Finding Duncan

by F.W. Armstrong

Chapter 1

"You know what it looks like?" Towne asked. "It looks like a giant Lego structure. Do you know what Legos are?"

"Yes," Ryerson Biergarten answered.

"Of course you do." Towne looked questioningly at him. "You have any kids?"

Ryerson shook his head.

"Too bad. They can be royal pains in the ass, of course, but they're all right, at least until they reach puberty. Everyone's all right until they reach puberty." He paused, then asked, "I guess all you've got in your life is that ugly little dog, huh?"

Ryerson was holding his Boston terrier, Creosote, on his lap. Creosote was a true lap dog. He clearly felt left out if he wasn't sitting on a lap. Ryerson said, noting the defensiveness in his voice, "No, my life is a bit fuller than that."

"Sure it is," Towne said. He glanced away, toward the window, looked back. "You've seen it, of course?"

"The building on Spline Street? Yes."

"Ugly damned thing,” Towne said. “Like a huge Lego structure. All puffy right angles, and dark colors. It has no charm. It looks like it sprang from a nightmare." He smiled wanly. "The architect must have been a very unhappy man."

This series of observations surprised Ryerson. He hadn't expected it from Towne, whom he had come to think of as a stuffed shirt. "Well," Ryerson said, "I suppose the architect had the building's function to consider."

Towne smiled hugely. "Biergarten, you're defending ugliness. Or is it the architect you're defending? Never mind, you're trying to be objective, and I suppose that's commendable."

Ryerson fought back an impulse to anger; the man was patronizing him.

Towne said, "I want you to locate my son."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Towne, but missing persons—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's not something you do. I know what you do. I've read everything that's been written about you. I think you're probably a brilliant man, in your questionable field of expertise.” He paused, then went on, “Good, no protest. You accept my basic skepticism."

"I expect it."

"From everyone?"

"No. Some people believe unquestioningly."

"They're fools, of course."

"Not fools. Believers."

"You wear your nobility like a badge, Biergarten. That's okay, though. I can see you're an honest man. I can sense it."

"Mr. Towne, perhaps you could get to the point."

"Yes. As I said, I want you to find my son. No, he's not missing. I know precisely where he is. He's in a hospital not more than forty miles from here. He barely recognizes me. He barely recognizes anyone."

"I don't understand."

"That's disappointing. I hoped you'd be able to read my intentions."

Ryerson said nothing.

"Biergarten, my son is twenty-nine years old, has a Doctorate in Cultural Anthropology, an IQ somewhere on the north side of genius, and he's lost. He reacts to me the way an infant would, and you have no idea how that affects a father, to have his own son succumb to...insanity."

"Mr. Towne, I'm a parapsychologist, not a psychologist or a psychiatrist. As much as I might want to help you--"

"Dammit, Biergarten, I know what you are. For Christ's sake, didn't I just say I've read everything that's been written about you, as well as everything you've written? I know you better than you know yourself.

"I want you to find my son's sanity, Mr. Biergarten. I want you to find it in the godforsaken place where he lost it."

"Mr. Towne, I assume you realize that sanity isn't something we lose in the same way we might lose our car keys, or a puppy—"

"You're wrong, Biergarten.”

"Sanity is a state of mind; if we're true to the word itself, it's actually just a legal term—"

"Legal schmegal. It should be obvious to you that what the word means under the law and what it means to me and my son are two very different matters. You're being dense, Biergarten. I don't want that from you, I want you to be open to what I'm saying. Shit, I'm not an imaginative man. I'm sure you sensed that from the beginning. I'm a pragmatist. It's how I became what I am today. But I'm not a bullheaded pragmatist. My son went into that damned place as sane as you or I. He went in because he was depressed."

"Was it a clinical depression, Mr. Towne? Was it diagnosed as a clinical depression?"

"He tried to kill himself, Biergarten, so they put him in that place, with the crazies—and I'm not talking simply about the other patients. They put him in there, and eighteen months later he was the way he is now. The way he's been for three years. He lost his sanity in that place, and I want you to find it and give it back to him."

"Clearly there were other factors—"

"Find his sanity, Mr. Biergarten. Find him! He's in that shithole, somewhere, and I want you to find him and bring him back to me."

* * * *

Copyright 2003 by F.W. Armstrong

F.W. Armstrong has been in and out of the world of dark fantasy for a decade and a half. His first two novels, “ The Changing,” (TOR BOOKS, NYC, 1985) and “The Devouring,” (TOR, 1987) were critical successes, but he has yet to release a third novel. “Finding Duncan,” he tells us, should be released by Leisure Books, NYC, some time in 2005.