SAVANT

By Richard F. Sayage

3-4-2002

It sure was a nice day.  To kill someone.  I put my rifle down against the sill of the window.  I wanted a cigarette, but knew better than to give my position away.  It pays to be attentive to details in my profession.  I’ll give you an obvious example.  The lenses on my scope are purposely dulled, using internal optics to brighten the hit, much like night vision.  Nothing on my rifles are shiny.  I wear earth colors, mainly black, brown, dark grays, etc.  Cases are black, buckles removed and replaced with black plastic snap clips.  More times than not, I don’t use a case for equipment.  I have body slings that are used to store equipment down the small and large of my back and in the arm and thigh area.  I have other means of disguising my equipment.  I use cash to buy things, actually, everything.  I’ve never bought my equipment personally.  I do professional purchases through assorted channels, but never am I present for the actual delivery of goods. 

            You might be curious to know my name.  No chance.  No one knows my true name.  You may call me Savant.  I lost touch with the world too long ago.  Fresh out of high school I promptly disappeared.  Then, one fine day, much like today, I killed myself.  The obituary showed up in a local paper, young man, promising future, good grades, nothing special, kept to himself, found on the beach, was horribly mutilated, beyond recognition, blah, blah, blah.  I enjoyed reading it.  My identity was my own since the poor boy who took my place had no use left on this lovely planet. 

I had passed him a few times on the street on the way to the gym, not actually begging; just a simple sign saying he needed a hundred dollars to get back home.  I gave him twenty.  The next time I passed him, a little farther down the same block, his sign said he needed food, nothing about getting home.  I noticed his new Nikes and made a note.  I remember everything.  I invited him to lunch a few days later.  He was hungry, right?  He never ate a bite.  Oh, he wanted to, he just never got the chance. 

            Please don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not a violent man.  I just do violent things.  A bit of a paradox, I suppose.  Let me put it this way; a pussycat or a squirrel in the street is safe with me.  Introduce me to an asshole and that person is at risk.  Put a price on his or her head and the risk becomes a reality.

The boy I’m talking about had a price, but it was my own.  I needed him, he sufficed, was very convenient and no one was going to miss him.  His face was removed, as were his teeth, fingers, and the two tattoos I found on his arm and back.  Birthmarks were also removed.  The only way to identify him was through my wallet, which had my license, social security card; some associated business cards, a picture of me as a boy with my dead parents, and thirteen bucks.  A very unlucky number as I’m sure some cop would notice and joke about with his buddies.  I made him easy to find, though it would take a while.  I weighted him down and threw him into the Atlantic Ocean, just outside of the Sore Thumb, which is off of Fire Island..  It was bluefish season.  They finished the job for me.  The police found him seven days later washed up on the South Shore of Long Island.  He was a real mess.  I wasn’t.  The locals were in an uproar, the police were frantic…the case remains unsolved. 

Free to do as I pleased, I began the patient task of preparing for my long awaited career.  I was eighteen, strong, smart, and very confident; in myself, my abilities, and in my usefulness to assorted clientele.  Of course, there were many details that needed tending, but I had time.  My parents were very considerate in leaving me a fair amount of cash and securities.  No, no, I didn’t do anything to them.  In fact, I may have turned out differently if they were still here.  Probably taking the train into Wall Street to work for a bunch of assholes I would probably eliminate for free, just for the simple pleasure of knowing I ridded the world of a few bad seeds.  No, I was very happy with my life choices.  Anyway, just think; your wife or husband is probably alive because my parents died early.  Then again, a lot of other people have caught an early demise because I was left alone at such an early age.  That’s how life is, I suppose, it’s never just a one way street.  Ah, but I deviate.

My escape routes are always well planned.  I have a minimum of three for any given location that I choose.  Up, down, and directly away from the action.  I’m athletic, well trained, and physically fit.  I have backgrounds in martial arts, gymnastics, and yoga.  You could say I’m at peace with myself.  So why the nastiness in my life?  You think I’m disturbed?  Not right in the head? 

No, I’m very right in the head.  The main difference between you and me is that I lack inhibition.  I lack conscience; the real kind, not the bullshit kind.  I’m not speaking of the quick thought that enters your head, that you talk your way around and justify your own line of bullshit.  I’m talking real conscience.  There’s never evidence of compassion, motive, reason, ‘ooh, I shouldn’t do this; what will happen to his family’; or whatever else you want to throw my way.  Nothing at all.  My thoughts center around execution, delivery, and escape.  Self preservation, baby.  Never underestimate the will to survive.  Especially with a mean sonofabitch like me.  So why do I do this, you ask. 

