Ed faced through a mental list of places that would be comfortable for Kara and wouldn't turn him away in his present state of dress.
"How about the bar at the Warwick? It's on Fifty-fourth and Sixth, about halfway between us."
"I'll meet you there in half an hour."
"Great."
Ed hung up and wondered why his previous elation seemed to have faded. If anything, it should have been boosted by the prospect of meeting Kara tonight. She'd certainly agreed readily enough after he said it had to do with Dr. Gates, but she'd sounded strange. Distant.
Well, she'd said she was tired. It had to be that.
He finished his drink and went out to the street to see if he could find a late cruising cab, otherwise it was going to be a long cold walk up to the Warwick.
▼
Rob watched the entrance to the Kramer building and pondered the identity of the owner of the third set of prints on the electric bill. Whoever had left them had been in the Plaza with Kelly on the night she died. He was getting closer. A key to the mess was dancing somewhere beyond the edges of his consciousness, just past his reach.
He also wondered who had come out of the building a while ago. That, too, gnawed at him. If only he'd been in his car at the time, he would have had a better look. All Rob could say now was that he'd carried a vague resemblance to that guy Ed who'd been hanging around Kara.
Ed… there was a strange bird. Didn't seem to be a threat. Actually seemed to be helping with the legal details. Nice of him to bring over those estate papers for Kara on Thursday. Or maybe he had the hots for her.
Rob jolted upright.
Thursday! Ed had been with Kara when she got that letter! He could have touched it. He must have touched it! He'd read it!
"Shit!"
And Ed had known Kelly! So he could have been with her the night she died! He was the guy who could fill in all the blanks.
Rob jumped out of the car and ran back to the phone. He called Kara's number. If she knew where Ed lived, or even had his home phone number, Rob could haul him in for questioning. Now!
As Kara's phone began to ring, Rob glanced up at the Kramer building. Gates be damned! Let him doodle around up there till sunrise. He could wait. This was the first real lead on this case and he wasn't going to waste any time getting to it.
Kara's phone kept on ringing. And ringing.
Tiny pulses of apprehension scattered through him. He knew she was taking sleeping pills, but the phone was right next to the bed. And he knew she was there— he'd spoken to her around midnight.
Something was wrong.
He made a quick call to Doyle, told him to pull the personal effects bag on Kelly Wade and have it ready, then he ran for his car.
▼
The Warwick bar was almost empty by the time Ed finished telling Kara of his evening's exploits. He searched her face for some sign of approval. It was slow coming, but finally a warm smile lit her features.
"You did all that for me?"
"Well, yes. I felt I owed it to you… and Kelly."
"But what if you'd been caught?"
"That's a risk I was willing to take. You've got to be ready to take a few risks or else life isn't worth much."
Ed drained his third double vodka. He was feeling pretty good. Damn good—about the night, about himself, about being here in this almost deserted bar with Kara.
"What do you think I should do, Ed? I'm so confused."
He looked at her. She was beautiful. In the dim light, despite the jeans and loose sweater she was wearing, she reminded him more of her sister than ever. But she was obviously tense. She sat across the tiny circular table, nervously twirling a key ring on her index finger. And she was asking him for advice. He tried to organize his vodka-muddled thoughts.
"As I see it, you've got two choices. You can get out of the city and put as much distance as you can between this guy and yourself." For selfish reasons, Ed didn't like that idea. It meant he wouldn't get to see her anymore. "Or… you could take the bull by the horns and go to the State Board of Medical Examiners and demand a complete investigation of this man's record keeping and practice methods."
She was staring at him with those big blue eyes. They were hypnotizing.
"What do you think I should do?"
"I think you've got the courage and integrity to take this to the State and protect others as well as yourself. That's what I think you should do."
She put her hand on his and squeezed as the last call came from the bar.
"Thanks for your confidence, but I'm still not sure. Is there someplace we can talk about this some more?"
"There's my place." The words just popped out, but Ed was glad they did. "We can talk there as long as you want."
"That sounds perfect. Let's go."
With that she was up and heading toward the door. With an excited, anticipatory tingle in his groin, Ed dropped some money on the table and hurried after her.
▼
Rob had stopped off at Midtown North, grabbed the effects bag from Doyle, and run out. As he raced east to First Avenue and then uptown, he shook Kelly's apartment keys free of the tangle within and had them ready when he slammed to a halt in front of her building.
Out of instinctive courtesy, he rapped on the door and waited a couple of seconds before unlocking it and rushing inside. Main room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom—all empty. No sign of struggle, just empty.
Where the hell could Kara be?
