Black House

"The best way to deal with her problem is to let her express herself," Green says.

"You will be quiet now, Mr. Green," Dr. Spiegleman says. The double chins that fold under his goatee turn a warm pink. He glares at Jack. "What specifically is it that you request, Lieutenant?"

"Do you have an office in this hospital, Doctor?"

"I do. "

"Ideally, I'd like to spend about half an hour, maybe less, talking to Mrs. Marshall in a safe, quiet environment where our conversation would be completely confidential. Your office would probably be perfect. There are too many people on the ward, and you can't talk without being interrupted or having other patients listen in. "

"My office," Spiegleman says.

"If you're willing. "

"Come with me," the doctor says. "Mr. Green, you will please stand back next to the counter while Lieutenant Sawyer and I step into the hallway. "

"Anything you say. " Green executes a mocking bow and moves lightly, with a suggestion of dance steps, to the counter. "In your absence, I'm sure this handsome young man and I will find something to talk about. "

Smiling, Wendell Green props his elbows on the counter and watches Jack and Dr. Spiegleman leave the room. Their footsteps click against the floor tiles until it sounds as though they have gone more than halfway down the corridor. Then there is silence. Still smiling, Wendell about-faces and finds the attendant openly staring at him.

"I read you all the time," the boy says. "You write real good. "

Wendell's smile becomes beatific. "Handsome and intelligent. What a stunning combination. Tell me your name. "

"Ethan Evans. "

"Ethan, we do not have much time here, so let's make this snappy. Do you think responsible members of the press should have access to information the public needs?"

"You bet. "

"And wouldn't you agree that an informed press is one of our best weapons against monsters like the Fisherman?"

A single, vertical wrinkle appears between Ethan Evans's eyebrows. "Weapons?"

"Let me put it this way. Isn't it true that the more we know about the Fisherman, the b

etter chance we have of stopping him?"

The boy nods, and the wrinkle disappears.

"Tell me, do you think the doctor is going to let Sawyer use his office?"

"Prob'ly, yeah," Evans says. "But I don't like the way that Sawyer guy works. He's a police brutality. Like when they hit people to make them confess. That's brutality. "

"I have another question for you. Two questions, really. Is there a closet in Dr. Spiegleman's office? And is there some way you could take me there without going through that corridor?"

"Oh. " Evans's dim eyes momentarily shine with understanding. "You want to listen. "

"Listen and record. " Wendell Green taps the pocket that contains his cassette recorder. "For the good of the public at large, God bless 'em one and all. "

"Well, maybe, yeah," the boy says. "But Dr. Spiegleman, he . . . "

A twenty-dollar bill has magically appeared folded around the second finger of Wendell Green's right hand. "Act fast, and Dr. Spiegleman will never know a thing. Right, Ethan?"

Ethan Evans snatches the bill from Wendell's hand and motions him back behind the counter, where he opens a door and says, "Come on, hurry. "

Low lights burn at both ends of the dark corridor. Dr. Spiegleman says, "I gather that my patient's husband told you about the tape she received this morning. "

"He did. How did it get here, do you know?"

"Believe me, Lieutenant, after I saw the effect that tape had on Mrs. Marshall and listened to it myself, I tried to learn how it reached my patient. All of our mail goes through the hospital's mailroom before being delivered, all of it, whether to patients, medical staff, or administrative offices. From there, a couple of volunteers deliver it to the addressees. I gather that the package containing the tape was in the hospital mailroom when a volunteer looked in there this morning. Because the package was addressed only with my patient's name, the volunteer went to our general information office. One of the girls brought it up. "

"Shouldn't someone have consulted you before giving the tape and a cassette player to Judy?"

"Of course. Nurse Bond would have done so immediately, but she is not on duty today. Nurse Rack, who is on duty, assumed that the address referred to a childhood nickname and thought that one of Mrs. Marshall's old friends had sent her some music to cheer her up. And there is a cassette player in the nurses' station, so she put the tape in the player and gave it to Mrs. Marshall. "

In the gloom of the corridor, the doctor's eyes take on a sardonic glint. "Then, as you might imagine, all hell broke loose. Mrs. Marshall reverted to the condition in which she was first hospitalized, which takes in a range of alarming behaviors. Fortunately, I happened to be in the hospital, and when I heard what had happened, I ordered her sedated and placed in a secure room. A secure room, Lieutenant, has padded walls ¡ª Mrs. Marshall had reopened the wounds to her fingers, and I did not want her to do any more damage to herself. Once the sedative had taken effect, I went in and talked to her. I listened to the tape. Perhaps I should have called the police immediately, but my first responsibility is to my patient, and I called Mr. Marshall instead. "

"From where?"

