Mengele

I'm okay with this if you're okay with this. We're heading to places, strange places. And just to re-iterate, I've changed the names to protect people's identities and any similarities to any person, living or dead or who thinks they are one of the undead, is merely a coincidence and not intended by the writer. Also, if you have any comments, please feel free to leave them. I may or may not get back to you. If I'm not too paranoid on any given day, you might find a reply in your e-mail.

There are some strange people out there, and big cities do not hold monopoly over whackos and the lunatic fringe. The Internet has brought a lot of people into your home that you would never think of inviting over for dinner. There are groups of people out there, cults, clubs, whatever ... you know, like people who go to the dentist to have implants installed so they look like movie vampires. They go out in groups, have meetings, raise a few glasses of blood for old times sake. Non-mainstream people with non-mainstream habits. Sometimes, these weird and unusual things and people, when you're in a business designed to aid people in trouble, like when they are charged with murder, come your way; and you deal with them the best way you can, especially when you're being paid a lot of money to render that aid. And you pay the consequences -- I hope not like what happened to me and my family, but you pay them nonetheless. I would guess that sometimes there might be a benefit to doing so, but I doubt it.

You enter fantasy land, something that Disney World doesn't have at the amusement park -- and none of it is amusing. Death is not a laughing matter. I've struggled to keep my head above water and maintain some semblance of a normal life for two boys whose mother was ripped from them by a lunatic cult. I check over my shoulder. [And, by the way, I wasn't in Madison, if you're reading this -- I'm not stupid enough to let you know where I am or where I'm going to be.]

I left the weird, shriveled man with Mitchell Hilliard, the young lawyer who played pro football, to be "interviewed," so to be speak. I parked in my office with Eric Waters, one of the other lawyers in the office and my friend, to get away from the loon.

Mitchell Hilliard filled the doorway and meekly rapped on the open door, as if I hadn't seen him. I looked at him, raising my eyebrows. He was so damn polite and mild-mannered, not like you'd expect a football player to be, the size of his voice failing to match the bulk of his body. His collar was unbuttoned, and the white tie was pulled askew. He held a gray legal pad in his right hand, diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring the size of Rhode Island sparkling. I asked him if he was done with Walker Wallace the Fourth, really only half interested, as the former All-Pro football player sauntered in. He limped slightly, even though he got out of the game with "good knees." That's a relative term, I guess. I could sympathize with him because my knee complained loudly from time to time.

He blinked a few times, closed his eyes for a moment, and said that he had finished with Wallace and started to tell us that it sounded like the guy was delusional. He explained that the delusional personality constructs an entire system or scheme and becomes an integral part of that system, usually paranoid, but not necessarily. He was ratcheting up into third gear, gaining speed, when Eric interrupted, asking jokingly where Mitchell got his degree in psychology.

Mitchell never stopped, down-shifted, and told us he got his undergrad degree in psychology in three years. He wasn't big enough to play major college football his freshman year; so, he sat out football that year, red-shirted, it is called, and stayed on scholarship for five years. He had two more years of football after he got his degree early, so he got his Master's degree in psychology; and while he was playing in the N.F.L., he earned his Ph.D. in psychology.

I'm sure my jaw dropped as far as Eric's had. Eric wanted to know why he didn't tell anyone he was really Doctor Hilliard, to which Mitchell smiled broadly, my eyes catching a glint of color from the small diamond embedded in his left front tooth and said that nobody asked him and that the partners didn't even look at his resume when he interviewed. I guess that three Super Bowl rings have some magical power in interviews.

Although a lot of psychologists are impressed with themselves and their psychological mumbo-jumbo, Mitch was different. His explanation somehow took on a new and different, more believable, meaning. He explained that there were usually logical inconsistencies in the delusional system and that you could unravel the whole thing, but the delusional personality will hold onto his beliefs despite being confronted with the facts that are inconsistent. He said that he couldm't find the flaws in this case, yet.

