Legion (23 page)

The boy had been medicated and was sleeping. The Venetian blinds at the window had been closed and the darkness of the room was dimly illuminated by the flickering of cartoons that were running on the television set without sound. The door opened silently and a woman in nurse’s uniform entered. She was carrying a shopping bag. She closed the door quietly behind her, set the shopping bag down and took something out of it. She stared at the boy intently and then slowly and softly she approached him. The boy began to stir. He was on his back and he sleepily opened his eyes in a squint. As she leaned her body over the boy, the woman slowly raised her hands. “Look what I’ve got for you, dearie,” she crooned.

Suddenly, Kinderman burst into the room. Shouting hoarsely, “No!’’ he seized the woman from behind in a desperate chokehold. She made croaking, strangling noises, weakly flailing her arms behind her while the boy sat up, crying out in terror as Atkins and a uniformed policeman charged into the room. “I’ve got her!” croaked Kinderman. “The light! Hit the light! Get the light!”

“Mommy! Mommy!’’

The lights came on.

“You’re choking me!” gurgled the nurse. A teddy bear dropped from her hands to the floor. Kinderman eyed it, taken aback, and slowly he released his frenzied grip. The nurse whipped around and kneaded her neck. “Jesus Christ!” she exclaimed. “What the hell is the matter with you? Are you crazy?”

“I want Mommy!” wailed the boy.

The nurse put her arms around him, pulling him close. “You nearly broke my neck!” she squalled at Kinderman.

The detective was straining for breath. “I’m sorry,” he wheezed, “very sorry.” He pulled out a handkerchief and held it against his cheek, where a long, deep scratch continued to bleed. “My apologies.”

Atkins picked up the shopping bag and looked into it. “Toys,” he said.

“What toys?” said the boy. He was suddenly calm and pulled away from the nurse.

“Search the hospital!” Kinderman instructed Atkins. “She’s after someone! Find her!”

“What toys?” the boy repeated.

More policemen appeared at the door, but Atkins held them back and gave them new instructions. The policeman in the room went out and joined them. The nurse brought the shopping bag over to the boy. “I don’t believe you,” the nurse said to Kinderman. She dumped the contents of the bag onto the bed. “Do you treat your own family like this?” she demanded.

“My family?” Kinderman’s mind began to race. Abruptly he saw the nurse’s nametag:
JULIE FANTOZZI
.

“…an invitation to the dance.’’

“Julie! My God!”

He raced from the room.

Mary Kinderman and her mother were in the kitchen preparing lunch. Julie was sitting at the kitchen table reading a novel. The telephone rang. Julie was farthest away but she got it. “Hello? … Oh, hi, Dad… . Sure. Here’s Mom.’’ She held out the telephone to her mother. Mary took it while Julie went back to her reading.

“Hi, sweetheart. Are you coming home for lunch?” Mary listened fora while. “Oh, really?” she said. “Why is that?” She listened some more. At last she said. “Sure, honey, if you say so. In the meantime, lunch or no?” She listened. “Okay, dear. I’ll keep a plate warm. But hurry. I miss you.” She hung up the phone and went back to the bread that she was baking.

“Nu?” said her mother.

“It’s nothing,” said Mary. “Some nurse is coming over with a package.”

Again the telephone rang.

“Now they’re canceling,” muttered Mary’s mother.

Julie jumped up to get the phone again, but her mother waved her back. “No, don’t answer,” she said. “Your father wants the line kept clear. If he calls, he’ll give you a signal: two rings.”

Kinderman stood at the neurology charge desk, his anxiety mounting with each unanswered dull ring of the telephone as he pressed the receiver to his ear. Someone answer! Answer! he thought, in a frenzy. He let the phone ring for another minute, slammed down the receiver and raced to a stairway. He didn’t even think of waiting for an elevator.

