Trifecta

by Pam Richter

  The yowl meandered down range to a furious low growl by the time Michelle finally pulled it off of Nakamura's coat, which it had adhered to with tiny sharp claws like a clinging burr.

  Michelle took the kitten into her bedroom and put it on her bed. "Now you have to stay here."

  She quickly walked out of the bedroom and closed the door, but she wasn't fast enough. The kitten leapt off the bed and streaked through the closing door. It was again upon Nakamura, started up his leg. As he tried to intercept the cat on its way up toward his face, it swiped with unsheathed claws on his hand, raking bloody furrows.

  Michelle plucked the kitten off Nakamura as it was swiping toward his eyes. This time it bit at her and struggled when she took it back to the bedroom. The cat wasn't soft and cuddly anymore, it felt heavy and hard, composed of sturdy squirming muscles. She softly threw it on the bed. She slammed the door.

  When Michelle came back into the living room, Nakamura was covering his scratches with Kleenex. "Animals usually like me." He looked stunned.

  "I'm very sorry. Omar didn't tell me the kitten would attack strangers."

  Michelle went into her bathroom and got a bottle of peroxide and some wash cloths. "I mean, it's so small. Who would ever think it would behave like that?"

  When she saw the amount of blood, she took Nakamura into her bathroom to wash off the hand before flooding it with peroxide.

  "I can do that," Nakamura said.

  "Let me. I feel guilty as hell."

  Nakamura laughed and allowed her to tend to the deep scratches.

  "That was downright scary," Michelle said, when she had finished disinfecting.

  "You said its name is Lucifer?"

  "Yes," Michelle said, frowning at her handiwork and then going into the bottom cabinet for bandages.

  "Very apt. A little devil."

  "Is your leg all right?"

  "No. But I'm not going to take off my pants right now," Nakamura said, smiling. "Hurts like hell."

  "You better disinfect the puncture marks. Little cats scratch in their sandboxes and everything. I want to go over to Heather's, anyway."

  Michelle left him in the bathroom and went down the hallway. She knocked and then waited a while. Finally she used her key, feeling like a thief as she went into the deserted hallway that led to the living room. Heather was an abnormally neat person, but Michelle felt like she was entering an empty apartment because there were absolutely no sounds whatsoever. No air movement. She felt silly when she found herself tiptoeing into the kitchen and she walked more naturally from there to the bathroom. All was neat and scrubbed as if no one lived there. If Heather had been planning to go anywhere there were no overt signs, like makeup on the bathroom counter or clothes strewn over the side of the bathtub, as in her own typical mess.

  Michelle felt guilty and unnatural being there without her friend and quickly entered the bedroom so she could glance in and leave. She stopped dead in the doorway.

  Heather was lying on the bed, on her back, with her head tilted back over the edge, her long blond hair flowing almost to the floor.

  Knowing you're not supposed to move a person in case of injury, Michelle ran to Heather, picked up her head gently, and moved it so it wasn't hanging over the side so unnaturally. Her own heart was banging so fast she could hardly breath. Finally she could see that Heather was alive. Michelle whispered Heather's name a few times, anxiously.

  Heather opened her eyes, smiled momentarily when she recognized Michelle, and then closed them. There was a nasty smell in the clean room and Michelle looked down. She was standing in a puddle of vomit.

  Shit, Michelle thought, Heather should have stayed in the hospital. She must be having complications from the concussion. Michelle reached for the bedside phone to dial 911, while gently shaking her friend's shoulder. When she missed the telephone receiver, she looked around at the bedside table. Her hand paused on the phone. There was one paper on the night stand by the phone. It was a lab report. There were complicated white blood cell counts and other medical terms. The outlined words that leaped out were on the bottom: Leukemia, positive.

  The other item on the night stand was a bottle of pills. Michelle couldn't make out the name of the medicine, but the directions were clear: Take at night, only as directed.

  As Michelle talked on the phone, ordering an ambulance, Heather groaned and blinked. "I feel like shit."

