Delusion

by Peter Abrahams

  Oops. She caught him looking, maybe even staring. That was bad. He turned his eye toward the stage. At that moment, a note or two went wrong, drumsticks clacked together and the music petered out. The guitar player—Joe Don?—said something that made the others laugh. Straining to catch the joke, Pirate, despite his acute hearing, failed to pick up the sound of the young woman approaching on his blind side.

  “Alvin DuPree?” she said.

  He whipped around, almost knocking his Kahlúa off the table. “Yeah?” he said, then added, “Miss?”

  She gazed down at him, not at the patch, but him. “My father was Johnny Blanton.”

  Big surprise, but the right response came. “Sorry for your loss,” Pirate said.

  CHAPTER 20

  Clay and Nell drove home from the airstrip east of Belle Ville, the sun in their eyes. The brightness gave Nell a headache; she hadn’t had one in years.

  Clay glanced over. “You all right?”

  “Yes.”

  He took her hand. “Don’t scare me like that again.”

  “I’ll try not.”

  He seemed about to laugh but didn’t. “You’re so composed about it all.”

  “I wasn’t at the time,” Nell said.

  The muscles in his jaw hardened. “I still don’t understand why you were diving alone. Kirk’s got a lot of experience.”

  “I told you—he couldn’t pull the depth. Just look at him.”

  “But he should have stayed in the water, kept an eye out.”

  “Why? What could he have done?”

  Clay had no answer, but his expression didn’t change.

  “There’s no point being angry at Kirk,” Nell said. “If anyone made a mistake in judgment, it was me.”

  Clay shook his head. “He should have told you it was too deep for him.”

  “What man does that?” Nell said.

  “Why are you defending him?” Clay let go of her hand.

  “I’m not—” Nell cut herself off. Were they sliding into another fight? How easily that was starting to happen, suddenly almost a default position in their marriage. “Let’s not fight,” she said, clamping down on what tried to come next, the pitiful headache defense.

  “I’m not fighting,” he said. “I just…”

  Clay took the Lower Town cutoff. The windows were up and the AC on but Nell smelled the Bernardine stink right away, still so strong. “When’s it going to be gone?” she said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The smell,” she said. “From the flood.”

  Clay sniffed. “I don’t smell anything.” He glanced at her again. “Sure you’re all right?”

  Stop asking that. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  The bars on Rideau Street went by—Boom-Boom, Lot 49, Screaming Meemy’s, the Red Rooster. The wrecker from Yeller’s Autobody was parked outside. Clay’s eyes were on the road, straight ahead.

  “You and Kirk talk about anything special out on the boat?” he said.

  “He mentioned this expansion or whatever it is,” she said. “And having an executive job for you.”

  “Duke told me.”

  “And?”

  “It’s something to think about.”

  “It is?”

  “Why the surprise?”

  “Kirk said it would mean retiring from the force.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You say it so matter-of-factly.”

  Clay shrugged.

  They passed Canal Street. Heavy equipment from DK Industries was in motion down at the end, where the water had first broken over the gates. There was still so much wreckage around, the area flattened except for mounds of mud; all that had stood before now reduced to scrap.

  “I thought you were still passionate about it,” Nell said.

  “About what?”

  “Police work.”

  Clay kept his eyes on the road.

  “Aren’t you?” Nell said.

  “Things change.”

  “Things like the importance of your job?” Nell said. “How much you’ve done for the town?”

  Clay’s hands tightened on the wheel; beautiful hands, but for a moment or two blunt, flushed, almost unrecognizable. “They’d pay me two hundred grand a year,” he said. “To start. Did you factor that in?”

  Clay made $77,500; Nell almost $40,000, although pay had been suspended until the reopening. “We’re not really about that, are we?” she said.

  “No, we’re better than everyone else.”

  “You know I didn’t mean that.”

  “Then don’t say it.”

  They drove through Lower Town. A few people turned to stare, that post-Bernardine faultfinding look in their eyes. Nell found herself stupidly hating what couldn’t be hated, an act of nature, the storm that had brought so much trouble. And this conversation: stupid, too. She was about to leave it behind, delete it from the record, when Clay spoke.

  “What else did you talk about?” he said.

  “Who?”

  “You and Kirk, on the boat.”

  “Nothing,” she said, and felt ashamed, the lie coming so easily it arrived before the realization of what she was concealing: hypnotism, and how it might help her remember the face she saw on the Parish Street Pier.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing important. Chitchat.” Adding a crummy little lie to the big one: somehow that felt worse.

  Clay turned on to Blue Heron Road. After a few blocks it began to look like before, pre-Bernardine. The farther north they drove, the fewer people, the lighter their faces, the less hostile—and finally neutral—their expressions. The screens were hung at the tennis courts now, hiding the players from view, but a lob went up, the ball rising and then falling fast, like a symbol on a blue graph.

  “What do you think of him?” Clay said.

  “Who?”

  “Kirk. Who else are we talking about?”

  “I don’t really know him,” Nell said. “Why do you ask?”

