The Dark Page 10

  “All right. All right. I’ll check it out,” he said. He started to get up and reach for his robe.

  “No. Don’t go out there,” she said, grasping his arm firmly. “That’s exactly how people get hurt. I’m going to call the police.”

  He flopped back on the settee.

  “And what are you going to tell them, Mag? Someone was spying on us while we were making love? And it might be one of my patients?”

  “No, I won’t tell them that, but I’ll tell them someone’s looking in our windows. They’ll keep an eye on our house,” she explained. “Grant?”

  “Okay,” he said. “Maybe that’s not a bad idea.”

  She went to the phone. Grant went into the bathroom as she described the problem.

  “They promised a patrol car immediately,” she said when he emerged. They both gazed out the window.

  “I don’t see anything now,” he whispered.

  “Maybe he’s hiding.”

  “Maybe it’s all our overworked imaginations.”

  “People don’t imagine the same thing at the exact same time, do they, Grant? Well, do they?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and sat.

  She remained at the window, watching and waiting.

  “They’re here,” she said, seeing the patrol car turning its searchlight on the area. Moments later, the phone rang. It was the police. They called to tell her no one was found, but they would keep an eye on the house. She thanked them and reported it to Grant.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go to sleep. I’m exhausted.”

  “I don’t know if I can fall asleep.”

  “Take a pill,” he suggested, and went to the bedroom. She lingered a while by the window with the lights off behind her, watching, waiting, wondering. By the time she went to bed, Grant was already asleep.

  She took one more look out the window. There was no one there, but she was positive she had seen someone. He looked to be about as tall as Grant, but there wasn’t much else she could discern. All of this made her feel she and Grant were descending into some maelstrom that was sweeping them into a world of madness.

  Lydia Flemming, a woman no one would ever dream could become so violent as to shoot and kill her psychiatrist husband Henry, did so. One of Henry’s strangest patients seeks out Grant and claims to have influenced people to do evil things. Grant starts behaving weird and her preliminary investigation of the people Bois was supposed to influence reveals very strange and very credible possibilities. Grant described Bois appearing out of nowhere, perhaps developing a fixation for him. Now someone who could be Bois was watching their house. Paranoia or justifiable fear and caution?

  In the morning she would call Jack Landry and have him do more. As long as Grant didn’t know what she was doing, the only harm was to her pocketbook, and right now that seemed the least of all her problems.

  9

  Grant burst into his run more as would a sprinter than a jogger. Maggie had appeared to still be in a deep sleep when he woke this morning, and she didn’t stir when he leaned over to kiss her shoulder. When he kissed her neck, she groaned with complaint.

  “I’m so tired,” she had muttered, and turned away from him. He shrugged, rose quietly, and got into his sweat suit. He got himself a glass of juice and then returned and peeked into the bedroom. Maggie hadn’t moved a muscle. He had smiled to himself, imagining he was an exhausting lover.

  It was heavily overcast at the beach and he thought it might actually rain before he finished, but he had run in the rain before, and he was determined, driven, to do a full-throttle jog today. He had woken with a knot of energy in his chest unlike anything he had experienced. He felt powerful, energized. Like a wonderfully conditioned racehorse, he fell into an easy rhythm, every part of his body coming to full life, the blood pumping rich and easy, his muscles extending, his lungs nowhere near straining.

  As he moved over the beach, he saw two figures a good thousand yards ahead of him. The one on the left was clearly female. Drawing closer and closer because he was running faster than them, he soon realized the one on the left was Deirdre Leyland. He slowed down, debated turning and running in the opposite direction, but the man running with her slowed down, too, and she pulled ahead and away from him. The man fell into a quick walk back toward Grant and then he stopped and sat on a bench. Grant maintained his pace, but as he drew closer, he slowed even more. The man on the bench was Jules Bois.

  He was smiling up at him.

  “Good morning, Doctor.”

  Grant paused.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Bois?”

