Private Demons

by Robert Masello

  But he realized that even if he did reach her, he still wouldn’t know what he wanted to tell her. How much of his life could he explain—to Hallie or to anyone? He took his Moroccan briefcase from under the desk, put on his coat, and left.

  Downstairs, Hun had maneuvered the Bentley as close as possible to the revolving doors; Lucien climbed into the well-heated interior, and they set off down the long narrow drive that led out of the complex. It was slow going, with several limousines and a flock of cabs, taking care of lunch-hour business, blocking the way. Just as they emerged from the pack, inching their way around a taxi inexplicably parked in the two-lane roadway, Hun slowed the car, and Lucien heard him laugh in his peculiar guttural fashion.

  “What is it?” Lucien asked.

  “Hitchhiker. Look out window.”

  Lucien had no time for these games; he hastily wiped at the clouded glass.

  Hallie was standing on the curb, with a duffel bag at her feet, and her thumb stuck out. Lucien had to smile.

  Hun stopped the car. Lucien rolled down his window. “Don’t you know that’s dangerous?” he asked.

  Hallie shrugged, though the gesture was almost lost in the huge blue down coat she wore. “I can take care of myself.”

  Lucien opened his door and slid across the seat to make room for Hallie. She slung the duffel bag onto the floor, then got in herself.

  “Okay, Hun, go on,” Lucien said. Hallie was unzipping her coat. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes,” she said, turning on the seat to face Lucien. “Surprise me.”

  Her eyes were sparkling, and her cheeks were ruddy from the cold.

  “I’m going to Bangkok,” he said.

  “That’s great! I’ve never been to Bangkok! And I’ve got eight days until I have to be in Milan for my next job.”

  Lucien was nonplussed. He touched her duffel bag with the toe of his shoe. “And how did you know what to pack?”

  “Models pack light; we have to. And anyway, I like to buy new clothes when I get where I’m going.”

  She had an answer for everything. And Lucien was running out of obstacles. “I’m going to have a lot of work to do there. You’ll be on your own most of the time.”

  “If I waited for you to call,” she said, “I’d be on my own all the time.”

  Hun, listening in, laughed, and gunned the car through the last seconds of a yellow light.

  “I did call,” Lucien replied, glad at last to have a card to play. “I got a man’s voice on a machine.”

  Hallie smiled. “Well, what do you know. You did call.” She took her coat off and fanned her face. “You do like your heat, don’t you, Lucien?”

  Hun reached out and turned it down.

  “That’s one thing you don’t seem to wish to discuss,” Lucien said teasingly.

  “I just wanted to see if you cared. That’s the voice of my super. I get a lot of crank calls—don’t know how my number keeps getting out—so I had him put his voice on the machine.” She leaned back in the corner of the seat, with her hands folded between her knees. She gave Lucien one of those mischievous looks that always worked wonders. “So tell me,” she said, considering the matter now to be closed, “how long is it gonna take us to get to Bangkok?”

  Lucien’s plane—a Gulfstream IV—was kept not at La Guardia or Kennedy Airport, but at the more remote Stewart Air Field. There were fewer delays in and out of Stewart, and it was easier to get immediate servicing. Donald Trump thought so too, and kept one of his own private planes in an adjacent hangar.

  Hun unloaded the bags from the trunk of the Bentley, then pulled the car into the hangar left empty by the Gulfstream, now ready for takeoff. Hallie, who had never seen the plane before, was the first on board. She scampered up the folding steps, past Janet, the flight attendant, and into the plush but understated cabin. All of the appointments were of nickel, brass, and leather, and there were only four large reclining chairs. Toward the front of the cabin, just short of the galley, a mahogany conference table gleamed in the warm, golden overhead lighting. The engines came on, and the whole plane suddenly purred with a subtle but unmistakable power.

  “Hey, this is even better than first class!” Hallie exclaimed when Lucien followed her into the cabin. Hun too came on board, lifting his bad leg carefully over the threshold and plunking himself down in the closest leather recliner.