"From the secure room, with my cell phone. Mr. Marshall of course insisted on speaking to his wife, and she wanted to speak to him. She became very distraught during their conversation, and I had to give her another mild sedative. When she calmed down, I went out of the room and called Mr. Marshall again, to tell him more specifically about the contents of the tape. Do you want to hear it?"

"Not now, Doctor, thanks. But I do want to ask you about one aspect of it. "

"Then ask. "

"Fred Marshall tried to imitate the way you had reproduced the accent of the man who made the tape. Did it sound like any recognizable accent to you? German, maybe?"

"I've been thinking about that. It was sort of like a Germanic pronunciation of English, but not really. If it sounded like anything recognizable, it was English spoken by a Frenchman trying to put on a German accent, if that makes sense to you. But really, I've never heard anything like it. "

From the start of this conversation, Dr. Spiegleman has been measuring Jack, assessing him according to standards Jack cannot even begin to guess. His expression remains as neutral and impersonal as that of a traffic cop. "Mr. Marshall informed me that he intended to call you. It seems that you and Mrs. Marshall have formed a rather extraordinary bond. She respects your skill at what you do, which is to be expected, but she also seems to trust you. Mr. Marshall asks that you be allowed to interview his wife, and his wife tells me that she must talk to you. "

"Then you should have no problems with letting me see her in private for half an hour. "

Dr. Spiegleman's smile is gone as soon as it appears. "My patient and her husband have demonstrated their trust in you, Lieutenant Sawyer, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not I can trust you. "

"Trust me to do what?"

"A number of things. Primarily, to act in the best interest of my patient. To refrain from unduly distressing her, also from giving her false hopes. My patient has developed a number of delusions centered on the existence of another world somehow contiguous to ours. She thinks her son is being held captive in this other world. I must tell you, Lieutenant, that both my patient and her husband believe you are familiar with this fantasy-world ¡ª that is, my patient accepts this belief wholly, and her husband accepts it only provisionally, on the grounds that it comforts his wife. "

"I understand that. " There is only one thing Jack can tell the doctor now, and he says it. "And what you should understand is that in all of my conversations with the Marshalls, I have been acting in my unofficial capacity as a consultant to the French Landing Police Department and its chief, Dale Gilbertson. "

"Your unofficial capacity. "

"Chief Gilbertson has been asking me to advise him on his conduct of the Fisherman investigation, and two days ago, after the disappearance of Tyler Marshall, I finally agreed to do what I could. I have no official status whatsoever. I'm just giving the chief and his officers the benefit of my experience. "

"Let me get this straight, Lieutenant. You have been misleading the Marshalls as to your familiarity with Mrs. Marshall's delusional fantasy-world?"

"I'll answer you this way, Doctor. We know from the tape that the Fisherman really is holding Tyler Marshall captive. We could say that he is no longer in this world, but in the Fisherman's. "

Dr. Spiegleman raises his eyebrows.

"Do you think this monster inhabits the same universe that we do?" asks Jack. "I don't, and neither do you. The Fisherman lives in a world all his own, one that operates according to fantastically detailed rules he has made up or invented over the years. With all due respect, my experience has made me far more familiar with structures like this than the Marshalls, the police, and, unless you have done a great deal of work with psychopathic criminals, even you. I'm sorry if that sounds arrogant, because I don't mean it that way. "

"You're talking about profiling? Something like that?"

"Years ago, I was invited into a special VICAP profiling unit run by the FBI, and I learned a lot there, but what I'm talking about now goes beyond profiling. " And that's the understatement of the year, Jack says to himself. Now it's in your court, Doctor.

