by Dean Koontz
“I don’t remember.”
“Of course you do.”
“Berton Mitchell.”
“Did you like him?”
“At first I did.”
“You said once that he teased you.”
“In a fun way. And he had a special name for me.”
“What did he call you?”
“Contrary. As if that were my real name.”
“Were you contrary?”
“Not the least bit. He was teasing. He got it from the nursery rhyme. ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary’ ...”
“When did you stop liking Berton Mitchell?”
She wanted to be home with Max. She could almost feel his arms around her.
“When did you stop liking him, Mary?”
“That day in August.”
“What happened?”
“You know.”
“Yes, I do know.”
“Well then.”
“But we never seem to get further into this thing unless we start from the top each time.”
“I don’t want to get further into it.”
But he was relentless. “What happened that day in August when you were six years old?”
“Have you gotten any new glass dogs recently?”
“What did Berton Mitchell do that day in August?”
“He tried to rape me.”
Six P.M. Early winter night. The air was cool and fresh.
He left the car at the coffee shop and walked north along the highway, his back to the traffic.
He had a knife in one pocket, a revolver in the other. He kept his hands on both weapons.
His shoes crunched in the gravel.
The wind from the passing cars buffeted him, mussed his hair, pasted his overcoat to his legs.
The beauty shop, Hair Today, occupied a small detached building on Main Street, just north of the Santa Ana city limits. With its imitation thatched roof, leaded windows, plaster and exposed-beam exterior, the place resembled a cottage in the English countryside—except for the floodlights shining on the front of it, and except for the pink and green paint job.
The block was strictly commercial. Service stations, fast-food restaurants, real estate offices, dozens of small businesses, all of them nestled in neon and palm trees and jade-plant hedges, flourished like ugly flowers in the money-scented Orange County air. South of Hair Today was the sales lot of an imported automobile dealership. Row after row of sleek machines huddled in the night. Only the windshields and chrome gleamed malevolently under mercury-vapor lights. North, beyond the beauty shop, lay a three-screen motion picture theater, and beyond that a shopping center.
A dirty white Cadillac and a shiny Triumph stood on the macadam parking area in front of Hair Today.
He crossed the lot, walked between the cars, opened the cottage door, and went inside.
The narrow front room was a lounge where women marked time until their appointments. The carpet was purple and plush, the chairs bright yellow, the drapes white. There were end tables, ashtrays, and stacks of magazines, but at this late hour there were no customers waiting.
At the rear of the room was a purple and white counter. A cash register rested on it, and a woman with bleached blond hair sat on a stool behind it.
In back of the woman a curtained archway led to the working part of the shop. The sound of a hand-held hair dryer penetrated the curtain like the buzz of angry bees.
“We’re closed,” the bleached blonde said.
He went to the counter.
“Are you looking for someone?” she said.
He took the revolver out of his pocket. It felt good in his hand. It felt like justice.
She stared at the gun, then into his eyes. She licked her lips. “What do you want?”
He didn’t speak.
She said, “Now wait.”
He pulled the trigger. The sound was masked somewhat by the noisy dryer.
She fell off the stool and didn’t get up.
The hair dryer shut off. From the back room someone said, “Tina?”
He walked around the dead woman, parted the curtains and stepped through them.
Of the four salon chairs, three were empty. The last customer of the day sat in the fourth chair. She was young and pretty, with an impossibly creamy complexion. Her hair was straight and wet.
The hairdresser was a burly man, bald, with a bristling black mustache. He wore a purple uniform shirt with his first name, Kyle, embroidered in yellow on the breast pocket.
The woman drew a deep breath, but she couldn’t find the courage to scream.
“Who are you?” Kyle asked.
He shot Kyle twice.
“My father wasn’t at home that day,” Mary said.
“And your mother?”
“She was up at the main house. Drunk as usual. ”
“And your brother?”
“Alan was in his room, working on his model airplanes.”
“The gardener, Berton Mitchell?”
“His wife and son were away for the week. Mitchell... got me into his place, enticed me into it.”
“Where was this?”
“Down at the far end of the estate, a little cottage with a green shingle roof. He often told me that elves lived with his family.”
An awesome force pressed against her from all sides. She felt as if she was enfolded by leather wings, muscular wings that were draining the heat from her, squeezing the life out of her.
“Go on,” Cauvel said.
Relentlessly the warmth dropped out of her like mercury falling in a thermometer. She was a cold, hollow reed of glass, brittle, breakable. “More brandy?”
“When you’ve finished telling me,” Cauvel said.
“I need help with this.”
“I’m here to help you, Mary.”
“If I tell, he’ll hurt me.”
“Who? Mitchell? You don’t believe that. You know he’s dead. He was found guilty of child molestation, of assault with intent to kill. He hung himself in his cell. I’m the only one here, and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“I was alone with him.”