  “That’s everyone?” Janet asked Lucien, and he nodded. She then yanked in on the hatchway door, and secured it. She was middle-aged, with a short brown perm and a brisk, capable manner. She reminded Hallie of the protective, and still pretty, women who ran the booking end of the modeling business.

  As the plane taxied out onto the runway, Hallie and Lucien swiveled two of the seats to face each other, and sat down. Hun, across the aisle, had put on a Sony Walkman, and now lay back with his eyes closed and his hands clasped across his broad stomach.

  The plane stopped, and the pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “Good afternoon, Mr. Calais. This is Bud. Joe Crandall’s my copilot on this one. And we’re looking forward to a nice, long flight.” He spoke with just the slightest trace of a down-home, aw-shucks accent; it took Hallie back to her childhood in North Carolina. “Control tower’s just given us the go-ahead, so if you’ll all take a few seconds to prepare for takeoff . . .”

  Janet made sure everyone was buckled in—"the regulations hold, even here"—and the plane accelerated for lift-off. Lucien sat perfectly still, his eyes lowered, his fingers idly stroking the ruby ring he always wore. Hallie knew a good bit about jewelry—her admirers had offered her a pretty fair amount over the years—and she knew that the blood-red stone Lucien had on was worth a small fortune. He’d once told her it was the first ruby he’d ever discovered, and that rubies had been the source of his fortune, but she sensed that the stone held some even greater, and more mysterious, significance for him.

  They took off in an easterly direction, then did a long, slow turn to the west. When they had leveled off, Janet slipped an apron over her dark blue uniform, and came around to ask what they’d like to drink, or to eat. Hallie asked for a Coke, or a 7-Up, “or anything you’ve got like that.”

  “We’ve got ‘em all,” Janet assured her, with a smile, then added, “Boy, do you look familiar. You’re a model, aren’t you?”

  Hallie introduced herself, and Janet nodded her head in confirmation. “I’ve seen your picture in magazines. And you’re even prettier in person. Coke was your first choice, right?”

  “Right.”

  For the next several hours, Janet took care of everything, from making omelettes and salad to sewing a loose button back onto Hun’s jacket. Lucien alternated between talking to Hallie—he’d explained about the Garuda, and what he was hoping to accomplish in Bangkok—and working at the conference table. A cellular phone and fax machine were affixed to the cabin wall, and Lucien used both frequently. Hallie had brought along some magazines, and it was a lucky thing. “The one thing Mr. Calais doesn’t provide,” Janet had said, with a laugh, “is a decent selection of reading material.” She’d held out an array of publications that included the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and Institutional Investor. Hallie’d stuck to her Elle.

  Hun before long had fallen fast asleep, and his low, regular breathing—and occasional snore—gradually began to have their effect on Hallie. She pushed her chair all the way back to a horizontal position, and asked Janet if there were any pillows around. For a second, Janet looked puzzled, then said, “Why don’t you go on back and have a real lie-down?” Then it was Hallie’s turn to look confused. “Haven’t you been to the back yet?” Janet asked. Taking Hallie gently by the arm, she escorted her through a pair of louvered doors, and into a small sleeping compartment with recessed lighting and a platform bed covered in a nubby raw silk. The bathroom, which opened onto it, was larger than the average airplane facility, and its generou
s counters and shower stall were sheathed in a light green marble.

  “I thought Mr. Calais had given you the grand tour,” Janet said, shaking her head. “Now you go on and make yourself comfortable. We’ve still got two refueling stops and a long way to go.” She closed the louvered doors behind her, and Hallie felt like she’d been delivered to Nirvana.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed, and stripped off her black leggings and loose sweater. She felt better already; a shower would really complete the job. She finished undressing, and stepped naked into the bathroom. It had everything she could possibly need—from shampoo and conditioner to a fold-out makeup mirror. For a moment, she wondered who had had occasion to use the mirror in the past. The water in the shower was blazing hot, and shot out in a needle-sharp spray. It shouldn’t have surprised her, she thought; Lucien liked both heat and distinct sensations. By the time she was done, the bathroom was clouded with steam. She groped for the fresh terry-cloth robe, with tissue paper still stuffed in the sleeves, hanging on the back of the door. The hook, she couldn’t help noticing, was goldplated, and shaped like the head of a snake, its forked tongue extending. Not exactly the kind of decor she’d have chosen, but artfully done nonetheless.

