The Key to Midnight (24 page)

“Don’t bottle this up,” the psychiatrist said gently. “Don’t continue to make a secret of it. Tell me everything, Joanna. Free yourself of it.”

Her hands were trembling. She lowered them from her throat to her breasts.

“The clicking,” she said. “It’s so loud I can’t hear anything else. It fills the room. Deafening.”

“What does he do?”

“He pulls the sheet away. He draws it to the bottom of the bed. Uncovers me. I’m naked.”

Her cheeks were wet with tears again, but she was not sobbing.

“Go on,” Inamura said.

“He stands there. Grinning. Takes the electrodes off me. Touches me. He has no right to touch me like that, not like that, but I can’t do anything. I’m flying high and weak.”

“Where is he touching you?”

“My breasts. Stroking, squeezing with those steel fingers. Hurting me. He knows he’s hurting me. He likes to hurt me. Then he touches me with the other hand too, the real hand. It’s sweaty. He’s rough with that hand too ... rough ... demanding ... using me....”

Joanna’s voice faded word by word, until she couldn’t speak any more. Her face was wrenched into the most devastating expression of anguish that Alex had ever seen, yet she made only the softest sounds, as though her shame and sense of violation were so heavy that her voice was crushed beneath them.

The sight of her in such excruciating emotional pain struck Alex with the force of a thunderbolt. In the past few days he had learned to feel things he’d never felt before. In himself, he’d discovered possibilities of which he’d been ignorant all his life. Joanna had sensitized him. But everything that he had experienced since meeting her was only as powerful as a spring breeze compared to the emotional storm that shook him now. He couldn’t bear to see her like this. The horror of her experiences with the man she called “The Hand” affected Alex more profoundly than if her suffering had been his own. If he had incurred the wound himself, he could grit his teeth and stitch it up with the stoicism he had long cultivated, but because it was her wound, he could do little to influence the healing of it. He was shattered by the full and unwelcome realization of his helplessness.

For a few minutes Dr. Inamura patiently reassured her, until at last she regained her composure. When she was still and no longer crying, he urged her to pick up her story where she had left it. “What is Herr Doktor doing now, Joanna?”

Alex interrupted. “Surely,
Isha-san,
you don’t have to pursue this thing any further.”

“But I must,” Inamura disagreed.

“I think we know all too well what he did to her.”

“Yes, of course, we know. And I understand how you feel,” the psychiatrist said sympathetically. “But it’s essential that she say it. She’s got to reveal everything, not for your benefit or mine but for her own. If I allow her to stop now, the ugly details will remain in her forever, festering like filthy splinters.”

“But it’s so hard on her.”

“Finding the truth is never easy.”

“She’s suffering such—”

“She’ll suffer even more if I let her stop now, prematurely.”

“Maybe we should give her a rest and pick up here tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow we have other tasks,” said Inamura. “I need only a few minutes to finish this line of questioning.”

Without enthusiasm, Alex admitted the superiority of Inamura’s argument.

The doctor said, “Joanna, where are Herr Doktor’s hands now?”

“On me. On my breasts,” she said.

There was a new, peculiar, and disturbing flatness in her voice, as though a part of her had died and was speaking from a dark, frigid place on the other side of life.

“What does he do next?” Inamura asked.

“The steel hand moves down my body.”

“Go on.”

“Down to my thighs,” she said flatly.

“And then?”

“Everything’s taken.”

“What is taken?” Inamura asked.

“Hope. All gone. Nothing left to cling to.”

“No, Joanna. Hope can never be taken away forever. It’s the one thing in us that’s always renewed. He took your hope away only for a short while. He can’t win in the long run unless you allow him to win. What does he do now? Please tell me, Joanna.”

“He touches me there.”

“Where does he touch you?”

“Between my legs.”

“And then?”

“He’s grinning.”

“And then?”

“Click, click, click.”

“Go on.”

She was silent.

“Joanna?”