Spiegleman nods, slowly. The distant glow flashes in the lenses of his glasses. "I think I see, yes. " He ponders. He sighs, crosses his arms over his chest, and ponders some more. Then he raises his eyes to Jack's. "All right. I'll let you see her. Alone. In my office. For thirty minutes. I wouldn't want to stand in the way of advanced investigative procedure. "

"Thank you," Jack says. "This will be extremely helpful, I promise you. "

"I have been a psychiatrist too long to believe in promises like that, Lieutenant Sawyer, but I hope you succeed in rescuing Tyler Marshall. Let me take you to my office. You can wait there while I get my patient and bring her there by another hallway.

It's a little quicker. "

Dr. Spiegleman marches to the end of the dark corridor and turns left, then left again, pulls a fat ball of keys from his pocket, and opens an unmarked door. Jack follows him into a room that looks as though it had been created by combining two small offices into one. Half of the room is taken up by a long wooden desk, a chair, a glass-topped coffee table stacked with journals, and filing cabinets; the other half is dominated by a couch and the leather recliner placed at its head. Georgia O'Keeffe posters decorate the walls. Behind the desk stands a door Jack assumes opens into a small closet; the door directly opposite, behind the recliner and at the midpoint between the two halves of the office, looks as though it leads into an adjoining room.

"As you see," Dr. Spiegleman says, "I use this space as both an office and a supplementary consulting room. Most of my patients come in through the waiting room, and I'll bring Mrs. Marshall in that way. Give me two or three minutes. "

Jack thanks him, and the doctor hurries out through the door to the waiting room.

In the little closet, Wendell Green slides his cassette recorder from the pocket of his jacket and presses both it and his ear to the door. His thumb rests on the RECORD button, and his heart is racing. Once again, western Wisconsin's most distinguished journalist is doing his duty for the man in the street. Too bad it's so blasted dark in that closet, but being stuffed into a black hole is not the first sacrifice Wendell has made for his sacred calling; besides, all he really needs to see is the little red light on his tape recorder.

Then, a surprise: although Doctor Spiegleman has left the room, here is his voice, asking for Lieutenant Sawyer. How did that Freudian quack get back in without opening or closing a door, and what happened to Judy Marshall?

Lieutenant Sawyer, I must speak to you. Pick up the receiver. You have a call, and it sounds urgent.

Of course ¡ª he is on the intercom. Who can be calling Jack Sawyer, and why the urgency? Wendell hopes that Golden Boy will push the telephone's SPEAKER button, but alas Golden Boy does not, and Wendell must be content with hearing only one side of the conversation.

"A call?" Jack says. "Who's it from?"

"He refused to identify himself," the doctor says. "Someone you told you'd be visiting Ward D. "

Beezer, with news of Black House. "How do I take the call?"

"Just punch the flashing button," the doctor says. "Line one. I'll bring in Mrs. Marshall when I see you're off the line. "

Jack hits the button and says, "Jack Sawyer. "

"Thank God," says Beezer St. Pierre's honey-and-tobacco voice. "Hey man, you gotta get over to my place, the sooner the better. Everything got messed up. "

"Did you find it?"

"Oh yeah, we found Black House, all right. It didn't exactly welcome us. That place wants to stay hidden, and it lets you know. Some of the guys are hurting. Most of us will be okay, but Mouse, I don't know. He got something terrible from a dog bite, if it was a dog, which I doubt. Doc did what he could, but Hell, the guy is out of his mind, and he won't let us take him to the hospital. "

"Beezer, why don't you take him anyway, if that's what he needs?"

"We don't do things that way. Mouse hasn't stepped inside a hospital since his old man croaked in one. He's twice as scared of hospitals as of what's happening to his leg. If we took him to La Riviere General, he'd probably drop dead in the E. R. "

"And if he didn't, he'd never forgive you. "

"You got it. How soon can you be here?"

"I still have to see the woman I told you about. Maybe an hour ¡ª not much longer than that, anyhow. "

"Didn't you hear me? Mouse is dying on us. We got a whole lot of things to say to each other. "

"I agree," Jack says. "Work with me on this, Beez. " He hangs up, turns to the door near the consulting-room chair, and waits for his world to change.

