"I feel better now. Stronger."
Her body sat up, then stood and walked a few wobbling steps around the dining room before stumbling back to the couch.
"Though not strong enough to negotiate the steps, I fear. But that is not important now. What is important is a little phone call we must make."
Kara watched her hand reach out and lift the phone receiver, saw it dial 4-1-1. She heard the operator come on the line.
And then she heard her own voice speaking.
"Manhattan, please. The Midtown North police precinct."
Her own voice, speaking someone else's words. Mentally she jumped at the sound of it, but her body remained still. She heard the recorded answer, then watched her hand punch in the number.
She listened as she asked for Detective Harris, heard herself explain how she wasn't feeling well and wanted to go to bed early tonight. She heard the concern and disappointment in Rob's voice and tried to scream out, Rob! No! It's not me! Not me! But instead her voice went on lying, promising that they'd get together tomorrow.
After hanging up with Rob, her eyes closed and she spent another couple of hours in terrified darkness, listening to the clock and the street.
When her eyes opened again she saw that it was almost seven.
"We'll have to call Aunt Ellen."
She thought she had become inured to shock by then, but she was jolted by watching herself dial Ellen's number and listening as her voice glibly informed her aunt that she would be staying at Kelly's again and would explain later.
"There! That should give us a respite." .
Sudden fury blazed up in Kara. She wanted to attack this thing, this voice… but it was only a voice. How did you attack a voice?
And who was the voice?
She thought she knew. Words formed in her mind. A question. Mentally, she spoke the thought.
You're not Janine, are you?
"No."
Something about the voice… something familiar. The rhythm, the choice of words. She was sure now who it was.
Are you Doctor Gates?
"Doctor Gates is dead."
Then who—?
"Quiet! I need to rest."
There came another period behind closed eyelids, a long one during which Kara thought she might have slept—not because she felt safe enough, but to escape the horror temporarily, and maybe to awaken and learn that it was all a terrible nightmare.
She was roused by abrupt movements of her body, and by noises from the front door. Someone was rattling it.
The dining room was dark but light poured down the hall from the chandelier. Her body rose from the couch and walked unsteadily but stealthily to the kitchen where it pulled a long-bladed knife from a drawer.
She waited. The door rattled once more, briefly, then all was silent.
"That, I would say, was your friend, Detective Harris. Even after midnight, when he believes you home and asleep, he is still nosing round. He is going to be trouble."
Kara had no doubts now.
You are Doctor Gates!
"I told you: Doctor Gates is dead."
Then who are you? And why are you doing this to me?
"You'll know in a moment. I believe I'm strong enough now." Her body moved to one of the cabinets and she pulled out two jars of junior foods, the kind Kara used to feed Jill when she was a baby. Then she was heading across the hall toward the door to the cellar.
"I'm not being coy. It's simply that it's easier to show you who I am than to explain. And now you will see."
Steadying itself on the banister, her body started down the cellar stairs.
▼
Rob turned downtown on Seventh after leaving the townhouse. As he passed the Kramer Medical Arts building, he checked his coat pocket. He still had them: the keys he had taken from Gates' secretary this morning. He pulled into the curb.
Up in the office he searched Gates' desk for keys to the filing cabinets but found nothing. Frustrated, edgy, he sat in Gates' high-backed chair. He realized that it wasn't the files that had drawn him back to the office. It was the other back room—the padded cell. He needed one more look at it.
He propped the cell door open with copies of the PDR and Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary—he didn't want to be accidentally locked in here. He'd probably die of starvation before anybody found him. He turned on the overhead light and stood in the center of the cell.
What on earth had Gates used this for? Who had he kept here?
The questions plagued him. Questions existed to be answered. They never went away until they were answered.
He paced the narrow dimensions of the room, tapping on the padding with the heel of his hand and the side of his shoe. It was thick. If you were the sort who was inclined toward such things, you might be able to knock yourself out by banging your head against these walls, but you wouldn't be able to crack your skull. You might even—
Something crunched.
Rob's shoe had tapped against a slight bulge in the lower padding. Something else was under the fabric. He reached down and found a split seam along the floorline. Dropping to his knees, he wriggled his fingers up under the fabric. There was paper crammed in there. He vised a couple of sheets between his fingers and yanked them out. Then he pulled more out. The space was stuffed with scraps from notepads, prescription blanks, used envelopes, all covered with tiny script. And a pencil, short, looking as if someone had sharpened it with his teeth.
Rob studied the script. He was no handwriting expert, but these looked like they were written by the same hand that had sent Kara the warning note. And they were dated.
Rob began setting them in order. He had some reading to do.
