I hardly knew which of his two ideas to blast the hardest. I looked at Anita first. She simply raised her head and looked me straight in the eye. It could mean almost anything.
I tried Fred: "And you consider it's your job to check on me?"
"Of course. Goes without saying," he said. I shrugged. "At any rate," he added, calming down. "I'm staying. Nothing outside of a direct order, which I will protest to George Kelly, will get me to leave." The last thing I wanted was trouble with the Director.
"Stay, Fred," I said. "But we'll have some things to settle afterwards."
"Maybe," he smiled. "It will depend. Right now I'd like to get a load of this motivational research you've got cooked up."
"Don't bother," Mother said. "I've got more sense than to tie the rope around my own neck. I'm not saying a word." She crossed her arms and sat back in her chair with a granitic finality.
"So much the quicker," Fred said. "You can sentence her right now, Gyp!"
"Sure," I said. "Sure I can." I wish I could say that my mind raced to a quick decision. No—I couldn't think. Or almost couldn't. One idea percolated through. Mother had made no "mistake" in calling Tony by my name. She had read Fred's mind in the 'copter on the way from the jail, and Anita's as she was ushered in. Her "mistake" could only mean one thing—Fred Plaice was not sure she was my mother.
This much thought took time. Fred knew I was stalling. "Come on," he snapped in a tone he had never dared to use to me before. "Let's have the sentence!"
He was right in one thing. He had me over a barrel. I squeezed my eyelids shut and did something I hadn't done since that day twenty years before when I had run away from home. I opened my mind to my mother.