I remember looking at Mitch Hilliard, wondering if he had been duped, actually wondering how he could be duped so badly. I stood up and turned to face the windows, looking at the cannon aimed at me by the artillerymen perpetually trying to load the cannon on the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, which rose from the southeast quadrant of Public Square. An omnipresent flock of pigeons flew over the monument east toward the red granite building owned by British Petroleum. The flock flew part way up the face of the BP Building and broke off horizontally, one stream flowing to the south, one to the north.

Then Mitch talked about the dozen books. They looked authentic, he told us. Went back about 400 years, different languages. He recognized German, Spanish, French, Hungarian. Cyrillic writing -- or something like that. Others -- he didn't know for sure what they were. The books tracked the history of vampires with names, dates, places, proof of heritage. And Wallace was part of a network of trackers looking for vampires all over the world. Wallace claimed that there were about 50 surviving. And he thought that our client, Frank Morton, was the key. The key? It sounded like some kind of "B" movie. But Mitch said that all the stuff that he went through lent creedence to Wallace's story, elaborate as it may have been.

Mitch, looking at his grey legal pad of notes, flipping a page over, explained that Wallace thought that Morton was a vampire and that Morton would lead them to the leader, who was supposed to be in the United States, where most of the vampires had taken up residency. At that point, Mitchell had not known what Frank Morton had imparted to us. Mitchell said that the books contained the names of the vampires, the people, that had been killed -- thousands of them -- over the centuries.

I was blown away by all of this shit -- and that's what it was, shit -- gazing down at a homeless man, we used to call them bums, sitting in the fountain on the northeast quadrant of Public Square, shirt and pants off. His back was to me and I hoped for the sake of those with the window seats in the United States Court House that he was wearing underwear of some sort. He stood up, wearing something gray that could have passed for men's underwear at some time in the past. I didn't rightly know what to think or do, but my guess was that Frank Morton was stone-fucking crazy, as was the old guy.

I asked Mitchell Hilliard what I needed to know in order to defend Frank Morton, and he told me that there was a war, ... an underground war; but that the vampires, or those who thought they were vampires, couldn't afford to kill the trackers and reveal their own positions. He pointed out that Wallace said trackers have been killed, but that the danger wasn't really that great anymore and that Wallace wanted to help Morton deal with the vampire colony. Mitchell thought we were dealing with a cult following a charismatic leader.

I noticed the bum had one leg into his paint-spattered trousers down below. He lifted his left leg to put it in and fell over. He lay on the brick encircling the fountain as business suits walked around him. Two construction hats with lunch boxes in hand helped the bum to his feet and dragged him to one of the nearby benches, pants half on. The bum slumped over to his left, but stayed on the bench. The hard hats continued on their way. My thoughts at that point in time were about whether any of this was useful in getting Frank Morton off the hook.

I recall turning away from the bank of windows overlooking the Public Square and the problem the bum down there was having, looked at Eric Waters, who was shaking his head, and revealed to Mitchell that Morton had told us he was a vampire and that all this stuff was too weird for me and that we should put it all on the back burner until the case I was going to try for the next few days was over. I wanted to wake up from the dream, to get out of the 'B' movie, but Mitch wouldn't let me.

Mitchell's juices were flowing, just like when he demolished an opposing quarterback, telling us he was right about Wallace and his participation in some kind of cult activity. Mitchell actually wanted to have Wallace meet with Morton, though; and I had to draw the line there, telling Mitch that no murder client of mine was going to make any statements to anybody, especially one who might want to waste him.

Eric then asked Mitchell if the people Wallace called vampires were really different, since if Morton was right, they didn't go around like Dracula sucking people's blood. The real question was: Were they really dangerous?

Mitch tersely said they were. And why? Mitchell Hilliard, Ph.D., said that Wallace showed him the names that the suzerain, that's what Wallace called him, the leader, had used over the past 250 years. Mitchell said that he was shown the history in the chronicles; and that there was one name everyone would recognize.

It was like high drama -- I asked him the name.

Mitch looked at me, his brow furrowed, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple to his cheek, and he said, "Josef Mengele."