Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter 61)
Rating: M for graphic violence and language
Fandom: The Mentalist
Summary: Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim… if not his sanity, itself.
Author's Note: Slightly longer Author's Note this time, please skip it if you want to get right to the story. Hope you guys are enjoying the last ten or so chapters of this fic. Reviews, like always, are appreciated. My sister (whom I wrote this fic for) suggested different pieces of music I could listen to to inspire me to write more, or to listen to while I write (mostly instrumental pieces). One music video, in particular, pretty eerily captures my view of Red John as a little kid, with regards to the mind control he endures and how it changes/breaks him and his psyche.
The song is called "Only the Wind" and the composer is Ólafur Arnalds. You have to watch the official VEVO music video on youtube to see the music video I am referring to (if interested). After you type in the youtube url, after the forward slash after youtube dot com, you'd copy and paste this: watch?v=9eWewdTkghM It really gave me chills, just how similar it is to the feel of the transformation of young Red John, so if you're interested, I highly encourage you to watch it. The gauzy sheet he is playing with at the beginning strikes me as a symbol for his early relationship with Patrick, then he loses the sheet, he runs through a series of obstacles, and is tied with strings, becomes aggressive, his mind seems to splinter into sharp jagged pieces and finally he has a determined, somewhat sad look on his face and walks off into darkness. Eerie how well it fits.
A few pieces by the composer Max Richter also work very well for Charlotte and Jane's relationship and Charlotte's arrival home and struggle to heal. They are: "When she went away", "When she came back", "Swimmer", "She Remembers" and last but not least "On Reflection..." They are beautiful, hunting pieces of orchestral music and I think if you like this story, you might like these pieces of music.
If you'd like to see a really realistic mini-series about the way "boys' homes" for "delinquents" were run in the 60s, 70s, and 80s (and I am not talking about ones which were tied to the MK Ultra program and its off-shoot programs, but just run-of-the-mill detention homes for boys) check out a series on Netflix called "The Day Will Come". It's a Danish series with subtitles based on a true story, but many homes in the UK, Canada and the US were also as brutal. Even today, a lot of psychological, physical and sexual abuse takes place in psychiatric facilities and "reform" homes. A US movie with more of the same, also (apparently) based on a true story, which you might want to watch is called "Sleepers". Other films you might want to check out, if interested, are: "The Sleep Room", "The Boys of St. Vincent", "The Boys of St. Vincent: 15 years later", all of which are available to watch for free on youtube.
-Lex
""Don't look don't look" the shadows breathe
Whispering me away from you
"Don't wake at night to watch her sleep
You know that you will always lose
This trembling
Adored
Tousled bird mad girl..."
But every night I burn
But every night I call your name
Every night I burn
Every night I fall again"
-Burn by The Cure
"Because we are linked by blood and blood is memory without language."
― Joyce Carol Oates, I Lock My Door Upon Myself
"Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So the way he sees it, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth. It's just a matter of how you look at it, that's all. So don't worry, okay? Okay?"
- Louis to Jacob Singer in the movie "Jacob's Ladder" (1990) directed by Adrian Lyne
Charlotte slumped in the backseat of Lisbon's car. Jane's Citroën wasn't big enough for all of them, plus Dixon, and the jeep was impractical. Lisbon- who had evidently slept more soundly than Jane- was driving. Jane was wired in the passenger seat, brooding, staring out the window.
Charlotte had her school books out, was working on her math homework. She kept sighing, loudly, so both Lisbon and Jane knew she was frustrated.
"Charlotte, you know how to do algebra. You just are psyching yourself out. Break the equations into their smallest parts. Break the problems down." Jane's voice was clouded with fatigue. Suppressed anxiety.
Break the problems down? Charlotte couldn't. She was overwhelmed. The rules to math, the order in which one was supposed to do things, kept switching and changing in her mind. She doubted herself. She knew, in theory, how to break problems down. But actually doing it was frustrating, and she ended up just staring at her lined math notebook and the math textbook, feeling stupid and helpless.
It was a little after 10:00 am and they were on the road towards San Francisco. They'd left the apartment at 9-ish, gone through a McDonald's drive-thru for breakfast. Jane got a sausage and egg mcmuffin, hashbrown and a coffee, even though he didn't, as a a general rule, drink coffee. If he needed a caffeine boost, he tended to get some caffeinated soda, but he wanted to set a good example for Charlie, who guzzled sugary carbonated drinks like they were a trend that was going out of style and like she might not get another chance to take-part in soda consumption. Jane had considered, in small moments when his attention wasn't distrated by his own nightmares or thoughts of Red John or parenting Charlotte or doing relatively easy cases at the CBI that if he didn't get Charlotte to ease up on the sugar consumption, she might be a type 2 diabetic by the age of 20. She was thin all over, but a human pancreas could only tolerate so much before breaking down.
Lisbon got a yogurt and fruit parfait, muffin and coffee and nibbled on her food as she drove. Charlotte got the hotcakes and a hashbrown and a chocolate milkshake. She's originally ordered a large Coke with the syrupy hotcakes, but Jane had suggested something less sugary, and a large chocolate milkshake had been her compromise. Jane had wanted to protest, had considered that at least the fat content of the shake might slow down how quickly her body processed the sugar, might even out some of the glucose spike in her blood. Maybe.
But really, he was a little too on edge and distracted to force the issue.
Jane felt the back of his seat bounce forward as Charlotte kicked it. He turned around, tried to smile at her.
She was wired. Wanted to throw the damned math book out of the car window. Adios, amigo! If she hadn't lived through a decade of torture, then Jane would have assumed, watching her, that she had an extreme case of ADHD. Interestingly enough, sometimes even when she was full to the gills with high-fructose corn syrup, nictoine and caffeine, her eyelids were heavy and she seemed sleepy and fatigued. Her boday was constantly on "threat" mode, constantly vigilant and ready to run, and it was exhausted. Monster energy drinks, Coke, nicotine fluid in the vape, sugary candies... they were losing their ability to perk her up. Now, she stared back at his smile, and her eyelids were heavy, eyes sleepy. Even with all those stimulants in her blood.
She was sleepy, but at the same time, fidgeting like crazy. Odd combination, and not one Jane suspected most people every witnesses in another person, not at the same time...
"Look, if you're really that frustrated, I'll get you a tutor when we get back," Jane said from the front passenger seat, turning around the stare out his window.
"I don't want a tutor," Charlotte protested. She felt the rush of the hotcake syrup and all the sugar from the milkshake, but more than that, she felt an unsettling energy coming from Patrick. He was going to San Francisco- this much she had pieced together- to talk to someone who had known Red John when he was a child. He wouldn't elaborate on the specifics, but it was important enough to make a full day out of it.
Charlotte had never been to San Francisco. She'd asked Jane if they could see the Golden Gate Bridge. He'd told her they'd probably drive over it. Maybe.
She'd brought her digital camera and an SD card and AA batteries. Now, she put her school books back in her backpack, took random shots of the back of Lisbon's head as Lisbon drove the car, snapped a shot of a very tense looking Patrick Jane. Turned the camera on Dixon and took photos of him sitting in the seat next to her's, doing his little doggie grin thing.
"Can I open the back window on Dixon's side so he can stick his head out?" Charlotte asked Lisbon.
"Why don't we wait until we're on the actual highway?" Jane said from the passenger seat.
Charlotte turned the camera off, put it back in her backpack, pulled out the giant hard-cover copy of Stephen King's It and began to read. The words swarmed and danced in front of her eyes, the meaning of each sentence was hard to focus on. She couldn't stop thinking about who Jane might be interviewing, what they could possibly tell him. Tiredly, she kicked the back of Jane's seat again. He turned around.