  “You’ve known him for, what? Eighteen years?”

  “Not well,” she said. “I always liked Duke better.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe because he’s your friend. The way the two of you are together—it’s special.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know that, Clay.”

  He nodded.

  “Any particular reason you asked what I thought of Kirk?” she said.

  “No.”

  “Was it because of this job opportunity?”

  “Yeah,” Clay said. “The job opportunity.”

  “But you wouldn’t be working for Kirk, not while he’s still mayor. And what if he becomes governor?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Vicki.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I like Vicki.”

  “She’s not going to be around much longer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Clay turned on to their street, drove up the hill. “Duke met someone new.”

  “They’re breaking up?”

  “Appears so.”

  He parked in the driveway, between Nell’s car and the Miata. A seagull, pure white, stood on the roof, poised with wings outstretched as though it had just landed, or was about to take off.

  “Meaning Vicki doesn’t know yet?” Nell said.

  “That’s right.”

  “But he took her to Little Parrot anyway?”

  Clay didn’t answer. There was something violent about this little tale of Vicki’s last bit of Bahamian fun—not violent like the hurricane, or what had happened to Johnny—but violent nonetheless. For the first time in her life, Nell understood those women who hated men in a generalized way.

  Inside the house:

  “Norah?”

  No response. Nell went up to Norah’s bedroom, found the door open, everything neat, stuffed animals all in place, the monkeys dangling from the ceiling, swaying slightly in an air current. She left the bedroom, started down
the stairs and at that moment heard a little bumping sound from the direction of her office. Nell went down the hall. The office door was closed. She opened it and saw Norah kneeling in front of the closet, boxes tipped over, papers strewn on the floor. Norah heard her and turned, but with no sign of haste or panic.

  “What are you doing?” Nell said.

  “Looking.”

  “Looking for what? You can’t just go through my things.”

  “I don’t care about your things,” Norah said. “I’m looking for my father’s things. Where are they?”

  “I told you,” Nell said. “We lost power. The pictures are ruined.”

  “But what about other stuff?”

  “What other stuff?”

  “His research, his papers,” Norah said. “His clothes, for God’s sake.”

  Nell hadn’t thought about Johnny’s things in years, had only a faint memory of his mother coming to box it all up. “Everything went back to his parents,” she said.

  Norah’s eyes shifted, drawn by some inner thought. “There must be more,” she said.

  “I don’t understand what you’re doing.”

  Norah rose. “Someone killed him. Why don’t you want to find out who?”

  Nell didn’t answer. It was true: she didn’t want to know.

  “Or do you know already?”

  “What’s happening to you? That’s crazy.”

  “Comes with the territory,” Norah said, stalking past her and hurrying out of the office. An invisible cloud of her breath lingered in the air for a moment; it had a syrupy, coffee smell. Nell remembered that the coffee place in the Blue Heron Plaza, not far from the tennis courts, had reopened. She went down the hall, knocked on Norah’s door.

  “What do you mean ‘comes with the territory’?”

  “Nothing,” said Norah, from the other side. “I mean nothing.”

  “You’re keeping something from me. What is it?”

  Silence.

  “I can help.”

  More silence. Then: “I’m an adult. An adult who wants peace and quiet. Is that too much to ask?”

  Nell returned to the office and repacked the boxes.

  In the morning—Clay gone to work, Norah not yet up—Nell called the mayor’s office, was put right through.

  “Hey, there,” said Kirk. “How’re you doin’?”

  “Fine.” She saw herself in the mirror: cheekbones, never prominent enough, now too much so. Was she losing weight?

  “Good to hear. Truth is I’ve been beating myself up pretty good about what happened out on the reef.”

  “No need to.”

  “If I wasn’t in such lousy shape, nothing would have happened.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Nell said.

  “Feel just terrible,” Kirk said. “Hope Clay’s not too pissed at me.”

  “There’s no problem,” Nell said.

  “Grateful for that, Nellie,” said Kirk. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like the name of that hypnotist you mentioned.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.” Phone in hand, she walked into the bathroom, stepped on the scale; she’d lost ten pounds.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No trouble, I was starting to say. It’s just that the guy’s a little strange.”

  “In what way?”

  “Kind of a quack.”

  “I thought he got rid of your tendonitis.”

  Kirk laughed. “Thing is, my tendonitis went away around the time I was seeing him—maybe a coincidence. What you’re looking for, I don’t know.”

  “It can’t hurt to try,” Nell said.

  After a little pause, Kirk said, “Got a pen?”

  The sign on the door—the office was in a strip mall in east Belle Ville—read LOUIS B. PASTORE, MSW, FAMILY AND OTHER THERAPY. Men in hard hats were working on the roof; what was left of the old one lay in heaps near a mound of mud at the back of the parking lot. Nell opened the door and went in.

  She stood in a small reception room; no one waiting, no receptionist. Framed certificates hung on the wall; Louis B. Pastore—sometimes Lewis—had four or five degrees, all from institutions new to Nell.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Come on in,” a man called from behind a door in the back wall.

