False Memory

heard the click of the latch, and suddenly felt that he must let no one catch him reading this book. He was abruptly, inexplicably nervous, and when the door seal broke with the pop and sigh of a violated vacuum, he tossed the paperback aside with alarm, as though he were about to be caught reading vile pornography or, worse, one of the numerous pompous tomes pumped out by his father and stepfathers.
    The book slid across the small end table beside his chair, off the edge, and hit the floor with a plop just as the heavy door opened and Dr. Ahriman appeared. Unaccountably flushed, Dusty was getting to his feet even as the paperback was still falling, and he coughed to cover the plop.
    Flustered, he heard himself say, “Doctor, is Martie—Did it go— ‘Will she—”
    “Viola Narvilly,” the doctor said.
    “I’m listening.”

    50
    After they went through the enabling litany of Dusty’s personal haiku, Dr. Ahriman escorted him into the office and led him directly to the armchair in which Martie had been seated earlier. She slept upon the couch, and Dusty didn’t glance at her.
    Ahriman sat in the facing armchair and studied his subject for a minute. The man had a slightly detached attitude, but he responded immediately to the doctor’s voice. His passive expression was nothing stranger than the looks one saw on the faces of motorists caught in the boredom of bumper-to-bumper, rush-hour traffic.
    Dustin Rhodes was a relatively new acquisition in the Ahriman collection. He had been fully controlled by the doctor less than two months.
    Martie herself, operating under the doctor’s guidance, on three occasions had served to her husband the meticulously blended dose of drugs required to slip him into the twilight sleep that allowed him to be effectively programmed: Rohypnol; phencyclidine; Valium; and a substance known—although only to a few cognoscenti—as Santa Fe #46. Because Dusty always had dessert with dinner, the first dose had come in a slice of peanut butter pie; the second, two nights later, lent neither flavor nor odor to a bowl of crème brulée with a crown of toasted coconut curls; the third, three nights after the second, would have been undetectable to a bloodhound, tucked away in an ice-cream sundae topped with fudge sauce, maraschino cherries, almonds, and chopped dates.
    The man knew how to eat. As regarded culinary preferences, at least, the doctor felt a certain kinship with him.
    The programming had been conducted in the Rhodeses’ bedroom: Dusty on the bed, Martie sitting cross-legged and out of the way on the big sheepskin pillow in the corner, a floor lamp serving as an W rack. All had gone well.
    The dog wanted to be a problem but was too sweet and obedient to do more than growl and sulk. They shut him away in Martie’s study with a bowl of water, a yellow Booda duck with a squeaking tummy, and a Nylabone.
    Now, after a seizure of REM passed out of Dusty’s eyes, Dr. Ahriman said, “This won’t take long, but my instructions today are very important.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Martie will return here for an appointment on Friday, the day after tomorrow, and you will arrange your schedule to be able to bring her. Tell me if this is clear.”
    “Yes. Clear.”
    “Now. You surprised me yesterday—all your heroics at the Sorensons’ house. That was not according to my plan. In the future, if you are present when your brother Skeet attempts suicide, you will not interfere. You may make some effort to talk him out of it, but you’ll do nothing but talk, and in the end you will allow Skeet to destroy himself. Tell me if you understand.”
    “I understand.”
    “When he does destroy himself, you will be utterly devastated. And angry. Oh, enraged. You will give yourself completely to your emotions. You’ll know at whom to direct your rage, because the name will be there in the suicide note. We’ll discuss this further on Friday.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Always one to find time for some fun, even when he had a busy schedule, the doctor glanced at Martie on the couch, and then turned his attention to Dusty. “Your wife is succulent, don’t you think?”
    “Do I?”
    “Whether you do or not, I think she is a succulent piece.”
    Dusty’s eyes were primarily gray, but with blue striations that made them unique. As a boy, Ahriman had been a marble collector, with many sacks of fine glass shooters, and he had owned three that had been similar to, but not as lustrous as, Dusty’s eyes. Martie found her husband’s eyes particularly