The Fifth Profession (32 page)

And to Savage's surprise, he let her.

8

In his dream, he made love to Rachel's sister, and the dream was identical to the most famous scene in Joyce Stone's most famous movie,
Cat's Claw.
The actress had portrayed a wealthy American on the French Riviera. A charismatic jewel thief had tried persistently to seduce her. Eventually, to gain his trust and obtain information,
she'd
seduced
him.
The thief had been confident he had sufficient control not to fall in love with her. He was wrong, and in the end she stole his soul.

Joyce Stone and
Rachel
Stone. In Savage's dream, one sister merged with the other. He made love not only to a legendary movie star but to a client he'd pledged himself to protect. Even as he stroked her hard-nippled breasts, her smooth, lithe arms and slender, supple stomach, reaching lower, grazing her silken pubic hair, he told himself this was wrong, unprofessional, twisted, almost incestuous. In all his years of being a protector, he'd never succumbed to the temptations his female clients had on occasion forced upon him. Graham had insisted—Never allow yourself to be sexually involved with a client. It destroys your objectivity. It'll make you careless. It's liable to get her killed.

But as Savage dreamed, as he reexperienced entering Rachel's exquisite body, as he lengthened and thrust, he couldn't stop himself. Guilt fought with need. Confusion blurred the rules. Fear required reassurance. When he came and Rachel moaned, rising against him, grasping his hair, repeating, “I love you,” Savage felt empty, self-betrayed, racked by a bottom-of-the spirit melancholy. No! he wanted to scream. I shouldn't have! I had an obligation to resist!
Why wasn't I stronger?

At once his dream changed. His ejaculation exploded from him with the startling crack of a Colt .45, and he wakened, scrambling to stand, a child who sensed that something had been wrong in the house for days, who'd been sleeping in nervous turmoil, who stumbled from his room and lurched downstairs to his father's study but not before his mother rushed to intervene, too late to prevent his apprehensive gaze from focusing through the open door. The blood. There'd been so much blood. And his father's body on the study's hardwood floor—a towel wrapped around the left side of his head, the
exit
wound side to minimize the blood, though the thrust of the bullet had been too powerful for the towel to do its work—had looked like an obscene clump of rags.

Tears streaming down his cheeks, Savage had wailed, his language shocking from someone so young, “You bastard, you promised you'd never go away again. God damn you.”

And his mother had slapped his face.

9

For a moment, Savage didn't understand why he wasn't outside his father's study, peering toward the horror. For another moment, he expected to see the elegant suite in the French Riviera hotel where Joyce Stone had seduced the jewel thief. In confusion, what he saw instead, blinking, was Akira in a chair in a corner of the Philadelphia hotel suite, setting down a magazine, rising, glancing toward the locked door, frowning, approaching.

“Your sleep wasn't restful. I'm sorry.”

Savage wiped his eyes. “And did you think if Rachel screwed me, I
would
have a restful sleep?”

“I thought nothing.” Akira hunkered beside him. “She asked me to watch the hallway. She insisted she needed a private conversation.”

“Oh, it was private, all right.”

“I don't want details.”

“Why
would
you? Since she already told you.”

“She told me nothing. Except to ask me to return from the hallway. After that, she went to her bedroom. As far as I know, she's asleep.”

“Which is more than
I
am.”

“Whatever happened between you is not my concern. Your conduct has been impeccable.”

“Yeah, right, yeah, sure.”

“Our principal is clearly attracted to you. And if I may say,
you
are attracted to her.”

“And what happened tonight is the proof. It's
wrong.”

“Under ordinary circumstances,” Akira said. “But these aren't ordinary circumstances. You're being too critical of yourself. You feel threatened and …”

“That doesn't excuse my behavior.
You
feel threatened, but you're still in control.”

“My culture taught me to hide distressing emotions … Let me tell you a story.” Akira paused. “My father was a pilot during the Great East Asian War.”

Savage was confused by the reference.

