The Door to December

Regine was no longer biting on her knuckle. She had slipped a thumb into her mouth and gently sucked on it. Her pose was so provocative—innocence waiting to be despoiled—that he was certain it was something that Hoffritz had taught her to do. Something he had programmed her to do? But it was clear that she also was soothed by the thumbsucking; her inner torment was so severe that it had driven her to seek solace in the simplest, most infantile rituals of reassurance.

From the moment that she had put her thumb in her mouth, she had stopped sitting erect and ladylike. Now she slumped into the corner of the sofa. The neckline of her robe had parted, revealing deep, smooth, shadowed cleavage.

Dan had a pretty good idea how to make her talk, but he didn't like doing what he would have to do.

She took her thumb out of her mouth long enough to say, 'I can't help you. I really can't. Will you go now? Please?'

He didn't answer. He got up from the armchair, walked around the coffee table, and stood over her, frowning down at her.

She kept her head bowed.

Sternly, almost harshly, he said, 'Look at me.'

She looked at him. In a tremulous voice that indicated she expected to be ignored, she said, 'Will you go now? Please? Will you go now?'

'You're going to answer my questions, Regine,' he said, scowling at her. 'You're not going to lie to me. If you won't answer, or if you lie to me ...'

'Will you hit me?' she asked.

He was confronted not by a woman any longer but by a sick, lost, miserable creature. Not a frightened creature, however. The prospect of being struck did not fill her with terror. Quite the opposite. She was sick, lost, miserable—and hungry. Hungry for the thrill of being hit, starving for the pleasure of pain.

Repressing his revulsion, making his voice as cold as he could, he said, 'I won't hit you. I won't touch you. But you'll tell me what I want to know because that's the reason you exist right now.'

Her eyes shone with a curious light, like those of an animal seen at night.

'You always do what's wanted of you, right? You are what you're expected to be. I expect you to be cooperative, Regine. I want you to answer my questions, and you will, because that's the only damned thing you're good for—answering questions.'

She stared up at him expectantly.

'Have you ever met Ernest Andrew Cooper?'

'No.'

'You're lying.'

'Am I?'

Suppressing all the sympathy and compassion he felt for her, he made his voice even colder, and he raised one fist over her, although he had no intention of using it. 'Do you know Cooper?'

She didn't answer, but her eyes focused on his big fist with an unholy adoration that he couldn't bear to contemplate.

With sudden inspiration, he feigned an anger that he didn't feel and said, 'Answer me, you bitch!'

She flinched at the derogatory address, but not because it hurt or surprised her. She flinched, instead, as if a shock of delight had passed through her. Even that meager verbal abuse had been a key that unlocked her.

Gazing at his fist, she said, 'Please.'

'Maybe.'

'You'd like to.'

'Maybe ... if you tell me what I want to know. Cooper.'

'They don't tell me their last names. I knew an Ernie somebody, but I don't know if it was Cooper.'

He described the dead millionaire.

'Yeah,' she said, her gaze shifting between his fist and his eyes. 'That was him.'

'You met him through Willy?'

'Yes.'

'And Joseph Scaldone?'

'Willy ... introduced me to this guy named Joe, but I never knew his last name, either.'

Dan described Joseph Scaldone.

She nodded. 'That was him.'

'And Ned Rink?'

'I don't think I ever met him.'

'A short, stocky, rather ugly man.'

As he fleshed out that description, she began to shake her head. 'No. I never met that one.'

'You've seen the gray room?'

'Yes. I dream of it sometimes. Of sitting in that chair, and they do it to me, the shocks, the electricity.'

'When did you see it? The room, the chair?'

'Oh, a few years ago, when they were first painting the room, putting in the equipment, getting it ready ...'

'What were they doing with Melanie McCaffrey?'

'I don't know.'

'Don't lie to me, damn it. You are what you're expected to be, and you do what's wanted of you, always what's wanted of you, so cut the shit and answer me.'

'No, really. I don't know,' she said meekly. 'Willy never told me. It was secret. An important secret. It'd change the world, he said. That's all I know. He didn't include me in those things very much. His life with me was separate from his work with those other men.'