"Are you going to keep doing that?" He said, trying to be congenial but she could see he hadn't slept well. She'd woken up a few hours after going to bed, woken up from strange dreams and with a funny, metallic taste in her mouth, gotten up and peed. In the bathroom she'd thought maybe she could sneak into her father's bedroom and find the file on Red John he'd put in there for safe-keeping. She'd been standing in front of Jane's closed bedroom door, thinking about how to carefully open it and find the file, all without waking Lisbon, who was sleeping in her father's bed inside, when Jane appeared at the end of the hallway.
"You'll wake her up," he said softly when he saw Charlotte. "And you're not going to find the file easily, not without waking her up. Go back to bed."
"I just want to know what's in it," Charlotte whispered back.
"Charlotte, it doesn't concern you," Jane had said. He turned then and went back into the living room to his couch and she followed him. Sat down in the plush reading chair and looked at him.
"I can't sleep knowing that file exists. I want to read it. Otherwise I won't be able to sleep."
"You can sleep in the car tomorrow, then," Jane said tiredly, as he tried to get comfortable on the couch again.
Charlotte huffed.
"I am not sure why you don't think I have a right to read the file. I have more of a right to know what makes Red John tick than you do. It's my life he destroyed."
Jane, eyes shut on the couch, kept himself from speaking. He understood the teen's point, and yet, the idea that Red John had only fucked up her life was annoyingly self-centered. Also, a very teenage viewpoint, in terms of the emotional maturity level. He sighed and kept himself from verbally unleashing his pain. She didn't need that, and he wasn't rested enough to do it kindly. Better to be quiet, right now.
He was her Dad, and there were still some things he could at least try to protect her from. If Charlotte knew about Red John's early "treatment" in a "mental health facility" she'd want to know all the juicy details, and Jane wasn't willing to open that can of worms until he, himself, knew exactly what sort of details they were dealing with.
Now, sitting in the back of Lisbon's car, Charlotte pulled out her Nintendo 3DS and turned it on. She had a Zelda game cartridge in it. The tinny video game music started. The Legend of Zelda theme song began to play, as loud as possible given the portable nature of the game console and the small speakers.
"If you can't do your math, then focus on that book you need to have done for your book report," Jane said absently from the front seat. He focused on breathing, on counting off seconds, of visualizations of fluffy white clouds moving against a powder blue sky. It helped a little, but not enough.
"I can't focus on the book while the car is moving," Charlotte bluffed.
"If you can't focus on the book, you can't focus on moving video games," Jane said back, too on-edge with what he had learned about Red John's early development and institutionalization to really argue. In reality, just letting her play video games now would be the easiest course of action for them all, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered. Charlotte was fidgety, on-edge, unable to focus and used to getting her own way. Any decent father would at least try to play the part of the concerned Dad and reign her in a little.
"It's easier to focus on the video games because they're moving," Charlotte bullshitted. "They move, the car moves, and in the end, it all evens out."
Jane sighed. Looked over at Lisbon who was driving, and got a smile back from the female agent. A somewhat amused, victorious smile. He couldn't help but smile back at her.
"Now you know how you come across to everybody else," Lisbon said softly, grinning a bit wider.
"Really? I'm that annoying?"
Charlotte kicked the back of his chair again at that.
Lisbon made a noise that sounded like repressed laughter.
"Are you serious? Charlie is a lightweight compared to your ability to drive people nuts."
"Am not," Charlotte said from the backseat. Jane rolled his eyes.
"Really? Wow. Just... wow. I'm really learning a lot about myself these days, it seems."
"Oh, like you didn't already know you are an expert at driving people nuts."
Charlotte drained the last of her chocolate milkshake and handed the empty waxed paper cup forward to Jane.
"What do I want with this?" He said, not unkindly.
"It's empty."
"Okay. Again, I ask you: why do I want your empty milkshake cup?"
"Put it in the paper bag with the other trash," Charlotte muttered.
'What's the magic word?" Jane teasted lightly, and before Charlotte could answer, he reached forward and pushed the cup into the brown paper take-out bag with the rest of the wrappers and the styrofoam tray that had held Charlotte's hotcakes.
"Can we go to Pier 39 to see the sea lions?" Charlotte asked from the backseat after a few minutes of relative silence.
"We're not going to sight-see, Charlie. We're going to do work."
"But if we have time?"
Jane looked over at Lisbon, who was watching the road and getting another amused little smile on her face.
"Maybe if we have time. But I doubt we'll have time."
"Can we go to Alcatraz island, then, copper?"
"Charlotte, I just said we're not going to sight-see."
"Scarface did time at Alcatraz, copper."
Jane turned around in his seat, looked his kid in the eyes.
"We're not going to sight-see. I have work to do, you have school work to do. You're behind in pretty much all of your classes, and it'd be nice to see you graduate high school- for real- before you're 20."
"Sheesh, the internet news articles about you led me to believe you'd be more fun than this," Charlotte groused.
"Careful, there, kiddo, or you might come home to find a pony standing in your bedroom," Lisbon said, amused.
"Huh? Is that some mafia reference I'm not getting?"
"No... it's..." Lisbon looked over at Jane, remembering all too well the time he had smuggled a pony up into her CBI office for her birthday. Jane grinned back.
"Well, whatever. My opinion of you, Patrick, is that you've lost your fun-factor."
Jane turned around in his seat, made a wounded face for the girl.
"I've lost my fun-factor? Really?! Well that requires immediate rectification..."
"Now you've done it," Lisbon sing-sang. She merged with traffic, took the off-ramp. They were now on the highway, on state route 160, on their way to see the only living human who could offer any insight into the type of "therapies" Red John had been exposed to in the 70s, back before he lost his shit completely. They'd be at the nursing home and speaking to George Clemmons, depending on the traffic, in well under 2 hours.
God willing, the man with the severe case of Alzheimer's would still be able to access some of his memories from the past.
"Can I sit in on the interview?" Charlotte said suddenly, as if she was reading Jane's mind. He looked at her. Shook his head.
"No. I think it would be a better use of your time to sit in the waiting room and read your Stephen King book."
"It's too long."
"You chose it, Charlotte. Choices have consequences."
"No shit, Sherlock," Charlotte shot back.
There was silence for a few minutes.
"Why can't I listen to the interview?"
Jane sighed. "Look, I'm going to record the interview. If I think it's appropriate for you to listen to it, you can listen to it later. Okay?"
Long gone were the days when he could freely manipulate people to get what he wanted. Manipulating Charlotte would backfire. But this honest, straight-forward, up-front shit was exhausting.
"You promise?" Charlotte demaned.
Jane made an "x" motion over his chest.
"Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye."
"What will determine whether or not the interview is appropriate for my ears?"
Jane looked over at Lisbon for help.
"If Jane thinks you won't be re-traumatized by the content, he'll let you listen. Right, Jane?"
Jane nodded.
"What Lisbon said."
Charlotte wanted to ask what was the big deal with her being retraumatized, she was already plenty traumatized, but they had her in checkmate.
Damn.
They pulled into the little parking lot of the nursing home in which George Clemmons resided 1 hour and 47 minutes later. Lisbon killed the engine and Jane all but jumped out of his seat, eager as he was to find out answers to some of the burning questions in his mind, questions which felt almost like acid, burning holes through a facade of calm stability.
"Why don't you take Dixon for a walk around the neighborhood?" Jane asked Charlotte as she got out of her side of the car.
"But..." Charlotte trailed, looking around at the scenery. Fairly flat streets (for San Fransciso) lots of greenery but not too much (not so much that it would be easy for a grown man, say, to hide in bushes and trail her along the streets as she walked, not without being noticed), a fair number of people around. Plus, Red John didn't know they were here. No way he could know.
