The Syndrome

by John Case

  In his silky voice, Barrett Albion belittled the amount, noting that “We take most of the major credit cards with the exception of American Express.” When Adrienne fell silent at the prospect of the expense, he reminded her that “the estate will often release funds for this purpose.”

  Once again, she hesitated. She’d imagined a decent funeral for her sister, with her friends and relatives gathered in mourning, there to remember her. But there wasn’t any way for that to happen, really. She’d looked in Nikki’s computer, and there wasn’t anyone, really. Just Adrienne, Ramon, the building superintendent, and her shrink. Amtrak and Avis. Tom Yum Thai.

  The truth was, Nikki didn’t have any friends. Not really. Not at all.

  “What about… cremation?” Adrienne sputtered. She could hear the funeral director catch his breath at the other end of the line.

  After a moment, he replied, “Well, that is an option.”

  “Fine,” Adrienne shot back in a voice so sharp that Jack’s ears came to attention. “Let’s do that, then.”

  Albion sighed. “We only cremate twice a week,” he told her. “On Tuesdays and Fridays. So it will be Saturday before we can—”

  “Saturday’s fine.”

  But even as she selected this “alternative,” Adrienne felt queasy about it. There ought to be a ceremony, she thought. Something.

  She and the funeral director nailed down the remaining details, including the number and expiration date of Adrienne’s Visa card and the selection of a “receptacle.” The most “economical” was a blue cardboard box—“really rather tasteful.” Adrienne couldn’t face the idea of “a box,” and opted for an urn, the “classic.” And yes, she would be the one to claim the urn once the “treatment” was completed.

  “Will you pick it up in person?” Albion asked. “Or would you rather we had it sent? We could FedEx—”

  “I’ll get it myself in person,” Adrienne replied, thinking, FedEx? They want to FedEx my sister to me? As she hung up the phone, she burst into tears. Jack lifted his muzzle from the compact circle that he’d formed, and issued a questioning woof.

  Wiping the tears from her eyes, Adrienne went to the kitchen table, and began to make a list.

  She had always been a list maker, imposing order on chaos, even if it was only on paper. When Marlena died, Adrienne had helped Deck sort through her foster mother’s belongings. She’d come upon Marlena’s trove of memorabilia: a fat folder for each child. In Nikki’s folder: valentines made of doilies, snippets of fabric lace, faded red construction paper. Wild, even gorgeous, drawings in magic marker. Elaborate and intricate cutout snowflakes. Poems. In Adrienne’s folder: a stack of straight-A report cards, some tidy little snowmen, and some of her childhood lists, carefully printed on looseleaf paper.

  1. Brush teeth

  2. Make bed

  3. Eat breakfast

  4. Play

  Yes, she had been a child who felt it necessary to remind herself to “play.” Unlike the spontaneous and chaotic Nikki, whose motto was, if anything, Play it as it lays. She, Adrienne, had been the “good” girl to Nikki’s charming and spectacular rogue. Nikki never did her chores without being nagged to death, never came home on time for dinner or from dates, always cajoled her way into getting extensions on her school projects. Nikki was always in trouble, and yet… Everyone loved her. She lit up the room, even if she sometimes made you want to roll your eyes. Because you wouldn’t believe, you couldn’t believe, someone so beautiful and vivacious could be so daring—and so funny. How did it happen? Adrienne wondered. How did someone so… glorious… turn into a recluse?

  It made her wonder. It made her shudder.

  As for her own lists, which were meant to keep everything in order, the last one had included: Dinner with Nikki. But it had not included Barrett Albion, a funeral urn, or a sniper rifle.

  Adrienne gave her head a quick little shake, as if to clear her mind, and opened the organizer notebook in which she kept her many lists. One by one, she enumerated the things she had to do:

  1. Fax release to Neumann.

  2. Urn—Albion—Saturday.

  3. Amalgamated docs—memo to Slough.

  4. Visa: limit?

  She thought for a moment. What else? There was something else. And then she remembered.