She said, “I need ...”

“Yes?”

“... a minute.”

“Take your time,” Inamura said. He glanced at Alex, and his eyes revealed an infinite sadness.

Alex looked down at his hands. They were fisted on his knees. He wanted to beat Herr Doktor until his knuckles were scraped and raw, until every bone in his hands was broken, until his arms were so weary that he could no longer lift them from his sides.

On its perch in the cage, the myna erupted in a brief rage, flapping its wings frenziedly before abruptly going as still as though it had spotted a predator.

In that drab voice borrowed from someone dead, as though she were channeling a despairing spirit that was trapped in Hell, she said, “Touching me between the legs. Cold steel. Clicking so loud. Like explosions.”

“And then?”

“He opens me.”

“And then?”

“Puts one.”

“Does what?”

“Puts one of his steel fingers.”

“Puts it where?”

“Inside me.”

“Be more specific.”

“Isn’t that enough—what I said?”

“No. You mustn’t be afraid to say it clearly.”

“Into ... my vagina.”

“You’re doing well. You were used terribly. But in order to forget, you must first remember. Go on.”

Her hands were still clasped protectively over her breasts. “The clicking noise fills me, fills me inside, so loud, echoing through me.”

“And then?”

“I’m afraid he’ll hurt me.”

“Does he hurt you?”

“He threatens me.”

“What does he threaten to do?”

“He says he’ll... tear me apart.”

“And then?”

“He grins.”

“And then?”

Alex wanted to press his hands over his ears. He forced himself to listen, because if he hoped to share the best of life with her, he must be prepared to share the worst as well.

Inamura probed at Joanna’s psyche in the manner of a dentist meticulously drilling away every trace of rotten matter and bacteria in an infected tooth.

The brutal revelations of repeated rape and perverse sex—in addition to the even more chilling story of the “treatment” that she had endured—left Alex weak. He nurtured the blackest imaginable hatred for the people who had stolen her past and who had dealt with her as they might have dealt with any animal. He was determined to find the man with the mechanical hand and every one of that bastard’s associates. But revenge would have to come later. At the moment, shell-shocked by the hideous events that Joanna was recalling for Dr. Omi Inamura, Alex didn’t have even enough strength to speak.

The remainder of the interrogation lasted only five or six minutes. When Joanna answered the last question, she turned on her side and drew her knees up, assuming the fetal position once more.

Unconcerned about what the doctor might say, Alex got out of his chair and knelt beside her. With one hand, he smoothed her hair away from her face.

“Enough,” he told Inamura. “That’s enough for today. Bring her back to me.”

At six o’clock Sunday morning, Joanna was awakened by thirst. Her lips were chapped, and her throat was dry. She felt dehydrated. The previous night, after the exhausting session in Inamura’s office, they had eaten a large dinner: thick steaks, Kobe beef, the finest meat in the world, from cattle that had been hand-massaged daily and fed nothing but rice, beans, and plenty of beer. With the steaks, they had finished two bottles of fine French wine, a rare and expensive luxury in Japan. Now the alcohol had leached moisture from her and had left a sour taste.

She went into the bathroom and greedily drank two glasses of water. It tasted almost as good as wine.

Returning to bed, she realized that for the first time in twelve years, her sleep had not been interrupted by the familiar nightmare. She had not dreamed about the man with the mechanical hand.

She was free at last, and she stood very still for a moment, stunned. Then she laughed aloud.

In bed, wrapped in a newfound sense of security as well as in blankets and sheets, she sought sleep again and found it quickly after her head touched the pillow.

She woke naturally, three hours later, at nine o’clock.

Though her sleep had been dreamless, she was less enthusiastic about her new freedom than she had been in the middle of the night. She wasn’t certain why her attitude had changed; but whatever the reason, the mood of innocent optimism was gone. She was wary, cautious, tempered by an intuition that told her more—and worse—trouble was coming.

