So there it is. Tool set the whole thing up. She knew Jessica would attend the show, probably even knew which day. She enticed you into taking her there because she wanted Jessica to see her with you, and she probably did something there that you didn't even notice, like taking your arm, squeezing it—anything to provoke Jessica and force her out of therapy.
This is terrible! It means Tool's been using you! It means you've lost control of her, created a Frankenstein's monster just as Mama said.
Calm down! Look at the implications. Janek's got the photographs. If Tool was the other fencer and he should see her entering the basement apartment, he'll recognize her at once. He already suspects you. He's not all that great at hiding what he feels. Or, more likely, he's deliberately letting his suspicions show in the hope you'll get spooked and tip your hand.
The main thing now is to keep Janek from seeing Tool.
But there's something even more important, which is to get to the bottom of Tool and Jessica's relationship. Tool has to tell you whether she was the "English girl." Once you're certain about that, you can take the necessary countermeasures.
So the thing to do is get Tool up here in front of Mama. Mama always intimidates her. If you can get her up here naked in front of Mama, Mama'll make her talk.
It is night. The scene is a shadowy and cavernous bedchamber dimly lit with soft reddish light. At one end a large four-poster oak bed stands free of the walls. At the other, three female figures are arranged in frozen postures as if posing for a tableau vivant. From the expressions on the faces of these players, a spectator might well feel that a question hangs upon the air. But not one of the figures moves or speaks. The question, if there was one, remains unanswered.
The first figure, young, muscular, firm-fleshed, stands at stiff attention. She is naked, her head and body totally shaved, a fine gloss of perspiration coating her like a dew. The soft red light that paints her exposed skin emphasizes the blush generated from within. Her eyes, too, are red, as if from weeping.
The second figure, older, shorter, plump, sits opposite the first in a high-backed chair. She is dressed in a too-tight strapless crimson gown which can barely contain her bodice. Her eyes are narrowed as she stares with cold reproach at the younger woman's face. But the younger woman does not return the seated woman's gaze.
Rather, her eyes engage the eyes of a third woman, actually a painted image hanging on the wall just above the seated woman's chair. This woman, the one in the picture, wears the same crimson gown as the live woman below, but the garment suits her better. While the breasts of the seated woman are constricted by her gown, the bosoms of the painted woman fill hers perfectly. There is a curious resemblance between the seated woman and the painted one that must haunt a spectator. It is as if each one's face, in a completely different way, is a caricature of the other's.
But perhaps what would seem most strange would be the powerful force-field of emotions that appears to exist among these players. A spectator would know that the three are bound to one another in some inexorable and yet tragic way, bound so tightly and forcefully that anything outside their triangle, any person or event, would have no meaning to them at all.
"She says she did it because Jessica wouldn't return her bow! What do you think, Mama? Hours of punitive bracing and she comes up with that."
"The bow we gave—"
"Right, Mama, the bow we presented to her when she came back from commando school in Colorado. Remember, she was first in her class out there, and we thought she ought to be rewarded for doing so well, especially as most of the other students were males. Besides, she'd told us her martial arts instructor had suggested she take up archery to hone her concentration. So we mail-ordered an excellent target bow and set of arrows and laid them out for her on the bed so she'd see them first thing when she reported in after her trip."
"But wasn't there another connection?"
"Of course, Mama! Do you think I'm such a bad analyst I didn't understand what was going on?"
"Gosh, Bev, you're touchy today. I don't think you're a bad analyst at all."
"Forgive me, Mama. I thought you were implying that I wasn't aware of the play on words. Because, of course, I was. Diana wanted a bow so she could play archer, or should I say 'Archer'? She liked being the patient but also wanted to play at being Doctor, or at least try out the authority role for a while. If she had a bow in her hands, she'd be a kind of Archer, with real potency, too, as a bow can be an extremely powerful weapon."
"You were always a wonderful analyst, Bev. You have your deficiencies. Who doesn't? But you've always been good at your job."
"What deficiencies?"
"Oh, please, let's not get into that."
"I think we should get into it. I've known for some time you've found me deficient. Now's as good a time as any to clear the air. I'm waiting, Mama. Tell me where you find me wanting. I can take your criticism. God knows, I've taken it all my life."
"You're sure you want to hear it?"
"I'm sure."
"Okay, but just remember you asked for it. So don't complain."
"I won't."
"Let's start with this wallflower business."
"Is that what it is? A 'business'?"
"You know what I mean."
"I'm not sure I do. I happen to be a wallflower."
"No, dear, that's what you made yourself into. No one's born a wallflower. A wallflower creates herself. Something in you likes being a wallflower, so you have Tool leave those flowers beside the walls, as if—"
"As if what, damn it, Mama?"
"There, see, you're getting angry. You were always so touchy, Bev. You could never take the slightest bit of criticism."
"Never mind that! Just tell me how I've made myself into a wallflower, since that seems to be what you think."
"It's not just what I think, dear. It's the truth. And having Tool leave those homely, withered flowers by the bodies only reinforces your negative self-image. Which, frankly, you could remedy if you'd just find yourself somebody who . . . you know."
