The Girls He Adored

by Jonathan Nasaw

  Max winces in the dark. “Of course.”

  “Sweetness and light” is an endearment she only uses sarcastically. He's already feeling guilty— he just doesn't know about what. Maybe she wants to be appreciated. “It was wonderful.”

  But that wasn't it—her tone is still biting. “Would you like to do it again some night? Ever again?”

  “Of course.” Get to it, damn it—I can't stand the suspense.

  “Enjoying your sessions with your therapist?”

  So that's it. “I'm finding them very helpful.”

  “So much so that you've completely forgotten that you have over five weeks of housework to catch up on?”

  Oh. “No, ma'am.”

  “Why do I always get the shit jobs?” muttered Alicea rhetorically as she hauled the heavy Kirby back down to the basement.

  Of course, Alicea knew perfectly well why she got the shit jobs— except for the old woman, Alicea was the only female of the household. Fortunately she was strong for a girl—she could lift the Kirby with one hand. And tireless—she had already started a load of laundry, vacuumed the first and second floors, and scrubbed the downstairs bathroom. Now she shifted the wet laundry from the washer into the dryer, rotated each of the bottles in the wine rack, and dusted the glass-fronted display case and its contents.

  While performing this last chore, she caught sight of herself in the glass. She admired her torso under the too-tight T-shirt, and found herself wishing there were somebody around to appreciate it.

  Fat chance of that, though—after the Cortes debacle, Max would probably never again let her out when men were around. Alicea wondered whether Dr. Cogan had any interest in other women—any port in a storm, as Max always said.

  After dusting the display case, Alicea decided she'd earned a break, and ascended to the kitchen to make a cup of herbal tea. While she was waiting for the tea to steep, though, she put her head down on the kitchen table for a rest, and soon felt herself slipping back into darkness.

  The experience was similar for most of the alters. Slipping into the darkness was like going to sleep. You didn't dream, but when you awoke, either because Max had summoned you or because the system was under extreme stress, you remembered what had happened while you were sleeping as if it had been a dream. And sometimes when you awoke you were in the body, but most times you were still in the darkness. In the latter event, you could always try to force your way back into the body, but usually Max was too strong.

  For Max, the experience was different. He only visited the darkness voluntarily, or on the rare occasions when one of the others seized consciousness against his will. And he alone never slept in the darkness. No need: Max was the alter who slept for real, Max was the alter who dreamed.

  Another difference: Max was capable of monitoring the others visually from the darkness. He rarely exercised the power, however, as the experience was both dizzying and uncomfortable, like watching life through the viewfinder of a handheld camera, or riding in a car being driven too fast by someone you didn't quite trust.

  And when Max raised his head to find himself sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of chamomile tea (which he despised), he recalled everything that had happened while Alicea was in control of the body, not as if he'd dreamed it, or as if he'd experienced it, but rather as if it had occurred in a movie he'd seen recently.

  Max's bedroom was directly below Irene's on the second floor. As he undressed for bed, he could hear her moving around overhead. He imagined her undressing up there, showering, climbing into bed, and found himself growing sexually excited—he was even sporting a very un-Maxlike erection.

  “So now you want her?” he said disgustedly, giving his penis a backhand slap and watching it bobble. “Where the hell were you yesterday afternoon, when I needed you?”

  61

  IN THE OLD DAYS, FBI agents had to leave at least three telephone numbers so they could be reached at all times. With the advent of sky pagers and cell phones the rigid call-in procedures had been relaxed—only Thom Davies knew that Pender was staying at the Holiday Inn in Plano. So it came as a surprise when the phone in Pender's room began ringing just as he emerged from the bathroom after his shower on Monday morning, still wearing the plastic Holiday Inn shower cap to protect his injured scalp.

  “Pender here.”

  “Pender, this is Steve Maheu. I'm calling for Mr. McDougal.”