“You’re speaking so softly I can’t hear you.”
“I was alone with him,” she said again. “He... touched... me ... exposed himself.”
“Were you frightened?”
“Yes.”
The pressure was intense, unbearable, and getting worse.
Cauvel didn’t speak, and she said, “I was frightened because he wanted me ... to do things.”
“What things?”
The air was foul. Although only she and the doctor were in the room, she felt that some creature had its lips to hers and was forcing its rank breath into her lungs.
“I need brandy,” she said.
“What you need is to tell me all of this, to remember every last detail, to get it out in the open once and for all. What things did he want you to do?”
“Help me. You’ve got to guide me.”
“He wanted to have intercourse, didn’t he?”
“I’m not sure.”
Her hands were numb. She could feel cords biting into them. But there were no cords.
“Oral intercourse?” Cauvel asked.
“But not only that.”
Her ankles were sore. She could feel cords that were not there. She moved her feet. They were leaden.
“What else did he want to do?” Cauvel asked.
“I don’t recall.”
“You can remember if you want to.”
“No. Honestly, I can’t. I can’t.”
“What else did he want you to do?”
The embrace of the imaginary wings was so tight that she had difficulty breathing. She could hear them beating the air—wicka-wicka-wicka ...
She stood up, walked away from the chair.
The wings held her.
“What else did he want you to do?” Cauvel asked.
“Something awful, unspeakable.”
“A sex act
of some sort?”
Wicka-wicka-wicka ...
“Not just sex. More than that,” she said.
“What was it?”
“Dirty. Filthy.”
“In what way?”
“Eyes watching me.”
“Mitchell’s eyes?”
“Not his.”
“Who then?”
“I can’t remember.”
“You can.”
Wicka-wicka ...
“Wings,” she said.
“Rings? You’re speaking too softly again.”
“Wings,” she said. “Wings.”
“What do you mean?”
She was shaking, vibrating. She was afraid her legs would fail her. She returned to the armchair. “Wings. I can hear them flapping. I can feel them.”
“You mean Mitchell kept a bird in the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“A parrot perhaps?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Work at remembering it, Mary. Don’t let go of this thought. You’ve never mentioned wings before. It’s important.”
“They were everywhere.”
“The wings?”
“All over me. Little wings.”
“Think. What did he do to you?”
She was silent a long while. The pressure began to ease a bit. The sound of wings faded.
“Mary?”
Finally she said, “That’s all. I can’t recall anything else.”
“There is a way to unlock those memories,” he said.
“Hypnosis,” she replied.
“It works.”
“I’m afraid to remember.”
“You should be afraid not to remember.”
“If I remember, I’ll die.”
“That’s ridiculous, and you know it.”
She pushed her hair back from her face. For his benefit, she forced a smile. “I don’t hear the wings now. I can’t feel them. We don’t need to talk about wings anymore.”
“Of course we do.”
“I won’t talk about wings, dammit!” She shook her head violently. She was surprised and frightened by her own vehemence. “Not today anyway.”
“All right,” Cauvel said. “I’ll accept that. That’s not the same thing as saying you don’t need to talk.” He began to polish his glasses once more. “Let’s go back to what you remember. Berton Mitchell beat you.”
“I suppose he did.”
“You were found in his place?”
“In his living room.”
“And you were badly beaten?”
“Yes.”
“And later you told them he did it.”
“But I can’t remember it happening. I recall the pain, terrible pain. But only for an instant.”
“You could have lost consciousness with the first blow.”
“That’s what everyone said. He must have kept hitting me after I passed out. I couldn’t have stood up to him for long. I was just a little girl.”
“He used a knife, too?”
“I was cut all over.”
“How long were you in the hospital?”
“More than two weeks.”
“How many stitches for the wounds?”
“More than a hundred altogether.”
The beauty shop smelled of shampoo, cream rinse, and cologne. He could also smell the woman’s sweat.
The floor was littered with hair. It swirled around them as he moved onto her and into her.
She refused to respond to him. She neither welcomed him nor struggled against him. She lay still. Her eyes were like the eyes of the dead.
He didn’t hate her for that. In the long run he’d never cared for passion in his women. For the first few months a new lover’s aggression and delight in sex was tolerable. He could be tender for a short time. But always, after a few months, he needed to see fear in them. That was what brought him to climax. The more they feared him, the better he liked them.
As he lay on her, he could feel this woman’s heart thumping wildly, accelerated by terror. That excited him, and he began to move faster within her.
“You took a number of Mitchell’s blows on your head,” Cauvel said.
“My face was black and blue. My father called me his little patchwork doll.”
“Did you suffer a concussion?”
“I see where all of this is leading,” she said. “But no. No concussion. Absolutely not.”
“When did your visions begin?”
“Later the same year.”