Jane knew what Charlotte was thinking.
"It'll be okay. Trust me. Just go for a walk with Dixon. It's daylight and it's not a place he'd think you'd be. He can't be everywhere at once. He's not Santa Claus. You have money?"
Charlotte rearranged her backpack on her back, called Dixon out of the car. He got out eagerly, sat patiently as the girl clipped his leash into place, grinning his goofy dog smile.
"Yeah, I have money. So... just walk around?"
"Yeah. Take some photos. Maybe your teacher will let you do an essay on things you saw in San Francisco in case you don't finish your book in time."
Charlotte sighed. "I doubt it. She's a stickler for doing assignments exactly as they are outlined."
"Maybe I can talk to her. I can be very persuasive," Jane said, flashing Charlotte one of his winning, toothpaste-commercial smiles. Despite herself, Charlotte smirked.
"How long are you going to be?" Charlotte asked, looking down at her watch. It was just a few minutes after 12.
"Give us at least 2 hours."
"I don't think they'll let me bring Dixon inside, though..." Charlotte said, glancing up at the double-story gray concrete building.
"Then tie him up outside. Do you have your bike lock?"
Charlotte had gotten into the habit- the few times she took Dixon anywhere and was requested to leave him outside- of tying the dog up with a bicycle lock around his middle.
"Yeah, in my backpack."
"Then tie him up and come inside. Two hours, minimum. We'll be on the second story. Just go to the nurses desk and give them our names."
"Yeah, okay," Charlotte said, fishing her mp3 player out of her pocket, putting her earbuds in, starting the music.
"Okay?" Jane confirmed. "Two hours? Let's say 2:05 pm. Second floor nurses desk."
"Yeah, yeah," Charlotte said. She began to wander away from the adults, back turned to them, Dixon pulling on his leash, eager to smell new fire hydrants and chase new squirrels. There were new smells, here. Smells he wasn't used to smelling, and he was already pulling on the leash, raring to go.
"That was relatively easy," Lisbon said, watching the girl walk away.
"Charlotte feels safer, because there is no real way Red John, in her mind, could know where she is. Highly unlikely, anyway. She's still nervous, but she knows she appeared weak in front of you yesterday, and she wants to change your opinion of her."
"What about you?"
"What about me, what?" Jane asked back.
"Doesn't she also want to seem strong, for you, too?"
Jane considered it, still watching his child walk away with her dog.
"I think she already knows I have a pretty good sense of how terrified she is. I think this nonchalance is for your benefit.
"Why would she care so much what my opinion is?" Lisbon asked, watching Charlotte walk away, standing still next to Jane.
"You're the only adult female she has in any way bonded with since her mother. I think she views you- at least on some level- as a surrogate mother. She wants you to like her, and in her mind, weak people are incapable of deserving respect or affection. So... she's complying today. Walking the dog. Acting indifferent. Being cool." Jane smiled a bit as the word "cool" left his lips.
"Yeah," Lisbon said, a bit sadly, still watching. Charlotte got to the end of the block, turned around, waved. Jane and Lisbon waved back.
Then the messy-haired, hoodie-wearing kid in the converse sneakers, with the black backpack (from which were hanging a large collection of plush cartoon character backpack clips) turned the corner and was gone from sight, happy, bounding dog in tow.
Jane turned back to face the nursing home, took in as many details as he could commit to long-term memory, eyes scanning back and forth like a laser, not sure which details here might be important.
Lisbon was silent. She could feel Jane collecting his strength, getting his mental ducks in a row, building up his confidence the way a charge builds in a capacitor.
He needed to be alert, confident, charming, persuasive, gentle, manipulative. She could almost see these traits come into him as he breathed, the set of his jaw changed. He straightened slightly. It was almost as if he was inhaling his Confident-Jane persona from the atmosphere. Interesting to watch.
After a half minute of watching and breathing he turned to Lisbon, and smiled. He was ready to go.
Now the real work of the day began.
"We're here to see Mr. George Clemmons," Jane announced as he approached the nurses' desk on the second story. The place had the look of a fairly well-run hospital to it, but residents were wandering around in clothes ranging from khakis and golf shirts to pajamas and house coats with slippers. There was a roomy common area across from the nurses' station with a large flat-screen television anchored to the wall. A few elderly residents were clustered around the TV in chairs, with their walkers, watching what appeared to be a soap opera.
What a way to spend one's twilight years... watching a poorly-acted drama which- if it had been written as literature- would never have been published by any self-respecting publishing house. And this place was a facility for those with money. The last days for the poor were even more ridiculous.
"Are you family?" The nurse said, not looking up from the desk.
"I'm his nephew. This is my wife," Jane said easily, smoothly, not even a hint of anxiety in his tone. He was back, apparently. Lisbon shot him a look but Jane ignored her and the nurse still wasn't bothering to look up.
"I didn't know he had a nephew," she said blandly.
"Three, actually. I'm his sister's youngest. Mary? Work took me out of state, back to Texas fifteen years ago... and, well, I guess since we were in the area on business, we thought we'd stop in and see Uncle Georgie," Jane said. The nurse looked up at this explanation and Jane smiled at her. She returned what almost could have been a smile.
"You're aware of his condition?" She said then, passing Jane a sign-in sheet. He nodded, wrote a bogus name which corresponded to some bogus ID he'd brought along, just in case ID was requested.
John Carmichael.
Apparently he'd made the ID last night. Somehow. He'd shown both Lisbon and Charlotte his handiwork as they had passed through the McDonald's drive-thru for breakfast, and Lisbon smiled, nodded. She wasn't particularly blown-away by the trick. She's seen Jane pull off endless little tricks like this in the decade she'd known him, but Charlotte was deeply impressed, grinning, reaching over with syrupy fingers to touch the ID as if making sure the ID cards weren't holograms or something, giving her father an enthusiastic high-five as praise. Patrick Jane was a man of many talents, a true renaissance man.
But no ID was even asked for, here. Like many of Jane's talents, this latest little trick would never be witnessed or seen by anyone but the those closest to him. So many of his skills had been practiced and honed alone, and ultimately, were left unseen. Probably why he was so damned good at what he did. He had a lot of practice.
What the world saw was maybe only half a percent of what he worked at and practiced with such incredible diligence. And practice made perfect.
Lisbon signed her own first name, used the fictitious last name Jane had provided as her surname. Carmichael.
"Alzheimer's, yes. Hopefully I can get him interested with football-talk."
"Football?"
"Uncle George always loved football. If memory serves, his team was the L.A. Rams?"
The nurse's eyes began to glaze over in boredom. She shrugged.
"You'd know better than I would. Follow me."
She led them down a small hallway, stopped in front of a door with a little plexi-glass window embedded in the steel of the door.
"This is him," she said unnecessarily, and scanned a magnetic key card over a card reader set in the wall next to the door. A small light in the card reader blinked green and there was a clicking noise. The nurse pulled on the door handle and entered the room.
"Mr. Clemmons? Your nephew and his wife are here to visit you," the nurse said with artificial brightness.
George Clemmons was in his late 90s, almost a walking mummy, and he looked the part. He sat hunched in a wheelchair, facing a large window that didn't appear to open, watching birds and the sky. He was bald and shrivelled and when he turned in his chair, Jane could see oversized socks on his ancient feet. His face was shrivelled like a prune, and when he spoke it was clear to see he was missing a large number of his teeth. What were left were brown and decaying.
Jane visually scanned the room, saw a camera embedded high in the wall in one corner of the room with a blinking, red light monitoring the old man. Waiting for him to die, really. Jane shot Lisbon a look.
