Robert Bloch's Psycho Read online

  Nurse Marie was talking to him, but he tried not to listen to her. If he listened too closely or, even worse, if he tried to respond to her, to thank her for feeding him, or to tell her that the meat loaf was good or he liked the cake, Mother would get mad and yell at him. He hated it when she did that. It was too quiet in here, and there wasn’t anywhere else he could go to get away from her.

  Nurse Marie put down the plastic spoon and picked up the paper napkin. She touched it to Norman’s mouth, dabbed either side of it, then wiped it. It felt good when she did that, when he felt her fingers through the thin paper trace across his lips as though he were kissing them, and when they were just under his nose he inhaled, trying to get the smell of her flesh into his nostrils. He did it again now, and there was an audible sniff, which he hoped Nurse Marie hadn’t noticed, and then …

  Bitch.

  Norman froze. He stopped chewing and listened, fearing the worst.

  “Norman?” he heard Nurse Marie say. “Is anything wrong?”

  In spite of himself, he was about to answer, to open his mouth full of carrots and tell her, even though he knew that would be a big mistake. But it was already too late.

  Yes, Norman … is anything wrong?

  Mother. She was angry. She knew that Nurse Marie’s wiping of his lips had made him have bad thoughts. She knew. Mother knew everything.

  Is anything wrong, Norman? Why don’t you tell the bitch? Tell her how much you like having her touch you! Maybe you could dribble in your lap and see if she would wipe it up! You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you dirty boy!

  Stop it, Mother. Please.

  Then you stop thinking that way, Norman. It was those kinds of thoughts that made you kill that other girl, wasn’t it? You couldn’t have her in your dirty way, so you had to kill her, isn’t that right?

  No, Mother! You killed her, not me!

  You wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t wanted to, Norman. Don’t you blame me.

  “Norman?” he heard Nurse Marie ask again. “Aren’t you hungry anymore? Have you had enough to eat?”

  Norman didn’t answer, but he started to chew again. He chewed the carrots, and the crunching sound was loud inside his head, loud enough to drown out Mother, and he swallowed.

  Crunch away, but I know what you’re thinking, boy. I always know.

  It was only a whisper in his head, but he heard it clearly. He was finished eating now. He thought Nurse Marie had said something about chocolate cake, and he liked chocolate cake, but he didn’t want Mother to get mad again.

  Mad.

  That was it, wasn’t it? Mother had gone mad and killed the girl, and Norman had let her. He tried not to think about it, because his thoughts were never his own. So instead he thought about books he had read when he lived at home with Mother. He let the eyes of memory roam over the spines on the bookshelves in his little bedroom, and there were Von Hagen’s Realm of the Incas, Murray’s The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, Ouspensky’s A New Model of the Universe.

  They were books that had expanded his horizons beyond the house and the motel, books that made him think there were things beyond his knowing, that magic could exist in the world, and that people who seemed unimportant and powerless could be stronger than anyone could imagine. Curses could be cast, spells woven, the dead brought back to life.

  And that last he had done, hadn’t he? Mother …

  In brief seconds, Norman had a nightmare vision of an open grave, an open casket illuminated by the glint of a flashlight and the full moon, a face, once loved and dreaded, now sunken in, hollowed out, with pits for eyes, lips curled back, yellow teeth grinning.

  He had been mad too, hadn’t he? He must have been to have done what he did.

  He forced his mind back to the bookshelves, and there were the books on taxidermy, but better not to think of them. No, there on the bottom shelves, beneath Huysmans’s Là-bas and de Sade’s Justine … those few books without names on the spines, the ones he would page through when Mother was sleeping, those with the pictures that made him feel …

  But no. Better not look at those either. Mother was never sleeping here.

  Norman …

  Was that her again?

  Norman, do you want …

  Mother? Or …

  “… some cake?”

  Nurse Marie. Oh, God, yes, Nurse Marie. And he did want some cake, in spite of Mother. He opened his mouth, hoping that Mother wouldn’t speak aloud out of it.

