She broke away from him and backed up against the front door. “I’m not letting you go.” Suddenly she bit into her lip. “Reuben, you’re writing rhapsodic prose about this werewolf, this monster that attacked you—and you don’t know what’s really going on!”
He couldn’t bear to see her like this. He moved towards her but she stiffened against the door as if she’d fight to the death before she’d let him go.
“Mom,” he said softly.
“Reuben, this Man Wolf, this thing that’s killing people,” she stammered. “The same thing is happening to every bit of forensic evidence they recover from the creature at the scene of every crime. Now, Reuben, this is the thing that attacked you, and it’s infected you with something powerful, something dangerous, something that’s working in your entire system.…”
“What, Mother, you think I’m becoming a werewolf?” he asked.
“No, of course not,” she said. “This lunatic isn’t a werewolf, that’s nonsense! But he’s insane, dangerously, hideously insane. And you are the only person attacked by this thing that has lived. And there’s something in your blood and tissues that can help them find this creature, but Reuben, we don’t know what this virus is doing to you.”
Ah, so this is what she actually believed was going on. Of course. It made perfect sense.
“Baby Boy, I want to take you to the hospital—not this suspect place in Sausalito, just back to San Francisco General—.”
“Mamma,” he said.
This was breaking his heart.
“I thought for a moment you thought I was the Man Wolf, Mamma,” he said. He hated it, testing her like this, lying to her, but he couldn’t stop himself. He wanted to just take her in his arms, protect her from the truth, from everything. If only she weren’t Dr. Grace Golding.
“No, Reuben, I do not think you’re capable of scaling brick walls and flying over rooftops, and rending people apart limb from limb.”
“That’s a relief,” he said under his breath.
“But this creature, whoever he is, may be in the grip of a communicable madness, don’t you see? Reuben, please try to follow what I’m saying. Rabies is a communicable madness, do you follow me? You’ve been infected by something infinitely more dangerous than rabies, and I want you to go with me to the hospital now. Jaska says there have been other cases, with the very same extraordinary details. He says there is a real possibility of a corrosive virus.”
“No, Mom, I can’t. I came here so you could see with your own eyes that I’m all right,” he said. He was being as gentle as he could. “And now you’ve seen it, and I’m going. Please, Mom, move away from the door.”
“All right, then stay here, in the house,” she said. “No dashing off to the woods!” She threw up her hands.
“Mom, I can’t.”
He moved her aside, handling her so roughly that he would never forgive himself for it, and was out the door before she could stop him, down the brick steps and down the street to his car.
She stood there in the doorway, and for the first time in his life he saw her as a tiny figure, a vulnerable figure, weak and frightened and overwhelmed—his beautiful mother who could save lives every day of her life.
Within a block of the house, he was in tears himself. By the time he reached the café where Laura was waiting, he was crying too hard to see. He gave the keys to her, and went around to the passenger seat.
“It’s over,” he said as they headed for the freeway. “I’ll never be able to be part of them again, any of them. It’s over. God! What am I going to do?”
“You mean she knows.”
“No. She knows things, and she can’t let go of those things. But no, she doesn’t really know. And I can’t tell her. I’d die before I’d tell her.”
At some point, before they were even across the Golden Gate Bridge, he fell asleep.
When he woke, it was late afternoon and they had just turned off Highway 101 for the junction where they would pick up Nideck Road.
27
SIMON OLIVER’S E-MAIL WAS BRIEF. “Bad news which may be good news. Call me ASAP.”
That had come yesterday evening.
He rang Oliver’s home phone, left a message—that he was back online and at his phone. Please call.
He and Laura had supper in the conservatory, at the new marble-top table. They were in a grove of banana palms and small ficus. And the sight of the orchid trees inclining towards each other, and dripping those gorgeous pinkish-purple blossoms, filled him with happiness.
Just today, Galton had added a number of potted ferns and some white bougainvillea, and the room was surprisingly warm from the dim afternoon sun. Laura knew all about the plants, and suggested others that Reuben might love. If Reuben wanted, she could order plants for this room, and large trees. She knew where to locate very large trees. That would be wonderful, he said, the greener, the more full of flowers, the better. And she should buy the things that she wanted, the things she most loved. What she would love he would love.
Supper was a thick soup from the lamb dinner of yesterday that Reuben had concocted, and he thought the ingredients tasted better than before.
“Tired?” Laura asked.
“No, eager to search the entire second floor until we find an entrance into that secret space.”
“Maybe there is no entrance, except through a hatch in the glass roof.”
“I don’t think so. I think there are several entrances. Why have such a delicious secret space if you can’t get in it from any number of places? There have to be panels in those linen closets, or those bathrooms, or in the gable rooms overhead.”
“I think you’re right,” she said.
They looked at each other.
“Until we know,” she said, “we won’t ever know whether we’re alone here, will we?”
“No, and that makes me absolutely furious,” Reuben said. He was feeling protective of her, madly protective. He didn’t want to scare her. He didn’t say so, but he didn’t want them to be even a few yards apart.
They took the fire ax with them, and a flashlight they found in the shed, and a hammer.