“What you call World War II,” Akira said. “After my country's surrender, my father returned to his home to discover it no longer existed. The city was Hiroshima. His parents, his wife, and his two children had been destroyed by your country's atomic bomb. For years, he brooded, obsessed by his loss. His only solace was the satisfaction he took in helping Japan rebuild itself. A skilled mechanic, he converted warplanes for civilian use and managed to achieve financial success. Eventually he remarried. I was the only product of their union, for his second wife—my mother—had been near Hiroshima when the bomb went off. Her left arm was scarred by radiation burns, and the delayed effects of that radiation caused her to die from bone cancer. My father's grief was almost more than he could bear. He surmounted it only by devoting himself to
me.”

Akira closed his eyes a moment. “Japan has been ravaged so often by typhoons, tidal waves, and earthquakes that fatalism is a national mood and security a national obsession. My father told me that if we couldn't control the disasters that the world inflicted upon us, we
could
control the discipline and dignity with which we faced those disasters. Thus he sent me to the most demanding
sensei
at the most demanding
dojo
he could find. I learned judo, jujitsu, aikido, various Japanese forms of karate, and of course the way of the sword. In time, I decided to use my skills and respond to a hostile universe by becoming a protector, though I've come to realize that even discipline and dignity are no defense against fate, that nothing ultimately can protect us. My father was fatally injured by a car while he walked across a street.”

“I'm sorry,” Savage said. “Your family suffered more than its share. I'm beginning to understand why you seldom smile and even then your eyes remain sad.”

“My
sensei
used to call me ‘the man with no joy.’ “ Akira shrugged. “But my family's hardships are only part of the reason I seldom smile. One day I'll explain. For
now,
my purpose in allowing you a glimpse of my private self is I want you to know that like you I feel threatened. What's been done to our memories makes me question everything I am, Maybe none of what I've told you is true. And that possibility not only threatens me but makes me angry. Have I grieved for a father, a mother, and ancestors that never existed? I must find out.”

“Yes,” Savage said, “I want to know how much of what made me what I am didn't happen.”

“Suppose that isn't possible.”

“It has to be.”

“But how do—?”

“Tomorrow we leave for Baltimore. There's someone I have to see. I can't explain. Don't make me talk about it.”

“But you did say,
‘We
leave for Baltimore.’ “ Rachel's voice was unexpected. “Does that mean you've decided to trust us again?”

Savage turned toward where she stood in the open bedroom door. She wore a blue nightshirt that conformed to her breasts. His body retained the sensation of having made love to her. Though she looked as if her sleep had been as troubled as Savage's, she was beautiful.

“Let's put it this way,” Savage said. “I
want
to trust you.”

10

Baltimore was southwest of Philadelphia: a ninety-minute urgent drive. When Savage stopped the Taurus in front of a two-story house in a well-maintained subdivision on the city's outskirts, he stared at the sculpted evergreen bushes surrounding the meticulously landscaped property and finally shut off the engine. Despite the chill of October, his brow exuded sweat.

“Who lives here?” Rachel asked.

“That's a damned good question,” Savage said. He stepped from the car and shuddered.

“Do you need any help?” Akira reached for his door.

“No.” Savage gestured firmly. “I have to find out by myself.”

“Find out?” Rachel asked.

“If I told you, you
would
think I'm crazy. If this works out, I'll wave for you to come in. Whatever the answer, it won't take long.”

Savage braced himself and walked up the sidewalk, passing fallow flower beds, reaching the porch, crossing it, his footsteps echoing, approaching the front door.

For an instant, he almost knocked but decided to behave as naturally as possible, to do what he always did. Simply go in.

The hallway—in shadow—smelled musty. Cutting through the must was the stomach-growling aroma of pot roast flavored with garlic and wine. To Savage's right, a living room had too much furniture, all of it covered with plastic sheets, protection from the ravaging claws of several aggressive cats.

Down the hall, from the kitchen, Savage heard melodramatic actors intoning TV-soap-opera dialogue. As well, he heard the unmistakable rhythmic clink and thunk of a wooden spoon against a metal bowl: batter being mixed.