Mainly, it pays very well.  Plus, I get the bonus of ridding the world of many assholes.  If there were more of me around, there’d be quite a few happier people in the world.  But really, even more than the pay, or the removal of garbage, this is something I’m supposed to do.  Hell I was born to do this.  You know how you know something with such certainty that it can knock the wind out of you.  I knew this about myself when I was thirteen.  The day I watched my mother and father lose their lives over the wallet that my dad handed to the would-be murderer.  My dad gave him what he asked for and he got shot for it.  My mom’s screams were caught short by a bullet to the head.  I stepped into an alleyway and waited for the murdering fuck to clean up and show me home.  He caught a train and made his way to Sheepshead Bay.  The bastard lived on a boat.  I waited.  He drank heavily, left his TV on and fell asleep.  I crept on to the boat and looked around.  You might ask why I wasn’t upset about mom and dad.  I was, somewhere far away, but there was business first.  The time that I spent waiting for this dirtbag to fall asleep gave me what I needed to see myself clearly.  I knew then I was going to be an assassin.  A good one.  Highly desired, most wanted, but no one would ever know who I was, what I looked like, what I sounded like, nothing.  I had it pretty much figured out by the time I gassed up his boat and blocked the galley way.  A cigarette later, he died.  I could see him banging at the door of the galley.  He just about broke through and might have made it out, except that his boat and another nearby exploded.  I went home. 

The next day I had to deal with the police, social services, child welfare, and a whole bunch of other people.  That day I was sent to a foster home.  I was promptly beat up, and pretty good.  I tried to defend myself and fight back, but the boys were two years older and did I mention the word ‘boys’.  It was like tag team wrestling on the TV except that I wasn’t prepared for how much that stuff really hurt.  Like I said, I tried, but it only served to piss them off even more.  I waited, patiently.  You know the rest.  No, I can’t tell you how they died.  That would be too easy to trace. 

Here’s the rub.  I don’t gloat.  I don’t actually take pleasure out of the act.  My pleasure is in the process; the result, not the execution.  I don’t need to see you die.  Or hear your screams of anguish.  Quite frankly, I could give a shit about you or any repercussions, yours or mine.  If I want you dead or someone is willing to pay me handsomely to kill you, my friend, you are dead.  Nothing you can do about it.  I will find you, I will kill you, and I will go away, like the wind. 

How do I get paid.  That’s the beauty.  Cash deposits, off shore banks, nothing ever happens on the mainland.  50% before, 50% after.  And I always get paid.  I’ll let you figure that one out.  No job for less than a million the last ten years.  I’ve taken someone out for 25 million.  I’ve always been well paid.  I’m done though.  A man should finish at the top of his game.  I have the money, I have the time, the beach sounds good.  Golf, some scotch, a woman, a pack of smokes, casinos, restaurants and swimming.  For the rest of my goddamned life. 

Oh, I see.  You’re going to start in with me with all that fuckin’ psychobabble crap.  Your parents died when you were young, you were traumatized, you were abused, you led a sheltered life, introverted, always had trouble socializing, blah, blah, blah.  Let the sheep talk.  Elephant talk, baby.  Babble on.  I never had trouble socializing.  The problem was and still is, I don’t really find many people interesting.  Now why the fuck would I socialize with people I could care less about. 

My parents died when I was young, violently, you say.  Bear in mind, it didn’t affect me too badly that night.  I sincerely doubt I’m having trouble with it now or in the past.  Kids get beat up, get over it.  It happens.  Anyway, I exacted my price, I’m at peace with it all.  Yes, you can go on with the psycho trail, but then I might have to kill you to find any peace at all.  Trust me, I would, and then use your open mouth for an ashtray until it was full.

How do they get in touch with me?  Well, now, I suppose that’s an obvious question.  The answer’s not so obvious.  Remember, no one knows who I am.  Now, people know me, but it’s not the same.  Those people that know me, or of me, would be floored to know the truth, at least at first.  They would be like, ‘he was always so quiet, kept to himself, really a very nice man, so pleasant, oh my, I can’t believe he would do something like this’, Christ, I don’t even know why they show that shit on TV.  Some lady in curlers always saying the same thing.  For once would someone say, ‘No shit, I knew it, I goddamn knew there was something wrong with that boy.  His eyes always beady and shiftin’, like he was planning somethin’, motherfucker, HEY Martha, get your ass out here.  Did you hear that crazy fuck upstairs finally went off and killed twenty people in the McDonald’s around the block, didn’t I say it, I told you that boy was trouble.’  All of this while he’s scratching his unwashed hair and his probably-unwashed ass.  Just once.  I’d laugh my own ass off for two minutes if I ever heard that.  Anyway, back to the question.  My clients have never seen my face.  They never hear my actual voice.  The request is left in a newspaper classified.  Don’t bother asking which one.  I get to read it in the supermarket or in a convenience store.  I don’t even buy the damn thing.  Just a name.  How the client gets it in there is their problem.  They put a number in the ad.  They’re called through a secure line, buffered and channeled through myriad locations.  The voice is digitally altered.  It would take 3 minutes to trace my location with the best equipment.  The conversation last 15 seconds.  How much and where to deposit funds.  It might go something like this, ‘ Savant here’.

