“Then don’t be afraid to change.”
His words were so soft, so soothing, the touch of his bare skin against hers was so warm. She floated on the sound of his voice.
“That’s why I’ve led you through these little faceless crimes. They’re symbolic. They let you bleed off the anger in tiny, harmless doses, and that brings you closer to the new Lisl. The same is true with the belt.”
“No, I—”
“Listen to me, listen to me,” he said softly, almost cooing in her ear. “It’s a symbolic act. I don’t want you to really hurt me. Believe me, I’m into pleasure, not pain. Just think of it as comparable to our little thefts—no one was really hurt. This will be much the same. You won’t strike me with any force. You’ll just lay the strap across my back and pretend I’m Brian.”
“Rafe, please…” She was beginning to feel sick.
“Where’s the harm? You won’t be hurting me and you won’t be hurting Brian. You’ll only be helping yourself. This is symbolic, remember? Symbolic.”
“Okay,” she said finally. “Symbolic.”
She didn’t want to do this, but if Rafe thought it was so important, she’d give it a try. And if it did release some of this anger in her—although she didn’t see how it could—that would be to the good. And if nothing else, once she got through it they could make love. That was what she really wanted to do.
Rafe lay across the bed, facedown, the smooth skin of his bare back awaiting the belt.
“All right,” he said. “Twenty strokes. Just think of me as Brian and slap it across my back.”
Feeling silly, Lisl raised the belt and let its length fall onto Rafe’s back.
He laughed. “Come on, Lisl. That was wimpy. This is Brian here. The guy you loved, the guy you trusted enough to marry.”
Lisl swung again and put just a little more into it.
“Is that the best you can do? Lisl, this is the guy who was probably cheating on you during your engagement. And you know from the divorce hearings that he was putting the moves on his female fellow med students the week you got back from your honeymoon.”
She swung harder this time.
“There you go. Just imagine I’m the guy who let you work for him all day to help earn his tuition, and then while you were out taking a night course would sneak a little chippy into your apartment and fuck her right in your own bed.”
Lisl remembered the savage look on Brian’s face when he’d told her that. The belt made a loud slap against Rafe’s back when she swung this time. She swung again, even harder.
Slap!
“Good! Here’s the guy who took you in marriage not as his wife but as his beast of burden, his meal ticket.”
Slap!
“And when he didn’t need you anymore, he tossed you away like an old newspaper.”
“Damn you!” Lisl heard herself say.
Rage suffused her, clouded her vision as she swung the belt with everything she had. And again, over and over, until she saw red …
… on Rafe’s back.
Blood. He had a deep gash across his back.
“Oh my God!”
Suddenly the rage retreated, leaving her cold and sick and weak.
Did I do that? What’s happening? This isn’t me!
She dropped to her knees beside the bed.
“Oh, Rafe, I’m so sorry!”
He turned toward her. “Are you kidding? It’s just a scratch. Come here.”
He pulled her onto the bed beside him. She could see that he was excited. He began kissing her, warming her, chasing the cold and dread and doubt, building the heat within her until it burst into flame.
5
Afterward he held her close and stroked her hair.
“There. Don’t you feel better?”
Lisl knew what he was referring to but didn’t feel like talking about it.
“I always feel good after we make love.”
“I meant with the belt. Didn’t that leave you feeling a bit cleaner, refreshed?”
“No! How could I possibly feel good about hurting you like that?”
“Don’t be silly. You didn’t hurt me.”
“You were bleeding!”
“A scratch.”
“That was no scratch. Turn over and I’ll show you.”
Rafe rolled onto his stomach and presented his back to her.
His unmarred back.
Lisl ran a hand over the smooth skin. There had been welts there only a short while ago. Blood too. She was sure of it.
“How…?”
“I’m a fast healer. You know that.”
“But nobody’s that fast.”
“Which means that you didn’t hurt me anywhere near as badly as you thought.”
He turned toward her and pulled her down to his side. Lisl snuggled against him.
“You see, it was all symbolic. You got some of the anger out without hurting me. The anger was real but my wounds were not. You simply magnified them in your mind. The net result: I’m unhurt and you’re a little bit closer to being the new Lisl.”
“I’m not so sure about this ‘new Lisl’ business.”
“Don’t hinder yourself, Lisl. You’re on the way to setting yourself free. And when you become the new Lisl, you truly will be a new person. No one who knew you before will recognize you. A new Lisl—that’s my promise to you.”
“Fine, but this bit with the belt—”
“That’s just a part of it—the symbolic part. That must continue. But we won’t limit ourselves to the merely symbolic with Doctor Callahan.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll see. My plans aren’t fully formed yet, but you’ll be a part of them, never fear. Stage one is all worked out, however. We execute that in a few hours.”
“A few hours? It’s after midnight!”
“I know. Don’t worry. It’ll be fun. Trust me.”
Lisl hugged Rafe close, a shipwreck victim clinging to a lifeboat on a sea of roiling emotions. She trusted him, but she worried about him as well. Rafe didn’t seem to recognize the same limits as most other people.