  “Now that I’ve joined a gym, I thought I’d try this jogging business. If I want to live in Southern California, I guess I’m going to have to become an exercise fanatic. Otherwise I’ll feel like an outsider,” he said smiling. “Actually,” he said, gazing down the beach at the receding figure of Deirdre Leyland, “Mrs. Leyland talked me into it. You know Mrs. Leyland. She can talk any man into almost anything,” Bois said, his eyes glittering.

  Grant felt the heat rise from his chest and into his neck and face.

  “How do you know Mrs. Leyland?” Grant asked.

  “Oh, let’s just say we have a mutual acquaintance. Why don’t you sit and rest a moment, Doctor?”

  “I have to complete my run,” Grant said.

  “Okay. If you don’t mind, I’ll run along with you,” Bois said, and stood up.

  Grant started away, deliberately running faster than he had planned. But to Grant’s surprise, Bois easily kept up.

  “Invigorating,” he said. “I never realized how reassuring exercise could be.”

  “Reassuring?”

  “It’s good to feel healthy, alive, strong. Gives one confidence, self-esteem, eh, Doctor? Not to mention the therapeutic value as a treatment for depression, tension.”

  “You continually surprise me with your knowledge, Mr. Bois. I know you said you have a law degree. What other intellectual experiences have you pursued?”

  “If one is to practice law, in this country especially, he or she had better be a student, ready at a moment’s notice to become somewhat expert in almost anything. There isn’t any subject I haven’t investigated one time or another, I suppose, even psychiatry.”

  They ran side by side, stride for stride, almost breathing simultaneously, their arms swinging out in similar rhythm, their heads so perfectly aligned that anyone looking at them from the side might very well not realize there were two of them. It was as if Bois were absorbing Grant into him or vice versa.

  Deirdre Leyland was gone from their view, having turned into another parking lot and disappeared.

  “You’re either in good shape for someone who doesn’t do much exercise or I’m not in as good condition as I had thought,” Grant said, glancing at Jules Bois, who appeared to have no difficulties with his breathing or his muscles.

  Bois laughed.

  “I have this uncanny ability to take on the personae of people I get to know,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  Bois laughed.

  “Occasionally—actually, nearly always—I imagine myself to be the people I influence. I take on their personae. I see myself acting out the very crimes I’ve encouraged them to commit.

  “I was there with Clarence Dunbar, wielding that hammer, striking his wife repeatedly on her skull until I felt it crumble like an overripe melon.

  “I overdosed Mrs. Mosley’s nitro and watched her gasp and struggle for precious breath.”

  He smiled.

  “I even seduced Deirdre Leyland in your office,” he added.

  Grant slowed his pace.

  “Now, now, Doctor, no worries. I’m not a gossip.”

  “Mrs. Leyland has problems with reality,” Grant said. “She fantasizes.”

  “Don’t we all. Please, Doctor. Don’t become defensive. I’m not trying to blackmail you. Just like you, I never make anyone do anything he or she doesn’t really want to do. That’s the beauty o
f it,” Bois said, smiling.

  Grant picked up the pace again and so did Bois.

  “When you are these people in your fantasy, how do you feel after the act has been committed?” Grant asked.

  “If you mean do I feel remorse, the answer is no. I feel replenished. I don’t wither; I don’t moan and groan, break out into a sweat and feel my heart pounding. I feel resplendent. My skin is so hot I appear sunburned. My eyes are dazzling. The muscles in my body are full, vibrant. I’m gigantic. I think this is what interested Doctor Flemming so much and why he made me the subject of his new work.”

  Bois looked at him.

  “Isn’t that like you’ve felt when you’ve succeeded with a patient?”

  “Forget how I feel. When you first came to see me, you claimed ambiguity. Something else must follow these vicarious experiences,” Grant suggested.

  “Yes, it does,” Bois replied unhappily. “I crash like a drug addict and go into a depression, which is revived only if I find another victim. And, like a drug addict, it seems to take more and more to satisfy me these days. That was one of the reasons I went into analysis,” Bois confessed.

