The Dark

by Andrew Neiderman

  Lydia’s eyes had become electric at the end of their conversation and filled with wild static, the colors like neon, jetting through Maggie’s own and into her brain, burning down to the vault of her deepest fears, rattling her very bones. Just maybe she wouldn’t have to kill Grant? How did someone so gentle and pacific become so trigger-happy? Who in his or her wildest imaginings could have envisioned that little woman holding a .38 on her husband and actually pulling the trigger?

  There are things about ourselves we die not knowing, Maggie thought. The biggest mystery is our own identity. We don’t live long enough to make all the discoveries or perhaps the most important ones, she thought.

  She sighed.

  What was left to do? Maybe Grant would become stronger because of all this. He would become wiser and more in control of himself. People wake up when they hear distant bells tolling for them. They had almost tolled for him.

  She really was very tired now and not very hungry. She drove home, made herself a slice of toast and some tea, and settled down to return the phone calls that had mounted up on the answering machine. Grant’s mother took his recuperation for granted, barely pausing between descriptions of charity and social events to ask a question. If people were reincarnated out of the animal world or vice versa, Patricia Blaine was surely a descendant of or headed for life as an ostrich, Maggie thought.

  Her own mother was sympathetic and very concerned. She volunteered to come right to Los Angeles, but Maggie assured her it wasn’t necessary. The phone calls to friends went quickly when she explained how tired she was. It was true. She couldn’t wait to soak in a warm bath and then crawl into bed. The bubbly water soothed her, helped her to calm down and meditate. For a few minutes at least, it felt as if she had slipped back into the safety and security of the womb itself.

  Afterward, she fell asleep quickly, but she woke once during the night and heard what sounded like fingernails on the windowpane. She sat up and listened and then she went to the window that looked out on the street. Was that a deep shadow or was it a man silhouetted in the soft streetlight? She wondered. She stared and waited, but the shape took no form, nor did it move. Satisfied, she went to the bathroom. However, as she returned to her bed, she gazed out again and saw the shadow was gone.

  It put a chill into her. She checked the house alarm to be sure it was armed before returning to bed. It took quite a while to fall back to sleep despite her fatigue and after she did, her dreams were fantastic, colorful and troubling. She rose early, deciding to go to her office first and check her messages before going to the hospital. She called the nurses’ station first and was told Grant had had a very comfortable night and was going to be put on a regular diet immediately. The doctor hadn’t been in yet, but they were expecting him shortly.

  “Has his memory improved any?” she followed, holding her breath.

  “Not much, Mrs. Grant, but as he grows stronger, that’s sure to happen,” the nurse predicted.

  Buoyed by that, Maggie regained some of her characteristic energy and went to the office, churning through her messages, dictating letters, and rearranging her schedule. The partners stopped by and were happy to hear about Grant’s physical progress. Everyone had the same faith in time healing his amnesia.

  Just before she prepared to leave for the hospital, Maggie received a call from Carl Thornton.

  “How did your visit with Lydia go?” he asked.

  “You were right, I guess. She said so many disturbing things about Henry it was like visiting someone in the Twilight Zone.”

  “Yes, I know. It’s part of her illness,” he said.

  “There was one thing, Carl, a scar on her breast. Did she ever tell you about it and explain how it got there?” Maggie asked, curious as to how Carl handled that aspect.

  “No,” he said. “That’s a new one. How did it get there?”

  “I don’t even want to repeat it,” Maggie said.

  “I understand.”

  “Did you get a chance to see Grant this morning?”

  “First thing.”

  “And?”

  “Give it time, Maggie. He’ll get back to his old self before you know it,” Carl promised.

  “Once he recuperates, could any of that amnesia return?”

  “No, I doubt that. Call me if you need me. Anytime,” he added.

  Thinking about it all reminded her of Bois and she decided to call Detective Hartman.

  “I was going to call you after lunch, counselor. I interviewed your notorious Mr. Bois last night.”

  “And?”

  “For one thing, he has a solid alibi for the night of Landry’s death. He was having dinner with his next-door neighbor, an elderly lady right out of a Norman Rockwell painting entitled Everyone’s Grandmother. They’ve sort of adopted each other since he moved into the building. I don’t think I would have felt more out of place and off the mark if I had gone to interview the Pope.”

  “What did you find out about him?” Maggie pursued.

  “He was quite candid, actually. He’s independently wealthy now and had once been a financial manager, among other things. He freely admitted he had been seeing your husband for a problem with depression. I didn’t think it was right for me to question him any further about it.”

  “Depression. He’s lying.”

  “Yeah, well, the only way to confirm that is to question your husband, who he highly respects, by the way. Will your husband answer questions about him when he’s up to it?”

  She hesitated.

  “I didn’t think he would, especially since the man is the reason your husband’s still alive. Look, counselor, I don’t know what your purpose is here, but I have my suspicions, and I can tell you that you’re not going to manipulate this law enforcement agency. We don’t have the manpower for these sort of games. Clarence Dunbar should go to the gas chamber.”

  “This isn’t about Dunbar,” Maggie protested.