They couldn't talk, not if they were being monitored. Not here.
"Uncle George?" Jane said brightly, and crossed over to the man with the ease and familiarity of a well-loved nephew. George Clemmons stared at Jane, drooling, eyebrows furrowing, trying to remember someone who, at least in his current physical incarnation, had never existed.
"I.. I am sorry... I don't... I don't think I have a nephew..." his voice was like hearing autumn leaves move over concrete. Ancient, creaking, barely holding on.
"Uncle George, it's me, John. Mary's youngest? Remember?"
Jane knew from Van Pelt that George Clemmons had a living sister named Mary. She lived in Texas, had five kids, 3 boys. One of them was named John. Jane had seen a photo. The real John Carmichael had much darker hair and brown eyes, but if you squinted and ignored the hair and eye colour differences, maybe... maybe...
"I'm sorry... my memory is not what it used to be. Mary? You know Mary?"
"Yes," Jane said stolidly, making eye contact with the old man. "She's my mother. Your sister. I'm your nephew."
"John?" George Clemmons said in what was almost a yawn. "You... you were always... always with that slingshot? Shooting at birds...?"
"Yes, that's me. My good old Daisy slingshot. I am surprised you remember that old thing."
"Always shooting rocks at birds," George Clemmons muttered. "Drove Mary crazy. She was feeding the poor things, and you were shooting at 'em."
"Good 'ol Texas boy," Jane said with a cavalier grin.
Lisbon hadn't been sure, at first, but now she heard it clearly. Jane was in character.
Since stepping up to the nurse's desk he'd altered his voice, just a little, just enough to give it a slight Southern twang. His accent was the accent of someone who had been born and raised and Texas, but spent much of their adolescence and adult life in Washington state and California.
All of this fit with what Jane knew of John Carmichael's limited life history, and the accent was subtle, not overdone.
Impressive.
"Mary... she was always screaming at you that she was going to throw that slingshot away. I don't think she ever did, did she?"
Jane just smiled back.
The nurse, satisfied that the visit was going well, turned to leave.
"Could we take Uncle George outside for a walk around the grounds? Get him out of his room for a while?"
The nurse considering the ancient man in the wheelchair, his oxygen tank. Looked over Jane and Lisbon and smiled at them, at their thoughtfulness.
"I am sure he would like that. He doesn't get out much these days. Wouldn't that be nice, Mr. Clemmons? Your nephew is going to take you outside for a walk?"
George Clemmons nodded, dazed. "Yes, very nice. It would be nice. Nice to get outside," he mumbled.
The nurse smiled at Jane. "I think you have your answer."
Jane smiled again, gently repositioned the oxygen tank so it was sitting in Geroge Clemmons' bony old lap, clicked off the brakes on the wheelchair and slowly began to wheel him out of the room as Lisbon followed silently behind, watching Jane work his magic again.
She had missed these little displays of mentalism and trickery, if she was honest with herself. It was like watching a magic show, in real time, and she never got tired of watching Jane weave his magic. And Jane knew it, and basked in her surprise and amusement. He always did his best work when Lisbon was watching, like an attention-starved show dog eager to make the crowd clap.
Lisbon considered the security camera in the ceiling in George Clemmons room as she stepped out of the room and followed Jane into the brightly-lit hallway which smelled so strongly of industrial-strength disinfectant. Strange, in a way, how easy it was to gain access to the residents of a nursing home and remove them from the property.
Then again, elderly people hooked up to machines who pissed themselves and drooled weren't high on most kidnappers' priority lists.
Even from a black-market illegal organ harvesting point of view, there generally wasn't much left of financial value.
The trio took the elevator down to the ground floor and strolled through the lobby. George Clemmons earned himself a few envious glances from other residents. The ground floor seemed to be for the elderly who were still able to live semi-independently, and was set up more like a community center, with less of a hospital-vibe than the second floor.
There was no security guard desk, but a desk at the front, near the automatic sliding doors, with an old man watching the comings and goings. He smiled at Jane and Lisbon and George Clemmons as they passed by and departed through the automatic glass doors he was paid in "canteen vouchers" to watch.
Jane gently, calmly, strolled and pushed the old man over the smooth, asphalt walkways.
They walked around the grounds, through neatly-mown plots of grass that looked almost artificial, they were so well kept.
The grounds had been decorated with beautiful decorative shrubbery: Lily-of-the-Nile, Star Jasmine, Indian Hawthorne...
Along the paved walkways were various stone planters filled with decorative flowers: Gloriosa daisy, Coreopsis, California bluebell, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, California lady's slipper, pots of lavender and neatly pruned rose bushes in pale pinks and whites and creams...
There was a large, 4-tiered cast-stone water fountain in the middle part of the park's courtyard, and the grounds themselves had larger decorative trees for shade: Jacaranda, Peppermint Willow, Guadalupe Palm lining the front walkway and the perimeters, European white birch...
Whoever this man was, he had money to be in a nursing home of this quality.
"This sure is a little slice of heaven on earth, isn't it, Uncle George?" Jane said pleasantly, but there was a somewhat sarcastic undertone to his words, Lisbon thought. He pushed the old man off the walkway, carefully over the grass. Stopped when George Clemmons was positioned facing the water fountain. There was a wrought iron bench near the fountain, and Jane sat on it. Lisbon sat beside him.
Jane watched the water fountain for a moment, collecting himself, ordering his thoughts, his comments and subtle commands.
Then he pulled out his digital audio recorder and positioned it gently on the bench next to thigh, speaker and transceiver aimed in the direction of George Clemmons and his wheelchair. Hit the record button.
"How have you been doing, Uncle George?" Jane said mildly.
The old man looked over at Jane, back at the water feature. He squinted in the sunlight.
"I'm okay, Johnny. So glad you came to visit," he said, words slurred and full of drool.
"I meant to visit sooner, but..." Jane trailed. The old man nodded.
"I understand. A young man... life is full of work for young men."
Jane nodded back at that reply.
"Such a beautiful water fountain," Jane said smoothly, watching the water. "So soothing."
"Yes," George Clemmons agreed, watching the fountain with Jane.
"Isn't it relaxing? That water... up through the pumps. Out through the top? The way it sparkles in the sun?"
George Clemmons sighed, squinted, blinked his eyes. Finally nodded.
"Such a relaxing place. Such a safe place. You're in such a safe place, George, such a relaxing, calm place. Watch the water with me. See how it sparkles in the sunlight."
"Yes," George Clemmons said, sounding a bit dazed now.
Lisbon watched carefully as Jane continued the induction, as his voice became smoother, calmer, like warm water. No hint of Texan accent left in the lilt of his words, now. He continued to talk, words carefully chosen to exude peace, the lilt of his voice, the positioning of his body, so calm and so relaxed. The sharp look in his eyes as he watched the old man sink into a trance was the only quality which jarred with the peaceful, soothing trance of words.
"We walked through so many beautiful trees to get here... white birch and Jacaranda... so safe. Leaves moving in the wind. Now we're here. And the water... look at how the spray hits the pool. How the ripples move outwards from the center. Over and over. Calm and relaxing. Watch the water move. Are you watching the water move?"
"Yes," George Clemmons said in his ancient creaking voice. Even his breathing seemed lighter now, easier.
"Good. It's so calming. So freeing. Let yourself go. Let yourself float away. Into the water. You're watching the water. The way it moves. The way it hits the pool. Look at the light on the water. So peaceful. So warm. So calming. Nothing here can hurt you. Nothing here can upset you. You feel so calm, and so tranquil. Your breath is matching the water. Calm breaths in, in the sunlight. Sunlight shining on water. Look as the water moves in circles. Endless circles. Calm. You have never felt so relaxed..."