  5. Will.

  She hadn’t really looked at it. Just the one glance in Nikki’s apartment. Enough to tell her that she was the executor.

  She looked at her watch, and saw that it was 9:15. She had a meeting that afternoon with Curtis Slough to discuss some “worrisome” documents in the Amalgamated case. And the truth was, she hadn’t even finished annotating the papers, much less writing a memo about the ones they should try to protect. She just hadn’t had—didn’t have—wouldn’t have—the time. And yet, she’d have to find it.

  She really ought to take a day off, or even two, but how could she when she had this Amalgamated thing hanging over her head? It would take too long to bring anyone else up to speed. And it was the first substantive case she’d worked on for the firm. If she let them down in the middle of discovery… well, she might as well look for a job adjudicating parking tickets.

  Do it by the numbers, she told herself. Just do what you have to do, one thing at a time. And so she did.

  She filled out the release for the M.E.’s office, and faxed it to the officious Ms. Neumann. Cross that off. Then she dialed the number on the back of her Visa card and listened with gritted teeth to a long and irrelevant spiel on tape. Finally, she heard the option that she wanted, tapped the number eight, and learned that the cost of her sister’s cremation would not exceed the limit on her Visa card. In fact, she was surprised to learn that she had more than two thousand dollars in credit—the result of a recent upgrade to Platinum status.

  So she crossed that off, too, and began to feel a little better.

  Going into the bedroom, she pulled on some clothes, tugged a hairbrush through her hair, and did the sixty-second makeup (mascara—lipstick—a dab of foundation on her forehead). Then she grabbed her keys, gave Jack a pat, and rushed out the door.

  Only to return an instant later for Nikki’s laptop. Because why not use it until the new one was delivered? She hated not having one. Even so… , she thought as she closed the door behind her, if she was going to take it to court, she’d do well to find a more subdued carrying case than the flaming pink Cordura number that Nikki had used.

  When she got to her office, she found that Slough had left a message of his own, saying that he couldn’t do lunch after all—so how about tomorrow? That gave her an extra day to deal with the Amalgamated documents. And handle the will.

  It was in the laptop’s carrying case and, as she took it out, a chord of sadness ran through her. The pathos of her sister’s death was impossible to ignore, emblazoned as it was by the banner-ad at the top of her last will and testament.

  Wills were not something that she’d ever handled before. She would probably have to file it with the Clerk of Courts, close out her sister’s bank accounts, deal with the insurance (if there was any), and…

  It occurred to her, suddenly and for the first time, that Nikki had not been broke. Her Eurotrash boyfriend (or, more accurately, his parents) had settled a sum of money on her. Half a million dollars. It must have been invested. Even in a money market account, it would have pulled in twenty-five thousand a year. So even with the apartment in Georgetown and the twice-a-week visits to her Cleveland Park shrink, it was hard to see how Nikki could have made too much of a dent in four years. It wasn’t like she ever went anywhere.

  The realization that she might inherit that money, which she then could use to pay down her student loans, sent a frisson of excitement—and a feeling of shame—through her. She didn’t want Nikki’s money. That is, she did, but… She didn’t want her sister’s death to be like winning the lottery.

  Her eyes drifted down the page:

  SECOND: I direct that any and all costs of my interment o
r cremation should be borne by my estate;

  THIRD: I bequeath the sum of $5,000 and my dog, Jack, to the actor and doorman, Ramon Gutierrez-Navarro, knowing that he will be as kind to the pooch as he has been to me;

  Adrienne shook her head, wistfully. Ramon would be happy, both that Nikki and he had been on the same page about Jack and—who wouldn’t be?—about the money. She read on. Making a will was so unlike Nikki, and yet…

  FOURTH: I bequeath to my beloved half sister, Adrienne Cope, any and all rainbows that may be found among my possessions, real or imagined;

  FIFTH: I direct that the remainder of my estate should be divided, in equal portions, among my sister, Adrienne Cope; the Believe the Children Foundation; and my therapist, Dr. Jeffrey Duran, who helped me come to terms with the secrets of my childhood.