What the hell was that all about? Wendell wonders. He has squandered two minutes' worth of tape on a conversation between Jack Sawyer and the dumb SOB who spoiled the film that should have paid for a nice car and a fancy house on a bluff above the river, and all he got was worthless crap. Wendell deserves the nice car and the fancy house, has earned them thrice over, and his sense of deprivation makes him seethe with resentment. Golden Boys get everything handed to them on diamond-studded salvers, people fall all over themselves to give them stuff they don't even need, but a legendary, selfless working stiff and gentleman of the press like Wendell Green? It costs Wendell Green twenty bucks to hide in a dark, crowded little closet just to do his job!

His ears tingle when he hears the door open. The red light burns, the faithful recorder passes the ready tape from spool to spool, and whatever happens now is going to change everything: Wendell's gut, that infallible organ, his best friend, warms with the assurance that justice will soon be his.

Dr. Spiegleman's voice filters through the closet door and registers on the spooling tape: "I'll leave you two alone now. "

Golden Boy: "Thank you, Doctor. I'm very grateful. "

Dr. Spiegleman: "Thirty minutes, right? That means I'll be back at, umm, ten past two. "

Golden Boy: "Fine. "

The soft closing of the door, the click of the latch. Then long seconds of silence. Why aren't they talking to each other? But of course . . . the question answers itself. They're waiting for fat-ass Spiegleman to move out of hearing range.

Oh, this is just delicious, that's what this is! The whisper of Golden Boy's footsteps moving toward that door all but confirms the sterling reporter's intuition. O gut of Wendell Green, O Instrument Marvelous and Trustworthy, once more you come through with the journalistic goods! Wendell hears, the machine records, the inevitable next sound: the click of the lock.

Judy Marshall: "Don't forget the door behind you. "

Golden Boy: "How are you?"

Judy Marshall: "Much, much better, now that you're here. The door, Jack. "

Another set of footsteps, another unmistakable sliding into place of a metal bolt.

Soon-To-Be-Ruined Boy: "I've been thinking about you all day. I've been thinking about this. "

The Harlot, the Whore, the Slut: "Is half an hour long enough?"

Him With Foot In Bear Trap: "If it isn't, he'll just have to bang on the doors. "

Wendell barely restrains himself from crowing with delight. These two people are actually going to have sex together, they are going to rip off their clothes and have at it like animals. Man, talk about your pay-backs! When Wendell Green is done with him, Jack Sawyer's reputation will be lower than the Fisherman's.

Judy's eyes look tired, her hair is limp, and her fingertips wear the startling white of fresh gauze, but besides registering the depth of her feeling, her face glows with the clear, hard-won beauty of the imaginative strength she called upon to earn what she has seen. To Jack, Judy Marshall looks like a queen falsely imprisoned. Instead of disguising her innate nobility of spirit, the hospital gown and the faded nightdress make it all the more apparent. Jack takes his eyes from her long enough to lock the second door, then takes a step toward her.

He sees that he cannot tell her anything she does not already know. Judy completes the movement he has begun; she moves before him and holds out her hands to be grasped.

"I've been thinking about you all day," he says, taking her hands. "I've been thinking about this. "

Her response takes in everything she has come to see, everything they must do. "Is half an hour long enough?"

"If it isn't, he'll just have to bang on the doors. "

They smile; she increases the pressure on his hands. "Then let him bang. " With the smallest, slightest tug, she pulls him forward, and Jack's heart pounds with the expectation of an embrace.

What she does is far more extraordinary than a mere embrace: she lowers her head and, with two light, dry brushes of her lips, kisses his hands. Then she presses the back of his right hand against her cheek, and steps back. Her eyes k

indle. "You know about the tape. "

He nods.

"I went mad when I heard it, but sending it to me was a mistake. He pushed me too hard. Because I fell right back into being that child who listened to another child whispering through a wall. I went crazy and I tried to rip the wall apart. I heard my son screaming for my help. And he was there ¡ª on the other side of the wall. Where you have to go. "

"Where we have to go. "

"Where we have to go. Yes. But I can't get through the wall, and you can. So you have work to do, the most important work there could be. You have to find Ty, and you have to stop the abbalah. I don't know what that is, exactly, but stopping it is your job. Am I saying this right: you are a coppiceman?"

"You're saying it right," Jack says. "I am a coppiceman. That's why it's my job. "

"Then this is right, too. You have to get rid of Gorg and his master, Mr. Munshun. That's not what his name really is, but it's what it sounds like: Mr. Munshun. When I went mad, and I tried to rip through the world, she told me, and she could whisper straight into my ear. I was so close!"