‘Oh, uh …What a nice day’.

‘5 million, Costa National, 3712453896728765’…the information is repeated… Click. 

Half of that number is deposited to my account within twelve hours.  The rest if and when I play it through.    I always refund an undone job.  That only happened once.  The Feds set me up.  They used the proper channels, they were given the info, the deposit was made, the target was big, at least in the crime world. 

I never set it up.  They didn’t tell me about their day, You’ve got to say what a nice day or what a nice evening.  Nothing happened.  That boss still lives by my good graces, that and the fact that no one ever presented me with a deal that didn’t stink..  It looked like I was an urban legend instead of a reality to these boys.  They could never prove that I actually existed.  They were given an account that never had anything in it except a safe deposit box that was attached to it.  The funds stayed there for a long time, account wasn’t good anymore.  Unclean.  I had plenty of them.  I guess I didn’t exactly refund them but the effect was pretty much the same.   

I’ve stayed local, meaning within the confines of our very large American nation.  Some previous clients have come looking for me.  The problem for them is that they are too emotional.  It clouds the reason and disrupts the rhyme.  The boys they sent looking for me had a job.  Remember, this is my passion.  I do this for the fun first, money second.  I removed them for free.  Everyone’s left me alone for a long time.  They must have realized a few key things along the way.  That I was kind of on their side; that I was a tool; that I would go after them and their families if they attacked me or so much as breathed badly in my direction, and that they were wasting their time.  Time better spent on their enemies, the ones they could see, the ones they could find.

            My apologies, it’s time to go to work.  Grabbing my rifle, I noticed the warmth of the wood from the sun.  It made me smile for a moment.  I love this feeling.  Yes, there he is, Doctor Gooding.  A true asshole.  I lined him up and pulled the trigger.  Something was wrong.  The gun didn’t feel right.  He kept walking.  I blinked.  I have never missed.  119 kills and not one miss.  I lined him up again and fired, the trigger felt too light.  His car lights blinked and he leaned down to open the door.  I popped another shot off.  He got in, started his car and drove off.

            I put my rifle down against the sill again.  I couldn’t imagine what the hell was wrong.  I thought through every part of it.  I true up my sights before every job.  I’m steady as usual.  He was less than 150 yards at a down angle of maybe 10 degrees.  No wind, not that it would affect the strike too much, if at all, from that relatively short distance.  I looked at my rifle.  It wasn’t my rifle.  Where was my rifle?

            ‘It’s alright, Mr. Savant.  It’s time for your medicine, anyway.  You can try to take out the doc tomorrow, when he comes back at 9:00.  I’m pretty sure your aim will be better tomorrow.’

            Henry was always such a nice young man.  Always very reasonable and very forgiving.  He made me feel better about what I was doing.  Something was wrong, though.  I could feel it, like the name of an actor you’ve seen ten times.  It’s there in the back of your head, but you just can’t spit it out.  I knew this much, I shouldn’t eat the pills.  I put the pills he gave me into the top of my cane and leaned my head against the window.  It, none of it, it just didn’t make any sense.  Why was I here?  Where is here for that matter?  Henry had said goodbye and I was alone again.  I couldn’t seem to remember a damn thing but I did realize something.  I would have to kill Henry soon.  He knew too much.

***

            “How’s Mr. Savant, Henry.  Still tryin’ to take out Gooding”.  Betty was a sweetheart of a nice lady.  Her coffee was almost as good as her, and that’s saying a lot.

            “Yeah, he’s okay, a little unnerved by today’s misses, but, he’s okay”.

            “There are days I wish he was the real thing, with a real gun.  Fuckin’ pain in the ass Gooding is sometimes.  Always with that mightier-than-thou attitude dripping from his every word”.  Betty always talked straight, sometimes with a little color.  I adored her.

            “I know, he can never talk to you normal-like.  Always with the bullshit”.  

            “We can wish can’t we”, she said.

I nodded, smiled and walked to my station.  I had to write my notes about the fifteen minutes I spent with patient 60711.  Gooding or one of the other docs would sign off on them later in the evening.  I took a minute to myself, putting my recorder down on the desk and went to get some of Betty’s excellent coffee. 

