by Dean Koontz
They went to the Nichiegeki Music Hall for a one-hour show that smacked of vaudeville and burlesque. Comedians told low jokes, many of them very amusing, but Alex was cheered more by the sight of Joanna laughing than he was by anything that the funnymen had to say. Between the variety acts, gorgeous young women in revealing costumes danced rather poorly but with unfaltering enthusiasm and energy. Most of the chorines were breathtaking beauties, but in Alex’s eyes, at least, none of them was a match for Joanna.
Back in the hotel suite, Joanna called room service and ordered a bottle of champagne. She also requested appropriate pastries, treats that were not too sweet, and these were delivered in a pretty red lacquered wood box.
At her suggestion, Alex opened the drapes, and they pulled the drawing-room sofa in front of the low windows. Sitting side by side, they studied the Tokyo skyline while they drank champagne and nibbled almond crusts and walnut crescents.
Shortly after midnight, some of the neon lights in the Ginza began to wink out.
“Japanese nightlife can be frantic,” Joanna said, “but they start to roll up the sidewalks early by Western standards.”
“Shall we roll up our own sidewalks?”
“I’m not sleepy,” she said.
He wanted her but felt as awkward as an inexperienced boy. “We have to be up at six o’clock.”
“No, we don’t.”
“We do if we want to catch the plane.”
“We don’t have to get up at six if we never go to sleep in the first place,” she said. “We can sleep on the plane tomorrow.”
She slid against him and put her lips to his throat. It wasn’t exactly a kiss. She seemed to be feeling the passion in the artery that throbbed in his neck.
As he turned to her, she rose to him, and her soft mouth opened under his. She tasted like almonds and champagne.
He carried her into his room and put her on the bed. Slowly, lovingly, he undressed her.
The only light was that which came from the drawing room, through the open door. Pale as moonglow, it fell across the bed, and she lay naked in the ghostly glow, too beautiful to be real.
When he settled down beside her, the bedsprings sang in the cathedral silence, and then a prayerlike hush settled once again through the shadows.
He explored and worshiped her with kisses.
On their last night in Japan, they didn’t sleep at all. They wrapped the hours of the night around them, as though time were a brightly shining thread and they were a wildly spinning spool.
44
In Zurich, in the magnificent house above the lake, Ignacio Carrera was working diligently on his calves, thighs, buttocks, hips, waist, lower back, and abdominal muscles. He’d been lifting weights for two hours, with little time off to rest. After all, when he rested there was no pain, and he wanted the pain because it tested him and because it was an indication of muscle-tissue growth.
Seeking pain at the limits of his endurance, he began his last exercise of the day: one more set of Jefferson lifts. He straddled the barbell, keeping his feet twenty-four inches apart. He squatted, grasped the bar with his right hand in front of him and his left hand behind, and inhaled deeply. Exhaling, he rose to a standing position, bringing the bar up to his crotch. His calves and thighs throbbed painfully.
“One,” said Antonio Paz.
Carrera squatted, hesitated only a second, and rose with the bar again. His legs seemed to be on fire. He was gasping. His pumped-up muscles bulged like thick steel cables. While Paz counted, Carrera squatted, rose, squatted, and rose again, and the pain was at first a flame and then a roaring blaze.
Other men lifted weights to improve their health. Some did it just to have their pick of the women who pursued bodybuilders. Some did it to gain improved strength for martial arts, some merely to prove their perseverance, some as a game, some as a sport.
To Ignacio Carrera, those were all secondary reasons.
“Seven,” said Paz.
Carrera groaned, striving to ignore the pain.
“Eight,” said Paz.
Carrera endured the torture because he was obsessed with power. He enjoyed holding power of every kind over other people: financial, political, psychological, and physical power. His wealth would have meant nothing to him if he had been physically weak. He was able to break his enemies with his bare hands as well as with his money, and he enjoyed having that range of options.
“Ten,” said Paz.
Carrera put down the barbells and wiped his hands on a towel.
“Excellent,” Paz told him.
“No.”
Carrera stepped in front of a full-length mirror and posed for himself, studying every visible muscle in his body, searching for improvement.
“Superb,” Paz said.
“The older I get, the harder it becomes to build. In fact, I don’t think I’m growing at all. Only thirty-eight, yet these days it’s a battle just to stay even.”
“Nonsense,” said Paz. “You’re in wonderful shape.”
“Not good enough.”
“Getting better and better.”
“Never good enough.”
“Madame Dumont is waiting in the front room,” said Paz.
“She can continue to wait.”
Carrera left Paz and went upstairs to the master suite on the third floor.
The ceiling was high, white, richly carved, with gold-leafed moldings. The fabric wallpaper was a two-tone gold stripe, and the wainscoting had been painted with a gray wash. The Louis XVI bed had a high headboard and a high footboard, and against the wall directly opposite the bed stood a matched pair of Louis XVI mahogany cabinets with painted tole plaques on the drawers and doors. One corner was occupied by an enormous eighteenth-century harp that was intricately carved, gold-leafed, and in perfect playing condition.