  “Well, it’s not about Jules Bois, either.”

  “I’m telling you I think the man’s dangerous,” she insisted.

  “Then maybe you ought to be the next patient your husband has. . . . It sounds like rampant paranoia. Got to go. I have some real criminals to pursue,” Hartman quipped, and hung up.

  Maggie sat fuming with the receiver in her hand for a moment and then quietly placed it in the cradle.

  Maybe Jack Landry was working on another case and was actually the victim of a mugging. Maybe she had seen nothing more than a shadow outside the house, but that didn’t explain away the dramatic changes in Grant, and it certainly didn’t explain what had happened to Henry Flemming and why Lydia had done what she had done.

  Maggie looked at the phone, recalled Lydia Flemming’s warning, and went to tap out the number that had been etched in her memory.

  The priest seemed to answer before the phone even rang.

  “Hello.”

  “Father Dimmesdale?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Maggie Blaine. My husband is Doctor Grant Blaine, a psychiatrist in Los Angeles.”

  “Who gave you my name and number?” the priest demanded.

  “Pardon?”

  “Who told you to call me?”

  “Do you remember a Doctor Henry Flemming?”

  “Of course. His wife shot him.”

  “She told me to call you,” Maggie said.

  The priest was silent a moment.

  “I understand. In that case, Mrs. Blaine, when do you want to come to see me?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I understand why you’ve called.” He had a deep, resonant voice, commanding and authoritative.

  Maggie hesitated, a bit apprehensive. What was she getting herself into? She should just forget all this and go over to the hospital to help revive Grant’s memory, but then the priest added something.

  “I’d advise you to come to see me as soon as possible. In fact, it might already be too late for you, too.”

  Maggi
e pulled into the driveway of the small house off Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. With the late afternoon sun now sinking below the top of the Hollywood Hills, shadows crawled over the roofs, streets, and lawns.

  Like many of the homes on this block, Father Dimmesdale’s Spanish-style two-bedroom was weathered and worn with age, its pale white finish marred with spidery cracks. Some of the tiles on the roof looked loose and broken. The patch of lawn wasn’t maintained, but there were a half dozen healthy-looking orange, lemon, and grapefruit trees and rows of philodendron lining the walkway and bordering the front of the arched entrance.

  Maggie turned off her engine and sat a moment. Her insides were still trembling. She took a deep breath to calm herself. What was she doing here? She told herself that just possibly this priest knew something about Henry Flemming’s situation, something that might help explain all that had happened and was happening.

  She got out of her car and walked to the front door, on which hung an enormous wooden cross. She looked for the door buzzer and saw the button was missing, only wires exposed, so she knocked and waited. Moments later, a short, plump man with bushy gray hair and thick, untrimmed gray eyebrows peered out at her through the opened door. He wore a clerical white collar and a dark blue jacket and trousers. Dangling over his chest on a thick silver chain was a jeweled silver cross, the stem covered with chips of sapphire.

  Dimmesdale’s hands were small enough to appear stunted. On his left pinkie, he wore a yellowish green polished stone in a silver setting. The priest stood barely five-feet-one or two. Although he wore a suit, he had his feet in a pair of fur-lined, worn black leather slippers and no socks. Dimmesdale’s small, dark eyes looked lost in his swollen face. Bloated cheeks, thick ruby lips, and a bulbous nose seemed to be exploding on his relatively small skull.

  “Mrs. Blaine?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said. Dimmesdale didn’t invite her in immediately. He stood there, scrutinizing her for a moment, before stepping back.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Maggie stepped into the small alcove and Father Dimmesdale, after gazing outside a moment to see if there was anyone else with her, closed the door. There was a light fixture above them, but it was missing a bulb. The illumination from the room on the left and the corridor threw a soft light over the beige walls, which were literally inundated with religious paintings, scenes of the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, the Rising of Lazarus, all of the realistic school. It was like walking into a gallery of spiritual art.

  “This way, please,” Father Dimmesdale said, indicating the room to the left. They crossed over the worn rug and entered what resembled a private prayer room in a sanctuary. Dozens of candles burned in silver holders on the mantel, above which was a replica of Jesus on the Cross. To the right were portraits of the Virgin Mary. Covering the small coffee table were chunks of agate, in the center of which was another print of Jesus at Golgotha. The air was heavy with the scent of garlic and Maggie saw it in dishes and even in vases where there would normally be flowers.

  “Sit, please,” Father Dimmesdale said. Maggie took the worn, overstuffed chair and Dimmesdale sat on the settee across from her.

  “How do you know Lydia Flemming?” he asked.

  “My husband trained under Doctor Flemming and we all became very good friends. We all sort of drifted apart this past year. I’m a trial attorney, too busy for my own good, and Grant, my husband, became very busy with his practice, too.”

  Dimmesdale nodded and smiled as if this were the same old story.

  “After Doctor Flemming’s tragic death, one of his patients contacted your husband to continue his therapy with him?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said with surprise.

  “And it’s because of this patient that you called me?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not just accidental that he chose your husband,” he said. “We’ll have to talk about the reasons.”

