by Dean Koontz
“You knew that when you married me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Calling you a bastard.”
He shrugged. “Hey, call me anything you want, as long as you don’t kill me.”
Gas flames weren’t as blue as her eyes when anger brightened them. “That’s not funny.”
“I refuse to be afraid of you.”
“You’ve got to be,” she said plaintively.
“Nope.”
“You stupid, stupid…man.”
“Man. Ow. The ultimate insult. Listen, if you ever call me a man again…I don’t know, it could mean we’re through.”
She glared at him, finally reached for the hair dryer, but then snatched her hand back. She tried again, recoiled again, and began to shake not with fear as much as with frustration and quiet anguish.
Dusty was afraid she might cry. Last night, the sight of her in tears had knotted his guts.
Approaching her, he said, “Let me do it.”
She shrank from him. “Stay away.”
He plucked a towel off the rack and offered it to her. “Do you agree this wouldn’t be any homicidal maniac’s weapon of choice?”
Her gaze actually traveled the length of the towel as though she were warily calculating its murderous potential.
“Grip it in both hands,” he explained. “Pull it taut, hold it tight, concentrate and keep your grip on it. As long as your hands are occupied, you can’t hurt me.”
Accepting the towel, she looked skeptical.
“No, really,” he said. “What could you do except snap my ass with it?”
“There’d be some satisfaction in that.”
“But there’s at least a fifty-percent chance I’d survive.” When she seemed hesitant, he said, “Besides, I’ve got the hair dryer. You try anything, I’ll give you a case of chapped lips you won’t forget.”
“I feel like such a schlump.”
“You’re not.”
From the doorway, Valet chuffed.
Dusty said, “The vote is two to one against schlump-dom.”
“Let’s get this over with,” she said grimly.
“Face the sink and keep your back to me if you think I’ll be safer that way.”
She faced the sink, but she closed her eyes rather than look at herself in the mirror.
Though the bathroom wasn’t cold, Martie’s bare back was stippled with gooseflesh.
With a brush, Dusty repeatedly pulled her thick, black, glorious hair through the gush of hot air from the blow-dryer, shaping it as he had seen her shape it before.
Ever since they’d been together, Dusty enjoyed watching Martie groom herself. Whether she was shampooing her hair, painting her nails, applying her makeup, or massaging suntan lotion into her skin, she approached the task with an easy, almost lazy, meticulousness that was catlike and wonderfully graceful. A lioness, confident of her appearance but not vain.
Always, Martie had seemed strong and resilient, and Dusty had never worried about what might happen to her if fate dealt him an early death while he was climbing across some high roof. Now, he worried—and his worrying felt to him like an insult to her, as if he pitied her, which he didn’t, couldn’t. She was still too Martie to elicit pity. Yet now she appeared alarmingly vulnerable, neck so slender, shoulders so fragile, the vertebrae linked with such delicacy in the spinal cleft of her back, and Dusty feared for this dear woman to an extent that he must never allow her to perceive.
As the great philosopher Skeet once put it, Love is hard.
Something strange happened in the kitchen. In fact, virtually everything that happened in the kitchen was strange, but the last thing, just before they left the house, was the strangest of all.
First: Martie was rigid in one of the dinette chairs, hands trapped under her thighs, actually sitting on her hands, as though they would seize anything within reach and hurl it at Dusty if they were not restrained.
Because she was having blood drawn and tests conducted, she was required to fast from nine o’clock the previous night until the doctor was finished with her later this morning.
She was upset about lingering in the kitchen while Valet wolfed his morning kibble and while Dusty drank a glass of milk and ate a doughnut, though not because she resented their freedom to indulge. “I know what’s in those drawers,” she said with anxiety evident in her voice, meaning knives and other sharp utensils.
Dusty winked lecherously. “I know what’s in your drawers, too.”
“Damn it, you better start taking this more seriously.”
“If I do, we might as well both kill ourselves now.”
Though her frown deepened, he knew she recognized the wisdom of what he’d said.
“There you stand, drinking whole milk, eating a glazed doughnut with cream filling. Looks like you’re already halfway to hara-kiri.”
Finishing the milk, he said, “I figure the best way to live a normal—and probably long—life is to listen to everything the health Nazis say, then do exactly the opposite.”
“What if tomorrow they say cheeseburgers and french fries are the healthiest diet you can eat?”
“Then it’s tofu and alfalfa sprouts for me.”