My thoughts came back to Savant as they usually did, lately.  He’s been with us less than a week.  The day they brought him in it was gray and raining.  He was wrapped in a blanket and cuffed, normal procedure.  It wasn’t necessary.  He was lucid, alert, and gentle.  He kept asking why he was being detained.  He had done nothing wrong.  The police had found him unconscious in Central Park, beat up, and apparently robbed since he had nothing in the way of a wallet or id on him, just a solid wood cane with silver trappings and his clothes.  All black, from the shoes to the gloves.  When he came to, he was babbling on about his commitments.  They joked about being committed, him that is.  They told him it was common practice to give someone a place to rest when they weren’t feeling well.  He agreed that he wasn’t feeling too good and left it at that.  He simply agreed. 

My eyes met his when they brought him through the doors of our unit.  Jimmy DeVantis, our big, muscular, mean-spirited security attendant, unlocked the doors and let the officers in with our new guest.  I remember that Savant just looked around, seemingly noticing and cataloguing every face.  The first thing that occurred to me was that this man didn’t belong here.  Then he locked eyes with me and I suddenly felt small.  Standing at 6’1’’ myself, most wouldn’t consider me a slight man, but damn, if I didn’t want to go somewhere and die at that very moment.  He looked right through me and I could feel every weakness exposed, every lie, every sin felt like it was on the table.  And hell,  I never did anything really bad.  After a moment of contact, his eyes subtly changed and he smiled warmly, nodded and continued looking around.  They led him to a chair and he sat without argument.  They removed the cuffs to which he replied, thank you.  A seemingly simple man of few words.  They gave him his cane.  He laid it across his lap and stayed motionless, almost melting into the background.  Most of the patients didn’t notice him at first, and all of them forgot about him inside of two minutes.

Coffee in hand, I made my way back to my desk and started writing.  I left my personal thoughts out of the report, sticking to the actual words spoken.  The recorder needed to be plugged in for a recharge by the time I was done.  I got back to my own thoughts on Savant.   

It was always odd that he was truly upset when he missed the kill on Gooding.  I mean to say that you could see the disappointment in his eyes, the way he shrugged his shoulders.  He didn’t get nuts on you and start screaming, defending his pride or his integrity.  He would get quiet and slowly shake his head.  The poor thing really thought his cane was his rifle.  He honestly believed he was Savant, the legendary assassin.  The problem was that we don’t know his real name.  He simply said, Savant, when we asked.  The legendary assassin?  Dr. Gooding almost laughed out loud.  He was such an asshole.  We looked through the different means of record-matching tools that we had at our disposal.  There was nothing to indicate that this man was ever born.  His prints didn’t match any known record, his photographs didn’t either.  Missing persons showed us nothing useful.  The only thing we knew about him was blood type: B positive.  I think he was around forty, maybe less.  We should have been able to find something, right?    

There was whole bunch of other bothersome things to me.  For one thing, how he did everything.  He really didn’t smoke, unless he wasn’t ‘working’.  The way he moved wasn’t like any of our typical patients.  I always thought of a cat when I would see him make his way across the rec room to use the bathroom.  Very silent, very graceful.  The drugs didn’t seem to affect him too much.  The way the cane would shoot up to his shoulder, his head would cock, the ‘trigger’ was pulled, and nothing moved.  Nothing.  I know it’s a cane, but you should see him do it before you laugh at me.  Yeah, Savant made me think sometimes.

He kept to himself, rarely interacting with anyone but me, the docs or the nurses.  Sweet as could be when he did.  He didn’t tell anyone but me about his job.  Gooding perused the notes quickly but never paid much attention.  But Savant was always polite, always courteous.  Honest, if you met him on the street, you wouldn’t know he was out of his mind.  Intelligent, seemingly well-read, piercing eyes, sharp features.  And the man was built like a six-foot carved piece of rock.  Push-ups and sit-ups.  Runs the perimeter of the rec room religiously, three, four, five times a day, ten laps minimum.  Two days ago he did over a hundred at a blistering pace. 

One of the patients messed with him one fine morning.  Savant waved him off.  The patient persisted, laying hands on Savant.  The bored look in the man’s eye changed drastically and quickly.  No words.  That patient was lucky to live.  I had never seen anyone do a triple tuck from the ground.  The poor bastard landed on his back and didn’t look to be breathing.  Savant didn’t even look his way after the throw.  Never said a word, before or after; the message was clear.  Everyone of our patients have given him a wide berth.

Gooding classified him as a standard schizophrenic, possibly exhibiting traits of a split personality and definitely prone to violence..  I always thought Gooding was too quick to make a judgment.  Worse yet, he never seemed to be open to a different opinion, making you, or anyone else who had the audacity to question him, feel like a complete moron.  Betty was right, and she would never have something so bad to say unless it were balls-on true. 

