August 1981
The sky split apart as a flash of lightning struck the earth, Route I-95, overlooking Bridgeport's Immaculate Conception Hospital on the New England Thruway.
A black Mercedes emerged out of blackness and skidded to a halt on the rest area overlooking the hospital. A tall, elegantly dressed man emerged from the car as rain lacerated the highway, momentarily imprisoning him in its impenetrable sheets. He was completely drenched in seconds. As he lurched forward onto the highway, he stopped some twenty feet from the Mercedes and looked up into the lashing storm, luxuriating in its punishment.
A screech of brakes and the man was impaled in the headlights of a Volkswagen.
"Jesus Christ, man, I could have killed you." The driver took off his glasses and cleaned them rapidly against the rough material of his coveralls, which bore the legend "De Santis Construction." Replacing them, the young man peered through the eddies of rain curdling on his windshield and saw that the man outside was staring into his headlights with unblinking eyes. The driver was about to offer help when the man removed his jacket and tossed it at his idling vehicle. The jacket hung precariously on one of the headlights, then fell off. The man's white shirt shimmered eerily and seemed stuck to him like a second skin. A sudden gust of rain blurred this vision. When it reappeared, the sodden man had started to scream.
Completely unnerved, the driver pressed down on his accelerator and swerved past.
* * *
"Look, honey, it's only a little past eleven. I'm here till midnight when my relief comes—you know that." Camilla Watkins, the nurse in charge of emergency at Immaculate Conception, listened attentively as her lover rambled on.
"Well, it's been a pretty slow night here too, sugar—what with this weather…" As she spoke, she played with the gold chain round her neck, with its flat, pendent crucifix. Camilla had met Jimmy Del Ray at a Baptist church affair only a month ago—and the next day this gift was at her station. At twenty-four, Camilla Watkins was indeed fortunate to be in her position at Immaculate and to have met the man of her life.
"Just honk and I'll be ready for you—quick as that." Their muffled guffaws of anticipated pleasure overlapped, as Camilla casually looked toward the entranceway.
The man seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere. A tall, handsome white man in shirtsleeves—dripping water onto the floor. He kicked off his loafers, wrenched off his socks, and, unable to unbutton his shirt, tore it in one downward move. Camilla heard the sound of buttons hitting the linoleum as she hung up, then watched as he stripped down until he was naked as the day he was born.
"Please help me!" he pleaded. "I'm burning up! I'm burning up!"
His fingers pummeled his flesh. Bloody lacerations oozed as he dug at himself. Camilla Watkins, transfixed, watched the grotesque pantomime in disbelief. Was this a bad drug trip or what? Outside, the storm punctuated the fantastic scene with a sudden outburst of thunder and lightning. The man spotted Camilla. "Nurse! Help me—I'm burning!"
Camilla punched in several numbers on her switchboard and wondered if she could be heard over the man's wrenching screams.
"Emergency team needed in the lobby. There's a man here—" Camilla managed that much before she felt the grip of his hands on her shoulders. As she forcibly yanked herself free, their eyes met for an instant. An animal-like snarl broke through the man's lips, and Camilla fled to the safety of the office behind her and locked the door.
She listened over the sound of her pounding heart to the commotion of voices filling reception. Shortly, she heard the squeaking wheels of a stretcher as the man was rushed out of the area. When she reemerged, the clock read 11:35 P.M. Jimmy would be ready for her in twenty-five minutes. The storm outside was beginning to play itself out, headed eastward. An intern was picking up the burning man's apparel, strewn haphazardly over the floor. Piling the clothes onto a cart, he stopped.
"Did I hear right? Did he say he was burning up?"
"Burning up, my ass," Camilla rejoined fiercely. "His hands were cold, man, and I'm saying ice-cold."
"Well, there are new strains of virus showing up all the time," he said almost merrily, and wheeled his burden off. Camilla stood there massaging her shoulders and elbows. She also realized she was trembling—not so much from the physical assault. She had never seen anything quite like that look before on any living being—in or outside the hospital. She poured some lukewarm coffee into a paper cup—and noticed her sleeves bore the imprint of his blood. The cup fell from her hands, staining her shoes and stockings.

September 1981
David Sussman stepped out of the shower and picked up the phone after seven rings. On the other end was Dr. Lacey, recalling their Park Avenue days at the Psychiatric Institute. Lacey lost little time and got to the point. Would David consider a consultation with one of his patients? The name, Laurel Hunt, did not ring a bell, but Lacey persisted, "That is, if you still handle that sort of thing." David wondered what sort of thing he meant, but before he could frame the question, an appointment had been made for Mrs. Hunt for the following day at eleven.
David had just returned to his aerie apartment on Riverside Drive from a desultory summer and had not yet arranged a schedule with his own private patients. Usually any kind of referral by a colleague massaged his ego, but as he hung up, he felt an old anger previously generated by this same Dr. Lacey. It had been another summer's return. From India—eight years ago-the termination of a pilgrimage made to study with the great guru Rajneesh. What David had discovered on that journey had made it difficult for him to resume his place among the pundits of psychoanalysis, and their comfortable solutions. He'd presented the Psychiatric Institute with provisos for his return. The board, with Lacey as its president, had convened to consider them.
Tom Wright, at thirty-five the youngest member of that august body, had sat opposite David at a small table at the Plaza Hotel. Tom squirmed uncomfortably in his institutional gray suit, sparked by a yellow bow tie with small red dots. A slight quaver was in his voice as he spoke.
"Frankly, I felt like the defense lawyer in the case. I even pulled out your résumé and started from the top: Columbia graduate, top honors, first man chosen for Kennedy's mental retardation project—"
"They put you through all that?" David said with some asperity, and removed the cherry from his margarita.
"David, your provisos were just too rich for their blood—too exotic." Wright's fingers drummed against his untouched glass of chardonnay. "Asking them to incorporate Buddhist principles into the practice. What could you have expected from them? Hell, I had to tell them how to pronounce Rajneesh, for God's sake."
