Chaos Theory

by Graham Masterton

  Adeola kissed him on both cheeks. ‘I really appreciate your help, Noah. This could be a great risk for all of us.’

  He looked at her for a moment. She had the most striking face he had ever seen. Her eyes were more like those of a carnivorous animal, and her lips pouted as if she were on the verge of saying something that would make a man’s spine prickle. No wonder she could persuade politicians that there were better things in life than violence and aggression.

  ‘Take care,’ he told her, and kissed her back.

  Fourteen

  Silja went to bed almost as soon as Adeola and Rick had left, but Noah went out on to the terrace again for a last warm glass of wine. He had a headache and he felt battered and confused, but he didn’t feel like going to sleep yet. He didn’t want to have any more nightmares about Jenna.

  He thought it was strange that he hadn’t heard any more from the police about Jenna’s murder. It had been reported briefly on the TV news, but the crash in which the two men in grey suits had been killed had received no mention at all. He almost felt as if it had never happened.

  The night was humid and oppressive. Moths were beating against the lights along the terrace railing, and on the horizon he could see the distant flicker of lightning. He was beginning to realize that the world was a very different place than he had always imagined it to be. It was like walking behind a movie set and finding out that a sunny suburban front yard was actually located in a huge, gloomy studio, where doors led to nowhere at all and staircases stopped halfway.

  He finished his wine and went back into the kitchen. As he passed Leon’s room, he saw that the light was still on. He hesitated, and then he tapped on the door and said, ‘Leon? Everything OK? Don’t you think it’s time you got some shut-eye?’

  There was a snorting sound. He opened the door and saw Leon sitting on the side of the bed, his face a mess of tears.

  ‘Hey, buddy,’ he said, and sat down beside him. ‘You’ve lost your dad and your stepmom, but I promise you that you’re not alone.’

  Leon wiped his eyes with his sleeve. ‘I can’t believe he’s dead. I feel like I could just go home now and he’d still be there.’

  ‘You’re never going to stop feeling like that. He’s always going to be alive, so long as you remember him.’

  ‘But why should anybody want to kill him? He was such a great dad.’

  ‘I don’t know for sure. Maybe it was all connected with this medallion thing, maybe it wasn’t. But we’ll find out, won’t we? Look at all that good work you did this evening, finding out about that plane crash.’

  Leon sniffed, and nodded.

  Noah said, ‘I’ll see you in the morning, OK? Do you want a drink or anything?’

  Leon suddenly and unexpectedly smiled. ‘Do you know what my dad used to say? He said that everything’s funny, in the end. Being born is funny; living is funny. Even dying is funny. I guess he’s probably in heaven right now, telling jokes.’

  Noah put his arm around Leon’s shoulders. ‘You can count on it. Bet the angels are wetting themselves.’

  He crossed the bedroom as quietly as he could and slipped under the sheet. Silja had her back turned to him, breathing steadily. He lay there for a while, looking up at the ceiling. Right above his head, the jagged shadow of a yucca tree nodded backward and forward, like a predatory bird nodding on a branch.

  He closed his eyes. He needed to sleep. He heard rustling, but he knew that it was only Silja, turning over. He needed so badly to sleep.

  ‘Chaos, and old Night,’ somebody whispered.

  He opened his eyes. There was nobody there. The predatory bird was still nodding on the ceiling, Silja was still lying there with her pale shoulder raised. He wondered where he could have heard that phrase before. It sounded like Shakespeare, maybe . . . He would have to ask Leon to look it up for him. Maybe his subconscious mind was trying to give him a clue about something critical.

  He slept. He dreamed that he was walking along the beach, and that a strong wind was blowing from the ocean. Lightning was flickering on the horizon, and every now and then there was an indigestive grumbling of thunder. Up above him, large predatory birds were circling, more and more of them, as if they were gathering for a kill.

  About fifty yards ahead, he saw Jenna. She was wearing the wide straw hat that she had always worn during the last summer they had lived together, with a long white scarf tied around it, and the thin flowery dress with the puffy little sleeves.

