Vortex by Robert Charles Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

Congreve’s personal radar.
    Congreve started talking as soon as he picked up. “Help you, Sandra? I’m in B Wing, by the way, about to go into a meeting, so let’s make this quick.”
    “Nurse Wattmore tells me you took the Orrin Mather file.”
    “Yeah … I thought I saw her beady little eyes light up. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you beforehand. It’s only that we have a new intake person—Dr. Abe Fein, I’ll be introducing him at the next general meeting—and I thought I should walk him through a safe case. Mather’s the least troublesome candidate we’ve got on hand, and I didn’t want to start out the new guy with a hostile subject. Don’t worry, I’ll be backstopping Fein all the way.”
    “I didn’t know we had a new hire.”
    “Check your memos. Fein did his internship at Baylor in Dallas, very promising, and as I say, I’ll keep him on a short leash until he gets a handle on what we do here.”
    “Thing is, I already put in the preliminaries with Orrin Mather. I think I established a little bit of rapport with him.”
    “I assume everything pertinent is in the file. Is there anything else, Sandra? I don’t mean to be rude, but I have people waiting.”
    She knew it would be useless to push. Despite his medical degree, Congreve had been hired by the board of directors for his managerial talents. As far as he was concerned, the intake psychiatrists were nothing more than hired help. “No, nothing else.”
    “Okay. We’ll talk later.”
    Threat or promise?
    Sandra settled behind her desk. She was disappointed, obviously, and a little angry with Congreve for his preemptive behavior, not that it was uncharacteristic.
    She thought about the file on Orrin Mather. She hadn’t entered anything into her notes about Officer Bose’s interest in the case. She’d promised Bose she would be discreet about the sci-fi narrative Mather had allegedly written. Was that promise still binding, under the circumstances?
    She was ethically required to divulge to Congreve (or the new guy, Dr. Fein) anything that might be relevant to the evaluation. But intake evaluation was a weeklong process, and she guessed there was no need for full disclosure just yet. At least not until she had a better sense of why Bose was interested and whether the document she had been reading had in fact been written by Orrin Mather. She’d have to ask Bose about that, and as soon as possible.
    As for Orrin himself … there was no rule against paying him a social visit, was there? Even if he was no longer her patient.
    *   *   *

    Nonviolent patients awaiting assessment were encouraged to socialize in the supervised lounge, but Orrin wasn’t the sociable type. Sandra guessed he would be alone in his room, which proved to be the case. She found him sitting cross-legged on his matttress like a bony Buddha, staring at the cinderblock wall opposite the window. These small rooms were pleasant enough, if you ignored the evidence that they were effectively prison cells: the shatterproof window panes threaded with fiberglass, the conspicuous absence of all hooks, hangers, and sharp edges. This one had been recently repainted, disguising the generations of obscene graffiti scratched into the walls.
    Orrin smiled when he saw her. His face was guileless, transparent to every emotion. Big head, high cheekbones, eyes pleasant but open too wide. He looked like he would be easy to lie to. “Dr. Cole, hi! They told me I wouldn’t be seeing you again.”
    “Another intake physician has been assigned to your case, Orrin. But we can still talk, if you like.”
    “Okay,” he said. “That’s fine.”
    “I spoke to Officer Bose yesterday. Do you remember Officer Bose?”
    “Yes, ma’am, of course I do. Officer Bose is the only policeman who took an interest in me.” Poe- lease -man, in Orrin’s trailer-park accent. “He’s the one who called my sister Ariel. Is she in town yet, have you heard?”
    “I don’t know, but I’ll