Dan continued to stand over her, and she continued to cower in a corner of the sofa, and although the threat he posed to her was entirely theatrical, he nevertheless felt uncomfortably like a bully. 'What did the occult have to do with their experiments?'

'I haven't any idea.'

'Did Willy believe in the supernatural?'

'No.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Well ... because Dylan McCaffrey believed indiscriminately in it—all of it, ghosts and seances and even goblins for all I know—and Willy used to make fun of him, said he was gullible.'

'Then why was he working with McCaffrey?'

'Willy thought Dylan was a genius.'

'In spite of his superstitions?'

'Yeah.'

'Who was funding them, Regine?'

'I don't know.'

She moved in such a way that her robe parted further, revealing more cleavage, most of one full breast.

'Come on,' he said impatiently. 'Who's been paying their bills? Who, Regine?'

'I swear, I don't know.'

He sat on the couch beside her. He took her by the chin, held her face, not gently, not with erotic intention, but as an extension of the threat first embodied by his raised fist.

Meaningless as the threat was, she nevertheless responded to it. This was what she wanted: to be intimidated, to be commanded, and to obey.

'Who?' he repeated.

She said, 'I don't know. I really, really don't. I'd tell you if I did. I swear. Anything you want, I'd tell you.'

This time he believed her. But he didn't let go of her face. 'I know Melanie McCaffrey endured a lot of mental and physical abuse in that gray room. But I want to know ... Christ, I don't want to know, but I've got to know ... was there sexual abuse too?'

Regine's mouth was somewhat compressed by his grip on her chin and jaws, so her voice was slightly distorted. 'How would I know?'

'You would have known,' he insisted. 'One way or the other, you would have sensed a thing like that, even if Hoffritz didn't talk to you much about what went on in Studio City. He might not have talked about what he was trying to achieve with the girl, but he would have bragged about his control of her. I'm sure of that. I never met him, but I know him well enough to be sure of that.'

'I don't believe there was anything sexual about it,' Regine said.

He squeezed her face, and she winced, but he saw (with dismay) that she liked it nonetheless, so he relaxed his hand, though he didn't let go of her. 'Are you sure?'

'Almost certain. He might have liked ... to have her. But I think you're right: He would have told me that, if he'd done it, if he'd been with her like that...'

'Did he even hint at it?'

'No.'

Dan was profoundly relieved. He even smiled. At least the child hadn't been subjected to that indignity. Then he remembered what indignities she had endured, and his smile quickly died.

He let go of Regine's face but stayed beside her on the couch. Gradually fading red spots marked where his fingers had pressed into her tender skin. 'Regine, you said you hadn't seen Willy in more than a year. Why?'

She lowered her eyes, bent her neck. Her shoulders softened even more, and she slumped further into the corner of the sofa.

'Why?' he repeated.

'Willy ... got tired of me.'

That she should care so much about Willy made Dan ill.

'He didn't want me any more,' she said in a tone of voice more suited to announcing imminent death from cancer. Willy not wanting her any more was clearly the worst, most devastating development that she could imagine. 'I did everything, anything, but nothing was enough ...'

'He just broke it off, cold?'

'I never saw him after he ... sent me away. But we talked on the phone now and then. We had to.'

'Had to talk on the phone? About what?'

Almost whispering: 'About the others he sent around to see me.'

'What others?'

'His friends. The other ... men.'

'He sent men to you?'

'Yes.'

'For sex?'

'For sex. For anything they wanted. I do anything they want. For Willy.'

Dan's mental image of the late Wilhelm Hoffritz was growing more monstrous by the minute. The man had been a viper.

He not only brainwashed and established control of Regine for his own sexual gratification, but even after he no longer wanted her, he continued to control her and abuse her secondhand. Apparently, the mere fact that she continued to be abused, even beyond his sight, gratified him sufficiently to maintain an iron grip on her tortured mind. He had been a singularly sick man. Worse than sick: demented.

Regine raised her head and said, not without enthusiasm, 'Do you want me to tell you some of the things they made me do?'

Dan stared at her, speechless with revulsion.

