When She Was Bad

3

Pender parked the rent-a-car at the curb. The front doors of the Institute were open, but the grand lobby was largely deserted, and a security guard with Elvis sideburns now sat behind the reception desk. “Evening,” he said.

“Good evening,” said Irene; Pender nodded.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, I need to…Well, to…“To what? Irene found herself wishing she’d thought this out a little more carefully on the way over. “Is Dr. Corder available, by any chance? I know it’s-”

The guard tapped a few strokes on a keyboard hidden beneath the high counter. “Sorry, he signed out an hour ago,” he said un-helpfully; your move, read his expression.

“All right, well, here’s the thing,” said Irene, then paused, momentarily appalled. Here’s the thing? She thought: how very glib! She soldiered on. “My name is Irene Cogan. Dr. Irene Cogan. I’m a psychiatrist.”

“Unh-hunh?” the guard grunted, with a rising inflection, as if to say, go on, this ought to be good.

“One of my patients-my former patients-is a patient here now,” she went on, trying not to sound quite so much like a potential customer herself. “Her name is Lily DeVries-is there any chance I might be able to see her?”

He consulted the computer again, shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t seem to find you on the list.”

“It’d only be for a second. I just want to-”

He cut her off. “Sorry. My orders are that all visitors have to be approved in advance by the patient’s doctor.”

“I understand,” said Irene. “But here’s the…“Whoops, she thought, and tried again. “Here’s the situation: I have some important information about Lily that her doctor needs to know.”

“And her doctor is…?”

“Dr. Corder is handling her case personally.”

“Then you should probably call him in the morning, because there’s nothing I can do for you tonight.”

“Oh, sure there is,” said Pender pleasantly but firmly; they were the first words he’d spoken since they’d entered.

“And you are?”

“E. L. Pender, Special Agent Emeritus, Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He was, of course, counting on the guard having no idea what emeritus meant. “And what you can do for us,” he continued, without raising his voice, “and for yourself, assuming you’d like to keep your current position, or ever hold another job in the security industry, is get on the horn to whoever’s in charge of this facility at the present moment, and get him or her down here asap-that’s alpha sierra alpha papa, as in immediately, toot sweet, and pronto, do you copy?”

“Sure, whyn’t you say so in the first place?” grumbled the guard, turning his back to the visitors and picking up the telephone.

“Very impressive,” whispered Irene.

Pender winked. “Well, you know what Harry Truman said when he gave the order to drop the bomb on Hiroshima: ‘Sometimes you just have to get their attention.’”