When She Was Bad

“Lyssy, what are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”

An amused glance, a barking laugh. “I’m afraid Lyssy is no longer with us, Dr. Al.”

“Who-who are you?” Corder managed to choke the words out.

“What’s the matter, don’t you recognize me, Doc?” he said, slinging Alison to the floor.

“Oh, God,” Corder moaned. “God, no.”

The familiar-looking stranger chuckled. “I’m afraid He’s no longer with us, either.”

5

Martin Cohen was a short, tidy-looking, brown-skinned Hispanic in dark slacks, a short-sleeved white shirt, and a powder-blue bowtie. He looked awfully young to Irene-scarcely old enough to be one of her students.

“Sorry for the delay-I was just getting ready to make my rounds,” he said in a pleasantly textured Mexican accent as he ushered Irene and Pender over to a three-armchair grouping in the lobby and turned up the dimmer switch on a tall floor lamp with an upside-down frosted-glass shade. “I’m Dr. Cohen. Senior resident. Please, have a seat.”

“I’m Irene Cogan, this is Agent Pender. We won’t take up much of your time, I promise,” said Irene; she and Pender sat across a low round table from each other, flanking Cohen.

“I appreciate it. I gather this is about your former patient, Miss DeVries?”

“You’re familiar with the case?”

“I’m familiar with all our cases,” he said, glancing pointedly at his wristwatch. “Please, go on.”

“Here’s the situation. I’ve been trying to contact Lily by phone for two days-unsuccessfully. But I finally spoke to her about…“She glanced at her own watch. “…a little over an hour ago, and I had a very strong impression that it wasn’t Lily I was speaking with, it was one of her alter personalities.”

“I see,” said Cohen; to Irene it sounded more like so what?

She understood his point of view. A patient’s erstwhile doctor shows up after hours insisting that her erstwhile patient has been displaying symptoms of the disorder for which she’d been admitted in the first place-not exactly earth-shattering news.

But Irene persevered, making the same points she’d made earlier to Pender, and eventually, to his credit, Cohen caught on. Curtly, he excused himself to make a phone call, leaving Irene and Pender waiting in the lobby. When he returned a few minutes later, it was to Pender that he addressed himself. “I understand you’re with the FBI?”

“For almost thirty years,” said Pender ambiguously.

“Okay, sure, well, the reason I ask, we may have a small problem here.” He told them about the birthday party at the director’s residence. “There’s probably no reason to worry-Walter and Patricia are very experienced psych techs, nobody’s going to pull a fast one on them. Only when I call over there, there’s no answer, nobody’s picking up the phone, and Dr. Corder, he’s not answering his pager. I’ll keep trying, but I was wondering, just to err on the side of caution, if you wouldn’t mind maybe going over there, make sure everything’s okay?”

“Of course.” Pender’s turn to glance at his watch. “How far is it?”

“Right around the corner,” said Cohen.

“I know where it is,” added Irene. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

6

Max wasn’t just being a wise guy when he’d made his earlier crack about God no longer being around. Even in co-consciousness, he had always enjoyed attending the nondenominational services held in the little chapel next to the dining hall every Sunday morning-after all, nothing supports the contention that the Creator has indeed abandoned His creation quite so powerfully as a sparsely attended service in a madhouse.

But if additional proof had been required, the tableau of a helpless girl sobbing at her father’s feet while Max held a knife to her mother’s throat would surely have supplied it, he thought, as Lilith raced around the house locking doors, drawing blinds, ripping the telephones from their sockets.

She returned carrying a length of clothesline from the laundry room, with a hunting knife in a sheath stuck in the waistband of her low-rider jeans-unfortunately, she reported, there were no firearms to be found. Max switched hostages, tossing the mother to the floor, then dragging the girl to her feet and holding the steak knife to her throat while Lilith tied the parents together back-to-back with coil upon coil of polyester clothesline.

“My Swiss Army knife’s in my front pocket,” Corder whispered to his wife as Lilith and Maxwell conferred across the room. His plan, such as it was, was four-fold. One, get the little knife out-it wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was all he had. Two, get Max close enough to drop a little bomb in his ear. Three: take advantage of subsequent confusion by inserting knife into Maxwell. And four: repeat step three as necessary.

“Hey, you two-no talking,” ordered Max, quickly slipping the steak knife back into his pocket-Kinch was stirring again in the darkness. “I don’t want to have to gag you-I’d much rather hear you moan while I do your little girl-but I will if I have to.”

Do your little girl-hearing the words, Alison went limp. Max lowered her sagging body to the carpet. “You a virgin, honey?” he asked pleasantly.

Alison moaned; Cheryl slumped backward against her husband.

“Please, Max, you’re making a terrible mistake,” said Corder, desperately trying to buy time; in the guise of collapsing against him, Cheryl had worked her hand into his pocket. “Even if you escape, how long before they, ah, they recapture you? And what kind of a life will you have out there on the run?”

As he spoke, he and Cheryl inched their bodies around so that he was facing Max; shielded by his back, Cheryl had withdrawn the knife from his pocket, opened the longer blade (not an easy trick one-handed), and was trying to saw through the coils of rope one at a time without being too obvious about it. Not that Max or Lilith were paying much attention to them. Max was kneeling beside the apparently unconscious Alison, trying to bring her around by fanning her with a magazine from the coffee table, while Lilith snatched up a pillow from the sofa and slipped it under the younger girl’s head.

Cheryl kept sawing, Corder kept talking. He felt the last coils slackening; any second now, he’d be able to free his hands. “Enough to make it worth your while spending the rest of your life in some maximum security prison? Because that’s what’s going to happen. All these years, I’ve been the only one standing between you and the penitentiary-possibly even a death sentence. But if you lay a finger on my daughter, I won’t protect you anymore. Do you understand me?”

Max glanced toward them; his eyes widened in alarm. “Goddamn-it!” he shouted, taking out the steak knife again and limping across the room. He looked over Corder’s shoulder, saw the knife in Cheryl’s hand, the cut coils. “Naughty, naughty,” he said.

Their faces were only inches apart; though his hands weren’t free yet, Corder realized he had to make his move now. “Lyssy is a goood boy,” he said, firmly but soothingly, then repeated the code phrase: “Lyssy is a goood boy.”

Whoa shit, thought Max-he hadn’t seen that coming. Kinch roared in his ears; his consciousness seemed to be flowing downward, toward the knife in his hand. There’s going to be hell to pay, he told himself as he rushed toward darkness. Absolute hell.

Wssh-wssh, wssh-wssh…

A soft, whisking sound. Lyssy glanced down and discovered he was making the noise himself, brushing the back of his hand against the thigh of his chinos. Grounding behavior, he thought-one of the alters has been paying a visit. Uh-oh-don’t let Dr. Al find out.

He looked around, found himself sitting on the bottom of the front stairs at the director’s residence. No idea how he’d gotten here, or how much time had passed since…since when? He vaguely remembered a voice like dried corn husks whispering in his ear, then flames, then cool, cool darkness-but all that had to have been a dream, it just