  “With Henry Flemming?”

  “Oh, even before Henry.”

  “Was he making progress with you?”

  “That’s something only Henry could answer. Unfortunately. I can’t be the judge of it, can I?”

  Grant slowed.

  “I’ve got to turn back,” he said.

  “Fine. Turn back,” Bois replied, and followed him around.

  “You don’t mind if I keep talking while we jog, do you, Doctor? It’s almost like getting a free session.”

  “I don’t mind.” Grant gazed at him. Bois didn’t even appear to be sweating. “I’m just amazed at your physical condition.”

  “That’s nothing,” Bois said, waving it off like a bothersome fly. “Getting back to my fantasies and dreams, Doctor . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I can actually feel my body metamorphose sometimes,” he said, holding up his hands as he ran. “These fingers become the fingers of a woman, old, young, breasts emerge in my chest, my facial features soften, and my penis falls off. I see myself poisoning my lover or my husband, cutting their throats, blowing their heads off with a high-caliber pistol, pushing them out of high-story windows . . . whatever.”

  “Doesn’t that frighten you?” Grant asked, more out of fascination than psychiatric interest.

  “It did in the beginning, but it doesn’t anymore. Now it’s just . . . my nature,” Bois said. “After the act is committed, my body returns to whatever state it had been in before.”

  “What do you mean, whatever state it had been in before?”

  “Just that,” Bois said, smiling. “If I was young when it happened, I was young again. Remember, Doctor, I’ve been doing this a long, long time.”

  “And still are,” Grant said.

  “And still are.”

  Grant slowed down because of a sharp pain in his side. Without realizing it, Grant had let Bois set the pace and the pace was nearly twice his usual.

  “How about a five-minute rest here?” Bois suggested when they reached a bench. Grant nodded and they stopped.

  “It threatens to rain; yes, it threatens to rain, but it doesn’t. The heavens tease us,” Bois said, gazing up. Grant took deep breaths and closed his eyes for a moment.

  “You all right, Doctor?”

  “Yeah. Just a little winded.”

  “If you would do what I do, Doctor, you would never be winded, you would never be tired. You would never be depressed again. It’s like being on a constant high. I think Doctor Flemming was coming to that conclusion.”

  Grant opened his eyes and gazed at Bois.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I’m going to give you the pages soon. I think you’re nearly ready for them,” Bois said.

  “Ready for them? For what? I thought you didn’t want me to see Flemming’s notes.”

  “This is different. It’s the book Doctor Flemming and I had begun. At a point where you can appreciate me more, you’ll learn more.”

  Who is the one in control here, Grant wondered, me or my patient?

  “You were at it again, I take it,” Grant said.

  “Of course. I’m addicted, compulsive, remember?”

  “What did you do this time?”

  “You mean how have I exercised my obsession?”

  “Yes. Describe it to me.”

  “I actually found myself hesitating this time, doing what you asked me to do, trying to impose my own will, resisting, really make a choice. But that lasted only for a few moments,” he added.

  “You know, Doctor,” Bois continued, nodding, “some of my previous analysts had been convinced that what I did, I did to get back at my father. Doctor Flemming helped me to realize that that is not the whole story. No, I’m not getting back at my father, so much as I am doing what makes me feel good, and in the final analysis, isn’t that what it’s all about, Doctor: pleasure, whether that pleasure comes from sex or power, greed or lust?”

  “So what did you do this time?”

  “Are you interested as my doctor or as a voyeur? Do you want to live vicariously through my experiences, my power, Doctor?” he teased. “Can you admit that to yourself and perhaps to me as well? It’s a start,” Bois said, smiling gleefully.

  “Who’s the therapist here?”

  Bois laughed.

  “Yes, who is? I’ll tell you what, Doctor, I will describe this recent incident, one that you will really enjoy. It has all the makings of a good psychological murder story, but first, a little quid pro quo, eh?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Your fantasies. I want to share one of your fantasies, Doctor.”

