"How about kissinim or kissinum?"
It had been Gates' last word as he fell dead.
"That's 'thank you.' What's up? Going to a Hungarian restaurant? I can recommend—"
"Thanks, Mike."
Rob hurried back to his desk. He's gone! and Thank you! Jesus H. Christ! Why would Gates say stuff like that? If Rob were a mental case, he'd probably say that could mean only one thing: Lazlo Gati had killed himself to escape the control of his brother Gabor.
But Rob wasn't a mental case. He was a New York City cop. And if he wanted to stay a New York City cop, he would keep these thoughts to himself.
Only one thing to do at this juncture: Stick like glue to Kara and Jill. He'd move in with them if he had to. Anything to stay close. Something was going on. He didn't know what—or if he did, he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud—but he was going to find out for sure.
The phone rang again. It was Kara.
"Rob, do you have any free time tomorrow?"
"I'm off. One of my floating days off."
"Would you mind stopping by the Chelsea house and helping me with a few things? I want to make some changes."
"Sure! Be glad to! See you around nine?"
He hung up. How about that? She wanted 'to make some changes.' Wasn't that just like a woman in a new house? Maybe all his fears were groundless.
Whatever. He'd be on West Twenty-first Street bright and early tomorrow morning.
▼
9:35 P.M.
Kara couldn't stand the noise any longer.
God, that's awful. Can you say you actually enjoy that caterwauling?
After Jill had gone off to bed, Gabor had seated Kara's body in the recliner on the heavily draped third floor. With a remote electronic control he had started up the CD player. Seconds later, operatic voices began blasting through the room. He tilted the chair back, closed her eyes, and Kara found herself enclosed in darkness, listening to a woman screeching in Italian. She had to admit, though, that the sound system was impressive. She could almost believe that she was in an opera house listening to a live performance. But that did not make her enjoy what she was being forced to hear.
"That is not caterwauling. That is Mirlella Freni singing Verdi's Ernani at La Scala. It's beautiful."
It's awful. But not as awful as how you have perverted your ability.
Her eyes opened.
"Perverted?" And to what use, pray tell, do you think I should have put my talent? The good of humanity? Don't make me laugh."
Kara had pulled herself from her depression. Having Jill around helped. She had set her mind to work on getting free of Gabor. It wouldn't be easy—he was so much more experienced at this—and it might even be impossible. But she had to try. And to have any hope of success, she had to know more about what made him tick.
Why not? Think what you might be able to do for coma patients. Maybe you could wake them up. Or schizophrenics. Maybe you could put their minds back on track.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not."
But you've never even tried. You have this power and you could have contributed something, but instead you're nothing but a—a voluptuary!
"Voluptuary. I like that word. You have an excellent vocabulary, Kara. But you have not thought your scenario all the way through. Here I am, the hero of the medical world, snatching lives back from the depths of coma and psychosis, the wonderful Gabor Gati! But what happens when they all go home for the night? Where is Gabor? Gabor is in a crib in a diaper being fed gruel by a nurse. He can't watch films on TV, he can't choose the music he'd like to hear, he can't even speak to carry on a conversation. And where are the friends and company and conversation Gabor might want? They're somewhere else, and glad to be there, glad they don't have to look at that blind, shrunken, deformed, ugly little geek they use during the day!"
That's the way you see yourself. Aren't you engaging in what you psychiatrists call 'projection?'
"Very good! It is exactly that. But don't try to psychoanalyze me, my dear. I'm way ahead of you. Do you think I have no perspective on myself? I do. I know I am egocentric, and even narcissistic in my own way. And I might even be considered a sociopath. But I exist outside the terminology created for the common Homo sapiens. The developmental defects that so grossly altered my body altered my brain as well. I'm different from you. I'm different from everybody. Your rules don't apply to me. I am a species apart."
Hitler probably thought the same way.
"Perhaps I am rationalizing. But I'm not a megalomaniac. I've no plans to sneak about, impregnating women with my sperm in order to start a super race of my kind."
It probably wouldn't work anyway.
"I agree. But if I were the B-movie power-crazed monster you're implying I am, I'd certainly give it a try. But I'm not interested in ruling the world. I don't care about the world. I care about Gabor. I came into this world trapped in a blind, mute, deformed body incapable of experiencing anything beyond the most rudimentary sensations. But I found a compensatory power within me that allows me to experience all manner of sensation via the bodies of others. So I use that power. It would be a sin, after all, to waste it."
Did your power come with a gift for moral contortions as well, or did you develop that on your own?
"I don't explain myself, Kara. Even to myself."
Maybe you—
Kara felt her body start as something tapped her shoulder.
It was Jill, tired, rubbing her eyes.
"I can't sleep with all that noise," she said above the blare of the opera.
The sound ebbed as Kara's thumb pressed the volume control.
"And you didn't kiss me good night."
Had Kara's muscles been responsive to her moods, they would have bunched into cramped knots. The thought of Gabor kissing Jill…
"Sorry, my dear. Let's get you back to bed."
"And how come you keep calling me 'my dear?' "
"Because you are my dear."
"What do you usually call her?" "Honey." Or "Bug."
"How quaint."
He led her down to the bedroom and did a decent job of tucking her back in.
"Don't forget my kiss!"
Kara's body bent and her lips kissed Jill on the cheek.
"And a hug!"
Kara felt Jill's arms go around her neck and squeeze.
"I love you, Mom!"
Had she eyes and tears, Kara would have wept. That hug and those words were meant for her and Gabor was stealing them. She raged blindly.
I'll get us out of this, Jill! Someway, somehow, I'll get free of him!
A calm, monstrously self-assured voice replied.
"No you won't."
February 27
8:22 A.M.
"Where you going with that food, Mom?"
You freeze for a moment. You were doing what you always do: preparing breakfast for your body in the basement. You reached into the pantry for some junior foods to take downstairs, but you forgot the child.
Up to this point, the morning has gone quite well. Jill is a charming child, bright, intelligent, good-natured. She stirs some lost, long-dormant part of you. A child. Progeny. The future. You realize with a pang of loss that you will never have a child of your own, that an entire wing of the Gati family has reached its terminus in you. That perspective has escaped you until now. The tragedy of it makes you grieve.
But now the child has seen the baby food and wants to know about it.
You tell her, 'I'm going to take some of it downstairs. To make more room up here."
"How come it's here?"
"Someone with a baby probably lived here before we moved in."
"Why'd they leave it?"
"I don't know," you say, unable to keep a snap out of your voice. "Stop asking so many questions."