My personal belief is that we may have a classic case of amnesia.  I think he might be someone.  The more I thought about it, the more I started to believe he may be Savant, or, at least, someone like him.  Sometimes, patients transfer their innate abilities to another being and associate themselves with that being.  In a matter of hours, days, or weeks, they can become that person, whole-heartedly believing themselves to be someone else.  I was pretty confident that I was right, or at least partly-right.  The problem was how to prove it.  I finished my coffee and threw the cup into the trash.  When I looked up, Jimmy was standing there, smiling at me.

“Wanna smoke?”  Jimmy didn’t like to smoke alone.

“Sure, throw me a match”.  I like to indulge once in a while.

I lit the cigarette and blew a thick blue cloud into the air above my desk.  Jimmy asked me about the Steelers and their playoff chances.  I said, “I love Pittsburgh, but they better watch their asses on special teams.  New England knows how to capitalize on others mistakes.”

Amazingly, Jimmy agreed.  He said something about me knowin’ my shit.  My eyes went to his gun.  “Jimmy, would it be alright if we tried a little experiment”?

“Whatcha have in mind, Hankster”?  I hate it when he calls me that.

“I don’t want you take this the wrong way, Jimmy.  Would you be willing to give your gun to a patient, unloaded of course”?

Jimmy’s eyes got real small.  You could see the wheels trying to get going.  I helped him along.  “There’s a carton of smokes in it for you”.

“Make it two, and I’ve got to be there and you’ve got yourself a deal”.  He put his hand out and we shook on it.  Apparently, that was good enough for a ‘real man’ like Jimmy.  “Who’d you have in mind”?

“Savant.  I want to see how he handles a real gun”.

Jimmy stopped walking, worse yet, stopped talking.  “What’s the matter, Jimmy”?

“I don’t like that man.  Something weird about that fucker.  Can’t put my finger on it but I know I don’t like him”.

This was big coming from Jimmy, a real man’s man.  Jimmy stood a solidly built 6’4”, black as leather, mean as a feral cat, and ugly too.  He simply was not a man that you screwed around with unless you wanted the opportunity to know what your asshole tasted like.  And here he is, saying Savant scares him.  I almost laughed out loud except for the fact that I couldn’t blame the man.  I also reevaluated my opinion of Jimmy, from moron to simply not too bright, but definitely not stupid. 

“The gun’s going to be unloaded, right, Jimmy”?

“Right”.

“So what’s the worry.  You can take him down if he gets out of control”.

“I’ll lose my job if we get caught”.

“Oh, the only one around is Betty, and she would appreciate me being able to prove Gooding wrong.  Look if you don’t want to do it, I’m sure I can find a different way to test him out”.

“I sure would like those smokes”.  He was breaking.

“It’s your call, Jimmy.  The smokes are waiting at the 7-11.  I’ll pick them up on break if you want to do this”.

“Okay, come on, before I lose my nerve”.  Jimmy unloaded his .38 caliber pistol and put the bullets back into his belt.

I opened the door to Savant’s room.  He was leaning up against the window, exactly the way I had left him.  I unlocked the door.  He didn’t move as we came into the room. 

“Mr. Savant, hi, how are you doing.  Listen, I’d like for you to do something for me”.  He didn’t move.  “Are you okay, sir”.

“I’m fine, boy.  What can I do for you”?  He sounded different, stronger.

I nodded over to Jimmy, “Throw it to him”.  Jimmy complied, tossing the weapon at the lap of Savant.

Thinking back, I can honestly say I’ve never seen anyone move so fast in my life.  The gun, twirling in mid air, was caught in one hand, flipped over to the other, Savant flying through the air, used his left elbow to crush Jimmy’s solar plexus and the gun was butted squarely and violently into Jimmy’s head.  Jimmy went, pashoooo and uggghhh, crumpling to the ground.  Instantly, the gun's cylinder was open and Savant was kneeling down, loading bullets into it, one, two, three, four, five, six.  Flipped shut, Jimmy’s belt was unloosed, thrown around Savant’s waist and locked.  He expertly searched Jimmy and found his knife, wallet, another pistol in an ankle holster, and his keys.  He never looked at me.  I was in a shit load of trouble, starting with Savant right now, and if, somehow I got the hell out of this mess, with Gooding and the hospital administration.  Besides, Jimmy, if he ever woke up, was going to make damn well sure I knew what my asshole tasted like.

“Mr. Savant, please, you have to sit down, please, you’re not well…”

“I’m fine son.  Here’s how it really is.  You have two choices.  Help me and live, or die right now”.  He finally looked at me.  I suddenly felt like a pint of Haagen Dazs.

