Some Things Are Better Left

Gregory Frost

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“Some Things Are Better Left” was purchased by Gardner Dozois, and appeared in the February 1993 issue of Asimov’s, with an illustration by Laura Lakey. Gregory Frost has made an enviable reputation for himself in three genres, fantasy, science fiction, and horror, and, when last consulted, was planning to branch out into mysteries as well. In addition to several sales to Asimov’s, his short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Whispers, The Twilight Zone Magazine, Night Cry, Liavek, Faery, and in many of today’s best horror anthologies. His novels include Lyrec, Train, and Remscela. His most recent novel is The Pure Cold Light. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Frost now lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Barbara, and a twenty-pound cat named ‘Poot.‘

Here he shows us the wisdom of that old saying about letting sleeping dogs lie—and demonstrates that you should apply it to dentists, as well.

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“So, what d’ya think of old Herbert Hoover High?” Toby Eccles asked Deak, which forced consideration of how politic an answer to give in reply. Eccles, after all, had headed up the Thirtieth Anniversary Reunion committee and, according to Mary Jo Hanlon at least, he’d personally taken credit for the “Elvis” reunion theme. The sequined strings of blinking pastel lights, the movie posters of Blue Hawaii and Spinout and Viva Las Vegas—these things had emerged from Eccles’ brain full-blown. Deak had participated in none of it. In fact he had only come home because of death. Appearing at his high school class reunion had been a last-minute and maybe not-go-hot decision.

Then there was Eccles, with three colorful crepe leis hung over his powder blue tux. He still awaited an opinion. Deak stared down into that hopeful, cherubic face and had a sudden recollection of phys ed classes in this very gym— specifically of a fat bully-Eccles pinning him to a mat, dimpled knees digging into his shoulders, while another little bastard delivered unto him a stinging, humiliating “pink-belly” till he screamed.

Do we ever truly forgive cruel treatment at the hands of fools? Deak decided we do not.

“Eccles,” he said, “the gym looks like you blew up your sister in her prom dress.”

“What?” Eccles’ mouth pinched. Deak could virtually read his mind: Could he possibly have heard right? Maybe he’d misunderstood because of the music.

“And the band,” said Deak, “that’s supposed to be ‘Louie, Louie,” am I right? The Holiday Inn must be redecorating or I don’t know how you’d have gotten these bozos. It’s not even ’our‘ music. If I had a class reunion nightmare, it would sound like this. In fact I do, and it does.“ Eccles floundered as to what to do, then desperately tried to laugh it all away—Mike Deak’s big joke.

Deak took a sip from his whiskey. Still maintaining an air of camaraderie, he squeezed Eccles’ shoulder. It came up to the middle of his chest. “You know what dazzles me the most, though, about our class?”

Reluctantly, Eccles said, “No. What?”

“How many dentists it produced.” He pulled out from his inside coat pocket the little pamphlet that listed every class member dead or alive: Where are they now? “There must be two dozen of ‘em in here. Out of two hundred and six students, we’ve got an amazing two dozen tooth cappers.”

The ribbing had gone too far. Eccles’ fleshy chins quivered. “Yeah, an‘ I happen to be one.”

He did a smart about-face as Deak replied, “Well, I thought you were the local Indian agent—the one who sold liquor and smallpox blankets!” he hollered. The nearer faces in the crowd were now looking him over as they might have done a hair in their soup. The nearest tried to read his name tag. “Hi,” he said and the fellow lurched back.

Deak stuffed the pamphlet inside his coat, then nudged his way around the perimeter of the polished gym-and-dance floor toward the open bar. Out of the throng a few voices called to him. In response to one of them—that of Mary Jo Hanlon hallooing like a loon—he nodded and waved broadly without turning to look, and pushed more urgently through the crowd. One conversation with her had more than made up for the past thirty years of prudent dissociation.

Reaching the bar, he ordered a Coke. He’d had his one and only whiskey for the night. Some years earlier he had discovered this simple formula kept him from becoming a spectacular asshole and getting either walloped or sued or jailed. And after forty-eight years, most of them unsupervised, his body didn’t much care for booze, either: One good whiskey sufficed, for the sheer ecstasy of that first burnt taste on the tongue and palate.

The band had launched into their lounge-singer’s medley of Rolling Stones numbers. Deak found himself laughing as a feeble facsimile of “Under My Thumb” rebounded off the walls. “I used to scream along to this in my car,” he told the twenty-year-old bartender, who smiled indulgently in response.

“Sound crew,” a woman behind him said, as if it were his name. Deak looked around, fearfully expecting to see Mary Jo hovering there. A slightly plump brunette was beaming up at him, her face vaguely familiar. She had taken off her name.

“Okay, I give up,” he said. “Sound crew.”

“God, you’re tall.”

“ ‘I was supposed to get shorter?”’

“People do, actually, as they get older.”

“I have a painting at home that gets shorter so I don’t have to. Who are you?”

Exasperated, she replied, “God, Deak, have I changed that much?”

It was the hair-color, he realized all at once. She used to be a redhead. “Grezinski?”‘ In one sweep, he set down his soda, wrapped his arms around her, and lifted her off the floor. “Jesus, Pam, how are you?”

“Different, I guess.”

“No, no, it’s this stupid light show. I don’t know if I’m meeting somebody or having an acid flashback.”

