City of Masks Read online

  "Not much. We've only just begun, really. And she's a . . . a reluctant patient."

  "I brought a cassette of what she told me when we were over there this morning. If she's willing, I'll lend it to you."

  Fitzpatrick bobbed his head unenthusiastically. As they skirted the black Jaguar, he rapped the sleek hood with his knuckles. "This is R o Ro's car: Looks like Jack has decided to gang up on you, Dr. Black. Got the whole posse here."

  " 'Ro-Ro'?"

  Fitzpatrick laughed at himself. "Ronald Beauforte. The nicknames are something of a convention in certain socioeconomic circles hereabouts. I'd guess his being here means Jack has enlisted him to help chase you off, too."

  Cree was just thinking that the impending session was looking less and less like the one she'd intended for this afternoon. And then the door opened and Ro-Ro stood there with his supercilious good looks, beckoning them inside.

  "I'm flattered that you think I deserve such a big production," Cree told them. They were in the living room, Cree seated on the couch with Jack and Dr. Fitzpatrick ranged on a pair of facing chairs, Ronald standing at his ease to one side of the room. Cree had been a little disconcerted to hear Ronald greet Dr. Fitzpatrick as "Fitz," as if they were good buddies.

  "But isn't there someone missing?"

  "We thought it might be better if we talked without Lila here," Jack said. "You saw what she was like. She can't take any more of this ghost business. We were wrong to bring you here."

  "Your wife is stronger than you think, Jack," Cree told him. "She's going to surprise you."

  "You can keep the retainer," Ronald put in, "if that's what - "

  "She's never been all that strong," Jack said. "She's always been easily upset."

  "I can vouch for that," Ron agreed. "There's some history here." He turned to the credenza behind him and began fixing himself a drink from one of a number of liquor bottles on a tray there.

  Cree watched him, thinking, Ro-Ro. Once you'd heard the nickname, it was hard not to think of him that way: an aging Southern bon vivant clinging to upper-class frat-boy mannerisms.

  "I have no problem with returning the retainer or discontinuing my research," Cree said, "provided I hear from Lila that that's what she wants."

  Jack and Ronald turned to look at Fitzpatrick, as if that was his cue to respond. But before he could, Lila appeared in the doorway. She was still wearing the same gray skirt and white blouse, rumpled now as if she'd been sleeping in them. She did look like hell, Cree saw, haggard and red-eyed, a wisp of hair hanging down over one eye and giving her a demented look. And yet the back that had looked so broken at Beauforte House was ramrod straight again.

  Jack stood up, instantly solicitous. "Darlin' - "

  "Sit down, Jackie." Lila glanced over at Ronald, who was looking on with a sardonic grin and swirling whiskey around his glass. "Ro-Ro. Of course you're here. Do make yourself at home, won't you? Care for a drink?"

  "Maybe I will, thanks." Ronald blinked languidly and took a sip.

  "I am not a cripple," Lila said. "I won't be discussed in my absence by some . . . cabal, however well meaning. I am the one who will decide what I need to do for my own mental health."

  Jack and Ronald frowned briefly, different kinds of frowns, but Fitzpatrick's expression was one of both interest and, what — pleasure, maybe, at Lila's assertiveness.

  "And what do you think, Lila?" he asked mildly. "You've had a harrowing experience today. What's the best way to get you to feel better?"

  "I want to figure out what the hell these ghosts are. And why they're bothering me. And how to get rid of them for good."

  Jack shook his head. "Lila . . . Peaches, the things you told us today, those can't be real. They may be scary as hell but they aren't real, they ain't even regular ghosts. They're - "

  "They're all in my head, right? Hallucinations, because I'm going crazy. That's what I've been thinking, too. But after we got home today I remembered something. Jackie, I want you to think back to that night I woke you up, back in December. When I was so upset and said I had a bad dream? I told you and Cree about it today?"

  "Yeah, the snake."

  "Yes. Now Jackie, can you remember what happened? Can you admitwhat happened?"

  Jack looked puzzled, glancing quickly from Ronald to Dr. Fitzpatrick as if seeking support. "What happened? I heard you scream, I woke up. I didn't know what the hell was going on, you snapped on the light and said you'd — "

  And then Jack stopped abruptly. His eyes went thoughtful and then a little alarmed.