  * * *

  Marie Radcliffe finished putting the last bite of chocolate cake into Norman’s mouth, then efficiently wiped his lips and chin one final time. “There now,” she said as she stood and picked up the tray, “that was good, wasn’t it?”

  “He liked that cake,” said Ben Blake from where he was standing against the padded wall, his arms folded. He smiled as he watched Norman, and the smile got wider when he looked at Marie.

  “There’s extra back in the kitchen,” Marie said, “if you boys are hungry later.” Giving them both a nod, she left the cell with the tray.

  Ben and Dick O’Brien got on either side of Norman Bates and lifted him so that he stood, then positioned him over the bed and let him sit. “There you go, Norman,” Ben said. “We’ll turn the lights off, and you can go to sleep whenever you like.”

  They left the cell, making sure the door was locked behind them, then Dick pressed a switch that turned off the lights inside. Ben slid back a several-inch-wide slot in the door so that the light from the hall would provide Norman with the equivalent of a night-light should he need it, and together the two attendants walked down the hall toward their next charge.

  “Got ten minutes,” Dick said. “Grab a smoke?”

  “Sure,” Ben replied. “Maybe a coffee too.”

  There was no one else in the break room. They got two coffees from the machine, lit their cigarettes, sat, and looked through the wide windows. It was already dark outside. The time change had occurred a week earlier, stealing another hour’s worth of sunlight, and the moon shone upon the fenced-in stretch of lawn that was used as an exercise yard for the patients. On the other side of the chain-link fence that was topped by concertina wire, pine trees grew so thickly that they smothered the moonlight as soon as the beams touched them.

  “Halloween’s coming,” Ben said. “Your kids excited?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Dick said with a chuckle and a plume of smoke. “Gettin’ their costumes ready for trick-or-treat. I told Marge they just oughta wear the outfits the patients wear here—hard to think of anything scarier than some of these freaks.”

  “That’s the truth,” Ben said. “Tough to believe, looking at some of these guys, that they did what they did. Bates, for example.”

  “Yeah. Seems gentle as a kitten when Marie feeds him. But when you think about what he did—not just killing those people, but digging up his mother and … Jesus.”

  “Pretty sick,” Ben said. He took another puff. “I know I’d behave if Marie fed me.”

  “Aha. I thought your mind wasn’t just on your work when she’s around. You should ask her out.”

  “I did. We have a date next weekend.”

  “Well, good for you, Benny boy. She’s a good-looking woman. And nice too. Sometimes I think she’s too nice for this place. You never know when these characters are gonna explode.” He inhaled deeply and let the smoke come out, watching it as it burst against the window. “I always think they go a little funny this time of year. Maybe it’s Halloween, or the weather, I don’t know.” He paused, then said softly, “Maybe it’s the ghosts.”

  “Sure.”

  “Seriously. You’ve heard the stories.”

  “Ah, Dick, you get those stories around any old building, especially one that’s got a history like this.”

  “Yeah, but there were ghost stories way back when it was the Ollinger Sanitarium,” Dick said. “The patients saw ghosts all the time.”

  “Maybe that’s why they were in a sanitarium. Look, our pati
ents see things, don’t they? But did you ever see any of the things they do?”

  “Okay, you got a point. Still, where there’s smoke—”

  “There’s less than a minute left of smoke before we get going.” Ben laughed, then sucked down the last half inch of his Lucky and butted it out in the metal ashtray. “Finish that smoke and down that coffee.”

  Dick emptied the contents of the cardboard cup down his throat and extinguished his Camel. “Yeah, time to feed the next nut…”

  2

  Myron Gunn had the Devil in him again. He had wanted so badly to give that evil bastard Norman Bates more than a piddling head bump. Truth be told, what Myron really wanted to do to Norman wasn’t very Christian, and it wasn’t something that he could tell Jesus in the quietness of his heart or even tell Pastor Oley Crowe of the First Baptist Holiness Church. Neither one of them would appreciate the details.