  In the bedroom, she pulled back the silk spread, and found crisp white linens and a soft wool blanket underneath. On the built-in nightstand, there was a hand-held microphone, presumably for an intercom system, and a remote-control for the TV set which was mounted in the opposite corner. She tried watching for a while, but the selection at 32,000 feet wasn’t any better than at ground zero. And the reception was worse. Sleep began to overtake her again. She flicked off the TV, and dimmed the lights. But she’d apparently left one on in the bathroom. It cast a sliver of illumination into the cabin, a sliver that fell directly on what looked like a scroll, encased in a gilded frame. It showed a hectic scene, with what looked like a storm at sea in one section, a palace with dancing girls in another, and a bright torch burning in the center. She imagined it told a story of some sort, but there was no way in the world she could figure it out for herself. Still trying, she drifted off to sleep.

  It was pitch-black in the cabin when she felt a warm hand cup her shoulder, then gently stroke her upper arm. There was a heaviness in her head and throat; she felt musty and disoriented. The hand stroked her arm again. She raised her head from the pillow, and swallowed to clear her ears.

  “I shouldn’t have awakened you.”

  She swallowed again, and her ears popped clear. The heavy thrumming of the engines once again rushed in on her.

  “What time is it?” she mumbled.

  “That depends,” Lucien replied.

  She was conscious now of his body, lying under the blanket beside her.

  “It’s almost midnight, New York time, “ he said. “But here it’s early evening.”

  “Where’s here?”

  “Over the Pacific.”

  She felt his feet mingle with hers. His hand slipped down her arm once more, and touched her breast. She rolled the rest of the way over, onto her back. She still couldn’t see anything; the light in the bathroom had been extinguished.

  “What were you dreaming?”

  She had to think for a second. She knew it was something vaguely troubling . . . something she hadn’t minded being awakened from.

  “I was on a boat,” she said, slowly recalling, “a boat that was out on the open water.”

  His fingertips trailed, lazily, over her abdomen.

  “There were waves all around me, deep swells, and I was starting to wonder if this was such a good idea . . . to be out sailing in weather like this.”

  His hand had flattened out, and was now rubbing, smoothly, across her skin . . . back and forth, from side to side.

  “That feels good,” she said.

  “I’m glad.”

  But why had she been dreaming of that? she wondered. There was a reason for it—and if she could just forget what Lucien was doing to her and concentrate for another minute—"I know why I was dreaming of that,” she suddenly said. “That picture you have on the wall in here, the one that looks like a scroll.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, and she felt his hand slowly travel up her body and circle, then caress, one breast.

  “I was thinking about it just before I went to sleep . . . wondering what it meant.”

  “Would you like to know?” he said, his hand now coming to rest. “I’ll tell you.” She felt him lie flat beside her now, his head on the pillows. “It’s an ancient story, about a merchant—very devout—named Simbala. His ship is wrecked at sea. That’s what you see in one part of the picture.”

  She nestled her head against his shoulder, close enough to feel his breath as he spoke.

  “He is washed up, with his men, on an island, where beautiful nymphs take them in and marry them. Until one night, when Simbala hears the lamp in his room laughing.”

  “The lamp,” Hallie said, “is laughing?”

  “Yes,” Lucien said, very matter-of-factly, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. “Simbala asks the lamp why it is so merry, and the lamp says, ‘Because you are deceived. Your beautiful wives are rākshaīs—rather like witches—in disguise. You are all in great danger.’ “

  Hallie remembered the dancing girls from the scroll.

  “Simbala asks, ‘How shall we escape?’ and the lamp says, ‘Go to the seashore. There you will find a horse. Mount the horse and do not open your eyes again until you land on the other side of the ocean.’ So Simbala gathered his men, they got on the horse, and they escaped with their lives. And that horse turned out to be none other than the divine bodhisattva—a kind of Buddhist saint—named Avalokitesvara.” She felt his head turn toward her in the darkness. “And that is the end of the story.”