  “He's not here,” said Pender, just to mess with Maheu, a nondrinking, nonsmoking, crew-cut Mormon. For Pender, one of the benefits of having known McDougal since their academy days was not having to go through Steve Too to get to Steve One.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. I'm calling on his behalf, at his request. You really tore it this time, Pender—Steve specifically asked me to tell you that he's not going to pull your ashes out of the fire.”

  “What fire?”

  “Did you interview a Mr. Horton Hughes yesterday?”

  “We had a pleasant poolside chat.”

  “Apparently Mr. Hughes didn't find it all that pleasant. And apparently Mr. Hughes is also a close personal friend, not to mention a generous supporter, of a senator from Texas who shall be nameless. Can you see where this is going, Ed?”

  “Nowhere, Maheu. Absolutely nowhere. I conducted an interview, the subject was not forthcoming, I—”

  “Subject? You were interviewing the relative of a victim.”

  “In my best judgment at the time, I also had to consider him a possible suspect. He was screwing his wife's best friend before she disappeared, and his wife's best friend's daughter afterward. I had to elimin—”

  “I don't care who he was screwing, and I'm not going to debate this with you, Pender. You're off the investigation, starting now. Come home and turn in your badge or kiss your pension goodbye.”

  “Has McDougal even spoken to Thom Davies? Does he know what I'm onto here?”

  “You mean your printout of forty-three career criminals, one of whom who may or may not have known the subject briefly a dozen years ago? Yeah, we're all just thrilled to death, Ed—that'll break the case wide open for sure. Now get your sorry behind back to Washington on the next flight out. And consider yourself suspended from active duty in the meantime—from this point on, if you so much as ask somebody the time of day in an official capacity, I'll pull your credentials so fast your underwear'll fall down.”

  “Whoops,” said Pender. “Couldn't hear you. Sounds like we have a bad connec—”

  He made a crackling noise and hung up the phone, counted to ten, then took it off the receiver and went back into the bathroom. He removed the shower cap and bent his head to inspect his scalp. It had been torn in three places by the rounded edge of the handcuffs. Two of the wounds had required six stitches, the other had taken eight. He could see where the last stitch on the longest cut had worked loose. The butterfly bandage Anh Tranh had applied was still in place, and that Chinese salve she'd given him must have been the real deal—the ragged edges of the wound had already knitted together.

  Pender took the tin of salve, a box of gauze pads, and a roll of adhesive tape from his toilet bag, cut four long strips of tape and laid them sticky side up on the chrome shelf under the mirror, then overlapped four pads on top of those, the way Annie had done. After smearing the salve directly on the cuts with his forefinger, he slipped his hands under the tape and gauze arrangement, lifted it in the air like a priest serving mass, flipped it over onto his head, and pressed the tape down firmly.

  Then he brought his hat into the bathroom and set it atop the bandage, intending to trim the tape so it wouldn't be visible. But the hat was too small. It was also bloodstained and irreparably crumpled at the crown. Pender took it off and turned it in his hands.

  “Hat, you've been a good old rounder and a good old pal,” he declared. “For almost ten years now, through thick and thin— mostly thin—you stuck with me. And now that you've been used up in the service, I'd like to give you the official FBI send-off. Tu
m te tum, tum te tum . . .”

  As the last note of Taps died away, Pender dropped the hat into the wastebasket under the sink, then flushed the toilet for the sound effect.

  “And one more thing,” he called to the hat on his way out of the bathroom. “If I were you, I wouldn't count on that pension.”

  62

  THERE WAS NO SHORTAGE of toiletries or hair care products in the guest bathroom adjoining Irene's bedroom. She had her choice of three toothbrushes. In her old life it would have been an agonizing decision—Irene had never used another person's toothbrush, not even Frank's. But by her third morning in captivity, her second on Scorned Ridge, she found herself scrubbing away with the first toothbrush that came to hand, not obsessing at all over the probability that it had been owned and used by a dead woman.

  Her mind was clear and focused. Last night before falling asleep, she'd worked out what she needed to do. When the alters had finished up their collective history, she would need to work with Max alone. If any fusion of identities was going to take place, Max was the alter who would be in charge.

