Free Rage by Richard Bachman Page B

cigarette. And Sandra Cross was looking at me gravely, gravely, as if I were a doctor, or a priest.
        Mr. Grace began to speak.
        "Watch it!" I said sharply. "Before you say anything, be careful. You aren't playing your game any longer. Understand that. You're playing mine. Statements only. Be very careful. Can you be very careful?"
        He didn't say anything about my game metaphor at all. That was when I began to believe I had him.
        "Charlie… "Was that almost a plea?
        "Very good. Do you think you'll be able to keep your job after this, Mr. Grace?"
        "Charlie, for God's sake… "
        "Ever so much better. "
        "Let them go, Charlie. Save yourself. Please."
        "You're talking too fast. Pretty soon a question will pop out, and that'll be the end for somebody."
        "Charlie… "
        "How was your military obligation fulfilled?"
        "Wh… " Sudden whistling of breath as he cut that off.
        "You almost killed somebody," I said. "Careful, Don. I can call you Don, can't I? Sure. Weigh those words, Don."
        I was reaching out for him.
        I was going to break him.
        In that second it seemed as if maybe I could break them all.
        "I think I better sign off for the moment, Charlie."
        "If you go before I say you can, I'll shoot somebody. What you're going to do is sit there and answer my questions."
        The first sweaty desperation, as well concealed as underarm perspiration at the junior prom: "I really mustn't, Charlie. I can't take the responsibility for-"
        "Responsibility?" I screamed. "My God, you've been taking the responsibility ever since they let you loose from college! Now you want to cop out the first time your bare ass is showing! But I'm in the driver's seat, and by God you'll pull the cart! Or I'll do just what I said. Do you dig it? Do you understand me?"
        "I won't play a cheap parlor game with human lives for party favors, Charlie. "
        "Congratulations to you," I said. "You just described modern psychiatry. That ought to be the textbook definition, Don. Now, let me tell you: you'll take a piss out the window if I tell you to. And God help you if I catch you in a lie. That will get somebody killed too. Ready to bare your soul, Don? Are you on your mark?"
        He drew in his breath raggedly. He wanted to ask if I really meant it, but he was afraid I might answer with the gun instead of my mouth. He wanted to reach out quick and shut off the intercom, but he knew he would hear the echo of the shot in the empty building, rolling around in the corridor below him like a bowling ball up a long alley from hell.
        "All right," I said. I unbuttoned my shirt cuffs. Out on the lawn, the cops and Tom Denver and Mr. Johnson were standing around restlessly, waiting for the return of their tweedy bull stud. Read my dreams, Sigmund. Squirt 'em with the sperm of symbols and make 'em grow. Show me how we're different from, say, rabid dogs or old tigers full of bad blood. Show me the man hiding between my wet dreams. They had every reason to be confident (although they did not look confident). In the symbolic sense, Mr. Grace was Pathfinder of the Western World. Bull stud with a compass.
        Natty Bumppo was breathing raggedly from the little latticed box over my head. I wondered if he'd read any good rapid eye movements lately. I wondered what his own would be like when night finally came.
        "All right, Don. Let's get it on."

Chapter 19
        
       "How was your military obligation fulfilled?"
        "In the Army, Charlie. This isn't going to accomplish anything."
        "In what capacity?"
        "As a doctor. "
        "Psychiatrist?"
        "No. "
        "How long have you been a practicing psychiatrist?"
        "Five years."
        "Have you ever eaten your wife out?"
        "Wh… " Terrified, angry pause.
        "I… I don't know the meaning of the