Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

  his subconscious mind, 'cause we never really forget anything we see.

  Never. So if a hypnotist puts the witness in a trance, regresses him in

  time-that is, takes him back in his memories to the shooting-and tells

  him to look at the car, then the license number can be obtained."

  "Always?"

  "Not always. But we win more than we lose."

  "Why turn to you? Aren't the police department's psychiatrists capable

  of using hypnosis?"

  "Certainly. But they're psychiatrists not hypnotists. Hypnosis is not

  what they specialized in. I've made it a lifelong study, developed my

  own techniques that often succeed where standard methods fail."

  "So when it comes to hypnotism, you're a maven."

  "An expert? Yes, that's true. Even a maven's maven. But why does any

  of this interest you, Doctor?"

  Ginger had been sitting with her purse in her lap and her hands at rest

  upon it. But as she told Pablo Jackson about her attacks, she clutched

  the purse tighter, tighter, until her knuckles were white.

  Jackson's relaxed demeanor changed to shocked interest and concern. "You

  poor child. You poor, poor little thing. De mal en pis-en pis! From

  bad to worse-to worse! How horrible. You wait there. Don't you move."

  He popped up from the chair and hurried from the room.

  When he returned, he was carrying two glasses of brandy. She tried to

  refuse hers. "No thank you, Mr. Jackson. I don't drink much, and

  certainly not at this hour of the morning."

  "Call me Pablo. How much sleep did you get last night?

  Not much? You were up most of the night, woke up hours ago, so for you

  this isn't morning, it's the middle of the afternoon. And there's no

  reason a person can't have a drink in the afternoon, is there?"

  He settled into his chair again, and for a moment they were silent as

  they sipped their brandies.

  Then she said, "Pablo, I want you to hypnotize me, regress me back to

  the morning of November twelfth, to Bernstein's Delicatessen. I want

  you to hold me at that point in time and question me relentlessly until

  I can explain why the sight of those black gloves terrified me."

  "Impossible!" He shook his head. "No, no."

  "I can pay whatever-"

  "Money is not the issue. I don't need money." He frowned. "I'm a

  magician, not a physician."

  "I'm already seeing a psychiatrist, and I've broached the subject with

  him, but he won't do it."

  "He must have his reasons."

  "He says it's too soon for hypnotic regression therapy. He admits the

  technique might help me discover the cause of my attacks, but he says

  that might be a mistake because I might not yet be ready to face up to

  the truth. He says premature confrontation with the source of my

  anxieties might contribute to . . . a breakdown."

  "You see? He knows best. I would be meddling."

  "He does not know best," Ginger insisted, angered by the vivid

  recollection of her recent conversation with the psychiatrist, in which

  he had been infuriatingly condescending. "Maybe he knows what's best for

  most patients, but he doesn't know what's best for me. I can't go on

  like this. By the time Gudhausen's willing to resort to hypnosis, maybe

  in a year, I'll no longer be sane enough to benefit. I've got to get a

  grip on this problem, take control, do something."

  "But surely you see that I can't be responsible-"

  "Wait," she interrupted, putting her brandy aside. "I anticipated your

  reluctance." She opened her purse, withdrew a folded sheet of typing

  paper, and held it out to him. "Here. Please take this."

  He took the paper. Though Pablo was half a century older than she, his

  hands were far steadier than hers. "What is it?"

  "A signed release making it clear that I came here in desperation,

  exonerating you in advance for anything that goes wrong."

  He did not bother to read it. "You don't understand, dear lady. I'm

  not concerned about being sued. Considering my age and the snail's pace

  of the courts, I wouldn't live to see a judgment placed against me. But

  the mind is a delicate mechanism, and if something went wrong, if I led

  you into a breakdown, I would surely roast in Hell."

  "If you don't help me, if I've got to spend long months in therapy,

  uncertain of the future, I'll have a breakdown any way." Desperate,

  Ginger raised her voice, venting her frustration and anger. "If you

  send me away, leave me to the well-meaning mercy of friends, abandon me

  to Gudhausen, I'm finished. I swear, that'll be the end of me. I can't

  go on like this! If you refuse to help me, you'll still be responsible

  for my breakdown because you could've prevented it."

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  "Please."

  "can't."

  "You cold, black bastard," Ginger said, startled by the epithet even as

  she spoke it. The hurt expression on his benign and gnomish face stung

  and shamed her. Now it was her turn to say, "I'm sorry. So sorry." She

  brought her hands to her face, bent forward in her chair, and wept.

  He came to her, stooped down in front of her. "Dr. Weiss, please don't

  cry. Don't despair. It'll be all right."