  He tried to walk faster, so that he could catch up with her, but whenever he was close enough to reach out and touch her shoulder, his vision blinked and jerked, and there she was, fifty yards away again.

  Jenna! he called, but the wind was blowing against him and she obviously couldn’t hear. Jenna, wait up. He looked up again and even more predatory birds were wheeling around.

  He started to run, but there was something wrong with his leg, like Professor Halflight’s, and he could only manage an awkward, disjointed gallop. Jenna, wait up!

  He still couldn’t make up any ground between them, but then he remembered what Rick had said about the Auburn Lockstep. Shuffle sideways, dragging one foot. He started to do it, and found that he could make much better progress. He did it faster and faster, his foot leaving long slide-marks in the sand, and within a few seconds he had almost caught up with her.

  ‘Jenna!’ he panted.

  She turned around, smiling, but as she did so her neck opened up in a gaping red wound and her head fell off, landing in the sand with a soft thump.

  He shouted out, ‘No!’ and jerked upright. Silja immediately sat up, too.

  ‘Noah – what’s wrong?’

  He stared at her. ‘Sorry – sorry. I had another nightmare, that’s all.’

  ‘Jenna?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She brushed the hair back from his forehead. ‘You’re so hot. Almost like you’ve been running.’

  ‘I was. In my nightmare, anyhow.’

  ‘It’s only inside your head, Noah. It’s only like a movie.’

  ‘I know. Look, I’m sorry I woke you.’

  Silja said, ‘You need to relax yourself completely. When I was eighteen, you know, I saw my boyfriend killed on his motorcycle. I had nightmares just like you, over and over. In the end I went to see this therapist, and she taught me how to deal with them. First, relax. Then, talk to the person that you have lost, and explain to them how much you miss them, but you are now going to say goodbye. Then, turn around and walk away, and don’t look back.’

  Noah lay back on the pillow. ‘And that works?’

  ‘It worked for me.’

  She stroked his forehead with her fingertips, and then she leaned over him and kissed his eyelids. ‘You must lose all of your tension. Think of your mind like an hourglass, filled with black sand. The sand is running away, endlessly running away, and soon all of your mind will be empty.’

  Her fingernails traced the shape of his face, and touched his lips. She kissed his eyelids again, and this time she delicately licked his eyelashes with the tip of her tongue, so that they were sealed with warm saliva. Then she kissed his lips, and ran her tongue across his teeth.

  ‘The sand is running away,’ she whispered. ‘Endlessly running away . . .’

  She caressed his neck, and his chest. ‘Now, your heart is not beating so fast. Breathe deeper, and slower. Hold each breath for just a little while, yes?’

  He felt her soft breast against his arm. Her nipple was crinkled tight. She slowly drew down the sheet, as far as his knees. He was wearing white-and-green striped boxer shorts, but he couldn’t disguise the fact that his penis was already beginning to stiffen. Silja’s fingertips did a light dance down his stomach muscles, and then wriggled their way underneath the elastic waistband.

  He could have told her to stop. We’re not lovers, he thought. We work together. We respect each other for how professional we are. Not only that, I’m supposed to be shocked. I’m supposed to be grieving.

>   But he realized that what Silja was doing for him was nothing to do with being lovers. She was doing it because they were friends, because she wanted to make him feel like a man again, and less like the survivor of a terrible tragedy. It was sexual, yes, but it was deeply therapeutic. It was a first step towards repairing his soul.

  She grasped his penis and slowly rubbed it up and down until it was swollen hard. Then she tugged down his boxer shorts, and took them right off.

  ‘You should think of nothing but yourself, and how good this feels. Concentrate completely on this.’

  ‘Silja—’

  ‘Ssh. This is your treatment. This is how you learn to say goodbye to your nightmare.’

  She knelt up beside him, and took off her own white panties. In the dim light from the window, he could see that she was completely waxed, and there was a glisten of moisture in between her lips. Without any hesitation, she took hold of his hand and held it between her legs, so that he could feel how soft and wet she was. He slipped one finger inside her and she smiled.

