Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

by Strangers(Lit)

  different about Fifth Avenue. As a few huge snowflakes spiraled lazily

  through the glow of streetlamps and through the lights of cars moving

  along the thoroughfare, Jack gradually realized the city had reacquired

  a fraction of the glitter, glamour, and mystery that it always had for

  him before he'd gone to Central America but which it had not possessed

  in ages. It seemed cleaner now than it had been in a long time, and the

  air was crisper, less polluted.

  Staring around in amazement, he slowly understood that the city had not

  undergone a metamorphosis during the past few minutes. It was the same

  city that it had been an hour ago-and yesterday. But when he had come

  back from Central America, he had been a different man from the one who

  had gone away, and on returning he had been unable to see anything good

  in the metropolis or in any other works of the society he hated. Much

  of the Big Apple's dreariness and degeneration had been merely a

  reflection of his own blasted, burnt-out, corrupted inner landscape.

  Jack returned to the Camaro, went west to Sixth Avenue, north to Central

  Park, made a right turn, then another right onto Fifth Avenue again,

  heading south, not sure where he was going until he reached the Fifth

  Avenue Presbyterian Church. Once more, he parked illegally, took cash

  from the trunk, and went into the church.

  There was no poor-box as in St. Patrick's, but Jack found a young

  assistant minister in the process of closing the place

  for the night. From various pockets, Jack produced bundles of ten- and

  twenty-dollar bills wrapped with rubber bands, and handed them to the

  startled cleric, claiming to have won a fortune in the casinos of

  Atlantic City.

  In two stops, he had given away thirty thousand dollars. But that was

  not even one-tenth of what he had brought back from Connecticut, and

  those dispensations did not allay his guilt. In fact, his newfound

  shame was growing stronger by the minute. The bag of money in the trunk

  was, to him, like the telltale heart buried under the floorboards in the

  story by Poe, a throbbing annunciator of his guilt, and he was as

  anxious to be rid of it as Poe's narrator had been anxious to silence

  the incriminating heartbeat of his dismembered victim.

  Three hundred thirty thousand dollars remained. For some New Yorkers,

  Christmas was about to come two and a half weeks late.

  Elko County, Nevada.

  The summer before last, Dom had stayed in Room 20. He remembered it

  well because it was the last unit in the motel's L-shaped east wing.

  Ernie Block's curiosity was more compelling than his nyctophobia, so he

  decided to accompany Faye and Dom to Room 20, where it was hoped that

  Dom's memories would be stilled by the sight of the familiar walls and

  furnishings. Ernie walked between Faye and Dom, who held his arms.

  During the trip along the breezeway, the frigid night wind made Dom glad

  for his fleece-lined jacket. More concerned about the black night than

  the chill, Ernie kept his eyes shut for the entire journey.

  Faye went in first, snapping on the lights, closing drapes. Dom followed

  with Ernie, who opened his eyes only when Faye shut the door.

  Upon entering the room, Dom was filled with apprehension. He walked to

  the queen-sized bed, stared down at it.

  He tried to remember lying here, drugged and helpless.

  Faye said, "The bedspread's not the same, of course."

  The Polaroid had shown the corner of a floral-patterned spread. The

  current model was brown- and blue-striped.

  "The bed itself is the same, and all the furniture," Ernie said.

  The padded headboard was upholstered with a coarse brown fabric,

  slightly snagged and worn. The nightstands were plain two-drawer chests

  with laminated walnut veneer. The bases of the lamps resembled large

  hurricane lanterns, black metal with two panes of smoky amber glass in

  each side; the cloth shades were the same amber hue as the glass in the

  base. Each lamp had two bulbs: The main one, under the shade, provided

  most of the light; the second bulb, inside the base, was shaped like a

  candle flame and gave off a dim flickering glow that imitated a real

  flame and was used only for its decorative effect, to enhance the

  illusion of hurricane lanterns.

  Dom remembered every detail of the place now that he was standing in it,

  and he had the impression that a multitude of ghosts flitted teasingly

  through the room, staying just at the periphery of his vision. The

  ghosts were actually bad memories rather than spirits, and they haunted

  not the room but the shadowy corners of his own mind.

  "Remember anything?" Ernie asked. "Is it coming back to you?"

  "I want to have a look at the john," Dom said.

  It was small and strictly functional, with a shower stall but no

  bathtub, a speckled tile floor, and durable Formica counter tops.

  Dom was interested in the sink, for it was surely the one in his

  recurring nightmare. But when he looked into the bowl, he was surprised

  to see a mechanical stopper. And an inch below the rim of the bowl, the

  overflow drain consisted of three round holes, a more modern design than

  the six slanted lozenge-shaped outlets in the sink of his dreams.

