The Inner Circle

27

When I was in tenth grade, there was a kid in our class-Weird Warren-who used to be able to bend down his ear, and keep it down, so he’d look like an elf. Most of my classmates did their usual teasing, knighting him with the nickname. But Clementine-she said it so nicely I’ll never forget it-she asked him if he could grant her three wishes.

Pounding the faded red button with the heel of his palm, the St. Elizabeths guard raises the gate arm, allowing me to drive past the guardhouse. I told him I was here to pick up records for the Archives. With my government ID, it was enough to send me toward the main security check-in and onto the property, a 350-acre piece of land that’s encased by a ring of tall black metal gates.

As I head up the hospital’s poorly plowed road and scan the parking lot that sits across from the main five-story brick building, Clementine’s cab is long gone. She’s inside, probably already with Nico. I have no idea what her three wishes would be today. But if I had the chance to get even two minutes with my dead dad, I know what at least one of my wishes would be.

As I kick open the car door in the parking lot, a blast of winter air stings my face, but before I get out I reach down and pull out the copy of Entick’s Dictionary that’s tucked underneath the driver’s seat. Tot’s idea. Based on this morning, Khazei isn’t just asking questions anymore-he’s circling for a kill. I still can’t tell if what he really wants is the book or me, but either way, the last thing we need is to have this lying around the building. Still, that doesn’t mean I can just leave it in the car.

For a moment, I think about hiding it in my briefcase, but if I do that, I risk security here rummaging through it. No. If this book is as important as we think it is-if Orlando really died for it-I need to keep it close.

Stepping outside and heading across to the building, I tuck the book under the back of my jacket and carefully slide it into the back of my slacks. It fits-with most of the pages gone, it’s just the covers. I take a fast glance over my shoulder to make sure I’m alone. But as I look up, standing on one of the second-floor balconies is a pale bald man with no eyebrows.

I strain a smile, even as I pick up my pace.

He glares down. But his expression never changes. I don’t think he even sees I’m here.

For a moment, I think about just waiting out here for her. But I don’t slow down.

As I finally reach the front, the doorknob gives with barely a twist. The cold has definitely eased up, but a pitiless chill climbs my spine. According to Clemmi, this is the mental hospital that holds not just Nico, but also John Hinckley, the man who shot Ronald Reagan. Why the hell’s the front door unlocked?

I push the door inward, revealing a 1950s waiting room decorated in a pale drab green. Straight ahead, a thin guard who looks like David Bowie circa 1983 sits at an X-ray and metal detector also stolen from the same era.

“C’mon in-only about half our patients bite,” a woman’s voice calls out. She laughs a silly puffy laugh that’s supposed to put me at ease. On my left, standing inside a thick glass booth, is a second guard-a female guard with a bad Dutch-boy haircut and great dimples.

“You must be Mr. White, correct?” She got my name from when I checked in at the guardhouse. “Relax, Mr. White. They keep the doors unlocked so that the patients feel they have more freedom. But not that much freedom,” she says with the puffy laugh, pointing at a thick steel door that looks like a bank vault: the real door to get inside.

“Um… great,” I blurt, not knowing what else to say.

“So how can we help you, Mr. White?” she asks as I realize she’s one of those people who says your name over and over until you want to eat poison.

“Actually, it’s Beecher. I’m here from the National Archives. Anyhow, we were thinking of doing an exhibit on the history of St. Elizabeths-when it was run by the government and founded to help the insane… then converted in the Civil War to help wounded soldiers… It’s just a great part of American history-”

“Just tell me what time your appointment is and who it’s with.”

“That’s the thing,” I tell the woman behind the glass. “They told me to come over and that I should take a quick tour of the campus.”

“That’s fine, Beecher. I still need a name to call first.”

“I think it was someone in Public Affairs.”

“Was it Francine?”

“It might’ve been-it was definitely a woman,” I bluff.

She lowers her chin, studying me through the fingerprint-covered glass.

“Something wrong?” I ask.

“You tell me, Beecher-you have no appointment and no contact name. Now you know the population we’re trying to help here. So why don’t you go back to the Archives and set up your meeting properly?”

“Can’t you just call the-?”

“There is no call. No appointment, no call.”

“But if you-”

“We’re done. Good day,” she insists, tightening both her jaw and her glare.

I blink once at her, then once at David Bowie. But as I turn to leave…

The steel door that leads upstairs opens with a tunk.

“-sure it’s okay to go out here?” Clementine asks as she walks tentatively behind a man with salt-and-pepper buzzed hair and chocolate brown eyes that seem too close together. At first, the gray in his hair throws me off-but that bulbous nose and the arched thin eyebrows… God, he looks just like the video on YouTube.

Nico. And Clementine.

Heading right for me.