The Key to Midnight

by Dean Koontz

  At first, as he journeyed through his troubled past, his voice was supercharged with hatred, but gradually hatred gave way to hurt, and he found that he was grieving for the child he might have been and for the man into which that child might have grown. That was another Alex Hunter, lost forever, who perhaps would have been a better—certainly a happier—person than the Alex who had survived. As he talked, the memory sludge gushed from him in much the way that guilt might flow from a devout Catholic in a confessional, and when at last he stopped, he felt mercifully cleaner and freer than ever before in his life.

  She kissed his eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said, ashamed of the pent-up tears that blurred his vision and that he was barely able to hold back.

  “What for?”

  “I never cry.”

  “That’s part of your problem.”

  “I never wanted them to have the satisfaction of seeing me cry, so I learned to keep everything inside.” He forced a smile. “This is the man you’re relying on. Still have any confidence in him?”

  “More confidence than ever. You seem human now.”

  More than ever, she wanted to make love, and so did he. But he needed to exercise the iron will and self-control that his monstrous parents had unwittingly taught him. “With you, Joanna, it’s got to be right. Special. With you I want to wait until I can say those three little words and mean them. For the rest of my life, I’ll carry with me every detail of the first time we make love, and from now on I don’t intend to lug around anything but good memories.”

  “And neither do I. We’ll wait.”

  She turned out the lights, and they lay together on the bed.

  Shadows pooled around them. They were beyond the direct reach of the thin streams of morning sun that drizzled through the narrow gaps in the draperies.

  Holding each other, kissing chastely, they were neither lovers nor would-be lovers. Rather, they were like animals in a burrow, pressing against each other for reassurance, warmth, and protection from the mysterious forces of a hostile universe.

  Eventually he dozed off. When he woke, he was alone on the bed. At first he thought that he heard rain beating on the windows, but then he realized it was the sound of the shower, coming through the half-open door from the adjacent bathroom.

  In a peculiar but comfortably domestic mood, he returned to the guest room, showered, and changed the bandage on his left arm. The shallow knife wounds were healing well.

  By the time he dressed and got to the kitchen, Joanna was preparing a light breakfast: shiro dashi, white miso-flavored soup. Floating in each bowl was a neat tie of kanpyo, paper-thin gourd shavings, topped by a dab of hot mustard. The soup was properly served in a red dish with a gold rim, in keeping with the Japanese belief that a man “eats with his eyes as well as his mouth.”

  In this instance, however, Alex was at odds with traditional Japanese wisdom. He couldn’t look away from Joanna long enough to appreciate the presentation of the shiro dashi.

  Outside, a chill wind stripped dead leaves from a nearby mulberry tree and blew them against the kitchen window, startling him. It was a scarecrow sound, dry and brittle—and somehow more ominous than it should have been.

  Streaked with rust-maroon the same shade as dried blood, the crisp brown leaves spun against the glass, and for a moment he half thought that they were about to coalesce into a monstrous face. Instead, the capricious wind suddenly carried them up and out of sight into the dead sky.

  For a long time Joanna stared at the mulberry tree. Her mood, like his, had inexplicably changed.

  After breakfast, Alex called Ted Blankenship’s home number in Chicago. He wanted Ted to use Bonner-Hunter’s contacts in England, respected colleagues in the private-security trade, to dig up all available information on the United British-Continental Insurance Association and on the solicitor J. Compton Woolrich.

  He and Joanna passed the remainder of the morning with the Chelgrin file, searching for new clues. They didn’t find any.

  Mariko joined them for lunch at a restaurant two blocks from the Moonglow, and then Joanna drove them directly to the hospital to see Wayne Kennedy. The police had already been there. Wayne had told them only what Alex wanted him to reveal, and they’d seemed satisfied—or at least not terribly suspicious. Wayne was just as Mariko had described him the previous night: brimming with energy in spite of his condition, joking with everyone, demanding to know when he would be permitted to walk, “because if I lay here much longer, my legs will atrophy.” One of the nurses spoke English, and Wayne tried to convince her that he’d come to Japan to enter a tap-dancing contest and was determined to participate on crutches if necessary. The nurse was amused, but Wayne’s best audience was Mariko. Alex had never seen her so animated and cheerful as she was in that small, clean, but decidedly dreary hospital room.

