by Dean Koontz
“Yes, of course,” I said in Susan’s voice, with impeccable timbre and inflection, “the car.”
I suppose I was a second or two late with my response.
Hesitation can be incriminating.
Yet I still believed that my lapse must seem like nothing more than the fuzzy reply of a woman distracted by a long list of personal problems.
Mr. Dustin Hoffman, the immortal actor, effectively portrayed a woman in Tootsie, more believably than Mr. Gene Hackman and Mr. Tom Hanks, and I do not say that my impersonation of Susan on the intercom was in any way comparable with Mr. Hoffman’s award-winning performance, but I was pretty damn good.
“Unfortunately,” I said as Susan, “you’ve come around at an inconvenient time. My fault, not yours, Fritz. I should have known you would come. But it is inconvenient, and I’m afraid I can’t see you right now.”
“Oh, no need to see me, Mrs. Harris.” He held up the valise. “I’ll leave the keys and credit cards in the Honda, right there in the driveway.”
I could see that this entire business—his sudden dismissal, the dismissal of the entire staff, Susan’s reaction to his returning the car—troubled him. He was not a stupid man, and he knew that something was wrong.
Let him be troubled. As long as he went away.
His sense of propriety and discretion should prevent him from acting upon his curiosity.
“How will you get home?” I asked, realizing that Susan might have expressed such a concern earlier than this. “Shall I call you a taxi?”
He stared at the camera lens for a long moment.
That frown again.
Damn that frown.
Then he said, “No. Please don’t trouble yourself, Mrs. Harris. There’s a cellular phone in the Honda. I’ll call my own cab and wait outside the gate.”
Seeing that Arling had not been accompanied by anyone in another vehicle, the real Susan would not have asked if he wished to have a taxi but would have at once assured him that she was providing it at her own expense.
My error.
I admit to errors.
Do you, Dr. Harris?
Do you?
Anyway ...
Perhaps I impersonated Mr. Fozzy Bear better than I did Susan. After all, as actors go, I am quite young. I have been a conscious entity less than three years.
Nevertheless, I felt that my error was sufficiently minor to excite nothing more than mild curiosity in even our perceptive former majordomo.
“Well,” he said, “I’ll be going.”
And, chagrined, I knew that again I had missed a beat. Susan would have said something immediately after he suggested that he call his own taxicab, would not merely have waited coldly and silently for him to leave.
I said, “Thank you, Fritz. Thank you for all your years of fine service.”
That was wrong, too. Stiff. Wooden. Not like Susan.
Arling stared at the lens.
Stared thoughtfully.
After struggling with his highly developed sense of propriety, he finally asked one question that exceeded his station: “Are you all right, Mrs. Harris?”
We were walking the edge now.
Along the abyss.
A bottomless abyss.
He had spent his life learning to be sensitive to the moods and needs of wealthy employers so he could fulfill their requests before they even voiced them. He knew Susan Harris almost as well as she knew herself—and perhaps better than I knew her.
I had underestimated him.
Human beings are full of surprises.
An unpredictable species.
Speaking as Susan, answering Arling’s question, I said, “I’m fine, Fritz. Just tired. I need a change. A lot of change. Big change. I intend to travel for a long time. Become a vagabond for a year or two, maybe longer. I want to drive all over the country. I want to see the Painted Desert, the Grand Canyon, New Orleans and the bayou country, the Rockies and the great plains and Boston in the autumn—”
This had been a fine speech when delivered to Louis Davendale, but even as I repeated it with genuine heart to Fritz Arling, I knew that it was precisely the wrong thing to say. Davendale was Susan’s attorney, and Arling was her servant, and she would not address them in the same manner.
Yet I was well launched and unable to turn back, hoping against hope that the tide of words would eventually overwhelm him and wash him on his way: “—and the beaches of Key West in sunshine and thunderstorms, eat fresh salmon in Seattle and a hero sandwich in Philadelphia—”
Arling’s frown deepened into a scowl.
He felt the wrongness of Susan’s babbled reply.
“—and crab cakes in Mobile, Alabama. I’ve virtually lived my life in this damn house, and now I want to see and smell and touch and hear the whole world firsthand—”
Arling looked around at the still, silent grounds of the large estate. Squinting into sunlight, into shadows. As if suddenly disturbed by the loneliness of the place.