“That’s a joke, isn’t it?”

“Part of it is.” He let her finish her laugh. “Normally, I’d ask you what you’re doing here, but we know that already. So I’ll jump to timeworn pickup line number two. You look terrific. You really do—never mind I didn’t know you.”

Pam said, “You lie very well.” She glanced past his shoulder. “Although, if you want to see somebody who really looks terrific, look at that.” She indicated the direction with a bob of her head.

He expected she was referring to a woman, but even in the dimness and the shifting lights, Deak could tell who she meant. He had noticed earlier that the man seemed an anomaly. Of medium height, he was dancing a basic rock and roll step with a beautiful woman who could have been the daughter of an alumnus, and he was by far the better dancer. While those around him were wheezing through their steps, he danced carelessly, as inexhaustible as the sun. His gray suit—visible when he stepped away to spin the woman—had the double-breasted cut of Italian elegance. It was neither the sartorial splendor of a poor man nor of one who had dressed up just to impress the folks hereabouts.

“He looks like about a hundred high-priced New York lawyers I can think of,” commented Deak. “So, who is he? Our chaperon?”

Pam Grezinski was smiling puckishly. “Do you remember the name Barry Kinder?”

The name immediately sparked the nasty memory he’d begun moments before with Eccles, stirring up a deep-seated hostility that dismayed Deak. The rage was shortlived; it gave way almost immediately to utter disbelief. The well-dressed dancer couldn’t have been more than thirty years old. Deak glanced evenly at Pam. Calmly, he said, “I remember, sure. He was a swimmer, wasn’t he? A smart little prick, too.”

“Ooh. Right so far.”

“Sorry, that’s all, Grezinski,” he lied. “It was a big class. He wasn’t someone I hung out with ever. So, he decided to play a joke and sent his son in his place, huh? The kid looks thirty, tops.”

“I’ll add your name to the list who’ve noticed.”

“Okay, it’s not his son, I got you. Money doesn’t buy happiness but it pays for lots of face-lifts and injections. I think the whole fucking class has had them. On him it worked.”

Pam still seemed puzzled. “But you’re sure you don’t recognize him, he doesn’t call up any special memories?”

“I gather you think he ought to.”

“I don’t know. Earlier in the evening, I overheard him asking about you—if you were coming back for this. I was wondering, too. And here you are.”

“He asked about me?” That didn’t add up. Deak took out the reunion pamphlet. After a moment of thumbing through it, he exclaimed, “Christ, he’s another dentist. Says here he runs his own clinic on Walnut. He sure doesn’t dress like a dentist.”

“How do dentists dress?”

“Mine always wears this kind of blue smock thing, and rubber gloves.”

“Very funny. And what’s wrong with dentists?”

Deak asked warily, “You aren’t one, are you?” She shook her head. “You didn’t marry one, did you?” Again she shook her head. “Are you married at all?”

“I am, and I was going to invite you to come meet him—”

“But now you’ve changed your mind.”

“No, but because of this thing about dentists I think you should be kept under observation.”

“Pay no attention—it’s left over from a run-in I had with Eccles about thirty-one years ago. Is that too long, you think, to hold a grudge?” He glanced again narrowly at Kinder and picked up his soda from the bar. “‘So, lay on, Macduff,” he said, and then followed her trail to the bleachers. She introduced her husband, Bill, who had a graying Vandyke beard and a face that seemed squeezed of its natural juices. Deak shook hands, then sat down beside him on the polished board. He discovered quickly that Bill never cracked a smile, not even at his own wry comments. He owned a stereo and video shop in the Northgate mall. “My mother had a small component system I picked out for her about five years ago,” Deak said. “It’s not worth a lot, but I’m going to have to get rid of it. You buy used equipment?”’

“I’d probably sell it for you on consignment,” Bill replied.

“Your mother?” Pam asked.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “That’s the real reason you see me here tonight. She died ten days ago. She had a seizure while sitting in her car at a stop sign. She wasn’t even in town at the time, but here’s where her condo is and where dad bought the family plot, so I’ve been hanging around town a few days.”

“Oh, Mike. The funeral?”

“Over. Don’t worry about it. She had friends show up, and my aunt. And, hell, I don’t know anybody here anymore, so I didn’t make phone calls. I don’t even know your last name, Grezinski.”

“Forbes.”

“See?”

Bill said directly, “You look like you’ve had a rough couple of weeks.”

“Maybe.” Deak had decided by then that he did not care to unburden his soul in the gymnasium of his former high school; nor did he want to describe the ups and downs of his career as a journalist, having erringly done so already for Mary Jo. His gaze locked on the youthful dancing figure on the floor below. “He sure doesn’t, though,” he said, and directed the conversation back at Kinder.

Pam leaned past him to explain their previous discussion to Bill. “Yes,” her husband said. “Not a very friendly guy, but he’s had a less than happy life.”

“Him? You have to be kidding. From the expression on his pretty face, he thinks we’re his guests and this is his gym. What happened to him so terrible?”

At Pam’s urging, Bill elaborated. He explained how Kinder had started a clinic but had by now almost stopped practicing altogether. “Just acts as an administrator. He’s pretty reclusive. After college, he married a girl I guess he’d met there. Elizabeth. She came from a well-to-do family on the east coast. For a while she was in Pam’s circle at the country club.”

