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  Meds

  Ray Garton

  We take for granted pronouncements like, “You have a biochemical imbalance,” and “Mental disorders are like diabetes,” and can easily feel shocked when someone challenges their factual basis. In reality, these are not scientific observations—they are promotional slogans, so adamantly repeated in the media and by individual psychiatrists that people assume them to be true. The psychopharmaceutical complex fosters these falsehoods in order to promote the widespread use of their products.

  —Dr. Peter Breggin, M.D.

  in his book Medication Madness:

  A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers

  of Mood-Altering Medications

  “Transplants. Antibodies. We manufacture genes. We can produce birth ectogenetically. We can practically clone people like carrots. And half the kids in this ghetto haven’t even been inoculated for polio. We have established the most enormous medical entity ever conceived, and people are sicker than ever! We cure nothing! We heal nothing! The whole goddamned wretched world is strangulating in front of our very eyes.”

  —Dr. Bock (George C. Scott)

  in the film The Hospital

  by Paddy Chayefsky (1971)

  PROLOGUE

  1.

  The two men exchanged brief smiles as they entered the steam room. There were three others already there, sitting in the steam, two of them chatting with the familiarity of longtime friends, the third, a fat old man, slumped silently against the wall. As the two newcomers took seats on opposite sides of the room, the two men who were talking got up and left together, laughing at a joke and talking about getting lunch. The old man remained slumped against the wall on a bench, eyes closed, his great, lumpy, pasty-white belly rising and falling slightly in the rhythm of a doze.

  The two men who had just entered settled on their towels. The one on the far side of the room had short curly hair, dark but shot with grey, and was in his early forties, of medium height, soft and fleshy but not fat. He sat on one of the lower benches, seeking a more moderate temperature, and stared remotely at nothing in particular, deep in thought. Across the room, the other man sat on a high bench. He looked to be about fifty but was in excellent shape, tall, slender and athletic, with close-cropped blond hair. He sat naked on his towel, leaning against the wall behind him, head tilted back, eyes closed.

  After awhile, the dark-haired man’s eyes wandered over to the slender man. He watched him for a moment, then looked away, but his eyes darted back repeatedly, curious and questioning. He kept this up for a short time, a slight frown developing over his eyes. Finally, he leaned forward and said hesitantly, “Excuse me, but... you look familiar.”

  The blond man opened his eyes slightly but did not move or speak as he looked at the other man.

  The dark-haired man smiled a little sheepishly. “Sorry, I guess that was rude. I mean, I know a lot of celebrities come to this resort and it’s probably bad etiquette to horn in on their privacy the way I just did yours. In fact, I’ve recognized three celebrities here already and I just arrived this morning. My first time here, by the way. But I can’t seem to figure out where I’ve seen you before.” He added with a chuckle, “Are you a celebrity?”

  The blond man’s left eyebrow rose as he continued to look at the other man with heavy-lidded eyes. After a lengthy silence, he said, “You watch the news much?”

  “Oh, sure,” the dark-haired man said, nodding. “I like to stay well-informed. I get a lot of my news on the Internet, but I watch CNN, too.” He suddenly straightened his back. “Oh, by the way—” He stood and crossed the room to the other man, hand out to shake. “—my name is Maurie Silverman, nice to meet you.” He stood there for a long moment, hand outstretched, before the blond man finally leaned forward slowly and shook.

  “Arnold Shipp,” the blond man said.

  Silverman frowned again. “Even your name sounds familiar. So, have you been on the news?” He returned to his bench as he waited for an answer.

  “I’m in politics,” Shipp said. “Normally, I’m on the news now and then, but lately... yes. I’ve gotten more coverage than usual.”

  “You a politician?”

  “I’m Senator Walter Veltman’s press secretary.”

  Silverman’s eyes immediately widened and he smiled with recognition. “Of course! I knew I’d seen you somewhere.”

  Shipp smiled, but it held tired indifference, as if he were already bored by Silverman.

  “You’re right in the thick of everything, then,” Silverman said with interest. He smiled as he leaned forward with elbows on his knees, hands dangling between them. “That must be pretty exciting work. I mean, the people alone—hell, you must know just about everybody in Washington, from the politicians to the news media people, right?”

  Silverman briefly lifted one shoulder. “You can’t get much done in that town unless you know a lot of people.”

  “Well, I sure don’t envy your job the last few months. The senator has an ugly little sex scandal and you’ve got to dig him out of the hole, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So, did he really have sex with that young woman, or is she setting him up?”

  Shipp’s mostly expressionless face dimpled slightly with a smirk as he chuckled. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and said flatly, as if by rote, “The senator staunchly maintains his innocence in this matter and remains focused on the business of the country.”

  Silverman smiled. “You’ve been saying that in your sleep lately, haven’t you?”

  Shipp said nothing, didn’t move.

  The two of them sat silently in the moist heat as the old man continued to sleep, his belly rising and falling with his soft, purring snore.

  “So, what do you do, Maurie?” Shipp said halfheartedly, eyes still closed.

  “Me? Well, I guess I’m retired now.”

