The Book of Common Dread

by Brent Monahan

  ***

  The ball bounced on the serving line with little pace. Simon approached it at a dead run, swung his racquet hard and pounded the ball into the net cord. He watched without expression as the ball popped off and landed out of bounds.

  "Set!" Neil Yoskin called out, trotting toward the net. "Six-two. You're playing like a demon, Penn, but your concentration's all off."

  "Thank you, Bud Collins," Simon returned.

  Neil glanced at his watch. "We still have five minutes. You want to just rally?"

  Simon looked around the cavernous Jadwin Gymnasium tennis area. It was hard to believe that something this big was a few stories underground. As members of the staff and faculty, he and Professor Yoskin had court rental privileges. Neil had been his most frequent partner for the past three years. Generally Simon won, but Neil-the-psychologist hadn't needed professional insight to realize Simon was preoccupied and at a disadvantage.

  "No, I've had it," Simon declined.

  Neil grabbed his towel off the net post. "Something big's happened to you; what is it?"

  Simon made no attempt at evasion. He was sure Neil's questions would lead right into the subject he wanted to broach. "I left Lynn."

  Neil grinned with approval. "I make it a rule never to offer unsolicited advice regarding relationships. Once a knot's been severed, however, I'm Dear Abby: It's about time you walked out on that bitch. What was the deciding factor?"

  "You just said it; it was time. So I moved out while she was on one of her trips."

  Neil reached across the net and gave Simon's shoulder a congratulatory shake. "Attaboy. Just because you're mild-mannered, she thought she could shove you forever. I know better. Remember that time we were playing doubles and Koether hit you intentionally with that overhead?"

  Simon smiled in memory but needed no reply, as Neil pushed on.

  "You broke his serve twice and practically emasculated him on set point. There's Bengal tiger inside that pussycat exterior, Penn."

  "I wouldn't go that far," Simon said, walking off the court.

  "But you did go that far," Neil returned jovially. "All the way to… where did you move to?"

  The opening had appeared even sooner than Simon expected, but he dashed smoothly through. "I took a room on Hodge Road."

  Neil blinked in astonishment. "Freddie Vanderveen's house?"

  Simon nodded. That was another of the few facts he'd known about her, one that he'd forgotten: she always invited her paramours to call her Freddie. "You were the one who told me about it."

  Neil dipped one eyebrow and cocked the other. "Did I? How stupid of me."

  Simon picked up one of their balls, which lay beside the net, and started squeezing it. "Just for a couple of weeks, until I can find something permanent."

  Neil's upbeat mood had vanished. It was replaced by a professionally constructed wall of impassivity which, Simon was sure, hid a garden of weedy emotions. Simon had not been surprised when he had discovered that Neil-the-psychologist was one of the most volatile people he knew; among Simon's former high school classmates was a volunteer fireman with proven pyromaniacal tendencies and a policeman who had been the class's biggest juvenile delinquent. Neil validated Simon's theory with his next words.

  "Well, that was a stupid thing to do! I mean, if it was only for a few days, why the hell didn't you move in with me? You'd have had the place to yourself starting Thursday. Remember, I said Cinda and I'll be in Martinique?"

  Simon shook his head. "If it were just you, I'd impose; your relationship with Cinda isn't quite stable enough to bring me on board."

  "Oh, that's a load of horseshit," Neil snorted.

  "There's no point in arguing; thanks for the offer, but it's a done deal. You can give me your help in an even more important way, though."

  "How?" Neil asked, suspiciously.

  "I'd like you to answer a few questions about her. Do you mind?"

  Neil wiped his towel a few times across his face, but his eyes never left Simon's. "You didn't engineer this move just to get close to Freddie, did you?"

  "No," Simon answered.

  "Because my example should have been enough for you. She's poison, Penn. Poison pen. That's pretty funny, but neither of us is laughing." Neil moved toward the chairs that held their equipment bags.

  "Is she mentally ill, Neil?" Simon asked, following. "That's all I really want to know." Neil turned and looked at Simon over his shoulder but did not seem about to reply. "I don't want to hear all the psychological equivocation. Do you think she's the kind of person who should spend some time in an institution?"

