Freud's Revenge Read online

  “Get hold of yourself, Amanda Carlisle.” She shook her head a couple of times and tried to focus on what was left of Monday. Seaside Clinic was typically a place of solace, known for helping people, not jailing them. Carl was an aberration. Rubbing her neck, Amanda turned to her in-box, grateful to get back to the mundane. She hoisted three inches of case files out, and then separated the work: read, sign, file. She stood up to take some of the weekend files out of her briefcase, but her eyes caught something odd at the bottom of the tray: a folded piece of gray paper. Carefully, she picked up the note. Opening it, she read:

  BACK OFF AMANDA CARLISLE. YOU’RE PUSHING HER TOO MUCH. I’M WARNING YOU.

  It was signed: D.

  Amanda stared at the words, stunned.

  Now what?

  Chapter Three

  Kid Dreams

  The kid was itching to get out.

  Man, I’m bored. Talk, talk, talk. Nothing but talk. So sick of these two pinheads. How do they do it? Screw up every time. She tries, I guess…just keeps screwin’ it up.

  The kid sat, watching, seeing but not seen. Seething.

  I blame him. Asshole. Jerk-off. He did this to Her. Glad the old prick is dead. If it hadn’t been pneumonia, sooner or later it woulda been me. Ol’ man finally got his due.

  The kid smiled.

  Saw it a few times there at the end. Knew I was gonna take care of things if he made one more goddamn move. Kinda fun, watchin’ him get it. Out on the porch that morning, both us seein’ the rat goin’ for the old man’s breakfast. Thought I was too soft to do it. But he saw. Saw me jump that stupid thing.

  Thwack.

  Man that rat’s head popped right off. Ol’ man shoulda been proud. He taught me, man. But he just looked at me—then that friggin’ rat jumpin’ around, blood goin’ everywhere. Me laughin’. Laughin’ at that stupid rat. Laughin’ at the ol’ man.

  The kid chuckled.

  Yep, ol’ bastard got it then. He SAW. Kept his eye on me after that. I showed him…who he was dealing with, man.

  I did it for Her. Crap. Always do it for Her. But, man, I get so dang tired of havin’ to fix things for Her. Like that Amanda chick. Shrink needs to back off. That chick should have Her back, you know? If she won’t do it, goddamn it, I’ll have to make her. But I have to go slow. I know, I KNOW. But it’s got to be done. For Her. For the both of ‘em. Stupid bitches.

  The kid sat, mulling things over. Thinking about guns needing cleaning. About the shooting range, seeing the boys. Trying out the new rifle, loving that twenty-five-yard range. Indoor. Private. Nobody caring who you were, what you were. Just how many bullets it took you, ‘til you were done. The kid was good at it. Very good.

  The kid waited, thinking about guns and old pricks and people who hurt Her and assholes who screwed her, and about getting even, while the voices droned on and on and on and on.

  But I’m in charge. They’ll see.

  Soon.

  Chapter Four

  Murmurs

  She read it again.

  BACK OFF AMANDA CARLISLE. YOU’RE PUSHING HER TOO MUCH. I’M WARNING YOU. D.

  Drumming her fingers as she stared at the picture of ripe vineyards on her wall, Amanda ran through the possibilities. “OK, somebody is peeved,” she said to herself. “Paranoid, maybe. Definitely unhappy. But why be so cryptic? What’s the point? Why not be direct, tell me to my face? And why in my in-box? Why not text or e-mail? Must be someone who has clear access to this office. But who? D? Who the hell is ‘D’?”

  Amanda’s eyes narrowed; she was annoyed now, especially after the morning’s events. But this is how things happen sometimes, she reminded herself. When you treat people with mental health issues, you get mental health dynamics. Still, threatening notes are special. The more she thought about it, the more violated she felt.

  “Who would come into my private office and give me feedback this way?” she said aloud. “Make a threat, ‘I’m warning you.’ Then not tell me directly what I’m doing and to whom?”

  Amanda reasoned it out, doodling on a pad with a colored pencil—pencils she usually kept on her desk in a big plastic jar for kids doing therapeutic drawing. This had happened before, she suddenly remembered. When she’d first come to Seaside as the Marriage & Family Therapist supervisor a few years ago, a patient began stalking one of the senior therapists. Tim Hutchens got anonymous notes; he found cookies or toys on his car, his desk, sometimes even on the front porch of his home. It went on for weeks. They finally discovered it was a teenage patient named Julie. When Tim tried to work with her on her misplaced feelings, the girl attempted suicide. She ended up in Aurora Hospital’s psych ward for a month. Tim moved to the Bay Area, chastened about blurring boundaries with young, unstable girls.