  ‘You see? Therapy can be pleasure for the therapist, too. In Finland they say “Jos et loyda rauhaa itsestamme on turhaa etsia sita muualta.’ If you cannot find peace within yourself, it is no good looking anyplace else.’

  ‘Here,’ he said, trying to lift himself up on one elbow. But she pushed him back down.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I am the therapist and you are the patient, and you must do whatever I demand.’

  Without any hesitation, and with extraordinary grace and flexibility, she sat astride him, facing him, with her knees fitting into his armpits. Then she arched herself backward, so far back that she could take his penis into her mouth, and swallow the whole length of it. He had seen her do the splits. He had seen her jump, and somersault, and cartwheel. But he had never seen a contortion like this. It was both unearthly and highly erotic, as if he were making love to a completely new species of creature altogether.

  She dipped her head back rhythmically, sucking his penis deeper and deeper. Her bare, pouting lips were right in front of him, so he lifted his head from the pillow and licked her, too, tasting thin, slippery sweetness.

  On the ceiling, the predatory bird nodded and nodded.

  The darkness began to close in. Silja sucked and sucked, and it began to feel to Noah as if she were sucking his whole being out of him; his passions and his rages and his memories and fears. Suddenly he went into a foot-curling spasm, and climaxed. She kept on sucking him until he softened, and then she sat up straight.

  ‘So. You feel better, yes?’

  He looked up at her. He hardly knew what to say. She climbed off him, as easily and as athletically as she had climbed on, and lay down beside him, so close that he could feel her breath on his shoulder.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘did somebody teach you to do that, or did you make it for yourself?’

  ‘That is a secret. A therapist never gives away her secrets.’

  He kissed her forehead, and then he kissed her lips. ‘OK, Dr Fonselius, have it your way.’

  But then she said, ‘A man from a circus taught me. He was Greek. But he was very hairy.’

  Noah put his arm around her and held her. He watched the predatory bird nodding for a while and then his eyes closed and he slept. If he dreamed, he didn’t dream of Jenna.

  Fifteen

  Early the next morning, Noah was out on the terrace teaching Leon some stunt fighting moves.

  ‘In the movies, see, punches only sound real. Most of the time, the stuntmen miss each other by a mile, and the SFX are put in afterward. But even when they’re really grappling with each other, stuntmen are actually doing almost the exact the reverse of what it looks like they’re doing. They’re always taking care of each other and protecting each other from twisting their necks or straining their backs or hitting their heads.

  ‘You take the Atomic Knee, right, when a stuntman picks somebody up and slams his crotch down on to his knee. What happens is, the guy who looks as if he’s being lifted up actually jumps, and when he does come down, he makes sure that his feet hit the ground first. He grabs himself between the legs and staggers around in agony, but it only looks like his nuts have been pulverized.

  ‘It’s selling the move afterward. Looking like you’re badly hurt when you’re not. That’s the secret of being a really great stuntman.’

  Silja came out with three mugs of coffee, wearing Noah’s black satin bathrobe with the embroidered dragon on the back, the one that he had been given when he was filming Night of the Nineteen Ninjas.

  ‘Leading Leon astray?’ she asked.

  ‘Teaching him some basic moves, that’s all. No reason why a graduate in Jewish Studies shouldn’t be able to do a Sunset Flip.’

  ‘So what are we going to be doing today?’ asked Silja.

  ‘Rick’s supposed to be calling me later, once he’s heard from his pal in the Secret Service. And Leon’s going to be surfing the Net. I’ll tell you what – I’d like to know some more about this professor of yours, Leon – Julius Halflife, or whatever his name is. When you think about it, he was just about the only person who knew that your dad was asking about those two medallions, wasn’t he?’

  ‘And you think, what?’ asked Silja. ‘That he has links with terrorists, and assassins? Some old Jewish university professor with a gammy leg?’

  ‘Who knows? Maybe he innocently mentioned it to somebody who innocently mentioned it to somebody else and in the end the wrong people got to hear about it. But it’s worth checking out, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  After a half-hour of teaching Leon how to drop kick and stomp and fell his opponents with a flying elbow, Noah went into the house to take a shower.