"No..." George Clemmons admitted.
"You feel so light. So free. Like the water. Like the sunlight. So peaceful, so tranquil. At peace. You can't remember the last time you ever felt at peace like this. So peaceful. The sun on your face. Warm, not hot. The sun on the water. Shining. Shifting. Watch the shifting sun."
Lisbon, watching the water feature, the spray and the diamond sparkles of water droplets hitting the pool in the fountain began to feel her eyelids grow heavy. She moved a bit, rubbed her eyes. Focused on her shoes. Reminded herself to stay aware, awake.
George Clemmons, knocked up on pain medication and deeply in need of release from his current bodily pains, floated away.
"Such calming water. Rippling in the sunlight. Sunlight like diamonds. Moments of time. You're so peaceful. So relaxed as the water ripples outwards. Relaxing into the rhythm of the water as it moves. As it moves in circles in the pool. So warm, and soft. So safe. You're doing it all on your own. This peace you feel... encircling you like water... carrying you away from the present... you're doing it all on your own. You've never felt so warm and peaceful. So tranquil. You feel good, don't you, George?"
"Yes," the old man agreed.
"How do your hands feel? Light? A bit tingly?"
"Tingly."
"Tingly," Jane confirmed, eyes still focused and alert. "That's good. You're floating away with the water. Rippling with the water. The water in the sunlight. Should we count the ripples?"
"Yes."
"One ripple... watch it move. Hear the birds in the trees. Such a lovely, peaceful day. Such a warm, safe day. Second ripple, and you're feeling light as air, now. Your entire body feels warm and relaxed. Only your eyelids are heavy. Only your eyelids are like stone. You want to close your eyes."
"Yes," the old man said in his dazed, entranced slur.
"Yes. Close your eyes, George."
Lisbon watched as the old man's eyes flickered closed. Jane continued the induction. He was having the old man think of the ripples of water now in his imagination. The ripples were becoming steps. The steps were leading down a staircase. The staircase was taking him back in time.
He was warm, and safe, and peaceful. Had never felt so warm and peaceful, so transquil. So safe, so loved. Such a nice feeling.
Nothing in his memory could scare him. Nothing in his memory could hurt him. He would see everything on a screen in his mind, like watching a movie. A movie in a drive-in. Did he remember drive-in movies?
"Yes," George Clemmons sighed.
"Can you remember the clinic you worked in? In the 70s? With the kids?"
George Clemmons was silent for a moment. His eyes moved below his closed eyelids.
"Yes."
Jane reinforced the idea that he was safe, and calm and tranquil.
"What was the name of the facility?" Jane asked softly.
"Redrock Boys Home," George Clemmons said smoothly, head hunched over, as if in sleep.
Jane reinforced how peaceful he felt. He was careful not to go too fast, to jar the man out of his trance by introducing too much, too quickly. They only had one shot at this.
A half hour later, Jane was still priming the man to feel safe, and calm, and to remember.
"I need to know about what happened in Redrock Boys Home," Jane said carefully, in the same soothing, tranquil tone of voice.
"We... we were helping those boys."
"How did you help them?" Jane asked softly. "How did you help them, George?"
George Clemmons began to speak slowly, bits and pieces of a forgotten life.
"We taught them new skills," he said, and his breathing changed, just a little. Jane brought him back to the water, the ripples the peace. Reinforced the idea that he was watching his memories on a drive-thru outdoor movie screen. In the summer. Crickets were chirping. Nothing to worry about. Nothing could harm him.
"Tell me about the kids," Jane finally said in the same soothing lull.
George Clemmons was silent. Finally began to speak.
"Juvenile delinquents. We were told. Not bad kids. Little kids. Mostly... little kids. Was helping my country, John. Was helping my country."
"Yes, you helped your country. And you are so safe, and warm, and free. You are a cloud, dissolving in the sky. No pain. No fear. No anxiety. You have never felt more free. Tell me about the boys."
"All different ages. Youngest was about... three. Oldest, maybe 16. Some... chronic truants. Runaways. Some were violent."
"Did they all have shaved heads?" Jane asked calmly.
"Yes," George Clemmons said. "Easier to keep lice down."
"Okay. Okay. I want to take you to about 1977. I want you to see each one of the boys in your head now. I want you to see their faces. Tell me about the kids in the middle. Not the really young ones. Not the teenagers. The kids in the middle."
"Maybe twenty of them. All races," George Clemmons admitted softly.
"Tell me about the ones with blond hair. With blue eyes."
"Only... four."
"Were they all called John Doe, the boys?"
"No... only in the files. To protect their identities."
"When you were working with them... did you call them by numbers?"
"No. Only numbers for the files."
"Did you use their real names?"
"Yes," George Clemmons admitted, eyes moving quickly behind his closed, ancient eyelids, accessing memories he no longer had access to when fully awake. "Yes. The boys responded most effectively... when we used their names. The names they knew."
"Tell me about Peter. You do remember Peter, don't you? Peter Jane?"
George Clemmons was completely still. His old, crepe-paper hands were folded in his lap, his head was bowed. He continued to access his memories, he continued to be told how free he was, how warm and safe, how soothing he was, how clouds moved in the sky, how nothing could touch him. Movies on a drive-thru screen.
"I remember Peter. Maybe the smartest child.. maybe the smartest boy there..."
Jane nodded, even though George Clemmons couldn't see his reaction. Lisbon saw the intensity in Jane's eyes, the sharp, eagle-like focus.
"Tell me about Peter," Jane said softly, smoothly. A voice like rain drops. A voice like sunlight through the trees. The voice of God. The command of God. But nothing could touch George Clemmons. Nothing could hurt George Clemmons. He was relaxed as could be. He was watching movies.
"Little firesetter. Exceptionally bright. Good test subject. Highly malleable. Responded well to praise. Had a twin brother, not in the program. A bonus for the program. A real bonus."
"Do you remember the twin's name?" Jane said smoothly.
"No."
"Tell me more about Peter. What was he like when he first came to Redrock?"
"Angry. Angry little boy. Wet... wet the bed. Wet the bed every night. Cried a lot."
"How did the staff deal with the bed-wetting?" Jane asked softly.
"Psychopharmaceuticals. It was the 70s. There was a pill for everything. Everything and everyone."
"What drugs were given to Peter?"
"He kept peeing the bed. The boys laughed at him. He got tormented. The doctor on call gave him Benzedrine, amphetamine. And Truxal."
"What is Truxal?" Jane ordered in the same, soft voice.
"Chlorprothixene. An anti-psychotic."
"He was given an amphetamine and an anti-psychotic to stop bed-wetting?" Jane asked softly.
"All the boys who wet the bed were on the same drugs. It was standard."
Jane looked over at Lisbon. His eyes were dark and troubled.
"Was Peter given any other drugs when he was at Redrock?"
"All the boys were. Experimental drugs. It was an experimental program."
"Do you remember the names of the other drugs?" Jane soothed.
"Oh, there were so many. LD-125, primarily. There were trials with Ayahuasca. Mixed results."
Jane already knew what Ayahuasca was... a brew of entheogenic plant-based drugs, first used among Indigenouse groups in the Amazon basic. The drug could induce hallucinations, distorted time and space, induced out of body experiences.
"What was LD-125, George?" Jane asked.
"A concentrated form of regular LSD. Ultra-potent. Broke down the boys' sense of ego, and self. Made them highly suggestible to commands."
"Did it work?"
"Most of the boys decompensated. Never came out of it. Two of them clawed out their own eyes." George Clemmons' voice was clouded with growing anxiety. His face twisted in anxiety, guilt, shame.