  "No. It never will," she said. "Not ever like it was."

  He gently pried her hands away from her face. He put one of his hands

  under her chin, lifted her head until she was looking at him. He

  smiled, winked, and held a hand before her eyes to show her that it was

  empty. Then, to her surprise, he plucked a quarter from her right ear.

  "Hush now," Pablo Jackson said, patting her shoulder. "You've made your

  point. And I certainly don't have an time

  de boue, a soul of mud, an ungenerous spirit. A woman's tears can move

  the world. Against my better judgment, I'll do what I can."

  Instead of putting an end to her crying, his offer of help renewed her

  weeping, though these were tears of gratitude.

  ". . . and now you are in a deep sleep, deep, very deep, utterly

  relaxed, and you will answer all my questions. Is that understood?"

  'Yes."

  :,You cannot refuse to answer. Cannot refuse. Cannot."

  Pablo had drawn the drapes over the three-bay window and had turned out

  all the lights except the lamp beside Ginger Weiss's chair. The amber

  beams fell over her, giving her hair the appearance of real gold

  filaments and emphasizing the unnatural paleness of her skin.

  He stood before her, looking down at her face. She had a fragile

  beauty, an exquisite femininity, yet in her face there was also a great

  strength almost masculine in quality. Le juste milieu: perfect balance,

  the golden mean, was nowhere better defined than in her countenance,

  where character and beauty were given equal weight.

  Her eyes were closed, and they moved very little beneath her lids, an

  indication that she was in a deep trance.

  Pablo returned to his chair, which stood in shadow, beyond the amber

  light from the single lamp. He sat, crossed his legs. "Ginger, why were

  you frightened by the black gloves?"

  "I don't know," she said softly.

  "You cannot lie to me. Do you understand? You can withhold nothing

  from me. Why we
re you afraid of the black gloves?"

  "I don't know."

  "Why were you afraid of the ophthalmoscope?"

  "I don't know."

  "Why were you afraid of the sink drain?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did you know the man on the motorcycle on State Street?"

  "No."

  "Then why were you frightened of him?"

  "I don't know."

  Pablo sighed. "Very well. Ginger, we'll now do something amazing,

  something that might seem impossible but which I assure you is possible.

  In fact, it's easy. We're going to make time run backward, Ginger.

  Nothing to it. We're going to send you slowly but surely back in time.

  You are going to get younger. It's already happening. You can't resist

  it ... time like a river ... flowing backward ... ever back ... and

  now it's no longer December twenty-fourth. It's December twentythird,

  Monday, and still the clock runs backward . . . a little faster...

  now it is the twenty-second ... now the twentieth... the eighteenth. .

  . ." He continued in that manner until he had regressed Ginger to the

  twelfth of November. "You are in Bernstein's Delicatessen, waiting for

  your order to be filled. Can you smell the hot baked goods, the

  spices?"

  She nodded, and he said, "Tell me what you smell."

  She drew a deep breath, and a pleased look overtook her face. Her voice

  became more animated: "Pastrami, garlic

  ... honey cookies ... cloves and;cinnamon . . ." She remained in her

  chair, with her eyes closed, but she lifted her head and turned left and

  right, as if surveying the deli. "Chocolate. Just smell that cocoa

  pound cake!"

  "It's wonderful," Pablo said. "Now, you pay for your order, turn from

  the counter . . . head toward the door, preoccupied with your purse."

  "I can't get my wallet in," she said, scowling.

  "You have the bag of groceries in one arm."

  "Got to clean out this purse."

  "Bang! You bump into the man in the Russian hat."

  Ginger gasped and twitched in surprise.

  "He grabs your grocery bag to keep it from falling," Pablo said.

  "Oh!" she said.

  "He tells you he's sorry."

  "My fault," Ginger said. Pablo knew she was not talking to him but to

  the doughy-faced man in the Russian hat, who was now as real to her as

  he had been that Tuesday in the deli. Apologetically, she said, "I

  wasn't looking where I was going.

  "He holds out your groceries, which you take from him."

  The aged magician watched her closely. "And you notice . . . his

  gloves."

  Her transformation was instantaneous and electrifying. She sat straight

  up; her eyes popped open. "The gloves! Oh, God, the gloves!"

  "Tell me about the gloves, Ginger."

  "Black," she said in a small, quavering voice. "Shiny."

  "What else?"

  "No!" she cried, starting to get up from the chair.

  "Sit down, please," Pablo said.

  She froze, half out of her seat.

  "Ginger, I am ordering you to sit down and relax."