Washing out the glass, he turned his back to her, and she said, “Hey,” sharply, and he faced her while he dried it, so she wouldn’t have a chance to sneak up on him and beat him to death with a can of pork and beans.
They were not going to be able to take Valet on his morning constitutional. Martie refused to stay here alone while Dusty went out with the dog. And if she accompanied them, she would no doubt be terrified of pushing Dusty in front of a truck and feeding Valet into some gardener’s portable woodchipper.
“There’s a pretty funny aspect to all this,” Dusty said.
“There’s nothing funny about it,” she grimly disagreed.
“We’re both probably right.”
He opened the back door and sent Valet out to spend the morning in the fenced backyard. The weather was cool but not chilly, and no rain was in the forecast. He put a full water dish on the porch and told the dog, “Poop where you want, and I’ll pick it up later, but don’t get the idea this is a new rule.”
He closed the door, locked it, and looked toward the telephone, which was when the strange thing happened. He and Martie began to talk at once, over and through each other.
“Martie, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way—”
“I have all the faith in the world in Dr. Closterman—”
“—but I think we really should consider—”
“—but it might take days for test results—”
“—getting a second opinion—”
“—and as much as I hate the idea—”
“—not from another medical doctor—”
“—I think I need to be evaluated—”
“—but from a therapist—”
“—by a psychiatrist—”
“—who treats anxiety disorders—”
“—with the right experience—”
“—someone like—”
“—I’m thinking maybe—”
“—Dr. Ahriman.”
“—Dr. Ahriman.”
They spoke the name in unison—and gaped at each other in the ensuing silence.
Then Martie said, “I guess we’ve been married too long.”
“Much longer, and we’ll start to look like each other.”
“I’m not nuts, Dusty.”
“I know you’re not.”
“But give him a call.”
He went to the phone and obtained Ahriman’s office number from the information operator. He left a request for an appointment on the doctor’s voice mail and recited his cell-phone number.
43
At Skeet’s apartment, the bedroom was as barren of decoration and as starkly furnished as any monk’s cell.
Having backed into a corner to limit her options if a murderous impulse se
ized her, Martie stood with her arms crossed over her chest and her hands clamped tightly under her biceps. “Why didn’t you tell me last night? Poor Skeet’s back in rehab and you don’t tell me till now?”
“You had enough on your mind,” Dusty said as he searched under the neatly folded clothes in the bottom drawer of a dresser so plain it might have been crafted by a strict religious order that thought Shaker furniture was sinfully ornate.
“What’re you looking for—his stash?”
“No. If there’s any of that left, it’ll take hours to find it. I’m looking for…well, I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“We’ve got to be at Dr. Closterman’s office in forty minutes.”
“Plenty of time,” Dusty said, elevating his search to a higher drawer.
“Did he show up at work stoned?”
“Yeah. He jumped off the Sorensons’ roof.”
“My God! How bad was he hurt?”
“Not at all.”
“Not at all?”
“It’s a long story,” Dusty said, opening the top drawer on the dresser. He wasn’t going to tell her that he had gone off the roof with Skeet, not while she was in her current condition.
“What are you hiding from me?” she demanded.
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“What are you keeping from me?”
“Martie, let’s not play games with semantics, okay?”
“At times like this, it couldn’t be clearer that you are the son of Trevor Penn Rhodes.”
Closing the last dresser drawer, he said, “That was low. I’m not keeping anything from you.”
“What are you protecting me from?”
“I guess what I’m hunting for,” he said, instead of answering her question, “is evidence that Skeet’s mixed up in some cult.”
Because he’d already searched the single nightstand and under the bed, Dusty stepped into the adjoining bathroom, which was small, clean, and completely white. He opened the medicine cabinet and quickly sorted through the contents.
From the bedroom, in an anxious and accusatory tone, Martie said, “You don’t know what I might be doing out here.”
“Looking for an ax?”
“Bastard.”
“We’ve been down that road.”
“Yeah, but it’s a long one.”
When he came out of the bathroom, he saw that she was shaking and as pale as—though prettier than—something that lived under a rock. “You okay?”
“What do you mean—cult?”
Though she cringed when he approached her, he took her by the arm, drew her out of the corner, and led her into the living room. “Skeet said he jumped off the roof because an angel of death told him he should.”
“That’s just the drugs talking.”
“Maybe. But you know how those cults operate—the brainwashing and all.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Brainwashing.”