  "Maybe," Neil said, quietly. "Not because she can't function in everyday society. Obviously she does. But there are deep-rooted personal problems that should be brought to light. What makes you ask?"

  "I think she's turned to the occult, to try to contact her father."

  "You mean like seances?"

  "Yes. That sort of thing."

  Pinch marks formed at the corners of Neil's eyes and over the bridge of his nose. Simon was sure Cinda, Neil's live-in girlfriend, would not be happy to know how much Neil still cared about Frederika. "That's too bad."

  "What do you know about her relationship with him?" Simon asked.

  "Not enough. I think it was a love/hate thing. She told me her mother abandoned the two of them when she was six." Simon remembered Frederika's bitter remark about her mother but did not interrupt Neil's words to share it. "A short time after leaving them, she died. So it was just Freddie and Big Fred living together under the same roof, until he shipped her off to a private school in Switzerland."

  "It couldn't have been just the two of them," Simon said. "Not with him traveling around the world all the time. She said my room belonged to the nanny. Was that-"

  "She mentioned an aunt who lived with them. I can't recall her name. But she's probably a minor player in the tragedy. Take my advice: back off and be a good tenant. If you don't want to be out on the street the next day, don't press her about Daddy."

  "I understand." Simon set his racquet on the chair and rubbed a knot in the back of his neck. "I'm thinking maybe she's after something practical. Frederika's a smart woman. She'd have to be pretty desperate to turn to the occult."

  Neil pulled on his warm-up jacket. "What do you mean 'something practical'?"

  "Well, she rents out that room, right? And her salary can't begin to cover the cost of the house. Maybe the old man dropped dead without telling her the names of the banks he had safe deposit boxes in."

  Neil scowled at his considerably younger tennis partner. "Give me a break."

  "But surely she knows this occult stuff is nonsense. I figure she either has to be incredibly desperate to know something or else she's just plain gone off the deep end."

  Neil zipped up his equipment bag. "Why don't you figure nothing at all? You are getting emotionally close, Penn. You're thinking because she looks like a fairytale princess and is obviously in distress that you can slay some dragon for her. She is not-I repeat not-some helpless femme. Down deep, Freddie Vanderveen is tough as nails. Her problem is that she's her own dragon. She has to want to stop punishing herself… and using men to help her do it. Until that happens, any unwitting bastard who gets too close'll be chewed up like he stepped in front of a threshing machine. Capish?"

  "Okay, Neil," Simon said, simply.

  Neil smirked. "Okay, Neil," he imitated mockingly. He looked at his watch. "Well, Freddie just blew five minutes we could have used to improve our game." He picked up his bag and started toward the exit. "Get away from her as fast as you can. That's my professional opinion, free of charge. She ruined my fall last year; I'll be damned if she ruins my court time as well."

  ***

  "Soup," Simon announced, carrying a tray into Frederika's bedroom. "Just Campbell's. But it was in your cupboard, so you'll probably like it."

  "I'm sure I will." Frederika lowered a paperback titled The World as I Found It and slid up against the pillows. />
  Simon folded the tray legs down and placed it over Frederika's lap. "You want a little company while you eat?"

  "That would be nice," Frederika said. The tone of her reply lacked conviction but her smile seemed genuine enough.

  Instead of sitting on the chair near the door, Simon put himself at the foot of her bed. "You feeling better?"

  "A little."

  "Good."

  Frederika picked up the soup spoon. "What did you do today besides play tennis?"

  "Last-minute Christmas shopping. I want to mail my dad a gift. It'll never arrive in time, but he's used to that. I got him a flycasting reel. Need I tell you flycasting is not a major sport among Princetonians?"

  Frederika labored to keep the amusement off her cheeks. She sampled the soup.

  "I hitchhiked to that sportsman's den in Rocky Hill Very macho place. They don't want you inside unless you look like Tom Selleck." He paused for reaction, but Frederika was content to eat while he talked. He continued on, steering in a purposeful direction what he wanted to sound like an idle monologue. "Anyway, it's more than a flycasting reel; it's a thank-you for all the time he spent with me when I was little. I hated the fishing and camping trips. I never let him know, because I understood he wanted to teach me and share the things he loved, you know?"