Unlike the shadowy hallway, the kitchen was bright. Savage entered and saw a wrinkled, stoop-shouldered, gray-haired woman staring toward a ten-inch color TV next to a microwave while she stirred the batter.

As Savage approached the butcher-block table where she worked, he grinned. “Surprise, Mom.”

She jerked her head in his direction and dropped her spoon. “You …”

“I know I don't come to visit as often as I should, but my work keeps me busy. At least I send you money each month.

You've been taking care of the house, I see. It looks wonderful.” Savage kept grinning.

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you. I haven't come to visit often enough. I'm sorry, Mom. I'll try to do better.”

“Answer my question. What are you doing here?”

“I'm not in any trouble if that's what you're thinking. You won't have to hide me and send for a doctor like you did the last time. I just felt like dropping in. To talk about the old days. About Dad.” Savage stepped closer to hug her.

She backed away.

“Come on, Mom. Don't be angry. I said I was sorry for—”

“Stay away from me. Who
are
you?”

In that instant, Savage knew that everything he'd feared had come true. A sickening dizziness seized him. His legs felt weak.

He managed to take another step. “Your son.”

She screamed.

“No, please, don't—”

Her scream became more intense, fierce, shrill, desperate.

Footsteps thundered up the basement stairs. A husky elderly man, his sleeves rolled up, his forearms sinewy, charged into the kitchen. His hair was white and wispy. He had liver spots on his face. Despite his age, he exuded strength. “Gladys, what's wrong?”

The woman's face had become as pale as the dough she'd been beating. Backed against a counter by the sink, she stopped screaming, had trouble breathing, and pointed at Savage, her bony finger trembling.

“Who the hell are you?” the man growled.

“Frank, he says …” The woman gasped. “He opened the door and walked right in. Scared me half to death. Called me … He thinks he's our
son.”

The man's cheeks turned red. He spun toward a counter, yanked open a drawer, and pulled out a hammer. “In the first place, buddy, the only son we had died twenty years ago from cystic fibrosis.” The man raised the hammer and stalked toward Savage. “In the second place, you've got seven seconds to get your ass out of here before I beat your skull in and call the cops.”

Savage held up his hands in surrender. His stomach felt swollen with writhing snakes. He couldn't control his terror. “No, listen. Something terrible has happened. You don't understand. You've got to let me explain.”

“Something terrible's happened, all right. You barged in my house and scared my wife. And something
really
terrible's about to happen to you if you don't get the hell out of here.”

The woman lunged for a phone on the wall beside the refrigerator.

“Wait!” Savage said.

She pressed three numbers.

“Please! You've got to listen!” Savage said.

“Officer, this is an emergency!”

“Get out!” the man told Savage.

As the man raised the hammer, Savage bumped backward against a doorjamb. He suddenly couldn't move, paralyzed with shock.

With
horror.

Because the husky elderly man confronting him with the hammer was Savage's father, not as he remembered his father from their last conversation a few hours before his father had shot himself, but as his father would have looked if he'd had the chance to age. Savage recognized the dimple on the man's square jaw, the narrow gap in his bottom row of teeth, the scar across the back of his left hand.

The woman trembled, blurting an address to the phone.

“No!” Savage said. “You're my parents!
I'm your son!”

“You're nuts is what you are!” the man said. “Maybe this hammer across your head will—”

“Why don't you remember me?”

Savage ducked from the blur of the hammer. With a hissing rush, it walloped against the doorjamb. The bang was so loud, so close, it made his ears ring.

“Stop!”

The man swung again.

Savage stumbled in retreat down the hall. He passed the study where his father had shot himself. A cat sprang from nowhere and clawed up Savage's leg.

“No!” The man kept coming, swinging the hammer.

“If you're not my father, who
are
you?” Savage reached behind him, frantic to open the outside door. The cat kept clawing his leg. Savage shook his leg and thrust the cat away. “For God's sake, who am
I?”

He spun, rushing from the house, racing across the porch, almost losing his balance, leaping down the steps.

At the curb, staring from the Taurus, Akira and Rachel looked startled.

Savage scrambled inside.