‘Yes?’
‘The old brownstone. My living tomb. My office downstairs, the bedrooms on the second floor where we stood. All those empty bedrooms. I was jubilant. This lovely, veiled creature was with me in my domain. I was not trespassing on hers. I looked and saw her standing now in the middle of that long gloomy hallway. While I watched she held out a hand as if inviting me to clasp it in mine. She pressed her other hand against the wall there, the blank, wallpapered expanse between two doors, and an opening showed in it. She moved through the opening, it closed behind her, and she was gone. I was frantic. Wild with despair. I ran to the wall and searched for some clue to the opening, but there was none. I struck my fist against the wall, but my fist had no substantiality, no strength. It moved in slow motion against the wall, it met it with hardly the impact of a feather brushing against it. That was all. I woke up drenched with sweat, weak with a sense of futility.
‘I knew at once it had been a dream. I knew that the logical thing to do was either lie there and dispassionately analyze it or to clear it completely from my mind. But I knew that neither way would purge me of the glorious new emotions I had discovered in the girl’s presence. I was in love. For the first time in my life – at the age of fifty, mind you – I was willingly and hopelessly in love. I had the sense of it in my every nerve.
‘It was dawn now. Incredibly, I got out of bed in that gray light and went out into the hallway, searching along its wall for the mysterious opening in it, desperately running my hands over its smooth surface. I went into the room on the other side of the wall there, my younger brother’s room, empty of all its furniture since his marriage, and it was as empty as ever, a fine dust on its floor and that was all. I knew then that the only thing left to me was the recurrence of the dream, a reentry into the shadowy world where the girl might be waiting for me. Would surely be waiting for me.’
‘So.’ Dr Schwimmer rested his head against the back of his swivel chair and closed his eyes. ‘Then from the very start, Albert, you surrendered to this girl completely.’
‘Completely.’
‘You asked nothing in return. You expected nothing in return.’
‘At the start, nothing. Only her presence.’
‘And later?’
‘Later, as the dream recurred again and again, I wanted her response. Her acknowledgement that she felt for me at least a part – a little – of what I felt for her. I wanted her not to retreat from me every time I reached toward her. But I forgave her for it each time she did. I knew it was because this experience was as strange and novel for her as it was for me. She was very young. Untouched. Timid. She was to be wooed gently, not taken by force. And I was willing to be patient, because my fingertips came infinitesimally closer to her each time. I settled for that.’
‘So. And when you realized that this girl of the dreams was, in reality, the pretty little receptionist who sat in your outer office every working day of the week it did not break the spell?’
‘No, because it didn’t end the dreams. At night I had the Sophia of the dreams; in daylight I had the Sophia of reality nearby where, whenever I chose, I could look at her, speak to her.
‘And the living reality, as it turned out, made the dreams that much more exciting. Every detail of the flesh-and-blood Sophia was transmitted to the dream image I loved. Now that image removed its veil and showed me the glowing eyes and parted lips and curve of cheek of the enchanting child I employed in my office. The length of leg, swell of breast, everything became substantial in the dreams.’
‘But you did not transfer your emotions to this flesh-and-blood girl? Then or ever?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure of that, Albert? Consider this very carefully. It is important.’
‘I still say no. I didn’t want to risk it. I didn’t have to. It was more than enough that I had the dream Sophia to woo and win. In the daylight there were mirrors in the house where I would catch sight of myself at unexpected moments. A self that invited rejection. In the dimly lit room and hallway of the dreams there were no mirrors. I had no view of myself then. I never gave thought to what I looked like. Above all, somehow I knew that the brownstone house stood all alone in the dream world and that there was no one else in it besides the girl and me. I was the only man in her existence, she had no freedom of choice. Ultimately she would have to give herself to me.’
‘A quaint way to phrase it, Albert. Almost Victorian. And what does it connote? She allows you to touch her at last? To press your lips to her blushing check? Or more?’
‘More. Much more.’
‘Yes?’