“OK, that’s a no-brainer”.

“Good”.

I interrupted him, “I need to die right now.  You see, I’m kind of already dead on a number of different levels, so you might as well finish me off”.

“Henry, I was going to do exactly that, until this happened.  Now I need you.  You are not going to die, at least not yet.  Do the right thing by me and you will live.   Your job doesn’t mean a thing to you right now.  I’ll make sure it doesn’t ever again.  Help me now and you will live to not regret it”.

He spoke with no emotion.  There was a commanding edge to his voice and a low throaty quality that told anyone with half a brain not to screw with him.  This had to be the coldest bastard on the planet.  And I believed him.  I knew he was ill, but all of my previous thoughts on this man came to me in a rush.  He didn’t look ill anymore.  His eyes were very sharp and he looked at me with the eyes of a coin appraiser who could care less about the coin he was examining.  I could see the truth behind his words, shit, I could feel it.  I sure as hell hoped I was right.  My choices stared at me, as did Savant.  I looked down at Jimmy, blood trickling out of his nose, mouth and left ear.  He said nothing else; hell of a salesman this guy would be, ‘buy it or die’.  I spoke up.

“Okay, those keys you took from Jimmy, one of them will open the first security door.  After that it’ll be up to me with the main security guys at the lobby”.  I was thinking it would be nice to take Betty out of here and disappear forever.  “You can’t leave here wearing those clothes”.  Savant was already removing Jimmy’s uniform.  “Okay, that’ll work, though Jimmy’s a little bigger than you”.

“I’ll worry about that, you worry about getting us off the premises, starting with the security door to this unit.  What about the pretty nurse you’re always ogling, Betty, isn’t it”?  He caught me off guard with that one. 

“Uh, I’ll go and talk to her while you change up”.

“Is that wise”?  I didn’t like what I was seeing in his eyes.

“I adore her.  She knows it and I guess you do too.  Don’t hurt her.  Might as well shoot me now if anything happens to her.”

“Options must be kept open.  Never get attached, Henry.  It’s one of the basic rules of the game”.

“What game”?

“My game”.  Savant gave me the impression he would kill his family to preserve himself.

“Yes, sir.  But I love her.”

“Then you will not excel at your endeavors”. 

“What endeavors”?

“Never mind.  Go and talk, be quick, and signal to me when conditions seem right to you.”

I went to leave and stopped.  I turned back to him, while he was removing Jimmy’s shirt.  “Is he dead”?

“He’ll live, though I suppose it’s good that he’s used to hospital food.”

The question I wanted to ask all along hesitated at my lips.

“Henry, what is it.  Fast boy, we don’t have all the time in the world.”

“How long, uh, how long have you, I mean….”

“Christ, Henry, what is it”?

“Are you better, I mean, do you remember who you are”?

“I thought everyone classified me schizophrenic.  Very good, Henry.  Sharp as I thought you might be.  There was something wrong, and it just wouldn’t let go of me.  When you left earlier, I stayed quiet and thought it out, real hard.  I emptied my thoughts and reconstructed everything that happened.  I questioned where I was, why I was here, how I had gotten here.  The gun was my cane, my cane was my gun. I figured it out. I started to remember what happened.  I also knew it was time to go.  Imagine, me in a psych ward.  I’m surprised you didn’t hear me laughing at myself.  Then you walk into my room with a gun.  Enough.   I’ll explain more after we’re out of here.  We’ll talk later.  Move son.  Go and talk to beautiful Betty”. 

“What happened to you?”

“Later.  Go and talk to your woman”.  It was not open to discussion.

He had Jimmy’s shirt on and damn if it didn’t fit, though a bit long.  The man had a huge upper body, small waist, and big legs.  He reminded me of a wide receiver.  I nodded, walked through the door and went to talk to Betty.

The door clicked behind me.  I turned and looked through the window of his door.  He had just put everything together and was throwing Jimmy’s gun belt back on when the door locked.  It occurred to me to block the door, bolt and call main security.  Savant’s face never changed.  He locked eyes with me and I could see he knew exactly where I was at in my head.  Betty called out behind me, “Henry, are you okay”?

I raised my hand behind me to signal I was alright.  Savant never took his eyes off of me.  He simply waited for me to decide.  God, he was awesome.  My decision was made quickly.  I mouthed to him, “You have the key.  Betty.”  I pointed over at her desk.  He raised his left hand.  The keys were in it and the key to his room was sticking out.  Winking, he finished the belt hookup.

