The Sleepless (33 page)

Michael backed away, but ‘Mr Hillary’ came after him, his eyes blazing red. 

‘This is a trance,’ Michael reminded himself. ‘I’m sitting in Dr Rice’s office in Hyannis and this is all a trance.’ 

‘Mr Hillary’ came closer and closer, until Michael could feel the coldness of his breath. Behind him, all the white-faced youths began to rustle and stir, like albino bats dislodging themselves from the walls of a long-undiscovered cave. 

‘You haven’t paid, Michael. None of you have. But the day is soon coming, when you shall!’ 

He lifted his left hand and stroked Michael’s cheek with infinite softness. Then he leaned forward with his lips slightly parted and it was suddenly obvious that he was going to kiss him on the mouth. 

Michael pushed against him, and swung his fists, and shouted out loud. ‘Get off me! Get off me! You goddamned pervert, get off me!’ 

He struck his right knuckle against the metal-banded side of Dr Rice’s desk, and opened his eyes, and realized at once that he was right. It
had
been a trance. It
had
been a dream. He hadn’t visited Nahant Bay. He hadn’t walked up the dunes, and into the lighthouse. He hadn’t seen those clustering boys with their deathly-white faces. 

He had been here, in this chrome-and-canvas chair, in this gloomy brown office, all the time. There was Dr Rice’s framed certificate from Vienna, and there was Charles Sheeler’s painting of an ocean liner – deserted, silent, meticulous. 

A deserted scenario waiting for something to happen. 

Dr Rice was standing with his back to the window. He looked unhappy. 

‘Are you all right?’ he asked Michael. 

‘I don’t know,’ Michael told him. ‘I had the same experience as last time ... the man on the beach. Only this time it went much further.’ He described his trance in short, jerky sentences, trying not to leave anything out. 

When he had finished, Dr Rice said, ‘Something’s disturbing you badly.’ 

‘I don’t even begin to understand it,’ Michael told him. ‘I never even heard of “Mr Hillary” before.’ 

‘You’re creating this whole thing in your subconscious imagination,’ said Dr Rice. ‘It’s like a metaphor for what you’re doing in real life. The human mind doesn’t like the idea of meaningless accidents, like the O’Brien disaster – especially
your
mind, which has been trained to look for answers and explanations. This “Mr Hillary” is just like one of those imaginary friends which kids have when they’re little ... except that “Mr Hillary” is your imaginary enemy. He’s somebody that you can blame for John O’Brien’s death.’ 

‘Like a scapegoat,’ said Michael. 

Dr Rice looked up with unexpected suddenness, and stared at Michael as if he had touched a nerve. Then he pursed his lips, and nodded. ‘Yes. That’s right. Like a scapegoat.’ 

He shuffled and tidied his papers. Michael watched him, and then said, ‘What do you think?’ 

‘I don’t know, it’s up to you. But in my opinion, the only way you’re going to get better is by resting, and by staying away from anything that involves violent and accidental death. You just don’t have the mental strength for it, Michael. You don’t have to be ashamed; very few people do.’ 

Michael stood up. For some reason, he felt that he couldn’t completely rely on Dr Rice to tell him the truth about ‘Mr Hillary’, although he didn’t know why. He had always trusted him before. It was just that, this time, Dr Rice seemed to be trying extra hard to persuade him not to give up his job at Plymouth Insurance. Dr Rice had never actually tried to persuade him not to do anything before – even manifestly dumb things, like sailing round the world, or mushing to the North Pole. 

‘I’m going back to Boston tomorrow morning,’ said Michael. ‘Maybe I can call by and talk to you one more time before I go.’ 

Dr Rice nodded. ‘Very well ... make it a quarter to ten. Not later, I have
one
of my lady slimmers every Thursday morning, and she doesn’t like her cellulite to be kept waiting.’ 

