Agyar

FOURTEEN

Maybe I will make a good detective after all; I seem to have developed the knack of finding what I want through sheer, boring drudgework, which, as I understand it, is most of what detectives do. In this case, I called every hospital in the area asking to speak with Brian Baldwin. The first one I tried was University Hospital on Jefferson, where Jill was staying, because that would have made things sweet and easy, but I had no such luck. In any case, it wouldn’t have mattered, because I learned that she had been discharged that morning. So I got a telephone directory and started making calls. Eighteen times I asked to speak with Brian Baldwin; eighteen times I was asked if he was an inpatient; eighteen times I said yes; eighteen times I was told, very apologetically, that he didn’t seem to be listed and was I certain of the spelling of his name; the nineteenth I was told that it was too late to ring the patient rooms.

The hospital is called Saint Matthew’s, and it is located outside of town in one of the high-class suburbs. Now, I must tackle the problem of gaining entry. I don’t-yes, in fact, I do know how to go about it. More later.

Some time ago I dated an Emergency Room nurse, and I learned about some of the odder things that happen in hospital emergency rooms.

For example, once a patient had, somehow, gotten a lightbulb stuck in his, um, rectal passage, without breaking it, and to remove it the crew found a lamp, screwed the lamp into the lightbulb, and pulled it out. In another case, someone managed to get himself stuck in a stairwell, drunk, and wearing almost nothing. Since this was in a warm climate, no one thought of hypothermia, so when CPR failed he was pronounced dead, and the intern was breaking the news to the family when his heart started beating again. There was another case where a man had gotten a four-inch-thick piece of steel tubing driven through his chest-a piece that was too long to fit into the elevator, so they had to walk him up the stairway to surgery. He lived.

And here’s another example, from right here in Lakota, that happened just a few hours ago.

A man was found lying flat on his back outside of the Emergency Room entrance. A quick check indicated no pulse and no respiration. He was brought in and CPR was administered, as well as adrenaline injections (they will never know how much he enjoyed that), but, after twenty minutes, there was no response. They disconnected him, covered him over, and wheeled him out into the hall. Eventually, when those who come for bodies came for him he was gone. While they were trying to track him down, they found an ER admissions nurse who said that he had walked by her, winked, and disappeared down the hall toward the administrative section.

Some time later, an ob-gyn nurse was found, dazed and pale, slumped against her desk. Maybe someone thought to ask her if she’d seen the fellow, and maybe she looked puzzled, nodded, and passed out. More likely, the incidents were never connected. And maybe someone gave his description to the police and then identified him from a sketch. More likely, they just shrugged the whole thing off and never bothered reporting it to anyone for fear of getting into trouble. That’s what things are like in your favorite hospital.

The place smelled of disinfectant, the walls were white, the corridors wide, the doctors and nurses very intent on what they were doing. Brian Baldwin was in a private room on the third floor, sleeping. Someone had brought roses. Laura was always fond of roses, though I never knew if it was the flower or the thorns that appealed to her. Baldwin, even sleeping, had a strong and not unattractive face, with the exception of his hair, which was entirely missing. His breathing was deep but not terribly so. I hid myself and waited.

After a while, when nothing happened, I slipped outside the door and read his chart. He was, it seems, twenty-five years old and a graduate student at St. Bartholomew’s College. The chart contained such gems of information as: “Weak, rapid, thready pulse.” What in the world is a thready pulse? It also mentioned, among the little bit I could understand, dehydration, increased heart rate, severe anemia with several question marks after it, “HIV neg” followed by three dates, the first being last September, the most recent being last month. It also contained the notes “questionably compliant,” and “2–3 day cycle.”

I wondered what “questionably compliant” meant. It sounded like blaming the victim for the failure of the treatment, but I don’t know hospital jargon.

The most interesting one, however, was from late last September, where it said several things about “chemo,” followed by indecipherable codes, and ending with, “Leukemia negative, discontinuing chemo.”

Now, I don’t know a great deal about chemotherapy, but I think I have a better idea of why so much of Kellem’s hair is gone-they looked at his symptoms and decided he had leukemia, and treated it with chemotherapy, and Kellem got to share in the side effects. Didn’t she know it would happen? Or didn’t she care? Could she really be in love?

Poor Laura.

And, while we’re at it, poor doctors; they haven’t a clue. Or, rather, they have every clue, but there is no chance they’ll believe them.

I waited for several hours more, hiding from the nurses and watching, but nothing happened. I wasn’t surprised; if he’d been my victim, I’d have waited another day or two until he recovered. And besides, why should she come so late? If I were here, I’d arrive in the early evening, like any other visitor after work. I’d probably pretend to be visiting someone else entirely, on a different floor, so that no one would connect me with the patient’s relapses, and I would take advantage of the private room for a tete-a-tete with my lover, or victim, or what-have-you.