Wright sipped his wine nervously, then blundered on, "It was the use of drugs, and I quote your letter, ‘other mind-altering substances,' that really got to them."
David savored the lingering sweetness of the cherry as a palliative against Wright's negative report.
"‘Exotic,' I like that," David responded with a lame grin.
Wright leaned forward and dropped his voice in a conspiratorial whisper. "You know, I'd really love to schedule a lunch with you and hear more about the effect of those drugs—"
"Then I gather you disagreed with them?" David looked sympathetically at his soon-to-be-late colleague.
"I did what I could, but in the end, Lacey steered things his way." Wright's fingers tightened round his glass.
"I await the coup de grâce with a steady hand," David quipped, and finished his margarita.
"Lacey said, and I quote, ‘I think it perhaps wiser for Dr. Sussman to set up his own practice outside the purview of the Institute.'" It was all out at last, and Tom Wright hung his once-tussled head and finished his wine in one defeated gulp.
"Tom, let's have another round to celebrate that decision, shall we?" And David smiled, catching the waiter's eye.
* * *
The scene had replayed itself for David. Throwing on his terry-cloth robe, he went into the kitchen to put out the day's rations in the kitty bowl for Sam, his pet Siamese. He went back to the bathroom, and while he shaved, his mother's voice unexpectedly sounded in his ears in a familiar yet comfortable tape loop.
"Look at you, almost tall—five feet eight is almost tall—and with your dark hair and blue eyes—a regular Jewish movie star, so why aren't you famous?"
"Fame isn't everything, Mama."
"So then why aren't you married with three kids?"
She was right about one thing—he should have been settled down, more so than he was. Dr. Lacey's referral had recalled the scene of his dismissal, unfortunately exacerbating a chronic low self-esteem. He looked at himself guardedly in the mirror—his summer tan had made his blue eyes even bluer while covering up two months of subtle depression. At least he'd present a rested face to his patients. Otherwise he was the same old self—the Polish-Russian Jew whose high cheekbones suggested that someone in his family tree had traveled farther east than Moscow. He dutifully pursued the ministrations of dental floss that preserved his near perfect teeth.
"How long will they last?" he asked his reflection. The ears he could do nothing about—the slightly pointed tops reminded him of Franz Kafka. But a small dimple in his chin could charm, and he patted his flat stomach, willingly accepting his mother's estimation of him with kind indulgence. Combing his jet-black hair with nary a sign of forty-four years visible in it, he paused and thought of Lacey again. He had to thank him for one thing, at least. Freed of his constraints at the Institute, David had developed the process therapy he had evolved out of his East-West experiences. It was ironic that Lacey and some of the other old boys of the ancient trade occasionally called him in "odd cases." Amongst them he was affectionately known as "the karma bum." So be it. Yet David detested the Gypsy, tea-leaf, tarot-card mentality of those recommended his way. David didn't doubt that Lacey's present referral would be another such case. Why, oh why, did he let himself in for such put-downs?
* * *
Next day, punctually at eleven, Laurel Hunt arrived—in all her grave, apologetic beauty. In her middle thirties, with a Madonna-like face, wearing a half-cape and no makeup, she could have stepped out of a Victorian novel. Fair skinned, blond, with strands of gray, she exuded a natural beauty. Only a flickering Mona Lisa smile hinted at secrets. David offered her tea, which surprised her. Three years of strict Freudian analysis had not prepared her for niceties, at least not from a shrink. Charmed by the offer, Mona Lisa became the girl next door. The smile so enchanted David that for several moments he did not speak. She was dressed in an old-fashioned, beige dress with a string of pearls accentuating the lacework round her décolleté. She seemed avidly interested in David's special approach to therapy. Her own analysis—scrupulously carried through with a female analyst two years earlier—had rung down its curtain after a bitter coda. Unfortunately, Dr. "Mama" had not righted the wrongs of the past, and Laurel Hunt was still smarting from the feeling that she had been scientifically taken. David thought of Lacey and nodded in complicity. All this she revealed in a neutral voice so modulated it could be describing someone else.
As she spoke, her eyes searched the walls for the insignia and diplomas of David's credentials. Finding nothing but two primitive watercolors of flowers, she smiled ruefully, looked directly into David's blues, and asked if he believed in karmic destiny. David was squatting cross-legged on a pillow, smoking a filtered cigarette. He was wearing freshly laundered khaki pants, a bright orange shirt, athletic socks but no shoes. A small votive candle burned in a dish nearby, while behind him on the floor a single daylily rested in a blue vase.
"Well, let's see, karma—according to Eastern thought—is the sphere of influence that rules man's daily existence. Theoretically it is made up of the acts and events that occurred in a previous existence. I said theoretically—"
"You obviously must accept the principles of reincarnation?"
"Well, no, I don't exactly accept it as a belief—if that's what you mean."
"How do you accept it then?"
"Oh, I guess as part of the materials of psychic history," he concluded lightly.
He had just pinched out the guttering flame of the votive candle when she said, "As a piece of psychic history, do you believe in the existence of malevolent forces? A force operating above and beyond individual karma?"
As David replaced the candle, he smiled. "What did Dr. Lacey say? What did he tell you about me?"
"Only that you might be able to help me."
"Help you—how?"
"Perhaps you may have read the newspaper account?"
David looked blankly at her. He had canceled his New York Times subscription for the summer and had not renewed it. Opening her purse, Laurel Hunt produced two cleanly cut newspaper items. As she handed them to him, he saw her nails were polished a pale pink. David recognized the "Notes on People" column. She handed him the one dated August 12.