Panting, he arrived in the lobby and breathlessly rushed out into the street. He hurried to a squad car, got in and slammed the door. A helmeted policeman sat behind the wheel. “Two–oh–seven–eighteen Foxhall Road and hurry!” gasped Kinderman. “The siren! Break laws! Hurry, hurry!”

They took off with a screech of grasping tires, the squad car siren wailing shrilly, and soon they were careering down Reservoir Road and then up onto Foxhall toward Kinderman’s house. The detective was praying, his eyes shut tightly throughout the ride. When the squad car bumped to a jarring stop, he opened his eyes. He was in his driveway. “Go around! The back door!” he ordered the policeman, who jumped from the car and began to run, drawing a snub–nosed revolver from its holster. Kinderman squeezed himself out of the car, drew his gun and fished house keys out of a pocket as he rushed toward his door. He was trying to insert a key into the lock with a shaky hand when the door flew open.

Julie glanced at the gun, and then called back inside the house, “Mother, Daddy’s home!” The next second, Mary appeared at the door. She looked at the gun and then at Kinderman severely.

“The carp is dead already. What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Mary said.

Kinderman lowered the gun and moved quickly forward, embracing Julie. “Thank God!” he whispered.

Mary’s mother appeared. “There’s a storm trooper out in the back,” she said. “It’s beginning. What should I tell him?”

“Bill, I want an explanation,” said Mary.

The detective kissed Julie’s cheek and pocketed the gun. “I am crazy. That is all. That’s the whole explanation.”

“I’ll just tell him we’re Febre”,” Mary’s mother grunted. She went back into the house. The telephone rang and Julie ran to the living room to get it.

Kinderman stepped inside the house and moved toward the back. “I will tell the policeman,” he said.

“Tell him what?” demanded Mary. She started to follow him into the kitchen. “Bill, what is going on here? Will you talk to me, please?”

Kinderman froze. Against the wall by the doorway to the kitchen he saw a shopping bag. He rushed forward to pick it up when he heard the elderly, lilting voice of a woman in the kitchen saying, “Hello.” Kinderman instantly drew his gun, stepped into the kitchen and aimed toward the table where an elderly woman in a nurse’s uniform was seated, staring at him blankly.

“Bill!” screamed Mary.

“Oh, dear, I’m so tired,” said the woman.

Mary put her hands on Kinderman’s arm and pushed it down. “I don’t want any guns in this house, do you hear me?”

The policeman charged into the kitchen, his gun drawn and leveled.

“Put that gun down!” screamed Mary.

“Could you please hold it down?” cried out Julie from the living room. “I’m talking on the phone!”

Maty’s mother muttered, “Goyim,’’ and continued to stir a pan of gravy at the stove.

The policeman looked at Kinderman. “Lieutenant?”

The detective’s eyes were glued to the woman. In her face was a look of confusion and weariness. “Put it down, Frank,” Kinderman said. “It’s all right. Go on back. Go on back to the hospital.”

“Okay, sir.” The policeman sheathed the gun and left.

“How many for lunch?” asked Mary’s mother. “I have to know now.”

“What kind of shenanigan is this, Bill?” demanded Mary. She gestured at the woman. “What kind of a nurse is this that you sent me? I open the door for the woman and she faints. She falls down. She puts her head back and hollers something crazy, and then she faints. My God, she’s too old to be a nurse. She’s–”

Kinderman waved her into silence. The woman looked innocently into his eyes. “Is it bedtime?” she asked him.

The detective slowly sat at the table. He slipped off his hat and put it softly on a chair. “Yes, it’s almost bedtime,” he said to her gently.

“I’m so tired.”

Kinderman probed her eyes. They were honest and mild. He looked up at Mary, who was standing by with confusion and annoyance mixed in her face. “You said that she said something,” Kinderman told her.

“What?” frowned Mary.

“You said that she said something. What did she say?”

“I don’t remember. Now, what’s going on?”

“Please try to remember. What did she say?”

“ ‘Finished,’ “ grunted Mary’s mother from the stove.

