Nocturnal Part 27

Kay came back on the line. "...need to interview, but don't worry. I'm going to put in a good word for you with Edelstein."

I pressed the phone harder against my ear. "Hold on, we got cut off. What were you talking about?"

"The staff position."

"What staff position?"

"You didn't hear me? I said that Dr. Carlyle is retiring next year and there's going to be an opening in the department. I'm going to recommend you as his replacement."

I knew Kay favored me, it was why I was chief resident, but I had never imagined staying at Pacific University Hospital for my whole career. Positions came up so infrequently that almost no one who graduated from the program continued on. Most had to leave San Francisco to find work. I was immensely flattered, so I tamped down the secondary feeling of anxiety that fluttered up from my stomach into my throat.

"I don't know what to say. I'm honored."

"Say thank you, and make an appointment with my secretary for an interview with the committee."

"Thank you, I'll do that. And did you say you would take Derek Fielding's case?"

"Yes, I'll take him, but no more favors, Mags. You may be my heir apparent, but I'm not the f.u.c.king Genie of the Lamp."

I couldn't think of anything I'd ever asked him for before, but I certainly wasn't going to contradict him. Doctors like Kay-in practice for years, at the top of their profession-weren't average human beings anymore. They were icons, high priests whose every p.r.o.nouncement was accepted as gospel. Some of them handled this responsibility with humility and intelligence. Some of them believed the hype.

"Thanks, Dr. Kay."

The line crackled again and went dead.

"What do you mean he didn't show up?" I crossed the nursing station to peer into Derek's chart.

Wanda gazed at me over her shoulder, her plump, wrinkled face managing to be impa.s.sive and scornful at the same time. "I mean he didn't show up for his appointment with Dr. Kay. It happens, Dr. Dillon."

For the rest of Derek's seventy-two-hour hold I'd kept my distance, allowing only the occasional glance through the window of his hospital room to a.s.sure myself that he was all right. And every time I looked at him the same things happened: My heart lurched in my chest, my palms got sweaty, and I felt like a seventh grader suffering through her first crush. I also felt frightened. All reasons to keep away from him, but still my hand reached out for Derek's chart. Wanda happily handed it over.

I scanned the notes, written in several different hands. "Did a social worker visit him?"

"He's on the schedule, but you know how overbooked they are. But this guy's got parents, a support system. He'll be all right." Wanda snapped open another folder and turned away, clearly finished with our discussion.

I committed Neil Fielding's cell number to my short-term memory and found an empty consultation room where I could make a private phone call. He answered after the second ring.

"Hi, this is Dr. Dillon, from Pacific University Hospital. I'm calling to follow up on Derek."

"Oh, thank goodness you called. I was worried no one was going to call me back."

My stomach seized up at the anxiety in his voice. "What happened?"

"Derek insisted that we take him back to the castle when he was released. He opened the door, turned around, and told us to go home. He said he'd be in touch when he was done."

"Done with what?"

"I have no idea. But he won't answer the phone now. We drove over there and he didn't answer the door either. I'm worried about him, Dr. Dillon."

"Did you call the police? He was on suicide watch; they should be notified."

"I did. They sent a patrol car out. He talked to them. They told me he seemed stable and that was all they could do."

"Did you talk to Dr. Kay?"

Neil sighed. "He said to call the police."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do."

After I hung up the phone I sat for a few minutes, twisting my hair. When my mother "took sick," as the family called her depression, at first we had either ignored it or made cra.s.s attempts to cheer her up. She had always been p.r.o.ne to moodiness, and this just seemed a particularly bad patch. But when she stopped eating and then stopped getting out of bed, our father and a.s.sorted relatives all began to try to help. Mama was in and out of the hospital for months. Then came the terrible day I arrived home from school and found Eva on the front steps, crying like her world had broken in half, which of course it had.

I think my sister Eva and I both went into our chosen professions because of Mama. We were too late to help her, but we thought maybe we could help others so that their families wouldn't have to suffer like ours. Although we approached it from entirely different angles, we shared the same purpose, to ease the mental suffering of our fellow human beings.

That was all I was doing, I told myself. Just helping a fellow human being who was suffering. The fact that this particular human had a voice so beautiful it seemed capable of shifting time and s.p.a.ce, and that he was so attractive he was causing fantasies that felt as real as anything in my current life, well, these were just feelings, easily managed with a strong dose of reason. And I was only being reasonable when my shift ended and I took a minute to apply mascara and lipstick and brush out my hair before I pointed my Honda Civic toward the address in Pacifica that had been noted in Derek's chart.

Chapter 3.