On cue, Pam said, “ ‘Boy, she was a ditz. Neurotic, crazy. Really unstable. One time, she threw her tennis racquet at a guy who was carrying towels, because he was late.”

“Charming. Wealth breeds nutballs, though. Our whole generation turned into egotistical jerks, it’s our contribution to American society, along with five-figure shopping sprees as a form of psychotherapy. So, little miss too-much-money made his life a living hell, right? This is supposed to buy him sympathy? You’re not going to tell me that’s her out there.”

“No. Elizabeth killed herself about a year after the tennis incident,” Pam explained. “She cut her wrists in the bathtub. He came home and found her.”

“Oops,” Deak muttered. His worst enemy would have gotten some compassion under those circumstances. He let his ire cool down for a minute.

Bill said, “Kinder became a complete hermit for quite a few years. He fobbed off most of his practice to Eccles and some others, I think. Old school chums. That’s how his clinic got started. He had the money by then to do it. After awhile, he started traveling.”

Pam added, “He’s dated some of the girls I know at the club. They all say he’s charming but really sad. He refuses to consider anything like a serious relationship. Tends to be good for only a few dates… and, well, he’s a little flaky. He’s got this thing set up in his house—”

“An alembic,” interjected Bill.

“Yes, and sometimes he gets drunk and starts babbling about rituals and stuff.”

“Great, a dentist with delusions of alchemy. You’re not going to tell me he maintains his looks with a Philosopher’s Stone, I hope.”

“No.” She huffed. “Honestly, Deak. About every three years—right, honey, three years?—he goes off somewhere in Europe and gets a treatment. He’s really overdue for one in fact but his clinic’s had some problems this year, so I guess he hasn’t had the chance to get away.”

“They treat him pretty well in Europe.” Rhetorically, he asked, “Has anybody ever seen him in daylight?” For a moment longer, he stared into the crowd. He turned away all at once and said, “In the face of tragedy, the man became a narcissistic nut, so who cares?” He set down his drink and abruptly asked Bill, “You mind if I take your wife out on the dance floor for a turn?”‘

Bill Forbes seemed lost in his own reverie. He glanced up as the request sank in. “To tell you the truth, you’d be doing us a favor, Mike. Pam likes to dance and I can’t because of my damn hip. Going to have surgery on it in the fall.”

Deak stood up and extended his hand. Coquettishly, Pam took it. She told her husband, “You know, there were a couple of dances my junior and senior years I remember where I hoped he’d ask me.”

“No, there weren’t,” Deak replied. “Come on, let’s get down there before this excuse for a song ends.” Even as he spoke, the tune died its unnatural death; the band jumped straight into a rendition of “Good Lovin‘,” and Barry Kinder stayed on the dance floor. The cheering crowd hopped about furiously, only a few still clinging together. Deak used the opportunity to sidle nearer Kinder.

Close up, he was phenomenal. Virtually no lines etched his face, and it lacked the artificial tautness that repeated face-lifts could bring. His tanned skin shone only lightly with sweat. Kinder’s date looked more exhausted than he did; and, watching his ecstatically closed eyes, Deak got the impression he would have been as content dancing without her. Then Kinder’s eyes opened halfway and stared back at him in lizardly fashion, the look casually dismissive as though his thoughts had been read as of no consequence. Galled into action, Deak grinned back, bounced over and said, “Hiya, Mike Deak.” He stuck out his hand. “Aren’t you Barry Kinder, the dentist?”

Kinder shook his hand politely, then with more enthusiasm. “Wait a second, I know you—you write for—”

“I freelance actually.”

“Okay. But I’ve read your stuff. Your investigation of serial killers. What a fascinating piece that was.” He had stopped dancing altogether, his partner entirely forgotten. “You delved pretty deeply into the social matrix that creates them and their ritualistic behavior.”

Deak brushed back a forelock of thinning hair. “ ‘Nimbly put. Uh—you remember Pam Grezinski?”

Kinder hardly glanced her way. “ ‘Of course, Mrs. Forbes. We’ve met a few times over the years,” he commented. “Look, do you have a drink?”

“Not on me. It’s sitting with Pam’s husband, down the end of the second row there.”

“Miriam and I could probably use one ourselves. Why don’t we join you?”

Deak looked delightedly at Pam. “Great,” he said Kinder took his Miriam by the elbow and led her away.

Pam complained, “The shortest dance I’ve ever had.”

“Yeah, but think how much farther this’ll go at the club than telling the girls you were on the floor with me.” The) started back to the bleachers. “ ‘He buys his cologne by the quart, doesn’t he?”

Pam ignored the jibe. “I didn’t know you were a reporter,” she said. “What was that article he was asking about?”

“Something I did that came out earlier this year. I’m surprised he knew about it. It was for kind of a specialized magazine. Dentists aren’t police psychiatrists, are they?”

“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” She sounded strangely captivated.

“He’s already charmed my pants off.”

“Really?” She craned her head back and looked down at his legs.

“With advanced age,” he remarked, “has not come subtlety, I see.”

“Advanced!”

“It’s a fact we all have to live with. At least, most of us do.” He climbed up the first row.