  The problem was that now Myron Gunn had a meanness in him. His daddy, rest his soul, had said he had the Devil in him when he got this way, but Myron knew that wasn’t true. It was a meanness due to seeing injustice and not being able to do anything about it. If Jesus hadn’t been able to drive the moneychangers from the temple, even he would’ve had that kind of meanness in him and would’ve had to do something about it.

  It just made Myron so mad sometimes to see these monsters treated like they were staying at the Ritz. Take Norman Bates. That bastard didn’t need special treatment, all that sweet talk and chocolate cake—he needed bread and water and daily whippings to drive Satan out of him once and for all. At the very least he needed a smack upside his head like Myron had tried to give him before Reed walked in on them.

  And now Myron was left with the meanness inside and no patients to work it out on. Fine, he’d just do what he often did when he had some meanness to get out of him. And he straightened his collar, smoothed back his blond hair streaked with gray, and headed for the nurses’ station.

  * * *

  Head Nurse Eleanor Lindstrom was sitting in her small office, going over the daily nurses’ reports that chronicled anything out of the ordinary. It was seven thirty, there were blessedly few incidents, all the nighttime meds had been doled out, and she was looking forward to getting home, having vodka with some lime juice, and watching The Real McCoys, My Three Sons, and The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show. That Tennessee Ernie was a good-looking man, and by that time she’d have enough vodka inside her that she could imagine snuggling on the couch with old Ern’ while he sang to her.

  She had just slapped the thin report folder shut when there was a knock on her office door. “Shit,” she muttered, wondering what-the-hell problem was going to keep her from her drink and shows. “Yes?” she said, and the door opened to reveal Myron Gunn standing there, a thin smile on his face.

  “Had a question for you,” Myron asked in his deep bass voice that sounded sandpapered by whiskey and cigarettes, though Myron neither drank nor smoked, to Eleanor’s knowledge, since she’d never smelled booze or tobacco on his breath.

  “Yes?” Eleanor said again, hoping, but trying not to smile, trying to remain professional.

  “Think there might’ve been some inappropriate activity in the laundry,” Myron said. There was a little flame in his eyes, and Eleanor felt a flame lick up in her as well. “I’d like to show you, see what you think. If you have a minute.”

  “Of course,” she said, and stood up, following Myron out past the nurses’ station into the hall. Two nurses on the evening shift were talking to each other, barely looking up as Myron and Eleanor walked by.

  Myron led Eleanor to a stairwell, and they went down two flights to the basement, where the laundry was located. Laundry workers finished at five, so no one was there now. The laundry was all clean, and the carts would be wheeled up to the wards in the morning, where the nurses would change the bedding and give the patients clean uniforms. Now, all those clean, soft sheets were lying on pallets, ready to be loaded into the carts.

  Myron stopped walking next to a pallet, turned, and faced Eleanor. He looked angry. “What is it?” she said.

  “Reed. He saw me … disciplining Norman Bates.”

  Eleanor felt the anger seep from Myron Gunn like a hot wave. It excited her, because she knew what his anger would lead to if she stoked the fires correctly.

  “Skinny little bastard,” she said, moving closer to Myron. “What does he know? He doesn’t realize what you have to deal with every single day, the strength you have to show to tame these monsters.” She put her hands on his upper arms, and could feel the corded biceps beneath the fabric of his shirt. “He could never do that. All he does is talk, just talk…”

  “That’s right,” Myron said. “He couldn’t do a thing, one of these guys tried to mess with him. Little sissy boy, he’d just cry and curl up like a ball. You gotta be mean to deal with them.”

  “And strong,” Eleanor said, moving her body against his. “God, Myron, you’re so strong…”

  And then his hands were cupping her face, forcing her head to his, crushing his mouth on hers, and she let herself be pulled down, down onto the clean white sheets …

  * * *

  Several minutes later, he was still lying on top of her, the meanness gone out of him. Her womanly body, firm yet soft where it mattered, supported him the way that his bony wife’s never had, and she seemed to have no trouble breathing, even with his weight on her chest. She was as strong as he was, and that was saying something.