* * *
Last night an unidentified man in his middle to late thirties arrived in shirtsleeves during a thunderstorm at the Immaculate Conception Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He entered the reception area ripping the wet clothes from his body screaming, "Please help me! I'm burning up!" He collapsed and was promptly sent to emergency and put under sedation. His picture appeared on the local television news, prompting an immediate identification as Hugh Caswell Hunt, the prominent art dealer residing in West Haven. Examination by the medical staff confirmed that nothing of an organic origin explained Hunt's condition. Although tests continue, the patient remains under sedation. Mr. Hunt's reputation as a connoisseur in art circles was established early in his career. He was responsible for the rediscovery and reclamation of paintings belonging to the symbolist movement that sprang from Eastern and Central Europe during the turn of the twentieth century with such artists as James Ensor, Charles Mangen and Leon Spilliaert, among others. His adventurous spirit continues in his search for fresh, new American talent.
* * *
The other item was from the London Times and was dated August 14. He read through it hastily—it concerned a gruesome murder of one Charles Kirkwood Palfrey, acting head of the Hunt Galleries in London. Palfrey's pajama-clad body had been discovered in a London hotel suite. His tongue had been ripped out of his mouth at the roots. His remains had been flown back to the States for burial. David said nothing as he handed the clipping back to her.
"They're connected," she said.
"What's connected?"
"The murder and my husband's condition—they're connected."
"In what way?"
"The same thing that killed Palfrey is after my husband."
"How do you know that?"
"He told me so."
"He?"
"My husband, Hugh. He's still under observation at the hospital. He's afraid to talk about it to the doctors there for fear they'll think him mad."
David, watching her, thought, She's not out of Thackeray but Brontë. "And in your estimation is he? Mad?" David said solemnly.
"No." The answer came back with a snap. "He was driving alone on his way home when he began feeling there was someone following him. He even looked through the rearview mirror—until he sensed the presence right there in the car with him. That's when he first felt the burning sensation in his body and the certainty he was in the grip of something—something monstrous."
"Did he actually use that word, monstrous?"
"What would you think, Dr. Sussman? Surely nothing human could have done that to Charles Palfrey."
"I still don't quite understand—what do you expect from me?"
"I don't know. Dr. Lacey merely said your experience would offer some solution."
David put out his cigarette, blew out the last puff of smoke, and squinted at Laurel through the cloud. "Mrs. Hunt, do I look like a witch doctor to you?"
"A witch doctor?"
Growing piqued, David rose. "What about the hospital—surely by now there must be some diagnosis explaining his symptoms?"
"Do you think Dr. Lacey would have called you if there were?"
"I guess not. Well, to answer your question first. No, I do not believe malevolent forces exist—as independent entities or collective ones for that matter."
"Please, I'm sorry if I put things so crudely."
David, arms akimbo, looked at the lady and sighed. She really believes this garbage. "Where is Mr. Hunt now?"
"Still at the hospital. He's safe there."
"Safe?"
She looked up at him with startled eyes, and for the first time David saw that they were gray, flecked with a fascinating mixture of blue-green.
"And I suppose you'd like me to see him?"
Laurel Hunt shut her eyes against the taunting offer, then opened them quickly. "I'll make it worth your while."
David walked away, then turned to face her. At that precise moment, he recognized the scent of her perfume. Tatiana. Denise's own brand. How could he have forgotten so soon? What fate had brought this lady into his life at this precise moment? Mumbling something about thinking matters over, he promised to be in touch with her, then politely ushered Laurel Hunt out, closing the door more abruptly than he'd intended.
Just before the summer, he and Denise had parted—angrily, bitterly—and now with this whiff of Tatiana, he realized he'd been mourning her absence in his life. He had coveted Denise too completely, demanding faithfulness while offering no other stability than sex. He still had her last letter from Paris before the summer. He'd kept it in his desk, moving it from one cubbyhole to another. Hopefully he would toss it one day. He had spent a dismal summer trying to get over her.
On top of his own amorous disaffection, what was he to make of this rich lady in distress, ready to slum in the fulsome pastures of the occult? Many con artists were around panhandling Kali and Co.—some even friends and acquaintances. After all these years the whole psychiatric establishment had continued to distort the evidence of his travels to India. On impulse, he was tempted to pick up the phone and give Lacey a good lacing. Instead, forgiving himself his pun, he decided a walk up to Grant's tomb would do his heart and his psyche a world of good.
Poor Beauty, he lamented, thinking of Laurel Hunt—all that expensive couch time and still insisting on magical solutions to life. The best way to get back at the Laceys of the world was to undo their mischief wherever and whenever he could. In truth, it was one of his driving passions. So it came as no surprise to him that he would undertake the deprogramming of this latest derelict of psychoanalysis.
Back in his apartment he first renewed his subscription to The New York Times, then systematically called his patients back to resume their own bouts with life's uncertainties.

October
The Immaculate Conception Hospital was a grand relic, built just before the turn of the century. The working staff mirrored the trimmings, a mixture of nuns from a local order and a heterogeneous assortment of interns and students from nearby universities. It had taken David weeks to organize his own practice, and only then had he called the chief of staff and, on the basis of a request for a "second opinion" on the part of the patient's wife, had secured an appointment to see Hugh Hunt. The interview would take place in the psychiatric division where the patient had been transferred.
Hugh Hunt, head of Hunt Galleries Ltd., a multimillion-dollar enterprise with branches in New York, London, and Paris, had until now managed to project a low profile among the piratical ceremonies of Sotheby, Parke-Bernet, and the rising new ateliers of the fine arts. The man who was led in to meet David appeared cool and collected. Only the eyes gave him away—an occasional fluttering behind the irises like tiny wings of terror taking off. The small, bare meeting space, ordinarily an examination room, was pungent with the smell of ammonia and other chemicals—layers of sweet nausea that had accumulated over years, causing the green walls to flake in resignation. Hugh Hunt's patrician bearing was an anomaly in this mean setting of a table, two chairs, a sink, and an old, empty white cabinet. Hunt was lean, blondish, of average height but hardly average good looks. David saw that he was slightly taller than himself. Hunt's thin, tight mouth evinced a bitterness that belied the rest of him. Long lashes framed deep-set, green eyes with a dark dot that lent them an air of mystery and allure. His tapered fingers and high forehead seemed emblematic of a refined intellect and the man's affinity for his chosen profession. David guessed him to be two or three years older than his wife. He wore an expensive black robe of oriental design over his hospital garb. A long, thin yellow dragon with furling tail dominated the back of the garment. The entire impression was unexpectedly theatrical. Hunt's first concern was whether David was "another one of these meddlers," a term embracing policemen and psychiatrists alike. David, playing his advantage, confessed to being neither and offered Hunt a cigarette.