  Other than that, Seaside Clinic was usually contained and quiet. Extreme patients like Carl and Julie were rare. Mark and Barbara Huston, the clinic owners, preferred it that way. Amanda was well aware of their story. With California real estate so pricey, Mark and Barbara had taken a big risk. Instead of building from scratch a decade ago, the couple bought a crumbling, Tudor-style hotel in downtown Del Mar and morphed it into clinical offices. The old rooms had been tiny for holiday guests, but they made perfect counseling offices. Seaside was now a full-service mental health organization, treating everything from chronic mental illness to marital strife. Mark served as clinic director and lead psychologist. Barbara, his ash-blond, athletic wife, was the administrative psychologist.

  Even the old honeymoon suite was put to good use. The Hustons modified the expansive honeymoon suite into a palatial executive wing for themselves, complete with double offices and a conference alcove. The staff giggled behind their backs about it though. Ed Michael, the clinic’s acerbic psychiatrist, once asked during a staff meeting, “Barbara, do you think there once was an enormous vibrator bed right here where we are sitting? The stories this room could tell! Maybe still does…”

  Barbara, born and reared in Europe, snapped back: “Projections—all of you. You Americans are so sexually repressed. You want it to happen to you so you fantasize about it.”

  She was probably right. However, there definitely wasn’t a lot of honeymooning going on in there now. Barbara and Mark argued—often. They grappled with soaring costs and dwindling funding. California managed care parceled out funds one dollar at a time it seemed; low- and no-pay indigents clogged the appointment book. Fundraisers became the norm, much to Barbara’s distaste. Her Austrian accent rose to a clipped staccato when she’d had enough of Mark’s nonchalance about money. Or if something dicey happened that affected the reputation of the clinic.

  “Barbara, Barbara, calm down. All is well.” Mark sometimes stood behind her chair, rubbing Barbara’s neck with slow, languid movements. After a time, Barbara’s demanding voice softened into a pleasant Austrian lilt. Their door closed quietly. Honeymoon suite indeed.

  Amanda looked down at her pad and laughed. She’d drawn a huge purple bed surrounded by waves and dollar signs. In the center of the bed was a bull’s eye.

  A sharp knock on Amanda’s door jolted her from her reverie. She stuffed the pad in her drawer and put the note back in the bottom of her in-box, facedown. “Come in,” Amanda called out.

  Sandra Daniels stepped in. Amanda’s female intern seemed composed in her sober gray suit and plain straight hair. The girl, in her early thirties, sat gingerly on the couch and smoothed her skirt as she spoke. “Hi, Amanda. What a weird Monday already. I’m so, so sorry Carl went nuts, Amanda. He’s usually pretty good in our sessions, as you know, since we’ve talked through his case often enough But this is crazy! God, Amanda, it sounds like he even went after you!”

  “I’m OK. Just a scratch really. Were you here?”

  “Yup. Tied up in the playroom with a mother and her kids. I heard all the noise. Couldn’t get out there until after the cops took Carl away. So sorry.”

  “Nothing you could do about it…”

  “Well…”

  “Yes?”

  “I…I have to tell you something.”

  Sandra looked down at her hands, and then cleared her throat. “Carl left a message last night—actually three—on my cell. I had my phone turned off yesterday. Forgot to turn it back on.”

  Amanda listened patiently.

  “Didn’t pick up the messages until this morning. Sounded like he was off his meds big time, Amanda. He wanted me to call him, and when I finally did, he didn’t answer. I guess I really screwed up, Amanda. It’s just that sometimes…I guess I…just need a break. I’m so sorry.”

  “Well,” Amanda measured her words. “That’s a tough one. I know sometimes you’d like to get away from it. Believe me, I can relate. But we’re really on call most of the time—at least roughly from eight in the morning to eight or nine or so at night. Especially with patients as unstable as Carl. That’s the hard part of treating the severely mentally ill.”

