"Well, when we find him, he's going to do federal time. Assaulting a Treasury agent is very serious."
"I do not believe Mr. Chiun could be capable of such violence," said Dr. Gerling.
"Or such skill," added Dr. Bex.
"Who's on staff with that kind of surgical expertise?" Phelps demanded.
"Why, no one. We do not do brain surgery at Folcroft. "
Frowning, Phelps indicated Koldstad with his square jaw. "Will he get better?"
"No," answered Dr. Gerling. "But he will not get any worse, I do not think."
"He couldn't seem to control himself. He almost walked off the roof. And when he tried to climb down the ladder, he couldn't stop himself."
"A partial frontal lobotomy often produces such behaviors," said Dr. Gerling. "You see, his impulse-control centers have been damaged, resulting in a condition we refer to as disinhibition. This simply means that he will act upon any impulse that comes to mind without regard for the consequences. When his brain recovers from the trauma, he will have to be retrained, but he will have limitations. He may also repeat physical or mental actions. He may be unable to stop impulsive behaviors once begun. If asked to add a column of figures, he may add them ad infinitum, until someone forcibly restrains him. This is called perseveration."
"That means his career is over."
"Not necessarily, but probably. And he claimed a butterfly did this to him, you say?"
"That's what he said. But no one else saw the butterfly."
"Has this man demonstrated delusions prior to this incident?" Dr. Simon asked.
"Not that I know."
The doctors crowded around, faces growing very interested now. "Can you tell us if you observed any other abnormal behavior prior to this attack?" asked Dr. Simon.
"No."
"And yourself? You said you were attacked, as well. By whom?"
"It was the basement janitor. He took us all barehanded. I never saw hands move that fast. Bruce Lee's ghost couldn't have touched him."
Dr. Bex furrowed his brow. "Basement janitor?"
"His name was Remo."
The doctors exchanged puzzled glances. "I know of no basement janitor by that or any other name," Dr. Gerling said ponderously. "And you say he defeated eight armed men with only his bare hands?"
"He was faster than light. We never got off a shot."
The doctors crowded closer. They had surrounded him now.
Agent Phelps didn't like the way they were looking at him, so he backed out of the hospital room saying, "I have to report this to Special Agent Koldstad's superior. If you'll excuse me..."
The Folcroft doctors followed him out into the green antiseptic-scented corridor.
"If you would like to talk more about these things you claim to have seen, we will be happy to listen."
Walking backward, Phelps retreated to the elevator. "Yeah, right. Thanks. Appreciate the offer. Bye."
"If not you, one of your fellows."
"I'll tell them. Thanks again."
AGENT PHELPS broke the bad news to the others.
"You all know what this means?" he finished in a grave voice. They had gathered together in Dr. Smith's drafty office.
"Yeah. Big Dick is coming."
"Big Dick for sure."
"Yep, this is a Big Dick situation, without a doubt."
No one looked happy at the prospect. They just looked at the office phone and swallowed hard.
"Well, someone has to make the call."
"We'll flip for it."
They flipped two out of three, then three out of five, in rotation until a shoving match broke out between the last two agents left in the running.
Finally they drew straws. Agent Phelps pulled the short straw and went to the black glass desk and sank his rear end into the chair heavily.
He picked up the phone and began dialing. It took three tries. His trembling fingers kept hitting the wrong keys.
RICHARD BUCKLEY BRULL had come up the hard way, from a lowly IRS transcriber to the assistant commissioner of the service's New York City regional branch of the CID. It was a long climb. He had started in the Examination Division, slid over to Collection and from there worked his way up to Criminal Investigation. By his own estimate, that was twenty-eight million returns personally eyeballed, 2.4 million audits conducted, and over fifty thousand criminal investigations prosecuted during the varied stages of his career. A lot of paper.
Through it all Richard Buckley Brull never met a taxpayer he liked. Or trusted. Or who was audit-proof.
If Richard Buckley Brull had his way, the Internal Revenue Service would be renamed the Internal Revenue Force. Every agent down to the secretaries would be armed. There would be none of this witholding crap. It only made citizens scheme and bend their returns to get as much of it back as possible.
The way Richard Buckley Brull saw it, the only program to bring the nation into total compliance with the Internal Revenue Code would be to have employers pay all salaries directly to the IRS, which would disburse it to the taxpayers upon receipt of a weekly voucher.
Why, just the bank interest alone would make the IRS a fortune and lower taxes in the final analysis.
His superiors, however, did not see the wisdom of his vision.
"Why not?" he once argued. "It's our money. Why should the filers have it even temporarily?"
"Because there would be a taxpayer revolt. The government would be overthrown, the nation would fall into bankruptcy, and most importantly we'd all be out of work."
"Nobody objects to withholding," Brull had said stubbornly. "Hell, the filers are technically paying taxes on a portion of their salaries they never even touch. Yet our polling shows that most citizens' opinion of the force-I mean service-goes up twenty-six percent when they get their refund checks. Not that it ever lasts."