"I thank you. You know smoking is not permitted in the ward." The voice was baritone, cultivated. As David went to light Hunt's cigarette, he noticed the man's hands shook. Hunt inhaled deeply, choking slightly on his next words.
"That's good, that's very good. For this relief much thanks."
"Bernardo to Francisco, Hamlet, first scene," David chanced.
"Francisco to Bernardo," Hunt corrected, "which concludes, ‘'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.'"
David conceded, beginning to feel encouraged by this unexpected bit of confraternity. Shakespeare was one of David's icons.
Hunt inhaled tensely. "Anyway, this will help neutralize the smell of formaldehyde or whatever it is in here. The entire establishment reeks of it."
"Ammonia, primarily."
"Oh! Well, do you suppose it has anything to do with its being a Catholic organization? Sin, bodily corruptions, and disinfectant?"
"Quite possible—although I'm afraid it's the bona fide hospital smell."
"I've never been in hospital before." Hunt's eyes narrowed and his lips were drawn to a taut line. David's measure was being taken, and he permitted it, with no show of discomfort. "What kind of doctor are you, Dr. Sussman?"
"Well, that's not easy to answer—in so many choice words, that is."
"If you don't minister to the mind or the body, what else is there?"
"The soul—to borrow a catch phrase," David responded blithely.
"Does that imply a belief in a deity?"
"No, not in any mystical context. God as a more generic view of the energy force that balances mind and body, you might say." Hunt was suddenly staring at David with a flat, metallic expression. "I just wanted us to have a little chat." David, beginning to feel a tiny lick of uneasiness, turned on his most beguiling smile.
"Whatever it is, you're wasting your time. I've told them all they need to know—Dr. Whatever-his-name-is in charge here can show you the necessary data."
Hunt's eyes were now positively unnerving. His skin had tightened around his jaw and forehead. A slight smile crept across his face—a smile so slow in completing itself, so stylized in its final effect, as to seem almost separate from the man himself. What was Hunt seeing? David wondered, and continued with some little effort in meeting this chilling scrutiny. Suddenly, David raised his head sharply, acutely aware that a sweet odor had insinuated itself into the chamber. It rapidly grew in density until it reminded him of—yes, the wild and improbable sweet stench of charred flesh. In India, David had witnessed several instances of "suttee," but here? Now? David felt a lump welling at the base of his throat and automatically looked around the room. Hunt's cigarette had fallen from his fingers to the cement floor, but David could see his pajamas and robe had not been singed. Just as suddenly, the sickly disinfectant reasserted itself in the small chamber. A slight shiver passed through David.
"You know, of course, your wife came to see me," David said, breaking the silence. His uneasiness was still evident in his voice—a live nerve end gradually subsiding. He drew on his cigarette and waited for Hunt's response. Another long silence hung between them before David's words penetrated. The mask became a face again—darkening now in a rush of feeling, and forgoing all former effort at composure, Hunt started to moan. An attendant stationed outside opened the door to investigate. David made a commanding gesture, waving him back. David now watched as Hunt put his head down on the table beside him and gave in to a deep-seated grief. As David waited, he began to light up another cigarette. When he struck his match, Hunt looked up and watched the blue-yellow flame with curious fascination. He raised his hand weakly and David offered him another Marlboro. Hunt's hands were now so out of control that he tucked them under his thighs to prevent their shaking. With some difficulty, David placed a lit cigarette into Hunt's mouth. He began to hunch over, rocking himself back and forth. A web of tics flickered across his cheeks and forehead in a relay race at cross-purposes. David lost no more time and, bending over the swaying figure, asked, "Is it true—what your wife told me?"
Letting go an agonizing wail, Hunt looked up at David with a haunted expression. He opened his mouth to speak, but he was now shaking so visibly that the cigarette fell from his lips to the floor. Reaching over to recover it, Hunt lost his balance, and his chair toppled over as he fell. Huddled over as he was, the curving dragon on his back seemed to have taken sudden life: the garment was bunched up over his shoulder so that the creature appeared to be crawling over Hunt's neck toward his chest. Hunt grabbed a table leg to steady himself and continued his rocking motion like a child. Spittle began oozing from the sides of his mouth.
Fearing a possible epileptic seizure, David knelt down in an effort to lower the man to the ground and pry loose the rigid jaw. With a quick lurch Hunt rolled away and collided with the wall nearby. Recoiling from the impact, Hunt started to roll back toward David, and his right cheek accidentally contacted the still burning cigarette on the floor. A frightened-animal snarl resounded in the closed-off chamber. In the next instant, the attendant was grappling with Hunt and found himself flung against the peeling green wall. Two other interns appeared and managed to subdue Hunt, who in his agony was literally bouncing up from the floor, emitting the same animal grunt over and over. David saw them finally slip a straitjacket over him. When they lifted him off the ground, Hunt's mouth was a rictus through which no further sound was heard. He was bundled off into the corridor of the third-floor ward followed by the shaken attendant. The passenger elevator opened as the interns carried their burden. Inside, three nuns, Sisters of Mercy, crossed themselves before stepping out.