  Adrienne blinked. “‘The secrets of my childhood,’“ she muttered. “What ‘secrets’?” And then, a moment later: “‘Come to terms’? She electrocuted herself!” The will dropped from her hand as Adrienne fell back in her chair, tears springing from her eyes.

  A soft knock came at the door, and Bette leaned in. “Are you all right?” she asked. “I was just—”

  “I have to go out,” Adrienne said, grabbing her handbag and jumping to her feet. “Cover for me.”

  “But—”

  “It’s an emergency,” she explained, and shot out the door.

  Chapter 9

  Henrik de Groot sat slumped in the chair and, at first glance, it might have seemed as if he and Duran were having a casual conversation. The consultation room was a comfortable one, with an array of magazines fanned out on the coffee table between them. A glass of ice-water and a glass of iced tea rested, untouched, on a pair of Sandstone coasters.

  Duran regarded the coasters with a look of suspicion. Where had they come from? They had a gritty feel, and rasped when he set his glass down. Where had he bought them? What had he been thinking of?

  De Groot’s cigarettes were on the coffee table, too, along with a pack of matches. There was no ashtray because Duran did not permit smoking in the office. But the Dutchman was a chain-smoker and since abstinence caused him to be anxious, Duran allowed him to handle his cigarettes. When not in a trance, he did this constantly, almost obsessively—sliding a cigarette out of the package, tapping its end against the table, stroking its length, even putting it to his lips and pretending to smoke it.

  Pay attention, he told himself. Even though he and de Groot had been over this material time and time again, it was important that he pay attention.

  It was de Groot’s eyes which revealed that he was in a trance. They were open, but slightly out of focus, as if the Dutchman was looking past Duran, past the array of diplomas on the wall, past everything, in fact.

  De Groot had been silent for what seemed like a long time, waiting for Duran’s cue.

  “You’re in the car?” Duran suggested.

  “Yes—in the car. It’s dark in the car and it’s dark outside. It’s the kind of night where it’s overcast and you can feel the moisture in the air. It’s going to rain.”

  Duran found himself leaning forward, puzzled by the stiff, blond bristle that covered the Dutchman’s head.

  “It’s going to rain,” de Groot repeated.

  Duran pulled back when he realized that what he was doing was trying to get a whiff of the man’s hair—trying to discern if the effect was achieved with some kind of mousse or gel. Pay attention, he told himself. De Groot was stuck.

  “Are there car lights?” he prompted.

  On the chair, de Groot squinted and narrowed his eyes, as if the light were shining into them. “Yes. At first, I think it’s a car with its bright lights on. I think ‘Goddamnit, why doesn’t he put his lights down?”

  No, Duran thought. That’s what the driver thinks. “Did your father maybe say that? He’s the one who’s driving, right?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course, my father. Me—I look away from the lights, but they won’t go away. The light—somehow, it’s inside me. Like a searchlight in my chest.”

  “And then?”

  “I am taken up by the light—and then I am interfered with.” He squirmed in his chair. “They put something into me.”

  “What, Henrik? What do they put into you?”

  The Dutchman winced. “The Worm. Boss Worm.”

  Duran sat back in his chair and smiled. And then, in one of those instances that he seemed prone to of late, he caught himself up. He didn’t understand why he should find the integration of the Worm in de Groot’s delusional system… somehow pleasurable. It ought to be a matter of indifference to him. He shouldn’t have a stake in it.

  And behind that thought—behind the idea that maybe he wasn’t maintaining a professional distance from his client—lurked another, even more insidious notion. Which was that he’d seen all this on The X-Files.

  Henrik shifted uncomfortably in his chair, grimacing in the subdued way of a person in a trance.