  “Why? Do you want to live vicariously through me? Are you the voyeur?”

  Bois roared.

  “That’s good. You are a lot more like me than you care to admit, Doctor. But soon, very soon, you might stop resisting yourself and become . . .”

  “Become what?”

  “Free,” Bois said, his eyes wide.

  Grant felt himself caught up in the man’s luminous eyes for a moment. Bois smiled and his gaze shifted toward the ocean. Grant turned and looked.

  Deirdre Leyland was jogging through the water, splashing and laughing as she ran.

  Totally naked.

  “Jesus.”

  “She’s rather incorrigible, isn’t she?” Bois said.

  Grant turned back to Bois.

  “I don’t understand. How long have you known her?”

  “It’s not important, the length of time. It’s the quality of the time you spend with someone, right? Forget her for the moment,” Bois insisted. “Let’s get back to our trade. You want to trade, don’t you? Really. Go on, Doctor. We can help each other,” he said.

  Maggie had risen immediately after Grant had left the house. She had pretended to be groggy and asleep. She didn’t shower. She threw on a sweat suit herself, located Grant’s second set of office keys in the den desk drawer, and rushed out to her car. In minutes she was on her way to his office. She wanted to get there well before Fay Moffit. As soon as she did, she went to the file cabinet and located Jules Bois’ folder. She copied out the address and then hurried out of the office and drove home, hoping she would be there before Grant. If he did return before her, she was going to tell him she got the urge to join him on the beach.

  He wasn’t home yet when she arrived, so she called Jack Landry.

  “Man, I was only kidding about that insomnia stuff, Mrs. Blaine,” Jack said, his voice cracking.

  “I’m sorry I woke you, Jack. But I wanted to get this to you before I left for work. I’m going to be tied up in court all day today.”

  “Why are you whispering, Mrs. Blaine?”

  “I’m whispering?” She laughed. “Sorry, Jack. I’m not used to this clandestine activity.”

  “Everyone thinks it’s like it is in the movie
s. What d’ya got?”

  “I’ve got privileged information,” she said, punching hard on privileged.

  “That’s all I ever get, Mrs. Blaine,” Jack said dryly.

  “I have the name and address of Grant’s strange patient.”

  “Okay? What d’ya want?”

  “I want to know everything you can find out about this man, Jack. What does he do for a living? Where did he live before he lived here? Who are his friends? Does he have a police record? Especially that,” she said.

  “Something else happen?” Jack asked.

  “I think he’s been following Grant and he’s now spying on us. I think he was looking in our windows last night.”

  “Sounds like the patient from hell. Sort of Fatal Analysis or something.”

  “That’s why I’m so worried.”

  “Okay, give me the information,” Jack said.

  She told him Bois’ name and gave him the address.

  “You can try me at my office very late this afternoon; otherwise, I’ll call you.”

  “Gotcha, Mrs. Blaine,” Jack said.

  Once again, Maggie felt ambiguous about what she had done and what she was doing. She knew she was violating every ethical code between a doctor and his patient. Grant would be very upset if he found out. But if there was something there, she would prevent more serious trouble, and if there wasn’t, she would be relieved and Grant wouldn’t know.

  She went to shower and was lost in her thoughts when suddenly the stall door was thrust open. She gasped and turned to find Grant standing there naked, a wide, licentious smile smeared across his face.

  “You frightened me half to death, Grant,” she cried.

  He didn’t apologize; he didn’t say anything. He stepped into the shower and put his arms around her waist.

  “Grant!”

  “The garage door was open,” he said. “I thought I closed it. Didn’t you realize it?”

  “I didn’t notice. I . . . just got up,” she said.

  “A prowler could easily get into the house. He could easily have come down the hallway to the bedroom and noticed you were in the shower. He would have opened the door just as I had and stepped in.”