Saint Peter’s Wolf Page 8

  Porterman was due in a few minutes. First Johanna, I thought, and then Zinser. I picked up the telephone and Johanna answered at once. She was breathless. “I was so worried,” she said. “Belinda got out during the night.”

  Perhaps even then I guessed. A cold greasy door in me swung open, and stuck. “What happened?”

  “I’ve kept her in the house, but last night she got out. I don’t know how. Through locked windows.…” She laughed, incredulous, glad to be telling someone. “And I was so worried when I woke up. But she just got back, covered with dirt and leaves, so happy. She’s so happy, Benjamin. I can’t be mad at her.”

  “I want to see you,” I said, but even as I spoke my confidence was dissolving, to be replaced by quite another sort of feeling.

  “I would love to see you,” she said, exactly what I had hoped she would say. “How was the symphony?”

  But I was cold. I rose from the chair, unable to sit still with my uneasiness. Surely I was wrong. Surely it wasn’t possible.

  “When can I see you?” she was asking.

  I shouldn’t see her—I shouldn’t see anyone, until I understood what was happening to me. If anything, I reassured myself. I was imagining things. Here I was, talking to this beautiful woman, and I was frightening myself. What a silly man I was.

  I knew several good restaurants we had not tried yet, I told her, barely noticing what I was saying.

  Fortunately she was distracted, happy about Belinda’s return, and I had called at precisely the right moment. Yes, I agreed, drinks at her place first, and then one of my good restaurants.

  I hung up the phone, and stared.

  Something about Johanna’s voice had brought it all back to me. It had been a dream of running in the dark, as a dog runs. Sniffing the darkness as a dog can, knowing the night by smell.

  The intercom buzzed.

  I was happy to see Mr. Porterman. He had some dreams he wanted to tell me. I was delighted. “Tell me all about them,” I said. Anything, I thought, to distract me.

  Mr. Porterman beamed, slightly surprised at my enthusiasm. Perhaps he had guessed that his dreams were not the most profound in the annals of psychology.

  “I dreamed I was buying shoes,” he said.

  “Shoes!” I said, sounding, and really feeling, quite pleased.

  Porterman looked down, embarrassed but gratified. Perhaps he thought no client had ever dreamed of buying shoes. Perhaps the shoe was a universal symbol for something quite admirable. Porterman, being a man of science, was willing to concede that every effect had a cause. What could cause a dream about shoes? Perhaps some noble nature on the part of the dreamer.

  “Yes,” he continued. “I was at a sporting goods store buying running shoes.” He paused hopefully. “Fine new white ones.” Since he had begun telling me his dreams in great detail, and had become resigned to his unrequited lust for his daughter, Porterman had become charming, in a tentative, gnomish way. “And do you know what I did after I woke up?”

  I did not.

  “I went out to that very store, and sat down and tried on shoes until I found some shoes like in the dream.” He laughed. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done that. Had a dream, and taken it upon myself to act the dream out in real life.”

  “It would not make the wisest habit in the world, though,” I remarked, ever the conservative therapist, wanting to nudge my clients toward the brighter, less compulsive side of the street.

  “You mean, I might dream of murdering someone, or raping my daughter, and upon waking feel—hey, the shoes were fun, maybe I should make this a tradition.”

  I tried to formulate a response.

  But it was too late. “I can tell the difference between a dream of burying an ax in someone’s head and buying a pair of Reeboks.” Porterman was miffed. “Some dreams, I’m beginning to think, just don’t have much to do with reality at all. They are—” He spread his hands, palms upward. “Just dreams.”

  I smiled, as though in full agreement, and Porterman was soothed.

  But other dreams, I thought, sprang entirely from reality. I was icy, and it was as though the room had rocked. Some dreams might not be dreams at all.

