Freud's Revenge Read online

  Freud’s Revenge is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All right reserved.

  Copyright © 2011 by PJ Adams

  The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the Author.

  For information:

  http://pjadamsbooks.com/

  Freud’s Revenge

  ISBN-13: 978-0615477237

  ISBN-10: 0615477232

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61914-099-8

  The very emphasis of the commandment Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours.

  –Sigmund Freud

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Fits and Starts

  A being in the clutch of madness has a sound like no other; like a fetus fighting death in the womb, the life force begs: love me, save me, redeem me from this abyss. Psychotherapist Amanda Carlisle listened, transfixed, as the voice bled through the walls.

  “Stay away from me, you goddamn Nazis. Keep your hands off me, assholes.” Furniture crashed somewhere then a new burst of epithets broke through. “Goddamn, fucking assholes…”

  “Damn.” Amanda sighed. She closed her eyes and leaned back in her black business suit against Seaside’s old elevator as it lumbered to the clinic’s second floor. “Sounds like Carl again.”

  It was Monday of course. Monday was the day things happened at Seaside Mental Health Clinic. Psychotics saw demons on the ceiling Sunday night. Couples separated after a boozy weekend. Teenagers got high or busted, then hauled into the clinic first thing Monday morning. People had panic attacks, found out they had cancer, lost their jobs, learned about an affair.

  The screams grew louder. Amanda thought she heard running, banging. Carl was probably midway through a psychotic break upstairs. She adjusted her bulging briefcase stuffed with files, ready to bolt from the elevator. Pain shot from her right elbow cramping badly from the weight. She ignored it.

  The voice welled up, garbled, anguished. “I hate you, get away from me. Don’t hurt me. God, oh God, please help me, somebody please help me.”

  Amanda listened, assessing the degree of pain. The elevator doors finally wheezed open and she strode quickly out into the waiting room. She turned a sharp left as her auburn hair swung out behind her, and then tossed her keys into her bag, freeing a hand. About thirty feet in front of her, a small-headed, pock-faced man in filthy khaki pants and a salmon T-shirt was writhing on the floor, spewing vitriol.

  Definitely Carl.

  “I hate you, don’t hurt me. Help, help…”

  The waiting room was an unholy mess. Lobby chairs were upended near the reception desk; magazines and papers were scattered across the wood floors like garbage. One of the green floor lamps lay mangled on the striped area rug. Light bulbs crunched underfoot as people scattered. A shrieking woman with a toddler under each arm sidled around Carl as she rushed for the stairs. On the long blue couch to the left, an elderly man cowered with his knees pulled up under his chin. A pair of teenage boys in baseball caps snickered at a safe distance to the right, filming the mayhem with their cell phones.

  Carl Fillmore. Or was it Fellman? Amanda racked her brain. She remembered that Carl was one of Sandra Daniels’ therapy patients. With sixty plus cases divided between her two student interns, Sandra and Gary, Amanda couldn’t possibly keep all the patient names straight anymore. Added to her own busy caseload, the three of them handled the Marriage and Family Therapy department treating nearly ninety families in all. Right now, however, Carl F. was critical.

  She studied him. Carl lay squirming in some kind of mental hell; he was either off his meds or on street drugs, so an intervention was tricky. She suddenly recalled his history as she stepped toward him: thirty-six-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, in and out of inpatient treatment, heavy medication, domineering mother named Edna, absent father, no siblings. He’d had another episode like this last year. His mother most likely had left town to do some gambling in Las Vegas; Carl must have decided he could handle life without his meds. He’d probably had his first symptoms during breakfast, and then remembered his regular Monday counseling session. Haldol or no Haldol he knew to keep his appointments.

  Amanda swerved left as she tripped on the jumbled area rug. Maybe her new three-inch Manolos weren’t the best choice for today. She balanced herself, and then detoured and dumped her bags against the north wall. She grabbed her cell, and then swept forward toward Carl. Suddenly, Al Naylor, the clinic’s 230-pound security guard, dashed in from the file room. Before Amanda could reach Carl, Al swooped down to the flailing man and tried to get him in a headlock.

  “Come on, buddy,” Al coaxed. “Calm down. No one’s gonna hurt you. You cooperate, no one’ll get hurt. Hold still.”

  Amanda watched the grappling pair. Carl looked like he’d been digging in a dumpster. There was something blue smeared on his knuckles. Paint? Makeup? Candy wrappers stuck out of his khaki pockets and his fly was down. Orange underwear peeked out. Carl suddenly glommed on to the edge of the oak coffee table with his fingers, and then clamped his legs around the table base.

  “Carl, it’s OK,” Amanda shouted at the two grappling men. The table abruptly crashed over toward the couch as the elderly man bolted over the couch. “Carl, stop!”

  Carl wrenched toward her when he heard Amanda’s voice again, then he scrambled up to all fours and shot through Al’s legs. “Help me, help me! You’ve got to help me!” He flung his arms out like a hungry infant.

