Take The Reason Prisoner Part 15

Thornberry's face became almost human with a big smile. "Oh, yes, obviously."

"Could that energy he puts into escaping be channeled, led, educated--in some way--to constructive thinking? Put it this way: could Dalton be led to thinking about making a jail escape-proof?"

"A most excellent therapy," and Thornberry was actually beaming.

"General Bennington, I am beginning to have great hopes for our work together as we start to see more and more eye to eye."

"Let's go back to Clarens," Bennington said. "Son of wealthy parents, a good education, the only child in a family who seemed to have everything, including parents who loved both each other and the child--why does he kill, ask to be caught, and then hide so well?

"What therapy does your science have for him, Dr. Thornberry?"

Thornberry's lip-pursing again made his face a skeleton's.

"There are areas of human behavior--"

Bennington observed that Scott and Mosby had turned away from the conversation to the immediacies of patrol distribution. Scott was being eloquent on how lighting cut down crime and Mosby was a.n.a.lyzing the idea in terms of house-to-house combat at night under slow-dropping flares.

For further insurance of privacy, Bennington pulled Thornberry into the corner of the room most removed from the others.

"Doctor, let's forget about Clarens for a moment. I want to talk about Judkins."

"Yes, general."

"How did you hypnotize him? And don't hand me any of that stuff about him being sensitive because of his job."

Thornberry smiled. "You've seen too many conditioned men, and in a way I'm surprised that I got past Chief Scott with my ... General Mosby should have been more alert, too.

"You're right, it was his skin, not his job."

"I'm still puzzled."

"I won't go into the physical structure of the man, his character as revealed by his choice of profession, and so on. Briefly, he is hyper-sensitive to the thought of physical pain, that's all. So I gave him a simple choice. Talk to us in such a way that what he said could never be used against him, or go for a ride with you, Chief Scott, and General Mosby.

"This is very odd, a fact I must further check into, that your name frightened him most."

"_You_ threatened someone with violence!"

Thornberry sniffed. "It was no threat. I knew the man and simply appealed to him in the proper way. Then with the spray of cannabis indica that I carry, I speeded his willingness--"

"Marihuana!"

"Please don't be so shocked!" and Thornberry was horrified that Bennington should be shocked. "The prescription I use is a carefully compounded medical dosage specifically prepared to promote suggestibility...."

"Doctor, I am not in the least suggesting that you would use any method or drug not thoroughly commended by your profession.

"In addition, I am delighted beyond expression that you found some way to learn what we needed from Judkins.

"But, just as I was surprised that your profession did find a use for a drug previously condemned, I now want to be surprised in another way:

"_What can you do for someone like Clarens?_"

Thornberry's lips came together and his cheeks began to pull in.

Bennington resigned himself to hearing again the phrase, "There are some areas of human behavior--"

"_Car 17, at M dash 9, Code Two Zero, times two. Standing by for instructions._"

Bennington turned to watch Chief Scott's big fore-fingers travel a line from the side and a line from the top that brought them together on the big map. "Signs of breaking and entering, down on Hickory, where it's all big warehouses."

Thornberry leaped to the chief's side. "Lonely at this time of night?

Dark? Not too many people?"

"Right on every count," Scott said. "Only a few night watchmen."

"This should be carefully checked," and Thornberry started for the door.

Scott turned to the dispatcher. "Tell them just to keep the place under observation until I get there."

There was an odd eagerness about the chief, odd until Bennington remembered Scott's grim a.n.a.lysis of Clarens' behavior, the chief's hope that Clarens would resist arrest.

_And why do I now recall that time in Burma when I followed the wounded tiger into the cave?_

_What was I thinking of at the time?_

Thornberry had disappeared into the corridor, but for once even the prospect of immediate action was not enough to get the impetuous Mosby out the door ahead of Scott.

_Was I thinking of mercy, that I could not let a wounded beast which could not destroy itself live with continual pain? Thornberry would never agree, but Clarens is certainly both wounded and incapable of self-destruction._

Thornberry was already seated in the back of the car. Mosby was ready to seat himself in the front, Scott was opening the door to slide in behind the driver's wheel, but Bennington did not change his steady pace.

_Retribution and punishment, because the tiger had killed human beings? No, no and never no, for these are worthless without understanding by the person upon whom they are visited. A baby understands not the reason why, but only the whack across its b.u.t.tocks when its fingers or its life are in danger, and that action is thence forward "reject"; but Clarens is not a baby and a baby is not a tiger, with all three having only this in common, that 'don't do this' is a mystery...._

Bennington seated himself beside Thornberry in the rear of Scott's sedan, more aware of his thoughts than his movements.

For a moment the whine of the turbine was high, the gleam of the headlights low, then they were on their way.

Hickory Street was a fast three-minute run from the police station.

"Nothing but warehouses," Scott said. "We're a big trans-shipment center."

The narrow, one-way streets and the broad-shouldered bulk of the big buildings emphasized what the chief had said. The railroads and the rivers were still the most economical way to ship the s.p.a.ce-taking stuff, coal, steel, grain. Harrisburg was a crossroads where the east-west and north-south main lines met, with a natural growth of the long warehouses at the intersection.

Scott spun the driver's wheel to the left and cut the car lights.

"Hickory Street."