Carrera sometimes joked that he was going to take harp lessons in order to be ready for Heaven when he was called, but he was aware that in his elegant bedroom he looked like an ape that had lumbered into the middle of a lady’s tea party. The contrast between himself and his refined surroundings emphasized his wild, animal power—and he liked that.
He stripped out of his sweat-damp shorts, went into the huge master bath, and spent ten minutes baking in the attached sauna. He thought about Madame Marie Dumont, who was surely tapping her foot impatiently downstairs, and he smiled. For another half an hour, he soaked in the big tub. Then he suffered through a brief icy shower to tone his skin, staying warm by picturing Marie down in the reception room.
He toweled himself vigorously, put on a robe, and walked into the bedroom just as the telephone sounded.
Paz answered it downstairs but rang through a moment later. “London calling on line one.”
“Marlowe?” Carrera asked.
“No. Peterson.”
“The fat man’s in London? Put him through. And make sure that Madame Dumont doesn’t get a chance to pick up an extension.”
“Yes, sir,” said Paz.
A scrambler was attached to the incoming line, and it could be activated from any phone. Carrera switched it on.
Peterson said, “Ignacio? Safe to talk?”
“As safe as it ever gets. What’re you doing in London?”
“Hunter and the girl will arrive here tonight.”
Carrera was surprised. “Dr. Rotenhausen swore she’d never be able to leave Japan.”
“He was wrong. Can you move fast? I want you to go to the good doctor in Saint Moritz.”
“I’ll leave this evening,” said Carrera.
“We’ll try to put Hunter on Rotenhausen’s trail, as planned.”
“Are you directing the show in London now?”
“Not all of it. Just this business with Hunter and the girl.”
“Good enough. Marlowe isn’t fit to handle that. It’s made him hypertense.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“He broke some rules. For one thing, he tried to pry her name out of me.”
“Out of me too,” Peterson said.
“He made some silly threats. I’ve recommended his removal.”
“So have I,” Peterson said.
“If approval comes through, I’ll take care of him myself.”
“Don’t worry. No one’s going to deny you your fun.”
“See you in Moritz?” Carrera asked.
“Certainly,” said the fat man. “I think I’ll take a few skiing lessons.”
Carrera laughed. “That would be an unforgettable sight.”
“Wouldn’t it?” Peterson laughed at his own expense and hung up.
The telephone doubled as an intercom, and Carrera buzzed the front room downstairs.
Paz answered, “Yes, sir.”
“Madame Dumont may come up now. And you should pack a suitcase for yourself. We’ll be going to Saint Moritz in a few hours.”
Carrera put down the receiver and went to a wall panel that concealed a fully equipped bar. It slid aside at the touch of a button, and he began to mix drinks: orange juice and a couple of raw eggs for himself, vodka and tonic for Marie Dumont.
She arrived before he finished preparing her vodka, and she slammed the bedroom door behind her. She strode directly to him, in one of her best confrontational moods.
“Hello, Marie.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she demanded.
“I think I’m Ignacio Carrera.”
“You bastard.”
“I’ve made vodka and tonic for you.”
“You can’t keep me waiting like that,” she said furiously.
“Oh? I thought I just did.”
“I hope you get rectal cancer and die.”
“Such a sweet-talking young lady.”
“Stuff it.”
She was uncommonly beautiful, and she knew it. She was only twenty-six, wise and sophisticated beyond her years—though not nearly as wise as she thought. Her dark eyes revealed strange hungers and an intensely burning pain deep in her soul. Her fine features and the elegant carriage that she’d learned in expensive boarding schools gave her a haughty air.
She was dressed beautifully too: Her well-tailored, two-piece suit was a five-thousand-dollar Paris original, brightened with a turquoise blouse and minimal jewelry. Her perfume was so subtle that it must have cost upward of a thousand dollars an ounce.
“I expect an apology,” she announced.
“There’s your drink on the bar.”
“You can’t treat me like this. No one treats me like this.”
She had been spoiled all her life. Her father was a wealthy Belgian merchant, and her much older husband was an even wealthier French industrialist. She had been denied noth- ing—even though her demands were never less than excessive.
“Apologize,” she insisted.
“You wouldn’t like it if I did.”
“Like it? I demand it, damn you.”
“You’re a snotty kid.”
“Apologize, damn you.”
“But a beautiful snotty kid.”
“Listen, you greasy ape, if you don’t apologize—”
He slapped her face just hard enough to sting.
“There’s your drink,” he repeated, indicating the bar.
“If you ever touch me again, I’ll have you killed,” she said.
He slapped her so hard that she staggered, almost fell, and had to grip the edge of the bar to keep her balance. Punishment was what she wanted. It was why she had come.
“Pick up your drink,” he said ominously. “I made it for you.”
“You make me sick.”
“Then why do you come?”
“Slumming.”
“Pick up your drink,” he said sternly.
She spat in his face.
This time he did knock her down. She sat on the floor, stunned. Carrera quickly pulled her to her feet. With one big hand on her throat, he pinned her against the wall.
She was crying, but her eyes shone with perverse desire.