I walked quickly to Betty.  “Hey, listen up.  And don’t talk, just listen.  Savant is better, like way better.  He took Jimmy out, and wants to escape.  We have to help him or we die”.  She looked at me like I belonged on the unit, but not the way I would have liked.

“What are you talking about?  Are you crazy?  Savant is better?  He took Jimmy out?  What does that mean?  And how the hell do you know that he’s better.  You aren’t in a position to make that decision”.  She was right, but a hard place was the only way to describe where I was at right now.

“Betty, I’m in no position to do anything but work with what I have.  Right now, crazy or not, that man is armed, and dangerous.  And trust me, unarmed he’s dangerous.  You may be right, I don’t know, but I do know this.  He will kill me, you and anyone else that gets in his way.  He’s leaving here no matter what.  He wants me to help him.  He said he’ll take care of me, I’ll never have to worry about my job again.  Betty, I know it’s nuts, but I don’t have any choice.  Shit, you should have seen the way he took Jimmy out.  Motherfucker is fast, deliberate and now he’s got a gun.  Look, we talked about him, and I’ve told you what I think. From the sound of it, I may have been right.  I don’t know what to make of all of it, but I’ll tell you this, I’m thinking he’s been kind of telling the truth, though he was confused, temporarily or whatever.  I don’t know the story, but I know we have to do this now.  It’s that or we are dead”.

She dead panned me.  “He told you he’s alright. Are you stupid?  You act like you never worked in a mental institution, Henry.  Of course he would tell you something like that.  Besides, he will not kill me, you or anyone else.  He just needs help”.  She reached for the phone.  I slammed her hand down.  “Ouch”.

“Wrong.  You want to die.”, I was losing patience, “  Too bad, it’s not your decision.”

“Henry Ciavullo, don’t ever talk to me like that or tell me what to do.  Fine, I’ll go and see about this maniac for myself”.  She stood up deliberately and quickly walked over to the door.  I ran after her.  She peeked in through the window of his door.  The door opened, she was grabbed by the left arm and she was gone in a blink of an eye. 

I got my keys out and fumbled for Savant’s door key.  The door opened and he invited me in.  Betty was on the floor, unconscious, I hoped. 

“Women”, he said, “Can we go now”.

“What the hell”.  My eyes were glued to Betty on the floor.

“Pressure point, she’s fine, can we go now”?  I looked at him expectantly and then back down at Betty.  She seemed fine.  Savant waited patiently.  “Does anything upset you, sir”, I asked him.

“Yes, Henry, you’re upsetting me.  We go now.  You can contact her later.  If she wants you she’ll come.   Deal with it, son.  NOW.”  It was the first time he ever raised his voice.

“Why do you want me to come with you”?

“Instinct.  I always trust it.  And it’s doing some talking to me right now”.  He fished through Jimmy’s pockets and came up with a Marlboro.  “God, these things reek”.  He threw the cigarette and then the pack down at Jimmy’s knees.  He pulled out one of his own and lit it, patiently waiting for me to make sense of everything.

“Where are we going to go”?

“Not your concern”.

“I think it is”.

“Think what you wish, you’re two seconds from meeting God if you keep up with the attitude”.

“Oh yeah, I guess I forgot.  Alright, I mean, you look pretty good in the uniform if you don’t mind me saying.  You can take the west exit, down the stairs, and leave the building into the Northwest parking lot.    I’m pretty sure that’s where Jimmy parks his car.  The cameras will just see another guard, going out the side for a smoke.  I’ll leave like I’m on break, going to town to get dinner, pizza or something.  I’ll ask the guards if they want any”.  He cut me off.

“Not bad, Henry, but it’s not going to happen that way”.  I didn’t like the look in his eyes before, I definitely didn’t like it now.  “Some people might have to die, Henry.  Then again, Jimmy here might be able to corroborate a kidnapping.  The problem is Betty, Henry.  Women”.

“You know, you always say ‘women’ like that.  Whatsamatta, you gay or something”?  I couldn’t believe I just said that.  He laughed at me or just out laughed loud, I don’t know which, but he was laughing pretty hard. 

“Good one, Henry.  Not what you said, the look on your face afterwards.  Precious.  No, Henry, I’m afraid that Betty is going to repeat to the police what you told her.  This is a bad risk, Henry.  Very bad.”

I looked at him with every bit of strength, every ounce of courage I could muster.  “Sir, you can not kill her.  I can’t allow it.  You’ll have to kill me first”.

“What’s your password”? 

“What”?

“You heard me.  What’s your access password”.

“Go fuck yourself”.  Apparently, I wanted to die.  I added, “Sir”.

He calmly walked over to Betty, grabbed her by the hair and looked at me meaningfully. “Now”.