I smelled the roses once, then left via the window and came back home and put my piece of petrified wood back on, because I’m used to it. I wish those damned cops hadn’t spotted it.

I do not yet know how, but I am going to kill Laura Kellem.

When I was young, I used to travel around the public houses in the evening with a friend named Robert or Richard or something. One evening I happened to finish off a glass of ale into which he had, I think by accident though I could be wrong, dropped some ash from his cigar. I can still remember spitting it out, and how disgusted I felt. That is how I feel now, although I am using the allusion to taste more in a metaphorical than a literal sense. Still, one could look at it either way, I suppose.

My hands are still shaking, and, as I typed the above paragraph, I have twice had to leave three times now I have had to run to the toilet.

But let me describe it all; perhaps that will exorcise it somewhat. I returned to the hospital and hid myself in the bathroom in Brian Baldwin’s private room. Sure enough, Kellem arrived within minutes. He was awake, and they spoke together in tones too low for me to hear most of the words. But I’m certain that I heard Kellem say, “Little one.”

She used to call me “Little one.”

No, I’m not jealous (this time); but I understood things better now. Baldwin wouldn’t or couldn’t leave town, Kellem was unwilling to make him, and the bitch had fallen in love. As new for her, I think, as for me-which is hardly coincidence. So, I guess, I have something to thank her for as well.

I’ve been shying away from asking myself this, but I wonder if my feelings for Susan will change once I am free of Laura. I can’t help wondering, but I don’t believe they will. If one can ever trust one’s own instincts, there is no chance that I am wrong about this.

But let me return to the story.

I continued listening, and presently the conversation stopped. I waited for a moment, then emerged from hiding. They were holding each other close, and his head was thrown back with an expression of rapture while her head was buried against his shoulder.

She looked up as I entered, and her expression underwent a series of changes impossible to describe. At last she said, “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

Brian sighed and settled back against his pillow, calling her name softly; his breathing was fast and deep. Kellem rose from the bed and faced me.

I said, “I thought we should have a talk, dearest Laura. Have you a few moments? I hate to interrupt such a tender scene, but-”

“Keep still.”

“Your hair seems to be starting to grow back. Congratu-”

“Silence.”

“Heh. Try it on someone else; I know better now.”

“You know what better, fool?”

“Many things. I know why you brought me here. I know what sort of idiocy you’ve been involved in. I know that you lied to me. Most important, I know why you lied to me. You cannot control me any longer, Kellem.”

“Oh?” she said. “I cannot?”

“That is correct.”

She smirked at me.

I shrugged. “I’m offering you a deal, Kellem. My life for yours. You leave me in peace, and allow me to depart, and I’ll take no action against you.”

“Indeed?” she said, smiling with fake sweetness. “But if I cannot control you, how can I stop you from leaving? Why don’t you just do it?”

“It isn’t quite that simple,” I said. “But I can-”

“Silence,” she repeated, snapping out the word, and I found myself unable to speak; it was as if something had reached past my consciousness to wherever my motor skills are controlled, and pushed the off button for speech. All I could do was glare, which I did.

“You think you can defy me? You think you can resist my will? You think you can set your powers against mine?”

I still could not speak, so I continued to glare; flying in the face of reason, I must admit, but I wasn’t feeling reasonable.

“Then I must teach you better.”

She looked around, and I saw her eyes come to rest on the tray of half-eaten food on the cart next to Brian’s bed. I suddenly knew what she was going to do, and I tried to ask her not to but I still couldn’t speak. She pointed to it and said, “Eat.”

I shook my head.

“Eat,” she said again, and I couldn’t even fight it. I walked over to the tray, and picked up the spoon. There was some sort of noodle dish with hamburger and tomato sauce. I don’t even think I would have been able to eat such a thing when

Four times now. I hope that was the last.

I picked up a spoon and put a little on it. “More,” she said. I complied. I brought it to my mouth and stopped. “Do it,” she said.

I did. I chewed it. I would have chewed it for a long, long time, but she caught me and said “Swallow,” so I did. I felt it slide down my throat and travel all the way into my stomach.

She said, “Again.”

Her control over my voice had stopped, so I said, “Laura, please-”

“Another one! Now!”

I repeated the process. And again. It was about then that the cramps hit and I doubled over, retching.

“Again,” said Laura, at which point the door opened. The cramp ended as this occurred, so I was able to watch as a nurse entered. She stared at me, then gave me a disapproving frown.

“The food,” she said, “is for-”

“Kill her,” said Laura Kellem, and I could feel her smile as she pronounced the words.

