The Reflection by Hugo Wilcken Read Free Book Online Page A

“I’ll help you.”
    As I said those words, I realized that I was crossing a frontier. I was in a different world now, and there would be no easy way back.
    Now I was in the back of a cab, with the man who had been released to me as Esterhazy. Somehow I’d gotten him up out of bed, into a bathrobe and slippers, down the elevator and along the corridor, with the nurse running behind me, arguing with me, telling me I couldn’t do what I patently was in the middle of doing. Then I’d brazened it out with the receptionist—bullying, threatening, relying on the element of surprise, until finally he’d let me sign the release forms. I’d bundled the man into a cab that had passed moments after I’d heaved him through the front doors. It was a fantastic piece of luck that the resident had been out, and that there’d been no other senior doctor about, probably because it was a Sunday. Even then, I’d thought I’d seen the guards come after us, just as the cab had pulled from the curb.
    “What’s up with your friend?”
    “Too much to drink, I’m afraid.”
    “Don’t want no accidents in my cab.”
    “It’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
    The man had managed to stay conscious for the time it had taken me to get him out of the Institute. He’d kept murmuring: “You’ll help me, won’t you? You’ll help me?” But now he was gently snoring. I’d gotten through it all on a rush of adrenaline; I was breathing deeply to slow down my heart rate, and even the brief conversation with the cabdriver had felt like a struggle. I peered out the window, taking in random fragments of the city as it flashed by—a broken fire hydrant, an old woman with a dog, a newspaper blowing down the avenue.
    The cab slowed and stopped. I was about to ask the cabbie why, but then I noticed we were already outside my building. With great difficulty, I hauled the man up the two flights of stairs, as he fell in and out of consciousness. I unlocked the door. My apartment. There it all was again: chairs, table, books, gramophone records. The incredible strangeness of the overfamiliar. I got the man out of his things, put my pajamas on him, laid him down on my bed, and threw a blanket over him. I stared at his face, as if it were some sort of code I might decipher. But the more I stared, the more indecipherable it became. Nothing to do but let him sleep off the drugs. He could tell me his story tomorrow.
    I sat at my small table. I poured myself the last of the whiskey. It had taken a year to drink half of the bottle, two days to drink the other half. I was hungry, but there was nothing to eat in the apartment. There never was; I ate every meal out. I didn’t dare go get something; I didn’t want to leave the man alone right now.
    Thoughts bombarded me. Everything had changed, onceagain. I’d no doubt lost my police work. What I’d done had been unprofessional, if not downright illegal. I risked censure from the Psychiatric Association. It might even mean the end of my career—such as it was. Perhaps that would be no bad thing. After all, if I were truly honest with myself, I knew I was poorly suited to the work. I could go days without really talking to anyone apart from my patients. My ability to distinguish between the normal, the eccentric, and the unwell was itself highly compromised. And each succeeding event of the past couple of days had further distorted my horizon, ever more profoundly. Was it Abby’s death that had done this? The photo D’Angelo had given me was still in my pocket. I took it out. Again she stared at me. A frozen image, detached from the flow of action, always had an uncanny presence.
    Eventually I made up a bed for myself in the front room with some spare blankets, and turned the light off. I lay there on the hard floorboards, unable to sleep, staring into the dark. I was wondering about the Stevens Institute. Seeing the guards at the door had jolted a memory. A couple of years back, I’d bumped into an old