* * *
David perused the hospital report with mixed feelings. Usually pathology of some sort is evident in such cases of psychic trauma. Yet organically there was absolutely no reason to explain Hunt's condition, nothing pertaining to possible grand-mal, brain, or glandular damage, in fact, no dysfunction of any kind. Hunt had been put under pretty heavy sedation for three days—an IM injection of Thorazine, one hundred milligrams repeated every four to six hours as needed. A restraining device had become essential prior to injection. The dosage had been cut to a third thereafter. Three days later the burning sensation disappeared, and Hunt was apparently himself again. Three days after Hunt was admitted into hospital, according to the dates of the London Times report, his partner, Palfrey, had been done in. A coincidence, David reasoned, but hardly supportive of occult intervention as Laurel Hunt had intimated. It would have had to be a busy demon. After all, Palfrey had been killed while in London—question: Do demons need visas?
From a psychiatric point of view, Hunt had been examined by a prominent specialist, Hakim Arrabal. Wooing Arrabal from his Menninger Clinic obligations must have taken considerable influence and money.
Dr. Arrabal's summation was simple: he clearly placed Hunt in the incipient stages of a paranoid-schizophrenic withdrawal—and only time would indicate the extent of the problem. Meantime, Hunt was to remain in hospital for further observation.
* * *
The psychiatric ward was silent. The attendant at his desk sat reading the local sports column. Hunt was resting quietly, but the effects of the injection were gradually wearing off. A distant smile formed itself gradually across his lips. It lingered briefly, then suddenly erased itself again. If anyone were to sit long enough by his bedside, it would be evident that much was taking place inside the now still body. Hours later the small quickenings signaling the invasion of some savage energy force subsided and finally ended. Hunt's eyes opened widely and seemed to pierce the darkness surrounding him. What they contemplated was a vast stretch of blue sky and the threat coming toward him through its expanse.
* * *
Saturday morning found Seventy-second Street and Riverside Drive an almost deserted outpost of the city. A clear sky and empty streets. As he returned from his early-morning walk, David's eyes went up to his eagle's nest of an apartment and the protective heraldic figures—bearded Titans and enchantresses born of Stanford White's imaginings—gracing its upper reaches. In the sunlight, the building's ocher surface with the burnt-umber stripes running up its Georgian facade made a singular old world impact in contrast to the silhouettes of steel and chrome looming against the Jersey sky beyond.
A Mercury Zephyr was parked in front of the Chatsworth. A window was lowered as he passed by. David guessed who was at the wheel.
"Dr. Sussman—I was frantic. You saw my husband yesterday, why didn't you call?"
He stood there at the curb looking in on Laurel Hunt, and there it was again—the scent of Tatiana. He saw she was wearing a blue sweater over a gray shirt; her blouse had the imprint of little blue flowers.
"How could you be sure I was home?" David asked, quite bemused by this encounter.
"I even stopped along the way and called."
"I'm afraid I'm expecting a patient," David lied.
"Patients on Saturday?"
"The psyche doesn't know about the Sabbath."
"Oh, of course, you're Jewish." David, caught in his own contradiction, wasn't quite sure what that was supposed to mean. "Süman," she pronounced it in German, umlauting sweetly.
"Sussman," David corrected brusquely.
"Whichever way, it is supposed to mean sweet man." She turned from the wheel and looked at him covertly and sighed. "You're angry at me. Why?"
"Why not?" The lady disturbed him. Why?
"I'm sorry." She blushed. "Your doorman said you were out on your daily walk, so I've been waiting here patiently for the last half hour."
David opened the door of the car and sat down beside her. "I have twenty minutes," he said curtly. "As for your husband, he is a very sick man," he concluded bluntly.
"Is that all you have to report?"
"He's not sick in the way you think, however. It's obvious he's had some kind of psychic breakdown. It may be temporary or it—Look I know nothing about him beyond his medical report," David put it squarely.
"What is it you need to know?" Laurel responded gently.
"Well, besides being a tycoon of the arts, who is he?"
"Do I have to go all through that again," Laurel said tiredly.
"No, you don't—"
"Hugh was born in Shanghai," Laurel began with a heavy sigh. "His father was Lewis Caswell, a rare-book dealer, who met his wife in China while searching out an encyclopedia of some ancient dynasty or other."
"Caswell?" David queried. "Where does the Hunt part fit in?"
"His mother was an American, working at the embassy in Shanghai. Caswell took his family to America and then abandoned them for another woman. Hugh was barely six at the time—"
"Would you mind if I smoked?" David asked, pulling out a pack of Marlboros.
"On the contrary." Time was taken for both to light up from a single match. David tossed it out the window.
"So then?" he asked, cracking open the window by his side farther.
Laurel exhaled resignedly. "Yes, well, although Hugh loved his mother very much, she became an alcoholic and within a year was dead—a suicide. Hugh was placed in a foster home, and a year after being admitted, he was adopted by a wealthy Midwestern couple, Wendell and Katherine Hunt, who, and I can recall Hugh's own words, were middle-aged, childless, and looking for a perfect adornment." She exhaled and shut her eyes.
"Did he ever make contact with his actual father after that?" David now seemed caught up in the story.
Laurel brightened for a moment. "Just before his twenty-first birthday, his father unexpectedly showed at Hugh's graduation from Harvard. That was the first and only time. He met his death while crossing the Himalayas in pursuit of some other rare artifact."
"Like father, like son, eh?" David flicked ashes out the window.
"Yes-Hugh became interested in painting and rare objects. By his early thirties, he had acquired, and still possesses, a genuine Turner, previously unlisted in the artist's catalog."
David breathed deeply. "An incredible acquisition. Was it one of his impressionist paintings?"
"Yes." She looked at him. "You have knowledge of such things then?"
"My share"—he smiled graciously—"only don't talk to me about Picasso beyond the blue period."
"I know what you mean." She smiled, wanly, for the first time. "Well, subsequently Hugh's parents helped establish him in his profession. They both now live in Zurich and there's only formal contact."
"What about yourself in all this?"
Laurel put out her cigarette. "We met at a party—and between us, we have produced one child." She persisted in grinding out the cigarette in the car's tiny disposal bin.
