Dangerous Behavior (Revised Edition) Read online

  DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR

  Walter Marks

  Revised Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by Walter Marks

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Author.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Top Tier Lit

  New York, NY

  Revised Edition

  Also by Walter Marks

  Death Hampton

  The Battle of Jericho

  For Joan Brooker Marks, who said I could,

  and Dr. Robert E. Gould, who said I should.

  Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

  - Lady Caroline Lamb describing Lord Byron

  AUTHO R’S NOTE: REVISED EDITION

  Things change rapidly in today’s world. So in this revised edition, I’ve taken the opportunity to update ”Dangerous Behavior”. In the process, I also saw that I could refine, restructure, and clarify certain aspects of the book, to heighten the impact and hopefully make it a better read.

  — Walter Marks, 2014

  PROLOGUE

  A cold March wind howled across the courtyard of the Dyckman Manhattan housing project. It was almost sundown, and the cobra-headed street lamps were on. Agnes Rivera walked along the sidewalk, toting a heavy A&P shopping bag in her right hand, while struggling to steer a stroller with her left. I bought too much, she thought, as the grocery bag’s twine handle cut into her fingers. I should've had them deliver.

  Her two-and-a-half-year old daughter began whining again. Agnes wished she hadn't treated the child so harshly at the checkout counter, with everybody watching. But sometimes little Margarita could drive her nuts. Agnes cursed softly, wondering, as she did every day, why the hell she’d ever decided to have the kid and raise her alone. She pulled out a package of Oreos, and tossed it into Margarita's lap, promising to give her one at home if she’d only shut up. The little girl fell silent.

  She thought about the hassle at the supermarket. I’m still young, she said to herself, and not that bad looking. Is this all life has to offer?

  At the entrance to her ground floor apartment Agnes dug in her purse for her door key. Then, as she inserted it into the lock, a man's forearm slammed across her throat.

  "Don't make a sound or I'll cut you."

  The gleam of a knife flashed in front of her face. Fear paralyzed her. She spoke in a voice she could not recognize.

  "What...what do you want?"

  "Inside."

  "Please. Please don't hurt me..."

  "Open the door. And shut up, bitch."

  The anger in his words stripped Agnes of all hope. He followed her as she pushed the stroller inside.

  The man was wearing gloves to avoid fingerprints. He closed the door and they were plunged into darkness.

  Outside, two teenage boys scuttled by on skateboards. They wore dark colored hoodies pulled up over their heads. They stopped when they heard a muffled, terrified voice from within the apartment. "Why are you doing this?...Please. No. No. Don't...."

  There was a hideous scream, followed by the sobbing of a frightened child.

  The two boys looked at each other. One laughed and began to inhale and exhale loudly. His friend giggled and spoke in an ominous tone, as if narrating the trailer of a horror movie.

  "Jason...is back."

  They high-fived each other and kicked off on their boards. The sidewalk reverberated with harsh scraping sounds as they sped away.

  Inside the apartment, the man still gripped Agnes from behind. In the pale light from the window, he could see her limp body; he had sliced open her throat with one swipe of his knife. Blood spurted and oozed out of the woman's neck as he let her slide to the floor.

  The little girl in the stroller had stopped crying. She'd torn open the package of cookies in her lap, and was chewing on one with a blank expression on her face.

  The killer knelt down beside Agnes and surveyed his grisly work. Her open eyes seemed to be staring at him, mocking, belittling. Suddenly the fury in him boiled up once more. With a guttural grunt, he raised the knife and plunged it into her chest again, and again, and again.

  CHAPTER 1

  "Look directly into the camera."

  Flash.

  "Now turn to your right, please."

  Pivoting on the stool, I tilted my head up to eliminate the slight pouch of flesh below my chin. A guy’s gotta look his best in a prison mug shot.

  “Place the four fingers of your right hand onto the Lifescan.”

  I put my fingers on the scanner and the fingerprints showed up immediately. I looked at each clearly defined arch, loop, and whorl and thought — every fingerprint, like each human mind, is unique. If only everyone’s psyche could be as specifically defined and displayed as a fingerprint. If only.

  A guard escorted me down a dim corridor. I looked up at the row of naked light bulbs burning in their ceiling sockets. Each bulb was encased in a metal cage, the light itself imprisoned, struggling to escape.

  We passed a row of cells. They had metal doors with small barred windows. I knew there were men penned up inside, I could feel their eyes on me. A door rattled violently and a harsh voice called out.

  "Hey, ya red-haired bitch. C’mere and lemme ream out yer pretty punk a-hole.”

  The sucking sound of a wet kiss gave my genitals a panic attack. They shrunk up reflexively.

  The guard grabbed my arm, hustled me forward. "Keep lookin' straight ahead, man. 'Round here, you don't wanna be havin' eye contact. Ever."

  "If I avoid eye contact," I said, "How’m I supposed to interact with people?"

  The guard snorted. "They say guys who do what you do hafta be crazy."

  "That's a stereotype."

  "All the same," the guard said, "You best take my advice."

  "It’s not my style."

  "Then it's yo' ass."

