The Hypnotist

by M. J. Rose

  “And you wanted to rewrite the story’s ending?” Lucian asked.

  “I wanted justice.”

  “And the destruction and carnage you inflicted on the Matisse? Who gave you the right to decide what should be sacrificed and what should be saved?”

  “If the Metropolitan Museum returned the statue of Hypnos to Iran or Greece, that would be a travesty far more terrible than the loss of one Impressionist painting. You still don’t understand how important Hypnos is. I do.”

  Lucian stood up. It didn’t matter how important Shabaz believed it was. Not now.

  The knot that had been coiled deep inside of him for so long tugged. Lucian couldn’t think about anything except the names he had written down. Two art dealers. One who might lead him to Solange’s killer.

  Chapter

  FIFTY-SIX

  Elgin Barindra had seen Reed Winston at the Phoenix Foundation before. Based on his description, Lucian Glass and Matt Richmond had established that Winston was an ex-operative and instructed Elgin to be especially vigilant about what he and Malachai discussed.

  So on Monday, while the broad-shouldered, good-looking man sat next to Malachai, poring over the letters from Frederick L. Lennox to Davenport Talmage, Elgin was on full alert. He attempted to appear uninterested when he was trying to catch every word, even though he knew they weren’t going to discuss anything important in front of him.

  Malachai Samuels was reading out loud:

  “My Dear Davenport,

  I’ve heard about an ancient artifact that might be of interest to us—the Memorist Society in Vienna is in possession of a copper sheet of ancient Sanskrit that so far has been impossible to translate. It originally came from a group of Indian monks in the Himalayas. It was discovered by their founder and brought back to Vienna in 1813. I’m quite sure it’s a list of the legendary Memory Tools, and I’m hoping you can contact your colleagues there and find out if there’s any more information about it we can obtain.

  Yours,

  Frederick L. Lennox

  “And then we found a second letter, dated six months later, also from Frederick Lennox to Davenport Talmage, about a piece of sculpture he’d recently purchased.”

  As Malachai picked up the next letter, Elgin nudged a pile of books off the edge of his desk. They crashed on the floor. Both men looked up.

  “I’m sorry,” Elgin said. As he leaned over to pick up the books, his pen fell out of his pocket. He grabbed the pen, put it back on his desk, and then stacked the books and returned them, too. “Unless you need me,” he said, “I’m going to get some lunch now.”

  “Please, feel free. Reed is as interested in the historical significance of these letters as I am, and I want to show him more of the fruit of your labors. Take your time.”

  Once again Elgin noticed how the reincarnationist’s smile never quite reached his eyes. Everything about Malachai was deliberate, he thought as his boss’s studied and erudite voice followed him out. It was a letter Elgin had found the week before.

  “Dear Davenport,

  I am fairly certain that I have found the pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow. It turns out to actually be made of gold and silver and ivory and several kinds of precious stones. Serge Fouquelle, an archaeologist who has been working for Marcel and Jeanne Diolafoa in Persia, specifically in Shush, on the ancient site of Susa, has just completed his first excavation on his own and has made a curious discovery; he’s found a cache of Greek treasures that date back to the time of Pythagoras and might have connections to the great philosopher. All the signs point to it…”

  Chapter

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  “A Greek god that I am purchasing…”

  At ACT headquarters, Matt Richmond and Doug Comley stood at the table listening to Malachai’s voice coming over the phone line. Elgin was playing the recording for them on his cell phone. His innocuous pen was one of the agency’s most popular recording devices. Even if someone noticed it and took it apart, the high-tech recording device was tucked so high up inside the cylinder, it was impossible to spot.

  “Based on all the legends, this could very well be the receptacle for one of our fabled Memory Tools.

  “I plan to do something noble with the sculpture itself once I have rescued what it hides, perhaps offer the giant to the new museum. Goodness knows from Fouquelle’s description, I don’t have a suitable place for it.

  “But what matters most is that now I may finally be able to prove reincarnation and by doing so prove that my son Albert’s soul has indeed migrated into the new child my wife and I have been blessed with.

  “Yours,

  “Frederick L. Lennox”

  “And have you identified which sculpture the letter refers to?” The speaker wasn’t Malachai—Lucian knew his voice by now. Based on Elgin’s reports, Lucian guessed it was Reed Winston and mouthed his name to Doug and Matt.

  “There’s no way to be sure, since Lennox left the museum over a hundred pieces, all from that same area, but based on what I’ve been able to find out I’ve narrowed it down to about a dozen that could fit this description.”

  “I can’t work with a dozen pieces, Malachai.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Can you get into the museum’s computers?”

  “And do what?”

  The three FBI agents watched the phone as if looking at it would give them more facts than they were getting from the voices. All of them were alert, hoping they were about to get a break on the Malachai Samuels case, but Lucian was the only one of them who was sweating. Hearing about yet more information that—if his hypnosis sessions were to be believed—connected to one of his past lives was taking its toll. First there was what he’d learned in France about Fouquelle. Now this.

