The Night Church Part 11

"I've got to remember!"

What?

It was gone. He was left with the horrible feeling that he had let some vital piece of information slip through the cracks in his mind. Another unreported side effect of 6-6-6. Those idiots at CalTech were going to get a h.e.l.l of an angry letter. Ought to sue the jerks. He hitched up his pants slammed the refrigerator and locked it, kicked the bits of broken computer under a table, and staggered out of the lab As he went down the corridor and emerged into the sunlight he began to feel a little better, although the smell of hot dogs from a streetcorner vendor brought renewed nau-sea.

Of course it had been an hallucination. There was no question about that. The snake was such an obvious uncon-scious symbol, exactly the sort of thing one might see on a bad trip. There hadn't been proper testing of 6-6-6; that was the long and short of it.

Everything that had happened, from the moment he took the drug, could be discounted.

He wanted to drink, to laugh in the sun just for an afternoon, to somehow forget the insane horror he had jus experienced. Too bad it was clouding over. The best antidote would be the pleasure of a sunny day.

A very sunny day.

Chapter Seven.

JONATHAN LAY IN his bed at home, his mind a jumble of confused and revolting images. So much for 6-6-6. It was a bad-trip express which had not gotten him much closer to resolving the question that tormented him.

He tossed, closed his eyes. Despite his efforts the old man still warned him, the serpent still sent shuddering waves of nausea through the depths of his stomach. There was also a confused jumble of thoughts-stakes, fires, Satanic plans .. . but he had lost the thread.

At last he accepted the fact that he was going to stay awake; in his present state there was no chance that he would find the relief of unconsciousness. Just as he was deciding to get up, his mother came in. He did not open his eyes. Quietly she sat down beside him and took his head in her lap, as she had done when he was a boy.

From time to time she would say his name, all the while stroking his forehead with her cool hand. Through slitted eyes he watched her. How sad she seemed, her eyes gazing at him with such softness in them.

Never before had she seemed so mysterious, or so beautiful, or so full of love.

Her eyes were green. As were the old man's. As were Patricia's. And his own.

A species apart...

It came as a surprise to realize that she had soothed him after all, and he had slept for some little time.

He sat up, startled by his return to a consciousness he did not know he had left. Where there had been memories in his mind there was now darkness . . . and a watchful snake.

"What time is it?"

"Eleven thirty."

She ran her fingers through his hair. "I would have gotten you up if there had been any change. She's still in the coma."

The cold word "coma" sighed in his mind. "Is she-"

"She'll come around this afternoon sometime. She's badly injured, darling, but she's going to be all right."

"Mother, I fell in love with her. I fell in love last night."

"She's a wonderful person."

"She's an angel." The image of that still body in its olive-drab intensive care blankets came into his mind.

He would not cry, but inside himself he knew there were tears.

And deeper, where the serpent had its lair, what emotions did he feel there? He dared not find out, and turned his mind away. Better to cling to the surface.

"You know how you feel sometimes when you meet somebody who really fits-like you've always known them? That's how we felt. When I held her in my arms, Mother-" He could not continue. The thought of that warm, vital body was so moving and his grief so great that he was forced to lapse into silence.

Martin t.i.tus had taught his son not to weep, but Jonathan knew that his mother understood what was in him. She had been only eighteen when he was born, and her relative youth increased the element of companionship. She was a beautiful woman. Her forty-one was a reasonable facsimile of thirty. "Did Mike make it hard for you?"

"You have the wrong idea, Mother. Mike is good to me."

"I suppose I ought to love him for that. But I just can't, poor man."

She was always saying things like that, and justifying her marriage as having some higher purpose.

"You didn't have to marry him."

"Oh, Jonathan, let's not go over that again. I'm trying to make the best of it. Let it go at that."

"Okay, Mother. I just wish you were happier. I don't appreciate being the cause of your martyrdom-especially because you won't tell me why you did it. I like Mike, he's a good man, but if you hadn't brought him into my life I wouldn't even know him." He got up and turned on WNEW-FM. Clash was deep in the purple rhythm of anger. He lowered the volume until it became a sullen, muttering undertone.

"Darling, I wish I could tell you. Maybe some day soon I'll be able to. But for now let's just drop the subject."

"You keep too much from me, Mother. I'm beginning to get an idea that what you're really hiding from me is my past."

"What is there to hide?"

"Whatever is the matter with me. What did you do-send me to some kind of a quack hypnotherapist?Let me ask you a frank question. Are we buried out here in Queens because of something I did in the past-like maybe raping a girl, or killing her?" His voice had risen. "Who were were our friends in Manhattan, before Dad was killed? I don't even know. I can't remember." our friends in Manhattan, before Dad was killed? I don't even know. I can't remember."

"Jonathan, be patient with me. Just a little while longer-"

Almost before he realized it his hand had lashed out and caught her on the cheek. "Stop feeding me that line of bulls.h.i.t! I want to know now!" now!"

His mother turned away, her cheek reddening. There was a long silence. She did not turn back to him.

"Perhaps we can go over to the hospital together," she said, too briskly. "I think it would be nice for us both to be there when she comes around."

"I'm sorry, Mother. Please forgive me."

"Hush, son. You're upset. Overwrought. There's nothing to forgive, okay? Just to forget." She smiled, her hand came out and touched his temple. "Get your clothes on and we'll go." Jonathan went into the bathroom and applied his Norelco to his face until the shadow was gone. Then he opened the aftershave, splashed some on, and combed his hair. He returned to his room and started to pull on some briefs. His mother stopped him with a gesture, then looked long at his naked body. "There's nothing you're not telling me, is there? Everything went all right with Mike, didn't it?"