Curious about the weather, she went to the nearest window and drew back the drapes. A storm had passed through during the night. The sky was clear, but Kyoto lay under six or seven inches of fresh, dry snow. The streets held little traffic.

In addition to the snow, something else had arrived in the night. Across the street, on the second floor of a popular geisha house, a man stood at a window. He was watching her apartment through a pair of binoculars.

He saw her at the same moment that she saw him. He lowered the glasses and stepped back, out of sight.

That was why her mood had changed. Subconsciously she had been expecting something like the man with the binoculars. They were out there. Waiting. Watching. Biding their time. Platoons of them, for all she knew. Until she and Alex could discover who they were and why they had stolen her past, she was neither safe nor free. In spite of the fact that the bad dream no longer had the power to disrupt her sleep, the sense of security that she enjoyed during the night was false. Although she’d lived through several kinds of hell, the worst of them all might be ahead of her.

In the morning sun, the snow was bright. The Gion looked pure. In the distance, a temple bell rang.

That morning, at eleven o’clock Kyoto time, Ted Blankenship called from Chicago. He had received detailed reports from the company’s associates in London, in answer to the questions that Alex had asked two days ago.

According to the investigators in England, the solicitor who had acted as the executor of the Rand estate, J. Compton Woolrich, was a phantom. There was no record that he had ever existed. No birth certificate. No passport in that name. No driver’s license. No file under that name with the tax authorities at Inland Revenue. No work or identity card of any sort. Nothing. No one named J. Compton Woolrich had been licensed to practice law at any time in this century. Nor had anyone with that name possessed a telephone number in greater London since 1946. As Joanna had discovered on Friday, Woolrich’s telephone was actually that of an antique shop on Jermyn Street. Likewise, the return address on Compton’s stationery was neither a home nor a law office; it was actually that of a library that had been established prior to the Second World War.

“What about British-Continental Insurance?” Alex asked.

“Another phony,” Blankenship said. “There’s no such firm registered or paying taxes in England.”

“And though by some fluke they might have escaped registration, no one there escapes taxes.”

“Exactly.”

“But we talked to Phillips at British-Continental.”

“Not his real name. A deception.”

“Yes, I suppose so. What about the address on their stationery?”

“Oh, that’s real enough,” Blankenship said. “But it sure as hell isn’t the headquarters for a major corporation. Our British friends say it’s just a grimy, three-story office building in Soho.”

“And there’s not even a branch office of an insurance company in the place?”

“No. About a dozen other businesses operate there, all more or less cubbyhole outfits, nothing particularly successful—at least not on the surface of it. Importers. Exporters. A mail-forwarding service. A couple of talent bookers who service the cheapest clubs in the city. But no British-Continental.”

“What about the telephone number?”

“It’s listed to one of the importers at that address. Fielding Athison, Limited. They deal in furniture, clothes, dinnerware, crafts, jewelry, and a lot of other stuff that’s made in South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand.”

“And they don’t have a Mr. Phillips at that number?”

“That’s what they say.”

“They’re playing games.”

“I wish you’d tell me what kind of games,” Blankenship said. “And how does this tie in with Tom Chelgrin and his missing daughter? I have to tell you, curiosity’s got me in nearly as bad shape as the proverbial cat.”

“It’s not a good idea for me to talk too much about my plans,” Alex said. “At least not on this phone.”

“Tapped?”

“I suspect it’s been transformed into a regular party line.”

“In that case, should we be talking at all?” Blankenship asked worriedly.

“It doesn’t matter if they hear what you’re going to tell me,” Alex said. “None of it’s news to them. What else have you got on this Fielding Athison company?”

“Well, it’s a profitable business, but only by a hair. In fact, they’re so overstaffed it’s a miracle they manage to stay afloat.”

“What does that suggest to you?”

“Other important companies of similar size make do with ten or twelve employees. Fielding Athison has twenty-seven, the majority of them in sales. There just doesn’t appear to be enough work to keep them all busy.”