“Unfortunately,” Benton said, “the same sort of thing is being passed around on the ward. The other patients are calling Oscar names.”

“Vaudeville, carnivals, the Wizard of Oz,” Berger said.

She reached for her coffee, and every time she moved her hands, Benton noticed the absence of her large-carat diamond ring and matching wedding band. He had almost asked her about it last summer, after not seeing her for a number of years, but refrained when it became apparent that she never mentioned her multimillionaire husband or her stepchildren. She never made any reference to any aspect of her private life. Not even the cops were talking.

Maybe there was nothing to talk about. Maybe her marriage was intact. Maybe she’d developed an allergy to metals or worried about being robbed. But if it were the latter, she should think twice about the Blancpain she had on. Benton estimated it was a numbered timepiece that cost in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars.

“Negative portrayals in the media, in the entertainment industry,” Berger went on. “Fools, dimwits. The movie Don’t Look Now. Folktale dwarfs, imperial court dwarfs. And rather apropos, the omnipresent dwarf who witnesses everything, from the triumph of Julius Caesar to the discovery of Moses in the bulrushes. Oscar Bane was witness to something, and at the same time accuses others of being witness to everything. His claims of being stalked, spied on, subjected to some sort of electronic harassment, and that the CIA might be involved and is torturing him with electronic and antipersonnel weapons as some sort of experiment or persecution.”

“He didn’t go into that kind of detail with me,” Benton replied.

“It’s what he reported when he called my office a month ago, and I’ll get back to that momentarily. What’s your assessment of his mental state?”

“His evaluation is perplexing in its contradictions. MMPI-TWO indicates traits of social introversion. During the Rorschach, he had perceptions of buildings, flowers, lakes, mountains, but no people. Similar pattern with the TAT. A forest with eyes and faces in the leaves, indicative of someone disconnected from people, someone profoundly anxious, paranoid. Aloneness, frustration, fear. Projective figure drawings were mature, but no human figures, just faces with empty eyes. Again, paranoia. A feeling of being watched. Yet nothing indicative that his paranoia is long-standing. That’s the contradiction. That’s what’s disconcerting. He’s paranoid, but I don’t believe his paranoia is long-standing,” he repeated.

“He’s afraid of something right now that to him is real.”

“In my opinion, yes. He’s afraid and depressed.”

“His paranoia,” Berger said. “Based on your experience and the time you spent with him, you don’t believe it’s his inherent disposition? It doesn’t go back to his childhood? As in, he’s always been paranoid because he’s a little person? Perhaps was made fun of, mistreated, discriminated against?”

“For the most part, it doesn’t appear he had those early experiences. Except with the police. He repeatedly told me he hates the police. And he hates you.”