Mind Switch (3 page)

Some people look like one would imagine they should for the life’s profession they choose. So did Fred—jet black hair, a hint of silver threads creeping out at his temples, heavy pitch black eyebrows, deep sunken eyes, and a delicate goatee trimmed with perfection to a point so narrow and sharp, it almost looked as if it could be used effectively as a weapon. His eyes were a brilliant penetrating blue, wide and overpowering. The tone of his voice was soft, at times almost inaudible, but always commanding. All of his physical features reinforced the persona which he sought to project—a powerful, but gentle man, all-knowing and certainly one to be trusted always and under all circumstances.
 

Ford offered permanent solutions to the constant stresses of a modern, competitive society—weight reduction, stress release, elimination of the smoking habit, and the curbing of bad tendencies in general, whatever they might be. He developed a fairly quick test to determine potential hypnotic success. Generally the test worked well; if his customers failed the preliminary test he quickly walked them to the door. Time is money, he often said; and time could either be on your side or against you. If the test was successful, he would move his subject on to a deeper hypnotic trance stage. The test was not absolute, but it presented a fairly accurate gauge of a person’s hypnotic openness.
 

His last customer had been the exception to the rule. She had passed the test quickly; but no matter how hard he tried, she was not able to progress beyond the lightest hypnotic level. She would have made a perfect pigeon in all other aspects, he reflected, but unfortunately that was not to be. Well, he thought, tomorrow is another day; and at any rate I have a much bigger objective than plucking a few limited coins out of these rich old broads.

As Ford pondered once again on the frustrations of the day, he removed his stained shirt and deposited it and a half of cup of Tide into his rusty washing machine. With one hand he turned the dial to normal wash, with the other he finished off his third beer of the evening.
 

He entered his living room-kitchen combination, and walked to his TV, turning on Fox news. He had lost his remote two years ago but that didn’t matter since Fox was the only channel he ever watched. A busty female meteorologist exclaimed that a severe cold spell was moving in rapidly from the west. It had already deposited two feet of snow in New Mexico with freezing temperatures occurring there and in most of the northern country. Ford yelled out to an empty trailer, “Who gives a shit? It doesn’t snow down here!”
 

One of the commentators accused former President Clinton of being responsible for the Iraq war. Ford applauded. He didn’t know how Clinton could have been responsible since it occurred after his watch; but if Fox news suggested it, it must have been fact. Ford often talked out loud when he watched the news; he certainly liked the sound of his voice more than that of the bitches he had to endure as clients all week long. Oh, well, he thought, the week is over. He gulped down another beer, already forgetting if it was number three or four.

Chapter 5

Howard
Slivers was walking rapidly to an unknown goal and destination. As he glanced at his watch, he thought, time certainly has passed by quickly. In fact, he suddenly realized, it has been over three hours since I left work. Where have I been? Why can’t I remember? I’m only 49, is it possible that I already have advanced dementia? No, can’t be, no way, none of my medical tests showed any signs of it. But where have I been? I’m walking up Main Street, but where in hell am I going? And why am I rushing, am I late for something?

Ah, there’s Mrs. Harrison walking towards me; she’s one of my very best customers. “Hello, Mrs. Harrison, you certainly are looking great today!” As she passed, he observed that with just a minor compliment, Mrs. Harrison lit up like a Christmas tree. Actually, she really looked haggard but a few white lies don’t do anybody any harm. At least it certainly made her feel better and maybe that is my real purpose on earth, to make people feel better. Whatever else I might be, I certainly am a kind, caring and altruistic person, he thought.
 

Wait a minute, I know what I have to do; I have to get my wife a birthday present. She would be really upset if I forgot it like I did last year. First I have to do something, something really important; and then I will definitely get her an expensive gold bracelet. She will like that; and after I do something I’ll call and tell my secretary that I won’t be returning to the office today. I’ll take Irene out to an early expensive candlelight dinner and present her with the bracelet. She will be delighted; I bet she thinks I’ve forgotten. Suddenly, Jim felt better. No, I can’t have dementia, he thought, I clearly remembered Irene’s birthday.
 