I had no will, no choice.

The nurse screamed and backed out of the door. I was on her before she got much farther, but that was enough. I was aware that there were many people around me as my hands fastened on her throat, crushed, and twisted. At the same moment, I felt that I was free again, but it was just exactly too late.

I was back in the room before the nurse’s body hit the ground. I was not surprised to find that Kellem was nowhere to be seen. Another cramp hit just as the screams started, giving me the absurd impression that everyone in the hospital had been hit with stomach cramps at the same time I was.

There were footsteps behind me, but I couldn’t move. There were hands on my shoulders as the pain stopped. I stood and twisted free. Someone tried to grab me and I tossed him or her away like an insect one finds crawling on one’s shirt. I crashed through the window, taking cuts on my face and hands.

I made it back home in time for my stomach to empty itself. Five times, so far.

Somehow I am going to kill Laura Kellem.

Today I went on what can only be called a scavenger hunt. I had to start early so I could reach places before they closed, but I made it. I purchased one black candle, some dark blue wool and matching thread, a needle, ten yards of blue yarn, one yard of white. Then I found an all-night grocery store and picked up some fresh basil.

So much for the purchases. The other stuff was harder, it still being winter, but I took a shaving from the stem of a wild rose, and bits of some mountain ash and even a few nettles, although it took me nearly all night and I came back cold and irritated.

When I returned, Jim said, “What’s in the bag?”

“I’m going to sacrifice a child,” I snapped. “Gotta problem with that?”

He looked troubled until he realized that I was jesting, which hurt my feelings a little.

For all that it has taken me, maybe ten minutes to write this down, getting it done was very lengthy and irritating. But at least I’m done, and as ready as I’m likely to be.

The moon will be new in five days.

Winter is holding on with great determination this year, which annoys me even though I know what is causing it. In New York, spring is meaningless as far as I’m concerned, and in many places I have been it never actually seems to happen, but Ohio, I’m told, usually has one, and this year we are being cheated out of it. It snowed again today, then the snow turned to rain which froze on the sidewalks after making a halfhearted effort at melting some of the snow it had just deposited on us. It had stopped raining by the time I arrived at Susan’s door. The smells of spring, which are how I identify the condition, have not yet occurred, and for all I can tell will not at all this year.

We walked to the Tunnel and strolled along the Ave; one of a number of couples fighting the weather, hand in hand or arms about each other. Susan had her black-gloved hands on my arm; I had eschewed my ugly coat entirely, but wore a thick gray sweater. There is something about this particular pose-her hands on my arm-that makes me feel tall, proud, masculine, and extraordinarily tender.

I felt oddly akin to the other couples on the street, as if we were all part of an elite-the young and in love, to coin a hackneyed phrase. Most of us, I think, knew that somewhere along the line most of us would join the young and miserable, followed by the young and resigned, followed by the middle-aged and bored; but ought that to diminish the pleasure of the moment? Au contraire, if I may.

I said, “How is Jill?”

“She seems to be doing very well. She was up all day today, and didn’t seem nearly so pale. In fact, she went out a couple of hours ago.”

“Good. I will speak to her.”

“You might want to wait a day or two.”

“Perhaps. How did things go with Jennifer?”

“What a bitch.”

I chuckled. “Is that all there is to say about it?”

“Pretty much.”

I shrugged. “If you were to suddenly leave me for someone else, I’d be a bitch too.” What is it that makes us want to defend our late rival? I suppose the fear that we may be in need of such defense sooner than we would like.

Susan, however, brushed off my comment and said, “Would you start listing all the things you’d done for me, as if I’m supposed to stay with you out of gratitude?”

I shook my head. “No, I’d simply find the other person and dismember him, or her.”

She laughed, thinking I was joking. Or maybe not.

A couple of birds were complaining about the weather. The rats played in the sewers, the cars played on the streets. I turned my head away when patrol cars went by, which they rarely did on the Ave.

She squeezed my arm and remarked, “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“About dismemberment?”

She laughed. “About maybe coming along when and if you leave.”

“Oh.” One of the amazing things about Susan is her ability to talk about the most serious things without losing the laughter in her voice. I said, “What about it?”

She was quiet for a moment, then she said, “I know so little about you.”

“You know that I love you; that’s a start.”

“Now,” she said, “you’re being trite.”

I sighed. “I suppose I am. What do you want to know?”

“Well, what do you do for a living?”

“Many things. I play cards, for one.”

“Gamble?”

Deja vu. “No gamble,” I said, and smiled.

She laughed. “What else do you do?”

“Pretty young girls.”

She laughed again. I love her laugh. It somehow manages to be simultaneously contrived and natural. She said, “All right, then where do you live?”