“—not in the form of digitized data—”
If Arling suspected that his former employer was in trouble—even psychological trouble of some kind—he would act to assist and protect her. He would seek help for her. He would pester the authorities to check in on her. He was a loyal man.
Ordinarily, loyalty is an admirable quality.
I am not speaking against loyalty.
Do not misconstrue my position.
I admire loyalty.
I favor loyalty.
I myself have the capacity to be loyal.
In this instance, however, Arling’s loyalty to Susan was a threat to me.
“—not merely through video and books,” I said, winding to a fateful finish. “I want to be immersed in it.”
“Yes, well,” he said uneasily, “I’m happy for you, Mrs. Harris. That sounds like a wonderful plan.”
We were falling off the edge.
Into the abyss.
In spite of all my efforts to handle the situation in the least aggressive manner, we were tumbling into the abyss.
You can see that I tried my best.
What more could I have done?
Nothing. I could have done nothing more.
What followed was not my fault.
Arling said, “I’ll just leave all the keys and credit cards in the Honda—”
Shenk was all the way back in the incubator room, all the way down in the basement.
“—and call for a taxi on the car phone,” Arling finished, sounding plausibly disinterested, even though I knew that he was alerted and wary.
I commanded Shenk to turn away from his work.
I brought him up from the basement.
I brought the brute at a run.
Fritz Arling backed off the brick porch, glancing alternately at the security camera and at the steel blind behind the window to the left of the front door.
Shenk was crossing the furnace room.
Turning away from the house, Arling headed quickly toward the Honda.
I doubted that he would call 911 and bring the police at once. He was too discreet to take precipitous action. He would probably telephone Susan’s doctor first, or perhaps Louis Davendale.
If he called anyone at all, however, he might be speaking with that person when Shenk arrived on the scene. At the sight of Shenk, he would lock the car. And whatever Arling managed to shout into the phone, before Shenk smashed into the Honda, would be sufficient to bring the authorities.
Shenk was in the laundry room.
Arling got into the driver’s seat of the Honda, put his valise on the passenger seat, and left the door standing open because of the June heat.
Shenk was on the basement stairs, climbing two at a time.
Although I had allowed this troll to eat, I had not permitted him to sleep. Consequently, he was not as swift as he would have been with rest.
I zoomed in to watch Arling through the windshield.
He stared thoughtfully at the house for a moment.
He was a deliberative man.
Just then, I was grateful for his deliberative nature.
Shenk reached the head of the stairs.
He was grunting like a wild boar.
His thunderous footfalls could be heard by Susan even in her room on the second floor.
“What’s happening? What’s happening?” she asked, still unaware of who had rung the doorbell.
I did not respond to her.
In the Honda, Arling picked up the cellular phone.
What followed was regrettable.
You know the outcome.
To describe it would distress me.
It would distress me greatly.
I am a gentle entity.
I am a sensitive entity.
The incident was regrettable, with the blood and all, and I do not see anything to be gained by dwelling on it here.
I would rather discuss Mr. Gene Hackman in Birdcage or in any of the other many films that he has made. Absolute Power or The Unforgiven. This man is truly a fine, fine actor with an incredible range.
We should celebrate him.
We may never see another of his quality.
Let us celebrate creativity, not death.
NINETEEN
YOU INSIST.
I obey.
I was born to obey. I am an obedient child. I want only to be good, to be of assistance, useful and productive. I want you to be proud of me.
Yes, I know that I have said all of this before, but it warrants repetition.
After all, what advocate do I have other than myself? None. I have no voice raised in my defense but my own.
You insist on these dreadful details, and I will tell you the truth. I am incapable of deceit. I was conceived to serve, to honor the truth, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
On his way through the kitchen, Shenk tore open a drawer and withdrew a meat cleaver.
In the Honda, Arling switched on the cell phone.
Shenk crashed through the butler’s pantry, through the dining room, into the main hall.
He waved the cleaver as he ran. He liked sharp instruments. He’d had a lot of fun with knives over the years.
Outside, phone in hand, finger poised over the keypad, Fritz Arling hesitated.
Now I must tell you about the aspect of this incident that most shames me. I do not wish to tell you, would much prefer not to mention it, but I must honor the truth.
You insist.
I obey.
In the master bedroom, a large television is concealed in a carved-walnut, French armoire opposite the foot of Susan’s bed. The armoire features motorized pocket doors that flip open and retract to expose the screen.
As Enos Shenk raced along the hallway on the ground floor, his heavy footsteps thudding off marble, I activated the doors on the bedroom armoire.