Kinder arrived almost as quickly as they did. Miriam hung back with her drink after being introduced all around. Since it was immediately apparent that Kinder wanted to talk to Deak, Pam moved over and chatted with Miriam. Kinder took out a cigarette and, without begging indulgence, lit up. He inhaled like a man who couldn’t drag the smoke deep enough, and Deak noticed for the first time a hint of something like strain worked into his expression— the result of all he’d suffered? Somehow, that didn’t fit. “Deak and I were absolute enemies in high school,” Kinder immediately confessed to Bill. “Yes, somebody once dropped a chemistry textbook down a stairwell onto my head. I had to have traction, and wear a neck brace for a month. I always suspected it was Deak. I had my reasons, believe me. Ah, well, childhood pranks, right? We all played them. Still, I’d hardly expect somebody like you to come back for this desperate affair, Michael. I can’t imagine it’s your scene.”

“You’re right about that. The only reason I’m here is that my mother died recently—‘’

“Ah, of course. I believe I did see something in the paper, or was it the radio? It was sudden, wasn’t it? I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.” He lowered his eyes.

The whole act riled Deak. Kinder was so transparently disdainful of them all. “You didn’t touch a nerve,” he replied. “It was sudden but it’d been a long time coming. An invitation turned up in her mail is all, and I had to be here—you know, taking care of estate business, putting her condo up for sale. I figured this might be diverting at least.”

“And?”

“It’s turning out to be.”

Kinder tossed an amused look at Bill. “Give us some examples, Michael.”

“It’s Mike. Well, Barry, let’s see, our homecoming queen is now into channeling and claims to have been a princess in Atlantis.”

“The continent or the casino?” Bill remarked.

“That’s not so surprising, is it?” asked Kinder. “Everyone who channels thinks they’ve been to Atlantis.”

“Does seem so.”

“What else?”

“Two women I dated in my junior year admit to having had liposuction, and Mary Jo Hanlon even confessed that she had the fat reinjected to enlarge her breasts. With her renovations came divorce—she made a point of letting me know that. A lot. Divorce in letters like the ’Hollywood‘ sign. And then there’s you, Barry.”

Kinder smiled indulgently.

Deak continued, “ ‘You look like an ad for every hopeful health spa on Earth.”

“Well, thank you.” He tugged at the edge of one eyelid.

“What’s your secret?”

“I have a painting that ages while I don’t.”

Deak laughed and winked at Pam’s startled expression. Above her own conversation, she had been monitoring everything Kinder said.

“Dorian Gray, huh?” said Bill.

“ ‘Now tell us the truth. How do we late-forties derelicts get in on this rejuvenation?”

Kinder exhaled smoke. “You pay an enormous sum of money to a Swiss clinic every few years and they tighten your jaw, fill up your creases, and put you on a proper, regimented diet according to body type.”

“I should tell Mary Jo about it. She looked loaded.”

“She does tend to drink too much,” Bill chimed in as if deadly serious.

Deak refused to let go. “What’s the place called? Might be worth a story to me. They use alembics?”

Kinder’s smile evaporated. His hard eyes flicked across Pam and Bill. “I’m afraid I couldn’t let you write about them. They’re very private, the Swiss. They’d not care for the publicity.”

They’d not care? “Catering strictly to the rich and sagging?”

Kinder laughed stiffly as he ground out his cigarette.

The band took a break to a round of applause. Eccles climbed up on the small stage to announce that the main event—that of pointing everyone out to everyone—would shortly begin. As he spoke, the overhead lights came up. Kinder winced at the glare. He turned to his date and said, “I think I would prefer to miss this. Let’s call it an evening, Miriam, what do you say?” She answered that she wasn’t certain she wanted to leave. He reached over and squeezed her hand. “The champagne’s on ice, darling, wailing for us,” he coaxed. “We can dance there, much more intimately.” His perfect teeth gleamed. She folded her fingers in between his, her affirmative reply. He turned to Deak and Bill then and said, “I’m sorry, but we’ve been here for hours already, and this whole business of getting up in front of the crowd is thoroughly obnoxious. It’s time to go. Not that you aren’t pleasant company, you understand, just that

Miriam and I have a private celebration of our own yet to come.“

“You conjured it up pretty well. I can see the champagne bucket right next to the loveseat.”

“Exactly. Please excuse us. Bill, Pam.” He paused, as if to place them properly in the background. “I do hope to see you another time, Mike.” He led Miriam to the floor.

Deak hesitated a moment, then climbed down and caught up with him. “Barry,” he said confidentially, “in all seriousness, I would like the name of your clinic or the doctor at least. Hell, man, I’d love to look as good as you.” He hoped he sounded genuinely envious enough to push Kinder’s buttons.

Kinder seemed to size him up for a moment. “All right,” he answered, “the clinic is in Bern. It’s called the Bodelier Clinic. The doctor’s name you want to speak to is Gruben, Sepp Gruben. A very nice man—something of a pioneer in his field—but I can promise that you won’t get an interview.” He seemed to have shed his earlier enthusiasm over Deak’s work.

“Swear to God, I’m not going to write about him. Thanks for telling me, Barry. I really do appreciate it. Good night, Miriam. It was nice to meet you.” He turned away. Then, putting on a hangdog expression, he went back up and sat between Pam and Bill.

Pam said, “Jesus, he was extra snooty tonight, wasn’t he? And I sat here feeling sorry for him, too.”