Michael left Dr Rice’s office and walked out into the windy sunlight. He caught sight of Patsy and Victor across the street, looking into the window of the Raven Bookstore. He called out to them, but a heavy truck was passing and it drowned him out. As he was just about to step off the kerb, he saw a white-faced man in dark glasses standing in a hardware-store doorway, only a block-and-a-half away. It looked very much as if he were watching Patsy and Victor – although as soon as Michael crossed the street to join them, he left the doorway and began to walk quickly northward. 

Michael took hold of Patsy’s arm. ‘You see that guy there? The one just disappearing up the street?’ 

‘What about him?’ 

‘He wasn’t one of the men who was watching the house?’ 

Patsy shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘I’m not sure ... I can’t see his face. He had the same kind of clothes ... but no, I couldn’t be certain.’ 

‘You want me to go after him?’ said Victor. ‘I used to play for my high school football team.’ 

Michael shook his head. The man had already vanished around the next corner, and Michael had the strangest feeling that even if they ran after him, they wouldn’t be able to find him. 

They walked back to Michael’s car. Victor said, ‘How was your hypnotherapy?’ 

‘I’m not sure yet. Kind of confusing. It doesn’t always leave you feeling better.’ 

‘If it doesn’t leave you feeling better, then what’s the point of it?’ 

‘It’s supposed to help you to explore your subconscious.’ 

‘I’m not too sure I’d want to do that,’ said Victor. ‘I’ve got a subconscious full of demons.’ 

‘Don’t we all. But today was kind of weird. I’m going back tomorrow morning, just to see if I can make some sense of it.’ 

‘I’ve never been hypnotized,’ said Victor. ‘I don’t think I could be.’ 

‘Oh, you’d be amazed,’ Michael told him. ‘Sometimes I go into Dr Rice’s office quite determined that he’s not going to put me under, but he still does it.’ 

He unlocked the car and they all climbed in, Victor in the back. Victor leaned over and said, ‘I saw a hypnosis show on stage, once. They had people standing on one leg, taking their trousers off, all kinds of stuff. And that was after they were supposed to have woken up, and left the stage.’ 

‘That’s what they call post-hypnotic suggestion,’ said Michael, backing the Mercury into the street. ‘I never believed it could work, but it does ... provided the suggestion is simple and clear.’ 

‘What if the suggestion is something destructive?’ 

Michael was about to answer when a bus blew a devastatingly loud horn-blast at him. By the time the bus had manoeuvred around the back of them, and Michael had finished yelling at the bus driver out of the window, they had forgotten the thread of their discussion. 

All the same, as they drove back towards New Seabury, Victor began to look thoughtful. 

Patsy turned around in her seat and said, ‘Penny for them?’ 

‘I don’t know. Something just occurred to me, that’s all.’ 

‘Something good? Something bad?’ 

‘Something that begins to make sense out of something that doesn’t make sense.’ 

Ralph Brossard was noisily frying some bacon for himself when the phone rang. 

‘I’m not here,’ he announced, wedging the receiver under his chin. ‘You want to leave a message, leave it after the doot.
Dooott.’
 

‘Are you Detective Ralph Brossard?’ 

‘That’s right, who wants to know?’ 

‘Detective Brossard, you know who I am, you killed my son.’ 

Very,
very
long silence. 

‘Did you hear me, Detective Brossard?’ 

‘I heard you. Detective Newton called me last night, told me what you wanted.’ 

‘They’ve had her for nearly twenty hours now, Detective Brossard. I’ve managed to buy some time by telling them I know where the money is. But they’ve been hurting her, man. They’ve really been hurting her, and I don’t know what to do.’ 

Ralph turned his bacon rashers over with his fork. ‘Mr Latomba, you’re going to have to deal with this situation yourself, or else you’re going to have to call 911. I’m on suspension pending internal investigation, which is normal procedure after a fatal shooting. I couldn’t do anything, even if I wanted to.’ 

Patrice sucked in his breath. ‘Detective Brossard, I hate you, I hate your guts, but then I hate all white people equally, and just because you shot my baby son, that doesn’t make me hate you any more than I would have done already. It just wouldn’t be possible.’ 