  "This isn't the same," he said. "The sink was old, with a rubber

  stopper attached to a bead-chain and hung from the cold-water faucet."

  "We're always upgrading the place," Ernie said from the doorway.

  "We took that sink out eight or nine months ago," Faye said. "We

  replaced the Formica then, too, although it's the same color as before."

  Dom was disappointed because he had been convinced that at least some

  memories from those lost days would begin to return to him when he

  touched the sink. After all, judging from the stark terror of the

  nightmare, something particularly frightening had happened to him at

  that very spot; therefore, it seemed likely that the sink might act as a

  lightning rod upon the supercharged memories that drifted in the

  darkness of his subconscious, drawing them back in a sudden crackling

  blaze of recollection. He put his hands on the new sink, but he felt

  only cold porcelain.

  'Anything?" Ernie asked again.

  "No," Dom said. "No memories . . . but bad vibrations. If I give it

  time, I think the room might break down the barriers. I'll sleep here

  tonight, give it a chance to work on me . . . if that's all right."

  "No problem Faye said.

  The room's yours."

  Dom said, "I have a hunch the nightmare will be worse here than it's

  ever been before."

  Laguna Beach, California.

  Although Parker Faine was one of the most respected of living American

  artists, although his canvases were assiduously collected by major

  museums, although he had been commissioned to create works for the

  President of the United States and other luminaries, he was not too old

  and certainly not too dignified to get a thrill from the intrigue upon

  which he was engaged in Dominick Corvaisis' behalf. To be a successful

  artist, one needed maturity, an adult's perception and sensitivity and

  dedicat
ion to craftsmanship, but one also had to hold on to a child's

  curiosity, wonder, innocence, and sense of fun. Parker held tighter to

  those things than most artists did; therefore, he fulfilled his role in

  Dom's plans with a spirit of adventure.

  Each day, when he picked up Dom's mail, Parker pretended to go about his

  business without the slightest suspicion that he might be under

  surveillance, but in fact he searched surreptitiously, diligently for

  the watchers-spies, cops, or whatever they might be. He never saw

  anyone observing him, and he never detected a tail.

  And each night, when he left his house and went to a different pay phone

  to await Dom's prearranged call, he drove miles out of his way, turned

  back on his own route, made sudden turns calculated to throw off a tail,

  until he was sure that he was not being followed.

  A few minutes before nine o'clock, Saturday night, he arrived by his

  usual devious means at a telephone booth beside a Union 76 station. A

  hard rain fell, sluicing down the Plexiglas walls, distorting the world

  beyond and screening Parker from prying eyes.

  He was wearing a trenchcoat and a rainproof khaki hat with the rim

  turned down all the way around to let the rain run off. He felt as if

  he belonged in a John le Cared tale. He loved it.

  Promptly at nine o'clock, the phone rang. It was Dom. "I'm on schedule,

  at the Tranquility Motel. This is the place, Parker."

  Dom had a lot to tell: a disturbing experience in the Tranquility

  Grille, Ernie Block's nyctophobia.... And by indirection, he managed to

  convey that the Blocks had received strange Polaroid snapshots, too.

  Discretion was essential; if the Tranquility Motel was, indeed, the

  center of the unremembered events of the summer before last, the Blocks'

  phones might be tapped. If the listeners heard about the photographs,

  they would know they had a traitor in their midst, and they would surely

  find him, and there would be no more notes or photos forthcoming.

  "I've got news, too," Parker said. "Ms. Wycombe, your editor, left a

  message on your answering machine. Twilight in Babylon had another

  printing, and there are now a hundred thousand copies in the stores."

  "Good God, I'd forgotten the book! Since Lomack's house four days ago,

  I haven't thought about anything but this crazy situation."

  "Ms. Wycombe has more good news she wants to share, so you're to call

  her as soon as you get a chance."

  "I'll do that. Meanwhile . . . seen any interesting pictures?" Dom

  asked, indirectly inquiring if any more Polaroids had been received.

  "Nope. No amusing notes, either." When the headlights of passing cars

  swept across the booth, the thin skin of flowing water on the

  transparent walls flared briefly with a ripplingshimmering brilliance.

  Parker said, "But something came in the mail that'll knock your socks

  off, buddy. You've identified

  three of the names on those moon posters at Lomack's. So how'd you like

  to hear who the fourth one is?"

  "Ginger? I forgot to tell you. I think her name's on the motel

  registry. Dr. Ginger Weiss of Boston. I intend to call her tomorrow."