A chilling thought struck him: What if it wasn't Kara out there roaming the city? What if it was Janine?
Or worse yet: What if this Ed Bannion character was some sort of head case who had lured her someplace tonight with the intent of seeing that she ended up like her sifter?
Rob had to find Bannion. But how? He had his office number but no one would answer at this hour. And the morning might be too late.
Rob grabbed Kelly's Manhattan white pages thumbed them open to the B's. He found Bannion. There was a truckload of them. Limiting himself to the E or Edward
Bannions narrowed it down some, but there were still plenty.
He sat down by the phone and began calling.
▼
As you inspect Ed Bannion's Upper West Side apartment through Kara's eyes, you think of how the night has been little more than a series of shocks, one after the other.
The first shock was the early morning phone call at Kara's apartment from someone called Ed who said he had startling information about Dr. Gates. That simple statement forced you to cancel all your plans for returning to the Helmsley tonight. You've been playing the rest by ear.
The second shock came when you recognized Ed Bannion as one of the brothers from the Plaza the night Kelly went through the window. Ed was the one on his knees behind you at the end, doing you from the rear. The one who bit you.
You masked your surprise then, but you nearly gave yourself away when Ed Bannion dropped the bombshell: that your office had been invaded, your computer security breached, and that you had walked right past the culprit less than an hour ago without suspecting a thing.
You wander the bleached hardwood floors of Bannion's apartment while the owner uses the bathroom. You inspect the glass and chrome tables, the Italian leather sectional. The man has no taste. There's no theme, no harmony, no personality to the decor. These are just things he's bought. They have no meaning to him beyond the fact that they are considered the right things to have. It's as if he furnished the place with random snippets from the "Home" section of the Thursday
Times, An empty man living an empty life in an apartment filled with things, whose only passion has been the job which obviously bores him to tears now. Else why would he have tried the hair-brained stunt of breaking and entering tonight?
Taking over Kara Wade has engendered a Gordian knot of complications, but you aren't ready to surrender this wonderful body yet. You eye a set of carving knives jutting from a block of teak on the kitchen counter. Alexander the Great's
abrupt and efficient method for unsnarling stubborn knots comes to mind.
You examine the knives, and choose the one with the longest, thinnest blade, then hurry into the bedroom and shove it under the bed. You're standing by the picture window when Bannion returns. He sways slightly as he crosses to the bar and begins to make himself another drink.
"Do you really think you should have another, Ed?" you say, kicking off Kara's shoes and moving languidly across the room.
You're thinking that if Bannion doesn't get too drunk, you might yet salvage something out of this night.
"I'm celebrating."
Gently, you take the bottle from Bannion's hands and put Kara's arms around him.
"You don't need to get drunk to celebrate. As a matter of fact, that could interfere with the kind of celebration I have planned."
You watch a flush creep up Bannion's cheeks.
"Wh—what kind of celebration is that?"
"The kind of celebration that happens when a very grateful girl is alone with a brave man she admires very much and finds very attractive."
"This isn't necessary."
"Yes it is."
You back up a step and pull off the sweater to reveal Kara's breasts.
"Do you like them? Touch them."
Bannion's mouth is hanging open as he stares at you. He seems paralyzed. So you lift his hands and place them on her breasts.
"That feels good, Ed. Rub them."
Bannion is getting into it now. Kara's jeans are the next to go. They're loose and fall to the floor when they're unbuttoned. You step back again and spread your arms.
"What do you think of this body, Ed? Isn't it glorious?"
"It's fabulous!"
"Yes, it is. And now I want to see your body, Ed. But only a little bit at a time." You kneel before him and unzip his fly. "We'll start with this area here."
▼
Ed was dimly aware that a small part of his brain was very upset, was shouting at him, in fact. But he couldn't make out the words through the fog. A warm fog, a haze of vodka lit by bright red glowing waves of pleasure rippling over him.
Kara was so much like her sister Kelly, so much like Kelly, she even gave head like Kelly, and now she was on her hands and knees on the bed, facing away from him, and he was standing behind her, sliding in and out of her doggy style. Almost a replay on that night in the Plaza a couple of weeks ago, except there was no black garter belt to hold on to, and Phil wasn't here and Ed had her all to himself.
Maybe it was because this was so much like the night at the Plaza that the worry-wart corner of his brain was so upset. But after all, Kara and Kelly were identical twins. Why shouldn't they be exactly alike?
Well, they weren't exactly alike. Kara's body was firmer, the flesh more taut, better toned. He thought that in a pinch, if given the choice, he might prefer Kelly's slightly thicker layer of padding, but either way it was a no-lose proposition.