  We descended a cement stairway and emerged through a doorway into a bright sunlit prison yard — it was a warm summer morning. The yard was as large as three football fields and surrounded by a forty-foot high concrete wall. The wall, topped by a chain link fence and writhing coils of razor wire, sent an unmistakable message: Don't even think about busting out.

  I’d seen TV episodes portraying life inside penitentiary walls, so I thought I was prepared for what I’d see. The prisoners were supervised by guards without weapons; obviously it was too dangerous to have guns within reach of these men. Some of them loitered in small groups, others stood or sat alone. In one area, a bunch of heavily muscled men were lifting weights. Their strained grunts echoed off the high walls, sounding like the first attempts at language by Neanderthal man.

  As we got closer, I noticed that unlike most of the inmates in the yard, they were all white. I could make out their tattoos — swastikas, iron crosses, SS bolts, death skulls. Each man’s head was shaved.

  Aryan Brotherhood!

  A guy in a wife-beater shirt stepped towards me. He was so covered with red and blue tats that his flesh looked purple. Suddenly he yanked up his shirt and revealed his chest. There, in large black letters were the words — Arbeit Macht Frei. I recognized the German phrase meaning “work makes you free”, which the Nazis placed on a wrought iron sign over the front gate to Auschwitz. Its purpose was to delude the doomed souls who entered, giving them the false hope that this was a work camp, not a death camp.

  My stomach churned. Does that Neo-Nazi know I’m Jewish? Maybe. But he can’t know that much of my father’s family had be
en exterminated at Auschwitz.

  I decided the guard was right and fixed my eyes straight ahead.

  We approached a bunker-like building with barred windows. Next to the entrance a sign read: Psychiatric Unit. And under it: Administrative Segregation. The word psychiatric gave me a feeling of comfort; it was a place I was used to, where I belonged.

  When we got to the reception desk, the guard showed the nurse our access passes.

  "Going to Doctor Caldwell?" she asked. The guard nodded.

  “Take the elevator on the left to four,” she said. “Don’t take the one on the right. That goes to Ad Seg.”

  The elevator took us up to the fourth floor. The guard punched a keypad on the security door, the lock clicked and we entered. An orderly was pushing a patient in a wheelchair. The patient was handcuffed and leg-shackled to the chrome rails of the chair. As he went by, his face twisted into an expression of rage and he spat at me. I dodged the spittle, then stopped and covered my eyes, pressing my palms so hard into the sockets that I saw only amorphous floaters against a pitch-black background.

  I thought about the events that had brought me here.

  Jesus. Will I be able to handle this?

  CHAPTER 2

  The guard marched me down a hall to an open door. A sign beside it read "Dr. Benjamin Caldwell — Director of Psychiatry." Dr. Caldwell was at his desk, sucking on a Blu E-cig, and staring at a computer screen. He was an African-American man in his late fifties, with gray hair that was getting thin in patches, and a neatly trimmed mustache. His maroon short-sleeved shirt was a bit tight for his thick torso. He wore polyester pants, hip-hop baggy. When he looked up, the guard left.

  "Ah, Dr. Rothberg," he said, motioning me in. “Welcome to the joint."

  I remembered the first time I met Ben Caldwell, during my job interview in New York. He was holding a file, which presumably contained my application. He studied it for a few seconds then looked up at me, “A recommendation from Dr. Edward Sorenson, Dean for Clinical Affairs at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital. Very impressive.”

  Ben looked down at the file again. “Are you really...how did Sorenson put it? ‘A brilliant and gifted technician?’”

  I told him Ed was my mentor and given to hyperbole. But I did know my stuff.

  He wanted to know why a hot-shot Bellevue resident would want to work in a penitentiary. I said I thought prison was a place where I could do some good.

  Ben said he figured there was more to it, but he chose not to pry. After all, I was highly qualified, and besides nobody else had applied for the position.

  My new boss turned off his computer. “Your office'll be ready tomorrow,” he said. “It's still being painted. You found a place to live?"

  "Not yet. I drove up last night and checked into some No Tell Motel outside of town. I'll look for a place when I get settled."

  "My wife's a real estate agent,” Ben said. “She's in sales, but maybe she'll know of a rental. I'll ask."

  "That would be great."

  "Please, David. Sit down."

  I sank into a battered leather armchair.

  "So. What'd'ya say we get right to work?" Ben said.

  “Sounds good.”

  Ben shoved a pile of file folders across his desk. "I'm gonna start you off with ten hard-core looney-tunes. I know it’s a heavy case load but we're swamped."

  "No problem. Last year I had twice as many..."

  "Believe me. Even working in a big city hospital didn't prepare you for these jokers. It's gonna be on-the-job-training, but don't worry — you can look over my shoulder till you get the hang of it."

  I glanced at the label on the top folder. "Victor Thomas Janko. I know that name."

  "He made big headlines in the city, fifteen years ago. They called him The Baby Carriage Killer."

  "Oh, yes. I remember..."

  The telephone rang and Ben answered it. He shrugged apologetically toward me and barked into the phone.

  "Look, Warden, my group therapy room is like an oven. If you can spend fifty thousand dollars on new guard towers, you can afford five hundred bucks for a GE from Best Buy."