  The smells had been like nothing I had ever experienced. A feast of odors, each with a voice, like streaks of voices, songs, a resounding vastness all around me. And I had run, as though I could run forever. The grass had been wet and fragrant under my feet. Under my four feet. Only the forepaws had been not quite paws, there had been fingers, and I could—

  “Are you all right?” asked Porterman.

  “Yes, thank you.” I coughed. “It’s just—” It’s just what? That I should be talking to a therapist of my own?

  “Dreams,” I said, “can be very disturbing.”

  And the nightmares which are not dreams, like footprints, or a cat’s head.

  Twelve

  Jacob Zinser had a warm, square hand, and his touch gave me confidence.

  “I had to talk to you. I didn’t feel like talking over the telephone. This is the sort of matter you really like to talk about in person.”

  I was mystified, and must have shown it.

  “It’s something that I wanted to really sit down next to you and talk about.”

  He was nearly embarrassed about something. I murmured that I would always be pleased to see him under any circumstances, and followed him into the collection room.

  He ordered tea, and suggested making a fire, but he was stalling, and this surprised me. At our first meeting he had been such a direct man, so unaffected.

  The tea service arrived, and then it was clear that he wanted to be completely alone with me, and uninterrupted. When we were alone, he dropped into a leather chair, and gestured with his open hand. He still did not speak, but his gesture was eloquent enough. I don’t know where to begin, it said. Be patient.

  I waited.

  “It’s about those teeth,” he said. He shook his head. “I’ve had some people looking into them.” He worked his lips, as though trying to shape a difficult word. “I’ve found out some bad things.”

  He did not continue at once. “I want you to give them back to me.” He lifted a hand against what I knew were going to be my protests. “I know—I can’t insist on it. But I am really sorry I ever set eyes on those hideous fangs. I am disgusted. Wait until you hear what I found out.”

  I said nothing.

  Zinser continued, “What I found out was straightforward. They drive people mad.”

  I wanted to laugh, or make a joke of some sort, but I could not make a sound.

  “I had photographs of those things shown to dealers and scholars all over Europe. Nobody knew anything. It got to the point where so few people knew anything at all that you knew there was something funny going on. It’s like when the cops show a mug shot around and nobody even tries to think if they know who it is. They know nothing—capital N.

  “So I persisted. I had my people digging into libraries and archives and museum files and finally I realized I must be looking in the wrong place. Just because I got them by way of Switzerland doesn’t mean they come from Europe at all, although I had the feeling we were looking at old-world craftsmanship in the silver. Just a feeling. So I had one or two of my contacts in New England open a book or two. Make a phone call. When you’re on the right trail it’s not that hard.

  “I was close. I found the scent not in New England but in a little town in Pennsylvania called Harpersboro. They knew all about those teeth. For generations they had been in the area, and every single person who owned them between 1820 and 1860 went mad. I mean, sick, howling madness. Gnawing things, snarling—real mental illness, although even the doctors don’t actually detail what was wrong with the patients. They talk about when the patient was found, and his age, and birthplace, and parents, and when you come to read the symptoms it all gets very vague. Very euphemistic. But it’s documented. I have some files to show you, photocopies of old medical records. Awful stuff. But all documen
ted. After 1860 the teeth vanish, only to show up in a trunk in Zurich. So where were they all this time? I’m still working on their recent history. But to go back into their past: the teeth are much older than early nineteenth century. They go way back. The American who first went mad was a recent immigrant from London. I hate it when you run into London—it’s so big, so many unhappy people and lunatics have lived there. But now I had a trail, and once you have your trail you just keep your nose to the ground.

  “The eighteenth century. What a wonderful age that must have been. So much rational thought, so much bawdy behavior, a feast of life and intellect. There was a tradition in that century you must have run across. It’s the tradition, or motif, of the Accursed Find. Found treasures that have a bad effect on the owner. It’s a motif we run into even today. But this sort of tale abounds back then. Usually it’s a skull. A man finds a skull, brings it home as a curiosity and that night, boom—the place is haunted by a flaming knight, or a weeping princess, or, in some of the stories, a wolf that walks on two legs.