  Sandra’s eyes clouded. “Oh, Amanda, I really am sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

  Humiliation rolled over the girl. Sandra tried hard as a student therapist. “OK. I know it’s a wake-up call for you. The good news is he came to us first thing.” Amanda softened the feedback, but Sandra had to learn it. Had to learn while she was in training because when she was out on her own, apologies wouldn’t mean anything to a managed care company getting sued or a patient—or the patient’s family—if that patient jumped off a bridge or overdosed because they decompensated and couldn’t reach help. Realistically, patients could always call an emergency room. Morally, therapists make an agreement to do everything they can to be available—with reasonable limits.

  Sandra started when her beeper went off. “Gotta go. Next patient. Thanks, Amanda. I promise I won’t let this happ
en again.”

  “OK, I know you get it. See you tomorrow for supervision. We can work it through.”

  “Right. Thanks, Amanda.” The girl smiled as she scooted out the door.

  Supervising interns could be tricky. Amanda wasn’t their boss, strictly speaking. She was more like their shepherd, guiding her two charges through the hills and valleys of the human psyche, helping them assist people by getting involved, but not caught up. Even handling threatening notes like the one sitting in her in-box was all part of the therapeutic process. She flipped the note over again and studied it.

  “D? D who?”

  Just then her com line went. It was Jackie. “Hey, Amanda, your patient is here. Shall I send him back?”

  “Yeah, thanks. By the way, how’re you doing, Jackie?”

  “Man, that Carl guy is a total nut case. Good thing you had on your Manolos—you could ‘a gouged his eyes out if you’d had to, Amanda.”

  “Not a great use of my new shoes, Jackie.” Amanda chuckled.

  “Yeah, but in a pinch…Anyway, I feel better now. Got to see Officer Hernandez again at least.” Jackie smacked her lips loudly. “A fine-lookin’ man. Said he might have to stop back by to see how we’re doin’.”

  “Well you have fun, Jackie. Go ahead and send my patient back.”

  Amanda stood up to open the door for Bradley, her favorite obsessive-compulsive.

  Chapter Five

  Obsessions

  “Oh, God,” Amanda groaned as she stood in the doorway and peered down the hallway. “He probably saw the police cars.”

  Bradley had a variety of compulsions. Hand washing. Locking and unlocking doors. Arranging and rearranging his shoes. He was thirty-eight, prematurely balding, and afraid of many, many things. She watched him propel himself down the hallway like he was wrapped in cellophane. Clutching his planner like it was armor, Bradley subtly averted his eyes as a young woman passed by. When he finally reached Amanda’s door, he slithered around it, neatly avoiding both the doorknob and his therapist.

  Amanda watched as Bradley took his favorite seat as far away from the door as possible. He leaned over, adjusted his socks eight times, and then began a breathless verbal download even before she sank into her chair.

  “Oh my God, Amanda!” Bradley’s eyes bulged. “There was this icky man screaming and fighting with the police as I drove into the parking lot. It took me fourteen minutes to find a suitable parking place! I thought I even saw him drooling on the window!” Sweat glistened through Bradley’s sparse brown hair. His right hand felt in his lap for his planner and found the clasp, which he began snapping and unsnapping like a metronome on speed.

  Open. Closed. Open. Closed. Open. Closed.

  “Unfortunately there was an incident this morning, Bradley,” Amanda explained, her voice low and warm. “I’m sorry you had to see the aftermath. You’re OK now, safe.” She smiled genially and adjusted her back pillow. Her eyes fell on the gray note; she moved it nonchalantly to the top of the patient files on the other side of her desk. She was determined to ignore it.

  “I had all this great stuff to tell you too,” Bradley leaned forward intently, opening his planner to today’s date. “I only checked the locks nine times this morning before I left. That’s an improvement, don’t you think?”

  Amanda nodded.

  “Yesterday I couldn’t leave for work until I’d done fifty-one,” he added, studying his notes. Bradley documented everything. Notes on his condition. Things he saw. Things that upset him. He was a model patient that way. The bad news is his biggest obsession was himself.

  “But now that awful man in the car really set me back. How do people live like that? If I ever get that bad, I don’t know what I’d do.” His chin commenced jutting back and forth like a chicken pecking for food. Sweat seeped out across his yellow shirt like blood spreading from a punctured artery. Suddenly he sat up, shuddered violently, and then his right cheek began spasming at regular two- or three-second intervals. His facial tic was back. As he hyperventilated, the twitch picked up speed.