“You’re sick,” he told her. “You’re a sick, twisted little rich girl. You have your white Rolls-Royce and your little Mercedes. You live in a mansion. You’ve got servants who do everything but crap for you. You spend money as if every day is the last day of your life, but you can’t buy what you want. You want someone to say ‘no’ to you. You’ve been pampered all your life, and now you want someone to push you around and hurt you. You feel guilty about all that money, and you’d probably be happiest if someone took it away from you. But that won’t happen. And you can’t give it away, because so much of it is tied up in trusts. So you settle for being slapped and humiliated and debased. I understand, girl. I think you’re crazy, but I understand. You’re too shallow to realize what great good fortune you’ve had in life, too shallow to enjoy it, too shallow to find some way to use your money for a meaningful purpose. So you come to me. You come to me. Keep that in mind. You’re in my house, and you will do what I say. Right now, you’ll shut up and drink your vodka and tonic.”
She had worked up saliva while he’d been talking, and again she spat in his face.
He pressed her against the wall with his left hand, and with his right hand he grabbed the drink that he had fixed for her. He held the glass to her lips, but she kept her mouth tightly shut.
“Take it,” Carrera insisted.
She refused.
Finally he forced her head back and tried to pour the vodka into her nose. She tossed her head as best she could in his fierce grip, but at last she opened her mouth to avoid drowning. She snorted and gasped and choked, spraying vodka from her nostrils. He poured the rest of the drink between her lips and let her go as she spluttered and gagged.
Carrera turned away from her and picked up the mixture of orange juice and raw eggs that he had made for himself. He drank it in a few swallows.
When he had finished his drink, Marie was still not recovered from having been force-fed hers. She was doubled over, coughing, trying to clear her throat and get her breath.
Carrera seized her by the arm, dragged her to the bed, and pushed her facedown against the mattress. He pushed up her skirt, tore at her undergarments, shucked off his own robe, and fell upon her savagely.
“You’re hurting me,” she said weakly.
He knew that was true. But he also knew that she liked it this way more than any other. Besides, this was the only way he liked it.
The power to inflict pain was the ultimate power.
Sexual power over women was as important to him as financial, psychological, and sheer physical power. Before he finished with Marie Dumont, he would hurt her badly, degrade and humiliate her, demand things that would disgust her and leave her feeling totally worthless, because that would make him feel godlike.
As Marie wept and struggled beneath him, he thought of Lisa-Joanna. He wondered if he would have the chance to do to her all that he was now doing to Marie. The very thought of it made him drive even more ferociously into his current willing victim.
When he had first seen the Chelgrin girl twelve years ago, she had been the most beautiful and desirable creature he’d ever encountered, but because of who she was, he had not been able to touch her. Judging by the photos taken in Kyoto, time had only improved her.
Carrera ardently wished that Dr. Rotenhausen’s treatment would fail this time, and that Lisa-Joanna would then be passed to him for disposal. There was a risk that a second mindwipe would leave her with the mental capacity of a four-year-old, and the thought of a four-year-old’s mind in that lush body appealed to Carrera as nothing else ever had. If she ended up that way, he would tell them that he had killed her and buried her, but he would keep her alive for his own use. If he possessed her in such a retarded state, he would be able to dominate her and use her to an extent that he had never been able to dominate or use anyone, including Marie Dumont. She would be his little animal, and he would train her to perform some amazing tricks.
Under him, Madame Dumont was screaming. He was hurting her too much.
She had her limits. He didn’t care about her limits. He pushed her face against the mattress, muffling her cries.
In his possession, the Chelgrin girl would learn the limits of joy, and she would be thrust beyond the limits of pain in order to learn total, unquestioning obedience. She would know extreme terror, and from terror she would learn to be eager to please. He would use her until he had explored every permutation of lust, and then he would share her with Paz. Finally, when there was nothing left to demand of her, when she had endured every degradation, Carrera would beat her to death with his hands. He would take at least an entire day to murder her; in her prolonged agony, he would find a pleasure so intense that bearing up under it would be as challenging as bearing up under any weight he had ever put on his barbells.
Borne away by his fantasy of absolute domination, he almost killed Marie Dumont. He realized that he was jamming her face so hard into the pillows that she couldn’t breathe. He let her up just enough to allow her to gasp for air.
He happily would have killed her, but at the moment, disposing of her body would have been a serious inconvenience. He would soon have to leave for Saint Moritz.
That was where his true destiny lay. In Saint Moritz. With the Chelgrin girl.
PART THREE
A PUZZLE IN A PUZZLE
The winter tempest
Blows small stones
Onto the temple bell.
—BUSON, 1775-1783
45
After getting no sleep in Tokyo, Alex and Joanna also slept little and poorly on the flight to London. They were tense, excited about their new relationship, and worried about what might await them in England. To make matters worse, the plane encountered heavy turbulence, and they lolled in their seats as miserably as seasick cruisers on their first ocean voyage.
When they landed at Heathrow, Alex’s long legs were cramped, swollen, and leaden; sharp pains shot through his calves and thighs with every step. His back ached all the way from the base of his spine to his neck. His eyes were bloodshot, grainy, and sore.
From the look of her, Joanna had the same list of complaints. She promised to get down on her knees and kiss the earth—just as soon as she was certain that she had enough strength to get up again.