The Dark

by Andrew Neiderman

  I’m hallucinating again, he thought. Jules Bois was lying there with his hands behind his head, smiling at him.

  That’s right, he imagined Bois saying, you have a young one just budding. Nurture him. Don’t do anything to close his wonderful imagination or anything that will lose him his power. Instead, enjoy him.

  “Can I go?”

  “What?” Grant said.

  “I’m getting tired.”

  “Oh, right. Sure. We’ve had enough for today,” he said. He put his notepad down and came around his desk to shake hands with the boy. “I enjoyed talking to you.”

  Gary shook his hand and nodded.

  “He said you would.”

  Grant watched Gary walk to the door, smile at him, and leave. A moment later, there was a knock. It was Marvin Becker.

  “We thought we’d wait the whole time,” he said. “How did it go, or is it too early?”

  “It’s too early. I have a lot more to do with him,” Grant said.

  Marvin nodded.

  “But you think you can make progress with him?”

  “Oh, without a doubt,” Grant said. “Without a doubt.”

  Marvin smiled gratefully and bowed a bit as he backed out of the office and closed the door.

  When Grant turned, Bois wasn’t on the sofa, but his words lingered in his ears. He just sat there for a while staring out of his office windows. Then he sighed deeply and gazed at the blinking light that indicated a message. He hit the button and listened to Maggie.

  But he didn’t call her. He just wanted to go someplace and have a drink by himself first. He wasn’t in the mood for happy people, laughter, and music. There was a battle going on inside him and he was ashamed of it and afraid.

  11

  Jack Landry sat in his car across from the apartment building in an upscale neighborhood of Westwood in Los Angeles and studied the building for a few moments. It looked recently renovated, with a small patch of lawn in front, brass doors, ivy along one side. There was an underground garage and a small but elegantly furnished lobby with restored antique furniture and mirrors. But there was no doorman. Tenants entered with a key or buzzed in visitors and deliveries. Nevertheless, rents were surely high.

  Jack wore his Air Postal Express outfit. He had hoped to get here earlier, but a complication with an investigation he was doing for a wealthy client who suspected his much younger wife of adultery had tied him up in Studio City for most of the morning. Then, after he had taken the freeway, he got caught in a traffic jam caused by a pickup truck colliding with a van. Neither driver was seriously hurt, but removal of the wreckage and the curiosity of passing motorists backed up the highway for miles. Still, it was only a little after one. Good chance Bois wouldn’t be at home, which would give Jack a chance to reconnoiter the man’s apartment.

  Carrying an empty wrapped box, he stepped out of his vehicle, crossed the street, and checked the directory for Bois’ name and apartment number. He pressed the buzzer for the video entry system and waited, but there was no response after a second and third attempt. Just what he had hoped.

  He then located the nearest apartment and buzzed it. An elderly female voice responded.

  “Yes?”

  “Good afternoon, ma’am. This is Air Postal Express. I have a special delivery for a Jules Bois, but no one answers the buzzer. Could you accept the package?”

  He stood in front of the video camera so she could have a clear view of him in uniform.

  “Oh. Oh, yes. Just bring it up,” she said.

  Jack smiled. Bingo on the first attempt. Usually it took four or five, these days. He heard the buzzer and opened the outer door. Bois lived on the sixth floor. Jack took the elevator and went directly to the apartment of the woman who had responded. She looked like she was well into her seventies, if not eighty, and apparently living alone.

  “This is very kind of you,” Jack said.

  “Oh, we often help each other out in this building,” she said, taking the package. Jack turned the clipboard so she could sign.

  “My first delivery here. It looks like a nice building. You live here long?”

  “Nearly twenty years,” she replied, smiling and handing him the clipboard. “Mr. Bois is one of our newer tenants, but he’s been here more than six months and we’ve had some nice talks. He’s a very nice gentleman. I’ll see that he gets this.”

