False Memory Part 9

He and Valet enjoyed the moment equally. Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation-and almost as good for the soul as prayer.

When Dusty plugged in the coffeemaker and began to spoon some good Colombian blend into the filter, Valet rolled onto his back, with all four legs in the air, seeking a belly rub.

"You're a love hog," Dusty said.

Valet's tail swished back and forth across the tile floor.

"I need my fur fix," Dusty admitted, "but right now I need my coffee more. No offense."

His heart seemed to be pumping Freon instead of blood. A chill had settled deep in his flesh and bones; even deeper. Turned up full blast, the van heater hadn't been able to warm him. He was counting on the coffee.

When Valet realized that he wasn't going to receive a belly rub, he got to his feet and padded across the kitchen to the half bath. The door was ajar, and the dog stood with his snout poked through the six-inch gap, sniffing the darkness beyond.

"You've got a perfectly fine water dish there in the corner," Dusty said. "Why do you want to drink out of a toilet?"

Valet glanced back at him, but then returned his attention to the dark bathroom.

As fresh-brewed coffee began to drip into the gla.s.s pot, the kitchen filled with a delicious aroma.

Dusty went upstairs and changed into jeans, a white shirt, and a navy-blue wool sweater.

Usually, when only the two of them were in the house, the dog followed him around, hoping for a cuddle, a treat, a play session, or merely a word of praise. This time, Valet remained downstairs.

When Dusty returned to the kitchen, the retriever was still at the door to the half bath. He came to his master's side, watched as Dusty filled a cup with the steaming java, then returned to the bathroom door.

The coffee was strong, rich, and plenty hot, but what warmth it provided was superficial. The ice in Dusty's bones didn't begin to thaw.

In fact, as he leaned against the counter and watched Valet sniffing at the gap between the bathroom door and the jamb, he was overcome by a new and separate coldness. "Something wrong in there, fluffy b.u.t.t?"

Valet looked at him and whined.

Dusty poured a second cup of coffee, but before sampling it, he went to the bathroom, nudged Valet aside, pushed the door inward, and switched on the light.

A few soiled Kleenex had been emptied out of the bra.s.s waste can, into the sink. The can itself lay on its side atop the closed lid of the toilet seat.

Someone apparently had used the waste can to smash the mirror on the medicine cabinet. Jagged shards like solidified lightning blazed across the bathroom floor.

13.

When Martie went into the restaurant to get the takeout-moo goo gai pan, Szechuan beef, snow peas and broccoli, rice, and a cold six-pack of Tsingtao-she left Susan in the car, with the engine running and the radio tuned to a station playing cla.s.sic rock. She had placed the order from her cell phone, en route, and it was ready when she arrived. In respect of the rain, the cardboard containers of food and the beer were packed in two plastic bags.

Even before Martie stepped out of the restaurant, just a few minutes later, the car-radio volume had been cranked so high that she could hear Gary U.S. Bonds belting "School Is Out," saxophones wailing.

She winced when she got into the car. The woofer diaphragms were vibrating so violently in the radio speakers that several loose coins in a change tray jingled against one another.

Left alone in a car, even though she was technically not in an open s.p.a.ce, and though she kept her head down and her eyes away from the windows, Susan could often be overwhelmed by an awareness of the vast world beyond. Sometimes loud music helped by distracting her, diminishing her ability to obsess on her fear.

The severity of her attack could be measured by how loud she needed the music to be if it were to help her. This had been a grim seizure: The radio couldn't be turned any louder.

Martie drastically reduced the volume. The driving rhythms and booming melody of "School Is Out" had completely masked the sounds of the storm. Now the drumbeat, maracas rattle, and cymbal hiss of the downpour washed over them again.

Shuddering, breathing raggedly, Susan didn't look up or speak.

Martie said nothing. Sometimes Susan had to be coached, cajoled, counseled, and occasionally even bullied out of her terror. At other times, like this, the best way to help her climb down from the top of the panic ladder was to make no reference to her condition; talking about it propelled her toward an even higher anxiety.

After she had driven a couple of blocks, Martie said, "I got some chopsticks."

"I prefer a fork, thanks."

"Chinese food doesn't taste fully Chinese when you use a fork."

"And cow milk doesn't taste fully like milk unless you squirt it directly into your mouth from the teat."

"You're probably right," Martie said.

"So I'll settle for a reasonable approximation of the authentic taste. I don't mind being a philistine as long as I'm a philistine with a fork."

By the time they parked near her house on Balboa Peninsula, Susan was sufficiently in control of herself to make the trek from the car to her third-floor apartment. Nevertheless, she leaned on Martie all the way, and the journey was grindingly difficult.