* * *

Without forethought, Slivers mechanically entered the rotating door of the County Bank. Slivers observed an older woman walking toward him. There’s Mrs. Sellers; I’ve known her since my PTA days at Gulf Gate School. “Hi, Mrs. Sellers, how are your children? Good? That’s fine, have a great day, come by and see Irene and me sometime. Now make sure you do!”

 
Let’s see, when I finish here I have to remember to call my secretary, and then get Irene that bracelet. Okay, now I remember what I have to do!
 

Less than a minute later, Jim committed the first crime of his entire life—vicious, unemotional, unrelenting cold-blooded murder.

Chapter 6

It had been a full two days since his last poker game of the season. Fred Harris was experiencing the joy of life as he and Maureen’s first cousin, Judy Mason, strolled Sarasota’s downtown streets on a warm sun-splashed afternoon. Fred enjoyed the companionship of Judy, mostly because he suspected she reminded him so much of Maureen. Both had shining red hair, petite bodies, and upbeat, optimistic personalities which somehow could surface regardless of the nature of an event. But unlike Judy, Maureen, on rare occasions, could withdraw for extended periods, during which time her mood became dark and incommunicative. It was a characteristic he never understood.

Maureen’s cousin had arrived yesterday from Colorado. Maureen couldn’t get off from work, so she asked Fred to show her favorite cousin the town. Judy had never been to Florida before; and since this was Fred’s day off, Maureen felt it would be a perfect time for him to show her cousin the sights. Maureen knew that Fred was proud of his birth city and welcomed an opportunity to show it off at any occasion, even though he feigned an air of disdain when she suggested it.

The temperature hovered in the mid 70s; a hint of fresh, invigorating salt-filled sea air blew in from the west, gracefully animating freshly planted palm trees bordering downtown sidewalks. Above, Fred glanced at frothy, snow white clouds filling the early December sky. Golden sea gull wings, reflecting the afternoon winter sun, peppered the landscape. In a just a few hours, Fred thought, the underbellies of those same clouds would form an atmospheric mosaic of deep purples, brilliant oranges and crimson reds bridging the entire horizon, in one of western Florida’s famous sunsets.

As people walked by them, Fred caught fragments of their statements.

“Daddy, I can’t wait to get to Disney World tomorrow.”
 

Great, son, and what do you want to see most?”

“Nancy, I don’t appreciate your buying that outfit; money doesn’t grow on trees, you know!”

“No more candy for you, Jane, you want to be sick?”

Fred smiled. Each person was encased in their own world with their individual problems and goals. Then suddenly Fred detected a new almost muted voice, a seemingly disembodied voice. “The time has come, the time has come.”

Fred looked around him; at the moment, there was no one within fifty feet of them. He realized that the voice was not being generated by an external source that somehow it seemed to have developed from within. Fred sensed a dim foreboding but forced himself to laugh it off as well as that of his imagination playing voice games with him. What is the matter with me, he thought? Everything is going great in my life.
 

Shifting emotions, he muttered to Judy, “God, life is great; it’s great to be alive this year, this month at this moment in this town, in this universe.” Judy smiled, seemingly enjoying the leisurely stroll as much as Fred was.

Young mothers were proudly parading their newborn in all parts of the downtown section. Baby carriages were opened to their maximum to ensure that each child obtained his or her daily allocation of vitamin D. Christmas music softly filtered out from downtown stores, bringing feelings of goodness and nostalgia of days gone by. Fred remarked that it sounded as if Gene Autry for the billionth time, over several generations, was voicing in song the Horatio Alger accomplishments of one lowly, red-nosed reindeer.

They both remained silent for the next few minutes as they continued up Main Street in the direction of city police headquarters. Both were unaware of the horror that was starting to unfold just 100 yards up the street from them.