  “Reasons?”

  “Go on with your story first. I need to know the details.”

  Maggie quickly explained what had happened to Grant and how Bois had come to the rescue.

  “Brilliant new move. He astounds me all the time,” Dimmesdale said. “Getting back to why this all might not be coincidental . . . your husband’s not a religious man, is he?”

  “No.” Maggie started to smile. “Although he recently went to church, but for whatever reason he went, he was unsatisfied, even angry.”

  “Religion, as we know it, is a failure in his eyes. He was always, shall we say, skeptical.”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand. There are other vulnerabilities, I’m sure, but that would take hours and hours of discovery. It’s sufficient that he has an atheistic frame of mind to work on,” Dimmesdale said.

  “I would not go so far as to say Grant’s an atheist.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He was unprotected.”

  “Unprotected?”

  “In a universe divided between the forces of good and the forces of evil, religion provides us with the only weapons, the only salvation,” Father Dimmesdale said. “Forgive me if I sound like a preacher,” he said, but he didn’t relax his intense gaze. “Our fortress is our faith and virtue. Once those are weakened, once the fiend knows where we are vulnerable, he attacks.”

  “Fiend?”

  “Satan,” Father Dimmesdale said.

  Maggie relaxed with disappointment. She had been hoping to confront one of the more open-minded, well-educated members of the church, someone schooled in psychology and therefore perhaps someone Henry Flemming would have confided in for advice. The priest appeared to sense it and smiled.

  “You think I’m bonkers, a candidate for your husband?”

  “Well, no, I . . .”

  “Lydia Flemming came to me because she learned I was an expert on such matters.”

  “What matters?”

  “Demons, evil.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re disappointed?”

  “Well, I called you because I was hoping this patient of Grant’s, who was also a patient of Henry’s, might have been someone you knew, perhaps someone who had gone to confession. I was hoping to get some more background on the man,” Maggie added. “Something concrete I could give to the police. He has everyone fooled, even them.”

  “I’ll give you background,” Dimmesdale said. “But it’s not the sort of thing you expected, hoped for, not that I blame you for that. I wish what I have to say wasn’t true, but, alas,” he said with a sigh, “it is, and painfully so. You’re not a religious woman, either?”

  “No,” Maggie replied quickly. Dimmesdale nodded and leaned forward.

  “This patient of Doctor Flemming’s was a man who called himself Forcas.”

  “Yes. Then she did reveal his patient’s name to you,” Maggie said, impressed.

  “I told you. She came in a state of desperation. Revealing her husband’s patient’s name was the least of her concerns at the time.” Dimmesdale smiled. “You know he has a sense of humor when he dabbles with our souls.”

  Maggie raised her eyebrows in question.

  “Who?”

  “Lucifer.”

  “Lucifer?”

  “Satan, Beelzebub, Old Scratch. In the New Testament, the name Satan appears thirty-four times, while the expression Devil occurs thirty-six times. In the New Testament Satan is also termed the Dragon. The Prince of Air,” Father Dimmesdale continued.

  “You said sense of humor?” Maggie repeated.

  “Yes. The names he chooses, for example. Forras, or Forcas, is a renowned president in hell. Here,” Dimmesdale said, rising and going to his bookcase. He pulled a volume from the bottom shelf and brought it to Maggie, opening it to an illustration of Forcas on a pony. Maggie saw that it was a book on demonology.

  “What’s the name he’s using as your husband’s patient?”

  Maggie hesitated.

  “He didn’t call himself Forcas, did he?”

  �
�No.” If the things she had done in the past had enraged Grant, this would drive him over a cliff, she thought. But she felt the desperation Father Dimmesdale had painted Lydia with. After a moment Maggie said, “Jules Bois.”

  Again Dimmesdale smiled.

  “The name also has some meaning for him. Let me show you.”

  Dimmesdale flipped through the pages of the book until he found the chapter “Demons in Literature” and ran his finger down to a reference to a play entitled The Nuptials of Satan, published in 1890.

  “Note the author’s name,” he said.

  Maggie read.

  “Jules Bois!”

  “Who,” Dimmesdale said, raising the book to read, “depicts Satan as a beautiful athletic youth, whose crackling hair reflects the heavenly stars like a glistening sea. The fiend loves flattery.”

  He snapped the book closed and returned to his settee.

  “According to what Lydia Flemming told me, Doctor Flemming was losing control of himself, first in small ways and then in bigger and more dramatic ones. It began with him becoming forgetful, neglectful, terribly distracted. All of his other patients fell to the wayside.

  “He was plagued by dreams, visions, and haunted by the memories of his past indiscretions, sins, all of the memories of which had been stirred and resurrected by our unusual patient. Is this beginning to sound familiar?”

  Maggie nodded, barely permitting herself to breathe.

  “Which brings us back to why he chose your husband. Something led him to believe he would be vulnerable. You see,” Father Dimmesdale continued, “the Devil knows only our evil thoughts. If he knew everything, he would not only be the Ape of God, he would be what he intended to be.”