  At three o’clock he and Joanna left to keep an appointment with Dr. Omi Inamura, but Mariko remained at the hospital.

  The leaden sky had darkened and descended since they’d arrived at the hospital, as if a solar eclipse was in progress behind the vault of clouds.

  In Joanna’s Lexus, as she drove across the busy city, Alex said, “From now on, Mariko’s going to put her match-making energy to work for herself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t notice the attraction between them?”

  “Who? Mariko and Wayne?”

  “It was obvious to me.”

  On the sidewalks, pedestrians hurried stoop-shouldered through a cold, brisk wind that flapped their coattails.

  “I don’t doubt Mariko and Wayne are attracted to each other, but nothing’ll come of it,” Joanna predicted. “Sad to say, but there’s a strong cultural bias here against interracial relationships. If you aren’t Japanese, then you’re regarded as one degree of barbarian or another. It’s almost not something you can become angry about when you encounter their prejudice, because they’re so unfailingly polite about it, and they do treat everyone with great respect. It’s just been a part of their worldview so long that it’s in their bones.”

  Alex frowned. “Mariko doesn’t think of you as a barbarian.”

  “Not entirely. She’s a modem woman, but in some deep recess of her Japanese soul, the attitude is still present. On a subconscious level maybe, but it’s there. And she’s definitely not modern enough ... for Wayne.”

  “I suspect you’re wrong about that. She believes in love at first sight, you know.”

  “Mariko?”

  “She told me.”

  “She was talking about Wayne?”

  “About you and me. But she believes in it for herself too. Love at first sight.”

  “Is he good enough for her?” Joanna asked.

  “He’s first-rate, I think.”

  “Well, then, I hope she’s even more of a modern woman than I think she is.”

  Joanna parked half a block from Omi Inamura’s office but did not switch off the engine. Staring at his building through the windshield, she said, “Maybe this is a mistake.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I’ll be with you.”

  “What if Inamura can help me remember the face and name of the man with the mechanical hand? Then we’ll have to go looking for him, won’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when we find him ...”

  “Don’t worry. It’s like Mariko said last night. When you finally find him, he won’t be as frightening as he is in your nightmares.”

  “No. Not as frightening. Maybe worse.”

  “Think positive,” he said.

  He reached out and took her hand. It was cold and moist.

  A piercing wail rose in the distance. Traffic pulled aside to allow an ambulance to pass. The shrieking siren filled the world for a moment. In the gray-on-gray day, the fierce red light from the revolving emergency beacons seemed to have preternatural substance: It splashed like blood across the street, washed through the car in a
n intangible tide, and briefly transformed Joanna’s face into a mask that might have been the universal face of any spattered victim, blue eyes wide but sightless and darkened by a glimpse of Death’s own cold face in the penultimate moment.

  Alex shivered.

  “I’m ready,” she said. She let go of his hand and switched off the car engine.

  The siren had dwindled beyond hearing. The splashing red light was gone. Once again, the day was dead gray.

  34

  Bowing not from the waist but with a discreet inclination of his head and a rounding of his shoulders, not with any disrespect but with a sense that he understood the need for the old traditions while being personally somewhat above them, Dr. Omi Inamura welcomed Joanna and Alex into his inner office. He was in his early fifties, an inch shorter than Joanna, with slightly crinkled, papery skin and brown eyes as warm as his quick smile. In black slacks, suspenders, white shirt, baggy gray cardigan, and half-lens reading glasses, he seemed more like a literature professor than a psychiatrist.