“With a friend, a few miles from here.”

“What’s it like?”

“Do you wish to see it?”

“Yes.”

“Now?”

She shrugged. “There’s no hurry.”

“All right. Tomorrow, then.”

“That would be splendid.”

“What else do you want to know?”

“Everything about you. Where were you born?”

“Far away across the sundering sea. I was educated in London, though, and that probably has more of an effect on me than my birthplace.”

“You seem to have lost most of the accent, although I like what’s left.”

“Thank you. What else do you want to know?”

“My, we are in an expansive mood today, aren’t we?”

“Anything your heart desires, my love; today it shall be yours.”

“Well, in that case.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s go back to my house.”

And we did.

F.D.S.N.

The deed is done, the bird has flown.

Or something like that.

And I had never suspected what sort of bird it was; I’m not certain I know now, only-

But let me tell it as it happened.

I awoke, and decided that it was time to finish things with Jill. I admit I thought seriously of killing her, but it was too likely to cause complications, and it was really only a matter of convenience and saving myself some annoyance, which made it a poor risk.

I brought her to mind, and was startled at once; I recognized where she was and what she was doing.

Well, one place was as good as another. It took me half an hour to walk there, and that was because I strolled; keeping an eye out for the police, but also because of the weather, which had become colder, and kept the sidewalks treacherous. The stars were out, blazing, and the moon had not yet risen, nor would it until nearly dawn.

I’m certain that Jill did not hear me approach her, yet when I got there she was sitting on a tall stool, waiting for me. She wore a dark blue smock over whatever else she had on. The blue was, in fact, only theoretical; the smock was covered with paint splatters and would probably have been stylish, somewhere. There was another stool, a few feet from hers, so I sat on it, and looked at the easel.

It glistened with fresh acrylic. At first I thought it was a still life. There were a bunch of white roses against a pale red background, and something about these roses made me understand why some cultures consider white to be a sign of mourning, because, although the roses were in full bloom, very beautiful and lifelike, there was a quality of death about them; perhaps in the way they lay in the clear vase; a haphazard arrangement as if someone had picked them and then thrown them into the vase, not caring how they looked. Rather than admiring their beauty, it made me speculate on picking roses at all; on what one did when one took a blooming flower and cut it from the bush.

And then I noticed that behind the vase, almost invisible, in some sort of impossible red on red, was a face, staring out at the viewer, as if to watch him watch the roses, and while I couldn’t really see the features of that face, I knew it was a girl, and I knew that there was a single tear running down her face.

For quite a while I couldn’t speak, only stare, and wonder at the choking in my throat. I finally said, “What do you call it?”

“‘Self-portrait With Roses,’” she said.

“A good name.”

“Yes.”

I looked some more, letting the catharsis wash over me, and when it had, I realized that it was as much a portrait of me as it was of her, and that it was not flattering.

I said, in a voice barely above a whisper, “Jill, this is magnificent.”

“Thank you,” she said; her voice was neither loud nor soft, but, rather, inanimate, maybe even numb.

“I had no idea you could paint like that.”

“I couldn’t, before,” she said. “I suppose I ought to thank you.”

I looked at her looking at me, and I shook my head, unable to speak. I turned back to the painting, and in this mirror I was reflected; for me to see, and all the world. I don’t understand all that I felt then, but there was grief, and there was shame.

I said, “Come to me.”

She got up and stood before me, letting her smock fall to the ground. She wore a dark plaid workshirt, and as she reached for the top button I said, “No.”

She looked faintly puzzled, but stopped.

I took her hands in mine. “Look at me,” I said.

She did.

I squeezed her hands, willing myself into her mind, her heart, her soul. Her eyes grew larger, and in them, too, I could see my own reflection, for there is no silver there, nor, for that matter, is there any gold; perhaps there is only the gentle, soft fibers of a rose.

I said, “Jill Quarrier, you are free of me. Your life is your own.”

I felt her tremble through her hands, which seemed as cold as my own.

“Never again will I come to you, never again must you come to me. Your destiny is in your own hands, to make, or to destroy. You are part of me no longer, nor am I part of you. Go your way in peace.”

I let go of her hands and she fell to her knees, sobbing. I bent down and kissed the top of her head, and left her that way.

I don’t know.

Had she not painted that picture, I would have freed her anyway, for I had promised two people that I would, and I had already decided to keep this promise; but I wonder: If I had not, would I have released her anyway, after seeing what she could do, who she was?

In truth, I fear that I would not have, for my needs are strong and my patterns are ingrained very deeply.

But I am glad that it happened as it did, for I think it is indecent for anyone to go through his entire life and never know shame.