"Produced?" David was puzzled. "Odd way to put it."
Laurel leaned back in her seat. "I'd rather not go on with this any longer, if you don't mind. May I ask you a question? Do you agree with the diagnosis presented at the hospital?"
"You were lucky to have Arrabal as a consultant. Who managed that for you?"
"Dr. Lacey, of course."
"Lacey—good old Lacey." David continued flicking ashes.
"Why, is there anything wrong with that?" Laurel's voice had a tinge of alarm in it.
"No—Dr. Lacey commands formidable connections, and frankly, having read Dr. Arrabal's report, there's nothing I can add." David glanced up at her turned-away face in the mirror. Mona Lisa was behind the wheel. "Sorry," he added sympathetically.
"I'm much more sorry than you. I thought you would be able to see what the others, including Dr. Arrabal, are incapable of seeing."
"Mrs. Hunt, my work has to do with the things of this world. That's hard work in itself, believe me," David said tautly.
"But didn't you tell me that Buddhist thought has had great influence on your process technique?"
"Sure, because Buddhism is chiefly about illusion—"
"Illusion?"
"—which in my own flat-footed way means games people play."
"Ah, I take it then everything we do is a game…?"
"Everything. God, the devil—and all the hordes that come from such beliefs. The guilt game being the worst, and the pleasure one the most valuable. That's what my work is about."
"In a nutshell," she taunted. "And the rest?"
"What rest? Oh, ghosts, you mean? That's just imagination, the biggest parlor game of them all. So, in essence, I'm afraid I concur with Arrabal's conclusion." In a subliminal flash, the stench of burning flesh insinuated itself in the car. David turned his face toward the window.
"Perhaps, after all, you have been misrepresented to me, Dr. Sussman."
"Well, it certainly looks that way, doesn't it," he answered flatly.
"So, it's imagination that pursues Hugh Hunt. Imagination that tore out Charley Palfrey's tongue?"
David turned to her, and her scent struck him. The Tatiana was more tantalizing than ever.
"You saw Hugh—and you can still say it is only his imagination?" Her voice rose in challenge.
"A sick one, yes. And as for Mr. Palfrey's death, we have only your husband's supposition, his feelings—and feelings are not facts."
"What did he say to you?" she demanded, her knuckles white against the steering wheel.
"As a matter of fact, very little. Within minutes of starting our interview he had to be forcibly restrained."
"Imagination," she said wearily.
"Fear is a powerful and devastating enemy."
"Did he say anything about me?"
David turned and saw a small vein pulsing rapidly in her temple. The rest was all eyes. Without thinking he said, "Look, I'd like to recommend someone who might be of help. His name is Ara Havakian. He's a psychic reader. One of the best in the field and, well, sort of a friend of mine."
"I thought you didn't believe in such things?"
"I don't, but you do. In his own way, he's helped many people open up doors to their—"
"Imagination," she completed his thought. David felt the hot hand of shame. Why was he twisting this poor, unhappy woman around? He had never recommended anyone to Havakian or his ilk before on any basis. What had provoked this absurd decision? The remembered stench had unsettled him, and Havakian's name had popped up from out of nowhere. He hesitated a moment, but then scribbled Ara's number on a sheet of memo pad and handed it to her.
"You will send me your bill—with expenses included, of course."
"As you like."
"You have my address," she said with a trace of scorn.
"Teach not thy lips such scorn," he quoted in his head, "for it was made for kissing lady." Was Richard III to be proved right again? But then look at what had happened to Lady Anne.
David had not spoken to Ara Havakian for over six months—not since the last get-together of the old team. David, Ara, and Peter Mendoza—the three "wise men"—had traveled from separate destinations to meet, not in a stable in Bethlehem, but at an ashram in Pune, India, run by Rajneesh, India's renowned guru. Each had absorbed his wisdom and created new lifestyles. Peter Mendoza with Spectra, an occult bookstore in Greenwich Village, David his therapy on the pleasure principles, and Ara—well, Ara was Ara.
* * *
David did not contact Havakian until nine-thirty the next morning, with five minutes to spare before the arrival of his first patient. He had to wait through Ara's unctuous recorded greeting before he could leave his message. "Hello, boychick," Ara responded immediately on hearing David's name. When David announced the reason for his call, Ara practically clapped his hands over the phone. "I knew you had a warm spot in your heart for me, lover, and a real ‘name' you give me, too." David suggested that Ara join him for a drink the next day. Having made this faux pas with Havakian, he was intent on getting a square deal for Laurel Hunt.
* * *
Ara Havakian was a pint-size (five feet three inches) Levantine Jew who sported custom-made clothes of Edwardian cut. A wart-frog dandy with sparkling eyes and a fabulous set of pearly teeth, he easily dominated any group. At Rajneesh's feet, he had learned that the English poet Swinburne had figured in one of his past-life incarnations. In that light Ara later attributed his psychic gifts as the poetry of his life, much to David's amusement and Peter Mendoza's chagrin. Ara flung himself across his battered couch and flicked on his telephone device. Each move he made was punctuated by one broken spring or other beneath him. "Let's have that drink, boychick," Ara chortled, and waved in the direction of the windows. David located some Drambuie in a pile of otherwise empty bottles, including one of a green liquid detergent. Since divorcing Elsie a year ago, Ara had taken over the housekeeping, which consisted of his rearrangement of the debris from room to room. Elsie's piano, which she had intended to move out to her new home in Meredith, New Jersey, was now barely discernible under the mound of junk on and surrounding it.
How do his clients react to all this? Do they think it "glamorous" or don't they even notice? David wondered. Fortunately, some clean drinking glasses could still be found in the kitchen.