‘She would be my slave. My willing slave. Grateful that she could be possessed by me. She would not so much love me as worship me.’
‘So. And all this, Albert, in the light of your futile pursuit of her through dream after dream? The nightly confrontation in the bedroom, the scene in the shadowy hallway where, at the crucial moment, she disappears through a blank wall? Now tell me. Did you never wonder what lay on the other side of that wall?’
‘I didn’t have to. I was sure I knew what was there. Her room. The small room with carpeted walls and floor where she lay on a bed under some diaphanous covering breathlessly waiting for me to find my way to her. Afraid of the moment when I would, but eagerly anticipating it. Her room. Her solitary, sweetly scented refuge.’
‘So there it is, Albert. That preconception was your great mistake. Your tragic misjudgment.’
‘The room was there. I entered it. I found it exactly as I had imagined it.’
‘No, you did not. Otherwise, would there be this crisis? This anguish? You should have been prepared, Albert, for more than you bargained for. You should have known yesterday when you first saw your real Sophia’s young man in her office, when she proudly introduced him to you, that there was a crisis brewing. Admit it. Didn’t your hackles rise when you met that young man? When you took his measure?’
‘All right, yes. Yes. But I didn’t make anything of it then. Why should I? All my life I’ve hated these hulking Adonises, these huge, handsome, brute images of masculinity. My hatred for this specimen was innate. Why should I think it had anything to do with the adoration my infatuated, flesh-and-blood Sophia aimed at him?’
‘Hard words, Albert. But the dream Sophia is cast in the image of the flesh-and-blood Sophia. There was one danger signal. The other was at the instant in your dream last night when you pressed a hand against that wall, that barrier to her hidden room, and at last it opened to you. Didn’t you wonder why, at long last, it should suddenly open? Didn’t it enter your mind that it might be a means of providing you, not with the ultimate experience, but with the ultimate truth?’
‘No. And you yourself know this only through hindsight. When I entered that room I felt jubilation. Utter ecstasy. Nothing else. I had no premonition I would find them on that bed together, she and that hulk. I had no idea until that incredible moment that this room was their refuge, not hers alone. Or, worst of all, that when caught shamelessly sprawled beside him in their love-making, she would only smile pityingly at me.
‘How could I be prepared for any of that? After all, those dreams were mine. How could I ever imagine they would be invaded by any gross stranger? And now—’
‘Yes?’
‘Now that I know the truth I can’t turn my mind away from it. Awake or asleep, all I can think of is that she was taken from me. Violated. And with her eager consent. God almighty, since I found my way into that room I’ve lived only with the picture of them in my mind. I can’t live with it any longer.’
‘So. Then it must be exorcised, Albert, must it not?’
‘Yes.’
‘At last we come to the decision-making. And is it to be my decision to make, Albert? Mine alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘You will accept it without question?’
‘Completely.’
‘Good. Then I will state the case directly. It is obvious that someone must pay the pena
lty for your betrayal, Albert. As a sane and intelligent man you must know that a blood sacrifice offers the only possible solution in a case like this. The only one. Under any conditions it would be impossible for you to be released from your agony while your betrayers maintain their obscene relationship. Yes. One or the other must be eliminated. But which? The intruder?’
‘And then what, Doctor? Another such intruder to take his place in that room? Another crisis? Now that I know what the girl really is – what she’s capable of – can I expect more than that?’
‘True. Then you plainly see she herself must be sacrificed.’
‘Yes.’
‘So. And you also understand how it must be done?’
‘Yes. With a blade, naturally.’
‘Naturally. A blade of the finest steel. That is traditional, and there are times when one sees the wisdom behind these time-worn traditions.’ The doctor picked up the letter opener from his desk and regarded it with admiration. He turned it slowly back and forth so that sunlight from the window flowed up and down the blade. ‘The finest steel, a tradition in itself. More than eight inches of it, Albert. More than enough for its purpose.