  “Carl, calm down, we can only help you if you calm down!” Amanda ordered as Carl scrambled toward her. Al whipped around in a blur of tan uniform snatching Carl by the feet but not stopping him.

  “Go man, go,” shouted one of the teenagers.

  From a side chair, a ponytailed man in paint-splattered overalls brusquely thrust a leg out, corralling Carl as he slithered toward Amanda. Al jumped. An agile Hispanic man with terrorist training, Al grasped Carl’s waist with both hands, then flopped him flat on his stomac
h and spread-eagled him.

  Drooling and sputtering, Carl screamed, “You goddamn fucking Nazis. You can’t do this to me. You goddamn asshole prick…get off me…”

  Al pressed the psychotic’s face into the carpet, and then cranked Carl’s arms up behind him on his back. A moment passed. Amanda leaned forward, barely breathing. Then Carl reared up and suddenly puked into the carpet. When he was done, he wept like a five-year-old.

  “Don’t hurt me…don’t hurt me. Help me,” he begged Amanda. Snot ran down his chin.

  Amanda’s heart twisted. She wanted to reach out, but in this state a psychotic could be unpredictable—might attack in an instant. Tears pressed against her eyes but she held her position. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone in dark trousers racing toward them from the hallway. It was Mark Huston, the clinic director, Taser in hand. Mark, his face ashen against his thin black hair, crouched down to the struggling men. He held the Taser at Carl’s back, ready to fire. With his other hand, he hit speed dial on his phone.

  “Now, Carl,” Mark soothed, waiting for the line to connect. “We don’t want to hurt you. You need to calm down and let us help you.” Mark looked up at Amanda, mouthing “God, what a mess.” Suddenly he shouted into the phone, “Got a 5150! Seaside Clinic. Del Mar, downtown, on Pacific Coast Highway. Come now! This is Dr. Mark Huston. Come NOW.”

  When he heard the call, Carl wrenched his arm free, twisted toward Mark and hurled a mouthful of spit at the psychologist. Eyes flaming, Carl jabbed his finger at Mark: “He’s Hitler, he’s Hitler! Don’t you see? He’ll get me, don’t let him get me! You goddamn fucking Nazis…”

  Mark slid adroitly to the right as the writhing man nearly snagged Mark’s blue polo shirt. Amanda watched Carl’s gleaming spit slide slowly down Mark’s pants onto his Italian loafers. There was a thwack as a People magazine slid onto the floor near Carl’s head. He promptly snatched it up and thrust it into Mark’s face; Mark parried the jab with his cell. Al grunted and reached over, whipping the magazine out of Carl’s hand. It flew across the room toward Jackie Forrest, the clinic’s receptionist, who was peering over the counter. As she ducked, a stack of patient charts hit the tile.

  Carl collapsed, sobbing. “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me. I’ll be good, I’ll be good…” Exasperated, Al grabbed the back of Carl’s neck with one hand and the back of his pants with the other and pressed the man to the floor. Mark crept to Carl’s side once more, ready to fire.

  Jackie leaped up. “Police are here!”

  Amanda and Carl locked eyes as pounding footsteps came from the stairs behind them. Al paused, not loosening his grip, but Mark stood up still pointing the Taser. Amanda backed up a few inches until her back was nearly against the elevator door as a pair of police officers burst from the stairwell. One, a heavily armed woman, moved into Al and Carl, then focused her Taser on Carl as she surveyed the room for others. Mark backed away when she waved him off. The cop knelt beside Carl as Al pulled the man’s stained hands together across his back for the cuffs.

  Wrenching forward with a Herculean effort, Carl lunged once more for Amanda, throwing off both the female officer and Al. The police Taser went flying.

  “Help me, they’re killing me!” he begged, snagging Amanda’s left leg, digging his dirty nails into the tender skin along the front of her ankle. Instinctively she kicked him off, barely missing Carl’s head with her high heel. At exactly the same moment, the police Taser rolled to within inches of her right foot.

  Amanda and Carl saw it at the same time.

  Deftly, Amanda thrust out the toe of her right Manolo and slid it under the Taser. With a snap, she lobbed it to the female officer. The cop scooped it up, pointed, and fired.

  Carl spasmed, and then went limp. He convulsed a couple of times, then his bowels released. Stench filled the room. Amanda knelt down, trying to comfort him.

  “You bitch!” Carl sneered at her weakly. “You should ‘a helped me!”

  The two officers jerked Carl facedown and cuffed him. Lifting him up, they dragged the hobbled man across the floor toward the elevator.

  “Good job, Amanda,” Mark whispered as he moved past her to hold the doors open for the officers. The cops and Carl disappeared into the old elevator and Carl’s moans faded as the elevator dropped slowly to the ground.

  “God, Mark, this is not my favorite way to start the week.”

  Mark moved to Amanda and put his arm around her shoulders. “You did well, Amanda. Carl must have been on meth or PCP the way he kept going and going. Are you OK?”

  “I’ll recover,” Amanda said quietly, noticing Mark was clammy with sweat. “We had to keep him from hurting himself. Poor guy.”