  Frederika nodded, without lifting her eyes.

  "Anyway, maybe this will make up for the time I caught more trout than he did… with a baloney sandwich." Frederika's eyebrows raised; he had set the hook. Simon embellished his boyhood experience with a raconteur's ear for hyperbole, metaphor, and regional dialect. It was among his favorite tales, honed during numerous recountings until it was shiny and sharp. Phrases had been repeated until they were more real to him than the actual memories. The ease of the telling let him play a private game, stealing careful glances at Frederika when she lowered her eyes to dip the spoon. He studied her as he once had a particularly engaging portrait by Renoir, not content to stand back and absorb the totality of its beauty but wanting to step up close and analyze how the subtle underlying strokes of blue, red, and green brought the pink skin to life. He noted for the first time the half-dozen shades of gold and yellow that contributed to her beautiful hair, the bone structure that dictated the shape of her eyes. He also noted that, when she brought the spoon to her mouth, her right eye drifted a fraction. Her exotropia proved to him that there was at least one frailty to her physical perfection. He pondered the depth of her concealed mental frailties, wondered how much he could learn up close there.

  "But he was good-natured about it," Simon concluded. "He's a special guy. I suppose you have similar stories. Your dad was special to thousands of people."

  Frederika nodded again, and kept spooning soup.

  "Did he spend a lot of time with you?"

  "Not fly fishing," she answered.

  "No, I meant-"

  "He was a very busy man." She pushed the tray toward Simon, "that's all I can take, I'm afraid."

  Simon accepted the words as double entendre. Not unprepared for her reaction, he downshifted smoothly. "Listen, you'll probably be in bed all weekend, and Christmas is just a few days away. You don't have a tree. Do you want one?"

  "Oh, that would be too much-"

  Simon stopped her with his raised palm. "No trouble at all. I'm helping my friend Rich choose his tree. That pickup I arrived in is his. It'd be nothing for us to get a second tree and bring it back here."

  "Tonight?" Frederika asked.

  "Yes. He's coming by later in the afternoon."

  "Okay." Frederika affixed a warm smile, as if the soup or the prospect of a Christmas tree had suddenly instilled some health. "Just add the cost to my medical bill, Doctor."

  Simon grinned back. Neil was right: she did have a vampire's power to seduce, even when she had no designs whatsoever. He picked up the tray and retreated from her beguiling aura.

  ***

  Simon tried the mansion's front door, found it unlocked, and waved for Rich to drive on. He pushed the door open and muscled the eight-foot Douglas fir into the entry. He knew that bringing the tree directly into the house's heat would shock it badly, but there were so few days until Christmas that he didn't have to worry about it shedding needles.

  "Ho, ho, ho!" he shouted up the stairs, instantly regretting his outburst. Frederika already thought of him as a meddlesome big-mouth and mother hen; he didn't need to add jackass to her list. He leaned the tree against the door and bounded up the stairs two at a time, to ask his landlady where she kept her Christmas tree stand. He knocked on her door softly, in case she had fallen asleep. There was no answer. He knocked again, put his ear to the door and heard nothing. He tried the doorknob, found it unlocked, and risked a peek inside.

  The bed lay unmade and unoccupied. The bedside lamp was lit, but the bathroom was dark. Simon called Frederika's name into the hall. The echo made the house seem even emptier. Simon saw the Princeton Packet lying on top of the rumpled bedclothes. It was turned back to one of the center pages. He crossed to the bed and picked it up. The article in the center of the page was the previous week's police blotter. Sandwiching it were six ads. Four of them he could not imagine would hold any interest for Frederika. The fifth, a long shot, was for Persian rugs. The last one held Simon's attention. It promoted a Vincent DeVilbiss, who followed his name with a blizzard of initials that meant nothing to Simon. He announced his recent arrival to Princeton and touted himself as an expert in astrology, herbal health, and channeling. Simon smirked at the advertisement, thinking that the man would probably make a living. Hand in hand with its exclusivity, Princeton was a place of eccentricity. Many people in the local area had forsaken mainstream religions for the New Age religion of Self. Not long ago, Simon had read that the directory of the Holistic Health Association of the Princeton Area listed 130 holistic practitioners. Acupuncture, transpersonal counseling, transcendental meditation, yoga, shiatsu, rolfing, crystal focusing, polarity, macrobiotics, Gestalt, biofeedback, t'ai chi, and Zen were all readily available. The more metaphysical and occult arts could be found as well, conducted by enough practitioners to fill a coven. There was at least one psychic healer, a "depossessor," three fortune tellers, and one self-proclaimed witch in the area. Mr. DeVilbiss would no doubt be welcomed. But not by Simon Penn.