"Somebody to screw me. That's what you mean, isn't it?"
"I knew this dialogue was going to turn unpleasant, Bev. I think it would be better if we stop talking."
"Certainly, Mama, if that's the way you want it . . ."
"There's a difference, Mama, a big difference between us. It's important for you to understand the difference and why, as much as I might like, I cannot be like you. For one thing, I don't have your looks. I know I'm not really bad-looking. And I certainly don't feel sorry for myself. In this world, as I so often remind my patients, you've got to play the hand you're dealt. But you're beautiful, Mama. Just look at yourself, your eyes, complexion, bones, the marvelous planes of your face. There were those who called you the most beautiful woman in Cleveland. You played the part, too. Grand. Mysterious. Elusive. Even cruel at times. Not really cruel in the sense of mean or small, but cruel in the way that a great woman projects cruelty, becoming, as the poet said, a Lady of Pain. Mystical. Unfathomable. My nurturer and my nemesis.
"It was you who taught me the lines:
Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower.
"Sometimes when I'm lying in bed, I look up at you and think: How could I, little me, be the child of such magnificence? I know I shouldn't run myself down. I am who I am and, as such, am as valuable as any other human on this earth. But it hasn't always been easy being your daughter. I never had your stature, your beauty, your compelling personality. I had to find my own way to power, and the way I found, the way of concealment and craft, is not nearly as attractive as yours. While you played torch singer to Cleveland, bewitching your audiences with songs, I took a less flamboyant route, studying the permutations of the human mind, then working within the interstices to create unique effects. And while your color was and always will be red, c
olor of flames, mine is and always shall be black, color of night.
"There were times, Mama, when you hurt me deeply. I never told you this before. I know you never meant to hurt me; I know that whatever you did, it was always with my own best interests at heart. But there're still times when I feel the pain, and then I wonder: Is it worth it to keep on living, to try to make my way in this pitiless, indifferent world? I do my best. I work hard with my patients, pretending always to listen to them with sympathy. I try hard not to seem like one of those small, tight-lipped therapists who listen and listen and give nothing back in return. But there's so little I can give, Mama, to assuage so much cruelty, torment, so many hurts and humiliations and intractable problems in other women's lives. Who can solve them all? Who can bind up all the wounds? Who can assuage the hurts and blunt the cruelties and tell the wounded ones there is hope and time will heal. It's hard, too, to listen all the time, always to care about them, absorb myself in them, focus my attention on their difficulties, when I have so many of my own. I haven't wanted to think always of the past, obsess over the old hurts and wounds, but it's been hard not to, the pain's been so real, and, Mama, it's always there.
"I was left with no choice, it seems, but to try to wipe it out with acts of retributive justice. The only other option for me was to allow the awful pain to strangle me, choke me to death with its poisonous vines.
"You know your silent treatment's killing me. Do I deserve it, do I really? I'm very sorry, truly very, very sorry I was insolent. But I never denied my overriding love for you. So there really wasn't anything for you to get so offended about.
"Will you please answer me, Mama? Have you forgotten the trophies I had Tool bring back for you! The offerings I made to you? The years I spent listening to your sob stories? I practically did your goddamn wash for you! Have you forgotten that?
"Go ahead, ignore me. Just don't forget—I'm an analyst. I know you're hiding something, and I have a pretty good idea what it is. I want you to confess to me. That's right, Mama, I want the truth. Tell me the truth, and I'll forgive you for it. Because I know you did something, Mama. I know you did.
"Think back. Remember that last little exchange with Jimmy MacDonald just before Tool stabbed him in the eye? You don't remember? Then I'll refresh your memory. Jimmy said: '. . . it wasn't us, you know. It was set up. She ought to talk to her—' And then he stopped.
"Her what? Her mother? Could that have been the person Jimmy was referring to? Was he thinking of you, Mama?
"Since you don't deny it, since you refuse to say anything . . . well, I'll have to draw my own conclusions, won't I? Yes, I'll just have to draw my own conclusions, hurtful though they may be . . . ."
"Shhhh. We have to whisper now. We don't want Tool to hear us. If she hears, she may decide to attack us first. We're going to have to get rid of her. That much is clear. And to do that, we're going to have to set her up so well that there'll be no doubt she was always acting on her own. That won't be hard. All the receipts from her various trips, the paper trail as they call it, have been safely preserved on our orders in her room. And Carl Drucker will gladly testify that we resisted when he first broached release. The most important thing is to make sure the little lynx hasn't kept a diary or anything that can directly tie us to the crimes. Of course, we are tied to them indirectly: It was her insane obsession with us that pushed her to kill these various figures from our past. That's easily documented. All the information she needed was available in our personal files, to which she had ready access by virtue of living in the basement of our house. The plan is foolproof. Even if the cops suspect our influence, all the evidence will point to Tool alone. But we mustn't forget to move the trophies. They mustn't be in front of the portrait; rather, they have to be hidden away in various corners and drawers. The paper trail should nail her nicely, as will the wallflower trap we laid so carefully at Carlisle. We'll have to do it quickly. It will take all our courage, and we'll have only one chance to get it right. The staging must conform to the provocation: Tool tried to kill us; we struck back at her in self-defense. After all, she's a confessed killer. All we ever wanted was to help her adjust. She attacked us, her therapist and mother surrogate, just the way she attacked her own mother, with an ax. We managed to kill her only because she slipped. Another second and her ax would have split our skull. We defended ourself; we had no choice. It was either her or us.