“Yes, that’s it,” said Mary. “Now I remember. She screamed, ‘He’s finished,’ and then she fainted.”

“ ‘He’s finished’ or ‘Finished’?” pressed Kinderman. “Which?”

“ ‘He’s finished,’ “ said Mary. “God, she sounded like a werewolf or something. What’s wrong with this woman? Who is she?”

Kinderman’s head was averted. “ ‘He’s finished,’ “ he murmured reflectively.

Julie came into the kitchen. “So what’s happening?” she said. “What’s going on?”

The telephone rang again. Mary answered it immediately. “Hello?”

“Is it for me?” asked Julie.

Mary held the telephone out to Kinderman. “It’s for you,” she said. “I think I’ll give the poor thing some soup.”

The detective spoke into the phone. He said, “Kinderman.”

It was Atkins. “Lieutenant, he’s calling for you,” said the sergeant.

“Who?”

“Sunlight. He’s yelling his head off. Just your name.”

“I’ll come over right away,’’ said Kinderman. He quietly hung up the phone.

“Bill, what’s this?” he heard Mary asking behind him. “It was in her shopping bag. Was that the package?”

Kinderman turned and caught his breath. In Mary’s hands was a large and gleaming pair of surgical dissection shears. “Do we need this?” asked Mary. “No.”

Kinderman called for another squad car and took the old woman back to the hospital where she was recognized as a patient in the open ward of Psychiatric. She was transferred immediately to the disturbed ward for observation. The injured nurse and attendant, learned Kinderman, had sustained no permanent damage and were expected back to duty sometime the next week. Satisfied, Kinderman left that area and went to the isolation section where Atkins was waiting in the hall. He was opposite the door to Cell Twelve, which was open. His back against the wall, his arms folded, he silently watched the detective approaching. His eyes seemed troubled and far away. Kinderman stopped and met his gaze. “What’s wrong with you?” asked the detective. “Is something wrong?”

Atkins shook his head. Kinderman studied him for a moment. “He just said you were here,” said Atkins remotely.

“When?”

“Just a minute ago.”

Nurse Spencer emerged from the cell. “Are you going in?” she asked the detective.

Kinderman nodded, then he turned and walked slowly into the cell. He quietly closed the door behind him, went to the straight
-
backed chair and sat down. Sunlight was watching him, his eyes gleaming. What was different about him? the detective wondered.

“Well, I simply had to see you,” said Sunlight. “You’ve been lucky for me. I owe you something, Lieutenant. Besides, I want my story set down as it happened.”

“And how did it happen?” Kinderman asked him.

“Close call for Julie, wouldn’t you say?”

Kinderman waited. He listened to the dripping sound in the basin.

Sunlight abruptly leaned his head back and chuckled, then he fixed the detective with a shining stare. “Haven’t you guessed it, Lieutenant? Why, of course you have. You’ve finally put it all together–how my precious little surrogates do my work, my dear, sweet, elderly empty vessels. Well, they’re perfect hosts, of course. They aren’t here. Their own personalities are shattered. And so in I slip. For a while. Just awhile.”

Kinderman stared.

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course. About this body. Friend of yours, Lieutenant?” Sunlight leaned his head back in rippling laughter that flowed into the strident braying of an ass. Kinderman felt ice at the back of his neck. Abruptly Sunlight broke it off and stared blankly. “Well, there I was so awfully dead,” he said. “I didn’t like it. Would you? It’s upsetting. Yes, I felt very poorly. You know–adrift. So much work left to do and no body. It wasn’t fair. But then along came–well, a friend. You know. One of them. He thought my work should continue. But in this body. This body in particular, in fact.”

The detective was mesmerized. He asked, “Why?”