“A few minutes ago you asked me why you’d been singled out to be a clairvoyant. Well, there’s nothing mysterious about it really. As in the case of Peter Hurkos, your psychic talent came after a serious head injury.”
“Not serious enough.”
He stopped polishing his spectacles, put them on, and studied her with huge, magnified eyes. “Is it possible that a severe psychological shock could trigger psychic abilities in the same way that certain head injuries seem to do?”
She shrugged.
“If you didn’t acquire your power as a result of a physical trauma, then maybe you acquired it because of a psychological trauma. Do you suppose that’s possible?”
“It could be,” she said.
“Either way,” he said, thrusting a bony finger at her, as if repeatedly tapping a window between them, “either way, your clairvoyance probably goes back to Berton Mitchell, to what he did to you that you can’t remember.”
“Maybe.”
“And your insomnia goes back to Berton Mitchell. Your periodic depressions go back to him. What he did to you is the underlying cause of your anxiety attacks. I tell you, Mary, the sooner you face up to this, the better. If you ever let me use hypnosis to regress you and guide you through the memories, then you’ll never need my help again.”
“I’ll always need your help.”
He scowled. His deeply tanned face was scored by lines like saber slashes. An ambitious portrait painter would have wanted to catch him with that expression, for it made him look fierce, yet fair and reliable. It was that expression that drew her to him at a party three years ago; and his distant but paternal manner caused her to seek his advice when her dependency on sleeping pills became absolute.
“If you’ll always need my help,” he said, “then I’m not helping you at all. As a psychiatrist, I must make you find all the strength you need inside yourself.”
She went to the bar and picked up the decanter of brandy. “You said I could have another if I kept talking a while.”
“I never break a promise.” He joined her at the bar. “The day’s nearly over. I’ll have another, too.”
As she poured for them, she said, “You’re wrong about Mitchell.”
“In what sense?”
“I don’t think all of my problems date back to him. Some of them started the day my father died.”
“I’ve heard you expound on that theory before.”
“I was in the car with him when he was killed. I was in the back seat and he was driving. I saw him die. His blood sprayed all over me. I was only nine. And the years after he died weren’t easy. In three years my mother lost all the money my father left us. We went from rich to poor between my ninth and twelfth birthdays. I think an experience like that would leave some scars, don’t you?”
“It has,” he said. He picked up his brandy glass. “But it’s not responsible for the worst scars.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re able to talk about it.”
“So?”
“But you aren’t able to talk about what happened with Berton Mitchell.”
When he finished with the woman, he stood, pulled up his pants, zipped his fly. He hadn’t even taken off his coat.
He stepped back from her, looked at her.
Given the opportunity, she made no effort to cover herself. Her skirt was bunched around her hips. Her blouse was unbuttoned; one plump breast was visible. Her hands were fisted. Her fingernails had gouged
her palms, and ribbons of blood were on her hands. Terrorized, reduced to little more than a cowering animal, she represented his ideal woman.
He took the knife out of his coat pocket.
He expected her to scream and scramble away from him, but as he moved in for the kill, she lay as if she were dead already. She was past fear now, past feeling anything.
Kneeling beside her, he placed the point of the blade at her throat. The flesh dimpled around it, but she didn’t blink.
He raised the blade high, held it in her line of sight, over her breasts.
No response.
He was disappointed. When time and circumstance allowed, he preferred to kill slowly. To get any thrill from that game, he required a lively woman for prey.
Angry with her for spoiling the moment, he rammed the knife down.
Mary Bergen gasped.
The razor edge ripping her skin, opening muscle, opening the reservoir of blood, opening the dark place where pain was stored ...
She leaned into the corner formed by the wall and the side of the antique oak bar. She was only half aware that she knocked over an unopened bottle of Scotch.
“What’s the matter?” Cauvel asked.
“It hurts.”
He touched her shoulder. “Are you sick? Can I help?”
“Not sick. The vision. I feel it.”
The knife again, thrust deep ...
She put both hands to her stomach, trying to contain the eruption of pain. “I won’t faint this time. I won’t!”
“A vision of what?” Cauvel asked worriedly.
“The beauty shop. The same one I saw a few hours ago. Only it’s happening now. The slaughter... God almighty... happening somewhere, happening right this minute.” She put her hands to her face, but the images would not be shut out. “Oh, God. Sweet God. Help me.”
“What do you see?”
“A dead man on the floor.”
“The floor of the beauty shop?”
“He’s bald... mustache... purple shirt.”
“What is it you’re feeling?”
The knife ...
She was sweating. Crying.
“Mary? Mary?”
“I feel... the woman... being stabbed.”
“What woman? There’s a woman?”
“Mustn’t black out.”
She started to sag, and he held her by both shoulders.
She saw the knife gouging flesh again, but she felt no pain this time. The woman in the vision was dead; therefore, there was no more pain to share.