  But before she would facilitate a fusion, she'd have to know a little more about him. Ulysses, the old host alter, thought Max was a demon. Was it possible, despite his denials, that Max also thought of himself as a devil? He didn't present as a paranoid schizophrenic, but he might well be a Cluster B sociopath with narcissistic tendencies.

  In which case, it would be wrong, morally and professionally, as well as dangerous for Irene personally, to further empower Max. What her options might then be, she wasn't sure—maybe try to strengthen one of the other alters. Christopher seemed pretty well established. But she didn't need to decide any of that until she had a better understanding of Max's makeup.

  After showering, Irene donned a rose-colored Versace T-shirt that had cost some woman thirty or forty bucks new, and a pair of white Bermuda shorts from the Gap. When she opened the bedroom door, the aroma of fresh coffee filled the staircase, drawing her down to the kitchen.

  Miss Miller was at the stove, her back to the room, the picture of domesticity in slippers and a silk housecoat over one of her green dresses. The only jarring note was the strawberry blond hair: instead of being shoulder-length, straight, and sleek, as it had been the last time Irene saw her, it was thick and full and curly, cascading halfway down her back.

  Act normal, Irene told herself. Normal, normal, what is normal? “Good morning, Julia.”

  Miss Miller turned toward Irene. “Good morning, Dr. Cogan.”

  The hand-sewn green silk surgical mask puffed out when she spoke. In the daylight Irene could see that the eyelids above it were skin grafts, clumsy reconstructions. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I never sleep well.”

  “I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps I could prescribe something for you.”

  “I don't like to sleep. I see myself in dreams, the way I used to be.”

  “I understand.”

  “I doubt that very much.”

  The back door opened. Maxwell entered the kitchen wearing a Hawaiian shirt over baggy shorts, carrying a wicker basket.

  Beneath the stiff bodice of the green dress, Miss Miller's bony chest began to rise and fall rapidly, Irene observed. Love or fear?

  “Morning, Irene—feel these.” He brought the basket over to the table. It was lined with excelsior and filled with fresh eggs.

  She touched one. “It's still warm.”

  “Fuckin-A,” said Maxwell.

  “Language!” warned Miss Miller, turning back to the stove.

  “I didn't hear any complaints last night.” Maxwell slapped her playfully on the rump.

  “Ulysses!” A pleased, simpering tone. Irene wondered if she were blushing under the mask—if she could blush.

  Morning session. Max handed Irene the contract he'd drawn up. It was letter-perfect; after formally inquiring again whether any of the alters, known or unknown, had any objections to the contract, and receiving no demurs, she slipped the piece of paper into her notebook.

  “Would you like to take up where we left off last session, or is there anything that's come up since then that you'd like to discuss?”

  “I can't even remember where we left off,” said Max with a selfdeprecating grin.

  “Coming from anyone else, I might be able to believe that.”

  “Okay, then.” Max's eyes rolled up, the lids fluttered, and he began to speak in a monotone:

  “Do you still feel the guilt. Only every fucking day of my life. And the woman I met this morning—the woman with those terrible scars. That was Miss Miller. What a world, what a world. Sounds like a good place to start our next session. You're the doctor.”

  Irene started to ask this new alter his name, then remembered Max's warning. Quickly she thumbed back through her notebook until she found it. “Hello, Mose. I'm Dr. Cogan.”

  “Irene Cogan, M.D. Derealization Disorders in Post-Adolescent Males, Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Speaking in Tongues: Dissociative Trance Disorder and Pentecostal Christianity, Psychology Today. Dissociative Identity Disorder, Real or Feigned? Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases.”

  “How do you feel about what's going on?”

  “What's Going On. Marvin Gaye. U.S. number one R&B top forty-five, week ending March twenty-seventh, nineteen seventyone through week ending April twenty-fourth, nineteen seventyone.”

  Irene jotted down the words savant and autism? next to his name. “Thank you, Mose. May I speak with Max again?”

  An effortless switch. “Real ball of fire, that Mose,” said Max.

  “Rights and dignity of all alters,” Irene cautioned him.