"You're peaceful. You're a floating cloud. You have never felt so much peace. Never felt so much peace. When you awaken, you will feel refreshed. You will not remember watching this movie. You are peaceful. You are calm. You are safe."
Jane continued with the interrogation.
"What happened to Peter? How did the LD-125 effect him?"
"He seemed okay. He seemed okay. He stopped sleeping. It was part of the program. Sleep deprivation. Reinforced commands. His ego was broken down."
"How do you know his ego was broken down?" Jane said, sotto voce.
"He went inward. Stopped sleeping. Even when he was given permission to sleep. Very compliant. We considered him a success. Except..." George Clemmons' voice trailed of. Jane prodded him gently.
"Except?"
"He stopped referring to himself as a boy. He was no longer a boy. He was no longer a boy."
"He said that?"
"Yes."
"What did he claim to be?"
"He claimed... everything. He was everything. The entire universe. God. A wolf. A wolf dreaming it was a boy."
"How did the doctors at Redrock respond?"
"More antipsychotics," George said slowly, eyes still moving behind their lids.
"Did the antipsychotics help him?"
"No. He was gone. Then... electroshock."
"Electroshock?" Jane repeated.
"Forced electroshock. But he was gone. And... they altered him. Slowly. He became one of the first."
"One of the first? What does that mean?"
"Military program. Break down the ego. Break down the sense of self. Break down fear of pain. Replace those senses."
"Replace them with what?" Jane said. Lisbon's face was tight, strained, listening to this. Listening to the step-by-step memories of a small boy's mind wiped clean and "replaced", like his memories, his sense of self, were so much useless data on an old floppy disk.
"Military program. Spy program. Delta."
"Delta?"
"We didn't talk about it. Never aloud. Only in the files."
"What did the files say?"
"Boys with sociopathic personalities, deprived of the ego, could be formed... manipulated into serving their country. They would give something back to their country. Not just... end up in prison. Or on drugs. Or on death row."
"Tell me more about the files."
"We were helping the boys. Helping them. Helping them to be more than what they would otherwise have become."
Jane glanced over at Lisbon again. She wasn't sure, but he seemed a little pale, a little under the weather, despite the bright, sunny light of the day.
"Who decided if they were sociopathic? Beyond help?"
"Bedwetting. Fire-starting. Cruelty to animals. The psychopathic triad. We knew what they were early."
"Those three symptoms were the only requirements for this program?"
"No parents. No guardians. Ward of the state. And a record of violence towards other children."
"What sort of violence was deemed severe enough to... to earn a boy a spot in the program?"
"Any kind."
"Any kind?"
"Fist fights. Fighting. Biting. We tried to catch them early."
"Were any of the boys offered counselling? Therapy? Before the... trials?"
"We knew there was only one way to help them."
"So... no?"
"No," the old man admitted, still deeply in trance.
"What was Delta program... what happened to the boys who were in Delta program?"
Lisbon heard Jane inhale, a little louder than he probably intended to. Jane's hands were fists in his laps, fingers curling and uncurling.
George Clemmons was silent for a long moment. Then he began to speak. And he spoke of the things of nightmares, nightmares summoned into reality by the CIA and the military-industrial complex, the actions of demons. Events which could never be undone, which threw long shadows over entire lives and entire future generations of humanity, which created walking ghouls. True evil.
After Jane had asked George Clemmons pretty much everything he could about the Redrock program, he just sat still for a moment. Spent. Curling and uncurling his fingers. Making and relaxing fists. Eyes somewhat far away, himself.
When the boys had done something "good", and the staff had been happy with them, for whatever reason, they'd gotten a yellow smiley-face sticker put on a sheet hanging from a clipboard next to the door of their room. When they were in the dog house, they also had recieved a sticker to ponder and obsess about- a giant, red X mark. There'd only been two varieties of sticker in this nightmarish, binary world of terror.
Smiley faces and red, terrifying X's.
Jane had plumbed the depths of the man's decrepit, abysmal mind: the names of personnel involved in the facility Red John had been locked up in for so many impressionable years.
The types of drugs used, the types of "therapies" used to break a mind, rumors about sexual and physical abuse, sleep deprivation, hypnotherapy, electroshock, beatings, extended periods of solitary confinement in cold, dark rooms...
...alternate personality formation, "controlled violence" tests involving small animals (hamsters, rabbits, cats, rats) that were ripped apart by brain-damaged, tortured children with their bare hands while military-funded psychiatrists watched with indifferent, clinical eyes and attached blood-pressure cuffs to their subjects' penises to measure the level of sexual arousal experienced during violent "episodes"... while they ticked off boxes on pieces of paper held in place on clipboards... and he was done.
("Peter, I want you to kill only the white rats. Not the white and black rats. Not the tan rats. Only the white rats. Kill all the white rats, Peter...they are the enemy. Be a good boy, now...")
Jane was emotionally and intellectually spent. Lisbon could see it in the slump of Jane's broad soldiers, in the depths of his tormented eyes. He was still in character, still acting his part, but he was exhausted. He found Lisbon's eyes, and she smiled at him, hoping that smile could sustain him, somehow, imbue him with a little bit of strength... and he stared at her, a strangely wounded look. Still lost in his dark thoughts. In the horror of his past. Of Red John's past.
Finally, he smiled back at her while the ancient military man partially responsible for so much chaos sat slumped, entranced, far-away in his wheelchair, dreaming of white, fluffy, peaceful clouds...
Lisbon, for her part, was stunned into silence. She wanted to get somewhere else... anywhere but this lovely, colorful garden with this obscene old man who had done so much damage and absolved himself of any personal or moral responsibility by invoking that much-beloved, age-old excuse- "I was only following orders"- she wanted to get away, and shower. Scrub herself clean, maybe scrub her mind clean, if possible. She felt tainted.
The terror those kids must have felt, the deep lack of trust and safety, the nightmare of their existence... it would be enough to break anyone, especially a child.
Charlotte had gone through much of the same. Of course, Red John had only be re-enacting his own youth with Charlotte. Damaged and insane as he was.
Something about the cold, clinical military involvement in Red John's past, the way it had been funded by politicians who managed to convince themselves at the end of the day that they were doing something not only morally neutral, but righteous, who probably attended Church services on Sundays, never met the children they had doomed to so much terror, never thought about their integral part in the creation of so many monstrously deformed humans, something about that was even more horrific than a maverick maniac living out his demons and using his niece as a bleeding, crying therapy doll.
Red John was insane, and broken, and traumatized, and brainwashed. What excuse did the CIA have? How did any of the people involved in these programs ever manage to look at themselves in the mirror? Sleep through the night?
And the reality of the program made Red John's crimes suddenly less the crimes of an autonomous individual acting out of personal desire, and more a government-funded set of crimes against humanity.
(..."Kill only the white rats, Peter... they are the enemy. Only the white rats...")
It was hard for Jane to process this, Lisbon saw. Jane had been so used to hating Red John, hating him with a passion. How did you hate someone who had been deliberately, clinically controlled and broken? How did you ever know what percentage of their actions were true measures of what they wanted to do, versus what they had been compelled, through torture, to carry out?
Red John, in the end, hadn't been deemed a good client for adult military purposes. He was too unstable, impuslive, hard to control. He'd begun biting the aides, scratching at their throats, their eyes. Still... he had been let out into the general population. Let out, free to roam, to do as his permanently-damaged psyche saw fit.
No wonder he had never been caught by the police, or the FBI. Even if he had been brought in, he would have quickly been releases. He was a walking indictment against the CIA, a threat to national security.
