Boston, Massachusetts
On Monday, January 6, the wind from the Atlantic was bitterly cold and
unrelenting, and all of Boston was humbled by it. On the blustery
streets, heavily bundled and bescarfed people hurried toward sanctuary
with their shoulders drawn up and heads tucked down. In the hard gray
winter light, the modern glass office towers appeared to be constructed
of ice, while the older buildings of historic Boston huddled together,
presenting a drab and miserable face utterly unlike their charm and
stateliness in better weather. Last night, sleet had fallen.
The barren trees were jacketed in glittering ice, bare black branches
poking through the white crust like the marrow core revealed beneath the
outer layers of shattered bones.
Herbert, the efficient major domo who kept the Hannaby household
functioning smoothly, drove Ginger Weiss to her seventh post-Christmas
meeting with Pablo Jackson. The wind and the previous night's ice-storm
had brought down power lines and disrupted the traffic lights at more
than half the intersections. They finally reached Newbury Street at
eleven-oh-five A. M., just five minutes past Ginger's eleven o'clock
appointment.
After the breakthrough during Saturday's session, Ginger had wanted to
contact the people at the Tranquility Motel in Nevada and broach the
subject of the unremembered event that had transpired there on the night
of July 6, the summer before last. Either the owners of that motel were
accomplices of those who had tampered with Ginger's memory, or they were
victims like her. If they had been subjected to brainwashing, perhaps
they also were experiencing anxiety attacks of one sort or another.
Pablo was firmly opposed to immediate confrontation. He felt the risks
were too great. If the owners of the motel were not victims but
associates of the victimizers, Ginger might be putting herself in grave
danger. "You've got to be patient. Before approaching them, you must
have as much information as you can possibly obtain."
She had suggested they go to the police, seeking protection and an
investigation, but Pablo had convinced her that the police would not be
interested. She had no proof that she had been the victim of a mental
mugging. Besides, the local constabulary could not unravel a crime
across state lines. She'd have to go to the federal authorities or local
Nevada police, and in either case she might be unwittingly seeking help
from the very people responsible for what had been done to her.
Frustrated but unable to find a hole in Pablo's arguments, Ginger had
agreed to continue following his program of treatment. He had wanted
Sunday to himself, so he could review the crucial tape of Saturday's
session, and he had said he was not available Monday morning because he
intended to see a friend in the hospital. "But you come back at, say,
one o'clock Monday afternoon, and we'll begin chipping away at the edges
of that memory block-en pantoufles, 'in slippers' as they say, in a
relaxed manner."
This morning he had called her from the hospital to say that his friend
was being discharged sooner than expected, and that he, Pablo, would be
home by eleven o'clock if she would like to come earlier than planned.
"You can help me make lunch."
Now, disembarking from the elevator and stepping quickly along the short
hall to Pablo's apartment, Ginger decided that she would make every
effort to control her natural impatience and to settle for making
progress en pantoufles, as the magician was determined they would.
The front door was ajar. Assuming he had left it open for her, she
stepped into the foyer. Closing the door, she said, "Pablo?"
In another room, someone grunted. Something clattered softly. Something
thudded to the floor.
"Pablo?" He did not answer. Moving into the living room, she called out
louder than before. "Pablo?"
Silence.
One of the library's double doors was open, and a light was on. Ginger
entered-and saw Pablo lying face-down on the floor near the Sheraton
desk. He had evidently just returned from his visit to his hospitalized
friend, for he was still wearing galoshes and an overcoat.
As she rushed to him and knelt at his side, grim possibilities occurred
to her-cerebral hemorrhage, thrombosis, or embolism; massive heart
attack-but she was not prepared for what she found when she eased him
onto his back. Pablo had been shot high in the chest, and bright red
arterial blood welled from the bullet hole.
His eyes fluttered open, and although they looked unfocused, he seemed
to know who she was. Blood bubbled over his lower lip. He got out a
single word in an urgent whisper: "Run."
Her instinctive reaction upon seeing him prone before the desk had been
that of a friend and physician: Anguished, she had gone immediately to
his aid. But until Pablo said, "Run, Ginger did not understand that her
own life might be in jeopardy. Suddenly she realized that she had heard
no gunfire, which meant a silencer-equipped pistol. The assailant was
no ordinary burglar. Someone infinitely more dangerous. All those
considerations flashed through her mind in an instant.
Her heart pounding, she rose and turned toward the door. The gunman-tall
and broad-shouldered, wearing a leather topcoat belted tightly at the
waist-came out from behind the door, holding the silencer-equipped
pistol. He was big, but surprisingly less threatening in appearance
than she had expected. He was her age, clean-cut, with innocent blue
eyes and a face unsuited for menace.
