The Man Who Wasn't All There by David Handler (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

The middle of the three Suburbans was driven by another ex-Green Beret wearing aviator shades. Someone whom I couldn’t quite make out sat alone in the back seat. They remained inside of their vehicle as two more bodyguards wearing camouflage pants, black crewnecks and shoulder holsters stepped out of the rear vehicle, scanning the area behind them for any potential danger. All of them were young, as in no more than thirty.

I approached the lead guard, his German Shepherd snarling at me as I got closer. ‘I have a somewhat timid basset hound in the house. Would it be possible for you to keep your dog in the car?’

He sorted through my question. ‘You telling me he’s going to scare your dog?’

‘That’s the general idea.’

‘Sure, no prob. In the car, Pinkie,’ he commanded the Shepherd, which immediately jumped back in the Suburban.

‘His name is Pinkie?’

‘Yeah, what of it?’

‘Kind of a wussie name, isn’t it?’

He raised his granite chin at me. ‘What’s wussie about it?’

‘Not a thing. It’s a fine name. Truly.’

He turned to the middle car and nodded. The driver in aviator shades got out, opened the back door and out stepped the richest man in the entire state of Connecticut.

Michael Talmadge could not have been more differently proportioned than his short, roly-poly brother. He was a tall, gaunt, stooped man who looked at least ten years older than Austin and moved very slowly and unsteadily as he started across the courtyard toward me. Possibly the permanent hearing loss he’d suffered when his kid brother shot him in the left ear with a pellet gun had also affected his balance. He wore no hearing aid, or at least none that was visible. Michael was not exactly the sort of flashy jet-set billionaire whom TV viewers had come to expect lately from gorging on Robin Leach’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The drab gray suit he wore shouted J.C. Penney’s – with at least five years of wear in it. It also shouted that he’d lost weight. The shoulders sagged, the collar rode up in back and his trousers were baggy in the seat. As he made his way closer to me I noticed that the collar of his white button-down shirt hung loose around his neck, as if he needed to start buying a size smaller. Not to mention more often – the white had a yellowish tinge to it and the collar was fraying. His black necktie was one of those pre-knotted clip-on ties that young boys wear. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a grown man wearing one. As he continued to make his way slowly toward me I was struck by how monochromatic Michael Talmadge was. It was difficult to tell where his ashen-gray complexion left off and his limp, ashen-gray hair began. His eyes were gray. If he were to smile I had no doubt his teeth would be gray, too. But I doubt he’d smiled in a long, long time. He was much too frightened. So frightened that he trembled visibly.

He looked at the mudroom door with dread. ‘I’m to go in there?’ he asked the lead bodyguard, his voice thin and reedy.

‘Correct, Mr Talmadge,’ he responded. ‘I’ve been assured that there are three state policemen in there and one former state policemen, all of them armed.’

Michael Talmadge didn’t bother to introduce himself to me as I led him into the kitchen through the mudroom. Didn’t so much as look at me. Merely sat down with the others, positioning himself at the far end of the table so that his good ear, the right one, would be able to take in the conversation.

The governor’s special envoy, Colin Fielding, who was there but not there, said, ‘Mr Talmadge, this is Stewart Hoag, ex-husband of Merilee Nash, the movie star. It seems Austin showed up here today and got rather nasty.’

Michael gave me a brief nod as he sat there, trembling. ‘So he’s on the warpath again, is he?’ he said to no one in particular.

‘He’s been on the warpath for several days, sir,’ Deputy Superintendent Mitry said. ‘He’s adopted a new guise as an auxiliary policeman, complete with a refurbished cruiser and a uniform of sorts, and has exhibited confrontational behavior toward several townspeople.’

‘Is he armed?’ Michael asked, his voice quavering.

‘He’s carrying a weapon, though Resident Trooper Conley made sure the firing pin was removed. We don’t believe he presents a danger in that specific regard, but I’m afraid he has pulled over a young lady and subjected her to physical and verbal harassment, and now he’s crossed over the line into potential celebrity stalking. He also threatened Mr Hoag.’

‘And he’s failed to show up for his last two mandatory therapy sessions,’ Annabeth McKenna pointed out.

‘How do you intend to proceed?’

‘For starters,’ Captain Rundle said, ‘we’ll keep a trooper stationed at the foot of the driveway here just in case he decides to come back.’

‘He won’t come back,’ Michael said with gloomy certainty. ‘He’ll head for the old family ruins up on the mountain. We’ll find him camped out up here. My security team and that big attack dog of theirs …’

‘Do you mean Pinkie?’ I asked him.

He waved me off like I was a house fly buzzing in front of his ashen face. ‘They’ll track him and reel him in within twenty-four hours. It’s what they’re trained to do, and they’re very good at it.’ He glanced at Annabeth McKenna. ‘You’ll be informed when they’ve got him and can bring him home for treatment. You’ll be ready for him?’

‘I’ll be ready,’ she assured Michael. ‘My first priority is to get him back on his medication. Then he and I will need numerous sessions together before I can determine if he will stabilize. If I’m not convinced that he can, then we’ll have to hospitalize him at McLean again. But it’s my hope that he’ll settle down and feel grounded again. On several occasions he has.’ To me she added, ‘I’ve always believed