Safe in her apartment, with all the blinds and drapes tightly shut, Susan was again able to stand fully erect, with her shoulders drawn back and her head held up. Her face was not wrenched anymore. Although her green eyes remained haunted, they were no longer wild with terror.

"I'll zap the takeout containers in the microwave," Susan said, "if you'll set the table."

In the dining room, as Martie was putting a fork beside Susan's plate, her hand began to shake uncontrollably. The stainless-steel tines rattled against the china.

She dropped the fork on the place mat and stared at it with a queer dread that rapidly escalated into a repulsion so severe that she backed away from the table. The tines were wickedly pointed. She had never before realized how dangerous a simple fork might be in the wrong hands. You could tear out an eye with it. Gouge a face. Shove it into someone's neck and snare the carotid artery as though you were twisting a strand of spaghetti. You could- Overcome by a desperate need to keep her hands busy, safely safely busy, she opened one of the drawers in the breakfront, located a sixty-four-card pinochle deck used for playing a two-hand game, and took it out of the box. Standing at the dining table, as far from the fork as she could get, she shuffled the deck. At first she repeatedly fumbled, spilling cards across the table, but then her coordination improved. busy, she opened one of the drawers in the breakfront, located a sixty-four-card pinochle deck used for playing a two-hand game, and took it out of the box. Standing at the dining table, as far from the fork as she could get, she shuffled the deck. At first she repeatedly fumbled, spilling cards across the table, but then her coordination improved.

She couldn't shuffle the cards forever.

Stay busy. Safely busy. Until this strange mood pa.s.sed.

Trying to conceal her agitation, she went into the kitchen, where Susan was waiting for the microwave timer to buzz. Martie took two bottles of Tsingtao from the refrigerator.

The complex fragrances of Chinese food filled the room.

"Do you think I'm getting the authentic smell of the cuisine when I'm dressed like this?" Susan asked.

"What?"

"Or to really really smell it, maybe I should put on a cheongsam." smell it, maybe I should put on a cheongsam."

"Ho, ho," Martie said, because she was too rattled to think of a witty reply.

She almost put the two bottles of beer on the cutting board by the sink, to open them, but the mezzaluna was still there, its wicked crescent edge gleaming. Her heart hammered almost painfully hard at the sight of the knife.

Instead, she set the beers on the small kitchen table. She got two gla.s.ses from a cabinet and put them beside the beers.

Stay busy.

She searched through a drawer full of small utensils until she found a bottle opener. She plucked it from among the other items, and returned to the table.

The opener was rounded on one end, for bottles. The other end was pointed and hooked, for cans.

By the time she reached the kitchen table, the pointed end of the opener appeared to be as murderous an instrument as the fork, as the mezzaluna. She quickly put it beside the Tsingtaos before it dropped out of her trembling hand or she threw it down in horror.

"Will you open the beers?" she asked on her way out of the kitchen, leaving before Susan could see her troubled face. "I've got to use the john."

Crossing the dining room, she avoided looking at the table, on which the fork lay, tines up.

In the hallway leading off the living room, she averted her eyes from the mirrored sliding doors on the closet.

The bathroom. Another mirror.

She almost backed out into the hall. She could think of nowhere else to go to collect her wits in private, however, and she didn't want Susan to see her in this condition.

Summoning the courage to confront the mirror, she found nothing to fear. The anxiety in her face and eyes was distressing, although not as evident as she had thought it must be.

Martie quickly closed the door, lowered the lid on the toilet, and sat down. Only when her breath burst from her in a raw gasp did she realize that she'd been holding it for a long time.

14.

Upon discovering the shattered mirror in the half bath off the kitchen, Dusty first thought that a vandal or a burglar was in the house.

Valet's demeanor didn't support that suspicion. His hackles weren't raised. Indeed, the dog had been in a playful mood when Dusty first came home.

On the other hand, Valet was a love sponge, not a serious watchdog. If he had taken a liking to an intruder-as he did to ninety percent of the people he met-he would have followed the guy around, licking his larcenous hands as the family treasures were loaded into gunnysacks.

With the dog trailing after him this time, Dusty searched the house room by room, closet by closet, first the lower floor and then the upper. He found no one, no further vandalism, and nothing missing.

Dusty instructed the obedient Valet to wait in a far corner of the kitchen, to prevent him from getting slivers of gla.s.s in his paws. Then he cleaned up the mess in the half bath.