“You got the name of the clinic?” Bill asked Deak.

“Hmm? Ah, no. No, he wouldn’t give.” He didn’t want to lie, but a lifetime habit of guarding sources of information kicked in automatically. After that, the reunion seemed less tolerable to him. He promised to get in touch with Pam and Bill before he left town—the kind of promise that no one believes—then hastily left the gym as Eccles, on stage, was worriedly calling his name.

==========

Later, alone on his mother’s couch, surrounded by cardboard boxes, Deak lay awake. In the darkness over his head, he pasted up his motives as he replayed the events of the reunion. Every time Barry Kinder loomed into sight, Deak’s heartbeat sped up and his jaw tightened, which happened often enough to keep him from falling asleep. He had reinvented his memory of humiliation at Kinder’s hands, turned it into a memory from hell, attaching Kinder’s perfect face to the body of the seventeen-year-old who yanked up his shirt and then battered his soft belly till he thought he would choke on his own vomit; Eccles grinding his elbows into the blue mat and spitting laughter on him somehow made him despise Kinder more. All around stood other kids in orange and white gym clothes, jeering his name. No, he thought, we do not truly forgive, ever. Kinder and Eccles—he wanted to dig up enough dirt to make banner headlines across the country, ruin them both. Most of all he wanted to wipe that fucking smirk off Kinder’s face. Permanently. He had the ability to do it, and Kinder had handed him the lead. Whatever he found, he would donate to the Tribune; let them run his byline for the sheer pleasure.

Then, when the images faded and his anger cooled to where he could see reason again, there remained the matter of Kinder’s hands. He was surprised that Pam and Bill hadn’t noticed them; but then, they weren’t outsiders, they were used to seeing Kinder as he was. Deak had spent more than an hour last night with a group of women who had confessed their cosmetic surgery-sins to him. They all looked tremendous—even Mary Jo Hanlon when he ignored the side of her that was reptilian manhunter. Nevertheless, he could still tell she and the others were older— mature and handsome, the kind of beauty that came with middle-age. Not so with Kinder. There was not a hint of the fix-up shop hung about him. Probably he just paid for better work, and no doubt that would turn out to be the explanation once Deak had spoken to his doctor… except for his damned hands. Faces got lifted and creases filled in all the time; hands were another matter. Kinder’s hands were as smooth and tanned as his face. Deak, plagued in recent years by minor arthritic cramps, hated him even more for such luck.

Kinder had been perversely smug in giving up the information about the clinic—he had all but outright dared Deak to pry. Maybe he had cheated on his taxes. He must have done something illegal sometime. Deak couldn’t wait to see the look on Grezinski’s face when he finally found whatever he was going to find. She might be mad at him for pretending to leave town and for keeping all his inquiries to himself, but she would love to hear about Kinder.

Instinctively, he knew he had let a little incident from his childhood get out of hand, but he didn’t care. He never did get to sleep.

At four he finally picked up the phone and placed a call overseas.

Outside, in the dark, paperboys were heading off for their various routes. Deak could remember what that was like— drinking a glass of milk because his mother insisted he have some, and then as a result farting through his deliveries. She’d never understood the problem he had with milk. She would have been upset with him right now if he’d told her he never drank it anymore.

First he had to get an overseas operator to connect him with a Bern operator to give him the number of the clinic. He knew already they weren’t going to reveal anything about their patients. Instead, he hoped to play upon the vanity of Doctor Gruben to ferret out whatever facts he could about the egotistical patient; surely any surgeon would be proud of his accomplishments. The hands, for instance, maybe he’d actually worked on them.

While the connections were being made., Deak had another idea. He got up and carried the phone across the room. On a shelf there stood a line of his mother’s trophies—she’d won a dozen of them for her shooting skills with handguns. Deak had never understood her hobby; guns bothered him. Under the trophy shelf lay a pile of papers and books that belonged to him. He rooted through the pile until he found a large vinyl-bound book in the school colors of blue and white. Grinning, he flipped to the back of the book.

Kinder was listed in the index, two photos of him: a class photo and one with the swim team. The portrait showed a blond kid overdressed and trying to look angelically serious for the camera. The swim-team photo proved more interesting. Here was the real Barry Kinder standing at poolside, his hair slick with water, a cavalier smirk upon his face. The close resemblance to his thirty-years-older flesh-and-blood counterpart was chilling. Dealt closed the book as the connection went through.

A woman answered in German. She might have been next door.

“Yes, hello,” he said. “I’m calling overseas, uber Meer, yes? My name is Mike Deak. A friend of mine who has used your clinic recommended you to me. My friend’s practically a walking ad—um, Anzeige—for you.”

“Yes, sir,” the receptionist replied. She sounded bemused, like someone who knew he had made a joke but who couldn’t understand the context. “Did your friend name his doctor? You would have to speak to the individual doctor. Our specialists are diverse, you understand.”

“As a matter of fact he did. It’s a Doctor Gruben.”

There was a silence on the line, a hiss like ocean spray. Deak thought for a moment that he had lost the connection.

The woman asked, “That is Doctor Gruben, you say?”

Deak’s scalp began to tingle. “Doctor Sepp Gruben. Is there more than one?”

“Nein, no. I wanted to be certain.”