  Michelle looked at her friend. Evidently Heather was coming around. She stepped out of her shoes, striding over the place where Heather had vomited and ran to the bathroom to get a wet towel.

  "Did you order an ambulance?" Heather asked as Michelle put the towel on her forehead.

  "Yes."

  "Cancel it. I'm fine."

  "No, you're not! You've been asleep at least twenty-four hours. And it looks like you took some sleeping pills."

  "No, I didn't."

  "Look here." Michelle held up the bottle. There was one pill left at the bottom.

  "I don't take them. They make me feel brain damaged the next day." Heather groaned and turned over. She reached out and poured the one pill, a big yellow tablet into her palm. "Really, I didn't take any pills. Even with the bad news." Heather took a big breath and shook her head. "You know, the worse part is that I'm going to lose all my hair again. I hate that. They used to call me baldly."

  Michelle felt like crying for a minute, Heather sounded so sad and she bit her lip and blinked furiously. Then she looked at the pill Heather was holding in her hand.

  "You can't take those things," Michelle said, realizing that Heather really couldn't have swallowed them. They were much too big, judging from the size of the one that was left.

  "Of course not. I just went to sleep after I got that notice in the mail."

  "This is the way they tell you?" Michelle wanted to be angry and pounced on the hospital and all doctors in general. "Fuckers."

  "It is odd. Usually a doctor calls with disasters like this." She picked up the lab report and said, shit and damn a few times. Then she wondered about the horrible smell.

  "You threw up."

  Heather tilted her head over the side of the bed. "Whew. Well. I did take the pills. Look. There's little yellow pieces in the mess. But I don't remember. And would you please cancel that ambulance. They'll put me in a psycho ward."

  Michelle watched Heather get up with surprising energy.

  "Where are you going?"

  "Lysol spray. And lots of soap. My beautiful bedroom will never smell the same." She hurried out of the room after opening all the windows.

  Michelle called 911 and said she had made a mistake. Then she took the lab report and called the number under the address. She asked for the person in charge of the cancer lab. She waited and watched Heather clean her rug. When she finally got an officious sounding nurse on the line, she related the circumstances of receiving the lab report. She wanted to know if they made such a barbaric practice of informing their patients when they contracted a serious disease. She was told to wait. The woman was checking her computer.

  When the woman got back on the line she said there must have been a horrible mistake. Ms. Heather Jamison had a clean bill of health. Her sedimentation rate was a little down and she had a slightly elevated white blood count, but she was perfectly healthy.

  Michelle started waving the report around and yelling. She finally got a doctor on the line and then put Heather on the phone.

  Now that the bad news had been burst, Heather was wiping tears from her eyes, so Michelle picked up her shoes and went into the bathroom to wash the soles off. Heather would hate it if she saw her crying. Over the sound of the water running she heard someone knocking on the door. She had forgotten all about Nakamura. She heard Heather answer the door while she dried her shoes and put them on.

  When she came out of the bathroom she found Heather and Nakamura talking in the living room. Heather turned around, "I told Rod what happened."

  Rod? That was Nakamura's name, evident
ly. Rodney. Robert? No, it would be Rob if his name was Robert. It had to be Rodney. She felt a silly pang of jealousy. Rodney was a wimpy name.

  "He thinks it's suspicious. Says I should take the report to the lab to see if they can figure out what happened."

  "Yes, you should. But that doesn't explain how you swallowed those pills." Michelle told Nakamura that Heather couldn't swallow large pills.

  "I don't remember doing it. And I've never even walked in my sleep." Heather smiled mischievously. "I don't talk, and I don't snore."

  "Obviously that information is corroborated," Michelle said.

  "Absolutely. By several authorities," Heather answered, nodding serious, the smile lurking.

  "Too bad you cleaned it up," Nakamura said. "I would have liked to examine it. Maybe tell how much you'd taken."

  He sounded so serious both women laughed.

  "No you wouldn't," Heather was still smiling.

  "Good thing you did throw up, though," Michelle said, getting serious again.

  "I don't have any enemies, that I know of," Heather said.

  "Still, even if you threw up most of the medication, the pills effected you. I phoned several times and you didn't wake up."