  I could see he was going to be a while, so I picked up the Janko file.

  A New York Post article reported a brutal crime in Washington Heights. Victor Thomas Janko had allegedly stabbed Agnes Rivera while her child watched. The medical examiner found twenty-three knife-inflicted wounds on the woman's body. When the police entered the victim's Dyckman Street apartment, the little girl was in her stroller, and her mother was dead, still wearing her coat. There was no sign of forced entry.

  Housing cops in a patrol car had spotted Janko walking away from the building, knife in hand, with the woman's blood all over him. When he was ordered to stop and surrender, Janko simply dropped the knife and sat down on the curb with a dazed look. He was questioned but refused to talk. He was turned over to the NYPD, who also could get nothing out of him.

  A Times Op-Ed column, “The Insanity of the Insanity Defense”, said Janko's public defender had first entered a plea of Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. But the DA feared the jury might buy it, and Janko would be remanded to a mental hospital, only to be let out on the streets a few years later. So, to protect the public, (and also his political future), the DA offered the lawyer a deal. If Janko would plead guilty to Murder 2, he’d get the minimum sentence — 15 years to Life, instead of the maximum — 25 years to Life...

  "Sorry," Ben said, hanging up.

  "No problem." I replied. "I was just reading about Janko's sentencing."

  "Yeah. His fifteen years is up now, so he’s eligible for parole. That’s why I’m giving him to you."

  I looked at him questioningly. Ben went on in a matter-of-fact manner. "I want you to evaluate the prisoner and then testify before the Parole Board. The hearing is a week from Thursday."

  "Shouldn't his doctor do that?"

  "He hasn't received any treatment."

  Ben saw my puzzled expression. "We've got a problem here at Vanderkill," he explained. "When it comes to budget appropriations, Albany always plays politics and favors Sing Sing, because they've got the big name. We have almost as many prisoners as they do, but we get only half the funding. So for sixteen hundred inmates, all we have is a staff of nine - two shrinks, including me, three social workers, and four nurses. Plus a handful of orderlies and paramedics. So we only treat inmates who really go banana-cakes. Janko hasn't done that."

  "So...nobody looks after him?" I asked.

  Ben sucked on his e-cig and made a face. “Shee-it! Goddamn cartridge tapped out!”

  “So now you’re just inhaling air?”

  “Yeah. But it smells like burnt paper.”

  “Ever think about quitting?”

  “I’ve thought about it. I’ve also thought about humpin’ Halle Berry.”

  Point taken.

  “Now let’s talk about Janko,” Ben said. "I go over once in a while and check him out," he said. "He's well-behaved, never says much. He's taken up painting. And he's pretty good."

  "Any diagnosis?”, I asked.

  "Definitely nutsy”.

  “Can you give me a brand-name?”

  “Well, he’s obsessive-compulsive and...well, you’ll see in his file.”

  "I don't understand,” I said evenly. "Wouldn't it be better to do this yourself? At least you've got a little history with the guy."

  "David, I've been without an assistant for six months now, and between the clinical work and the administrative bullshit I'm on serious overload. I need you to help tote the freight. This evaluation requires an appearance before the Parole Board, and that takes half a day, which I can’t afford. Actually, you don't even have to see Janko. Just launch the software program COVR — Classification of Violent Risk, then enter his variables — y'know, age, education, socio-economic status..."

  I was getting edgy. "You want me to do a psychiatric evaluation based on what a computer says?"

  "Yeah,” Ben said. He took out
a DVD from his desk drawer. “Here’s the program.”

  “I don’t have a drive in my MacBook Air...”

  “You can use mine, whenever you want. I’ll leave the DVD in the top drawer of my desk. The password is RISK...all caps. You’ll see – it’s an actuarial tool to help the clinician estimate risk of violence.”

  “So we let an algorithm decide the diagnosis?”

  “Yes,” Ben said. “Janko will come out in the High to Very High Risk group. Then just tell the Parole Board that in your expert opinion, the prisoner, 'if released, is likely to behave in a manner dangerous to himself or others.' That'll keep him inside for another five years."

  "So you're denying a person parole on the basis of a software prediction? That doesn't sound...fair."

  "What's not fair," Ben asserted, "Is the state law that says the prison psychiatrist has to make this call. Because the truth is, dangerous behavior can't be predicted. There are just too many complex factors involved."

  "Well, we can make an educated guess."

  "No. We can only make an uneducated guess. We simply don't know enough about what causes a person to act violently."

  "But a computer knows?"

  "Follow-up studies show that computer predictions are thirty percent more accurate than shrinks."

  "Oh, come on."

  "Those are the numbers."

  Ben's tone indicated end of discussion. I spoke quietly. "I think I should at least interview the guy."

  "You want to meet him? Fine by me."

  “Is he here in the hospital?”

  “No, he’s next door in Ad Seg...Administrative Segregation.”

  "And if I need a few more clinical sessions to..."

  Ben interrupted me with a waving finger. “C'mon. We gotta do rounds."

  When we entered the hallway I felt Ben's arm around my shoulders. "David,” he said warmly. “I'm really glad you're here."