He had a feeling one of his questions was about to be answered.
▼
The basement was small, as Rob had mentioned earlier. Had it been less than twelve hours since they'd arrived here together? It seemed ages. After all the high ceilings upstairs, these low-slung pipes overhead gave her a hemmed-in feeling, seemed to press down on her.
Her body took her to a paneled partition. Her hand reached up among the pipes and pulled a lever. Something clicked inside the wall. She pushed on a panel which dropped back then slid to the left, revealing a small room.
A foul odor wafted out—urine, feces. Had she been in control of her body she might have gagged.
"Unpleasant, isn't it? But if I've got to smell it, so should you. I've been living in that for almost two days."
A Tiffany-type floor lamp threw a cone of light on the room's single piece of furniture. A crib. In the crib was the source of the odor.
"Let me introduce myself properly. My name is Gabor. This is my body."
Had she a voice, Kara would have screamed. In the crib was a wrinkled, shrunken thing with thick, mottled skin and whispy white hair trailing off its scalp. The head was too big for its body—adult-sized on a body no bigger than the average five-year old's. It's face was a caricature of humanity with its flattened nose, its drooling, toothless mouth, its white-coated eyes stared blindly upward. In contrast to its short, warped, wizened limbs, its body was a bloated, corpulent, barrel-chested mass, the pelvis sheathed in a stained, fouled diaper.
"Loathsome, aren't I?"
Kara was numb. Had she been able, she wasn't sure she would have dared to frame a reply.
"You needn't worry about injuring my feelings. Even I find myself repulsive."
She detected something behind the words, a cosmic rage, a tragic self-loathing.
But this is Doctor Gates' house!
"The man you know as Doctor Gates was my brother, Lazlo. The body, at least, was Lazlo's. The intellect you dealt with, pouring your heart out to in your therapy sessions, was I. Gabor. So, in a real sense, Doctor Gates isn't dead. I am Doctor Gates. I went through pre-med and medical school, I sat through those tedious lectures, I studied those dry texts till my eyes burned like heated coals in my head, I passed those tests and board exams, spent those years in residenc
y. The medical degree and license may have Lazlo's name on them, but they are the result of my work. They are mine."
Where… where was Lazlo all this time?
"With me. A passenger in his own body. Like you."
Oh, God!
"It wasn't so bad for him. I left him alone at times. And after all, we were brothers. Twins, would you believe? Twins! Like you and Kelly. Yet something went wrong with me in utero, early on, when we were both little more than collections of cells. My body became distorted while his grew perfectly. Twins should share, don't you think?"
Poor Lazlo!
"Never mind him. He's gone. And my body needs tending. First a quick change of diaper—I prefer the Huggies to Pampers—and then we'll feed me. It's been two days since I've eaten and I'm starving. That's what the junior foods are for. I use them when I haven't got time to puree something more appetizing. After dinner, a sponge bath. As you'll soon learn, I take good care of my body. I bathe it every day."
Kara wanted to cry at her helplessness, but she had no tears.
Let me go! Please let me go!
"Lazlo used to plead for release in the early days, but he stopped after a while when he came to realize that it would do him no good. You might as well do the same. We're going to be together for a long, long time, Kara."
▼
With Kara's hand you spoon the food into your mouth—your other mouth, the mouth you were born with. You're glad you were finally able to escape from that body this afternoon. The hunger was becoming unbearable.
But that's over now. You're in control again, just as you planned. Everything has gone according to your contingency plans. You've foreseen everything. You always knew there was a possibility that Lazlo would meet with an untimely end, so you prepared for that. You knew that, by law, his immediate heir would be his brother, yourself, Gabor. But since your body is itself incapable of meaningful communication, you knew Gabor would be declared incompetent and all your inherited assets placed in trust under some sort of guardianship—out of your control.
That would never do. So you arranged for Gabor to 'die.' Then, as Lazlo, you made a will and left all of your assets to the woman in whose body you were most comfortable at the time. There has been a string of heirs. For the past year it was Kelly Wade. Just a week ago you changed the chief beneficiary to Kara. Fortuitous timing. And brilliant anticipation. You should be proud.
Why then do you feel so empty?
It's not the hunger. It's not the trauma of two nights ago. It's Lazlo. He's gone. He's dead. He gladly killed himself to escape you. That has hurt you deeper than you ever thought possible.
You miss Lazlo. Miss the familiar workings of his body, miss his companionship. And after all, he was your twin brother.