  She sat rigidly, her small hands fisted. Her radiant blue eyes were

  open wide, focused not on Pablo but on the gloves in her memory. She

  looked as if she would bolt again at the slightest provocation.

  "You will relax now, Ginger. You will be calm ...

  calm . . . very calm. Do you understand?"

  "Yes. All right," she said. Her breath came less rapidly than it had

  done, and her shoulders slumped a bit, but she was still tense.

  Ordinarily, when he put someone into a trance, he maintained total and

  instantaneous control of the subject. He was surprised and made uneasy

  by this woman's continued distress in spite of his admonitions to relax,

  but he could not calm her further. Finally he said, "Tell me about the

  gloves, Ginger."

  "Oh, my God." Her face twisted in fear.

  " Relax and tell me about the gloves. Why are you afraid of them?"

  She shook. "D-Don't let them t-t-touch me."

  "Why are you afraid of them?" he persisted.

  She hugged herself and shrank back into her chair.

  "Listen to me, Ginger. That moment in time is frozen. The clock is

  moving neither forward nor back. The gloves cannot touch you. I will

  never let them touch you. Time is suspended. I have the power to

  suspend time, and I have stopped it. You are safe. Do you hear me?"

  " Yes," she said, but as she cringed against the back of her armchair,

  there was doubt and barely suppressed terror in her voice.

  "You are perfectly safe." Pablo was distressed to see this sweet girl so

  oppressed by fear. "Time has been stopped, so you can study those black

  gloves without being afraid they'll get hold of you. You will study

  them and tell me why they frighten you."

  She was silent, shaking.

  "You must answer me, Ginger. Why are you afraid of the gloves?" She

  only whimpered, so he thought a moment, then said, "Is it really this

  pair of gloves that frighten you?"

  "N-No. Not exactly."

  "The gloves on this man in the deli . . . they remind you of a pair

  of other gloves, perhaps from some incident long ago? Is that it?"

  :'Oh, yes. Yes."

  'When did this other incident take place? Ginger, what other gloves do

  these remind you of?"

  "I don't know."

  "Yes, you do." Pablo rose from his chair, moved to the draped windows,

  and observed her from those shadows. "All right . . . the hands of

  the clock are moving again. Time is moving backward again ... back . .

  . back . . . all the way back to the time when you were first

  frightened by a pair of black gloves. You are drifting back . . .

  back . . . and now

  you are there. You are at the very time, at the very place, at the

  precise moment and spot where you were first frightened by black

  gloves."

  Ginger ' s eyes were fixed on a horror in a different time, not in this

  room or in Bernstein's Delicatessen, but in some other place.

  Pablo watched her anxiously. "Where are you, Ginger?"

  When she remained silent, he said, "You must tell me where you are."

  "The face," she said in a haunted voice that made Pablo shiver. "The

  face. The blank face."

  "Explain yourself, Ginger. What face? Tell me what you see."

  "The black gloves . . . the dark glass face."

  "Do you mean..... like the motorcyclist?"

  "The gloves..... the visor." A spasm of fear throbbed through her.

  "Be calm, relax. You're safe. Safe. Now, wherever you are, do you see

  a man wearing a helmet and a visor? And black gloves?"

  She began a monotonous chant of stark terror: "Uh, uh, uh, uh . . ."

  "Ginger, you must be calm. Be calm, relaxed, and at ease. Nothing can

  harm you. You're safe." Afraid that he was losing control of her and

  would have to bring her out of the trance soon, Pablo moved quickly to

  her chair, knelt at her side, put one hand on her arm, and stroked

  gently as he spoke to her. "Where are you, Ginger? How far back in

  time have you gone, Ginger? Where are you? When are you?"

  "'Oh, uh, uhhhhhhhh. " A pathetic cry escaped her, an echo out of time,

  the tortured response to a long-suppressed terror and despair.


  He became very stern, switching from a soft to a hard voice. "I am in

  command of you. You are deeply asleep and completely in my control,

  Ginger. I demand that you answer me, Ginger."

  A shudder, worse than any previous spasm, passed through her.

  "I demand that you answer. Where are you, Ginger?"

  "Nowhere."

  "Where are you?"

  "No place." Abruptly, she stopped shaking. She sagged in the chair. The

  fear melted out of her face, and her features went soft, slack. In a

  thin and emotionless voice, she said, "Dead."

  "What do you mean? You're not dead."

  "Dead," she insisted.

  "Ginger, you must tell me where you are and how far back in time you've

  gone, and you must tell me about the black gloves, that first pair of

  black gloves, the ones you were reminded of when you saw the gloves on