  “Thanks again,” Jack said, and stepped back so she could close the door. He waited a moment, gazed down the corridor, and then went to Bois’ apartment. It took him only a minute to unlock the door, which surprised him as well. Usually there was more than one lock, and few were this simple. Jules Bois was apparently not a person who suffered the same paranoia that had gripped most of the population, especially in urban areas, these days.

  He paused after opening the door and listened.

  “Hello?” he said. He could claim the door was just open, but there was no response. He entered, closed the door softly, and walked into the apartment, a very nicely furnished single-bedroom. Jack thought it was immaculate. In fact, it looked like the model for the sale of apartments in the building. The marble floor entryway glittered. The walls were done in soft pastels. Perfectly spaced out on them were watercolors depicting quiet country scenes, the art obviously chosen by a decorator who was looking for color coordination more than artistic value.

  He gazed into the living room. Everything looked brand-new. The furniture was all in beige, with soft woods and glass tables. On shelves behind the longer sofa were glass figures, vases, and small ivory boxes. He saw no magazines strewn about, no unclean ashtrays, nothing to reveal anyone had been in the room recently.

  The kitchen was the same way. Everything was in place, the table clear and clean, the sink empty. He began by opening drawers. All were well organized: one for table linen, one for silverware, one for kitchen implements, etc. Nothing was out of place. He found no papers, no books except for the phone book, and, rifling through that quickly, he saw no numbers underlined and found no notes on the inside of the covers. Actually, the kitchen looked as if it had never been used.

  He shook his head in amazement and went through it to the single bedroom. It was a good-sized room with a California king-sized dark cherry wood bed, matching nightstands, and hutch. The telephone was on the table on the left and there was a miniature grandfather clock, same shade of cherry wood as the bed, on the other table. Next to it was a framed picture of a good-looking, tall man standing in front of what looked like a cathedral, maybe St. Patrick’s in New York, Jack thought. The man had a wide grin. Jack looked more closely at the picture. On the bottom in red ink was written: To Jules, You look like you belong right there. Congratulations. . . L. At least now I know what the subject looks like, he thought. He put the picture back and gazed up.

  Above the bed was a print of Edvard Munch’s famous painting The Scream. The picture depicted a very disturbed woman, someone who might be found in a mental institution, in the midst of a horrible scream.

  Who the hell would want to sleep with that hanging over his head every night? he wondered.

  Jack checked the drawers in the nightstands. Both were empty. He turned and looked, went to the dresser and began to search those drawers. Again, everything was perfectly organized: the drawer for socks, the draw for underwear, shirts, all items clean, and some even looking brand-new. But there was nothing else. He opened the closet and saw how all the garments were perfectly organized, color-coordinated as well. There was nothing unusual on the shelf above, or below with the shoes.

  Except for the painting above the bed and the clothes in the closet and dresser, and that one framed photograph, there was no evidence anyone inhabited this apartment, Jack thought. And yet, the woman next door had told him Bois had lived here more than six months. He must be a fanatic when it comes to cleanliness, Jack concluded, and started out, not sure what he could tell Maggie Blaine. He had been in the man’s home and he was even more of a mystery now.

 
; He opened the door and peered out cautiously. All was quiet, so he slipped out, closed the door softly, and went to the elevator. When it opened on the lobby, he saw Jules Bois checking the mailboxes. There was no question he was the same man as the one in the picture. He didn’t turn. Jack walked out quickly and went to his car.

  Apparently Bois didn’t go upstairs. All he had come to do was check his mail, because a few moments after Jack got into his vehicle, Bois came out and got into his late-model Lexus. He pulled away quickly, not so much as glancing Jack’s way as he did so. Jack started his car and followed. Bois headed right for the freeway. Jack remained two car lengths behind and was quite surprised at the exit downtown Bois took. They were going right into the heart of South-Central L.A.