  “You’re a little young for retirement, aren’t you?”

  Silverman chuckled. “My age might be wrong, but the money was right. I had a chain of drive-through coffee stands all over the Midwest. Pretty lucrative little business. Just before the economy went tits up, a larger chain made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Now... well, now I relax. I never married, don’t have a family of my own. I’ve got a couple of nieces I dote on, even though my sister is a pain in the ass. I’ve been seeing the country slowly. Thought I’d come check this place out, see what it is about it that all the beautiful people seem to like so much. Mostly, I spend a lot of time with my trains.”

  Shipp’s head pulled away from the wall and his eyes opened, more abruptly than before. He was suddenly alert and interested. “Trains?”

  Silverman’s sheepish grin returned. “You believe it? I’m forty-two and my favorite thing in the world is to play with electric trains.”

  Shipp sat up straight for a moment, looking at Silverman with a very serious expression, then he leaned forward. “You’re serious? You’re into model railroading?”

  “Yeah, most people think I’m nuts. My dad bought me a train set for my ninth birthday and I’ve been crazy about them ever since. I’ve got some beauties, too.” He added with a shrug, “But the only people who appreciate them, of course, are other train nuts like me. Everybody else thinks I’ve got a screw loose.”

  As Silverman spoke, Shipp st
ood and snatched up his towel. He crossed the steam room in three broad, quick steps, a wide-eyed, boyish smile making the dimples return to his cheeks, deeper this time. He put his towel on the bench beside Silverman and sat down, then slapped a hand onto Silverman’s shoulder.

  “Say hello to a fellow train nut, my friend,” Shipp said. His voice sounded different now, fuller, more alive, genuinely engaged.

  Silverman’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Seriously?”

  “Listen, if I took all the money I’ve spent on trains and gave it to charity, I could probably end world hunger in time for dinner.”

  They laughed so loudly that the sleeping old man jerked, made a startled blurting sound, and looked around with blinking eyes as he sat up a little. His eyebrows stood high over his eyes at first, then lowered sharply when he figured out where he was and realized he’d been disturbed. He slowly leaned back against the wall.

  Maurie Silverman and Arnold Shipp began to talk about model railroading with the kind of enthusiasm and relish typical of pre-pubescent boys talking about what it might be like to touch a naked woman’s breast. Actually, to be more accurate, it was Arnold Shipp who did most of the talking while Maurie Silverman listened and expressed his vigorous agreement. Shipp was quite eloquent and seemed to know it—he spoke with the non-stop momentum of someone accustomed to talking and being listened to, someone who enjoyed the sound of his voice as much as he imagined everyone else did. As he talked about his passion, from the first train set his parents had bought him at the age of seven to the latest vintage Lionel he had purchased for several thousand dollars, Shipp became ebullient and animated and years fell away from his face. Finally, he stopped talking abruptly and looked around as if startled to find himself in a sauna.

  “You know what?” he said. “I think I’ve had enough of this place. Let me buy you lunch.”

  * * *

  It was an exclusive cottage-style resort in the green foothills of Montecito, just outside Santa Barbara. Five hundred acres of everything one might need to relax and enjoy the good life, providing one could afford it. The man who called himself Maurie Silverman—his name was as phony as his hair—had never been there before, and had his work not required it, he never would have considered going. It was not to his tastes. While quite wealthy himself, he typically did not enjoy the company of other rich people. At least, not the kind of rich people who came to resorts like this one: nipped, tucked, coiffed, tanned, and manicured to within an inch of their lives, wearing expensive brand names the way kings wore crowns and dropping names into conversations the way Messerschmitts dropped bombs into Chelsea during the Blitz. He was not there for his own enjoyment, though. He was there because it was a favorite haunt of Arnold Shipp.

  Maurie Silverman’s real name was Oran Rubinek. He had never owned a chain of anything, much less drive-through coffee stands. He did not collect electric trains. He didn’t even like trains. He’d learned just enough about them to get through his conversation with Shipp. He knew much more about Arnold Shipp, including the fact that once Shipp started talking about model railroading, he would continue with such speed and so little pause that Rubinek’s knowledge of the subject would be much less important than his ability to feign enthusiasm for it.

  In the resort’s quiet restaurant, they lunched on smoked trout pasta with verde sauce as a man wearing a dark suit and sunglasses plinked quietly at a piano in the corner. Shipp continued to soliloquize about electric trains—his favorites, his least favorites, the ones he had, the ones he wanted to get. They were halfway through lunch when Shipp finally said the very thing for which Rubinek had been waiting.

  First, Shipp smirked as he chewed his food, arched a brow, then leaned forward and said secretively, “You’re not going to believe what I have in my cottage.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I always take a train with me whenever I travel. Especially on business. Helps me relax. The one I brought here—it’s a beauty.” He lowered his voice a little, as if what he were about to say might cause an outburst in the restaurant if overheard. “It’s a switching layout that’s—well, it’s a beautiful logging scene, just beautiful, with a shay that’s—oh, you’ve just got to see it, really, it’s brass, custom-made by Tenshodo.”

  Rubinek said, “You have it here with you?”