  "No," Lila insisted. "Yow said - ?"

  Jack looked at her with dismay. Lila waited him out, and at last he dropped his eyes. "I said . . . I asked somethin' like, 'Is that smoke?'"

  Lila stared at him, then Cree, a look of desperate triumph or vindication: She had described her giant water moccasin as oozing like smoke.

  "I - I was still practically asleep, the light blinded me! Doesn't mean - "

  "You saw the snake! Just for a second. You saw it, too. If there'd really been smoke, we would have smelled it! It would have lingered in the room. There's no reason there'd be smoke, that old coal heater hasn't been used in fifty years. You saw it, Jackie!"

  Cree felt a pang in her chest. Lila's plea for verification was a cry for someone to share her experience, for proof she was not really as alone as she felt.

  Jack couldn't look at her, but he couldn't back down, either. "Baby, if there'd really been a big damn snake, wouldn't it have still been in the room?"

  "Can I ask a question?" Cree interrupted. "Lila, have you seen or felt any of those things here, at this house?"

  "Never." She gave Cree a grateful look.

  "Jack, has Lila acted . . . that way . . . here at this house or anywhere else? At any time?"

  Jack thought about it, pouted. "Can't say she has," he admitted. "I mean, she's been upset since we moved back in, after that business over there, but . . . no."

  "Why would that be, do you suppose? Why would she encounter her hallucinations only in Beauforte House?"

  Ron sipped his whiskey, thoughtful now. Jack threw out his hands, palms up, at a loss, then looked to Fitzpatrick. "Help me out here, Fitz."

  Fitzpatrick shrugged. "I think these are issues we can iron out later. The real point is, Lila, if I'm hearing you right, you still think your best course is to explore the supernatural, um, possibility? Even though there's a good chance you have a brain disorder, and even though the process upsets you, you feel that it would be a beneficial therapeutic approach?"

  Lila nodded.

  "And you'd like to continue working with Dr. Black?"

  "Now hold on a minute here," Ronald said. He frowned as he set his glass down and stepped closer to the circle of chairs. "Not half an hour ago, we all agreed - "

  "Ronald," Lila said, "you agreed, not me. I'll tell you what I agree to. I want to get to the bottom of this. I want to do whatever I have to with Cree. And if you want cooperation from me about the house or anything else, you'll damn well cooperate with me and with Cree's research on this! Jackie, same goes for you. If you want me to continue with Dr. Fitzpatrick, it's conditional on me working with Cree until such time as I say it's not the right thing." Lila's decisiveness was clearly a major effort that was fatiguing for her. But she rallied one more time to glare at her brother and her husband. "Am I making myself clear?"

  Ronald shook his head, disgusted, and shot an accusatory glance at Cree as he went to pour himself another drink. Jack just sat for a moment, hands on knees, puffing out his cheeks as he blew air through pursed lips. And then he meekly got up and went over to the credenza himself, muttering, "I think maybe I'll join you, there, Ro-Ro."

  Lila hovered, still defiant but looking suddenly uncertain again, her power ebbing.

  There was a long moment of strained silence, and then Fitzpatrick loudly smacked his hands on his thighs and stood up. "Well. That settles that, then, doesn't it?" And he grinned widely to no one in particular. />
  Cree and Dr. Fitzpatrick left the house fifteen minutes later. Outside, the lowering sun had stretched the shadows of houses and trees into long diagonals, and the air had cooled nicely. They paused at the end of the driveway, and Cree was about to shake Fitzpatrick's hand when he unexpectedly tipped his head toward the green slope of the levee and asked, "Ever been up there?"

  "No. This is my first visit to New Orleans."

  "You want to take a walk? I was just thinking, you and I have a few things to talk about. No time like the present. Good weather, grab it while you've got it."

  Cree looked up at the sunlight on the grass, the blue sky, the tops of trees just visible on the other side. Lila had ended her bravura performance by asking Cree to begin a full investigation and handing her a retainer check for another five grand - a convincing statement to Ron and Jack about who was in charge. She had also given Cree and Fitzpatrick permission to discuss her case with each other.