“Then there is a Sepp Gruben.”

“Yes, he was one of the founders of Bodelier. However, he has been dead for nearly ten years. Your friend has been a patient here a long time ago I think.”

Deak sat up. “No, he comes there every three years.”

Her perplexity sounded in every word. “ ‘Why would he do that?”

“For rejuvenation. Face lifts, mineral baths. Whatever you do that makes him look that way.”

“This much confuses me. We are not such a spa. Bodelier specializes in urinary disorders, how do you say, Geschlechtskrankheif! Sexual diseases?”‘

“And Sepp Gruben’s specialty?”

“Dr. Gruben’s specialty was gonococcus infection.”

Deak pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut. What direction did he go in now? How could that tie in with Kinder? Why had the bastard given him this name, this specific lead? Some other question needed asking, some other direction. Think, he told himself. “ ‘Doctor Gruben—how did he die? Old age?”

“Oh, I should not be—”

“Look, I know this sounds crazy, but I’m calling a long way. His death must have been in the papers there. It’s not like it’s secret knowledge, is it?” He pictured her—young, uncertain, maybe seated within earshot of some older matron.

“I suppose.”

“Please?”

“Yes, all right. It was by accident, in his laboratory. There was a terrible storm. The lights—the power, you know—went off. Dr. Gruben fell and cut himself badly in the dark. He injected a serum he was testing. Through his wound. What is called an anti-coagulant agent. All of his blood escaped and he could not stop it, and he could not call for help because of the phones.”

“In a lab, surrounded by all that equipment, he bled to death?”

“Yes, a horrible accident. The storm was what you would say a ‘freak.” The doctor was alone, or was there a patient? I forget.“

“Sure,” Deak muttered. He was envisioning the beakers and ring stands and vacuum jars from the chemistry class of his youth, and the way the chemistry book had dropped in the stairwell when he let go of it. He continued quickly, “ ‘You said that was nearly ten years ago. How do you know the details so well?”

“ ‘They refer to it in the college, to remind us how careful we must be always in laboratory work. It was a very infamous accident here, that a founder should die of such ridiculous carelessness.”

He could assume that the local police had made inquiries but had turned up nothing. And neither had he, he reminded himself. Nothing but speculation. “Well, I’m sorry to have taken up your time.”

“Perhaps it’s another clinic, with a name similar to ours.”

“That doesn’t seem very likely, does it? Thanks. I’ll look you up next time I’m in town.” He added in thought, Which might be sooner than you think.

Deak got up and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He wandered the small rooms, surrounded by the remnants of a life that had been close to him but utterly separate, almost a mystery. He could sort through the piles and reassemble pieces of that life if he wanted to, probably discover things about his mother that he hadn’t known. He preferred not to; whenever he went digging, what he most often found was cruelty, torment, ugliness. He believed that he had, in the process of overturning so many stones, lost the sense for sharing gentler things. It was one of the reasons he was alone—that and a Pyrrhic regard of permanency.

He glanced at the clock. It was not even six yet—certainly too damned early to go hunting a depression.

He tried to assemble the new bits of information he had into the picture of Barry Kinder. Kinder’s wife had cut her wrists. He had gone into mourning and then retreated for years, then one day ten years later had taken a voyage overseas. Maybe he’d fooled around in Europe the way he did here; he had the money.

Say that he contracts gonorrhoea, Deak surmised. He finds a doctor, who treats him and then who dies by bleeding to death while Kinder is coincidentally on the scene—if in fact that’s true. There is no way to be certain without the aforementioned visit to the clinic. But at the reunion, Kinder drops this doctor’s name, and in such a way as to guarantee not only that he’ll be caught in an absurd lie but that both deaths will thereby appear linked. Had he said anything else—if he had refused to submit—there wouldn’t be questions. I would be packing and on my way. Why, then, did Kinder toss out Gruben’s name?

A trip to the library was required—and possibly to the cops. He wondered whether his journalistic credentials would get him a look at a closed case ten years old. Ten years old: a German urologist and Mrs. Kinder. Those two pieces fit together somehow.

“All right,” he said to the empty room, “but where’s the connection, Mom?” Kinder—here and in Europe. Every three years, someplace. Every three years… He wondered how he was going to sit still until the library opened.

==========

Eight hours later, Deak sat in a gray vinyl dentist’s chair, a paper towel alligator-clipped round his neck. The door opened and Toby Eccles walked in, his eyes cast down as he read the fake medical biography Deak had filled out. “Mr. Milburn,” he said, coming around the chair.

“It’s, ah, Deak, actually. Mike Deak.”

“Holy Christ.” Eccles bumped against the bracket tray beside him.

Deak swung into an upright position, feet dangling over the side of the chair. He picked up an oral explorer. “ ‘Been admiring your tools, Toby. Are Kinder’s this shiny? Yeah, his are probably gold.”

“What are you doing here, you asshole?”

“Doctor, your language. I dropped in because I need some information, and I figure you owe me a few minutes for all the times I let you beat me up.”

Eccles’ multi-chinned face went through three or four emotional change-ups before settling on bewilderment. “I’ve got a patient getting fitted for porcelain in the next room.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll give you five minutes and that’s it.”

“ ‘Fine. All I want is for you to confirm a couple of things for me about Barry Kinder. Then I’ll go away forever.”