  “Sorry. Okay—the fire. I spent a couple months in the hospital, they performed three separate skin grafts, then—”

  “Excuse me, Max. I understand burns are terribly painful. Is there an analgesic alter in the system?”

  “Unhappily, no. Morphine helped. So did rapid switching. And when all else failed, Lyssy the Sissy.”

  “May I speak with Lyssy?”

  “I don't think he's available at the moment. He had rather a bad fright that night we were hiding out in the old jail—I haven't heard from him since.”

  “Perhaps another time.”

  “Perhapssss.” Irene's lisp. Max continued in his own voice. “Okay—fire, pain, operations. A few months in the hospital, then almost a year in the Umpqua County Juvenile Facility awaiting trial on charges of murder, arson, and attempted murder. No bail— there was nowhere for me to go anyway.

  “The ranch wasn't bad—that's where I learned to raise chickens. After lights out, the boys would stage fights. Call-outs, they called them. No holds barred—anybody could call out anybody else. And if you didn't fight, everybody got a free crack at you.

  “Then one summer morning my lawyer comes out to the ranch to tell me all the charges have been dropped. He said Miss Miller had changed her story, told the DA that Kronk had attacked her and I had come to her defense, that the fire was an accident. I wasn't sure how to take it—whether she was trying to protect me, to make it up to me somehow, or whether she was just afraid I'd turn her in about the sex. I'd never told anybody about that.

  “Then the lawyer told me Miss Miller wanted me to come back to live with her again, and how did I feel about that? I grabbed my gear out of my footlocker and drove away with him and never looked back. The only person I even said good-bye to was my best friend Buckley. Black guy from Compton. He and I had been inseparable. I was already good at martial arts and wrestling—or anyway, Lee was—”

  “May I . . .” Irene began.

  Alter switch.

  “. . . speak with Lee.”

  He was already there. Poised body language, somehow tense and calm at the same time. He'd puffed out his chest, and he was unconsciously pumping his fists until the veins stood out on his forearms.

  “I didn't know shit about street fighting.” Each word was weighed carefully before it emerged from between lips pressed so tightl
y together that the full, bowed shape of Maxwell's lips had become two thin, cruel lines. “Bucky whipped my ass good our first fight. After we buddied up, he taught me his secret. It saved my life more than once.”

  Lee paused to take a sip of water from the glass on the threelegged table. The forest animals had grown used to the therapy sessions. A squirrel scampered across the dry needles; jays quarreled in the lower branches of the firs; somewhere high overhead in the forest canopy an invisible woodpecker was noisily at work. “That's all I got to say.”

  The next time Maxwell spoke, it was as Christopher. Irene was attuned enough by now to recognize the soft, melodic voice.

  “I remember I was confused at first. Instead of heading back towards town, the lawyer drove east, into the mountains. He told me Miss Miller had bought Scorned Ridge for us to live in. I remember thinking it was a little peculiar, the way he dropped me off near these, these ruins —the place was an unholy mess, the buildings falling down, the meadow overgrown. He didn't even get out of the car. Just handed me my duffel, yelled, ‘Good luck, kid,’ and roared off back down the hill.”

  Christopher closed his eyes. Irene understood that he was back there again, standing by the side of the blacktop.

  “I pick up my duffel and head for the house. The screen door is swinging on one hinge. Skreeeek, skreeeek. Front door's boarded up. I hear her calling me from the back of the house. Her voice is so different, but still so . . . her. She's in the kitchen heating water for tea. Wearing an old-fashioned black dress. She turns around. Oh Jesus, oh god.”

  Irene reached out, put her hand on his shoulder. Christopher opened his eyes, looked around wildly, then relaxed visibly when he saw it was Irene. He tried to make a joke out of it.

  “Oh, mama! I don't think I can go back there twice.”

  She told him what she'd have said to any patient. “But you must, Christopher. You have to confront the past in order to realize that it is the past. You have to relive it in order to get to the place where you can hold it as a memory, and not keep reexperiencing it subconsciously as a current event.”