Sunlight shrugged. “Let’s call it spite. Revenge. A little joke. A certain matter of an exorcism, I think, in which your friend Father Karras had been a participant and–well– expelled certain parties from the body of a child. Certain parties were not pleased, to say the least. No, not happy.” For a moment Sunlight’s gaze was far away and haunted. He gave a little shudder, men looked back at Kinderman. “So he thought of this prank as a way of getting back: using this pious, heroic body as the instrument of–” Sunlight shrugged. “Well, you know. My thing. My work. My friend was very sympathetic. He brought me to our mutual friend Father Karras. Not too well at the time. I’m afraid. Passing on. In the dying mode, as we say. So as he was slipping out my helpful friend slipped me in. Ships that pass in the night and all of that. Oh, some confusion by the steps when the ambulance team pronounced Karras dead, of course. Well, he was dead, technically speaking. I mean, in the spiritual sense. He was out. But I was in. A little traumatized, true. And why not? His brain was jelly. Lack of oxygen. Disaster. Being dead isn’t easy. But never mind. I managed. Yes, a maximum effort that at least got me out of that coffin. Then at the last a bit of slapstick and comic relief when that old Brother Fain saw me climbing out. That helped. Yes, it’s the smiles that keep us going at times, the bits of unexpected cheer. But after that it was rather downhill for a time. A time? Twelve years. So much damage to the brain cells, you see. So many lost. But the brain has remarkable powers, Lieutenant. Ask your friend, the good Doctor Amfortas. Oh. No, I suppose I should ask him for you.”

Sunlight was silent for a time. “No reaction from the gallery,” he said at last. “Don’t you believe me, Lieutenant?”

“No.”

The mockery vanished and Sunlight looked stricken. In an instant his features had crumpled into helplessness. “You don’t?” he quavered.

“No.”

Sunlight’s eyes were beseeching and fearful. “Tommy says he won’t forgive me unless you know the truth,” he said.

“What truth?”

Sunlight turned away. He said dully, “They will punish me for this.” He seemed to be staring at a distant tenor.

“What truth?” the detective asked him again.

Sunlight shivered and looked back at Kinderman. His face was an urgent plea. “I am not Karras,” he whispered hoarsely. “Tommy wants you to know that. I am not Karras! Please believe me. If you don’t, Tommy says he won’t leave. He’ll just .stay here. I can’t leave my brother alone. Please help me. I can’t go without my brother!’’

Kinderman’s eyebrows were gathered in puzzlement. He angled his head to the side. “Go where?”

“I’m so tired. I want to go on. There’s no need for me to stay now. I want to go on. Your friend Karras had nothing to do with the murders.” When Sunlight leaned forward Kinderman was stunned by the desperation in his eyes. “Tell Tommy you believe that!” he pleaded. “Tell him!”

Kinderman held his breath. He had a sense of the momentous that he could not explain. What was it? Why did he have this feeling? Did he believe what Sunlight was saying? It didn’t matter, he decided. He knew he must say it. “I believe you,” he said firmly.

Sunlight slumped backward against the wall and his eyes rolled upward as from his mouth came the stuttering sounds, that other voice: “
I-I-I-I
–love you,
J–J–J
–Jimmy.” Sunlight’s eyes grew heavy and somnolent and his head sagged onto his chest. Then the eyes closed.

Kinderman quickly got up from the chair. Alarmed, he moved swiftly over to the cot and lowered his ear to Sunlight’s mouth. But Sunlight said nothing more. Kinderman rushed toward the buzzer, pushed it, then hastily stepped out into the hall. He met Atkins’ gaze and said, “It’s starting.”

Kinderman raced to a charge desk telephone. He called his home. Mary answered. “Sweetheart, don’t leave the house,” the detective said urgently. “Don’t let anyone leave the house! Lock the windows and doors and don’t let anyone in until I get there!”

When Mary protested, he repeated the instructions and then hung up the phone. He went back to the hallway outside Cell Twelve. “I want men at my house right away,’’ he told Atkins.

Nurse Spencer emerged from inside the cell. She looked at the detective and said, “He’s dead.”

Kinderman
stared at her blankly. “What?”

She said, “He’s dead. His heart just stopped.”

