He cleared his throat because the words were going to stick a little. But he had to ask, he had to be sure. “Charlie, I’m going to ask you a hell of a question. Is this business on the up and up?”
“Huh?”
“It’s a hell of a thing to ask. But—look, you and Candler don’t think I’m crazy, do you? You didn’t work this out between you to get me put away—or anyway examined—painlessly, without my knowing it was happening, till too late, did you?”
Charlie was staring at him. He said, “Jeez, George, you don’t think I’d do a thing like that, do you?”
“No, I don’t. But you could think it was for my own good, and you might on that basis. Look, Charlie, if it is that, if you think that, let me point out that this isn’t fair. I’m going up against a psychiatrist tomorrow to lie to him, to try to convince him that I have delusions. Not to be honest with him. And that would be unfair as hell, to me. You see that, don’t you, Charlie?”
Charlie’s face got a little white. He said slowly, “Before God, George, it’s nothing like that. All I know about this is what Candler and you have told me.”
“You think I’m sane, fully sane?”
Charlie licked his lips. He said, “You want it straight?”
“Yes.”
“I never doubted it, until this moment. Unless—well, amnesia is a form of mental aberration, I suppose, and you’ve never got over that, but that isn’t what you mean, is it?”