‘Nice to know you’re such a fair-minded kind of guy,’ Ralph replied. ‘But that doesn’t change anything, does it?’ 

‘What I’m saying is, man, that whether you help me or not is down to your conscience. You shot my son, you killed my little Toussaint, and because of that you owe me, man. You
owe
me.’ 

Ralph turned off the gas. ‘Mr Latomba, your son’s death was tragic. If there was any way I could go back in time and make sure it didn’t happen, I would. It was tragic, it was terrible, and I feel totally bad about it, but it was an accident. Jambo fired at me and I fired back. Your son’s baby-carriage just happened to get in the way.’ 

‘Man, you
owe
me!’
Patrice shouted at him, close to tears. 

‘I’m sorry, Mr Latomba, but I don’t owe you anything except respect as a human being.’ 

‘My wife, too?’ Patrice’s voice was shaking. 

‘Your wife, too,’ said Ralph, dully. 

‘All right then. Listen to this. It’s a tape-recording, made on my own hi-fi equipment, which the hostage-takers pushed out of my apartment just an hour ago.’ 

‘Mr Latomba, I don’t really think – ‘ 

‘
Listen
!’ Patrice demanded, with such fury that Ralph was silent, and listened. 

He heard some rattling noises, as Patrice switched on his tape-recorder. Then he heard some echoing, distorted conversation, as if two people were talking in a bathroom, or a kitchen. Somebody laughed, a man’s laugh. Then a voice came breathily close to the microphone and said, ‘We know you’re doing your best to find our money, Patrice, but we just thought you might respond to a little foretaste of what might happen if you don’t.’ 

Another voice, more echoing, said, ‘Some fancy knife-work to start with.’ 

There was a momentary pause, followed by the sound of a woman screaming. She screamed and screamed and didn’t stop. The hair prickled on the back of Ralph’s neck, and after a few seconds he put down the receiver and covered the earpiece with his hand. He had heard women screaming in pain before, and he knew this was real. Not only was it real, it was the most agonized screaming that he had ever heard – and he had heard women who had been doused in gasoline by their jealous husbands, and set fire to. He waited until he was sure it was over, and then he lifted the phone again and said, ‘Mr Latomba?’ 

A clicking noise, as Patrice turned off the record-player. 

‘Mr Latomba?’ 

‘I’m here. Did you hear that, man? They were cutting her, man. They were
cutting
her.’ 

‘Do you have any idea where that money is?’ Ralph asked him, his voice very serious. 

‘I got seven guys out looking. But one of them thinks that a brother called Freddie picked it up, and nobody’s seen hide nor hair of Freddie ever since.’ 

‘Freddie probably opened that bag and thought it was Christmas, come early.’ 

‘What am I going to do, man? You heard what they’re doing to Verna. They’re going to give her so much pain. They’re going to kill her.’ 

Ralph reached across the kitchen for a cigarette. ‘Tell me something about your apartment,’ he said. 

‘What do you mean?’ 

‘Is it first floor, second floor, what?’ 

‘Second floor.’ 

‘Does it have a service door as well as a front door?’ 

‘Unh-hunh. Front door’s the only way in.’ 

‘How about balcony?’ 

‘Kind of a narrow balcony, out in front.’ 

‘How about the apartment immediately above it? Does that have a balcony, too?’ 

‘That’s right. They all got balconies.’ 

‘And how can you get out onto that balcony? French doors, something like that?’ 

‘That’s right. Hey – why are you asking me all these questions about my balcony, man? What the hell does my balcony have to do with anything?’ 

Ralph lit his cigarette by the gas ring, almost singeing his eyebrows off. ‘Does your balcony have french doors or what?’ he repeated. 

‘Yes, it does.’ 

‘Do they open outward or inward?’ 

‘I don’t know, man,’ Patrice protested. ‘Outward, inward, what difference does it make?’ 

Ralph said, ‘I’m going to ask you one more question. Do you give me your word that if I try to rescue your wife for you, but I fail, you’ll guarantee that I get safe passage out of Seaver Street?’