Maybe Martie would be able to explain the mirror when Dusty saw her later. It must have been an accident of some kind, which had happened just before she'd needed to leave for Susan's place. Either that, or an angry ghost had moved in with them.

They would have a lot to talk about over dinner: Skeet's would-be suicide plunge, another expedition with Susan, poltergeists...

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Doing deep-breathing exercises in Susan's bathroom, Martie decided that the problem was stress. Most likely that was the explanation for all this. She had so much on her mind, so many responsibilities.

Designing a new game based on The Lord of the Rings The Lord of the Rings was the most important and difficult job she'd ever undertaken. And it came with a series of looming deadlines that put a lot of pressure on her, perhaps more pressure than she had realized until now. was the most important and difficult job she'd ever undertaken. And it came with a series of looming deadlines that put a lot of pressure on her, perhaps more pressure than she had realized until now.

Her mother, Sabrina, and the endless antagonism toward Dusty: That stress had been with her a long time, too.

And last year, she'd had to watch her beloved father succ.u.mb to cancer. The last three months of his life had been a relentless, gruesome decline, which he had endured with his customary good humor, refusing to acknowledge any of the pains or the indignities of his condition. His soft laughter and his charm had, in those final days, failed to buoy her as they usually did; instead, his ready smile had pierced her heart each time she saw it, and though from those wounds she had lost no blood, a little of her lifelong optimism had bled away and had not yet been entirely replenished.

Susan, of course, was a source of more than a little stress. Love was a sacred garment, woven of a fabric so thin that it could not be seen, yet so strong that even mighty death could not tear it, a garment that could not be frayed by use, that brought warmth into what would otherwise be an intolerably cold world-but at times love could also be as heavy as chain mail. Bearing the burden of love, on those occasions when it was a solemn weight, made it more precious when, in better times, it caught the wind in sleeves like wings-and lifted you. In spite of the stress of these twice-weekly outings, she could no more walk away from Susan Jagger than she could have turned her back on her dying father, on her difficult mother, or on Dusty.

She would go out to the dining room, eat Chinese food, drink a bottle of beer, play pinochle, and pretend that she was not full of strange forebodings.

When she got home, she'd call Dr. Closterman, her internist, and make an appointment for a physical examination, just in case her self-diagnosis of stress was incorrect. She felt physically fit, but so had Smilin' Bob just before the sudden onset of a curious little pain that had signaled terminal illness.

Crazy as it sounded, she was still suspicious of that unusually sour grapefruit juice. She'd been drinking it most mornings lately, instead of orange juice, because of the lower calorie count. Maybe that explained the dream about the Leaf Man, too: the raging figure formed of dead, rotting leaves. Perhaps she would give a sample of the juice to Dr. Closterman to have it tested.

Finally she washed her hands and confronted the mirror again. She thought that she appeared pa.s.sably sane. Regardless of how she looked, however, she still felt felt like a hopeless nutcase. like a hopeless nutcase.

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After Dusty finished sweeping up the broken mirror, he gave Valet a special treat for being a good boy and staying out of the way: a few pieces of roasted chicken breast left over from dinner the previous night. The retriever took each bit of meat from his master's hand with a delicacy almost equal to that of a hummingbird sipping sugar water from a garden feeder, and when it was all gone, he gazed up at Dusty with an adoration that could not have been much less than the love with which the angels regard G.o.d.

"And you are an angel, all right," Dusty said, as he gently scratched under Valet's chin. "A furry angel. And with ears that big, you don't need wings."

He decided to take the dog with him to Skeet's apartment and then to New Life. Although no intruder was in the house, Dusty didn't feel comfortable leaving the pooch here alone, until he knew what had happened to the mirror.

"Man, if I'm this overprotective with you," he said to Valet, "can you imagine how impossible I'm going to be with kids?"

The dog grinned as though he liked the idea of kids. And as if he understood that he was to ride shotgun on this trip, he went to the connecting door between the kitchen and the garage, where he stood patiently fanning the air with his plumed tail.

As Dusty was pulling on a hooded nylon jacket, the telephone rang. He answered it.

When he hung up, he said, "Trying to sell me a subscription to the L.A. Times Times," as though the dog needed to know who had called.

Valet was no longer standing at the door to the garage. He was lying in front of it, half settled into a nap, as though Dusty had been on the phone ten minutes rather than thirty seconds.

Frowning, Dusty said, "You had a shot of chicken protein, golden one. Let's see some vigor."

With a long-suffering sigh, Valet stood.

In the garage, as he buckled the collar around the dog's neck and snapped a leash to it, Dusty said, "Last thing I need is a daily newspaper. Do you know what newspapers are full of, golden one?"