'I don't mind telling you,' she assured him. 'You might enjoy hearing. I didn't mind doing those things, and I don't mind telling you exactly what I did.'

'No,' he said hoarsely.

'You might like to hear.'

'No.'

She giggled softly. 'It might give you some ideas.'

'Shut up!' he said, and he nearly slapped her.

She bowed her head as if she were a dog that had been cowed by a scolding master.

He said, 'The men Hoffritz sent to you—who were they?'

'I only know their first names. One of them was Andy, and you've told me his last name was Cooper. Another one was Joe.'

'Scaldone? Who else?'

'Howard, Shelby ... Eddie.'

'Eddie who?'

'I told you, I don't know their last names.'

'How often did they come?'

'Most of them... once or twice a week.'

'They still come here?'

'Oh, sure. I'm what they need. There was only one guy who came once and never came back.'

'What was his name?'

'Albert.'

'Albert Uhlander?'

'I don't know.'

'What did he look like?'

'Tall, thin, with a ... bony face. I don't know how else to describe him. I guess you'd say he sort of looked like a hawk ... hawkish ... sharp features.'

Dan had not looked at the author's photograph on the books now in the trunk of his car, but he intended to do so when he left Regine.

He said, 'Albert, Howard, Shelby, Eddie ... anybody else?'

'Well, like I said, Andy and Joe. But they're dead now, huh?'

'Very.'

'And there's one other man. He comes by all the time, but I don't even know his first name.'

'What's he look like?'

'About six-foot, distinguished. Beautiful white hair. Beautiful clothes. Not handsome, you know, but elegant. He carries himself so well, and he speaks very well. He's ... cultured. I like him. He hurts me so ... beautifully.'

Dan took a deep breath. 'If you don't even know his first name, what do you call him?'

She grinned. 'Oh, there's only one thing he wants me to call him.' She looked mischievous, winked at Dan. 'Daddy.'

'What?'

'I call him Daddy. Always. I pretend he's my daddy, see, and he pretends I'm really his daughter, and I sit on his lap and we talk about school, and I—'

'That's enough,' he said, feeling as if he had stepped into a corner of Hell, where knowing the local customs was an obligation to live by them. He preferred not knowing.

He wanted to sweep the photographs off the table, smash the glass that shielded them, pull the other pictures off the mantel and throw them in the fireplace and light them with a match. But he knew that he would be of no help to Regine merely by destroying those reminders of Hoffritz. The hateful man was dead, yes, but he would live for years in this woman's mind, like a malevolent troll in a secret cave. Dan touched her face again, but briefly and tenderly this time. 'Regine, what do you do with your time, your days, your life?'

She shrugged.

'Do you go to movies, dancing, out to dinner with friends—or do you just sit here, waiting for someone to need you?'

'Mostly I stay here,' she said. 'I like it here. This is where Willy wanted me.'

'And what do you do for a living?'

'I do what they want.'

'You've got a degree in psychology, for God's sake.'

She said nothing.

'Why did you finish your degree at UCLA if you didn't intend to use it?'

'Willy wanted me to finish. It was funny, you know. They threw him out, those bastards at the university, but they couldn't throw me out so easily. I was there to remind them about Willy. That pleased him. He thought that was a terrific joke.'

'You could do important work, interesting work.'

'I'm doing what I was made for.'

'No. You aren't. You're doing what Hoffritz said you were made for. That's very different.'

'Willy knew,' she said. 'Willy knew everything.'

'Willy was a rotten pig,' he said.

'No.' Tears formed in her eyes again.

'So they come here and use you, hurt you.' He grabbed her arm, pulled up the sleeve of her robe, revealing the bruise that he had spotted earlier and the rope burns at her wrist. 'They hurt you, don't they?'

'Yeah, in one way or another, some of them more than others. Some of them are better at it. Some of them make it feel so sweet.'

'Why do you put up with it?'

'I like it.'

The air seemed even more oppressive than it had a few minutes ago. Thick, moist, heavy with a grime that couldn't be seen, a filth that settled not on the skin but on the soul. Dan didn't want to breathe it in. It was dangerously corrupting air.