When he spoke, the disparity between his unremarkable appearance and his
murderous actions was even greater, for his first words were a tremulous
apology of sorts. "Shouldn't have happened. Didn't have to happen, for
Christ's sake. I just . . . I was duping those tapes on a high-speed
recorder. That's all I wanted-dupes of the tapes."
He was pointing to the desk, and for the first time Ginger noticed an
open attachs case in which was nestled a compact piece of electronic
equipment. Tape cassettes were scattered across the top of the desk,
and she knew at once what tapes they were.
"Let's call an ambulance," she said. She edged toward the phone, but he
stopped her by gesturing pointedly and angrily with the gun.
"High-speed duplication," he said, torn between rage and tears. "I
could've made copies of all six of your sessions and been out of here.
He wasn't supposed to be home for another fucking hour at least!"
Ginger grabbed a chair cushion and used it to prop up Pablo's head, so
he would not choke on the blood and phlegm in his throat.
Obviously stunned by what had happened, the gunman said, "He just comes
in so quiet, gliding in here like a goddamned ghost."
Ginger remembered how gracefully and elegantly the magician carried
himself, as if each movement was prelude to an act of prestidigitation.
Pablo coughed, closed his eyes. Ginger wanted to do more for him, but
the only remedy was heroic surgery. At the moment, she could only keep
a hand
on his shoulder in a feeble attempt to reassure him.
She looked up entreatingly, but the gunman only said, "And what the
hell's he doing packing a gun? A fucking eighty-year-old man, a gun in
his fist, as if he knows how to handle something like this."
Until now, Ginger had not noticed the pistol on the carpet, a few feet
from Pablo's out-flung hand. When she saw it, a cripplingly sharp pang
of horror went through her, and she nearly passed out, for in that
instant she knew Pablo had been aware all along that it was dangerous to
help her. She had not suspected that the mere attempt to probe at the
memory block would quickly draw the unwanted attentions of men like this
one in the leather topcoat. Because this meant she was being watched.
Maybe not hour by hour or even every day. But they were keeping tabs on
her. The moment she first called Pablo, she unwittingly endangered his
life. And somehow he had known, for he had been packing a gun. Now,
Ginger felt the weight of guilt.
"If he hadn't pulled that stupid .22," the gunman said miserably, "and
if he hadn't insisted on calling the cops, I'd have walked away without
laying a hand on him. I didn't want to hurt him. Shit."
" For God's sake," Ginger said beseechingly, "let me call an ambulance.
If you didn't mean to hurt him, then let's get help."
The gunman shook his head, and his gaze moved to the crumpled magician.
"Too late anyway. He's dead."
Those last two words, like a pair of hard punches, knocked the breath
out of her and drew the shadowy curtain of unconsciousness to the edges
of her vision. One glance at the old man's glassy eyes was enough to
confirm what the gunman had said, yet she resisted the truth. She
lifted his left hand and put her fingertips to his thin black wrist,
feeling for a pulse. Finding none, she searched along the carotid
artery in his throat, but in spite of the remaining warmth of the flesh,
there was only an awful stillness where once had been the throb of life.
"No," she said. "Oh, no." She touched Pablo's dark brow, not with the
diagnostic intent of a physician but tenderly, lovingly. Her heart was
so painfully constricted with grief that it was difficult to believe she
had known the magician only two weeks. Like her father, she was quick
to give her heart, and because Pablo was the man he was, the gift of
affection and love was even more easily bestowed than usual. "I'm
sorry," the killer said shakily. "I'm really sorry. If he hadn't tried
to stop me, I'd have walked right out of here. Now, I've killed someone,
haven't I? And . . . you've seen my face."
Blinking back her tears, suddenly aware that she could not afford to
grieve right now, Ginger rose slowly to her feet and faced him.
As if thinking aloud, the gunman said, "You've got to be dealt with now,
too. I'll have to ransack the place, empty out drawers, take a few
things of value, and make it look like you two walked in on a burglar."
He chewed worriedly on his lower lip. "Yeah, it'll work. Instead of
copying the tapes, I'll just take them, so they won't be here to raise
suspicions."
He looked at Ginger and winced. "I'm sorry. Jesus, I really am, but
that's the way it'll have to be. I wish it didn't. It's partly my
fault. Should've heard the old bastard coming in. Shouldn't have let
him surprise me." He moved toward her. "Should I maybe rape you, too? I
mean, would a burglar just shoot a good-looking girl like you? Wouldn't
he rape you first? Wouldn't that make this look more real?" He came
closer, and she began to back away. "God, I don't know if I can do it.
