The Reality Conspiracy (9 page)

Jeff was now twenty minutes late. She'd waited five minutes too many!

Karen bit her bottom up and stood up. She placed her purse solidly on the bar and dug around in it for her billfold. She took out a five and left it by her half-empty wineglass.

She felt as if every diner's eyes were on her.
She's been stood-up by her boyfriend
, they thought. Karen felt herself blushing. Without looking around she walked straight to the glass door and stiff-armed it open.

Jeff was pulling up in a taxi.

"Hey!" he called, pushing the cab door open, nearly tumbling out of the back seat. "Hey, Karen, wait!"

She heard him but didn't acknowledge.

From the corner of her eye she could see him groping at his pocket for money. He produced a money clip, fanned the bills, selected one, and nearly threw it at the driver.

Karen crossed to the other side of the street.

"Karen! Hey, Karen!"

The cabbie shouted after Jeff, "Hey, buddy, your change. Hey, man, dis is a twenny!"

Karen stopped. Darn. She had left her Ray-Ban sunglasses on the bar. Could she just forget about them? Just keep going, eyes focused straight ahead, ignoring Jeff?

Darn. DARN.

Those sunglasses had cost her over sixty dollars. An indistinct voice that sounded very much like her mother's echoed from somewhere in her memory, ''"That's just throwing money away, Karen."

She turned.

She was enough of a Freudian to believe there are no accidents. Maybe she hadn't really forgotten her sunglasses, maybe she—

Jeff was zigzagging through the traffic to get to her. Horns drowned his cry, "Karen! Come on, will ya. Wait up!"

She stopped. Now, she wanted the sunglasses more than ever; she didn't want him to see her eyes.

He stood in front of her, sweating and harried. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? Something came up."

"You could have called."

"How? You didn't tell me where you were staying. I tried to call that guy Godunov's office, but I couldn't find him in the book. So I tried directory assistance and they didn't have a listing. I even . . ." He looked over his shoulder in the direction he'd come from. "I even brought you a flower, but I left it in the damn cab."

"It's not Godunov," she said.

"What?" He looked greatly offended'. "What do you mean not good enough? You think I'm lying?"

She couldn't hold back the smile; she didn't try. "The doctor. His name's not Godunov, It's Gudhausen."

They laughed as they walked back to the restaurant, her thoughts of Herbert Gold and Lucy Washburn, and all the other stresses of the day, vanishing like dew on a sunny Vermont morning.

Montreal, Quebec

"E
xorcism." said Father William Sullivan. He wasn't speaking to anyone. He was simply articulating the uncomfortable word—"Ex-or-ciz-um"—trying to get it outside his head where he could turn it around, examine it, attempt to understand it, somehow.

Striding briskly, he tightened the collar of his blue jacket against drafts of cold air coming from the St. Lawrence River far below.

Beside Sullivan, Father LeClair puffed his pipe. "The bottom line, Bill, is if Father Mosely attempted an exorcism without the bishop's consent, he was out of line. He never should have acted alone; he never should have acted in secrecy. There should be a doctor present. Always. And there should be another priest to assist. Everyone involved should be in a state of grace . . . ."

Sullivan didn't want to hear it. He was ready to argue, to defend the old priest, but what was the point?

Heading south on Peel Street, Sullivan switched his attention from the brownstones on the left to a high-rise on the right. Its semicircular windows made the building look like a giant cheese grater.

"Remember," Father LeClair said, "whatever happened to Father Mosely, happened without benefit of witnesses. So I'm afraid—"

"But what do you think happened, Gaston?"

"You want an opinion—how do you say it?—off the recording?"

"Yes, if you would."

"You know, Bill, I am a curious hybrid of physician and priest, the product of two belief systems which are often irreconcilable."

Sullivan looked at him. "What do you mean?"

Father LeClair shrugged. "Well, he could have fought a demon and lost, but, frankly, part of me never really believed that. For me it is easier to believe that Father Mosely suffered a stroke, only that. I know his health was not good: I've seen his medical records. He had an ulcer. His blood pressure was high. He reported chronic sleeplessness. He was fatigued, exhausted, really."

"You think the exorcism is just a story?"

"Perhaps. There were no witnesses. Think about it. Someone would have heard if parishioners were being tormented, tortured, or actually possessed by demonic spirits. Someone, even today, would surely remember. If there really were such people, Father kept their secret; he keeps it still."

"Yes," Sullivan walked a few paces. "Ten years," he said. "Ten years in a coma; ten long years lost in some mindless limbo."

LeClair puffed his pipe before responding. "It's an intriguing conundrum, isn't it? A philosophical and theological puzzle. The person is as if dead, but still alive. So where is the soul?"

Sullivan's mind returned to that clouded, empty eye, the waxen, vein-streaked skin, the pale, cracked lips scabbed with crusty spittle. "Yes, where . . . ?"

Boston, Massachusetts

"Y
ou're a shrink! My God, I can't believe it!" Jeff Chandler leaned back in his chair. Grinning broadly, he lifted his wineglass in a salute. "Here's to you, Dr. Sigmund Bradley!"

Karen felt herself blushing; God, she hated that. Her gaze fell to her half-empty plate of scallops. "Well, to be completely on the up-and-up, I'm a clinical psychologist, not a medical doctor."

"Hey, a shrink's a shrink. And I'm a physicist, not a physician. Neither of us is an M.D. so that's something else we have in common." She raised her head and gave him a quick smile.

"But that doesn't make me any less curious," Jeff said. "Can you talk to me about this heavy-duty powwow that lured you all the way from scenic Vermont to this vile pesthole known as Boston?"

"What do you mean! Boston's a beautiful city!"