  A wave of low clouds had begun to drag a dark curtain over the city’s seedy, grubby neighborhoods, adding to the depression and gloom painted over the scorched structures, windowless buildings, all scarred with the scribbling of angry and psychotic minds. To Jack’s way of thinking, the graffiti was a cry for help, a desperate attempt to be noticed by a society that chose to ignore that which revolted it. He felt as if he had passed through some boundary between earth and the netherworld. Even the toughest, most downtrodden areas of New Orleans had afforded him more comfort. But perhaps that was because he was more familiar with the grime and degradation in that city. He had been in it so long, he was practically at home with it.

  Fortunately, he thought, he had decided to take his field car this morning when he had left his West L.A. condo. Jack owned two vehicles. He nicknamed one the field car, which was a 1989 brown Ford Taurus, dented and nicked, with a right rear window that was filled with a large cobweb of cracks emanating from the center of a blow made with a tire iron. It wasn’t the type of vehicle that would attract much attention or demand. His other vehicle certainly would have. That was a vintage red 1955 MG in prime condition, the love of his life. He reserved its use for what he considered milk runs and non-work-related trips.

  Nevertheless, it was easy to become instantly paranoid here. Every look he received appeared threatening. His pulse quickened when he and Bois stopped at red lights, and he gazed cautiously from right to left. They were not any more than two blocks west of the epicenter of the most recent L.A. riots.

  Minutes later, Bois turned down a street and stopped in front of a small house between two low-income apartment buildings. The pale, yellow-stained white stucco on the outside of the cottage-sized structure was chipped and gouged as if some creature had been nibbling on it. There was a tiny patch of lawn, but that was scraggly and filled with weeds, broken bottles, smashed beer cans, crushed cardboard boxes, and other litter.

  A wrecked car looked planted in the short driveway. Most of what was valuable on the vehicle had been torn off. It had no tires and even the door handles had been ripped away. It was battered, the windows smashed, the rear bumper fallen to the pitted macadam.

  There was really no sign of life in the house or around it. It was easily something passersby would ignore or even miss; it blended into the blight and had lost its identity years and years ago.

  Bois got out of his vehicle as casually and calmly as he would in upscale safe Westwood and walked to the front door of the house. Jack pulled to the curb and watched as Bois reached into his pocket, took out a set of keys, and unlocked the door. After he entered, Jack edged his car closer to Bois’ and put it in neutral.

  Suddenly there was a sharp rap on his window. It was so unexpected, he literally jumped in his seat. The two black girls, neither looking more than sixteen or seventeen, laughed when Jack spun around. The taller girl, her hair shaved closely to her scalp, earrings that looked made of steel dangling from her lobes, had a pipe wrench in her right hand. She wore a tank top and a pair of jeans. The tank top was thin and she wore no bra, so her small, perky breasts were well outlined beneath, the nipples nearly punching through the material. Her arms, right up to the shoulders, were covered with tattoos of snakes and dragons, something off the cover of an interactive CD-ROM game. Cautiously, Jack lowered his window.

  “Hi,” she said. “You here to pick me up, honey?”

  The other girl laughed. She was stouter, bigger boned, with a heavier bosom and shoulders. She was also dressed in a tank top and jeans, but she had what looked like a bicycle chain over her shoulder.

  “Pick you up?”

  “I like your car. So does my boyfriend,” she said, and nodded ahead. Leaning against a battered brown van directly across the street were two males who looked like they were in their twenties, although Jack wasn’t sure. He thought they could be teenagers, too, prematurely aged by their lifestyles and living conditions. One was light-skinned and looked Latino, and the other was black. Black bandannas were wrapped around their foreheads and both wore earrings similar to those dangling from the tall girl’s lobes. They looked cool, confident, amused. It was as if they had just appeared out of thin air, because when he had driven up, Jack had seen no one.

  “If he likes this car, he doesn’t have much taste. Lose him,” Jack said, and the girls laughed.

  “Whatcha doin’ parked in front of the doctor’s office?” the taller girl asked.

  “Doctor’s office? A doctor uses this dump as an office?”

  Is that why Bois came here? he wondered, and looked at the dilapidated house again.