  Before he went into the bathroom he turned and looked at Leon out on the terrace. Leon was practising simulated punches and karate chops, and kicking at the chairs. ‘Hah! Hah! Ahuga!’ He had so much pent-up aggression. It would give him some relief to take it out on the furniture.

  Silja was in the bedroom, sitting in front of the dressing table, brushing her hair. ‘You’re very good with him,’ she said. ‘He has so much anger.’

  ‘He’s not the only one.’

  Silja turned around and looked at him with those icy-sky eyes. ‘In Finland, we learn to keep our anger inside ourselves, frozen, until it is time to thaw it out.’

  ‘Remind me not to upset you, then.’

  Noah was still in the shower when he heard Silja shout out, ‘Noah! Noah, come quick!’

  He turned off the faucet and listened. ‘Silja?’ he called. ‘Silja, what’s wrong?’

  There was no answer, so he reached out for his big burgundy towel, wrapped it around his waist and went out into the kitchen. Through the open doors to the terrace, he could see Silja standing by the table, one hand raised.

  ‘Silja?’

  She still didn’t answer so he went outside. At the far end of the terrace, next to the flagpole, were the spidery man with the small head and the blond man who had cut Jenna’s throat. The blond man was gripping Leon’s curly hair, and as the flag stirred in the morning breeze, Noah saw the sharp glint of an upraised knife. Leon was wide-eyed with panic.

  ‘Let him go!’ Noah barked. ‘Do you hear me, you murdering creep? Let him go!’

  ‘Bastards,’ croaked Noah’s parrot. ‘All of them. Bastards.’

  ‘Let him go?’ said the spidery man, stepping forward with a smile, although his eyes were concealed behind his sunglasses. ‘Why should we let him go? Not in our interests at all.’

  ‘He’s only a kid, let him go. He doesn’t have anything to do with any of this.’

  ‘Oh, really? You’ll have to let me be the judge of that.’

  ‘How the hell did you get in here?’

  ‘Through the front door, Mr Flynn. This young man was polite enough to open it for us, when we rang.’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ said Silja. ‘They told him they were police, with news of hi
s parents.’

  Shit, I should have warned him, thought Noah.

  ‘Screw you,’ said his parrot.

  The spidery man said, ‘You managed to escape from us last time, Mr Flynn, but you won’t escape from us now. It’s a pity that you’ve involved this innocent young man, as well as this beautiful young lady. But, well, you know what they say. No good crying over dying. Comes to all of us, sooner or later.’

  ‘Look, you can take me, but leave the kid alone,’ Noah urged.

  ‘Mr Flynn,’ smiled the spidery man, tugging at his knuckles, ‘you know as well as I do that confidentiality has to be absolute. We can’t take any risks at all. Now, let’s get this over with.’

  The blond man pulled Leon’s head back, exposing his prominent Adam’s apple. As he did so, however, Silja suddenly started to run towards him – not run, sprint, so fast that the blond man reared backwards in alarm.

  As Silja ran nearer, however, it became obvious that she wasn’t running directly towards him, but towards the terrace railing six or seven feet to his right. Even Noah couldn’t think what she was doing. Don’t tell me she’s going to escape by throwing herself clear off the terrace. That’s a sixty-foot drop, through pine trees, down a steep rocky slope . . .

  Silja jumped, and did a back spring, twisting herself sideways in mid-air. She grabbed the flagpole with both hands and swung herself right around in a semicircle, kicking the blond man square between the shoulders. He crashed down on to the terrace like a felled tree, and his knife skated across the polished oak floor.

  Noah didn’t need any prompting. Stretching open his mouth and letting out his famous Noah Roar, he launched himself at the spidery man and gave him a Flying Elbow. Not the safe, harmless Flying Elbow that he had been teaching Leon – but a vicious slam in the middle of the chest with the bony angle of his arm. The spidery man was thrown back against the living-room window, and cracked his head on the wooden frame. His sunglasses went flying.

  The blond man was trying to pull himself back up on to his knees, but Silja kicked him square in the back of the head, and he fell forwards again.