The doctor looked doubtful.

“Tell me about his wife.”

“Liz? Why?”

“I’m thinking about doing a story on him—you know, success, looks, money, this clinic, but behind it all a tragic life, et cetera. You know. Sunday morning magazine expose.”

“No kidding.” He shook his head. “Liz’ll bring in the readers. An absolute loon. She had a few affairs, even hit on me once.” He quickly added, “I didn’t go for it, of course.”

“Sure. I read all the articles on her from ten years back. They claim she’d had an abortion because she’d gotten pregnant by somebody other than her husband. They blamed the suicide on her state of mind.”

“Absolutely true,” he said, nodding vigorously. “After she died, Barry hid out awhile. He called me out of the blue one day and said he was going to travel around and try to forget what had happened. We—that is, me and a few other guys—we were already handling his patients from when she died, so we just kept them. Hey, we were all making money off him. It was a good deal.”

“And when he came back?”

“Gangbusters. He looked twenty-five. Tanned and healthy. Not a line on him. The women—did they flock to him. It was incredible,” he said with obvious envy.

“Then, three years later he took off again.”

“Right. And every third summer since, like clockwork. I’ve got his patients again now.”

Deak pursed his lips. “So he’s taking off soon.”

“Tomorrow. Why?”

Now he had to decide whether or not to explain what he’d found to Toby Eccles. He doubted the pudgy dentist was going to believe him, then decided he didn’t care. “I’ve found a pattern in my researches to do with this ritual vacationing.”

“Well, sure, every three—”

“No, Eccles, I don’t mean that. That’s a blind, a front. There is no procedure of cosmetic surgery that has to be performed every three years. You’re a D.M.D., look it up. And the clinic he told me he went to—it specializes in VD.”

Eccles’ eyes widened. “What are you saying?”

“Well, it isn’t AIDS. From here on, things get a lot stranger. You want to hear?”

Eccles didn’t reply, but pulled at his lower lip with his rubber-sheathed fingers. All at once he realized what he was doing and wiped his hands against the front of his smock.

Deak said, “You can date for yourself when he took off on his so-called vacations. In all likelihood he was a patient in that clinic once. At least he pretended to be. And while he was there, one of the doctors—the one he claims treated him—died under very remarkable circumstances. He lost all of his blood.”

“Aw, c’mon—Barry the vampire?”

“No, no. Nothing so obvious. That would be silly. Bear with me. Barry comes back, takes up his practice, and starts fucking like a bunny rabbit.”

Eccles nodded in a wistful way.

“Three years later, less a few weeks, a dead woman turns up down on Fourteenth Street here in town. One of those little dive hotels the hookers work out of. I drove past it on the way here. Very tawdry. Once again our local paper made a big deal out of it.” He took out his notebook, and flipped through a couple of pages. “Headline: ‘Police Suspect Satanist Cult in Death of Prostitute.” She’d been battered unconscious, then drained of all her blood. They suspected Satanists because they found charred remains of some sort of ritual circle adorning the carpet. Blood— hers—bits of bone, and some sort of godawful-smelling paste, unidentified. They went out and arrested a local biker, but turned him loose after two days. No one’s ever been charged. It’s still unsolved.“

Eccles laughed. “Look, Mike, Barry was out of the country. You just said so.”

“Uh-huh. You took over his practice—you just said so. Give me the date he left. If it doesn’t fit, then I’m out of here, like I said—pink belly and all.”

Eccles slid off his stool. “It’ll take a few minutes to look that up. That’s awhile ago, six years.”

“While you’re at it, check three years back. I maybe need that one, too.”

“I’m only doing this,” Eccles said dourly at the door, “because of school, I want you to know.”

A few minutes later the dental assistant who’d ushered

Deak in showed up and insisted that she needed the room. She led him down the hall to Eccles’ office, no larger than a small washroom with a desk in it. The walls were hung with honorary plaques next to charts depicting plaque, jokey posters about Mr. Root Canal and the Gingivitis Gang, a bunch of tooth decaying rustlers. Photos on the desk showed a skinny woman and a couple of dumpling-, shaped teenagers with acne but great teeth. There was even a photo of a young sausage of an Eccles wrestling in a state tournament. Nowhere was there a picture of Barry Kinder. Deak relaxed a little. Eccles had said that he owed Barry a lot. Deak was willing to bet that Kinder never let him forget it. He sat down behind the desk and waited.

When Eccles returned, his smock was stained with something pink. “I had to finish up the impression for that crown, sorry. Okay, we got the dates off the floppy disks for you.” Deak took out his notebook and pen; Eccles unfolded a yellow “Post-It” note. He said, “Six years ago, he took off on the twenty-second of June. Okay? You need the other one, or does that get rid of you?”

Deak shook his head. “Mimi Caudel died the night of June twenty-first.” He stared sharply up at Eccles. “And three years ago?”

Eccles stared sourly at him for a moment. “July,” he said finally. “Seventeenth.”

Deak nodded, nipping back two pages. “Three years ago, the third of August, the body of a paperboy was discovered under the Second Avenue bridge.”

“That’s it, then. Barry was out of the country.”

Deak read from his notes. “The boy had been missing for three weeks. Forensics experts placed death sometime during the week of July fourteen. The boy’d been strangled. No blood in him or at the scene. Assume he was killed elsewhere and dumped there.” He closed the notebook. “Getting the idea?”

