John Lutz - Darker Than Night

“That’ll be your story, anyway.”

Egan pulled a cigar from his pocket and fired it up with a lighter. The hell with hospital rules. And New York rules that said you couldn’t smoke anyplace other than inside your house or apartment and within five feet of an ashtray and exhaust fan. “That’ll be my story,” he confirmed, and blew an imperfect smoke ring.

He turned and swaggered away, not an easy thing to do in a tuxedo, and it took all the willpower Quinn had to remain in his chair. He hadn’t budged through the entire encounter with Egan.

A nurse said something to Egan, no doubt about the cigar. Egan blew smoke her way and didn’t break stride.

He did break stride when he saw Pearl.

Now Quinn stood up. Don’t be stupid, Pearl, please!

Pearl walked toward Egan, smiling. Quinn had seen that smile. No, no…

She leaned toward the surprised Egan and whispered something in his ear. Then she walked away, toward Quinn.

Egan stared after her and seemed to puff up with rage. His flushed face glowed like red neon above the pristine whiteness of his formal shirt and tie.

Quinn thought surely Egan was going to come after Pearl. Instead he whirled and trod swiftly down the hall, then stamped around the corner as if trying to crack walnuts with every step.

“What did you say to him?” Quinn asked Pearl.

“That you were my fella and he better get off your ass. That you had a health problem, and if anything happened to you, I’d hold him personally responsible.”

“I sincerely doubt that’ll help matters,” Quinn said, and told her about his conversation with Egan.

Pearl seemed unimpressed.

“It’ll help,” she said.

Quinn didn’t feel like arguing. He wasn’t sure he believed Pearl, but whatever she’d whispered made Egan seem almost to explode, and that was all to the good.

Besides, here came an angry, frightened Alice Fedderman, charging down the hall toward them at a run.

Unlike Dr. Rita Maxwell, who leaned toward earth tones, Dr. Jeri Janess favored green. Her office was furnished mostly in shades of green. It was a restful color and many psychoanalysts made it the basis of their decor.

The office wasn’t as plush as Dr. Maxwell’s. It was on Second Avenue near the turnoff to the Queensboro Bridge. An air conditioner, taller than it was wide, hummed smoothly in one of the casement windows, softly overwhelming any sound that might filter into the office from the street nine stories below. Dr. Janess wanted to avoid the stereotypical setting for analysis, so there was no couch. Other than her desk chair, there were only two extremely comfortable leather armchairs, both green leather with brown piping.

Dr. Janess sat now in one of the chairs across from her new patient, Arthur Harris, and continued sizing him up, looking and listening for clues. She was sure she’d heard his name somewhere before. He was well dressed, and in many ways average-looking. You’d make a great spy, Mr. Harris. There was his mustache, which was darker than his hair, and she suspected it was false. His wire-rimmed glasses looked like cheap drugstore frames, and if they weren’t clear glass, the lenses were incredibly weak.

Jeri Janess was an attractive African American who’d spent her formative years in a rough section of Harlem as one of six children raised by their mother. She’d listened to her father’s bullshit on the rare occasions when he visited. Listened to her brothers justify behavior that had gotten two of them shot and another beaten so badly he was in a wheel-chair for life. Listened to the lines of her uncle and the neighborhood creeps who tried to get into her pants from the time she was thirteen. And she’d watched her mother taken in by her father. Watched one of her sisters marry at sixteen, then turn to drugs and hang herself in a neighboring vacant apartment. It all made Jeri want to learn why people behaved that way.

And she had learned.

Arthur Harris, my ass.

But it wasn’t unusual for new patients to be coy about their identity. At least Harris hadn’t told her he was there because “a friend” had a problem. Dr. Janess decided to play along with the lie for a while. Eventually she’d find out everything she needed to know about Arthur Harris, what was bedeviling him and why, and perhaps how she could help him.

“How would you describe this tension and restlessness you mentioned?” she asked.

“It’s like something expanding under my skin, squeezing me in at the same time it’s pressuring me so I might explode.”

“Like a secret that needs to get out?”

He stared at her. “Oh, that’s wonderful! Yes, like a secret, buzzing inside me. And if I confessed it, I’d relieve all the pressure. The tension would go away. Only I don’t know the secret myself!”

Obviously, you’ve read Freud. “Perhaps we can find it out together. When you have more confidence in yourself and in me.”

He put on a shy act, lowering his gaze. “Maybe someday I will have that confidence, Dr. Janess.”

“You and I both need to work on it, and it will happen.”

“I believe you.”

I don’t believe you. Not yet. “Would this problem be about women, Arthur?” she asked with sudden directness. An ambush.

The shyness lifted from his features. “If you’re a man, everything’s about women. So the answer’s yes and no.”

“That’s how most men feel about women,” Dr. Janess said, smiling to let him know she was joking and their appointment time was up.

It wasn’t until several hours after Harris had left that she remembered where she might have heard the name. In a college history class years ago, or more recently watching a documentary on television.

She sat at her computer and went online to Google “Arthur Harris” and make sure.

Her memory was correct. Arthur “Bomber” Harris, sometimes referred to as “Butcher” by his countrymen, was the British vice air marshal who’d enthusiastically overseen the RAF’s carpet bombing of German cities and the deaths of thousands of civilians during World War II.

Of course it was a common enough name, and it could be coincidental that her new patient had it.

But she doubted it. Considering his behavior and obvious prevarication, she was sure he’d simply recalled the name as she had and borrowed it.

The first piece of the puzzle. Now she was determined to learn more about her Arthur Harris, and about this pressure he described. And she had something to work with. Maybe she’d ask him if he was aware he had a historical name, see how he’d react.

Dr. Janess signed off her Internet service, sat back, and smiled.

Arthur Harris, you and I are going to get to know one another sooner than you think, and better than you think.

Quinn called Harley Renz from his apartment at eight the next morning, using the kitchen phone so he wouldn’t wake Pearl. When he’d left her in the cool breeze from the air conditioner, she’d been sleeping soundly, something not to be prodded.

“Has Egan talked to you?” Quinn asked when Renz answered his cell phone.

“No.” Renz seemed puzzled. “Was he supposed to?”

Quinn told him about Egan coming to the hospital after Fedderman was shot.

“I haven’t heard anything about you being yanked off the case,” Renz said. “That’s supposed to be up to me. And if Egan mentioned it to the chief or commissioner at the Citizens Award Banquet, I’d know about it by now. Probably would’ve learned about it before the banquet was over.”

“What do you think stirred him up so that he came by the hospital and made that kind of threat?”

“Like all predators, he sensed weakness and saw opportunity. A cop was shot and civilian lives were threatened. It looked like your lack of progress was starting to endanger people. And you know what, it looks that way to me, too.”