“Why? I mean, if I am, then I’m sane and—”
“Not the point. Point’s whether they think you’re sane or not. Way they figure, if you think you’re Napoleon you’re not sane. Q. E. D. You stay here.”
“Even if I tell them I’m convinced I’m George Vine?”
“They’ve worked with paranoia before. And that’s what they’ve got you down for, count on it. And any time a paranoiac gets tired of a place, he’ll try to lie his way out of it. They weren’t born yesterday. They know that.”
“In general, yes, but how—”
A sudden cold chill went down his spine. He didn’t have to finish the question. They stick needles in you— It hadn’t meant anything when Ray Bassington had said it.
The dark man nodded. “Truth serum,” he said. “When a paranoiac reaches the stage where he’s cured if he’s telling the truth, they make sure he’s telling it before they let him go.”
He thought what a beautiful trap it had been that he’d walked into. He’d probably die here, now.
He leaned his head against the cool iron bars and closed his eyes. He heard footsteps walking away from him and knew he was alone.
He opened his eyes and looked out into blackness; now the clouds had drifted across the moon, too. Clare, he thought; Clare.