I thought my options through quickly, and told him.  “Good boy”, was all that he said.  He let go of her gorgeous blond hair, and asked for my keys.  I gave them to him.  “What kind of Pontiac does Jimmy drive”?  This guy didn’t miss a thing.

“A Firebird, black, polished chrome wheels”.

“Your keys will be on the desk when I’m through.  Stay quiet and be cool.  You figure out the rest.  Good luck with Betty”.  He got to the door and turned back to me.  “You sure you don’t want to come”?

I had to think real hard.  I had no idea what was in store for me with this man, but it looked like I was going to live, at least for the next fifteen minutes.  The next docs would be here at 6:00 P.M. to do rounds.  I told him so.

“I know, Henry.  I know all the routines.  Which is why I’ve afforded you as much time as I have.  Do you want to come”?

I looked down at the ground.  I almost wished I had a can to kick.  Betty would probably want to kill me, Jimmy probably will kill me.  My only hope was that I could talk Betty into cooperating…

“My instincts were wrong”, is all I heard.  My head exploded with pain and my eyes filled with darkness.

***

  Well, you can imagine what I went through when I woke up.  I was out for something like 2 hours.  The doctors, with an intern, had opened the door to Savant’s room at 6:09 P.M. after searching the rooms, when they saw that neither myself, Betty or Jimmy were not where we were supposed to be.  They had frantically gathered Betty up, placed her on the bed and successfully roused her.  Eyes open, she looked around quickly, got her bearings and asked about Savant.  They told her that they were looking for him.  He would be caught.  She started going off about what I had said to her.  They interpreted it badly.  They tended to my wounds and to Jimmy’s.  Jimmy needed hospital time.  Lots of things were broken on his face and chest.

Me?  I had a lot of time to myself after that.  Betty thought I was an idiot.  I’m pretty sure I couldn’t argue with her.  Of course, I needed a new career since I was black-listed by the medical community.  They didn’t even wait for me to recover.  Right in my hospital bed, “You’ll never work again!!!”  I’m certain the exclamation points were implied.  I told them a bullshit story that I tried to stop him, which is why I was injured.  I think I understood why Savant hit me.  They ignored me, probably under advice from Dr. Gooding.  It might have been better for me if they had caught him, but, probably not.  The sheriff went off on how he would catch that “motherfuckering cockroach” and how he always gets his man.  It made me think of Yosemite Sam, when he said that.  The sheriff didn’t like me very much.  It must have been the snicker that I couldn’t resist when he said it. 

Every record concerning patient 60711 was deleted from the mainframe.  The only thing on record was in anyone’s head who met with him, except for the printout of the police report and the blood sample that we took from him.  The room was dusted for prints.  There weren’t any to be found.  Even my recorder was gone.  They found Jimmy’s car about 2 miles south of the hospital, just before the town.  The car was in perfect shape, keys under the seat.  I think the man liked the car.  Again, no prints.  He simply disappeared.  They questioned me about him, my reports that I wrote, what I thought, where might he go, did he ever say anything useful.  I gave them the story from a clinical point of view, leaving my opinions and certainly what Savant said to me, out of the discussion.  I simply concurred with Gooding and left it at that; there was a crazy, and now violent patient on the loose, you better find him.  Hell, no one was helping me, I certainly wasn’t going out of my way for them.  Besides Betty, Savant is the only person I liked out of the whole bunch of them. 

Pretty much everyone from work ignored me, except Jimmy.  A week after the escape, Jimmy calls my house.  He wanted his cigarettes.  I got them and dropped them off at the hospital that he was staying at.  Betty was there.  She took them without a word and dismissed me. 

“Tell Jimmy I said hi:”.

She went into his room without a word or a look.  I never saw her or anyone from work again.

I got home at dark. 

“Hello Henry”.

The voice of an assassin never leaves you.

“Hello, sir”.  I couldn’t see him in the shadows.

“How’s your head?”

“Did you have to hit me”?

“It was the only chance you had, besides me, but you knew that already”.

“Yes, yes I did”.

“Don’t waste time, mine or yours, Henry”.

“Yes, sir”.  I liked him. 

The silence was deafening as I waited for him to speak.  Finally, his cigarette burned as he took a drag.  You could hear the crackle of the burning tobacco.

“Did you learn anything”.  He said it more than asked it.

I thought for a second.  “Yeah, I suppose I did”.  He didn’t say anything.  I continued, “Women”, doing a pretty good imitation of his throaty voice.

“Good boy, Henry.  Some lessons hurt more than others.  Mine are going to hurt like hell”.  I didn’t say a word.

“Ready?”

I didn’t hesitate.  “Goddamn right”.

It sure was a nice night.  To learn how to kill someone.

***

RFS