  “This is where our little set of teeth comes in. I finally found someone at the Courtauld Institute to say that these are part of a tradition of cursed treasures, probably dating from at least the late sixteen hundreds. Superstitious owners would have prized them, but kept them put away, to keep their powers asleep, maybe. It looks like some people got rid of these teeth as soon as they could. So the ownership is a tangle of hundreds of people, many of them demented. You wonder why someone didn’t destroy them.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He had been expecting me to say something quite different. He opened his mouth and shut it, staring. “You don’t?”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  He gave a slight shrug. “All right. They are. I admit it. And I’d have trouble breaking them up and melting them down. But that’s because, like you, I value strange and beautiful things. But you’d think that someone would have taken up arms against them, if people were so convinced they were cursed.” He shrugged again. “Anyway, in light of all this sad history, why don’t you give me back the fangs?”

  “The curse might affect you, too.” I smiled, but my lips were stiff.

  “Somehow I think I can live with a curse. Maybe that’s what happened. Some people the curse doesn’t bother, like they’re made of stainless steel. The steel man dies, leaves it to his all-too-of-the-flesh nephew, and the nephew catches the curse like the measles. But look at me here, talking about curses. I don’t even believe in any of this stuff. When I used to think about such things I was an atheist. I’m the most skeptical man in the world.”

  “I think I’ll keep them.” I said it almost too quickly, but the truth was that the thought of losing the fangs made me very uneasy, as though someone were about to steal the clothes off my back.

  The teeth were mine.

  Zinser gave a short laugh. “They cast some sort of spell over the owner, is that it? So he can’t get rid of them.”

  I laughed, too. A spell. How funny. “Really—I think I’ll keep them for a while.”

  Zinser stared. Then he nodded and shrugged. “Okay. I had to tell you all of this lore, and let you make of it what you will. Maybe the owners would have gone mad anyway. Maybe they ate lead paint or had syphilis of the brain.”

  “Maybe none of it’s true.” For some reason I was defensive about the teeth, and didn’t want to hear any criticism of them. “Maybe they’re innocent.”

  It was a peculiar choice of words, but Zinser let it pass without comment. He did say, however, “There’s a lot of documentation. I’ll give you a whole file of it. But now I feel a lot better. I told you what I know—it’s not my responsibility anymore.”

  “You haven’t told me the price.”

  “I’m still doing some work on their more recent history. Let me tell you the price when I find out more about them.”

  “You’re skeptical, but cautious.”

  He waved my comment aside. “I don’t believe in ghosts. It’s all so much chatter, to frighten children.”

  “But you wanted to warn me.”

  “I’m a normal man. I have a conscience. I don’t want to feel terrible if something happens to you.”

  I felt that I was hiding something from this honorable man. Hiding my dream. Hiding my love for the fangs. But hiding something else, too, as though I did not deserve to be in his presence.

  So that when I left I felt that I was lying when I said, “I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  It was late afternoon when I reached my home. I put the key into the lock of the front door, and there was a step behind me.

  The very rasp of the step froze me. “Dr. Byrd,” said a deep voice. “I need very much to speak with you.”

  I nearly laughed at the strength of my reaction to the sound of this voice. It was a gentle, solemn voice, not at all unpleasant. But I could think only: don’t turn around. Don’t talk to him.

  Don’t let him in.

  Thirteen

  Karl Gneiss was large, broad-shouldered, and bald in the way that makes certain men look powerful. He was an older man, but his age was hard to guess. He was dressed in a cream linen suit, with a raincoat over one arm. He tossed the raincoat onto a chair in my study, and gazed around with his hands on his hips.

  There was a companion with him, a man so like a shadow he was easy to overlook. This other man was younger, a thin figure with blond hair. He said nothing, a man willing himself invisible. His dark blue suit completed the impression: this man could follow me for weeks and go unnoticed. Gneiss himself seemed to forget his companion, and introduced him without looking his way. “Stowe,” Gneiss said. “With an e.”