Kinderman looked past her. The door was open and Sunlight was lying on his back on the cot. “Atkins, wait here,” the detective murmured. “Don’t call. Never mind. Just wait,” he said.

Kinderman slowly entered the cell. He could hear Nurse Spencer coming in behind him. Her footsteps halted but he moved a little farther until he was standing close by the cot. He looked down at Sunlight. His restraints and straitjacket had been removed. His eyes were closed, and in death his features seemed to have softened: on his face was a look of something like peace, of a journey’s end that was long awaited. Kinderman had seen that look once before. He tried to collect his thoughts for a time. Then he spoke without turning. “He was asking for me earlier?”

He heard Spencer behind him saying, “Yes.”

“Only that?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” answered Spencer. She came up beside him.

Kinderman turned his head to her. “Did you hear him say anything else?”

She had folded her arms. “Well, not really.”

“Not really? What exactly do you mean?” Her eyes looked dark in the dimness of the room. “There was that stuttering thing,” she said. “A funny voice that he uses sometimes. It stutters.”

“He said words?”

“I’m not sure.” The nurse shrugged. “I don’t know. It was just before he started calling for you. He was still unconscious, I thought. I’d come in to take his pulse. Then I heard that sort of stuttering thing. It was something–well, I’m not sure–but like ‘father.’ “

“ ‘Father’?”

She shrugged. “Something close to that, I think.”

“And he was still unconscious at the time?”

She said, “Yes. Then he seemed to come to and– Oh, yes, now I remember something else. He yelled, ‘He’s finished.’ “

Kinderman blinked at her. “ ‘He’s finished’?”

“That was just before he started to shout your name.”

Kinderman stared for a time; then he turned and looked down at the body.

“ ‘He’s finished,’ “ he murmured.

“Funny thing,” said Nurse Spencer. “He looked happy at the end. For a second, he opened his eyes and looked happy. Almost like a child.” Her voice was strangely disconsolate. “I felt sorry for him,” she said. “What a terrible person, psychotic or not. But there was something about him that made me feel sorry.”

“He is part of the angel,” murmured Kinderman softly. His eyes were still on Sunlight’s face. “I didn’t hear what you said.”

Kinderman listened to a drop from the faucet smacking the porcelain of the basin. “You may go now, Miss Spencer,” he told her; “thank you.” He listened to her leaving, and when she was gone he reached down and touched Sunlight’s face. He held his hand there gently for a moment; then he turned and walked slowly out to the hallway. Something seemed different, he thought. What was it? “What is bothering you, Atkins?” he asked. “Please tell me,”

The sergeant’s eyes had a haunted look. “I don’t know,’’ he said. He shrugged. “But I have some information for you, Lieutenant. The Gemini’s father,” he said. “We found him.”

“You did?”

Atkins nodded.

“Where is he?” asked Kinderman.

Atkins eyes seemed greener than ever, unblinking and whirling around a pinpoint of iris. “He’s dead,” he said. “He died of a stroke.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

Kinderman stared.

“What the hell is going on, Lieutenant?” asked Atkins.

Kinderman realized what was different. He looked up at the ceiling of the hallway. All of the lights were burning brightly. “I think it’s finished,” he murmured softly. He nodded his head. “Yes. I think so.” Kinderman lowered his gaze to Atkins and said, “It’s over.” Then he paused. “I believed him.”

The next instant the terror and the loss flooded in, the relief and the pain, and his face began to crumple. He sagged against a wall and started sobbing uncontrollably. Atkins was caught by surprise and for a moment he didn’t know what to do; then he took a step forward and held the detective in his arms. “It’s all right, sir,” he repeated over and over as the sobbing and weeping went on for minutes. Just when Atkins was afraid it might never stop, it began to subside; but the sergeant held on. “I’m just tired,” whispered
Kinderman
at last. “I’m sorry. There’s no reason. No reason. I’m just tired.” Atkins took him home.