Sibs

  "You never told me what a darling little thing she is!"

  Kara didn't want him to touch her or even talk about her, but she felt that telling him so would only give him more power over her. And he had more than enough already.

  Yes. I raised her myself.

  "So you told me. You've done a splendid job."

  Kara wanted to tell him where he could shove his compliment, then realized that the orifice would be hers.

  Thank you.

  The next hour went quickly, with Gabor doing a credible imitation of her, making up plausible explanations to Ellen as to why she and Jill were moving out. Soon they were ready to go. Jill had eaten her waffles, the cook was tearfully kissing her good bye, and their few belongings were packed up.

  Then Rob showed up.

  "What's he doing here?"

  She could sense the agitation behind the words.

  I don't know. We were supposed to get together last night, but you called me in sick, remember? Maybe he just wants to see how I'm doing.

  Rob drew her aside into the living room.

  "Kara, what's going on?"

  "I'm moving. Is that any concern of yours?"

  "Hell, yes it is! I don't want my daughter living in that man's house!"

  "His daughter? What is he talking about?"

  Rob is Jill's father.

  "You told me her father was dead!"

  I lied.

  "Bitch!"

  But I lied to Rob, too. He only found out yesterday. What's the matter Gabor? Do lies bother you? You lied to me about my father. He was a good and decent man and you made me suspect him of the worst foulness!

  "Never mind that! What do I tell him!"

  You figure it out.

  "Don't do this! You'll pay!"

  The 'punishment?' I'll risk it.

  She dreaded the thought of another instant of total sensory deprivation, but it would be worth it to see Gabor squirm.

  "I'll hurt her!"

  What?

  "Your daughter. I'll hurt her. A child can have nasty accidents, trip and fall against sharp things. I'll do it if you don't cooperate."

  Fear for Jill was a knife with nowhere to strike.

  You beast! You subhuman—/

  "She'll suffer!"

  Kara capitulated. Again. That was all she seemed to be doing lately. Was that going to be the story of her life from now on?

  All right! Tell him he didn't want me to take her back to Pennsylvania and so I'm acquiescing.

  She listened as her voice told him that. But Rob didn't seem satisfied. He kept staring at her as if looking for a flaw.

  "Kara," he said. "You remember the night we met at CBGB's?"

  "What's that mean?"

  It's a trick question. We met at McSorley's.

  "He's suspicious then?"

  Obviously.

  "Why?"

  I don't know!

  "No," she heard her voice say. "We met in McSorley's. How could you forget?"

  "Oh, right," Rob said with a grin that looked somewhat relieved. "McSorley's. Same neighborhood. I get mixed up sometimes. Say, do you remember…?"

  ▼

  You listen to Kara and you parrot the proper replies to this detective, and in the back of your mind you realize that there is real trouble here.

  You had planned to be rid of the detective by giving him the cold shoulder, refusing to see him, never returning his calls. Sooner or later he would give up. Or so you thought.

  Now you know that will never happen. There is more than mere romance involved here. This is a living bond of flesh and blood named Jill. You know that no matter how you spurn him the detective will keep returning— not to see Kara but to see his daughter.

  The detective must be disposed of.

  But how?

  You must think on this. Carefully.

  And most certainly, you cannot let Kara know until the last moment.

  ▼

  10:22 A.M.

  Rob picked up his phone on the third ring.

  "Harris."

  "Ah, Detective," said a familiar voice. "Professor Jensen here. Those handwriting samples you left me this morning?"

  The scribbled notes he'd found in the padded cell.

  "Yes? Did you—?"

  "Definitely the same as the writing on the back of the Con Ed bill."

  "You're sure?"

  "No question about it."

  "Great! Thanks a lot."

  Yeah. Thanks a whole lot. That meant whoever had been locked in that room had sent Kara the warning. But who?

  This was getting crazier and crazier. He needed something to point away from the craziness, not to it.

  Rob sat at his puke green desk and brooded, shutting out the sounds of the detective squad room. He glanced up and saw Manetti typing away at his desk.

  "Augie! We got anybody Hungarian here?"

  "Sure," Manetti said without looking up. "Varadi."

  "Varadi? I thought he was Italian."

  Now Manetti looked up. His expression registered his disdain.

  "Italian? What, you kiddin'? Mike's got red fucking hair! And freckles! How many paisans you seen with red fucking hair and freckles?"

  "Sorry."

  He went to find Varadi.

  Kara had given all the right answers this morning, except as to why she was moving into Gates' Chelsea house. She hadn't even wanted to visit it yesterday, and now she was moving in with Jill.

  Something was very wrong.

  Rob found Varadi by the water cooler.

  "Mike. You speak Hungarian?"

  Varadi's expression was guarded. It didn't go with his boyish face and freckles.

  "Yeah. A little."

  Rob kept thinking of the phrase Gates had used over and over just before the gun went off.

  "What's el merit mean?"

  "El merit? Means 'He's gone.' Why?"

  "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."

  The child starts as if she'd been slapped.

  Don't talk to her like that!

  "I'll speak to her the way I choose. Doesn't she ever stop asking questions?"

  Never. How else is a child to learn? How do you think you learned?

  "By stealing. I never had a childhood of my own. I had to siphon it off from others."

  Asking's better than stealing.

  "I had no choice."

  Awww. I'll get some violin music for you.

  You don't know how long you can tolerate sharing a body with this woman. Her contempt for you is a cold damp wind on the back of your neck. Her rage at having control of her body torn from her is a palpable thing, a growing weight on your shoulders. Her sense of self is too strong, too deeply seated to allow you a comfortable coexistence.

  If only you had known. So many people live their lives with no sense of direction, no firm sense of self, easily influenced by the latest fashion, allowing themselves to be blown hither and thither. Life would be so much easier now if Kara had been one of those.

  But what alternative do you have? You are stuck with her until other arrangements can be made.

  "Want me to help you bring some of those downstairs?" Jill asks, her wide brown eyes looking up at you, unsure of what she's done wrong, anxious to make amends.

  But the last thing you need is this child trailing behind you down to the basement. You cannot let her learn that you live down there.

  "No, thank you, dear," you say as gently as you can. "I can handle this myself."

  "Okay," she says.

  You pull a spoon from the drawer.

  "What's that for?"

  Another question. You bite down on your tongue.

  "Nothing, dear."

  You start toward the basement but she's right behind you.

  "You stay up here, dear. I'll only be a few minutes."

  "I don't want to."

  "Go up to the top floor and turn on the television. You can watch cartoons on the giant screen."

  "I don't want to. I don't like being up there alone. I want to come with you."