  Cree was tired, but the lakeshore did look inviting, and the sooner she began a dialogue with Fitzpatrick the better. "Just let me get my other shoes from the car," she said.

  She changed into her walking shoes and met him at the end of the street, and they climbed up the steep embankment. At the top, she was rewarded with a vast view of water, bordered by a wide strip of green parkland that stretched out of view to the left and right. The flat top of the levee was almost level with the second-floor windows of the houses in the neighborhoods behind it. Here and there along its zigzagging length, people came and went, suggesting that beyond keeping floodwater out of the city it doubled as a walking and bicycling path. On the lakeside, the lawns were thronged with people picnicking, playing catch, lounging, wrestling with dogs, flying kites. The breeze that bustled off the lake carried the scent of smoke from portable grills as it tugged at Cree's skirt and hair.

  "This is nice," she admitted. It was a relief to be surrounded by lots of space, free of close interiors so congested with emotions and history. To let the wind and sun sweep it all away for a moment.

  Fitzpatrick stood with his hands deep in his trouser pockets, eyes shut, face turned to the sun. Yes, a little like Alan Alda, Cree decided, but more edgy. More dash or darkness - an attractive combination. The wind made his hair crazy and pulled his tie fluttering over his shoulder.

  "I come running here a couple of times a week," he told her. He still hadn't opened his eyes. "When it gets hot, which is basically from here on in, this is the coolest place in town. The wind helps. You jog?"

  "Pretty regularly."

  "Thought so," Fitzpatrick said.

  Cree heard the oblique flattery in his comment. He was low-key and unselfconscious about it, and left it alone afterward. To her surprise, she liked the way it made her feel. They began to walk along the levee into the lowering sun.

  "I expected you'd be part of the lynch mob, Dr. Fitzpatrick. Why weren't you?"

  "Might as well call me Fitz. Everybody else does."

  "I noticed. I take it you have social contact with the Beaufortes?"

  "Some. I'm not real close - friend of the family, I guess you could say. My father was a lifelong friend of Richard, that's Lila's father, and Charmian. But we're all in the same krewe, travel in some of the same circles - old families, you know. When this all blew up and they were looking for some . . . advice . . . on Lila, they came to me. She was amenable."

  " 'The same crew'?"

  "Krewe, spelled with a k and an extra e at the end. It's a club, or maybe you could call it a fraternal organization. All we really do is plan our Mardi Gras parade and festivities. Probably sounds silly to an out of towner, but around here it's a pretty big thing." He grinned as he looked at her to gauge her reaction, but after they'd walked on a few more steps, he sobered. "I didn't join the mob because it became obvious to me that you have Lila's best interests at heart, and because she seems to trust you She has a hard time talking to me - there's a lot of denial there, and a lot of shame. She's a damned Beauforte, and Beaufortes don't have weaknesses or breakdowns. But I could see you two had established good rapport. And she needs an ally now, very badly."

  Cree nodded. Rapport was hardly a sufficient term, though; rather, an inexplicably deep sympathetic resonance. At its core was the feeling that they had something crucial in common. Both were deeply shaken by an unexpected, undesired, undecipherable revelation that necessitated reinterpreting the laws of nature and reassessing the meaning of personhood. Caught between an absolutely convincing experience that was utterly at odds with normal life and the beliefs of a skeptical world. Prone to shattering vulnerability, yet determined to find the strength to confront it and master it.

  They passed a couple of kids playing on the lake side of the levee, two boys about the same age as Zoe and Hyacinth, the low sun burnishing their black skin with gold highlights. Wide grins and lots of fidget and goofus, a dog barking at them from below. They each had a square of cardboard ripped from some box, and were sliding on it down the grass of the embankment - sledding, Cree realized, in a land that had never known snow. It took a lot of paddling and kicking get to the bottom. Their cheerful abandon felt sparkling to Cree, effervescent.

  "I was also too curious to lynch you outright," Fitzpatrick went on. "I looked you up in the American Psychological Association roster. Ph. D.from Duke, master's from Harvard, won the prestigious Haverford Fellowship. Which, I have to tell you, turned me green - I applied for that bastard but was deemed unworthy. Fact is, I'm dying to know how you got into parapsychology. From your resume, I wouldn't think you were the type."