  "You did?" Heather appeared a little disturbed for the first time. She was so relieved that she didn't have cancer that her mood had been almost manic.

  "And we knocked on your door last night," Nakamura said.

  "Oh." Heather had raised her eyebrows slightly. Michelle knew it was because she thought something was going on between her and Nakamura, if they had been together last night. She shook her head minutely. Heather would understand, and Nakamura would probably miss the gesture.

  "Maybe I do belong in the psycho ward then," Heather said. "But I'm not suicidal."

  "Of course you're not. I just can't understand what happened," Michelle said.

  "You don't have any lumps on your head?" Nakamura asked.

  "Nothing I can feel. I can't imagine someone sneaking in my locked apartment and force-feeding me pills. I must have done it in my sleep." She was shaking her head and looking perplexed.

  Michelle was having horrible thoughts about a man who entered locked apartments and hotels to rape and kill. The police had told her yesterday that just such a man was in Hawaii. She looked at Nakamura. He had heard the conversation she'd had with the police.

  "Why don't we see if Lucifer gets along with Heather," Nakamura suggested.

  They explained about Omar's cat and it's behavior.

  "I'll be perfectly fine in my own apartment. The cat sounds creepy."

  "It's better than a watch dog, though," Nakamura said. "Something's really wrong here. I think someone may be trying to hurt you."

  Michelle nodded in agreement but they couldn't talk Heather into staying at Michelle's apartment for the rest of the day.

  As they were leaving, Heather grabbed Michelle's arm and held her back for a moment. She nodded at Nakamura, winked and whispered, "Keep him."

  As Michelle and Nakamura walked down the hallway Michelle said, "Why don't you wait here in the hall? I have to let Lucifer out of the bedroom. He can't get to his food or water."

  "I'll be happy to wait. Way down by the elevators."

  Michelle nodded and went to her apartment. She had to admit she was a little apprehensive herself, but when she opened the door to the bedroom the cat was waiting at the doorway. He arched his back and then stretched slowly and walked with dignity past her into the living room, tail straight up and twitching slightly, as though he was not the tiny ferocious whirlwind she had observed earlier. He curved around and rubbed himself against her ankles. He was audibly purring. His little feet kneaded the carpet and he made a few sorry, lonely sounding mews, looking up at her with huge sad innocent and needy eyes. Finally Michelle sighed and picked him up. He burrowed under her chin.

  When she left the apartment, Nakamura was right in front of the door, holding it slightly ajar. Michelle almost bumped into him.

  "Were you going to rescue me from the beast?" Michelle asked, careful not to smile.

  "Heavens no. Not me. I was just waiting here."

  Lucifer, now prowling around Michelle's apartment, had a primitive knowledge of his master's intentions. Thus, the attack on Nakamura. The cat's primeval purpose was to destroy the enemy. Although bred to be tiny and look innocuous, it would fight to the death with an adversary hundreds of times its own size. If Heather had been alone in Michelle's apartment, Lucifer would have attempted to kill her. Now Lucifer was slinking around, hissing, batting at nearly invisible dust motes and gnats.

  CHAPTER 14

  "I'll die if I tell."

  "No you won't. I promise, Suzanne. You won't die if you tell me what happened at Omar's apartment. Now, listen carefully. I want you to relax even more profoundly than you are right now. Pretend you're in a wonderful garden, lying in a hammock...it's gently swaying...you can smell the beautiful roses in the garden and your eyes are gradually closing. You have nothing to do but rest. You are peaceful and serene. Now, I'm going to count down from ten to zero, and when I get to zero you will be even more relaxed...ten..."

  Vincent went on with the relaxation techniques he had been using with Suzanne for the last half hour in her hotel room. She was lying on a couch with her legs stretched out. He sat beside her in a chair.

  Vincent had had to wait until he believed the drugs were entirely out of her system. It's nearly impossible to hypnotize someone that has been given any kind of narcotic, as intense concentration is necessary. Suzanne looked fresh and rejuvenated after a good nights sleep, but Vincent was exhausted. He had been compelled to check on her during the night, every hour or so, afraid the drugs might interrupt her breathing.