‘And you realize, of course, that the first killing blow deep between the lower ribs does not mean the completion of the ritual. There must be total release of the emotions immediately afterward. A frenzied hacking until the lovely image is made a horror. A full measure of blood must flow to wash away betrayal. Remember, Albert, the therapeutic value of the act lies in that.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Then,’ said the doctor, ‘all that is left is action.’
He unlocked the door and opened it slightly on the drafty ground-floor corridor of the old brownstone. And, when in answer to his call, Miss Sophia Kaloosdian, doe-eyed, raven-haired, swan-necked, a large wad of chewing gum working rhythmically in her jaws, left her desk in the outer office and came to see what he wanted, he was waiting for her with smiling confidence, the hilt of the letter opener gripped tight in his fist and hidden behind his back.
The confidence was not misplaced. Dr Albert Schwimmer may have been short, fat, nearsighted, and with a perpetual sniffle, but he was very strong.
The Corruption of Officer Avakadian
In regard to this heated issue of police corruption, I take the position—
No.
What with one thing and another, I believe it would be best to simply describe the curious event which led me to the position I take. And to start with the call received by Officer Schultz and me in our patrol car that night some time ago – I can measure the time by reflecting that two cherubic daughters have since been added to my roster of four sturdy sons, the Avakadians always having been a precocious and prolific breed – because that dispatcher’s message was, I now see, the opening curtain on the event.
The call came at one A.M., abruptly breaking the bleak silence in the car. That silence, as we cruised along, was entirely Schultz’s doing. I had been expostulating on various aspects of our profession – informatively, I knew; brightly, I hoped – until Schultz said, ‘Will you kindly shut up, Avakadian?’ after which I kept my thoughts entirely to myself.
I suppose that the kindest way to put it was that Schultz was not dedicated to his job. I had graduated with highest honors from Police School, having spent my months there among highly motivated and dedicated men. I had served my probationary period as foot patrolman among several young officers who also demonstrated this spirit. Now, for the first time, I was encountering an entirely different kind of police officer. Indeed, after only three days as Schultz’s partner in police patrol car Number 8, I had begun to wonder whether I had been placed in his company to glean the lessons an experienced old hand could provide or whether he had been placed in my company so that a bit of my own keen spit-and-polish attitude, my devotion to the departmental rule book, might rub off on him.
In that latter case, it was time wasted. Schultz was only a few months from retirement, a bloated old time-server who seemed to make up his own rules as he went along. He was slovenly of person – his uniform jacket always appeared to be buttoned at the wrong buttons – and, worse than that, he was slovenly in manner and attitude, always more willing to expend his scant energies in crawling through loopholes in the rule book than in carrying them out to the letter.
Despite his uncongenial manner toward me, I believe he did have a grudging respect for what I represented. This surfaced briefly when, during our first tour of duty together, he suddenly asked me – and there was genuine wonderment in his tone – ‘Were you always like this, Avakadian?’ To which, in honest response, I explained that in my youth I had been the youngest Eagle Scout in the history of my troop and that before I set my course by the departmental rule book, I had steered it by nothing else than the Boy Scout Handbook. I even recited for him from memory the Scout Laws on being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent, to which he only said in quick retreat to his curmudgeon role, ‘And how did friendly get in there?’
That stung me a little, though I well understood the reasons for it. As for example, any snacks we had during our tour of duty Schultz apparently regarded as gifts from the proprietors of the hamburger stands we stopped at, but I had insisted we pay in full for them, even though this procedure seemed to bewilder and alarm those proprietors. And twice, when we had caught up with traffic violators who were as transparently eager to buy their way out of trouble as Schultz was to take their money, my stern insistence on writing out the ticket made any such transaction impossible.
So in answer to his gibe, all I said was, ‘Remember, Schultz, friendliness does not mean condoning moral laxity.’ He had no answer to that, of course.
