The Thomas Berryman Number

I caught a glimpse of nurses, some patients, and a lot of Plexiglas surrounding the station. We entered another room, a wood-paneled conference room, and Shulman personally mixed me some Sanka.

After some general small talk, he told me why he’d started to feel that Ben Toy was somehow involved in the murders of Jimmie Horn, Bert Poole, and Lieutenant Mart Weesner.

I told him why most of the people at the

Citizen

doubted it.

Our reasons had to do with motion pictures of the Horn shooting. The films clearly showed young Poole shooting Horn in the chest and face.

Alan Shulman’s reasons had to do with gut feelings. (And also with the nagging fact that the police would probably never remove Ben Toy from an institution to face trial.)

Like the man or not, I was not overly impressed with his theories.

“Don’t you worry,” he assured me, “this story will be worth your time and air fare … if you handle it right.”

As part of the idea of getting my money’s worth out of the trip, I drove about six miles south after leaving the hospital.

I slipped into a pair of cut-offs in my rent-a-car, then went for my first swim in an ocean.

If I’d known how little time I’d be having for the next five months, I would have squeezed even more out of the free afternoon.

The rainy day turned into beautiful, pink-and-blue-skied night.

I was wearing bluejeans and white shirttails, walking down the hospital’s cobblestone road again. It was 8:30 that same evening and I’d been asked to come back to Bowditch.

A bear-bearded, rabbinical-looking attendant was assigned to record and supervise my visit with Ben Toy. A ring of keys and metal badges jangled from the rope belt around his Levi’s. A plastic name pin said that he was MR. RONALD ASHER, SENIOR MENTAL HEALTH WORKER.

The two of us, both carrying pads and pencils, walked down a long, gray-carpeted hall with airy, white-curtained bedrooms on either side.

Something about being locked in the hall made me a little tense. I was combing my hair with my fingers as I walked along.

“Our quiet room’s about the size of a den,” Asher told me. “It’s a seclusion room. Seclusion room’s used for patients who act-out violently. Act-out against the staff, or other patients, or against themselves.”

“Which did Ben Toy do?” I asked the attendant.

“Oh shit.” Big white teeth showed in his beard. “He’s been in there for all three at one time or another. He can be a total jerk-off, and then again he can be a pretty nice guy.”

Asher stopped in front of the one closed door in the hallway. While he opened it with two different keys, I looked inside through a book-sized observation window.

The room

was

tiny.

It had gunboat metal screens and red bars on small, mud-spattered windows. A half-eaten bowl of cereal and milk was on the windowsill. Outside was the stockade wall and an exercise yard.

Ben Toy was seated on the room’s only furniture, a narrow blue pinstriped mattress. He was wearing a black cowboy Stetson, but when he saw my face in the window he took it off.

“Come on the hell in,” I heard a friendly, muffled voice. “The door’s only triple-locked.”

Just then Asher opened it.

Ben Toy was a tall, thin man, about thirty, with a fast, easy, hustler’s smile. His blond hair was oily, unwashed. He was Jon Voight on the skids.

Toy was wearing white pajama bottoms with no top. His ribs were sticking out to be counted. His chest was covered with curly, auburn hair, however, and he was basically rugged-looking.

According to Asher, Toy had tried to starve himself when he’d first come in the hospital. Asher said he’d been burly back then.

When Toy spoke his voice was soft. He seemed to be trying to sound hip. N.Y.-L.A. dope world sounds.

“You look like a Christian monk, man,” he drawled pleasantly.

“No shit,” I laughed, and he laughed too. He seemed pretty normal. Either that, or the black-bearded aide was a snake charmer.

After a little bit of measuring each other up, Toy and I went right into Jimmie Horn.

Actually, I started on the subject, but Toy did most of the talking.

He knew what Horn looked like; where Horn had lived; precisely where his campaign headquarters had been. He knew the names of Jimmie Horn’s two children; his parents’ names; all sorts of impossible trivia nobody outside of Tennessee would have any interest in.

At that point, I found myself talking rapidly and listening very closely. The Sony was burning up tape.

“You think you know who shot Horn up?” Toy said to me.

“I think I do, yes. A man named Bert Poole shot him. A chronic bumbler who lived in Nashville all his life. A fuck-up.”

“This

bumbler,”

Toy asked. “How did you figure out he did it?”

His question was very serious; forensic, in a country pool hall way. He was slowly turning the black Stetson around on his fist.

“For one thing,” I said, “I saw it on television. For another thing, I’ve talked to a shitload of people who were there.”

Toy frowned at me. “Guess you talked to the wrong shitload of people,” he said. He was acting very sure of himself.