But this dark was more like the basement. Bad things happened in the basement-it was the worst place he knew.
Although he had a watch, a big man's watch, Lyssy couldn't tell time, so he had no idea how long he'd been in this place. All he knew was that he was forbidden to cry, and he was forbidden to use the flashlight. Even so, soon his terror got the better of him. He struggled with the heavy switch-it was hard for his little fingers to operate it. Finally, using both thumbs, he managed to turn on the light, and immediately wished he hadn't.
Because there, lying only a few feet away from him on the dusty gray floor, was the skeleton of a dead bird. Seeing those empty eye sockets, that hungry beak, was worse than the dark. Lyssy tried to turn off the flashlight, but the switch wouldn't budge. He tried to cover the light with his hand. His fingers glowed red-he could see through them-he could see his own bones.
Please, he said, his lips moving silently. Please help me. Then he heard the voice again.
Lyssy?
Yes?
You want my help?
Yes.
You know you've been a bad boy. It was not a question.
Yes.
If I help you, will you do what I say from now on?
Yes.
No more talking to the nice doctor unless I give you permission?
Okay.
No more talking to anybody unless I say it's allowed?
Okay.
You promise?
I promise.
Cross your heart and hope to die.
Cross my heart and hope to die.
You also have to promise to share what you know with me.
Sharing's good.
Sometimes. Tell me what you told the doctor this afternoon.
I told her about the dream-the dream about the masks. And what Daddy did.
Did you tell her about the other people, or where we live now?
No.
About me?
No.
Cross your heart?
And hope to die.
Attaboy.
Can I leave now? Can I go to sleep?
Yes. But when you wake up again, remember what we talked about. And don't forget your promises. Do you know what will happen if you break your promises?
I don't want to talk about it.
I'll put you back in the dark, and the dead bird will come to life and peck out your eyes. Or I'll burn you- remember how bad it hurted you, last time?
You're bad. You're scaring me, and you're bad.
Well ain't that the truth, little man. I am bad. And I am scaring you. But that's nothing compared to what I can do if you ever break your promise.
I won't. I said I wou'n't, and I won't.
All right then. Off you go.
Max opened his eyes. The body was still charged with adrenalinehe took a few deep breaths to calm it down and quiet the pulse pounding in his ears, then switched off the flashlight and listened in the dark. No sirens, no sounds from below-nothing but a little traffic out on Alisal Street. He pushed the illuminator button on Twombley's Indiglo watch. Nine P.M. Full dark. Suddenly Max was immensely hungry. Hungry and horny. He yawned, stretched, rose to his feet. Time to book on out of here for real. He had places to go, people to see.
Max started to give the dead pigeon a wide berth on his way out of the cell, then realized that his repulsion was only a leftover from Lyssy the Sissy's time in the body, and gave it a good boot with the toe of Twombley's shoe. The skeleton dissociated as it skidded along the floor; by the time it hit the wall it was only a pile of bones and feathers.
24
Irene Cogan's bathtub was big enough for two-she and Frank had made sure of that-and took forever to fill. While she was waiting, Irene tweezed her eyebrows, then the nearly invisible granny hairs growing at the corners of her mouth. Granny hairs aside, she thought, her face was standing up pretty well to the rigors of the big four-oh, thanks to a good Garbo-esque bone structure-the younger, Queen Christina Garbo.
Before climbing into the tub, Irene put up her shoulder-length hair, placed her Dictaphone on the toilet seat, fast-forwarded the tape for thirty seconds or so, then pushed play and adjusted the volume. As she slipped into the steaming water, she heard Max's voice:
“… what spooks me, Irene, is not that there's somebody else talking inside my head-it's this feeling I can't shake that there's somebody else listening.”
Irene nodded approvingly at the classic image, reached up, dried her fingers on the bath mat, and fast- forwarded again in spurts through the relaxation exercise and most of the regression, then pressed the play button-“five candles, one two three four five”- sank back into the water, and closed her eyes.
Twenty minutes later she heard her own voice. “… I need you to know you're safe telling me anything at all- nothing you tell me can ever come back to hurt you.”
Irene sat up, shivering, turned off the Dictaphone, let some of the cooled water out of the tub, and ran some more hot in, thinking all the while about little Lyssy. She pictured him as a five-yearold-cute little heart-shaped face, wide gold-flecked brown eyes, shock of hair falling across his forehead. If only she could go back in time. How she'd like to take that poor child in her arms and hug him close and tell him everything was all right, that what had happened wasn't his fault, and that he mustn't blame himself.
But of course you couldn't go back in time, and everything wasn't all right-the little boy had grown up to be a murderer. Then it occurred to Irene that that wasn't precisely true. If Lyssy were suffering from DID, then only part of him had grown up to become a killer, as a subconscious response to unfathomable psychological pressures.
Irene sighed and slid deeper into the bath until the hot water reached her chin. Perhaps she could still help that little boy to exorcise the animal under his skin, she thought-that is, if the great state of California didn't murder him first.
After listening to the Lyssy tape in the bath, Irene had promised herself she'd take the rest of the evening off. To fail would be an admission that she was slipping back into her workaholic mode- Barbara Klopfman would give her holy hell.
But if television was a vast wasteland, then Wednesday night was surely its Death Valley, so Irene took her laptop to bed with her and reviewed her notes on her last sessions with Donald Barber and Lily DeVries, the two patients she'd be seeing the next day.
Around eleven-thirty Irene went downstairs to raid the refrigerator. She made herself a cup of Sleepytime tea, cut a slice of carrot cake as thick as her thumb, and ate in front of the TV, switching back and forth between Letterman, Leno, and Politically Incorrect.
Around the time Irene came to the admittedly paranoid conclusion that all three networks had synchronized their commercial breaks, she thought she heard someone moving up the walkway that led around the side of the