Kara turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder.
"Do it faster! And harder! I want to come, damn it!"
A chill ran over his bare skin as she bucked her buttocks hard against him. Something about that sounded so familiar.
She turned her head again. She smiled.
"And this time, don't bite me."
The words struck him like the shock wave of an atomic bomb detonating on the bed. He felt himself shrivel. As he fell limp from within her, he backed away until his buttocks came up against the cold surface of the bureau. His mouth worked, trying to speak. How could she know? No one could know that but Kelly. Not even Phil knew that he'd bitten her. Ed had been ashamed to tell him.
She sat on the edge and looked at him. Her stare made him want to cover himself. He had been naked for a while, but now he felt like a specimen in a jar.
"Well, Ed Bannion," she said in a low voice that was almost a whisper. "What are we going to do with you?"
"Who are you?" Ed said, whispering as well.
"I've got many names, Ed. You've met me before, but I told you then that my name was Ingrid."
"No! That's not possible! You're lying!"
"Am I? You were with your brother. His name was Phil or Bill or something like that. You said you were in the textile business. You lied to me. That wasn't nice. And you bit me. That caused all sorts of complications."
Ed was frozen against the bureau like a child's tongue to a wrought iron rail in the dead of winter. The thing before him looked like Kara, and it used Kara's voice—though not the way Kara used it—yet it was not Kara. It knew things Kara couldn't possibly know, things only her dead sister could know.
"How—?" It was all he could manage.
She got up and began pacing before him, moving slowly, completely unconscious of her nudity. That such a beautiful body could be parading before him naked and fill him with only fear and loathing amazed Ed.
"How? That should be obvious, shouldn't it? I'm not Kara. I'm Dr. Gates, using Kara's body, just as that note said. And it's a wonderful body, don't you think?" She smiled at him, a deadly cold, bone-chilling smile. "Let me explain. Don't worry. I'll be brief."
▼
But it's so hard to be brief. You must keep reining in your narrative, forcing yourself to hold back a wealth of details as you tell Ed Bannion your story. Perhaps it's because you've never before had the opportunity to tell anyone your story. It has been bottled up inside for your whole life, fermenting like champagne, building up pressure, crying to be released. And now that Ed Bannion has allowed you to pop the cork, the story is gushing and foaming from you in an effervescent torrent.
"So you see," you say, forcing yourself to bring your truncated, expurgated autobiography to a close, "I have developed the perfect cover for my talent. Quite ingenious, don't you think?"
Bannion, still nude, still cowering against the bedroom bureau, says nothing. He has not been a terribly receptive or appreciative audience.
"Oh, and those files you discovered in my office computer? You were right. They were indeed boiler-plated. I dictate the original reports, Miss Carney types them into the computer, then hard copies are filed in the locked cabinets. But with my special patients, I change the computer files, giving them the typical characteristics of a Multiple Personality Disorder. That's in case anything untoward happens to them—as it did to Kelly Wade. If there's an investigation of her death and my records are subpoenaed, I'll simply print out an altered medical record that nicely explains the erratic behavior that caused her death. I've been at this a long time, Ed. I have all the angles covered. I've covered contingencies most people would never think of."
Poor Bannion. He looks so pathetic standing there, trembling. But he believes. It's there in his eyes. He's completely convinced.
Which means it's time.
You reach under the bed and search for the kitchen knife.
▼
"What are you doing?" Ed said, finding his voice at last.
Kara had reached under the bed, and now she was sitting there with the sheet pulled over her lap. What could she have under the sheet. One of his slippers?
Who the hell cared? He wanted her-him-it out of here!
And it was the only term that seemed to fit. What sort of a creature was Gates that he could take over bodies like this? And Ed was now completely convinced that Gates could do it. How else to explain what it knew? Gates had to have been inside Kelly Wade that night to know what had been said! So bizarre—a demonic nightmare. But Ed knew he was awake.
And he had to get this… thing out of here!
But how? He wished he had a gun. All the times he'd planned to pick one up but put it off. He decided to try the direct approach. And if she wouldn't go, he'd throw her out. He outweighed her by fifty pounds. It might be an unpleasant scene, but he had to get her out!
"You'll have to leave. I don't want you here."
She said nothing. Only stared at him, her hands under the sheet on her lap.
His heart thudding, he stepped toward her.
"Out!"
▼
You debate the situation. Is there a way you can leave Bannion here alive? Certainly he'll talk. He'll go to the State Board and lodge a complaint. He might even go to the papers. He'll be branded a madman, but the damage will be done. The reputation of Dr. Lawrence Gates will be permanently smeared.