  Vincent knew he should have taken her to a doctor, but explaining what drugs she had been given was hopeless. Since Suzanne had been manic at first, he believed she had been given an amphetamine after the sedative tea. Describing how the drugs had been ingested would require making allegations against Omar Satinov, which might have disastrous repercussions.

  Now Vincent was afraid he wouldn't be able to get any information. Recalling was proving so traumatic that Suzanne had repressed her memory of the entire evening.

  "I'll die if I tell," Suzanne repeated stubbornly.

  "You won't have to remember what you tell me after you wake up. You'll only remember what your mind feels you're ready to handle."

  "I don't have to remember?" Her voice was high and trembled.

  Vincent's lips tightened in anger. Suzanne was so terrified her voice had regressed to that of a young child of perhaps five years old.

  "No. You just tell your old friend, Vincent. I'll make sure nothing bad happens to you. I promise. And you can forget each sentence as soon as you tell me."

  Suzanne was nodding.

  "As soon as you tell me, it will be gone from your mind. And you won't feel any fear. You will not experience any emotions. Okay?"

  "I'm afraid."

  "Shh, now. Remember, no emotions. No fear. Just start telling me, Suzanne, and everything will be fine."

  There was a long pause and then Suzanne started speaking. "Omar is so handsome. The handsomest man I have ever seen. He is wearing all black. And his apartment is so beautiful. He seems glad to see me and he has such a wonderful smile, with very white teeth against his dark skin. He says he will tell me about the Old Religion and goes into the kitchen to make tea. I watch. When I'm not looking he pours some powder into the tea."

  Vincent was not surprised Suzanne knew this. Subconsciously people pick up a lot of things they are not supposed to know and it never really reaches their awareness unless they are in a state like hypnosis.

  Suzanne related how they both sat down on the couch. She repeated verbatim what Omar had said, much of which he had heard the night before.

  "Suddenly I was so sleepy. It seemed strange, so awfully tired and dizzy and a little sick. I put my tea on the table, afraid I might drop it, but Omar
told me to finish it. So I thought, fine, I will. Because he seemed so wise. And I did.

  "I nodded out for a few minutes, I think, and when I woke up there were other people in the room. Four women. They were all inside a circle, about twenty feet wide, that was delineated by a red ribbon placed upon the carpet. The women were chanting, but I couldn't understand the words.

  "Omar had a mask on. It reminded me of the old Lone Ranger movies because it covered only his eyes. All the women wore white robes. Omar had a black robe over his clothes. He had a sword in one hand and he was sprinkling some kind of liquid, which had a pungent smell, like flowers and herbs, toward the four corners of the living room from inside the circle. He was chanting along with the women. The room was dark, with black curtains pulled over the windows, lit only by candles which were placed around the room.

  "Omar came out of the circle, and as he did so the chanting grew loud. One of the women said something about breaking the magic circle, losing power. Of course, I knew a ceremony was taking place. I though Omar was performing to show me how witches conduct rituals.

  "Omar came directly to me. He scared me because he pointed the sword to my chest. I asked him what he was doing, but he said, 'You stand on the threshold between the pleasant world of men and the dominions of the dread Lords of the Outer Spaces. I give you the courage to make the assay. It were better to rush upon my weapon and perish miserably than to make the attempt with fear.'

  "Then Omar went behind me and tied a blindfold around my eyes. He put an arm around my neck and one around my waist and pulled me backward, very forcefully, to where the others were inside the circle. I tried to resist. I was frightened.

  "He said, 'Pass through this dread door.' His voice sounded very loud, commanding, like from a muffled loudspeaker. Then he took the blindfold off. He pointed with the sword at the place where we entered into the circle, the doorway, and said 'Agla, Azoth, Adonai.' He then drew three pentacles to seal the doorway.

  "Omar tied my hands behind my back with rope he took from the pocket of his robe. He said, 'Take heed, O Lords of the watch towers of the East. Suzanne, properly prepared, will be made a witch.'