6
Lisl shivered as she stood by Rafe’s side at the telephone booth. She glanced at her watch. Five forty-five a.m. What was she doing at this hour standing in the chilly darkness outside an all-night gas station?
For one thing, she was listening to Rafe call her ex-husband. He hadn’t wanted his cell number showing up on Brian’s caller ID, so he’d stopped here. She could have waited in the car and stayed warm but that hadn’t seemed right. She wanted to know exactly what Rafe was up to, wanted to hear every word he said. She was uneasy about this whole trip.
“Rafe, are you sure—?”
He cut her off with a wave of his hand and put a finger to his lips. He spoke into the receiver in an accented voice pitched a few tones higher than his own. He sounded Indian or Pakistani.
“Doctor Callahan?” he said with a grin and a wink at her. “This is Doctor Krishna from the emergency room at County. So sorry to awaken you at this hour. Yes, I am being very new here. I just started this very evening. Thank you very much. Yes, I have a seventy-six-year-old woman here, a Mrs. Cranston, who says her daughter is a patient of yours. Yes, well, let me see … no, I am not having the daughter’s name at hand. However, Mrs. Cranston has suffered a displaced fracture of her left hip. She is being in very much pain at this time. No, I am very sorry to say she is not stable. In fact, her blood pressure is falling. Yes, I have done that. Also she is being very obese and I am worried about the possibility of a pulmonary embolism.” A long pause, then: “Yes, I will be doing that. And I will be telling her daughter that you are coming in immediately. She will be most pleased. Thank you. I am most looking forward to meeting you, Doctor Callahan.”
Lisl stared at him in amazement.
“You sounded just like a doctor. Where did you learn all that?”
He laughed as he led her back to warmth of the car. “I went online
and looked up the major complications of a broken hip.”
“But why?”
“To get him out of the house, of course.”
He helped her into the passenger seat and closed the car door. But instead of getting in on the driver side, he headed back to the gas station.
What’s he up to? she wondered. He’d been so secretive about his plans for tonight.
A moment later he emerged carrying a cardboard box. He placed it in the space behind the seats, then got behind the wheel.
“What did you buy?” Lisl asked.
“Motor oil.”
“Does that have anything to do with Brian?”
“It sure does.”
“Can I ask what?”
His smile was enigmatic. “All in good time, my dear. All in good time.”
“You sound like the Wicked Witch of the West.”
Rafe let out a high-pitched cackle as the Maserati roared to life.
As they entered the Rolling Oaks development Lisl saw Brian speeding out.
“There he goes. The good Dr. Callahan on a mission of mercy.”
“Don’t knock that.”
“He’s covering orthopedic calls for the emergency room tonight. He has to go or he’ll be suspended from the medical center.”
“How do you know?”
“I checked. All it took was a telephone call. And besides, he figures on picking up a couple of grand for pinning some old lady’s broken hip, so let’s not award him a halo yet.”
Rafe shut off his headlights before he reached Brian’s house. They cruised to a stop just past the entrance to his driveway.
Lisl felt cold. Her stomach fluttered.
“You’re not planning something illegal, are you?”
“You mean like breaking and entering? No. But I suppose it could be considered malicious mischief.”
“Oh, great!”
“Come on. This is for you, not me.”
“A few hours sleep would do more for me.”
Rafe got out of the car and lifted the box of motor oil from behind the seat.
“Come on now. And be quiet. We don’t want to wake the neighbors.”
As he eased his door shut, Lisl got out and joined him on the driveway. The sky was winter-clear, full of glittering stars in the west but growing pale in the east. She could see Rafe twisting the cap off a half-gallon white plastic container of motor oil. He broke the foil seal and handed it to her.
“Start pouring.”
“Where?”
“On the driveway, of course. Start at the bottom and work your way up. A good thick coat.”
“But—?”
“Trust me. This will be good.”
Lisl looked around. She felt exposed and vulnerable out here in the growing pre-dawn light, but she knew Rafe would never leave before he’d accomplished what he’d come here for, so she began pouring.
The oil glugged from the container and splashed on the asphalt but soon she got the hang of pouring it in an even stream, back and forth, slowly backing up as she poured, container after container, letting the viscous golden liquid ooze down the slight decline of the driveway to merge like warm honey into a slick, uniform coat.
“Right up to the garage door there,” Rafe said, handing her the last half-gallon. “We’re not going to give this sucker one little bit of traction.”
Lisl complied, then handed him the empty.
“Okay. What now?”
“Now we sit and wait.” He glanced at his watch. “Shouldn’t be long now.”
They returned to the car and Rafe drove it half a block to a corner where he parked at the curb. Almost dawn now. Lisl had a sharp, clear, unobstructed view of Brian’s garage and driveway.
They waited. Rafe kept the car idling with the heater on. It was warm. Too warm. Lisl began to feel drowsy. She was ready to doze off when a black sports car roared past them.
Rafe let out a low whistle.