  He propped himself on his elbows and kissed her, as much from affection as from duty. Eleanor understood him in ways his wife never could, and he appreciated her, the way she allowed him to take out his meanness on her, the way she listened when he talked, told him what he needed to hear, gave him what he wanted when he wanted it.

  But now was the dangerous time, when he felt as vulnerable as he ever did, when she would suggest how good it would be if they were together all the time, when she would hint, and hint only, God bless her, that it was easier in these modern times to end a loveless marriage.

  What she didn’t understand, and what he’d tried to explain to her, was that once a man took a woman in the sight of God, he couldn’t put her away from him. The Bible said not to do that, and Myron didn’t have any intention of disobeying God’s laws. Sure, there was that commandment about adultery, but Myron thought that God surely knew what his marriage was like, how he and Marybelle hadn’t had relations in nine years, and that a man needed certain things.

  Myron had never been with a whore, but when, seven years earlier, he’d sensed that Eleanor Lindstrom’s needs were just as great as his own, he’d made an arrangement with Jesus. If he honored his marriage by staying with Marybelle, then Jesus would look the other way when he found ease with Eleanor. And he would honor that arrangement by working even harder to bring whatever justice he could to these truly evil men around whom he worked. Thank God that Eleanor, his secret lover, felt the same way about these satanic creatures that he did.

  But now that he had found ease and gotten that meanness out, it was time to part, before he said something to Eleanor that he’d regret and that might haunt him later. Just as he pushed himself off of her, there was a loud clunk from a dark corner, and Eleanor stiffened under him.

  “What was that?” she whispered. “Somebody there?”

  “Relax,” Myron said, getting to his feet. “Just a heat pipe—no door over there. Nobody’s here.”

  Eleanor sat up and readjusted her clothing. “Sometimes this place … at night, y’know?”

  “What?” Myron said, zipping up.

  “Oh, the stories. As long as you’ve been here, you must have heard them.”

  “Sure, I’ve heard them all, and I don’t believe a one. I’ve been all over this hospital, all hours of the day and night, and never saw or heard a thing that I couldn’t explain. No ghosts here.”

  Eleanor stood, smoothed down her dress, and ran a hand through Myron’s hair. “I wouldn’t even be afraid of ghosts,
as long as you were around.”

  “Who needs ghosts when you’ve got a building full of devils,” Myron said. Eleanor started to laugh, and Myron looked at her. It was a hard look that told her he wasn’t joking, and her laughter stopped.

  * * *

  Three floors above, in the office of Dr. Isaac Goldberg, superintendent of the state hospital, an opera recording was playing on the console, and Dr. Felix Reed was sitting otherwise alone in the room. Reed thought it might be Verdi, but he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t heard anything he recognized since he entered.

  Judy Pearson, Dr. Goldberg’s personal secretary, had told Reed to make himself comfortable, and that Dr. Goldberg would be there soon. He had apparently gone to the staff dining room, as he occasionally did, to eat and mingle with the evening shift. Judy, a girl in her early twenties without any personality that Reed could detect, offered him coffee, which he accepted.

  As he sipped it and listened to (maybe) Verdi, he checked the clock on Goldberg’s desk against his own watch. It was five minutes past eight on each instrument, and Goldberg had asked Reed to be there at eight. The tardiness was typical of Goldberg, and Reed expected it. Still, it would never do to be late himself. Goldberg demanded punctiliousness from all his underlings.

  So Reed sat and listened to opera and looked around the office. Goldberg had several symbols of his faith displayed. A brass, seven-branched menorah sat on one of the many bookcases that covered the walls, and a framed Star of David made of intricately inlaid polished stones hung between the windows behind the desk.

  Reed stood and browsed the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, as he usually did when he had to wait for Goldberg. Nothing had changed. It was still the same combination of essential texts in the field mixed with classical literature and philosophy, much of it in German.