  “It ain’t a dump inside,” the stout girl said belligerently. “He fixed it up real nice.”

  “And we don’t like no one saying bad things about the doctor, neither,” the other girl said. She nodded at the two young men, who lifted their bodies off the brown van and started a slow, arrogant walk toward Jack and the girls. Jack opened his jacket and unclipped his pistol holster.

  “How come there’s no doctor’s sign in front if it’s a doctor’s office?” Jack asked.

  “He don’t like people thinking of this as an office like that,” the taller girl said. “Right, Charliemae?”

  “That’s right. It don’t matter. Everyone who has to know, knows what it is.”

  “He wants us to feel at home,” the taller girl added.

  “What’s the doctor’s name?” Jack asked the girls, while at the same time keeping his eyes on the two young men. They parted as they reached the front of his vehicle. The Latino moved to his right.

  “Why you asking so many questions?” the taller girl demanded.

  “That’s how you learn things,” Jack said. “You ask questions. Didn’t you do that in school?”

  “I still go to school,” she replied, “but I don’t ask questions,” she added, and the two girls laughed. The Latino took a toothpick from his mouth and pointed at Jack.

  “What’s he want?”

  “To know about the doc,” the stout girl replied.

  “What for?”

  “I’m looking for someone; it might be him,” Jack said. “It’s worth something to me.” He reached into his pocket and produced a fifty-dollar bill.

  The two girls looked at it covetously, but neither moved toward him. Both watched and waited for the young black man’s approval. After a moment of hesitation, he nodded and the taller girl stepped closer and reached for the fifty.

  “Information first,” Jack said, pulling the money back.

  “Whatcha want to know?”

  “The doctor’s name first.”

  “Doctor Jules,” she said. “That’s what we call him.”

  “Jules?” Jack gazed at the house. “Jules is the doctor? Is his last name Bois?” He pronounced it Bwas.

  “His name’s Doctor Jules Boys,” Charliemae said, correcting him.

  “What kind of a doctor is he?”

  “He’s a counselor.”

  “A shrink,” the other girl said.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Charliemae said. “He takes your big headaches and he shrinks ’em into peas.”

  The girls laughed and the young man with the toothpick smiled.

  “This is his office?” Jack gazed at the
house again. What was this? Maggie Blaine had told him Bois was one of Grant’s patients, not fellow physicians. Was he a doctor who did some sort of charity work in the ghetto? Could it be that Maggie didn’t know?

  “He be the first one to use it for anything since the murder,” the taller girl said. “ ’Cept a few drunks and dope addicts from time to time.”

  “Murder?”

  “You ain’t heard about the murder and the cookin’?”

  “He don’t read our newspapers,” the young black man said, and they all laughed.

  “So, tell me about it,” Jack said. The girl’s smile faded. She gazed at the young black man again, but he just stared at Jack. The other young man was leaning against the window on the passenger’s side.

  “You can tell him,” the young black man said grimacing with cool amusement. “Doc always says outsiders like to hear ’bout the bad stuff. It’s a trip for them. What’s he call it, Ricky?”

  “Vicarious experience,” the Latino said. He leaned over the hood to smile at Jack through the windshield. His eyes were full of mad laughter.

  “What’s he, the one with the master’s degree?” Jack asked, nodding at the Latino.

  “He’s smart,” the tall girl said.

  “Great, I’ll recommend him for a scholarship. So what’s the murder story?”

  “You tell him, Charliemae,” the taller girl said. The stout girl moved up to the window and straightened her posture as if she really were in school about to recite a passage she had memorized from a play.

  “That there’s where the man stabbed his wife ’bout a hundred times and then cut her up and started cooking away her body in the kitchen stove before anyone found out. He had only the legs left when the police come.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Years and years ago. Nobody want to go in there afterward until the doctor come,” Charliemae said.

  “He said he wanted to be where he was most needed, where he could do the most good, so he don’t mind the murder bein’ in the house,” the taller girl said.