Crumpling the note in his hand, Eccles tossed it at his desk. “No. You’re impugning the reputation of a good dentist.” He paused, his mouth open, as if he wanted to testify in Kinder’s defence but could think of nothing to add. He switched gears. “ ‘Besides, if he murders people here, then why does he bother leaving town?”

Deak shrugged. “Because he’s going to get younger and has to make an excuse for it?”

“Come on. He gets a makeover. That’s a hell of a lot easier to swallow than this ritual crap.”

Deak nodded. “I agree. All right, let’s try it your way. Say he has the best goddamned plastic surgeon in the world. One who does hands and everything, who takes every little crease out of every little cell like he’s ironing the body. In that case, he’s a serial killing loon who’s compelled to make believe his ritual works. Can you handle that?” When Eccles said nothing, he pressed on. “Look, I didn’t start this. Barry did. He dropped the name of the doctor and the clinic on me.”

“Why would he do that? Why would he tell you that?”

Deak smiled. “Pam Grezinski overheard him asking someone about me before I turned up at the reunion. He wanted to make sure I showed. When I did, he pretended he hadn’t been expecting me; and then right away for no reason at all he brought up this article I wrote on serial killers.”

“So?”

“ ‘One of the elements I described was how a serial killer will often leave clues to his identity in his slayings. He’s sociopathic — he believes in some way that he’s the superior man, so he taunts people with what he feels are obvious leads to himself. Sometimes they are, if you know how to read them.”

Eccles sagged back against the wall. “My God. Then he’s asking you to catch him.” He shook his head. “What about Liz? He murdered her, too?”

“I don’t know. I’m guessing this ritual of his required an initial sacrifice to get things rolling and she was not only convenient, she was asking for it. Everybody says so. You say so.”

“But Jesus H. Christ, Mike — you think this ritual of his

“Believe me,” Deak said, rising to his feet, “I have

exactly as much trouble with that as you do.“ He walked up to Eccles and patted him on the shoulder. ”Don’t worry, Tobe—if it was me in your place, I wouldn’t believe me, either.“

He went out, leaving Eccles to wrestle with the facts, and before having to explain what he felt he had to do next.

==========

The house lay in an exclusive area of town bordered by a city park. As a kid walking home from school, Deak had cut across many of the broad yards of these same homes. A couple had their own tennis courts.

A brick wall bordered the road. It opened into an arch over a gravel driveway. The VW’s engine sounded like a jackhammer in the enclosed yard. Kinder’s house stood back from the road, behind a lawn of stately oaks and walnut trees. The drive led around to the rear. Tall hedges surrounded the parking space, which lay empty.

Deak hesitated a moment, testing his resolve, deciding he had to do this. As he climbed out, he wondered if the enemy had skipped the country already. Turning, he got his answer.

Kinder stood at the top of the steps. He wore dark jeans and a turtleneck—“sleek,” as the society pages had described him. “Well, Eccles, you were right about the vampire,” Deak muttered.

In his hands Kinder held two brandy snifters. He pressed a new screen door open against his back. It was a pose of nonchalance—nothing could touch him.

He thinks he’s the superior man.

More intensely than ever he had as a boy, Deak hated Kinder. As he walked up, he asked, “You always a two-fisted drinker so early in the day, Barry?”

“Let’s say I anticipated your arrival,” Kinder explained. He handed one of the snifters to Deak at the bottom of the steps.

Deak studied the outstretched hand, the face above him. Had Eccles been dumb enough to call and tip him off? He said, “I suppose you have friends at the library,” but accepted the drink. He inhaled, then sipped it. The flavor of an ancient, perfectly smooth cognac lit a delicious fire in his mouth. He swirled the glass, staring into it uncertainly.

“Not at all. I simply make sure to know everything. It’s a way I amuse myself. From your comment I know that you went hunting bright and early this morning. I’ll bet you haven’t even slept.”

“No, Barry, but I know a lot about you now, although I’d never pretend to know everything, Barry.”

“Of course not—that’s the thrill of the work you do. You’ve gathered all you can, and you hope now to hear my confession, because the story is too implausible, too outrageous. And I do want to confess.

“Why don’t you come into my parlor and you can tell me what you’ve learned. I’ll show you some wonderful ancient books I’ve collected and tell you about my researches. More than that, I’ll tell you all that I know about you.”

Looking dismayed, Deak asked, “What’s to know?” but he continued up the steps, compelled by the process he had put in motion—that one of them had put in motion. He noticed for the first time a dozen or so flies swarming on the screen behind Kinder.

His host moved aside, pushing the inner door further open to let Deak enter the house. At the same time, casually, as if accidentally, Kinder tipped his own glass so that its contents poured down past the landing. The flies dove after it. “You’d be surprised how much I know about you, Mike. I sent you the invitation to the reunion; I knew you couldn’t pass it up, as I knew you couldn’t pass up a chance at me even thirty years later. That’s the kind of person you are. I know.” He glanced thoughtfully across at the parked Volkswagen, then turned. The screen door banged like a clap of thunder. He said, “I even know your blood type.” Beneath his perfectly smooth hand, the big brass knob rattled in its collar as he swung shut the second door.

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