Now he's dead. You can trace his death back to Kelly Wade. It began with her. If she hadn't managed to jump out that window at the Plaza, you would still be occupying Lazlo's body and going about your usual business. But Kelly's death brought Kara to town, and Kara was a temptation you couldn't resist. But Kara's boyfriend is a cop, a tenacious one. And if he hadn't harassed you so, you would not be in your present position—the sole surviving member of the Gati family.
It's Harris' fault. If he hadn't hounded you, you would not have fled onto 42nd Street and been hit by the car. The impact temporarily severed your contact with Lazlo, giving him a chance to try to steal Harris' pistol. When you returned to Lazlo, you discovered yourself in mid-grapple with Harris. You tried to let go of the pistol but your finger was stuck. When you tried to yank it free, the gun went off.
And that is all you remember. The impact of a bullet tearing through the brain you were occupying traumatized your consciousness. You lay in a coma for almost a full day. You're still weak. You could barely occupy Kara when she arrived here.
But you're getting stronger. And when you are this close to your real body, it is easy to stimulate and control the almost reflexive actions of chewing and swallowing while maintaining control over Kara. You spoon the junior meal into your toothless mouth. Although you can't taste it (thank goodness) you know the nutrients, flowing into your body from this lumpy gruel will make you stronger.
But although everything has gone according to plan, all is far from perfect. Difficult days lie ahead. Kara has a daughter, plus she's been having an affair with Detective Harris. The detective will be easy to be rid of. All you need do is find another lover and let Harris know that he has been replaced in your heart. It may prove messy for a while, but eventually that should serve to sever all ties with him. Although you would love to see him as dead as Lazlo, you will have to be satisfied with merely breaking his heart instead of shoving a knife blade through it.
The child, though, presents a major problem. You will not be able to fool her for long. She will never guess exactly what is wrong with her mother, but she will know she is not the same. She will sniff you out and raise a cry.
Something must be done about the child.
An accident. That is the best way. A terrible accident. A fall, perhaps. Like her Aunt Kelly. These Wades— such an accident-prone family.
Suddenly Kara's mind is shouting, startling you.
You can't do this! It's unconscionable! Your own brother, and now me! How can you live with yourself?
You've wondered that yourself at times. And whenever you do, you look down at your misshapen body and consider the alternative. And you know you do not want to live there.
You do not answer her. You are concerned with the strength she is showing. You could feel her fighting for control of her hands as they changed your diaper. One or two times she almost drew them away. This concerns you. Not that she'd ever be able to wrest control back from you, but it takes more effort to control her than it did Lazlo. She's much stronger willed than he ever was. Luckily, she doesn't know her own strength. And to assure that she doesn't get an opportunity to find out, she will have to be housebroken quickly.
You have an idea. When the feeding is finished and your bath is done, you'll start her first lesson.
▼
Rob sat on the floor of the padded cell, numb and drained by what he had read in the scraps of paper scattered across his legs.
Madness. Pure madness.
But strangely coherent madness.
Maybe that was because the author was so convinced that he was Lazlo Gati, whose body had been usurped by his twin brother Gabor during their teenage years and never returned to him except, for brief periods during which he managed to write this diary of sorts. According to this diary, Lazlo was locked in this padded cell during those periods of freedom while Gabor frolicked in other bodies, mostly female.
Utterly crazy. But who was this crazy man? Where was he now? That was the scary part. His last entry was three nights ago… when Lazlo was still alive. That was the disturbing part: there had been no entries since Lazlo's death.
Rob stood and tried to shake off the crazy story. He smiled. Here he was, sitting in a padded cell, trying to make sense of the ravings of a certifiable nut case. There was a major flaw in the story: Gabor Gati had been dead for years. His death certificate was on file downtown…
… signed by Lazlo.
He shook himself. It all seemed weirdly logical—if you could accept the premise that Gabor was still alive and.could actually control another person's body.
But if he was alive, where would he be?
In the Chelsea house, of course.
Rob felt spicules of ice forming in his blood.
Lazlo Gati—or Dr. Gates, or whoever the hell he was—had left everything to Kara. And one of the terms of the will had been that she be given the keys to the Chelsea house immediately.
Christ!
And Rob had left her there alone. He wondered if her sudden illness had anything to do with Gabor? Or if—?
What am I saying? Get a grip, Harris!
He stood in the center of the padded cell and took a few deep breaths. It was late, he was tired, and his imagination was h
aving a field day. Kara was at Ellen's. He'd go home himself, get some sleep, and see Kara first thing in the morning to make sure she was all right.
To make sure she was still Kara.
▼
1:35 A.M.
She was in a cab going east on 42nd Street. Kara huddled sick and miserable, limbless and voiceless within her own body, searching for a way out.
"Lazlo died right over there," Gabor told her, pointing out the window with her finger.