David handed Ara his drink, and the little man flipped the rewind button, clicked in, and there was Laurel Hunt's voice asking for an appointment, with David as reference. Ara studied David's face intently while they listened, and at the conclusion of the message, he winked. He picked up the phone and dialed the Connecticut number she had left. David knew it was hers, because Ara prided himself on never returning long-distance calls, figuring if it was important enough, they would call back. The sofa springs sang discordantly as Ara waited for a connection. David looked away from Ara's Cheshire grin and peered out the window at the boarded-up brownstone across the way. Laurel was instructed to bring photos of her immediate family and several other personal artifacts. David turned to face Ara as an appointment was made for Tuesday, two weeks hence at 11 A.M. "It's the best I can do, boychick." Ara beamed.
Then hung up and dialed a local number. In a flash the original Tuesday client at eleven was shifted to a later date at five. Ara hung up amidst an audible flurry of protest from the other end. The psychic trade was obviously on the upswing if he could afford to be this cavalier with his clientele. David always marveled at Ara for one thing: he kept no appointment book, no scraps of paper. He was a one-man UNIVAC.
Ara flashed a smile. "So, bubee," he asked, "are you still shtupping the French broad?"
David temporized, "Actually, we're temporarily separated. Denise went back to Paris to be with her mother."
Ara nodded in condolence. "Watch out, bubee, she's a high-stepping shtupper. All Frenchies are like that." Ara winked and downed his Drambuie in one gulp.
"Do you speak from experience or what?" David sipped slowly, almost poker-faced.
Ara laughed. "I forgot how jealous you are, lover. No, never had her pleasure."
Jealous? Have I been that transparent?
"So what's the story, boychick, with Laurel Hunt—what gives?" Ara asked amiably.
David filled in Laurel's situation with as much discretion as he felt it warranted. His visit to Bridgeport elicited a raised eyebrow from Ara, who otherwise listened with both hands joined under his chin like a postcard of a Victorian angel framed in a frosted border.
"She believes her husband is being pursued by some ‘malevolent' force, as she puts it."
"Has she been visiting Gypsies? Those people stop at nothing with their chicken feathers and voodoo stuff." Ara frowned.
"I don't believe so. This is wrapped up in ‘karma' business, or so she says—you get the picture." David felt like some sleazy fortune-teller himself as he rose to fill his glass of whiskey, which needed no refilling.
"So what do I say among my other things," Ara conjectured. "Do I say, ‘My dear Mrs. Cunt, there's a dark, blue-eyed man lurking to comfort your karma'?"
"Same old Ara," David said as he picked up the bottle.
"Bubee, you're fucking beautiful. You're turning me into a psychic pimp. But after all, we've got to fill separation with something—nu?"
David tried to drink, but it went down the wrong pipe and he sputtered and coughed.
Ara rose from his chair. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said, pummeling David's back. "I'll make up a copy of the tape of my session with her. Leave it to me. A friend in needy is a friend indeedy, deedy."
David lost his restraint. Shrugging Ara's hands away, he turned on him in cold fury. "Havakian, you've become a fucking insensitive rug merchant. Drop dead!" Slamming his glass on the bar table, David started for the front door. Ara caught the door before David could slam it. David was about to shout some further obscenity when Ara did an extraordinary thing: he leaned against the wall in the hallway, put his baby-fat hand to his checkered vest, and started twitching his lips as if he were a fish out of water. He closed his eyes for a moment and his face went chalk white. When he spoke, it was a single word.
"What?" David shouted belligerently. And Ara repeated it again, slowly, deliberately.
"Kunma."
"What are you talking about?"
"I don't know. The word came into my head just now while you were shouting at me." Ara was still in his pose against the rose-colored wallpaper, but his eyes were now opened. At first David conceived of this as Ara's little trick of turning the tide. Yet Ara's face remained pasty while his lips were faintly drawn back over his teeth. The sight was grossly sexual, a demi-fop in psychic transport.
No doubt about it, David concluded, Ara was working on him (and for free).
"Kunma—remember that," Ara admonished.
"Okay," David played along momentarily. "What is it, for God's sake?"
"Kunma has nothing to do with God." This said, the color returned to Ara's face.
"What, then? Some indigestible Armenian dish?"
"I don't even know what it means, or what language it is. I only know you must beware of it." The elevator had arrived, and of course by now the wind was out of David's sails.
* * *
It was past midnight by the time he made it back home. The apartment felt chilly and David turned on the heater before lighting his last cigarette for the night. Sam jumped up on his lap and David sat there stroking him. Involuntarily, he glanced at the phone on his desk before switching it off. He was half-expecting Ara to call, telling him it was all a perfect put-on. But there was no call, and he would not try to dissuade Laurel from seeing the mighty mite. He rose, feeling the need for a cup of tea before retiring. He felt achy and feared he was coming down with a cold. The silly name came back to him as he waited for the water to boil—"Kunma." What in hell is a Kunma?
The next morning he called Peter Mendoza at his occult bookstore. If anyone would know what Kunma meant, it would be Peter, who prided himself on keeping a private dictionary of arcane terms and their definitions. Mendoza's answering device indicated he was out of town and should be back by the end of the week. David left his message anyway: "Peter, when you get back, check out the name or term Kunma for me in your dictionary and give me a ring. Thanks."
He had marked Laurel Hunt's appointment with Ara in his own daily diary: November 15. David duly noted it and worked with unusual concentration on that day, taking minimum breaks between patients. Yet the recurrent thought that had plagued him for weeks returned. Had he made a mistake not calling off Laurel's appointment with Ara? Downstairs in the mailbox was a single card from Denise—now traveling the Greek isles—hoping in her insinuating way that she remained "nymph in his orisons." (David had taught her to appreciate Shakespeare, among other things.) Nymph indeed. David kvetched and, thinking of Greek manhood, he muttered, "Shish kebab," wondering how many Greeks she'd managed to skewer so far.