But, not to digress, that night in question we were cruising along sharing a bleak silence when the dispatcher’s voice was heard. ‘Car eight. Householder at 77 Pineview, northwest,’ to which Schultz responded, as was his wont, ‘Yeah, sure,’ so that I, as I was invariably forced to do, had to take the speaker from Schultz’s hand before he could hang it up and crisply reply to the dispatcher, ‘Ten-four,’ the only proper response.
I then remarked to Schultz – and it was not the first time I had been forced to do so – that since we were now on call, both the flasher and the siren had to be put into operation.
‘Why?’ Schultz said. ‘Why, Avakadian? Take a look. There isn’t any traffic. Why do we have to make a circus of every call?’
‘Because, Schultz, the rules prescribe it. And if you want the number of the exact rule—’
‘Forget it,’ Schultz snarled, but willy-nilly he did turn on flasher and siren.
The northwest district was and is an area of luxurious homes, each surrounded by beautifully tended lawns. The door of Number 77 was already ajar as Schultz and I approached it along a flagstoned path, and when we reached the door I saw on the wall beside it a brass plaque inscribed Cyrus Cahoon, MD. No surprise, that, since many of the finest properties in these parts were owned by members of the medical profession.
The tall aristocratic woman in robe and slippers who stood in the doorway motioned us inside the house. There, on one side of the foyer we entered, open doors revealed a waiting room and medical examining room. On the other side was a living room where a man dressed in a rather rumpled suit stood regarding us from beneath lowering brows. The woman pointed at him and said, ‘This is my husband, Dr Cyrus Cahoon. He wishes to report an atrocious crime.’
‘I wish to report nothing, Florence,’ said Dr Cahoon. ‘You were the one who invited these men here. Now do me the favor of inviting them out.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Schultz said, and was already preparing to depart when Mrs Cahoon grasped his arm firmly. ‘Officer,’ she said, ‘my husband may choose to stand mute, but if kidnapping is a crime, I cannot.’
‘It’s a crime,’ Schultz said uncomfortably, and I must admit I felt an excitement at what I was hearing. My third day on this det
ail, and here I was confronted by one of the most heinous and dramatic of all felonies. I could only regret that I was not yet in detective grade where the task of handling the case would be mine. It was incredible that Schultz should manage to remain so stolid as he put the question, ‘Who’s been kidnaped?’
Mrs Cahoon again levered a forefinger at her husband. ‘He was.’
‘He looks all right to me,’ Schultz said.
‘I am all right,’ Dr Cahoon said.
Schultz tried to detach his arm from Mrs Cahoon’s grip. He said, ‘Lady, if you and your husband would settle it between yourselves and then let us know how it came out—’
Mrs Cahoon hung onto his arm. ‘It has been settled. My husband was kidnaped by a gang of criminals, do you hear? And he cannot deny it.’
Plainly, Schultz wanted nothing more than to make a quick exit. Even more plainly, leaving now would be gross neglect of duty. At the very least, information on the crime had to be entered into our notebooks; the detective squad would have to be informed. So, although I had been advised by the department to follow Schultz’s lead in all calls, I saw that, so to speak, I must now take the bit between my teeth.
I pulled out my notebook and pencil. I said to Dr Cahoon, ‘Sir, what is the problem here? Are you afraid of reprisals if you take proper action against your alleged kidnapers?’
Dr Cahoon regarded me steadily for a few moments. Then he looked at Schultz. ‘Is he for real?’ he asked.
Happily, Mrs Cahoon recognized the authority in my tone. She released Schultz’s arm and turned to me. ‘I want you to write all this down,’ she said.
I held up my notebook and pencil to indicate that I was more than ready to do my duty.
‘Oh, hell,’ Dr Cahoon said.
‘Officer,’ Mrs Cahoon said, ‘an hour ago, I woke from a sound sleep wondering why it was suddenly so light in the bedroom. Then I saw this woman standing there with a gun pointed at me. Then I saw another woman on the other side of the bed pointing a gun at my husband, and a man getting some of my husband’s clothing from the closet. It was horrible. It was like a bad dream.’
The Specialty of the House Page 57