"Yeah? Not if you gotta live here. Try getting stuck in a broken-down trolley sometime in ninety-degree weather, one of the myriad joys of urban existence. Or try playing hide-and-seek with one of the gangs. Or . . . Hey, I didn't hear anything about 'beautiful city' when that taxicab almost flattened you this morning."

Karen laughed.

"So tell me, Dr. Bradley, what is so important that you would risk life and limb on the mean streets of our state's capitol? Are you planning a career change? Interviewing for a job, perhaps? Thinking of forsaking your pastoral paradise and relocating to Beautiful Bean Town?"

Karen dabbed her garlic and lemon sauce with a piece of crusty bread, popped it into her mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. "I'm here for a case consultation. I came to confer with a psychiatrist named Stanley Gudhausen. Dr. Gudhausen is a world-class authority on Multiple Personality Disorder—"

"Like
The Three Faces of Eve
? That kind of thing?"

"Yes. Just exactly. MPD is still considered somewhat rare, but I think I've diagnosed it in a patient of mine back home."

Karen forced herself to stop before she told him any more. Of course, she was eager to discuss the incredible coincidence—if coincidence it was—of two completely unconnected patients, two hundred miles apart, who both manifested the same alternate personality. The "Splitfoot" alters were completely identical right down to the name, the facial characteristics, even the patterns of speech. It wasn't that discussing the cases with Jeff—in only the most general terms—was a violation of either patient's rights. It was simply too soon. She'd wait until after her second meeting with Dr. Gudhausen tomorrow; then she could talk about it all he wanted.

"So, that's me," she said, rerouting the conversation. "Now, how about telling me something about your work?"

Before Jeff could begin, the waiter came around to ask if he could bring another bottle of Chablis. Jeff held up his hand, asking the waiter to wait. Then to Karen, "My turn to get third-degreed, huh? Do you want the complete or the abridged version?"

"Oh, complete, by all means."

To the waiter: "Then yes please, we'll need at least one more bottle,"

The waiter responded with a brief emphatic nod, and vanished.

"Well, let's see. I'm employed by the Massachusetts Technological Academy—we call it the 'Academy' for short, that way we don't confuse it with the Metropolitan Transit Authority . . . ."

"Like 'Charlie on the MTA'?"

"You got it." He chuckled'. "The Academy is a privately run think tank that prospers only because of the American taxpayer's supreme sense of generosity, and the government's willingness to keep the public as generous as possible."

"Do I detect a well-disguised note of skepticism?"

"Oh God, is it that obvious? No, it just irks me the way our leaders continue to squander tax dollars on any crackpot enterprise that can even remotely be termed 'related' to the almighty D." He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, "The D stands for De-fense."

"You don't sound like a man who loves his job."

"There you go, playing shrink again. Whatever gave you the idea I don't like my job?" He held up both hands, palms toward Karen, and assumed a wide-eyed expression of innocence. "Am I really that transparent?"

"An open book. What do you do there?"

"Well, most people consider it 'Top Secret.' Do I have your word you won't violate the doctor-patient confidence?"

"You have my word. I swear it on my DSM-III-R."

Jeff's expression suddenly became serious. As he sipped his wine, a faraway look darkened his face. He spoke quietly. "Among other things, we're into UFO research."

Karen suppressed a laugh. Her hand shot to her lips, trying to keep the wine in her mouth.

"What's so funny?" Jeff pretended to take offense. "I didn't laugh at your multiple personality stuff."

"It was so . . . well . . . it was so completely unexpected. You're not serious, are you?"

"Of course I'm not serious, but I'm telling the truth."

"About the UFOs?"

"Yup."

"You don't believe in them, do you? I mean people from outer space and all that?"

"No, I don't believe in them; I don't disbelieve in them, either. I'm a skeptic in the true sense of the word. But, dear doctor, I'll tell you this: Most of my less speculative colleagues don't believe in them at all. Period. End of discussion. In fact, they don't believe in them because they're paid not to. Part of our job is to think the whole idea is lunacy, which, I take it, puts us in the same ball park as you, right?"

"I guess. I don't know. I never gave it much thought. Then again, there are still people in my profession who don't believe in MPD. I guess we're both destined to be misunderstood. And that's another thing we have in common." She finished the wine in her glass. "But seriously, Jeff, how can you work at something you don't believe in?"

"Oh, I've got my price. I can be bought."

"Seriously now, come on."

"Seriously? Okay. I believe people are seeing something in the sky. I believe folks have been seeing airborne phenomena for a long time. If these shapes and lights and flying bugaboos aren't from outer space, then where else can they come from? Ever think about that?"

Karen shrugged as Jeff continued. "And what could be causing them? What do they mean? That's what I'm working on—I'm trying to make a complete list of possible solutions to this mystery. And, as mysteries go, this one's a crackerjack. UFOs have been around, and fairly well documented, for hundreds, actually thousands, of years. Take the biblical descriptions of fiery chariots, for example, and wheels within wheels. Or more recently, in 1883, a Mexican astronomer named José Bonilla photographed 143 circular objects moving across the sun. And starting about 1897 people all over America started seeing huge flying 'airships'."

The waiter returned with the new bottle of wine. He went through his presentation ritual and Jeff made a big deal of sniffing the cork, looking dismayed, then holding it between his lips like a wooden cigar. When he reached for the lighted candle, Karen looked away, embarrassed but amused. The waiter about-faced and made a hasty exit.

"Alone at last," Jeff said, tossing the cork onto the tabletop. He leaned forward. "Tell me something, Karen. Have you ever treated one of these people who claim to have been abducted by a UFO?"

"No, I really haven't." She thought a moment while pouring each of them another glass of wine. "But I've read something about it in the journals. I guess it's not all that uncommon these days. Oh, and I also read that book—it was quite a long time ago—about that couple from New Hampshire who were supposedly taken aboard a UFO where they underwent some kind of medical examination."