  “I need you to figure out which piece of sculpture contains the Memory Tool, Reed. I don’t care how you do it or what it costs. Bribe someone at the Met or hire someone to hack into their computer system to get the information. It doesn’t matter to me what you do or what it costs. I have to know what piece we’re looking for.”

  “Then what? We can’t steal a piece of sculpture from the goddamn Metropolitan Museum!”

  “It’s not the sculpture we want but what’s inside it,” Malachai said. “This could be it. Worth more than half the art in the Met. Incalculably valuable. This could be a map to our memories from lives past. Don’t you understand?”

  Doug glanced over at Lucian and nodded. The look said, We have him. And he might be right. The man they’d been following, laying traps for and eavesdropping on had just ordered a hack of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s computer system.

  “Can you do it, Reed?” the reincarnationist asked. “Can you get me the name of the piece of sculpture that Lennox bought from Fouquelle’s dig? We don’t have a lot of time. The galleries that house these sculptures are being rebuilt. Once the pieces go back on display it will be so much more difficult for us to get to them.”

  One thing the recording proved was that Darius Shabaz hadn’t lied. Malachai didn’t know anything about Hypnos specifically. That meant up until now the reincarnationist hadn’t been involved in the scheme to trade the sculpture. While Reed and Malachai continued plotting on the recording, Lucian opened his notebook, flipped past the pages of the women who were always there, waiting, wanting something from him, and with his pencil wrote out the word that Malachai probably would have killed for—might have already killed for—might kill for again. The name that was tied to Lucian’s regression sessions, that would give the FBI the break it needed to finally get Malachai Samuels. He passed the notebook to Comley. In the center of the page was just one word.

  Hypnos.

  Chapter

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  “I don’t agree that it’s unethical. It’s critical information, and we need it if there’s any hope of us obtaining the Memory Tool.” Dr. Malachai Samuels was standing in front of the
window in Dr. Iris Bellmer’s office on Tuesday morning. She was aware of the stress he was under, had heard it over the phone last night when he’d called her and asked her to come in early to discuss something of grave importance. Now, she felt her own level of stress rise as she responded to his emotions.

  “Malachai, there’s no way I can do what you’re asking.” She tried to talk soothingly, hoping she could calm him down, but from the way he was repeatedly shuffling the deck of antique playing cards, she clearly wasn’t succeeding.

  “Yes, there is. Just call James Ryan and tell him that you’ve been going over his tapes and have found some curious consistencies between his various past-life memories, and you think another session might be beneficial.”

  The sound of the cards was the only noise in the room. Iris tried to figure out a way to refuse without raising his ire. After all, he was her boss and she loved her job.

  Malachai, unaware of her struggle, continued, “Then, when he gets here, hypnotize him.”

  “And go looking for information he doesn’t know I’m searching for? You know I can’t do that. It’s more than unethical. It could be criminal.”

  Malachai stopped playing with the cards and looked at her as if he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard her correctly. His eyes were cold and unyielding, his face frozen.

  Iris hadn’t meant to use the word criminal. She knew about the FBI’s year-and-a-half-long investigation into her boss’s life and how much damage it had done to his and the foundation’s credibility. It hadn’t been smart to remind him of all that now.

  “I would never ask you to do anything criminal, Iris.” His eyes were boring into her, and she could feel his cold rage. “You do know that, don’t you?”

  She tried to look away from his gaze. “Malachai, I won’t do it to my patient and you can’t do it to yours, either. You can’t bring in that little girl and push her to give you more information.”

  “What I do with my patients isn’t your concern.”

  “It is. I work here, too. My reputation is tied to the reputation of the institute. I took an oath to do no harm, and so did you. Our interference would be harmful.”

  A muscle twitched in Malachai’s jaw. “If you don’t want to contact your client, then I will.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  Malachai took a breath. Iris could see he was making an effort, but an effort at what? Reining in a temper she’d never before seen exhibited? Trying to figure out another tactic to convince her to do what he was asking?

  “You’re right, of course,” he said in a soothing, placating tone. Moving away from the window, he sat down at her desk, opposite her, leaned back in his seat and smiled in that odd way he had of moving only his lips without it ever traveling to his eyes. It gave him an inhuman look, she thought.

  “I’m sorry, Iris. Did I upset you?”

  “A little, yes.”

  “It’s just that this is important to me.”

  She nodded.

  “Forget about asking Ryan to come in again.”

  She was relieved—until he told her what he wanted her to do instead.

  “Why don’t you just give me the cassette tapes of your sessions with him and let me listen to his regressions. Let me see if there’s anything there that could help us. Then we can discuss this again.”

  “I didn’t get permission from him to actually play his tapes for anyone else.”

  “You don’t have to. I’m the co-director of the foundation, and I supervise you. It’s entirely within the code of ethics for me to hear them.”

  “Is it? I’m not sure.”