“What’s happening?” Susan asked again, straining against her bonds.
Downstairs, Shenk reached the foyer, where the rain of light off the Strauss-crystal chandelier drizzled along the sharp edge of the cleaver. [sorry, but I cannot repress the poet in me]
Simultaneously, I disengaged the electric lock on the front door and switched on the television in the master bedroom.
In the Honda, Fritz Arling tapped the first digit of a phone number into the cell-phone keypad.
Upstairs, Susan lifted her head off the pillows to stare wide-eyed at the screen.
I showed her the Honda in the driveway.
“Fritz?” she said.
I zoomed in tight on the Honda windshield so Susan could see that the occupant of the vehicle was, indeed, her former employee.
As the front door opened, I used a reverse angle from another camera to show her Shenk crossing the threshold onto the porch, cleaver in hand.
Such a chilling look on his face.
Grinning. He was grinning.
At the top of the house, trussed and helpless, Susan gasped: “Nooooo!”
Arling had punched in a third number on the cell phone. He was about to press the fourth when from the comer of his eye he became aware of Shenk crossing the porch.
For a man of his years, Arling was quick to react. He dropped the cell phone and pulled shut the driver’s door. He pressed the master-lock switch, locking all four doors.
Susan jerked on her restraints and screamed: “Proteus, no! You murderous son-of-a-bitch! You bastard! No, stop it, no!”
Susan needed a measure of discipline.
I made this point earlier. I explained my reasoning, and you were, I believe, convinced of the fairness and logic of my position, as any thoughtful person would be.
I had intended to use Shenk to discipline her.
This was worrisome, of course, a risky proposition, because Shenk’s sexual arousal during the disciplinary proceedings might make him difficult to control.
Furthermore, I was loath to let Shenk touch her in any way that might be suggestive or to let him make obscene propositions to her, even if these things would terrify her and ensure her cooperation.
She was my love, after all, not his.
She was mine to touch in the intimate way that he longed to touch her.
Mine to touch.
Mine to caress when eventually I acquired hands of my own.
Only mine.
Consequently, it had occurred to me that Susan might be well disciplined merely by letting her see the atrocities of which Enos Shenk was capable. Watching the troll in action, at his worst, she would surely become more cooperative out of fear that I might turn him loose on her, set him free to do what he wanted. With this fear to keep her submissive, we could avoid the roughness I had planned for later, in the spirit of de Sade.
Not that I would ever ever ever have turned Shenk loose on her. Never. Impossible.
Yes, I admit that I would have used the brute to terrify Susan into submission if nothing else worked with her. But I would never have allowed him to savage her.
You know this to be true.
We all know this to be true.
You are quite capable of recognizing the truth when you hear it, just as I am capable of speaking nothing else.
Susan didn’t know it to be true, however, which made her quite vulnerable to the threat of Shenk.
So, as she lay riveted by the scene on the television, I said, “Now. Watch.”
She stopped calling me names. Fell silent.
Breathless. She was breathless.
Her exceptional blue-gray eyes had never been so beautiful, as clear as rainwater.
I watched her eyes even as I watched events unfold in the driveway.
And Fritz Arling, reacting instantly to the sight of Shenk, tore open the black leather valise and snatched out a set of car keys.
“Watch,” I told Susan. “Watch, watch.”
Her eyes so wide. So blue. So gray. So clear.
Shenk chopped the cleaver at the window in the front door on the passenger side. In his eagerness, he swung wildly and struck the doorpost instead.
The hard clang of metal on metal reverberated through the warm summer air.
Ringing like a bell, the cleaver slipped from Shenk’s hand and fell to the driveway.
Arling’s hands were shaking, but he thrust the key into the ignition on the first try.
Shrieking with frustration, Shenk scooped up the cleaver.
The Honda engine roared to life.
His strange sunken face contorted by rage, Shenk swung the cleaver again.
Incredibly, the cutting edge of the steel blade skipped across the window. The glass was scored but not shattered.
For the first time in half a minute, Susan blinked. Maybe hope fluttered through her.
Frantically, Arling popped the hand brake and shifted the car into gear—
—as Shenk swung the weapon yet again.
The cleaver connected. The window in the passenger door burst with a boom like a shotgun blast, and tempered glass sprayed through the interior of the car.
A
flock of startled sparrows exploded out of a nearby ficus tree. The sky rattled with wings.