  “Who’s doing this to you, Henrik?” Duran asked. “Who’s responsible—”

  At that moment, Duran heard the intercom buzz. And de Groot heard it, too, because he stiffened, and his eyes swelled with fear.

  “They’re here!” he whispered. “Here!”

  The buzzer continued, first a long rasp, and then a staccato series of short ones. It took Duran a second to calm de Groot and, by then, the noise had ceased. The mood, however, was shattered, and although it was a little early, he began to bring the Dutchman out of his trance. Then the front-door bell began to ring, an insistent series of bings.

  “Goddamnit,” Duran muttered, and sprung to his feet. If this isn’t an emergency…

  Seconds later, he was standing behind the door, looking through the peephole—and he could have sworn it was Nico, whom he hadn’t seen or heard from in a week. Almost as a reflex, he opened the door for a young woman who, as it happened, was not Nico, after all, but someone who looked a whole lot like her—but with darker dirty blond hair in place of Nico’s platinum mop. Whoever she was, she was in a highly excited state, almost a rage, and she shocked Duran by pushing him backwards with her two hands in a motion so sudden that he stumbled and almost fell.

  “You son of a bitch!” she yelled, coming for him again. “You killed her!” She was shoving him—with surprising force—and he found himself walking backwards in the direction of his consultation room.

  Reflexively, he put his hands up in a gesture of peace and surrender. “Wait a minute! What are you talking about?” he asked.

  She stopped, and glowered, then turned her head away, as if to get control of her temper. Duran could see her chest heaving with emotion as she stared at the wall that held his framed diplomas. Finally, she turned back to him, and he could see that the rage was still intact.

  “Nikki!” She spat the name at him.

  “You mean… Nico?”

  “Nikki, Nico—whatever you called her!”

  “Where is she?” Duran asked. “I haven’t seen her in—who are you?”

  The question seemed to infuriate her. “I’ll tell you who I am! I’m her sister. And I’m going to put you out of business, you quack son of a bitch!”

  The woman’s hostility was like a kleig light, burning in his face. He was stunned by her hatred, and by what she’d said.

  “Her sister?” he repeated, sounding stupid even to himself.

  “Adrienne.”

  He flashed onto Nico’s voice: Adrienne was only five. Suddenly, Duran softened. While he’d never believed that Nico’s tales of Satanic abuse were factual, he was convinced that in some way she had been abused. And if one child in a family suffered abuse, the others seldom escaped unscathed. In any case, the woman in front of him had suffered a great deal of loss: the unknown father, the junkie mother, the brutal mill of foster care. “Hey,” he said, offering his hand. “Nico told me what you’ve been through,” he said.

  “She didn’t ‘tell’ you anything! You put it in her head. And it’s
a crock!” With a gasp of disgust and a shake of her head, Adrienne turned on her heel and strode toward the door. “I just wanted to see the person who did it,” she told him. “Because the next time I see you, there’ll be a judge in front of us.” She had her hand on the doorknob.

  “But—wait a second—what did you say? About Nico?”

  Adrienne looked at him as if he were a stone. “She killed herself.”

  It was almost as if she’d slapped him in the face. For a moment, he couldn’t find his voice, and when he did, the words that came were senseless. “But… why? She was making such good progress,” he said.

  “Right!” Adrienne snarled. “She was ‘making such good progress’ that we’re having her cremated on Friday.”

  She wanted to take a swing at him, but all she could manage in her unhappiness and frustration was a feeble push with her left hand. Even so, it staggered him, and he took a step backwards. Anger and grief welled in her eyes. “Did you do it intentionally? For the money?”

  “What money?” Duran asked.

  Before Adrienne could reply, de Groot was in the doorway behind them. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Who is this person, Doctor Duran?” He seemed dazed and dangerous, all at once, like a big cat waking from a tranquilizer dart.

  Adrienne gave the Dutchman a quick glance, up and down. “Wake up!” she shouted. “And if you’ve got a problem, don’t count on this psycho fuck to help you.” Then she turned on her heel and was gone.