But they found nothing. They explored and tapped on every inner wall throughout the second floor, and the same in the attic.
They also checked the cellar. Nothing there.
Finally Reuben was tired. It was past seven o’clock now and he prayed with all his heart that the change wouldn’t come, that he would be left in peace by it tonight. And yet he could not put the temptation out of his mind. He hadn’t really feasted on those men last night. The hunger for it wasn’t rooted in his gut, but somewhere else.
And then there were other things.
This morning, he felt that he had brought on the change simply by wishing for it, after he and Laura had made love. It had seemed more rapid, his muscles working with it rather than against it. He remembered swallowing over and over again, as if with his whole being, calling back into himself all that had been enlarged and hardened and had to dissolve.
He fastened his thoughts on the house, how to get into that secret space.
When the rain slackened he and Laura put on heavy sweatshirts and went for a walk outside the house. First thing they found were floodlights everywhere, but they couldn’t find a switch to turn them on. He’d have to ask Galton. They’d been on the first night he and Galton had met.
But the lighted windows made it easy for them to see their way through the oak forest that surrounded the entire east side of the house. These were lovable trees, Reuben said, because you could climb them, look at their low inviting limbs. He wanted to come out here in the sunshine, as soon as there was sunshine, and climb from limb to limb. Laura agreed with him.
They figured the house was easily sixty feet high, maybe higher. A grove of Douglas fir grew at its northwestern corner, with trees almost as tall, it seemed, as the nearby redwoods. And then the oak forest enclosed the gravel drive along the entire east side. It was English ivy that
covered so much of the walls. It had been carefully clipped around the windows. Laura told him the names of many of the other trees—the western hemlock and the tan oak, which wasn’t an oak at all.
How would Reuben, as Little Reuben, ever get up on that roof without some professional help? It would be easy enough for a roofing company to get its big ladders up the front of the house, but that was just the sort of official involvement he wanted to avoid. Of course the Man Wolf could go up the rough mortared stone wall. But the Man Wolf would have to leave Laura alone, wouldn’t he?
Reuben had never thought about buying a gun in his entire life, but he was thinking about it now. Laura knew how to shoot a gun, yes. But she hated guns. Her father had never kept guns. Her husband had threatened her once with a gun. She veered off that subject quickly, and went on to talk about how she would be all right with the ax if he went up to the roof, and wouldn’t he hear her, just the way he had before, if she were to call for help?
The phone was ringing when they entered the house.
Reuben hurried to the library to answer it.
It was Simon Oliver.
“All right, now, don’t get upset about this till I finish explaining it,” he said. “I tell you, Reuben, this is one of the most unusual situations I’ve ever encountered, but that does not mean that things are not going very well, all things considered, and they may continue to go well if we consider carefully what we do and say.”
“Simon, please, what are you talking about?” Reuben said. He sat at his desk, barely able to contain himself. Laura was building up the fire.
“Now, you know how much respect I have for Baker, Hammermill, especially Arthur Hammermill,” Simon went on, “and I trust Arthur Hammermill as I would a member of my own firm.”
Reuben rolled his eyes.
“The fact is, a potential heir has turned up, but you hold on while I explain. Seems Felix Nideck—this is the man who disappeared, you understand.…”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, this Felix Nideck had an illegitimate son, name of Felix Nideck, just like his father, and he’s turned up here in San Francisco, and Reuben, just hold on now—.”
Reuben was stunned.
“Simon, I have not said a word.”
“Well, maybe I’m doing the worrying for you, and that of course is my job. Well, this man says he’s making no claim whatsoever on the estate, I mean none, and … it is not at all clear that he could make a claim, not at all, the documents he’s presented could easily be forgeries, and he has no ‘interest,’ we’re told, in taking a DNA test to prove affinity—.”
“Interesting,” said Reuben.
“Well, it’s more than interesting,” said Simon. “It’s suspicious. But the point is, Reuben, he’s eager to meet with you here or at the offices of Baker, Hammermill, it’s our call on that, and I say here, though there would be fine. Because he wants to talk to you about the house and things which his father might have left there when he disappeared.”
“Really. Does he know anything about how or why Felix Nideck disappeared?”
“Nothing. He can add nothing to the investigation. That’s the word from Arthur. No, nothing there at all. Hasn’t heard from his father in all this time. No, that question has not been reopened at all.”
“Interesting,” said Reuben. “Well, how does anyone know that this man is what he says he is?”
“Family resemblance, Reuben, positively uncanny. Arthur knew Felix Nideck, and he says this man is so like him that there can be no doubt.”
“Interesting.”
“Now, Reuben, I’ve met this man myself, met him this afternoon with Arthur, and he is quite a remarkable man, quite the raconteur, really. I’d say he was a southern gentleman if I didn’t know otherwise. He was born and educated in England but he doesn’t have the British accent, no, not at all, I was never able to place his accent, he does have one, but he is a striking individual, and a very gracious individual, too. And he assures me, Reuben, that he is not mounting any claim on Ms. Nideck’s estate, but that he only wants this meeting—to discuss his father’s effects.”
“And Arthur Hammermill didn’t know this man existed?” asked Reuben.