  "I don't think there is a 'type.' I had a paranormal experience nine years ago that changed my outlook dramatically. My life has been something of a . . . a n ongoing field study to understand it ever since."Cree stopped, surprised at herself. Ordinarily, she didn't go anywhere near her own upheaval. Fitzpatrick must be a great psychoanalyst, she decided, his sincerity and unjudgmental interest easily drawing out his patients.

  "You going to tell me what it was?"

  "It's complex," Cree said lightly. "Maybe some other time."

  Fitzpatrick nodded, the good shrink knowing when not to push further.

  They had come to a street that cut through the levee. The grassy mound was capped by a cement wall of the same height, mounted with two massive steel doors that were open now but could obviously be slid shut on their steel tracks. Fitzpatrick led her down the slope to the flat lawn, then along the street to a road that ran close to the shore. A steady stream of cars and pickups rolled by, people driving with windows open, music racketing.

  "Saturday evening, good weather," Fitzpatrick told her, "this is the place to see and be seen. Cruise along here, go back around Robert E.Lee Boulevard, and do it again."

  They turned left to continue along the shore road and soon came to a bridge over a little river. All along the bridge, people of all ages and colors stood trailing strings into the water, lounging against the railing, laughing and chatting, listening to music from boom boxes.

  Fitzpatrick saw her curious look. "Mudbug season," he explained."Crawfish. Regional delicacy. Just tie a turkey neck to a piece of string. Crawfish latches on, you just pull him up and toss him in your bucket. Or you can put down a little wire cage. After a couple of hours, you've got enough o f ' em to go over there and steam up a pile and eat 'em fresh."He gestured to the wide sward of grass ahead, where several families sat around grills mounted with big pots. Cree caught a whiff of swampy smell in the charcoal scent.

  Once they had crossed the bridge, Fitzpatrick led her right to the water's edge, where a seemingly endless concrete breakwater went down in steps to the waves six feet below. Scattered along it, people sat with their lines in the water. Down close to the waves and mostly out of view of the general melee, lovers cuddled discreetly in the slanted sunlight.

  Fitzpatrick had dug his hands deep into his pockets again. "So you want to tell me about Lila's experience?"

  Cree told him the story, starting with the sh
oe tip and ending with the attack by the boar-headed man. She didn't interject any of her own opinions.

  "Holy shit." Fitzpatrick looked shaken. "Damn! That poor woman."

  "That wasn't all of it. Lila ended her narrative very abruptly. She's still keeping something to herself."

  "Do you have any idea what?"

  Cree did - Lila's body language and her sudden compassion for Jack suggested what came next. But she'd wait until she heard it from Lila before jumping to conclusions or sharing assumptions. Cree just shook her head. Instead, she told him about the polygraph scroll and how it corroborated Lila's trauma.

  Fitzpatrick was staring at the lake's western horizon, his forehead troubled, his hands still in his pockets. "Got to get those brain scans," he said. "Soon." He shot a sideways glance at Cree. "So —don't take this the wrong way — how do you explain ghosts that are seen by just one person and no one else? Without explaining it as a psychopathology?"

  "Most ghosts are seen by just one person. It's just a matter of variations in sensitivity. Not so different from other senses — any audiologist will tell you that some people hear higher sound frequencies than others. Wine tasters have verifiably more acute senses of taste and smell."

  "But, I mean . . . a boar-headed man, a talking wolf? Are those typical denizens of the otherworld?"

  "There's only one world - this one. It's just bigger and stranger than we know."

  Fitzpatrick nodded, accepting the point.

  "And the answer to your question is, I've never encountered creatures like Lila's. I'm not sure what to think. Except that, as I'm sure you know, reality and psychology mix and recombine in an endless number of ways." Cree went on to explain the idea of epiphenomenal manifestations.

  Again Fitzpatrick nodded, but his brows knit in doubt or puzzlement."I don't have any background in your field. Zero. I've never had a paranormal experience. I haven't any idea what your diagnostic methodology is, or what your models of psychology are. I'm coming at this from a strictly psychiatric paradigm, and from here the whole thing of ghosts doesn't make sense."