Which begged the question. Why hadn't he been executed? Why had he been allowed to live?
Unless... Unless his adult passtime was also part of some experiment.
The idea was enough to bring on a panic attack.
Lisbon heard Jane's breathing change. Too fast, too shallow. He was cheesy-white under the tan of his skin.
"Jane... you okay?" Lisbon said softly, hoping to ground him. "You're breathing too quickly."
"I... I'm okay," Jane said. She saw him struggle for control. Saw him force himself to breathe normally. Collected himself.
Jane had asked George Clemmons everything he could think of about the tests and trials and therapies, leaving no stone unturned... and when he was reasonably certain he'd drained his source dry and there was nothing left to ferret out of the man's memory, he slowly created a peaceful scene in George's mind.
Brought him to a place of calm, and amnesia. He slowly brought him out of the trance. Stopped the tape recorder and re-pocketed it. George Clemmons blinked into the bright summer light.
"I'm sorry, Johnny. I seem to have drifted off," the ancient man said in his creaking, drooling voice.
"It's okay. Such a lovely park. A good day for a nap," Jane said, and to any outsider listening in, he would have seemed perfectly calm and congenial, but Lisbon could hear notes of strain in his voice, under the facade. He was still far too pale for comfort.
Lisbon, for her part, felt cold and achy and incredibly old. She felt a deep, unsettling sense of terror in the government she had grown to believe was mostly good and upfront and reliable. A sort of twisted grief. A deeply-rooted desire to explain away what the old man had said as the ramblings of an elderly, dementia-addled brain.
But what he had said had been cold and specific, full of dates and names and details. And Lisbon knew in her bones that when they got Van Pelt to do some digging, they'd find out the man's memories were more or less accurate.
Even more important than the details George Clemmons had provided in his altered state was information about old audio-recordings and videotapes of little Peter's "therapies". They still existed. Housed in a military facility in southern California, apparently.
No doubt, accessing them would be a true magic trick. Clearance for those places was strict and a hell of a lot more protected than access to the walking dead in upscale California nursing homes.
"You okay, Johnny?" George Clemmons said, still half in a trance, looking Jane over.
Jane dismissed the concerns.
"I'm fine. Why don't we get you back inside?"
George Clemmons nodded.
"I'm sorry, John," he said, eyes lost either in trance or in memory or in dementia. Who could tell. Lisbon felt a chill run through her. It was almost as if his soul, now, was speaking to Red John.
But that was just plain silly.
"What are you sorry about, Uncle George?" Jane said mildly.
"Should have... should have visited you more, when you were a boy."
Yeah, right.
Jane waved the concern away with his hand. "It's okay."
"Family is everything, Johnny."
"It is, indeed," Jane confirmed. He had released the brakes on the old geezer's wheelchair, had gotten up off the park bench. He ran a hand over his face, over his curls. Took the handles of the wheelchair and began to push the wheelchair back towards the nursing home.
Distracted as they were by the hypnotically-induced confession, neither Jane or Lisbon realized what time it was until George Clemmons was back in his room, watching the birds by his window again.
Boy, time could fly, when you were having fun...
It was 2:46 pm.
"She should have been back by now," Jane said to Lisbon as he checked his watch. They approached the nurses' station, and each of them signed out.
"Excuse me... have you seen a young girl?"
The nurse on shift looked up.
"Young girl?"
"My daughter. She was supposed to meet us here a little after 2."
The nurse shook her head.
"I don't think so. What does she look like?"
Jane used his hand to indicate someone about 5 feet tall.
"Short. Black hoody, black backpack. Pale. Blonde, wavy hair? Green eyes?"
"How old?"
"16, but physically she looks very young for her age. She looks like 11, 12?"
"I don't think so. Let me check with the other nurses on call," the woman said, and got up off her chair.
"Thanks," Jane said tightly.
The nurse came back a moment later.
"No one remembers seeing anyone matching that description. Have you checked outside?"
"Right," Jane said, nodding. "She was nervous about leaving her dog tied up outside."
"She's probably outside, then," the nurse said, smiling at Jane.
Jane turned to leave. Turned back to the desk.
"Can I leave a message for her, in case she shows up?"
"Sure," the nurse said, nodding. "What's her name?"
"Charlotte. If she shows up here in the next little while, can you ask her to call me or... her mom? On her cell? And wait by the car?"
The woman wrote down the message.
"Will do," she said, sticking the message written on the yellow Post-It note on the screen of the computer behind the desk.
"Thank you," Jane said, and turned to leave.
Lisbon shot him a look as they got in the elevator. His hands were turning into fists again.
"She probably just lost track of the time, Jane," Lisbon said, hoping to pacify him.
He nodded, but he still looked stressed.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, plugged in Charlotte's number. Jane could hear the sound of the phone ringing.
"Hello?" It was undeniably Charlotte's voice. Lisbon could hear it, even though it wasn't on speaker phone.
"Charlotte, it's Dad. I thought you were supposed to meet us at the nurse's desk at 2:05?" Jane said. He was calming down now.
Charlotte spoke quickly, words Lisbon couldn't pick out. Jane nodded to himself as the kid rapid-fire spoke. The elevator made a dinging noise and they were on the ground floor again, walking quickly towards the car.
"So, where are you now?" Jane said as they crossed the parking lot.
He ran a hand through his hair again. Looked over at Lisbon, and smiled a rueful smile.
"Yeah, okay. Stay there. We'll pick you up," Jane said, and hung up the phone.
"Anything wrong?" Lisbon said with forced calm. Jane shook his head.
"She went for a walk. Went to Dairy Queen, got a Blizzard, and then realized there was a Chuck E. Cheese in close proximity. So of course she had to go there."
"Chuck E. Cheese... the kid's place? Pizza and animatronics and video games?"
Jane nodded. A laugh, delighted, burst out of him.
"Says she lost track of time," Jane said, still grinning. Lisbon suspected that if someone had offered to pay him a million dollars to stop grinning like the Cheshire cat, at this moment, Jane would have been unable to collect the money. Physically unable to stop grinning.
"She mentioned she wanted to go, but we haven't been yet," Jane said, as Lisbon unlocked the driver's side door, unlocked the passenger side door. Jane got in.
Lisbon started the car, looked over at Jane, and smiled at him.
"Well, at least someone is having a good day," Lisbon said as Jane clicked his seat belt on. Jane nodded. Laughed.
"For a second, I thought..." he trailed off. Lisbon knew what he had thought, for a second. She had run off. Or... something worse.
"Did she give you an address?" Lisbon asked as they pulled out of the parking lot. Jane nodded. Gave Lisbon the address from memory. Lisbon vocally entered the address into the car's navigation system and they were off.
The parking lot in front of the Chuck E. Cheese's was mostly empty. There was a Best Buy store to the left of the Chuck E. Cheese's, a Pet Smart on the right, a Dairy Queen, A Taco Bell, and an Arby's. Fun times.
Dixon was tied up to a bike rack outside the Chuck E. Cheese, and he looked entirely bored. Jane could hear the dog barking for his master as he approached the large, square building.
"Hey, Dixon," Jane said kindly, and pet the dog's head gently. Dixon went crazy, licking Jane's hand, trying to jump up, but his movements were restricted by the bike lock.
"Lisbon, will you stay with the dog?" Jane asked. Lisbon nodded, leaned down, began to pet the dog and talk to Dixon as if he were a baby. The dog stopped wailing. Jane watched Lisbon with the dog, watched the motherly side she had and kept locked up most of the time, come out. He smiled, pleased.