  “Didn’t it ever occur to any of them that the lamp might be kidding?”

  “You are not a believer.”

  “Are you?” she said, smiling. She wished that she could see the expression on his own face. “Nymphs that turn out to be witches, lamps that talk, horses that turn into saints—I mean, it’s not the kind of thing you read in the Daily News every day.”

  There was silence, except for the immense and constant roar of the plane. Finally, she heard him say, “Things aren’t always what they seem, “ in a voice that sounded strangely resigned. “Sometimes a thing can even appear wise that is, in fact, very foolish.”

  There was a sudden slight bump as the plane hit some turbulence; their heads were brought even closer together. Lucien’s lips touched hers. She felt him roll over, toward her, and pull her body against his. He kissed her.

  The plane hit another pocket, and Lucien pulled away. She could feel him, alert above her, in the darkness. “Hold still,” he said as he reached across her to flick on the lights. They came on, low and recessed, around the edges of the cabin.

  The plane suddenly lurched, as if some giant hand had carelessly brushed it sideways. There was the sound of books and papers falling in the forward cabin.

  Lucien snatched the intercom from the nightstand. “Bud—what’s going on?”

  Hallie clutched at the headboard.

  “Sorry, Mr. Calais. I’d have given you some warning if I’d seen this coming.”

  “How much more will there be?”

  “Hard to say,” the pilot answered. “This stuff’s coming out of nowhere.”

  Lucien scrambled, naked, out of the bed, and flicked up the window shades. Cupping his hand against the glass, he peered out. Hallie wondered, her heart beating fast, what he thought he’d see out there.

  The plane hit another bump, and rocked with the blow. Hallie wrapped her fingers tighter around the headboard. Lucien had to brace himself against the wall.

  “You should be up front,” he said, “strapped into one of the seats.”

  “Thanks, but this’ll do fine. Anyway, I ain’t dressed for company.”

  There was a loud pattering on the outside of the fuselage, as if the plane
were being pelted with gravel . . . or hail. The lights flickered on and off, and the wings dipped from side to side. The windows crackled with the lashing of the hailstones.

  Hallie’s initial surprise began to give way to something worse . . . to a growing sense of the danger they were in.

  Lucien had picked up the intercom again. “Bud?”

  There was a burst of static, then Bud’s voice saying to his copilot “—take her up another two thousand. We’re gonna try to get above it, Mr. Calais.” Even Bud sounded shaky. “The instrument panel’s just going wild up here. I can’t even get a compass bearing. It’s all gone straight to Hell.”

  The plane was buffeted again, hit from above and below; Lucien dropped the intercom mike and toppled over. Hail and rain rattled against the walls of the cabin. Lucien rolled into the far corner, then righted himself.

  “Are you okay?” Hallie asked, urgently.

  “Yes . . . yes.” He was squatting down, with one arm against each wall. “Hold on. I simply need to think.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head. “I simply need to think.”

  What was there to think about? Hallie wondered. What was there to do? The plane bucked and rolled like a raft in a typhoon. What could they possibly do to save themselves?

  The cabin lights went off and on, off and on. Lucien’s arms were spread like wings, the tendons standing out as he strained to keep his balance. His golden-brown skin looked to Hallie like polished wood; the ruby ring on his finger seemed to glow in the flickering light.

  The wind outside was roaring, and Hallie could hear the engines struggling to combat it. Weird, irrelevant thoughts crowded her mind—if the plane went down, who would get her modeling job in Milan? How could she swim clear of file wreckage of the plane? Why had she just signed a two-year lease on her apartment? What if she’d never called Lucien’s office that morning?

  The lights in the cabin sputtered, and went out altogether, just as the bathroom light switched on. With it came the gurgle of running water, and the sound of the shower spray. How had that happened? She looked at Lucien; he seemed unaware of everything. His head was still lowered; his lips were moving, as if in a chant. The ruby on his finger appeared redder, and brighter, than ever. The wind howled, almost as if it were a voice—a furious, powerful, murderous voice.