False Memory

over...
    “Learn to Love Yourself” Closterman said.
    “Yeah. Doctor, why did you send this to us?”
    “I thought you ought to read it,” Closterman replied without any inflection that could be interpreted as either a positive or negative judgment of the book or its author.
    “Doctor...“ Dusty hesitated, then plunged: “Oh, hell, there’s no way to sneak up on it. I think maybe we have a problem with Dr. Ahriman. A big problem.”
    Even as he made the accusation, an inner voice argued with him. The psychiatrist, great and committed, had done nothing to earn this calumny, this disrespect. Dusty felt guilty, ungrateful, treacherous, irrational. And all those feelings scared him, because considering the circumstances, he had every reason to suspect the psychiatrist. The voice within, powerfully convincing, was not his voice, but that of an invisible presence, the same that pumped the inflation bulb of the sphygmomanometer in his dream, the same around which the fury of leaves formed in Martie’s nightmare, and now this presence walked the halls of his mind, invisible but not silent, urging him to trust Dr. Ahriman, to let go of this absurd suspicion, to trust and have faith.
    Into Dusty’s silence, Clostennan cast a question: “Martie’s seen him already, hasn’t she?”
    “This afternoon. But we think now... it goes back farther than that. Back months and months, when she was taking her friend to see him. Doctor, you’re going to think I’m crazy—”
    “Not necessarily. But we shouldn’t talk about this any further on the phone. Can you come here?”
    “Where’s here?”
    “I live on Balboa Island.” Closterman gave him directions.
    “We’ll be there soon. Can we bring a dog?”
    “He can play with mine.”
    When Dusty hung up the phone and turned to Martie, she said, “Maybe this isn’t the best thing to do.”
    She was listening to an inner voice of her own.
    “Maybe,” she said, “if we just call Dr. Ahriman and lay all this out for him... maybe he’ll be able to explain everything.”
    The invisible walker of hallways in Dusty’s mind argued for the same course of action, almost word for word, as Martie suggested it.
    She rose suddenly to her feet. “Oh, God, what the hell am I saying?”
    Dusty’s face flushed, and he knew that if he looked in a mirror, he would see his cheeks ruddy. Shame burned in him, shame at his suspicion, at his failure to accord to Dr. Ahriman the well-earned trust and respect that the psychiatrist was due.
    “Where we are here,” Dusty said shakily, “is in the middle of a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
    Valet had come out from under the table. He stood with his tail held low, his shoulders slumped, his head half bowed, in tune with their mood.
    “Why are we taking the dog with us?” Martie asked.
    “Because I don’t think we’ll be coming back here for a while. I don’t think we can risk it. Come on,” he said, crossing the kitchen toward the hallway. “Let’s throw some stuff in suitcases, clothes for a few days. And let’s do it fast.”
    Minutes later, before closing his suitcase, Dusty took the compact, customized .45 Colt out of the nightstand drawer. He hesitated, decided not to put the weapon beyond easy reach, closed the suitcase without adding to its contents, and pulled from the closet a leather jacket with deep pockets.
    He wondered if the gun could really provide protection.
    If Mark Ahriman walked into the bedroom this very minute, the treacherous voice inside Dusty might delay him long enough for the psychiatrist to smile and say Viola Narvilly before the trigger could be squeezed.
    Then would I suck on the pistol as if it were a Popsicle, and blow my brains out as obediently as Susan slashed her wrists?
    Out of the bedroom, down the narrow stairs, with the retriever in the lead, with Martie lugging one suitcase, with Dusty carrying another, pausing to snare the books in the kitchen, and then to the Saturn in the driveway, they moved with a quickening sense that they must outrace the spreading shadow of a descending doom.

    58
    A low, arched bridge connected Balboa Island, in Newport Harbor, to the mainland. Marine Avenue, lined with restaurants and shops, was nearly deserted. Eucalyptus leaves and blades torn from palm fronds spiraled in man-size whirlwinds along the street, as though Martie’s dream of the mahogany woods were being re-created here.
    Dr. Closterman didn’t live on one of the interior streets, but along the waterfront. They parked near the end of Marine