In the living room, she backed into another corner and clamped her hands in her armpits again. “Brainwashing?”
“Rub-a-dub, cerebrum in a tub.”
The living room contained only a sofa, an armchair, a coffee table, an end table, two lamps, and a set of shelves on which were stored both books and magazines. Dusty cocked his head to scan the titles on the spines of the books.
From her corner, Martie said, “What’re you hiding from me?”
“There you go again.”
“You wouldn’t think he was mixed up in a cult—brainwashed, for God’s sake—just because of what he said about some angel of death.”
“There was an incident at the clinic.”
“New Life?”
“Yeah.”
“What incident?”
All the paperbacks on the shelves were fantasy novels. Tales of dragons, wizards, warlocks, and swashbuckling heroes in the land of long-ago or never-was. Not for the first time, Dusty was baffled by the kid’s genre of choice; after all, Skeet pretty much lived in a fantasy, anyway, and wouldn’t seem to need it for entertainment.
“What incident?” Martie repeated.
“Went into a trance.”
“What do you mean, a trance?”
“You know, like a magician, one of those stage hypnotists, casts on you and then makes you cluck like a chicken.”
“Skeet was clucking like a chicken?”
“No, it was more complicated than that.”
As Dusty continued along the shelves, the titles began to make him terribly sad. He realized that perhaps his brother sought refuge in these make-believe kingdoms because they were all cleaner, better, more-ordered fantasies than the one in which the kid lived. In these books, spells worked, friends were always true and brave, good and evil were sharply defined, good always won—and no one became drug-dependent and screwed up his life.
“Quacking like a duck, gobbling like a turkey?” Martie asked from her corner exile.
“What?”
“How was it more complicated, what Skeet did at the clinic?”
Quickly sorting through a stack of magazines, finding nothing published by any cult more nefarious than the Time-Warner media group, Dusty said, “I’ll tell you later. We don’t have time for it now.”
“You are exasperating.”
“It’s a gift,” he said, leaving the magazines and books for a quick look through the small kitchen.
“Don’t leave me alone here,” she pleaded.
“Then come along.”
“No way,” she said, obviously thinking about knives and meat forks and potato mashers. “No way. That’s a kitchen.”
“I’m not going to ask you to cook.”
The combination kitchen and dining area was open to the living room, all one big California floor plan, so Martie was in fact able to see him pulling open drawers and cabinet doors.
She was silent for half a minute, but when she spoke, her voice was shaky. “Dusty, I’m getting worse.”
“To me, babe, you just keep getting better and better.”
“I mean it. I’m serious. I’m on the edge here, and sliding fast.”
Dusty wasn’t finding any cult paraphernalia among the pots and pans. No secret decoder rings. No pamphlets about Armageddon looming. No tracts about how to recognize the Antichrist if you run into him at the mall.
“What’re you doing in there?” Martie demanded.
“Stabbing myself through the heart, so you won’t have to.”
“You bastard.”
“Been there, done that,” he said, returning to the living room.
“You’re a cold man,” she complained.
Her pale face squinched with anger.
“I’m ice,” he agreed.
“You are. I mean it.”
“Arctic.”
“You make me so angry.”
“You make me so happy,” he countered.
Squinch became startled realization, and her eyes widened as she said, “You’re my Martie.”
“That doesn’t sound like another insult.”
“And I’m your Susan.”
“Oh, this is no good. We’ll have to change all our monogrammed towels.”
“For a year, I’ve treated her like you’re treating me. Jollying her along, always needling her out of her self-pity, trying to keep her spirits up.”
“You’ve been a real bitch, huh?”
Martie laughed. Shaky, one tremble away from a sob, like those laughs in operas, when the tragic heroine pitches a soprano trill and lets it fall into a contralto quaver of despair. “I’ve been a bitch and a sarcastic wiseass, yeah, because I love her so much.”
Smiling, Dusty held out his right hand toward her. “We’ve got to be going.”
One step out of her corner, she stopped, unable to come farther. “Dusty, I don’t want to be Susan.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to…fall that far down.”
“You won’t,” he promised.
�
�I’m scared.”
Rather than follow her customary preference for bright colors, Martie had gone to the dark side of her wardrobe. Black boots, black jeans, a black pullover, and a black leather jacket. She looked like a mourner at a biker’s funeral. In this stark outfit, she should have appeared to be tough, as hard and as formidable as night itself. Instead, she seemed as ephemeral as a shadow fading and shrinking under a relentless sun.