  Stowe’s hand was dry, his face pale, his smile handsome except that it wasn’t really a smile. One corner of his mouth lifted showing white teeth.

  “Stowe sees what I miss,” said Gneiss.

  “How convenient for you.” I said.

  Stowe himself said nothing, and faded into the furniture.

  Gneiss gave a quiet whistle at the sight of a Degas pencil-and-cardboard. He declined a drink, and an offer of tea or coffee. He sat with every sign of affable curiosity at the art, at the kilim carpet on the opposite wall, asking friendly questions about this charcoal, about that ceramic, until he at last leaned forward and said, “I startled you.”

  I had settled in my chair, and found myself wanting to turn away from his gray eyes.

  He continued, “Just then on the front porch. You were startled.”

  “I was, a little. I knew you would pay me a visit, but I supposed you’d make an appointment and.…”

  I was hoping he would finish my thought for me, but he smiled and said, “There’s a good deal of crime around. I shouldn’t have frightened you.”

  “How can I help you?”

  “I heard you had a good sense of things. I imagined you to be a canny individual. The police rave about you. I was simply going to ask you to keep your ear to the ground over the next few months.”

  “A psychologist has a duty to his clients before he has one to any.…” I searched briefly for the word, and when I found it did not like saying it. “Police.”

  He lifted a hand. He knew all that. “I am harmless. I investigate unusual crimes, and unusual phenomena generally. I am out of the FBI, but there’s a high deniability factor here. They won’t admit it if anything happens to me, but on the other hand if there is some astounding success, they will naturally want the credit.”

  We shared a smile at bureaucratic deceit, but I clasped my hands and thought: this man is very smart. And for some reason I wanted him to leave at once. But I smiled, and asked, “Could you be more specific?”

  “Sick killings. Where blood is drunk, or human flesh consumed. That sort of thing.”

  I cleared my throat, and felt the presence of the fangs in the room, secret, unseen. “Vampires,” I suggested.

  He smiled. “Things like that.”

  “There are psychotics who believe
themselves to be vampires.”

  “Yes, there are.”

  “How did you, if I may ask, find yourself in this particular line of investigation?”

  “It’s an ugly story. Ugly and short. My wife was killed, some ten years ago, by a man who thought he was a wolf. He wasn’t; he was a psychotic, deranged man who should have been in a padded cell. I tracked him across Pennsylvania into West Virginia and shot him through the head. And then I retired from regular duty, and went into what we call Special Service. I made up my mind that sick people would not be allowed to infest this country. I track them down.”

  I could not decide what expression to wear on my face. This man, I thought, is very dangerous.

  His blunt tone faded, and his smile returned. “Or at least, I try. The work has begun to be complicated, and I have young men working for me now. We work outside the public notice, quietly. Well-funded, but silent. And perhaps I should not have used the word ‘infest.’ I know how much compassion these sick people deserve.”

  “I can’t say that I have heard of any vampires, or—or of anything like what you have mentioned.”

  “No. Probably not. That would be making my task all too easy. But you know what I mean. A man confesses, a man says he’s about to shoot the president, or rape his neighbor’s daughter, a psychologist is likely to share this problem with a colleague. The kind of sick individual I am talking about often does seek professional help. And if the problem is a crime that is imminent, I am the authority to be contacted. I will not harm the individual concerned. I will not shoot the individual through the head. Those days are gone. I have the means to help and to cure. I offer loving arms.”

  “Why have you come here, to San Francisco?”

  He smiled. “A hunch, really. Nothing more.”

  “A hunch?”

  He stood. “I wasn’t so bad, was I? Just a quick word, and I’m off. I can tell you’re a busy man. But I wanted to meet you. You’re not like what I expected.”

  “In what way?”

  Gneiss did not answer for a moment. Stowe joined him in the doorway of the study, a lock of blond hair falling over his forehead.