“Walter back yet?” she inquired of Cray.
“No. He may be gone awhile.”
He and Shepherd left together. In the hall Shepherd asked, “Who’s Walter?”
“A patient. One of our long — termers. He’s functional up to a point, but he can never be deinstitutionalized. He’s been here too long.”
The thought of a lifetime spent inside these drab walls was insufferably depressing to Shepherd. “Where is he now?” he asked.
“Running an errand for me.”
“You use your patients to run errands?”
“Only this one patient. Walter is special. You’d be surprised how adept he is at certain rather simple tasks.” Cray reached the stairwell door and paused with his hand on the knob, a long-fingered, elegant hand with perfectly manicured nails. “Schizophrenia can be something of an asset, you know.”
Shepherd thought this was a joke, but he saw no humor in Cray’s face.
“It’s quite true,” Cray said. “Every adaptation of the human organism must have some survival value, or it would have been bred out of the gene pool.”
“What survival value?”
“Well, take Walter, for instance. Like many schizophrenics, his sensitivity to visual stimuli is acute. He’s tireless, resistant to fatigue. And single-minded. Give him an assignment, and he won’t stop until he gets it done. In many ways he’s far superior to us normals.”
“I’m not sure I’d buy that.”
“But think about it, Detective.” There was Cray’s smile again, cool and bland and somehow secretive. “This is a man who misses nothing around him, who never loses his focus… and who never, ever quits.”
“Find the red car. Find the red car. Find the red car. Find the red car.”
Walter Luntz repeated the words in a steady monotone as he drove the Toyota Tercel down Tucson’s streets.
He loved the Tercel, which Dr. Cray had bought for him — think of it, just for him, a gift from the great Dr. Cray. It was the car he used for running errands, a wonderful car, though too small for Walter, who stood six foot three and had to stoop in doorways.
Hunched in the driver’s seat, his callused hands wrapped around the steering wheel, his bald head bent low under the roof, he devoted his full concentration to the job he’d been given.
“Find the red car. Find the red car.”
He was unaware that he was speaking. He heard the instructions in his mind, spoken not by his own voice but by Dr. Cray’s.
“Find the red car.”
It was the last thing Dr. Cray had told him before sending him forth on his mission. It was the only thing that mattered, and Dr. Cray had stressed the importance of the red car, o f finding the red car, over and over again. He had even shown Walter a picture of a very similar car, which he had found in a place called the Internet.
The car in the picture was not red, but Dr. Cray had told Walter to imagine it as red, and with effort, Walter had been able to do so.
Find this car, Dr. Cray had said as they sat together in his office with the door closed. It could be anywhere in Tucson, but most likely you’ll find it at a motel, in the parking lot. Do you know how to recognize a motel?
Walter knew. He had even stayed in a motel once, years ago, when he was a young man. He remembered that there had been a slot by the bed that you put quarters into, and the bed would quiver. Fun.
There are many cars like this in Tucson, Dr. Cray had told him. You can’t check every one, so just check the ones in the motel parking lots. The special car, the one I need you to find, has a license plate with this number on it.
Dr. Cray had handed him a slip of paper with a string of letters and numerals written carefully by hand. Walter had studied the paper for a long time before nodding.
Can you do it? Dr. Cray asked, his voice more gentle than Walter had ever heard it.
Sure I can, Walter had said, pride lifting him.
He could, too. It was rare for him to drive as far as Tucson, much less to explore the city one street at a time, and the excursion would tax his capabilities — but he could do it.
For Dr. Cray, he could do anything.
Because Dr. Cray was the greatest man in the world. Dr. Cray might even be God.
Sometimes, especially at night when Walter lay alone in bed in the small guest room that was his home, he thought that Dr. Cray had come down from heaven to help all the sad, ill people like himself, and when they were cured, every one of them normal again, then Dr. Cray would ascend to the clouds in a burst of glorious light.
Walter had not shared these thoughts with Dr. Cray. He was shy.
The car belongs to a woman, Dr. Cray had said, keeping his voice low and conspiratorial. She’s a very dangerous woman, Walter. If you find her car, you must not let her see you. Do you understand?
Sure, he’d said, though in truth he had some trouble following this.
Just call me. Use the phone I gave you. Dr. Cray had kindly supplied Walter with a fine telephone that he took with him whenever he ran an errand. Walter had used the phone only once, when he became confused by a proliferation of street signs and had to pull over in a panic. Call me, and tell me where the car is, and I’ll take care of it from there.
But she’s dangerous, Walter had protested. You said so.
I can handle her.
You’ll get hurt.
No, Walter, I’ll be fine, just fine.
Walter, who did not like the thought of anything bad happening to Dr. Cray, the great Dr. Cray, Dr. Cray who was his hero and savior and maybe God, had made a soft mewling noise.
Are you okay, Walter? Walter? Are you okay?
I’m okay, Walter had said.
Dr. Cray seemed to think for a moment. Then he said very softly. Listen, Walter. I think I’d better tell you who this woman is. You know her. Or at least, you knew her once. She was a patient here.
There have been lots of patients, Walter said. It made him dizzy to think of how many there had been, coming and going, getting well sometimes, or other times dying. The dead ones were buried in the graveyard, and there was nothing left of them but bronze plaques and flowers.
Yes. Dr. Cray’s face was calm and expressionless. Many patients, but you may remember this one. Her name was Kaylie. Kaylie McMillan. She was just a girl when she came here, and you were thirty-seven.
Kaylie, Walter said, and he nodded.
Do you remember?