Jane then entered the brightly-lit noise factory, stepping through the automatic sliding doors. A boy of about 8 ran past him in a blur of white-blond hair, a striped t-shirt, and was gone. Another little boy, about the same age, African American and waving what looked to be a cheap knock-off light saber, took up the chase.
There were animatronic robots up on a stage singing some god-awful music. What looked like a kid's birthday party in full swing. The smell of cheap, sugar-filled pizza sauce, kids running back and forth, a ball pit, a video arcade, flashing lights, tired looking parents digging their wallets out... and... Jane scanned the crowd for his kid. Saw her. Felt something tight and sharp in his gut begin to relax.
Charlotte was in front of a whack-a-mole machine and hammering the shit out of the electronic rodents. Yellow tickets were spitting out of the machine at a constant rate.
In a clump, on the ground, was a huge ball of tickets.
"Hey," Jane said, as he approached his daughter. Charlotte glanced over at him for a second, then back to the whack-a-mole machine. She was hammering the shit out of the game, and seemed damned gleeful about it.
"You about ready to go?"
"Can we stay for a while? I'm on a roll..."
Jane considered this. Considered her comment about him losing his fun-factor.
"How long have you been here?"
Charlotte, still focused on the game, eyes darting every-which-way, just shrugged.
"Maybe an hour and a half?"
"Are you hungry?"
The girl shook her head. "Nahh."
"How much of your allowance have you eaten through?" Jane asked as she continued to smash the padded paddle onto the heads of the "moles". Charlotte shrugged.
"I don't know. 20 bucks? 30 bucks? Something like that."
Jane made a face Charlotte couldn't see.
"You spent that much money in an hour and a half playing video games?"
"Yeah. And the blizzard," Charlotte muttered, and began to make excited little noises as the moles sped up and the tickets began to come out of the machine at a faster rate, now.
Jane had never seen a bigger grin on her face. Her smile was contagious.
"Maybe Lisbon would like to play some games?" Charlotte said, sly as ever, as the game finished and she considered her father, the strain on his face. She ripped her tickets from the dispenser, added them to her growing collection.
Jane considered Lisbon, the fear he'd seen in her face as George Clemmons ran through his horrific history lesson at the boys' home. If she was feeling anything like he was, the idea of whacking the shit out of some moles might be appealing to her, right now.
"Somebody needs to stay with Dixon. He's barking," Jane reminded the teen. She nodded her wild, shaggy head. Blonde curls shook back and forth.
"Hmmm," Charlotte said, counting her tickets. "I'll go pet him for a few minutes. That should settle him down."
"Yeah, I don't think so," Jane said dubiously, but Charlotte was already walking away from him, towards an attraction that looked like a virtual-reality moto-cross game. Her eyes were shining with sugar-fueled glee. Dixon, apparently, and his barking, noisy plight, had been forgotten in fewer than 2.5 seconds.
That had to be a new record, even for Charlotte...
Jane walked back out of the Chuck E. Cheese. Lisbon raised her eyebrows from where she was kneeling near the dog, keeping him quiet.
"Tell me she's actually here," Lisbon said.
"She's addicted. Wants to know if you want to play some video games with her?" Jane said, approaching Lisbon.
Lisbon considered this. After the afternoon she'd just had, the idea of getting lost in video games wasn't such a bad idea. The drive home would give her plenty of time to obsess about those nasty little details. Already, she was beginning to feel a slight achy pounding in her head. Stress headache.
"Somebody needs to stay with the dog," Lisbon said. "It's too hot to lock him up in the car by himself."
Jane considered this. Scanned the parking lot. In front of the Taco Bell, sitting on the curb, were a pair of teenage boys eating tacos and drinking soda. Jane held up a finger to Lisbon, took off across the parking lot in a slow jog. Lisbon saw Jane approach the boys, saw him bend down and talk to them. They nodded, stood up, began to follow him back across the lot, grinning and carrying skateboards she hadn't seen initially.
"What's up?" Lisbon said, as Jane and the youths came within hearing distance.
"They'll watch Dixon for an hour, keep him quiet," Jane said, nodding at the two kids. One of them was pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his jean jacket pocket. The boy stuck the cigarette between his lips, pulled out a lighter, and lit up.
Lisbon nodded, followed Jane back into the Chuck E. Cheese.
"How much did you pay them?"
"20 bucks each to hang out with the dog for 60 minutes and make sure he doesn't bark. We don't need animal control called on us when we're trying to improve our fun-factor, now, do we?" Jane said, grinning. Lisbon grinned back.
"Technically, I seem to remember it was only you that Charlotte accused of losing said fun-factor," Lisbon said smugly.
"Ha ha," Jane murmured.
Jane walked back over to Charlotte, who was battling it out on the video-game version of a dirt bike. She was playing against some younger kid, a boy about 12, and judging from the number of tickets she was earning, she was in the lead.
"Dixon's taken care of," Jane said to Charlie as he approached. "We have 60 minutes. That good enough?"
Charlotte, still involved in the game, made a "don't bug me right now" motion with her hand. Finally the game ended. She grabbed her tickets, processed what her father had said.
"60 minutes?"
"Yeah," Jane confirmed.
"That should be enough time," Charlotte mused.
"Enough time?" Jane asked.
"Enough time to earn the tickets I need for the prizes I want," Charlotte explained, as if Jane might be mildly cognitively impaired.
"Ah," Jane said, nodding. "Which are?"
"The Chuck E. Cheese T-shirt, the insulated Chuck E. Cheese lunch bag, one of the large Chuck E. Cheese plush dolls, glow in the dark inkoo, some of those chubby puppies toys, and that big inflatable pool shark, maybe something suitable for Dixon..."
"You know we don't have a pool, right?"
"We live in California, Patrick," Charlotte said, as if that explained everything.
"A Chuck E. Cheese lunch bag? Is that what all the cool kids are taking to school these days?" Jane said, grinning, and Charlotte rolled her eyes.
Jane nodded, headed off toward the cash register at the front of the madhouse.
"Where are you going?" Charlotte called, as Patrick walked away.
"I'm getting us a pizza. I know you'll want the full, over-priced experience, right?"
Charlotte grinned. Nodded. Of course she did. Even if she wasn't hungry... who could turn down cheap, tasteless pizza if it was part of the full trademarked experience?
"Make my half plain cheese!"
"Your half?" Jane called back, amused. But his kid had already departed, in full hyperactive glory.
Jane approached the cashier, put in his order (Two large pizzas, one plain cheese, one Hawaiian, 2 large cokes), stopped, thought about the day.
"Do you guys serve beer?" Jane asked, trying to be heard over the noise.
The 20-something male cashier behind the register nodded glumly.
"And a pitcher of whatever beer has the highest alcohol content," Jane said, pulling out his wallet, fishing out a credit card.
The cashier plugged in Jane's order, accepted his Visa, ran it through the card reader.
"One of those days?"
Jane nodded. "Yeah. You could say that."
"I hear you, man. Some days just plain suck," the cashier said glumly. Jane nodded.
Yeah. Some days just plain suck.
Jane put the credit card back in his wallet, wallet back in his pant's pocket.
"Say... are there any Chuck E. Cheese's in Sacramento?"
The cashier shrugged. "Probably. They have them everywhere. All that would be on the website," he said, clearly bored.
Jane smiled. Wandered back to where Lisbon was making change for a ten dollar bill. Charlotte had found Lisbon, was chatting her up, using her hands to get some point across. Jane watched them. Smiled fondly. Lisbon nodded and followed the girl away to a video game which apparently needed two players.
He tried to keep the details from earlier out of his mind, compartmentalized and under lock and key. This was fun time. This was relax and eat pizza and drink beer and do mindless shit time.
And his kid had said he'd lost his fun-factor...