“Arthur Hammermill is flabbergasted,” said Simon. “You know how Baker, Hammermill has searched for Felix Nideck and for anyone who might have been connected with him in any way.”
“How old is this man?”
“Oh, forty, forty-five. Let me see. Forty-five, born in 1966, London. Looks a good deal younger, actually. He has dual citizenship, apparently, British and American, lived all over the world.”
“Forty-five. Hmmmm.”
“Well, Reuben, I don’t see why that matters. What matters here, Reuben, is that there is no will acknowledging his existence, but of course if he were to take a DNA test and establish affinity, well, he might tie up the estate at considerable expense, but it is not at all certain he would be successful—.”
“He says he wants his father’s personal effects?”
“Some of them, Reuben, some of them. He hasn’t been too forthcoming. He wants a meeting with you. He seems quite well informed about the whole situation. He was in Paris when Marchent’s unfortunate death made the news.”
“I see.”
“Of course, he’s in a hurry. Everybody today is in a hurry. He’s at the Clift Hotel here and he is asking to meet with you as soon as you can come down. Seems he hasn’t very much time. He has to be somewhere. Well, I said I would do what I could.”
Which means what, Reuben thought, that he means to lure me away from this house at a specific time, and for a specific time, so that he can enter it and clear out everything that belonged to Felix—and he was more than likely Felix. Oh, he was most certainly Felix, wasn’t he? Why doesn’t he just come here and make himself known?
“All right,” Reuben said, “I’ll meet with him. I can meet with him tomorrow at one p.m. You know it’s a four-hour drive from here, Simon. I can call you to confirm before I get on the road.”
“Oh, that’s no problem, he’s already indicated he’ll be available all day tomorrow. He’ll be pleased. He has to leave tomorrow night, it seems.”
“But I insist on this, Simon. This is entirely confidential. I don’t want Phil or Grace to know about this meeting. You know Mom. If I don’t stop at the house while I’m down there—.”
“Reuben, I don’t discuss your intimate financial affairs with your mother unless you have given me your express permission to do so,” said Simon.
This was not true at all.
“Reuben, your mother’s very concerned about you, you know, your moving up to Mendocino and all, and not answering your e-mails or your phone.”
“Okay, one o’clock, your office,” said Reuben.
“Well, not so fast. Not so fast. If I could see you for about an hour before—.”
“What for, Simon? You have me now on the phone.”
“Well, Reuben, I have to warn you. For a potential heir to show up in a situation like this and not want some sort of monetary consideration, well, that is just not likely at all. During this meeting, I want you to rely upon me for guidance as to what you say and what you don’t say, and I strongly advise you not to answer any questions as to the value of the house, or the appraisals of the house, or about the furniture, or the value of the furniture, or the value of Felix Nideck’s possessions—.”
“I see. I understand all that, Simon. I’ll listen to the man and see what he has to say.”
“That’s it exactly, Reuben. You listen. Don’t commit. Let him download, as the kids say today. Just listen. He has his mind set on not discussing the particulars with anyone but you, but you do not have to respond to anything that he says during this meeting.”
“Got it. Tomorrow. One p.m.”
“I think he’s putting on the charm with Arthur Hammermill. They’ve been spending their evenings together. They went to the opera last night to see Don Giovanni. Arthur says he’s the spittin
g image of his father. But I’ll tell you, in this day and age, until the man agrees to a DNA test, no paternity claim has a chance. And the man must know that. Of course he could change his mind at any minute.”
But he won’t change his mind. He can’t.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Simon. I’m sorry I was so late in returning your call.”
“Oh, and by the way,” said Simon. “That piece of yours on the Man Wolf that ran this morning in the Observer? That was quite good. Everybody here thought so. Quite good. And this young Mr. Nideck was quite impressed with it, too.”
Oh, was he? Reuben said good-bye again and hung up the phone. He was powerfully excited. This was Felix. Felix had surfaced! Felix was here.
Laura was sitting on the rug in front of the fire. She had one of those books on werewolf literature, and she’d been making notes in a small journal.
He sat down beside her, cross-legged, and laid it all out before her.
“It’s Felix, of course.” He stared up at the distinguished gentlemen of the picture over the fireplace. He couldn’t contain his excitement. Felix alive. Felix most certainly living and breathing, Felix with the keys to the mysteries surrounding him like smoke so thick he sometimes felt he couldn’t breathe. Felix who might want to destroy him, and Laura as well.
“Yes, I have the distinct feeling that you’re right. Listen to this.” She picked up the journal she’d been keeping. “These are the names of the distinguished gentlemen,” she said. That’s what they had begun to call them routinely. “Vandover, Wagner, Gorlagon, Thibault. Well, every single one of these names is connected with some werewolf story.”
He was speechless.
“Let’s start with Frank Vandover. Well, there’s a very famous werewolf novel called Vandover and the Brute by a Frank Norris, published in 1914.”
So it was true! He was too overwhelmed to respond.
She went on. “Take the next name, Reynolds Wagner. Well, there is an extremely famous story called ‘Wagner, the Wehr-wolf,’ by an author named G. W. M. Reynolds, first published in 1846.”