  The inner office, where Inamura treated his patients, was reassuringly cozy. One wall featured floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books, and another was covered by a tapestry depicting a wooded mountainside, a foaming waterfall, and a river where accordion-sail boats were running with the wind toward a small village just below the cataracts. Instead of a traditional analyst’s couch, four dark-green armchairs were arranged around a low coffee table. The pine-slat blinds closed out the ashen daylight, and the electric lighting was indirect, soft, relaxing. A sweet, elusive fragrance threaded the air: perhaps lemon incense.

  In one corner, a large birdcage hung from a brass stand.

  On a perch in the cage was a coal-black myna with eyes that were simultaneously bright and dark, like little drops of oil glistening in moonlight. From Mariko, they had learned that its name was Freud.

  They sat in the armchairs, and Alex told Omi Inamura about Lisa Chelgrin’s inexplicable metamorphosis into Joanna Rand. Mariko had prepared her uncle to expect a strange case, so the doctor was neither greatly surprised nor disbelieving. He was even cautiously optimistic about the chances of conducting a successful program of hypnotic regression therapy.

  “However,” Omi Inamura said, “ordinarily, I wouldn’t employ hypnosis until I’d done extensive groundwork with you, Miss Rand. I find that it’s always wise to begin with certain standard tests, a series of casual conversations, another series of investigative dialogues. I progress slowly, and I thoroughly explore the patient’s problems until trust has been established. Then I use hypnosis only if it is indicated. This takes time. Weeks. Months.”

  “I appreciate your concern for the patient,” Joanna said, “but we don’t have months. Or even weeks.”

  Alex said, “What these people did to Wayne Kennedy was meant to be a warning. They’ll give us a day or two to learn from it. When they see we aren’t scared off, they’ll try something ... more violent.”

  The doctor frowned, still unconvinced that standard procedure should be set aside under even these circumstances.

  “Isha-san,” Joanna said, “all your other patients suffer from neuroses that they developed subtly and unconsciously over a period of many years. Am I correct?”

  “Not entirely. Essentially—yes.”

  “But, you see, everything that I suffer from was implanted in me twelve years ago, in that room in my nightmare, by the man with the mechanical hand. With your other patients, of course, you must do a lot of groundwork to discover the sources of their illnesses. But in my case, we know the source. We just don’t know why or who. So couldn’t you just this once set aside your customary procedures?”

  Alex was impressed by the vigor with which Joanna made her argument. He knew that she dreaded what she might discover when she was regressed, but she was not afraid to make that journey.

  Omi Inamura was careful and conscientious. For a quarter of an hour they discussed the situation, studied it from various points of view, before he finally agreed to begin the regression therapy.

  “But you must realize,” he said, “that we very likely won’t finish today. Indeed, it would be amazing if we did.”

  “How long?” Joanna asked.

  The doctor shook his head. “I can’t say. Therapy creates its own pace, which is different for each patient. But I understand how urgent this is, and I’ll see you for at least an hour or two every day until we’ve learned what you need to know.”

  “That’s kind of you, Isha-san, but I don’t want you to interfere with your regularly scheduled appointments just because I’m a friend of Mariko’s.”

  Dr. Inamura waved one slender hand dismissively and insisted that she was not causing him any trouble. “In Japan a psychiatrist is in somewhat the same position as that proverbial salesman who tries to sell refrigerators to the Eskimos. Because they live in a society that values tradition, teaches meditation, and encourages a code of etiquette and mutual respect, my people are generally at peace with themselves.” With typical Japanese modesty, Inamura said, “While some colleagues might be so kind as to say I am moderately successful in my profession, I nevertheless have open appointments every day. Believe me, Miss Rand, you are not an inconvenience. Quite the opposite. It is an honor to provide treatment for you.”

  She inclined her head toward the doctor. “It is a privilege to be your patient, Isha-san.”

  “You regard me too highly, Joanna-san.”

  “As you do me.”

  “Shall we begin now?”

  “Yes, please.” She tried to appear calm, but a tremor in her voice betrayed her fear.