What does Wendell Green, ear and whirling tape recorder pressed to the door, make of this conversation? It is hardly what he expected to hear: the animal grunts and moans of desire busily being satisfied. Wendell Green grinds his teeth, he stretches his face into a grimace of frustration.

"I love that you've let yourself see," says Jack. "You're an amazing human being. There isn't a person in a thousand who could even understand what that means, much less do it. "

"You talk too much," Judy says.

"I mean, I love you. "

"In your way, you love me. But you know what? Just by coming here, you made me more than I was. There's this sort of beam that comes out of you, and I just locked on to that beam. Jack, you lived there, and all I could do was peek at it for a little while. That's enough, though. I'm satisfied. You and Ward D, you let me travel. "

"What you have inside you lets you travel. "

"Okay, three cheers for a well-examined spell of craziness. Now it's time. You have to be a coppiceman. I can only come halfway, but you'll need all your strength. "

"I think your strength is going to surprise you. "

"Take my hands and do it, Jack. Go over. She's waiting, and I have to give you to her. You know her name, don't you?"

He opens his mouth, but cannot speak. A force that seems to come from the center of the earth surges into his body, rolling electricity through his bloodstream, tightening his scalp, sealing his trembling fingers to Judy Marshall's, which also tremble. A feeling of tremendous lightness and mobility gathers within all the hollow spaces of his body; at the same time he has never been so aware of his body's obduracy, its resistance to flight. When they leave, he thinks, it'll be like a rocket launch. The floor seems to vibrate beneath his feet.

He manages to look down the length of his arms to Judy Marshall, who leans back with her head parallel to the shaking floor, eyes closed, smiling in a trance of accomplishment. A band of shivery white light surrounds her. Her beautiful knees, her legs shining beneath the hem of the old blue garment, her bare feet planted. That light shivers around him, too. All of this comes from her, Jack thinks, and from ¡ª

A rushing sound fills the air, and the Georgia O'Keeffe prints fly off the walls. The low couch dances away from the wall; papers swirl up from the jittering desk. A skinny halogen lamp crashes to the ground. All through the hospital, on every floor, in every room and ward, beds vibrate, television sets go black, instruments rattle in their rattling trays, lights flicker. Toys drop from the gift-shop shelves, and the tall lilies skid across the marble in their vases. On the fifth floor, light bulbs detonate into showers of golden sparks.

The hurricane noise builds, builds, and with a great whooshing sound becomes a wide, white sheet of light, which immediately vanishes into a pinpoint and is gone. Gone, too, is Jack Sawyer; and gone from the closet is Wendell Green.

Sucked into the Territories, blown out of one world and sucked into another, blasted and dragged, man, we're a hundred levels up from the simple, well-known flip. Jack is lying down, looking up at a ripped white sheet that flaps like a torn sail. A quarter of a second ago, he saw another white sheet, one made of pure light and not literal, like this one. The soft, fragrant air blesses him. At first, he is conscious only that his right hand is being held, then that an astonishing woman lies beside him. Judy Marshall. No, not Judy Marshall, whom he does love, in his way, but another astonishing woman, who once whispered to Judy through a wall of night and has lately drawn a great deal closer. He had been about to speak her name when ¡ª

Into his field of vision moves a lovely face both like and unlike Judy's. It was turned on the same lathe, baked in the same kiln, chiseled by the same besotted sculptor, but more delicately, with a lighter, more caressing touch. Jack cannot move for wonder. He is barely capable of breathing. This woman whose face is above him now, smiling down with a tender impatience, has never borne a child, never traveled beyond her native Territories, never flown in an airplane, driven a car, switched on a television, scooped ice ready-made from the freezer, or used a microwave: and she is radiant with spirit and inner grace. She is, he sees, lit from within.

Humor, tenderness, compassion, intelligence, strength, glow in her eyes and speak from the curves of her mouth, from the very molding of her face. He knows her name, and her name is perfect for her. It seems to Jack that he has fallen in love with this woman in an instant, that he enlisted in her cause on the spot, and at last he finds he can speak her perfect name:

Sophie.