Chapter 7

Alfred Long was immersed in an uncontrollable rout. Every payday, without exception, he deposited, always in person, his bi-weekly check in the County Bank. He could have much more easily transferred his check electronically or dropped it off in the outside depository, but Alfred had a hidden motive. Betty Kies was one of several clerks manning teller cages every Friday afternoon. Alfred was happily married, so his thing with Betty was certainly not an affair; it could hardly even be classified as an acquaintance. But Betty was extremely attractive, the type of woman that men lust for and wished they had married twenty years earlier, had circumstances not altered their life’s path.
 

Betty invariably smiled at Alfred and greeted him with, “How are you doing, sweetie?” When she finished his transaction she would discreetly reach under her cage, gently put her hand on his and say, “Now you be good, do you understand, and if you’re not good please, please be careful, honey!” Her hand would softly linger on Alfred’s for just a titillating instant before she let go and moved on to the next customer.

Alfred knew that some people in this world, most likely including Betty, were simply social touchers. Touching was just their special and innocent way of communicating with the world. Deep down Alfred knew that, but whenever he entered the bank at 4 p.m. every other Friday, he predictably moved to the extreme left side of the bank of teller cages waiting patiently until the line in front of him cleared so he could spend one glorious moment with Betty. In the past, tellers with no waiting customers would signal him to move to their cages so that he could be served more expeditiously; but by now they all knew of his hidden objective. Some people would consider his behavior very foolish for a happily married man, fifteen years Betty’s senior, who had never entertained a thought of asking her out. But for Alfred, that single concentrated moment of happiness, replicated every two weeks, was well worth it.

Finally, Alfred was next in line and he prepared to smile as he always did when he greeted Betty and say, as he invariably did, “How’s my best girl?” That greeting was as personal as Alfred ever got and ever would get. Had he said anything more intimate than that, he would have become totally embarrassed and worse yet, with his strict moral structure, he would be on the teetering edge of committing some terrible type of verbal adultery. In fact a year ago he had changed his greeting from, “How’s my girl,” to “How’s my best girl?” And the first time he uttered it, he had stuttered so badly that Betty had to ask him twice what he said. With its slight modification, he had used that same trite greeting from the third time he spoke with Betty almost two years ago. Normally his smile would be returned and Betty would respond, “How are
you
doing, sweetie?”

This time, however, her hackneyed response never came. This day, as Alfred slowly advanced to her cage wearing a large grin, Betty greeted him with a face frozen in terror. When Alfred was with Betty, his concentration was total; all other inputs to his sensory system were turned off. Alfred was mystified, “What’s the matte—”

Before he could complete his sentence, Betty dropped down out of sight below her cage. Alfred was dumbfounded. Had he not brushed his teeth, not used his underarm deodorant this morning, was a piece of his morning’s soybean sausage still stuck in his teeth; what the heck was going on? Maybe, he thought, God forbid, Betty had suffered a heart attack or a stroke. Stretching as far as he could on his toes, he peered over the cage and observed Betty sitting on the floor with her head between her legs, her arms wrapped protectively around her body.

At that moment in suspended time, Alfred became more bewildered. He experienced a sharp pain in the left side of his back. Instantly his shirt felt damp. He looked above at the bank’s sprinkler system plumbing. No water dripping from there, he thought, so where the hell is it coming from? Shifting his orientation, he tried to locate the source of his pain. He pulled open his suit coat, and felt his back. Bright red liquid appeared on his hand. “What the hell!” he muttered out loud. His prevailing thought was, damn, this is a brand new shirt, it will be ruined forever and my wife will be really pissed. Then his confusion amplified. His peripheral vision recognized rapid movement behind and to the right of him. With disbelief, he for the first time recognized that someone not more than twenty feet away was aiming a large gun directly at him. Like all mammals, Alfred was born with an instinctive self-preservation capability manifesting in the form of fight or flee. Alfred knew that fight was out of the question since the indisputable advantage had to be assigned to the stranger holding the large gun. But he had been the county high school champ in the 100 yard dash not that many years ago, at least it didn’t seem that long ago, and he knew instinctively that he could make it to the front door, and once there he could escape from this strange threat.