  Alex put his hand on her arm. “It’ll be okay.”

  After picking up a remote control from the coffee table, the doctor rose from his chair and came around the table, soundless on the thick carpet. He stood by Joanna’s chair. “Lean back, please. Relax. Put your hands in your lap with the palms up. Very good.”

  He pointed the remote control at the tapestry, and the room lights, although not bright to begin with, slowly dimmed. Like cautious predators, shadows crept out of the corners.

  “Ahhhhh,” Freud said softly and appreciatively from his brass cage. “Ahhhhh.”

  The vanes of the highly lacquered pine shutters had previously glimmered with a liquid amber luminescence, but now they faded into gloom. Only the tapestry remained clearly revealed—and in the altered light it was transformed. It appeared to be mysteriously illuminated from within, and in spite of the stylized and idealized nature of the scene, it acquired such a strong aspect of reality that it almost seemed to be a view from a window.

  “Look straight ahead,” Inamura told Joanna. “Do you see the lovely tapestry on the wall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you see the river in the tapestry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you see the small boats?”

  “I see them.”

  The tapestry light was subtly cycling up and down on a rheostat, within a narrow range of brightness: a hypnotic pulse.

  “Concentrate on those boats, Joanna. Look closely at those little boats. Imagine yourself on one of them. You are standing on the deck. Water is lapping at the hull. Lapping gently at the hull. The water makes a soothing, rhythmic sound. The boat sways in the current. Gently. Gently. The boat sways gently in the water. Can you feel it swaying?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said.

  Alex looked away from the tapestry and blinked rapidly. Omi Inamura’s voice was so remarkably mellow and entrancing that Alex actually had felt the sway of the boat and had heard the faintest lapping of water.

  Joanna continued to stare straight ahead.

  “The boat is like a baby’s cradle.” Inamura’s voice grew even softer and more intimate than it had been at the start. “It rocks gently, gently like a cradle. Gently like a cradle, rocking, rocking. Putting the baby to sleep. If you feel your eyes getting heavy now, you may close them.”

  Joanna closed her eyes.

  The tapestry l
ight stopped pulsing.

  “Now I’m going to tilt your chair back slightly,” Inamura said. “To help you relax.”

  Pointing the remote control at her, he touched another button, and her armchair changed positions until it was halfway between being a chair and a couch.

  “Now I want you to think of your forehead, Joanna. You are frowning. Your forehead is lined. It should be smooth. As smooth as glass. You will relax. I will touch you, and those lines will vanish.”

  He placed his fingertips on her forehead, on her eyelids. The lines in her brow did, indeed, vanish.

  “Joanna, you’re clenching your teeth. I want you to relax the muscles in your face.”

  He lightly pressed his fingertips to her left temple, her right temple, her cheekbones, her chin. His touch was magical, smoothing away all visible signs of her anxiety.

  “And now your neck... relax your neck muscles... now your left shoulder... very relaxed ... your right shoulder ... both arms ... so very relaxed ... deeper ... deeper ... your abdomen and your hips ... limp ... no tension ... relaxed ... and now your legs, your feet ... even into your toes, all relaxed, totally and wonderfully relaxed. You feel as if you are floating on a vast body of water ... floating on blue water under blue sky ... drowsy ... drowsy ... drowsier ... until you are now in a deep and natural sleep.”

  Joanna’s breathing had become slow and regular, but Inamura continued:

  “I am taking hold of your right hand, Joanna. I’m lifting your right arm. And now your arm is becoming stiff ... rigid ... cannot be moved ... cannot be lowered. It is impossible for you to lower your arm. It is rigid and will stay where I have put it. I’m going to count down from three, and when I say ‘one,’ you will be unable to put your arm down.

  Three ... you are sleeping deeply ... two ... deeper and deeper into a relaxed, natural sleep ... one ... your arm is rigid. Rigid. But try to prove me wrong, Joanna. Try to move your arm.“