"Too bad, of course, but now that we gather she killed all those other fine people, whole families of them, it seems, and by so doing replicated her original crime against her own family—well, we can't help wondering if perhaps she's not better off dead. This may seem odd, coming as it does from a healer, but we truly believe there are times a person is truly better off in the grave than living possessed by the kind of demons that ravaged poor young Diana Proctor's tormented soul."
Where are you, Mama? I need you now, need you so much! Why are you so silent? Talk to me. Please, talk to me! Pleeeeeease!
8
THE TROPHIES
Janek repositioned himself against the soft white beach towel Monika had arranged upon the cushions of the chaise. It was not a tan he was after but heat. He wanted the sun to strike the center of his chest, wanted its dry hotness to enter his bared body and to spread. Anything to drive away the chill within that made him tremble even now in the middle of this hot, windless December afternoon on the Isla de Cozumel.
The terrace where he lay exposed, naked except for a pair of green jungle-motif trunks Monika had bought for him at the airport, was just a few rock steps down from their casita, perched sixty feet above the beach. From where Janek lay he could see nothing except a line of palms clinging to the curving shore and a vast expanse of blue divided cleanly by the horizon. Below the line was placid cyan sea, above it serene azure sky, and not a whitecap or a cloud marred these seamless surfaces.
He turned to look at Monika. She lay topless on a matching chaise a few feet away, her oversize sunglasses perched on her nose, a German-language paperback open and face down on her belly. At first Janek thought she'd fallen off to sleep, but then he saw a smile spread slowly across her face.
"How're you doing?" he asked.
"Feeling dreamy," she said. "I love it here. How about you?"
"I'm definitely feeling warmer."
"Well, you should. You need more sunscreen." She rose, spread lotion onto her hands, came to him, and, standing behind, began to apply it slowly and evenly to his chest.
He gazed up at her. "That's sexy."
"It's meant to be." She brushed her fingers lightly across his nipples. "You're a very sexy man."
"Thanks for saying that," Janek said, "but I don't feel very appetizing. Pale, middle-aged, scarred . . ."
She spread the lotion very carefully over the wounds on his shoulder and his throat.
"You look good, Frank. A few days down here and you'll start feeling good, too. It may take time, but sooner or later your mind will catch up with your body."
He glanced up at her again, then turned away, feeling tears rising involuntarily to his eyes. This had been happening regularly since the stabbing, and he hated himself for not being able to control it. He was glad he was wearing sunglasses; he didn't like to expose his vulnerability. But when he remembered that Monika had been with him in Venice when Kit had called and told him Jess was dead, he knew it was absurd to feel embarrassed with her. He pulled his glasses off.
"Either I feel cold and start to shake or else I tear up," he said, turning so she could see his eyes. "It's not because of pain or sadness, and certainly not remorse. I don't know why the hell it happens, Monika; but I don't like it, and I want it to stop."
The police psychiatrist had told him the tears and shakes were delayed manifestations of stress. But there was a feeling that came with them, which he couldn't quite define. Monika wanted him to let her help him explore it, but he felt he wasn't ready yet, that he had no words with which to express it. It was something dark that he had gli
mpsed which had entered his mind and gotten lost in the canyons of his brain and which now he feared because it made him feel cold or caused the tears to rise.
She made herself a place to sit beside him, then gently kissed his eyelids dry. Then she took his glasses and set them back on his face, carefully arranging the temples behind his ears.
"I never killed a woman before. Never even shot at one."
"You know gender isn't the issue, Frank."
"A woman. It feels strange."
"You're chivalrous."
He smiled. "I've only rarely been accused of that."
"Oh, Frank. . ." She took his face between her palms. "To kill a person even in self-defense—I understand how difficult it must be to live with that. And I know that no matter what Kit and Aaron say—that you had no choice, that surely she would have killed you if you hadn't killed her, that she was a sociopath, a murderer—I know none of that means anything so long as you're haunted. That's why we're here, to rest, talk, perhaps reorder all those terrible events. In the meantime, remember you're not tainted by your deed, not soiled by it in any way. But you are changed on account of it. So now your task is to come to terms with this new Frank that you are, to understand him and come to love him again."
He took her hand. "Thanks for saying that."
"I like being your lover-shrink. You know I do. Still, when the demons are within, only you can chase them out." She paused. "I love you. Please remember that."
He brought her hand to his lips. "I won't forget."
They had come into his room during the week he was in the hospital, first Aaron, then Kit, then Aaron again, then Aaron and Kit together. On each visit they told him the story, rotating the puzzle so he could examine it from every side. But no matter how many different ways they told it, it always came out the same. The basic story, well constructed because they were excellent detectives, seemed to him wrong and incomplete. He listened to them, nodded, asked questions, and took in their answers, but in the end he told them that good as their story was, he was not going to buy it.
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