  Amanda made eye contact, commanding: “Breathe, Bradley, breathe.” She inhaled and exhaled with him in slow, methodical breaths, as her eyes wandered over to the nasty little gray note. I wonder who wrote this, she thought, all the time smiling and breathing, staring at Bradley.

  BACK OFF AMANDA CARLISLE. YOU’RE PUSHING HER TOO MUCH. I’M WARNING YOU. D.

  Who is that? I can’t think of anyone who’s particularly pissed at me right now. And who I’m “pushing too hard?” D? Darrel? David? Douglas? We had a Dick Abbott in here recently…

  “Amanda,” Bradley shouted. “I remember now!” He sat up, the tic forgotten. “I had a dream! A nightmare, I guess? I made some notes.” He drew out a sheaf of typed pages from his notebook with relish.

  “Bradley, are you calm enough for this now?”

  “It was my mother again,” he rushed on. “She was this tall, scraggly person in my dream. Wearing a gigantic lipstick-pink dress… chasing me around the house…grabbing at my clothes! There were no doors so I couldn’t keep her out. She just kept coming at me and I couldn’t move very fast. Huge fangs came out of her dentures…her hands were all hairy…and her fingernails were filthy! Filthy! I started to scream. Then I woke up. I had asthma most of the night after that. It was terrible, terrible!”

  “Yes, I see.” Amanda listened but her mind wandered. Donna? Diane? Delia? Doctor, maybe?

  Suddenly Bradley’s tic returned and he began snapping the planner’s clasp in rhythm to it.

  “OK, Bradley, you can relax here,” Amanda affirmed, raising her hands in front of her like Moses stilling the sea. “It was just a dream. Breathe. One, two, three. Yes, that’s it. Look at me and breathe. Good. Good.”

  Bradley’s head finally relaxed.

  “OK, let’s work this through. Close your eyes and breathe. Good. Now, what are you thinking of right now, Bradley? Free association.” She spoke in a soothing voice, using her favorite Freudian technique.

  “Sounds. Snapping.”

  “Keep going,” Amanda urged.

  “Chomping. Teeth. Eating. Jaw. Hands, uh, grabbing. Arms. Legs. Oh, stomach, I guess. Groin. Penis. Moist. Hairy. Crunch. Crunching.” Bradley squirmed on the couch.

  “Relax and keep going.”

  “Well, let’s see. Um…crunch. Crunching. Eating. Being eaten. Pain. Hurt. Hurting. Losing myself. Losing parts of myself. Disappearing. Swallowed. Digested. Eliminated. No more,” Bradley finished, morose. “OK, come out of it now, open your eyes, and take a deep breath.”

  Bradley complied. Then he burped.

  Amanda ignored it. “Now, what do you make of all that?” She glanced again at the note, inwardly swore, and then slapped a file on top of it. She’d be damned if it was going to ruin her entire session.

  “Well,” Bradley said gleefully. He loved free association; he was unusually good at interpreting himself even if he wasn’t good at controlling his actions. “I guess somewhere in my head I think my mother is…I don’t I know…eating me alive?”

  “Hmm. And…if you’re eaten alive?” Amanda said delicately.

  “I don’t…I don’t…exist?” Bradley answered.

  “And if you don’t exist…” Amanda kept on.

  “I will be gone,” Bradley said flatly. He stopped breathing.

  “Breathe, keep breathing. Now, Bradley, you and I both know you’re not gone. You’re here. You’re sitting right here in this office, with me, and we’re OK.”

  “Yes, I’m here. I can hear my breathing,” he answered, connecting with her steady gaze.

  “So you know rationally that you’re here. But a teeny little part of you wonders…wonders if you may be disappearing? Especially with your mother. She’s so strong, so powerful, isn’t she? Almost makes you disappear—as a separate person?”

  “Yes, yes! But doggone it, I AM here. I do exist. And it’s a dream, isn’t it? Only a teeny piece of me.”

  “Yes, and we’re making peace with that piece of you. Connection is the first step toward wholeness. So now let’s breathe.”

  “In, out, in, out,” Bradley repeated. Ten more times, twenty more times. He exhaled more fully with each new cycle. Slowly he sat back, calm. She watched him as she drummed her fingers on the desk. Her mind wandered. Darn it, who in hell sent me that frigging note?