarious. They like every one.

"You telling me Clint is your typical Greek social animal? Are we talking about the same Clint? Last name-Karaghiosis ? Guy who looks as if he was cast from concrete, and about as stoic as a cigar store Indian?"

The light in the bathroom was too bright. It bounced off the mirror, white sink, white walls, and white ceramic tile. Thanks to the glare and Bobby's good-natured if not iron-willed did nothing to help Pollard, Julie was getting a headache.

She closed her eyes.

"Pollard's pathetic," she admitted.

"Want to go back in there and hear him out?"

"All right. But, dammit, don't tell him we'll help him until we've heard everything. All right?"

They returned to the office.

The sky no longer looked like cold, scorched metal. It was darker than before, and churning, molten. Though only a mildest breeze stirred at ground level, stronger winds were at work in the higher alt.i.tudes, for dense black thunderheads were being hurled inland from the sea.

Like metal filings drawn to magnets, shadows had piled up in some corners. Julie reached for the switch to snap on the overhead fluorescence. Then she saw Bobby looking around with obvious pleasure at the softly l.u.s.trous, burnished bra.s.s surfaces of the lamps, at the way the polished oak end tables and coffee table glimmered in the fall of warm b.u.t.tery light, and she left the switch unflicked.

She sat behind her desk again. Bobby perched on the edge of it, legs dangling.

Clint clicked on the tape recorder, and Julie said, "Frank...

Mr. Pollard, before you continue your story, I'd like you to answer a few important questions for me. In spite of the b.l.o.o.d.y hands, and the scratches, you believe you're incapable of hurting anyone?"

"Yeah. Except maybe in self-defense."

"And you don't think you're a thief'?"

"No. I can't..., I don't see myself as a thief, no."

"Then why haven't you gone to the police for help?"

He was silent. He clutched the open flight bag on his lap and peered into it, as if Julie was speaking to him from its interior.

She said, "Because if you really feel certain you're an innocent man in all regards, the police are best equipped to help you find out who you are and who's pursuing you. You know what I think? I think you're not as certain of your innocence as you pretend. You know how to hot-wire a car, and although any man with reasonable knowledge of automobiles could perform that trick, it's at least an indication of criminal experience.

And then there's the money, all that money, bags full of it. You don't remember committing any crimes, but in your heart you're convinced you have, so you're afraid to go to the COPS."

"That's part of it," he acknowledged.

She said, "You do understand, I hope, that if we take your case, and if we turn up evidence that you've committed a criminal act, we'll have to convey that information to the police."

"Of course. But I figure if I went to the cops first, they wouldn't even look for the truth. They'd make up their minds that I was guilty of something even before I finished telling my story."

"And of course we wouldn't do that," Bobby said, turning his head to favor Julie with a meaningful look.

Pollard said, "Instead of helping me, they'd look around some recent crimes to pin on me."

"The police don't work that way," Julie a.s.sured him.

"Of course they do," Bobby said mischievously.

He slid the desk and began to pace back and forth from the Uncle Scrooge poster to one of Mickey Mouse.

"Haven't we seen 'e do that a thousand times on TV shows? Haven't we all read Hammett and Chandler?" "Mr. Pollard," Julie said, "I was a police officer once-' "Proves my point," Bobby said.

"Frank, if you'd gone to the cops, you'd no doubt already have been booked, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a thousand years."

"There's a more important reason I can't go to the cops That would be like going public. Maybe the press would hear about me, and be real eager to do a story about this poor guy with amnesia and bags of cash.

Then he would know where to find me. I can't risk that."

Bobby said, "Who is 'he,' Frank?"

"The man who was chasing me the other night."

"The way you said it, I thought you'd remembered his name, had a specific person in mind."

"No. I don't know who he is. I'm not even entirely sure who he is. But I know he'll come for me again if he learns where I am. So I've got to keep my head down."

From the sofa, Clint said, "I better flip the tape over."

They waited while he popped the ca.s.sette out of the recorder.