  Shipp nodded, smiling. “In my cottage.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Oh, I insist!”

  As Shipp went on about the layout, the train, how he’d painted it in meticulous detail, Rubinek became aware of the fact that he was bored. He chewed his food mechanically behind his empty, unfelt smile. The piano music was like the chirping of distant crickets heard from indoors. Shipp’s smiling lips moved rapidly around spoken words that seemed to drop to the table before they fully reached Rubinek.

  I’ve been doing this too long, he thought.

  The food was delicious, the view through the restaurant’s enormous windows was beautiful, and Shipp kept talking, scarcely stopping to chew—but all Rubinek could focus on was his own boredom. Once satisfied, he pushed his plate a couple of inches away, his food half-eaten. The train chatter continued even after Shipp stopped eating.

  Pouncing on one of the tiny pauses in Shipp’s ongoing monologue, Rubinek finally said, “How about we go to your cottage? I’d like to see that Tenshodo shay.”

  “You kidding? I’m gonna show you the whole layout.”

  The walk seemed longer than it was. Shipp did not stop talking as they went past the busy tennis courts, along the edge of a small pond where a few ducks waddled out of their way and splashed into the water.

  Shipp led Rubinek through his peak-roofed cottage to one of the two bedrooms, where the train set sprawled on the hardwood floor. The track followed a wandering oblong course through a meticulously fashioned forest of pine trees and large rocky outcroppings. Despite his lack of interest in trains, Rubinek was impressed with the beauty of the layout. It was clearly a labor of love, and even with his extremely limited knowledge of the hobby, Rubinek could tell it was pricey.

  As he got down on his knees beside the track, Shipp rambled on—something about the romance of trains that appealed to young and old alike, blah blah blah.

  Rubinek slipped his right hand into the pocket of his sport coat, pleased that the job was almost done.

  “I brought this one because it’s so... peaceful,” Shipp said quietly, almost reverently, as he started the train. He looked up at Rubinek with a gentle boyish smile. “It’s a pain packing all this stuff around, but setting it up—that’s fun. I thought this was perfect to bring with me on my vacation, don’t you think?”

  The train made a whispery-clickety sound as it snaked along the track. Rubinek smiled and nodded. When Shipp turned his attention back to the train, he took the garrote from his pocket.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Shipp said as Rubinek got a grip on each of the garrote’s small handles.

  In one smooth, quick movement, Rubinek slipped the garrote down past Shipp’s face while pressing his right knee into the center of the man’s back, then pulled the handles together behind Shipp’s neck and twisted them. As he pulled back with his hands and pushed forward with his knee, he felt the wire cut through skin and muscle and slice into Shipp’s throat. Shipp made a wet gurgling sound as his back stiffened. Rubinek kept pulling the twisted handles, pushing Shipp forward with his knees, his own arms outstretched to keep a distance and avoid any splashes of arterial spray. After a little struggle, the garrote hit bone.

  Shipp’s legs kicked as Rubinek let him fall forward across the small railroad tracks. He crushed a section of the little pine trees as he fell and blood gushed from his open neck onto the idyllic miniature scene. Rubinek reached under his sport coat and removed a sleek hunting knife with a large deadly-sharp blade. He waited for the bloody spurting to stop, then straddled Shipp’s body, bent down, and hacked through the bone until the head fell free and rolled slightly to the left. Before the train could r
each it, Rubinek lifted the headless body away from the track and placed it on the floor a couple of feet away. He got a paper towel from the bathroom, then went back to the body and retrieved the garrote, wrapped it in the towel, and stuffed it back into his pocket.

  Shipp’s head—eyes and mouth open wide, blood on the lips—lay on its left cheek. Rubinek picked it up by the hair and set it upright in the center of the train layout. He stepped back and viewed his work.

  Shipp appeared to be poking his head up through the forest, a surprised, bloody-mouthed giant. The train chittered whisperingly along the track, oblivious and unfazed.

  “All aboard,” Rubinek said quietly as he left the cottage.

  * * *

  Before entering his cottage, Rubinek put on his leather driving gloves. Inside, he conducted a quick inspection to make sure he’d left nothing. He’d touched nothing in the cottage with his bare hands and had not used the bathroom. He’d brought only one small bag when he’d come to the resort early that morning, and it was packed and ready to go. He’d expected to have to stay overnight at the most, and was pleased that he’d finished the job in only a matter of hours.

  As he drove his rental car out of the resort, he asked himself, Did I enjoy that? It was a question he asked after every job and he asked it of himself very seriously. If the day ever came when the answer to that question was yes, he would walk away from the business immediately, without looking back. Because if the answer was yes, that meant he had changed. He’d seen the change in others. First, killing was a job. But over time, it became something different. It became enjoyable, a pleasure. Then there was a point of no return beyond which a professional killer could never return to the person he had once been. Beyond that point, he ceased to be a professional killer—someone who did it for money—and became simply a killer. Someone who did it because he liked it. Rubinek wanted to make sure that never happened to him, so he asked that question of himself after each job, and if the answer turned out to be yes one day, he would flee from the work before he passed the point of no return.