Oddly there were no calls that morning, so by lunch break David impulsively dialed Ara. David got the answering machine and hung up immediately. During session breaks, David tried again, but he still got the mechanical device. At five, after the last patient for the day, David decided he would wait another half hour for Ara to call and then catch a hamburger on the corner. He needed a break. Between his own and his patients' woes, the collective vibes of the day had become overpowering. Even Sam was acting skittish.
* * *
At around four-thirty, Dr. Richard Filer was just about to make his checkup round the psychiatric ward at Immaculate. He was rereading a letter describing his sister's wedding in Buffalo. A tall, morose man of forty-odd years, he was placing the letter back in its envelope when he noticed the screens around Hugh Hunt's bed were vibrating, as if someone or something was shaking them. Filer looked around. None of the others in the ward had noticed this. The patients were either asleep, reading, or lost in their own thoughts. By the time he stood by the bedside, the folds of the screens had ceased their oscillations. Hunt was, of course, still lying there. The intravenous apparatus continued its ministrations. Hunt's left hand moved imperceptibly, doing flip-flops like a fish in its death throes. Probably in the middle of a dream, Filer thought, but hardly the cause for the movement of the screens. He looked around for an opened window, but there was none. He studied the sleeping man and observed that his head had taken up where the hand had left off. It was beginning to loll back and forth, and the eyelids were starting to flutter—a sure sign he would momentarily awaken.
Ten minutes later, when Filer was about to leave the ward, he saw Hunt sitting up at the side of the bed where a nurse had just completed her examination. As Filer came to the nurse, who was writing down her report, Hunt suddenly hissed like a snake and stuck his tongue out at him. Filer stopped in his tracks for as long as Hunt's tongue was extended. The nurse, preoccupied elsewhere, was not aware of this. Filer had a double reaction: first, that there had been rapid character deterioration during Hunt's coma, and second, that, rather than an affront, the tongue seemed a formal gesture of some kind.
* * *
After a quick hamburger at the corner, David started to walk along Riverside Drive. Still tense after his last patient, he would keep going until he was tired, then try Ara again from a phone booth. The weather, slightly brisk up to now, was turning chilly. David began wishing he had on an overcoat instead of just his suede hunting jacket. Indeed, he had eaten nearby with no other plan than that of returning to the eagle's nest.
By the time he had reached Ninety-fourth Street the sky had darkened. The steady rush of black clouds jutted fanglike against the fading light of day. The clouds gathered mass and spread like a hair shirt over the defenseless city. Concurrently, the slumbering beast of an early winter roused itself and roared. David almost recoiled against the blast, but buttoning up, he bent forward and plunged ahead. Above him the naked trees had started warfare. The cracking jousts caused David to look up. He could not believe that those overhanging snakes were the same branches that blessed the city come late spring and summer. He was held by their hideous intertwinings and by the flat slate deadness of the river beyond. David made it to a telephone booth just as the hailstorm hit the streets. Protected in his little shelter, he watched the area being rhythmically pelted by tiny diamonds. He thought of the Beatles and watched the puddle gathering round his feet. The icy darts seemed to be hitting the booth from several directions at once as if he were a special target for their wrath, and the trees continued in their inchoate frenzy. Remembering why he was huddled here in the first place, David dialed Ara's number, but hung up in mid-digit. He couldn't have heard Ara's voice if he had gotten him at the other end.
Ara's place was situated between West End and the river, and there was no canopy, just a skeleton frame of one, chipped and pitted, emblematic of an ongoing decline on Riverside Drive. The West Indian doorman scrutinized David with a heavy-lidded languor. He seemed a sleeping creature in a rumpled maroon uniform, who had scuttled out of the storm to find refuge here himself. No, he had not seen Mr. Havakian either entering or leaving the building, but then he had not been at his post until noon. Some mail was still waiting to be picked up. David glanced at a dark-stained baronial table holding a large package from the Literary Guild (four books for one dollar each—that's Ara's alright) and a roll of letters trussed together by a large rubber band.
The lizard grudgingly set his coffee container down and rang the intercom up to Ara's apartment, but there was no response. David, hanging about the lobby radiator in a fruitless effort to dry himself, remembered Ara saying something about dinner tonight with his former wife. It was just past five, and in all likelihood she would be driving in from New Jersey for their weekly get-together. No, the doorman had not seen her either. David picked up the package of mail and suggested he act as Ara's friendly deliveryman. The lizard blinked disinterestedly.
Ara probably never tips, David concluded, and as the man returned to his coffee, David rang for the elevator. A tight irrational thread of fear began lacing itself up David's spine. As the indicator slowly moved down toward the lobby, his dread escalated. He was forced to put the package down outside Ara's door and take deep breaths—one of his prescribed exercises to induce tranquillity. After ten attempts, David was sufficiently calmed down to proceed. He knocked on Ara's door. Nothing. He looked up at the mezuzah screwed into the doorframe. Behind him the elevator had gone into motion. David tried the doorbell; no sound. He knocked again, then listened at the door. He reached for the knob and turned the handle. Ara's door was open. If Ara was not in, why had he left the door unlocked?
He rang once more to be sure and listened again. Nothing left to do or think, David turned the knob and entered the apartment. It was dark. The rain guttering at the window seemed to be inside the apartment, beating its tattoo over the messes. He listened a long time, then, feeling foolish, turned on the lights. David tentatively called out Ara's name, then set the mail down on a small table next to a dried-out cactus plant. He moved out of the foyer into the living room and on from room to room, calling out before switching on the lights.
The kitchen—"Ara?"
The bedroom—"Ara?"
The den—"Ara?"
"Are you here? Bubee—!" He smelled it as soon as he opened the office door, the unmistakable odor of shit.
The next thing he knew, David found himself retching down a toilet bowl, heaving and splattering the tiles around him as he gagged. His own smell rivaled the one in the other room in human putridity and helplessness. Finally spent, he stretched out on the floor and lay his head against the cold tiles, closing his eyes against the sight now indelibly fixed in his mind's eye.

Copyright © 2003 by Frank Corsaro