  “You are stubborn, aren’t you?” He smiled at her again in that same odd way. Malachai put his hands on the chair’s ornate wooden arms and fingered the lion’s claws. He studied the carvings for a moment, then glanced up at her. “You know, this chair has been in this building since the Phoenix Club was first convened in the 1840s. Since my great-great-great-uncle decided that reincarnation was worth examining. They were all so fascinated with the idea of past-life regression. Walt Whitman, Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Law Olmsted…” The way he said their names was like music. “Henry Rice Billings, Frederick L. Lennox…” Malachai reached out and picked up one of the snow globes sitting on her desk, the one containing an Egyptian pyramid. Shaking it, he watched the sand—not snow—swirl, float and then start to settle.

  “Over four thousand years ago in ancient Egypt,” he said, “there was an Egyptian priest named Imhotep who healed people in a sleep temple. Have you ever read the stories of the miraculous cures he was responsible for?”

  Malachai shook the snow globe once more, agitating the sand again, then watching as the grains swirled, floated and then started to settle.

  “No,” Iris said.

  “Have you ever been to Egypt?”

  “I haven’t been, no. My parents brought that back for me. I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “When I was there I saw what’s left of those sleep temples. Dream temples, they’re sometimes called. Priests lulled people who were sick into a trancelike state with a process that’s not very different from the process you and I use today to hypnotize our patients.” He shook the snow globe again. The grains churned violently, then slowed. “They were priests, we are doctors, but we’re all after the same thing—to help people who are in pain and troubled. Four thousand years ago, those priests used hypnosis and religious rituals and kept their patients in a trance for as long as three days while they prayed to their gods to heal them. We work with our patients for a few months and pray our own training will help them. But how different are our jobs from the priests’?”

  Once again Malachai repeated the ritual of shaking the globe and watching the disturbed sands calm. “Those ancient priests claimed they succeeded in casting bad spirits from the mind and body. I’m sure they were telling the truth as they saw it. But what really happened? Was it just the power of suggestion? I don’t think so. I’ve read their writings. You believe, and I do, too, that so much of what causes our pain and suffering are unresolved past-life issues carried over into the present. There are tools, Iris, tools that can help us do our jobs, that could help us help our patients. Tools we could utilize in order to prove reincarnation is real, to prove that you and I and all of us are part of the past and the present and will forever be part of the future. That our souls are part of each other.”

  He was shaking the globe more slowly now, back and forth, not allowing the sand to settle at all, keeping it in constant motion. “Did you ever stop to really think about what it would mean to us if we could prove it? Really prove it, Iris. We might end wars, murder and crime… If people truly believed that we are all connected, that karma must be paid back, they might not be so quick to harm and hurt. Think about that. And think about how you and I and Beryl could become the heroes of this revolution. The ones who found the proof. The Marco Polos and Columbuses of our day. Who are we to deny the power that might help people far more than we ever will be able to by ourselves?”

  As she watched the to-and-fro movement of the snow globe, as she stared at the way the lamplight glanced off its rounded glass surface and glinted with each half rotation, she felt his passion and excitement stir up inside of her. Yes, it would be amazing if there was a tool, and if they could be the ones to find it—if there was a way to help people slip into past-life memories with even more ease, if she was part of the discovery of that tool.

  Malachai rolled the globe to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left. “Iris, please give me James Ryan’s tapes.”

  Slightly swaying to the rhythm of the right, left, right, left spinning, Iris rose and walked to the file cabinet behind her desk. She unlocked it with a small key on a silver ring she withdrew from her pocket.

  After closing it and relocking it she walked around the desk and over to the man she worked for, who was still playing with the gift her parents had brought back from Egypt.

  “I want to be
part of the discovery,” she said, and handed two small black cassette tapes to Malachai Samuels.

  It wasn’t until after he put the sandy pyramid back down and she heard its base knock against her wood desk that she realized what she’d done. “Wait,” she called to Malachai as he walked out of her office, but he didn’t turn around.

  Chapter

  FIFTY-NINE

  The bulk of the estates on Round Hill Road in Greenwich, Connecticut, were on four- to ten-acre lots and set far back from the road, so few neighbors noticed the unmarked Crown Victoria driving through the iron gates of the Canton property that morning.

  The housekeeper who looked at the agents’ badges was frightened and scurried off to find her employer.

  Seconds later, Oliver Canton blustered down the hall. The red-faced, overweight man was wearing a bad toupee and an old-fashioned silk smoking jacket. “What the hell is going on here?” he shouted as he came toward the agents, who introduced themselves and showed him their search warrant.

  “You are not looking through anything in my house until I call my attorney.”

  “By all means, call your attorney. But make sure you tell him we have this,” Richmond instructed, holding up the legal document. “He’ll tell you that if you don’t cooperate it’s within our right to look around on our own.”

  Not succumbing to the threat without a fight, Canton pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, dialed a number and explained the situation. As he listened, sweat popped out on his upper lip, and after a few seconds he hung up. His face was drained of all color.