"What're you inspecting me for, signs of a beating? He cleared me, at least superficially. Mother, I don't think you have even the foggiest idea about me and Mike. We love each other. Somehow or other it worked out between us. He's my friend, and I think of him as my father."

He dressed in the clothes his mother handed him from his closet. She got his brush and rebrushed his hair. "You're so handsome, Jonathan." She hugged him, throwing her arms around his chest and pressing her cheek against it. "I can't believe I have a big six-footer like you. Your dad's family is small." She fell silent for a moment. "Thump-b.u.mp, thump-b.u.mp-I hear your heart."

He kissed the top of her head and they went down to her car together. She had gotten the blue Audi out of Mike by simply going over to Bavaria Motors and buying it with a check. Mike had juggled his MasterCard credit lines like crazy, but when the check arrived at the bank the money was there. "She looks like a million dollars in that thing," Mike often said.

Her whole relationship with Mike was like that-she didn't so much make demands as present him with faits accomplis. faits accomplis.

"Car running well, Mother?"

"I love it."

To get to the Poly they had to pa.s.s Patricia's building on Metropolitan Avenue. Jonathan stared at the tachometer rather than look out at it.

When he saw Queens Poly again, in the light of the summer afternoon, he knew he would hate it for the rest of his life. But then, as they rounded the corner, he counted up five rows of windows, then across six.

That was her room. And somehow that particular window looked beautiful. "Let's stop for some flowers,"he said. "There's a shop in the lobby."

They got sixteen dollars' worth of gardenias on Mary's theory that she would still be able to smell them even if all the tubes prevented her from moving her head enough to look at them. "Are you nervous, Jonathan?"

"I suppose so."

"I am too. But I know it's nothing compared to what you're going through. I'm very, very sorry for you both. I want you to know that."

"It's crazy to be so attached to somebody you just met, but-"

"She's special. That's why I got you two together in the first place."

"I suppose it's inevitable that I would love someone you picked out for me."

They went up in an elevator that was, if possible, even more crowded than the one Jonathan had used that morning. The fifth floor bustled with activity. Like a voice of doom an operator kept droning, "Airway team, airway team, airway team, entrance Twenty-two-B. Airway team, airway team, airway team . . ."

Presumably there was somebody at entrance 22B, wherever that was, suffocating.

This time it was possible to enter her room. They went side by side down the white corridor, past a window where a man lay with tubes emanating from his belly, past another where groans rose from behind the drawn curtain, until finally they reached Patricia.

She was lying as still as Snow White beneath her plastic shroud. Other flowers, long-stemmed red roses, stood in a water pitcher on the bedside table. The card was from Mike. "Does he know her, Mother?"

"No. He must have sent them because of you."

Jonathan hardly heard her. Patricia lay as still and pure as the Madonna herself. Three tubes came out of her nose, crossed her ivory cheeks, and wound around into three humming machines. Intravenous needles pierced both her forearms. Her hands rested at her sides. Jonathan knelt beside her bed in a state of sorrow that was also a state of love. He took her right hand in his and very gently kissed it.

The machines hummed. The air conditioning hissed. From the hallway chimes sounded. A tray of implements was rattled past by an orderly. Far off somebody cried out once sharply, and then fell silent.

Jonathan reached his hand in under the oxygen tent and touched her hair. It was matted with sweat, and her head was very warm. "My love," he whispered. "Please, G.o.d, help my love." He noticed that the smell of Mike's roses blended nicely with his gardenias.

There was a sound from Patricia's throat. Mary drew close to Jonathan. "Your hand. She feels your touch. She's going to come to."

"Patricia, it's me, Jonathan."

She made a guttural, inhuman sound, nothing like the melody of her voice. Then her eyes opened. She looked straight ahead for a long time. She was absolutely motion-less.

"Patricia?"

Mary put her arm around Jonathan's shoulder. "It's us, darling, Mary and Jonathan Banion."

"John-Jonathan?"

"Hi, darling. I love you."

There was the slightest incline of her head. "Why am I here?"

"Something happened," Mary said. "There was an acci-dent, but you'll be all right. You'll be fine."

"Oh-h-h, I hurt! I hurt!" hurt!" Her voice was strident; now she frowned; now her eyes darted about wildly. Her voice was strident; now she frowned; now her eyes darted about wildly.

"Why can't I feel my legs? Did I-"

"No, no, darling, nothing like that. You just got hurt, but you're going to be back to normal soon. It wasn't that bad."

She closed her eyes. Tears popped out from beneath the lids. "Was I raped?"

"Yes, honey, that's what happened."

She nodded. Silence fell.

"h.e.l.lo, folks, how's our patient?"

Mary whirled around. "Mike!" He was standing there in his rumpled brown suit. Beside him was a natty man of perhaps thirty-five.

"This is Lieutenant Maxwell of the s.e.x Crimes Unit. He's going to be questioning Patricia."

Mary glared at the two men.

"Do you want us to leave, Dad?"

"It might be best. In cases like this they usually concen-trate better when they're alone."

Jonathan withdrew his hand from Patricia's. "Jonathan!" Her voice was sharp, almost commanding.

When she lifted her fingers he understood and again took her hand.

"I'm here, honey."

"Stay!"

"I won't leave unless you want me to."

Mike leaned into her field of vision. "We have some police questions to ask you, sweetie. It's better if you let Jonathan go for just five minutes-"

"No!"

Mary spoke. "What does it matter, Mike? Jonathan told me about the polygraph."