  “The good news is we knew how to handle it.” The crinkle around Mark’s eyes returned as he smiled. Amanda instantly felt better. Mark had a wonderful way of engendering confidence. It was one of the reasons she liked working with him.

  Mark turned toward Al who was picking up furniture and quieting patients who were emerging from various hiding places. Mark moved over to assist, but he glanced back at Amanda’s leg and called out, “Better check that out, Amanda. First aid kit in the kitchen.”

  She hesitated, wanting to help, but then she felt a throbbing pain beginning to creep up her leg. First aid first. Amanda picked up her bags, and then headed down the long hallway to her office at the back of the clinic. She passed half a dozen clinical offices on either side of the hall, her Manolos clicking on the parquet. She could hear crying from one of the rooms. Reaching the second-to-the-last green fire door on the right, Amanda twisted the knob and slipped inside.

  Relief swept over her as she entered her sanctuary. Scent from a dish of last week’s gardenias on her corner table sweetened the air. She could see the tall, familiar pine trees swaying outside the west window in the sun. Very faintly, she could hear the Pacific crashing up on the beach about a mile away. Sanity. Amanda slowly limped toward her mahogany desk and chair where her yellow sweater still hung from Friday’s sessions. Her head was pounding. She dumped her briefcase and bag near the file cabinet, and then bent down and reached into her desk drawer for wipes and Band-Aids. Absently, she waited for the door to close. There was nothing.

  Amanda looked up, puzzled. Then she gasped as a hand curled around the door’s edge. The door whipped open. A man peeled in.

  Chapter Two

  Blood and Sympathy

  Gary Bowman zipped around the door and collapsed onto Amanda’s tan couch as the door banged shut behind him. She exhaled slowly and closed her eyes, frankly relieved.

  “Gary!”

  “Geez, Amanda!” Gary shouted, face flushed, his red hair sticking out on one side. Her intern flung his stack of files on the table and slumped back. Amanda noticed the young man’s white shirt hung out on one side. “I was finishing up a session when I heard the noise. Holy crap, Amanda, who…who was that?”

  Amanda willed her face into a calm, professional stare as she moved around her desk to sit, but her knees buckled slightly and she finally sank gratefully into her leather chair. “Sorry if it frightened you, Gary. It was Carl Fellman. You know, Sandra’s patient. Must be off his meds again.”

  Amanda’s voice sounded strange, like from the bottom of a well. She closed her eyes a couple of times to clear.

  “Sounded like there was a gang war going on out there!”

  “Close.” Amanda smiled wanly. She looked down. Her leg was really bleeding now, rapidly turning her blue pump into a bloody tie-dye. She snatched a wipe and dabbed at her leg, grateful for something constructive to do.

  “Did he hurt you, Amanda?” Gary watched her, concerned, but she waved him off.

  “It’s OK…just a scratch,” she assured him, applying a Band-Aid. “Carl was…out of control for a while. It’s scary in the moment, but most psychotics like this won’t do anything really serious. Sometimes we go years before something like this happens.”

  Her rational mind was talking along, but somewh
ere in her psyche, images of Carl flailing, screaming, grabbing, flashed in and out. PTSD. Post-traumatic reverb. Shaking it off, she was about to say something to Gary when she heard Carl’s voice again. But not in her head—outside in real time. Sweeping around to the window, she saw three officers down in the parking lot struggling to get Carl into a squad car. Gary stood up behind her and the two watched as the police finally got Carl into the backseat, slammed the door, and got inside. When the vehicle reversed, Carl thrust out his tongue and licked the car window, bottom to top. As the car pulled out to the highway and turned south, Carl rubbed his chin back and forth through the spit.

  Amanda turned to Gary and shook her head. “I feel sorry for him really. Getting him in a safe place is best for him now. And back on his meds.”

  “I guess I wasn’t rrr…ready for it. Honestly, Amanda, I’m glad he’s Sandra’s patient, not mine.”

  “Understandable. That’s why you get so much supervision before you’re licensed from people like me. So you see most of this before you go out there on your own.”

  The door suddenly burst open again. Al Naylor poked his head in. “All clear, Ms. Carlisle.” Al’s shirt gaped open; the middle buttons were gone. And his right ear was bloody.

  “Thanks for the update, Al. Great work, by the way. You’re bleeding, you know.” She handed him a tissue.

  Al grinned, sopping up the blood. He liked Amanda. Liked being a hero too. “Just missed a kick in the groin by that nut job, but other than that, everything’s OK.” He laughed. “You two OK?”

  “Fine, fine. I hope your back can take it, Al.”

  “I’m tough,” he said, glancing over at Gary. “You look a little green, though, Bowman.” He turned to go. “Looks like one of your patients is about to pass out in the waiting room, Bowman.”

  “Yikes, I completely forgot!” Gary leapt up, remembering his 9:30 bipolar patient. He bolted out the door, sweeping past Al.

  “Good luck,” Amanda called out after him. Al gave her a thumbs-up, and then followed Gary, letting the door slam behind him. Amanda flinched. Damn fire doors. Louder than hell.