68
The big bald man in the natty, western-style sport coat with embroidered yokes fore and aft, stiff new boot- cut Wrangler jeans, and shiny, silver-toed Tony Lama boots tipped his new white Stetson to the stewardess as he stepped off the commuter jet in Eugene, Oregon.
Pender's new look was not intended as a disguise. He was counting on the probability that the FBI would not embarrass itself by issuing a BOLO for one of its own agents. But as Alvin Ralphs had pointed out, a man with a brand new El Patron had certain standards to live up to-why not let somebody else be the worstdressed agent in the FBI for a change?
On his way out of the store, Pender had revisited his transformed reflection in the window-he now stood nearly six-ten from the soles of his new boots to the tip of his high-crowned hat.
“I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy,” he'd said to himself sotto voce. The new height took a little getting used to, though- he knocked his hat off going through the terminal doors.
Pender had used his own credit card for the flight. Arriving in Eugene late Monday afternoon, after the weekend car rentals had been returned and washed, Pender had his pick of the fleet. Again using his own credit card, he selected a sporty-looking Dodge Intrepid with barely enough leg room for him and clearance for his new hat, purchased a set of maps, and set off for Umpqua County.
It was full dark by the time he reached the county seat. Founded during the gold rush of the 1850s, Umpqua City, a mining town until the gold was gone, a logging town until the forests were decimated, was now struggling to reestablish itself as a tourist destination. Pender booked a room at the Old Umpqua Hotel, a threestory yellow brick establishment across the street from the Umpqua County Courthouse, and catty-corner from the Old Umpqua Pharmacy. After a long shower, he treated himself to a salmon dinner in the hotel's Umpqua Room-wood-paneled walls, white tablecloths, and waiters wearing sleeve garters.
When he got back to his room, Pender turned off his cell phone and sky pager before climbing into bed. For anyone else it might not have been that big a deal, but for Pender, it meant that for the first time in over a quarter of a century, he was beyond the reach of the bureau.
69
Irene dined alone, locked in her room again that night. Christopher would have preferred to eat with her, but he knew better than anyone how dangerous it could be to ignore Miss Miller for too long. This way when Miss M complained about being locked in her bedroom all afternoon, he could at least point out that Irene was still locked in hers.
There was, however, zero chance of Miss M receiving a visit from Peter that evening. Christopher had other plans for the body. After dinner he and Miss Miller did the washing up together, visited Freddie Mercury and his flock, and sat together on the front porch watching the sun set behind Horned Ridge, the two-pronged peak to the west.
But when that sun was gone, so was Christopher. Irene was sitting at the writing table composing a second haiku when she heard the knock. She glanced quickly over her poem Sunset on Scorned Ridge
Strawberry Blonds Forever
I don't want to die.
— then closed her notebook and slipped it under the top of the escritoire.
“Yes?”
“It's Christopher-may I come in?”
“Can it wait till morning?”
He hadn't expected that. “I just wanted to say good night.”
Irene decided she might as well test him now as later. “Good night, then.”
“I want to come in.”
“Christopher, we have a contract. You've agreed to respect my rights. As I'm sure you're aware, DID therapy can be as exhausting for the therapist as for the patient. I'd really appreciate a little space tonight-then I'll see you in the morning, fresh and rested and ready to go.”
On the other side of the door, Christopher was in a quandary. He felt a nearly overwhelming desire to let Max or one of the others have her-as long as it wasn't Lyssy, at least he'd be able to access the memory. Then he realized that the urging was probably coming from Max.
Irene put her ear to the door-she could hear him breathing. “Good night, Christopher,” she said, trying to put a kindly, caring inflection on it.
“Good night, Irene.” Then, in a whisper: “I'll see you in my dreams.”
Miss Miller is half asleep. Her bedroom door opens, then closes again softly. “Ulysses?” She stirs from her junkie nod as he climbs into bed beside her.
“Sshh.” Christopher, as opposed to Max or Peter, hasn't made love to Miss Miller since he was a boy, but Irene has left him no choice-for Christopher, the drying shed is no longer an attractive option.
Miss M is lying on her back. He can see too much of what's left of her unmasked profile; his erection is rapidly dwindling. Hastily he shuts his eyes, nudges her over onto her side, facing away from him, and works her nightgown up to her shoulder blades. Her back is unscarred-as he traces a line down her spine and fondles her cheeks, he can just about persuade himself that it is Irene's long, slender ass he's fondling. The erection stirs again. Rather than break the spell by attempting to enter her from behind, he flips it up, trapping it between his belly and her butt, and begins rubbing himself frantically against her.
“Oh, Ulysses,” she drawls coquettishly. She's mildly aroused, drugged out, and amused. “Just like the old days.” She means the frotteurism.
“Sshh.” He hushes her again-that voice will spoil everything- and shuts his eyes even tighter, as if that will shut out the voice. “Don't talk. Please don't talk.”
Now the room is silent except for the silky, rhythmic whisper of the sheets. Five minutes, ten minutes- wshhh, wshhh, wshhh, wshhh. Then a moan, and it's over.
“Thank you,” says Christopher.
No response-just Miss Miller's steady, raspy breathing. She appears to have fallen asleep.
“Thank you, come again sssometime,” he replies for her, in Irene's voice, so as to prolong the fantasy. Then he chuckles silently, wipes himself on the tail of her silken nightgown, and slides backward out of the bed, carefully avoiding any further contact with that dreadful body.
70
After growing up in sunny San Jose, Irene Cogan found she rather enjoyed fog-if you didn't, you didn't settle in Pacific Grove. There were few things she and Frank liked better than having coffee and cinnamon rolls in bed on a foggy Sunday morning. Two newspapers, the Monterey Herald and the San Jose Mercury News, spread out across the comforter, a silent football or basketball game on the bedroom TV for Frank, the radio tuned to classical music for Irene, and through the second-story window, the silver fog drifting lazily through the boughs of the great live oak in the front yard.
The fog on Scorned Ridge, however, was a different creature, oppressive, damp and cold and heavy. When Irene opened her eyes shortly after dawn on Tuesday morning, it seemed to her to be pressing up against the bedroom window, as if seeking a crack through which it could gain entry. She pulled the blankets over her head and tried to go back to sleep.
Some time later, she couldn't say how long, Irene found herself sitting on the toilet with her nightgown hiked up and no memory of having entered the bathroom in the first place. She tried to tell herself that it was funny, or at least ironic, that under stress the DID specialist should find herself displaying symptoms of a dissociative disorder, but it wasn't-it wasn't funny at all.