  "You've stolen some of my thunder. But you'll be surprised to hear you

  got a letter today from Dr. Weiss. She sent it to Random House on

  December twenty-sixth, but it got caught in their bureaucracy. Anyway,

  she's at the end of her rope, see, and then she gets hold of a copy of

  your book, gloms your photo, and she gets this feeling she's met you

  before, and that you are a part of what's been happening to her."

  "Do you have the letter with you?" Dom asked excitedly.

  Parker had it in his hand, waiting. He read it, glancing now and then

  at the night beyond the booth.

  "I've got to call her right away," Dom said when Parker finished the

  letter. "Can't wait till morning now. I'll talk to you again tomorrow

  night. Nine o'clock."

  "If you'll be calling from the motel, where the phones are likely to be

  tapped, there's no point in my running out to a phone booth."

  "You're right. I'll call you at home. Take care," Dom said.

  "You, too." With mixed feelings, Parker put the receiver on the hook,

  relieved that these inconvenient nightly journeys to a pay phone were at

  an end, but also certain that he would miss the intrigue.

  He stepped out of the phone booth, into the rain, and he was almost

  disappointed when no one took a shot at him.

  Boston, Massachusetts.

  Pablo Jackson had been buried that morning, but he was with Ginger Weiss

  throughout the afternoon and evening. Like a ghost, his memory haunted

  her, a smiling revenant in the chambers of her mind.

  Keeping to herself in the guestroom at Baywatch, she tried to read,

  could not concentrate. When not preoccupied with memories of the old

  magician, she was eaten up by worry, wondering what would become of her.

  She got into bed at a quarter past midnight and was reaching for the

  switch to turn off the lamp when Rita Hannaby came to tell her that

  Dominick Corvaisis was on the phone and that she could take the call in

  George's study, down the hall, adjacent to the master bedroom. Excited

  and trepidatious, Ginger put on a robe over her pajamas.

  The study was warm and shadowy with dark oak paneling. The Chinese

  carpet was beige and forest-green, and the stainedglass lamp on the desk

  was either a genuine Tiffany or a superb reproduction.

  George's puffy eyes made it clear that the call woke him. He began

  surgery early most mornings and was usually in bed by nine-thirty.

  "I'm sorry," Ginger told him.

  "No need," George said. "Isn't this what we've been hoping for?"

  "Maybe," she said, unwilling to raise her hopes.

  Rita said, "We'll give you privacy."

  "No," Ginger said. "Stay. Please." She went to the desk, sat down,

  picked up the uncradled handset. "Hello? Mr. Corvaisis?"

  "Dr. Weiss?" His voice was strong yet melodic. "Writing to me was the

  best thing you could've done. I don't think you're nuts. Because

  you're not alone, Doctor. There are more of us with strange problems."

  Ginger tried to respond, but her voice cracked. She cleared her throat.

  "I ... I'm sorry . . . I'm not ... I don't ... don't usually cry."

  Corvaisis said, "Don't try to talk until you're ready. I'll tell you

  about my problem: sleepwalking. And my dreams . . . about the moon."

  A thrill, half cold fear and half exultation, throbbed through her. "The

  moon," she agreed. "I never remember the dreams, but they must involve

  the moon because that's what I wake up screaming about."

  He told her about a man named Lomack in Reno, dead by his own hand,

  driven to suicide by an obsession with the moon.

  Ginger sensed some vast gulf beneath her, a fearful unknown.

  "We've been brainwashed," she blurted. "All these problems we're having

  are the result of repressed memories trying to surface."

  For a moment there was a stunned silence on the line. Then

  the writer said, "That's been my theory, but you sound sure of it."

  "I am. I underwent hypnotic regression therapy after I wrote to you,

  and we turned up ev
idence of systematic memory repression."

  "Something happened to us the summer before last," he said.

  "Yes! The summer before last. The Tranquility Motel in Nevada."

  "That's where I'm calling from."

  Startled, she said, "You're there now?"

  "Yes. And if possible, you ought to come. A lot has happened that I

  can't risk talking about on the phone."

  "Who are they?" she asked in frustration. "What are they hiding?"

  "We'll have a better chance finding out if we all work together."

  "I'll come. Tomorrow, if I can book a flight that quickly."

  Rita started to protest that Ginger was in no condition to travel. In

  the many-colored light of the Tiffany lamp, George's scowl deepened.

  To Corvaisis, Ginger said, "I'll let you know how and when I'll arrive."

  When Ginger hung up, George said, "You can't possibly go all that way in

  your condition."

  Rita said, "What if you black out on the airplane, become violent?"

  "I'll be all right."

  "Dear, you had three seizures last Monday, one after the other."

  Ginger sighed and slumped back in the green leather chair. "Rita,

  George, you've been wonderful to me, and I can never adequately repay