“Ooh, he’s ticked. I wonder why? A wild goose chase to the hospital, maybe? Looking foolish in front of the emergency room staff, perhaps? But that’s no excuse. A doctor should know better than to hot-rod like that through a residential neighborhood.”
Brian’s car made a sharp, tire-squealing turn into his driveway—
—and kept on going.
It swerved as its brakes locked but found no purchase on the oil-slick asphalt, plowing through the garage door and coming to rest at a crazy angle amid its splintered remnants.
Lisl gasped in shock and stared, fighting an urge to get out of the car and run to the site of the accident.
“Ohmigod, is he hurt?”
“No such luck,” Rafe said. “Watch.”
The door to Brian’s car opened and Lisl watched his white-coated figure stagger out. He was rubbing his head and he looked dazed, but he didn’t seem seriously hurt.
She felt a smile slowly work its way to her lips.
Serves you right, you bastard.
As he moved away from his car to survey the damage, he stepped onto the oiled asphalt. Suddenly his arms began windmilling as his feet did a spastic soft-shoe routine. He went down flat on his back with his legs straight up in the air.
Lisl burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. She’d never seen Brian look so ridiculous. She loved it.
With her hand clapped over her mouth, she watched him roll over and work his way to his hands and knees. The back of his white coat was now black and he had motor oil in his blow-dried hair. He was halfway to his feet when his legs slipped out from under him again and he went down on his face.
Lisl was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. She beat a fist against Rafe’s shoulder.
“Get me out of here!” she gasped. “Before I die laughing!”
Rafe was smiling as he shifted the car into gear.
“Not so scary now, is he?”
Lisl shook her head. She couldn’t answer because she was still laughing. Brian Callahan would never be able to intimidate her again.
A question leapt to her mind.
“Why me, Rafe? Why are you doing all this for me?”
“Because I love you,” he said, smiling brightly. “And this is only the beginning.”
THE BOY
at fifteen years
Carol caught him at the front door.
“Aren’t you even going to say good-bye?” she said.
During the past two years Jimmy had sprouted to the point where he was now taller than Carol. Slim, handsome, he looked down at her the way a cat might glance at a plate of food it had no taste for.
“Why? We’ll never see each other again.”
Jimmy had somehow worked a change in his birth records back in Arkansas to show that he was now eighteen. He’d hired a shyster from Austin who’d obtained a court order that had forced her to turn half of the fortune over to him. He’d treated her as so much dirt these past few years. So many times she had loathed her son, hated him, feared him. Yet something within her cried out with loss at the thought of his leaving.
“I’ve raised you, cared for you for fifteen years, Jimmy. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“It’s the blink of an eye. Less. And why should you worry? It’s not as if you haven’t profited in that time. I’ve left you thirty million dollars to play with.”
“You don’t understand, do you?”
He looked at her quizzically. “Understand what?”
They stared at each other and Carol realized that he had no idea.
“Never mind. Where are you going?”
“To prepare the way and settle an old score.”
“With that red-haired man you keep looking for?”
For the first time, his face showed emotion.
“I told you never to mention him!” Then his expression softened into a chilling smile. “But there is someone else I will be looking for. I’m beginning to prepare for the renewal of an old acquaintance.”
“But you don’t know anyone.”
“Ah,
but I do. And you know him too. A mutual acquaintance.”
“Mutual? Who?”
But then he left. Not a touch, not a smile, not a wave, not even a shrug. He simply turned and walked out to his waiting sports car.
As her Jimmy drove off, Carol began to cry. And hated herself for it.
And she feared for the “mutual acquaintance,” whoever he was.
THIRTEEN
New York
1
Another New Year’s Eve.
Outside St. Ann’s Cemetery in Bayside, Mr. Veilleur watched the red glow of the cab’s rear lights fade into the darkness, then he turned and walked toward the cemetery wall. The cab was to return for him in an hour. He’d given the driver half of a hundred-dollar bill as tip and told him the other half would be his when he returned. He’d be back.
He found a large granite block jutting from the earth near the wall. He eased himself down on it. The December cold of the frozen earth began to seep into his buttocks.
“I’ve come to sit with you a while,” he said, speaking to the wall.
No reply came from the unmarked, uneasy grave that lay just beyond it.
Veilleur couldn’t get into the cemetery at this hour, especially on New Year’s Eve, so he settled for a seat just outside. Magda would not miss him tonight. She did not even know it was a holiday. He pulled out a thermos filled with hot coffee and brandy, and poured some into the cap. He sipped and felt the chill melt away.
“This is the anniversary of your interment here. But I do not come to celebrate, simply to mark the occasion. To sit watch over you. Somebody should.”
He sipped some more of the brandied coffee and thought about the future. The near future, for he knew his future was severely limited.
The Adversary was growing steadily more powerful, the influence of the Otherness ever more pervasive. The Lady had been grievously wounded and the storm clouds were gathering, thunderheads of evil piling up on all horizons, closing in. The focal point of some of the forces seemed to be here, just over the cemetery wall, in that unmarked grave. Something was going to happen here. Soon.
“What part do you play in all of this?” he asked the grave’s restless occupant.
The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) Page 165