The ma.s.sive wooden door was covered with iron buckles and b.u.t.tons, but none of them appeared to be a knocker or a doorbell. Finally I found a b.u.t.ton, not on the door itself, but tucked into the mortar between two stones. After pushing it I stepped back and took in a full view of the castle. It was one of the most forbidding places I'd ever seen. Three stories of rough stones set in mortar, topped by towers and crenellations that wouldn't have looked out of place on top of a German or Irish mountain. There were no windows, except for the narrow arrow slits in the towers. There was no moat, but a high stone wall surrounded a yard filled with dead trees and shrubbery. Set in the center of a neighborhood of 1950s ranch-style houses, the place couldn't have been more incongruous.

The door opened with a long, resistant creak. My heart pounded at the sight of Derek Fielding. He was still as attractive as before, but he looked exhausted to the point of dropping. I wondered how long it had been since he'd had a decent night's sleep. He held the door open, but looked past me down the path, as if checking to make sure I'd come alone.

"Dr. Dillon," he said. "This is a surprise." He met my eyes and gave me a tentative smile. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You never followed up with Dr. Kay."

He raised his eyebrows. "Do you make house calls for all your patients?"

I smiled through my nervousness. "Only the ones who can sing."

He stood still, staring at me with a strange look on his face.

"Can I come in?"

"Well, I...," He looked back into the house.

"Oh, do you have company?" I'd never thought about whether he had a girlfriend, but surely someone as handsome as him would have one. I stepped back from the doorstep.

He laughed, just a tiny bit. "You might say that. But not the kind you're thinking of." He opened the door wider. "Please come in."

I stepped inside and touched his arm, trying to ignore the tingle I felt when my hand contacted his silken skin. "Your parents are worried about you."

Before I could move my hand he laid his own on top of it. "And you? Are you worried, Dr. Dillon?"

"I'm not your doctor anymore, so please call me Maggie. And yes, I was worried. That's why I'm here."

I followed him through the dim, oak-paneled foyer to a cavernous rectangular room, mostly empty. It bore a striking resemblance to the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Arched windows on the ocean side were reflected in arched mirrors on the opposite wall. The coved ceiling was adorned with paintings, crisscrossed with gold molding, culminating in busts of maidens at the corners. Crystal chandeliers hung at three-foot intervals. It was a rococo monstrosity, built by a person with more money than taste.

An oil painting hung over the gilt and marble fireplace. Although it was in a seventeenth-century style gilt frame, the subject was a man from the early twentieth century. He wore a suit and a thin red tie, and had slicked-back dark hair, heavy brows, and a broad, bulbous nose. But he was handsome, and the smile on his face was wide and jovial. The painting had a generic quality, like the photos that are already in a frame when you buy it: a happy couple, a kid with a dog.

"Is that the guy who built the house?" I asked.

"Yeah, but he doesn't really look like that."

I thought of asking how Derek knew that, but then decided to let it go for now.

The only things that obviously belonged to Derek were three guitars, hanging in racks next to a dais. On the dais was an oversized gilt and velvet chair. From its height the sitter could view the city of Pacifica and the ocean that gave it its name, both on the ocean side and multiplied hundreds of times in the mirrors.

I walked over to the guitars. "Which one is your favorite?" I asked.

His eyes lit up. "That one in the middle. It's a 1954 Gibson Les Paul." He pointed to an electric guitar with a fin on the side and four gold b.u.t.tons. The varnish on it was metallic gold, but darkened and burnished with age to a deep honey color.

"Will you play something for me?" I asked.

When he put the strap over his shoulder I noticed his guitar was singed under the strings and gave off a faint smell of melted glue. I remembered the fire in Derek's studio and wondered what else had been damaged or destroyed.

Derek perched on the edge of the dais and plugged the guitar into an amp. He stretched his fingers across the strings, wincing as the tendons in his wrists put tension on his st.i.tches. I started to tell him that he didn't need to play, but then he began and I forgot everything but the music.

He played a blues tune, something so heartfelt and resonant that it brought tears to my eyes. His face was even more beautiful when he played. I sat down on the floor near him, closed my eyes, and let the music wash over me. He finished one song and moved seamlessly into another.

But then something started to go wrong. He played a sour note, recovered, and then faltered again. More wrong notes dropped in, discordant and painful to the ear. His expression turned from joy to confusion to dismay. Finally he stopped. His head dropped until his forehead touched the guitar.

"What happened?" I asked.

Derek lifted his head. Fear seized my body, turning my guts to liquid. He began to change before my eyes, all the features slowly sifting, as if his face was made of sand instead of flesh. His eyebrows drifted low onto a ridged Neanderthal forehead. His eyes darkened by several shades. He smiled, but the expression was sardonic and malevolent. I squeezed my eyes shut, but when I opened them again, the changes were still happening.

"I don't know how to play the guitar." Derek's breath was fogging up, as if he'd walked outside into a cold day. The puff of vaporized breath continued to grow, turning into a white mist that wreathed his head. I shivered from the sudden chill in the air.

It was almost unbearable to look at him, but I forced myself to keep my eyes steady, my face calm. "What's your name?" I asked.

He threw his head back and laughed. His movements were jerky and stiff, while Derek's were smooth and graceful.