  Nell entered another small room. A man with a big head and a thick gray ponytail sat at a desk.

  “I have an appointment,” Nell said. “Nell Jarreau.”

  “Of course, of course,” the man said, rising and shaking her hand. He turned out to be short and skinny, his head way out of proportion. “Dr. Pastore,” he said. “Have a seat in the comfy chair.” He pointed to a La-Z-Boy.

  Nell sat in the comfy chair, feet on the footrest; glad she’d worn jeans. Dr. Pastore—none of the certificates mentioned a doctor-ate—pulled up a stool, opened a notebook. “How long have you been smoking?” he said.

  “I don’t smoke,” Nell said.

  “No?” said Dr. Pastore. He leafed through the notebook. “Ah, here we go—long-ago assailant, nighttime, memory issues? That it?”

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Pastore leaned forward, ponytail in motion behind him, almost like a separate being. Nell got a little queasy. “Ever been hypnotized?”

  “No,” Nell said. “I’m worried I might be one of those resistant types.”

  “Yeah?” Dr. Pastore looked interested, as though rising to a challenge. “Has anyone ever attempted to induce hypnosis on you?”

  “No.”

  “Then the odds are this won’t be too difficult.” He looked less interested. “Comfortable?”

  Nell wasn’t, not at all, but she said, “Yes.”

  “I just want you to relax.”

  “Do I watch some kind of pendulum?”

  Dr. Pastore smiled. “Just relax,” he said. “Allow yourself to feel a certain heaviness—in your feet, your legs, your arms, your whole body. A heavy heaviness but nice. Nice and loose and heavy and reee-laxed. Your eyes are feeling heavy, too. It’s okay to close them…” A little pause; Nell heard the turning of a notebook page, sound very clear but distant at the same time. “…Nell. It’s okay to close those heavy, heavy eyelids of yours. That’s good. Just reee-lax. Take soft, deep breaths. Feel the air inside you. The air is heavy, too.”

  Yes, heavy air. It spread through her body, relaxing every cell. And her eyelids, so heavy, too, as though she were asleep and dreaming.

  “Hear me all right?” said Dr. Pastore.

  She could hear him fine, distant but clear, somewhere outside the dream.

  “Say yes if you do.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now let your mind drift back to the night of the incident. Is it a nice night?”

  “Yes. Warm.”

  “A warm night. Anything else?”

  “There’s a full moon.”

  “Big and yellow?”

  “More white than yellow. The little ghost brother.”

  “Little ghost brother?”

  “That’s what Johnny calls it.”

  “Is he with you?”

  “We’re holding hands.”

  “Where are you?”

  “On the towpath. The pier is just ahead. I smell flowers.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Nothing. I’m listening to Johnny.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “It’s hard to understand. The earth is dynamic. The bottom changes over time. There are some obvious conclusions, funnel effects, but no one seems in a hurry to…” Uh-oh.

  “No one seems in a hurry to do what?”

  “A man. There’s a man on the pier. Something wrong with his face…like it’s all misshapen…”

  “Nell?”

  “Yes?”

  “You can still hear me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What’s happening now?”

  “He wants…no, it’s a bandanna. Johnny’s going to g
ive him what he—oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  “Nell? What is it? What’s happening?”

  “He…oh, God.” She kicked out with all her might. Something fell to the floor. The bandanna slid down.

  “Nell?”

  “I see his face.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  “Don’t want to.”

  “You don’t have to. Don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”

  “The eyes aren’t blue.”

  “No? Do you recognize this man?”

  Tears started flowing, wouldn’t stop. The eyes were brown, soft and gentle.

  “Nell? Nell? Do you recognize him? Who is he?”

  Tears and more tears.

  “Nell? Can you still hear me? I’m a little concerned. When I clap my hands you will awake and open your eyes.”

  “I’m awake.”

  “You are?”

  Nell opened her eyes. For some reason, Dr. Pastore clapped anyway.

  “You seem a little upset,” he said, handing her a tissue. He picked up a book that lay open on the floor, as though dropped or thrown. “Visiting these memories can be…I don’t want to say traumatic.”

  Nell dabbed at her eyes, stopped crying. She started to rise, her limbs still feeling heavy.

  “No rush,” said Dr. Pastore. “Just stay there as long as you like, no prob—”

  Nell got to her feet.

  “Are you all right?”

  She nodded.

  “In all the commo—” Dr. Pastore cut himself off, tried again. “Out of my concern, I forgot to say you would remember everything from the session upon awakening.”

  Nell remembered, way too much, way too clearly.

  “Is there anything you’d like to discuss?” said Dr. Pastore, glancing at her, then moving behind the desk.

  “Are these memories always true?” Nell said.

  “You refer to memories induced through hypnosis by a properly trained professional?”

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Pastore looked annoyed. “Why else would I be doing this?” he said. “Maybe if we got into the details of the memories I could be of some help, in a therapeutic sense.”