  It dawned on Simon that there was no real evidence that Frederika had gone for the man's counseling; an opened page was circumstantial. What short of desperation would drag Frederika from a sickbed on such a cold night? Simon stared at the man's phone number, then at the telephone on the bedside table. He lifted the handset and looked at the buttons. It was a new model, with * and # characters and an automatic redial.

  Simon pressed the redial button and listened to the burst of musical noise. After the second ring a connection was made.

  "Vincent DeVilbiss," the sonorous voice answered.

  "I'm sorry," Simon said. "I must have dialed the wrong number."

  "Quite all right," the voice forgave, in a clipped English accent.

  Simon dropped the phone onto its cradle and flung the newspaper onto the bed.

  Vincent DeVilbiss opened the front door and blinked twice at his visitor. He bowed slightly and swept his hand inward, to cover his surprise.

  "Please come in. So sorry to keep you waiting. The phone rang."

  "Yes, I heard it," Frederika said, entering the house. The porch creaked as she left it. The place was an aged duplex on Park Place, a weatherbeaten remnant of the grand Victorian era. She, too, showed a degree of surprise at the person she confronted. He was as pleasant looking as he sounded. He dressed in dark woolen pants and a quality white broadcloth shirt, which was partially covered by an unbuttoned ecru cable-knit lounging sweater. Her gaze swept upward to study the tufts of silver hair at his temples but was arrested by his penetrating amber eyes. "I hope I'm not early," she added.

  "No, no!" DeVilbiss assured. His hand fluttered up like a frightened bird, flying on the wings of his elegantly
long fingers. "Eight o'clock precisely. I apologize for the condition of the house; most of the furniture is rented. I own very little myself."

  Frederika shrugged out of her winter coat, allowing DeVilbiss to help her. "You don't stay long in any place?"

  DeVilbiss's laugh was joviality personified. "In other words, 'Are you as fly-by-night as most charlatans in your profession?' "

  Frederika turned and leveled her gaze on the man. "Are you? Because I'm not here for entertainment."

  "I promise to make it easy for you to judge."

  Frederika opened her mouth to speak but was overcome by an unexpected paroxysm of coughing. The sounds became increasingly deep and hacking.

  "My, my!" DeVilbiss sympathized. "That's a nasty cold. This problem I can help immediately. Follow me, please!" He led the way through a living room weighted down with threadbare, overstuffed furniture. Except for the soot-faced fireplace, the room was the color of aged newspaper. An effusive bouquet of fresh flowers brightened the room more than the tassel-shaded bronze floorlamp. A Scott Joplin tune cartwheeled through the house.

  "I travel constantly by choice, not necessity. The world is so big; so much to see in so little time, that I can't bear to grow roots," DeVilbiss imparted, as he entered the dining room. In its center sat a round oak table and four matching chairs, solidly made, at conspicuous variance with the two maple chairs, sideboard, and china closet that filled the rest of the space. On the table lay a pack of splayed-out tarot cards. The sideboard held nearly a dozen bottles of unique shapes and pleasant colors, all filled to various levels with ingredients. The remainder of the sideboard's top was hidden by hardcover books, as was the seat of one maple chair. On the other chair sat a large doll-a clown of the traditional French variety, with black and white silk costume, white stockings, and pointed cap and black pumps, both with red pom-poms. The face and hands were of porcelain and beautifully painted.