My old life was now gone, gone suddenly, and gone forever, any neutral observer had to conclude. But I wasn’t neutral, and I didn’t believe it. Not at first. Who I’d been so recently and through so many years—my self-identity, I guess—seemed to remain a part of me, like an amputee’s phantom limb. And so I doubted my own guilt in murder. And so I mourned John Helms and not myself. But this would all begin to change on the day I was cleared to receive visitors from beyond the psychiatric ward and Keisha Fallon happened to show up first.

She greeted me with an icy glare, which I appreciated. She might’ve greeted me with one of those big, brave, fake smiles—the kind you give someone newly diagnosed with cancer.

“So do you know who I am?” she said, tight-jawed, insulting, the way she spoke to her staff when they’d fucked up.

“Yes, yes, the old Argus is back now. I think.”

Keisha wore a black pant suit with a gold vest, which matched her purse. I wore blue hospital pajamas and white paper slippers. I felt ridiculous.

She hugged me, briefly, stiffly, her braided locks cutting the air with jasmine. Standing so close together seemed to melt her a little. She gave my face a slow inspection. She has a tender side, but it’s not part of her own self-identity.

“Sorry about the jammies,” I said. “They smell a little rank this late in the afternoon.”

“Is it true?” she said. “You’re a paranoid schizophrenic?”

“Yes, it’s true.” With a gallant sweep of my hand, I invited her to join me at a little orange plastic table, a circular table surrounded by many others just like it in what was currently a crowded visitors room. But Keisha didn’t budge.

“How long have you known, Argus? About your illness?”

“Not too long. Roughly a quarter century.”

She shook her head. “You self-centered ass.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can see you’re hurt. I should’ve shared that with you.”

“You should’ve shared that with your clients, don’t you think? Or how about back in the day with President Cooper?”

I sighed. “They would’ve canned me from the Service.”

“So?” she said doing that vertebrae-defying, Black female thing with her neck.

“Don’t you think I thought long and hard about that? It wasn’t an easy decision.”

“They had a right to know.”

“And I had a right to privacy, I felt.”

“But this disease—”

“I had it under control.”

“Look around, Argus. Tell me what you have under control.”

I heard my name spoken nearby, and I searched for the source, wincing from stab-like neck pain as I did so, the result of a minor injury—one of many—I’d sustained while being taken into custody. I found four people seated at the table to my immediate left—three visitors, one inmate —all darting their eyes away from my direction.

“Apparently, I’ve made the headlines.”

“And broken the internet,” she said.

I turned back to Keisha, wincing again. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

“Yeah. Especially in the two groin muscles.”

“Both groin muscles?”

“If you ever go berserk, Keisha, remember to stretch first.”

“I’ll make a note. Why don’t we sit down.”

We sat, me lowering myself gingerly.

Two men in sharp business suits could be seen standing in the hallway, outside the entrance to the visitor’s room. Are they watching me? I wondered. Then I told myself to forget about the pair. It was probably nothing, just a little residual paranoia on my part.

“So how are we handling this?” I said to Keisha.

“Handling what?”

“This! The . . . incident.”

“What can we do, Argus? Our clients are outraged. We’ve lost a third of them already, with the rest threatening to leave.”

“That . . . can’t be.” I’d worked ten years to build that firm.

She topped my hand with her own. “I didn’t come here as your employee, Argus. I came here as your friend.”

I stared down at her slender, dark hand, into the cheap twinkle of her gaudy rings. She was a sharp lady, and always honest with me, yet I refused to believe her news about my firm.

I’m hearing what a paranoid hears, I thought, I’m not well yet, best to ignore, best to ignore. I changed the subject. “I don’t remember doing it.”

“Killing him, you mean?” I gave her a nod. My eyes were tearing suddenly.

Keisha began to pat my hand. “What exactly do you remember, Argus?”

“Seeing John Helms dead. On the floor of his office. His face—” I shook my head from revulsion. “Just a bloody pulp.”

“What else do you remember?”

“A good deal,” I said. “Though that’s not as helpful as it sounds, Keisha. It’s hard for me to distinguish between what really happened that day and my own, twisted interpretation of events. But either way—in fact or fantasy—I don’t remember killing him.”

She sighed. “I don’t know if I should be telling you this—”

“Tell me. Everything you know. Please.”

Keisha mulled over my request before saying, “There were two eyewitness. To the assault, I mean. Two of our own bodyguards.”

I was flabbergasted. “You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! Last time I checked, we both trusted our own peeps!”

I stared into the palms of my hands. They seemed alien to me somehow, the flesh too lively and too red. “I couldn’t have! I just couldn’t have!”

My alien hands clenched my face in a death grip. My shoulders quaked.

Keisha was patting me again, this time my head. Slow moans soon turned to short, jabbing sobs. I rocked in place. I cried out.

“Easy, Argus, easy.” Two orderlies approached our table, but Keisha waved them off.

“I never really believed,” I said. “Until now.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I sprang from the table and paced, paced up and down between two rows of orange tables, the muscles in my body taut, burning, frenetic.

Meanwhile, Keisha stood, waiting close by our table, clutching her purse, watching me. I went up to her.

“Am I hearing you right, Keisha? Or is it just another paranoid fantasy of mine? Are you really suggesting to me that I killed John Helms? Beyond any doubt? Because there’s a pair of eyewitnesses? Two reliable—”

“Yes,” she said, firmly.

I paced some more.

I paced, I paced, I paced.

I didn’t know what to think, what to believe . . .

And then, suddenly, it came to me.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

I walked back to Keisha, still standing by our table. “Do me a favor. Unbutton your vest.”

“Pardon?”

“Take off your vest, and then unbutton your blouse.”

“Why?”

“Just humor me, okay.”

“I don’t think so.”

I lunged at her and, in two quick motions, tore open her gold vest and then her white blouse. Buttons ricocheted madly off the tile floor. Keisha screamed. She fought me.

I seized the straps of her flimsy black bra and yanked down hard. Her vest, her blouse, her bra—it all fell waist-high, pinning her thin arms tightly against her sides. Her big bronze tits popped free.

“Where is it?” I said, now patting down her waistline.

“Where is what!” she cried.

“You know. The hidden microphone. C’mon, where is it?”

“Hidden microphone? Oh my God . . .”

The orderlies had me suddenly, and they were carting me off. People cheered, sick people, I thought.

Keisha cupped her breasts and cried.

But she had it coming, I told myself.

“There are no eyewitnesses!” I shouted. “Because I wasn’t the one who killed John Helms! You know that! But you want to trap me into a confession, don’t you, Keisha! You’re working for the cops, you traitor! Oh, yes! That’s right! I know! Ha-ha! I know! You’re a traitor! And I’ll get you, Keisha! You hear me? You conniving bitch! I’ll get you for this!”

Next Chapter: Chapter Thirteen