"I'm a figment of his imagination, is that what you believe? Hah! I'm as real as you are, girly. You think the drugs you gave him will drive me away? Derek could be as doped up as a shanghaied sailor and I'd still be here. It's only a matter of time. Every time I take him over it's harder for him to come back. Eventually he just won't." He looked down at the guitar in his lap.

"I think while I'm here..." He stood up, grabbed the guitar by the neck and swung it over his shoulder like a giant hammer.

"No!" I ran over and grabbed the guitar, just as it began its downward arc.

We struggled. The guitar was pulled out of my hands. Again, he lifted it high and swung it toward the floor. I closed my eyes and held out my arms, bracing for the pain that was coming.

Nothing happened. I looked up to see Derek cradling the Gibson like a baby. Tears ran down his face as he placed it gently in the stand. As quickly as it had come on, the episode that Derek had just experienced was over.

"Derek?" I reached for him, but grabbed air instead.

"No! I'll kill you first. I'll kill both of us if I have to!" Derek was running for the fireplace. He leaped and grabbed the painting off the wall.

A hoa.r.s.e, wordless cry came from deep inside his body as he smashed his heavy boot into Edgar's face. Over and over he pounded the painting. When the ornate gilt frame split into pieces he picked one up and used it to tear the canvas and break up the stretchers and remaining pieces of frame. I stood nearby, helpless in the face of his hysteria.

All at once Derek stopped kicking the painting. "Do you hear that?" he cried out. "He's laughing at me."

He pressed his palms against his ears. "Stop it!" he screamed.

I gasped as bright red blood seeped through the bandages on his wrists. "Derek, you've got to stop." I grabbed his hands and pressed them down gently but firmly. He finally looked at me, his eyes wild and desperate.

"Maggie, help me. Oh, G.o.d, help me." He collapsed onto my shoulder. I held him tightly while his body shuddered helplessly.

"Derek," I spoke quietly into his ear, "you've got to go see Dr. Kay."

He moved his head back so he could look at me. His expression was bitter and sad. "You don't believe me. You don't believe this is real."

I stroked his arm. "Of course it's real."

He moved quickly out of my reach, his arms crossed protectively over his chest. "Don't twist my words. You know what I mean."

I looked away so I didn't have to meet his piercing gaze. "I know what you mean."

He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. His breath smelled of cigarettes, which was odd, since I hadn't seen him smoke. "So, is it real or isn't it? Because if you just think I'm crazy then we have nothing more to say to each other."

He held my chin, lightly but firmly. I would have given anything at that moment not to have to answer him.

"It's real, Derek, it's as real as anything I've seen. If you want to get into some existential philosophy about what reality is, that's up to you. What's important is that I believe, just like you do, that this thing will kill you."

He let go of my chin and dropped his forehead to my shoulder.

"I'll go see Dr. Kay," he said.

I stroked his hair and then cupped the back of his head in my hand. His breath smelled of cigarettes, but his hair smelled like a hippie commune-sandalwood and warm spices, like cloves and cinnamon. I took a long whiff and let my lips rest against his smooth neck, just for a moment.

I lay sprawled on the couch in the tidy, some might say spa.r.s.e, living room of my flat above a veterinary hospital on Seventh Avenue. I'd come home at eight p.m. after a nonstop shift where everything was moving so fast it started to seem slow. It was almost to the full moon, and although none of us would admit it to anyone outside of the profession, that's when the crazies came out. I'd taken a shower and put on my favorite pajamas, made of T-shirt material with cats on them. I climbed into bed but sleep wouldn't come, so now I was staring at the TV.

My mind kept drifting back to Derek Fielding, as it had more or less every twenty minutes since I'd left him the day before. Even the half-naked man who came in screaming that aliens had stolen his invention (an artificial bladder) out of his backpack couldn't keep my thoughts from eventually circling back to Derek. I'd told him to call me if it was an emergency, but otherwise to make an appointment with Dr. Kay for today and I'd see him tomorrow, which was my day off.

My favorite hospital drama was on TiVo, but I'd had to replay the same scene three times. It was a scene where my favorite dreamy doctor was making love to his current intern during an earthquake. If I couldn't concentrate on that, I couldn't concentrate on anything. I clicked the TV off and went to the kitchen for a snack. My refrigerator contained only beer, mustard, pickles, and a half-full container of cake frosting, which I ate with a spoon after particularly difficult shifts at the hospital. I chose alcohol instead of sugar and popped the cap off a beer as I walked to my bedroom. My dirty clothes lay in piles as high as a Maine snowdrift. If I couldn't sleep or watch TV I could at least get a load of laundry started.

With my arms full of clothes, I stopped in front of the long staircase down to my front door. Someone was tapping insistently on the gla.s.s. I went downstairs and pulled the curtain, only to meet the wide, dark eyes of Derek Fielding. I opened the door a crack.