I mean, how can I get a hard-on and do it to you when I know I've got to
kill you afterward?" He kept coming toward her, and she backed up
against the bookshelves. "I don't like this. Believe me, I don't. This
shouldn't have to happen. I really hate this."
His apparently genuine pity, repeated apologies, and sorrowful
self-recriminations gave Ginger the creeps. He would have been less
frightening if he had been pitiless and bloodthirsty. The fact that he
had scruples but could set them aside long enough to commit one rape and
two murders . . . that made him more of a monster.
He stopped six feet from her and said, "Please take off your coat."
It was useless to beg, but she hoped to make him overconfident. "I
won't give a good description of you. I swear. Please let me go."
"Wish I could." His face defined remorse. "Take off your coat."
Buying time while she arrived at a course of action, Ginger slowly
unbuttoned the coat. Her hands were shaking, but she exaggerated those
genuine tremors and fumbled with the buttons. At last she shrugged out
of the coat and let it drop to the floor.
He stepped closer. The pistol was only inches from her chest. He was
more relaxed, holding the gun less rigidly than before, thrusting it
forward less aggressively, though he was by no means lax with it.
"Please don't hurt me." She continued to beg because, if he thought she
was nearly paralyzed with abject fear, he might slip up and give her an
opportunity for escape.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said, as if deeply offended by the
implication that he had any choice in the matter. "Didn't want to hurt
him, either. That old fool was responsible for this. Not me. Listen,
I'll make it as painless as I can. I promise you that."
Still holding the gun in his right hand, he used his left hand to touch
her breasts through her sweater. She endured his fondling because he
might become careless as he grew aroused. In spite of his claims that
his empathy would render him impotent, Ginger was certain he'd have no
difficulty raping her. Beneath his regret and sympathy, beneath the
sensitivity he wished to project more for his own benefit than for hers,
he was taking an unconscious savage pleasure in what he had done and
would do. In spite of his gentle voice, violence burned in every word
he spoke; he stank of violence.
He said, "Very pretty. Petite yet so nicely built." He slipped his hand
under her sweater, gripped her bra, gave it a hard yank that broke it.
As elastic snapped, the bra straps dug painfully into her shoulders; the
metal clasp at her back bit the skin. He grimaced as if her pain was
transmitted to him. "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you? I didn't mean it. I'll
be more careful." He pushed aside the ruined brassiere and put his cool,
clammy hand on her bare breasts.
Filled equally with terror and revulsion, Ginger pressed back even
harder against the bookshelves, which jabbed painfully into her back.
The gunman was less than an arm's length away from her now, but he kept
the pistol between them. The muzzle was pressed coldly against her bare
midriff, leaving her no room to maneuver. If she tried to twist free of
him, she would be gut-shot for her temerity.
Fondling her, he continued to speak soerly and to express great sadness
at the necessity of raping and killing her, as though she simply must
understand, as though it would be unthinkably cruel of her not to bestow
upon him full abs
olution for the sin of taking her life.
With nowhere to run, with his monotonous self-justifications washing
over her in numbing waves of words, subjected to his groping hand,
Ginger was gripped by a claustrophobia so intense she felt the urge to
claw at him and force him to pull the trigger, just to end it. His
Certs-scented breath had a cloying minty aroma that, by its
pervasiveness, gave her the feeling she was closed up in a bell-jar with
him. She whimpered, pleaded with wordless sounds, turned her head from
side to side as if trying to deny the reality of the assault. The
picture of demoralization and terror that she presented could not have
been more convincing if she'd had days to practice, but there was
unfortunately little calculation in it.
Further inflamed by her distress, he pawed at her more roughly than
before. "I think I can do it, baby. I think I can do it to you. Feel
me, baby. Just feel me." He pressed his body to hers and ground his
pelvis against her. Incredibly, he seemed to think that, under such
stressful and tragic circumstances, his rampant timescence was a tribute
to her erotic appeal and that somehow she ought to be flattered.
Her reaction could only have been a disappointment for him.
When he pressed and rubbed himself against her, he was obliged to stop
jamming the gun into her belly. Swept away by his own excitement,
convinced that Ginger was weak and helpless, he did not even keep the
weapon pointed at her but held it to one side with the muzzle aimed at
the floor. Ginger's terror was exceeded by her loathing and anger, and
the moment the pistol swung away from her, she translated those pent-up
Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers Page 39