Lightning Read online

  A blast of wind slammed into the house, rattling a loose window, whistling in the eaves, and Markwell was reminded of the storm. As he watched the fast-falling snow at the window, he felt another gust of disorientation blow through him. The night was so eventful—the lightning, the inexplicable intruder—that suddenly it did not seem real. He pulled at the ropes that bound him to the chair, certain that they were fragments of a whiskey dream and would dissolve like gossamer, but they held him fast, and the effort made him dizzy again.

  At the phone the stranger said, “Nurse Hanlow? Dr. Markwell won’t be able to come to the hospital tonight. One of his patients there, Janet Shane, is having a difficult labor. Hmmmm? Yes, of course. He wants Dr. Carlson to handle the delivery. No, no, I’m afraid he can’t possibly make it. No, not the weather. He’s drunk. That’s right. He’d be a danger to the patient. No ... he’s so drunk, there’s no point putting him on the line. Sorry. He’s been drinking a lot lately, trying to cover it, but tonight he’s worse than usual. Hmmmm? I’m a neighbor. Okay. Thank you, Nurse Hanlow. Goodbye.”

  Markwell was angry but also surprisingly relieved to have his secret revealed. “You bastard, you’ve ruined me.”

  “No, Doctor. You’ve ruined yourself. Self-hatred is destroying your career. And it drove your wife away from you. The marriage was already troubled, sure, but it might’ve been saved if Lenny had lived, and it might even have been saved after he died if you hadn’t withdrawn into yourself so completely.”

  Markwell was astonished. “How the hell do you know what it was like with me and Anna? And how do you know about Lenny? I’ve never met you before. How can you know anything about me?”

  Ignoring the questions, the stranger piled two pillows against the padded headboard of the bed. He swung his wet, dirty, booted feet onto the covers and stretched out. “No matter how you feel about it, losing your son wasn’t your fault. You’re just a physician, not a miracle worker. But losing Anna was your fault. And what you’ve become—an extreme danger to your patients—that’s your fault too. ”

  Markwell started to object, then sighed and let his head drop forward until his chin was on his chest.

  “You know what your trouble is, Doctor?”

  “I suppose you’ll tell me.”

  “Your trouble is you never had to struggle for anything, never knew adversity. Your father was well-to-do, so you got everything you wanted, went to the finest schools. And though you were successful in your practice, you never needed the money—you had your inheritance. So when Lenny got polio, you didn’t know how to deal with adversity because you’d never had any practice. You hadn’t been inoculated, so you had no resistance, and you got a bad case of despair.”

  Lifting his head, blinking until his vision cleared, Markwell said, “I can’t figure this.”

  “Through all this suffering, you’ve learned something, Markwell, and if you’ll sober up long enough to think straight, you might get back on track. You’ve still got a slim chance to redeem yourself.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to redeem myself.”

  “I’m afraid that could be true. I think you’re scared to die, but I don’t know if you have the guts to go on living.”

  The doctor’s breath was sour with stale peppermint and whiskey. His mouth was dry, and his tongue swollen. He longed for a drink.

  He halfheartedly tested the ropes that bound his hands to the chair. Finally, disgusted by the self-pitying whine in his own voice but unable to regain his dignity, he said, “What do you want from me?”

  “I want to prevent you from going to the hospital tonight. I want to be damn sure you don’t deliver Janet Shane’s baby. You’ve become a butcher, a potential killer, and you have to be stopped this time.”

  Markwell licked his dry lips. “I still don’t know who you are.”

  “And you never will, Doctor. You never will.”

  Bob Shane had never been so scared. He repressed his tears, for he had the superstitious feeling that revealing his fear so openly would tempt the fates and insure Janet’s and the baby’s deaths.

  He leaned forward in the waiting-room chair, bowed his head, and prayed silently: Lord, Janet could’ve done better than me. She’s so pretty, and I’m as homely as a rag rug. I’m just a grocer, and my corner store isn’t ever going to turn big profits, but she loves me. Lord, she’s good, honest, humble ... she doesn’t deserve to die. Maybe You want to take her ‘cause she’s already good enough for heaven. But I’m not good enough yet, and I need her to help me be a better man.

  One of the lounge doors opened.

  Bob looked up.

  Doctors Carlson and Yamatta entered in their hospital greens.

  The sight of them frightened Bob, and he rose slowly from his chair.

  Yamatta’s eyes were sadder than ever.

  Dr. Carlson was a tall, portly man who managed to look dignified even in his baggy hospital uniform. “Mr. Shane ... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but your wife died in childbirth.”

  Bob stood rock-still, as if the dreadful news had transformed his flesh to stone. He heard only part of what Carlson said:

  “... major uterine obstruction ... one of those women not really designed to have children. She should never have gotten pregnant. I’m sorry ... so sorry ... everything we could ... massive hemorrhaging ... but the baby... ”

  The word “baby” broke Bob’s paralysis. He took a halting step toward Carlson. “What did you say about the baby?”

  “It’s a girl,” Carlson said. “A healthy little girl.”

  Bob had thought everything was lost. Now he stared at Carlson, cautiously hopeful that a part of Janet had not died and that he was not, after all, entirely alone in the world. “Really? A girl?”

  “Yes,” Carlson said. “She’s an exceptionally beautiful baby. Born with a full head of dark brown hair.”

  Looking at Yamatta, Bob said, “My baby lived.”

  “Yes,” Yamatta said. His poignant smile flickered briefly. “And you’ve got Dr. Carlson to thank. I’m afraid Mrs. Shane never had a chance. In less experienced hands the baby might’ve been lost too.”

  Bob turned to Carlson, still afraid to believe. “The ... the baby lived, and that’s something to be thankful for, anyway, isn’t it?”

  The physicians stood in awkward silence. Then Yamatta put one hand on Bob Shane’s shoulder, perhaps sensing that the contact would comfort him.

  Though Bob was five inches taller and forty pounds heavier than the diminutive doctor, he leaned against Yamatta. Overcome with grief he wept, and Yamatta held him.

  The stranger stayed with Markwell for another hour, though he spoke no more and would respond to none of Markwell’s questions. He lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, so intent on his thoughts that he seldom moved.

  As the doctor sobered, a throbbing headache began to torment him. As usual his hangover was an excuse for even greater self-pity than that which had driven him to drink.

  Eventually the intruder looked at his wristwatch. “Eleven-thirty. I’ll be going now.” He got off the bed, came to the chair, and again drew the knife from beneath his coat.

  Markwell tensed.

  “I’m going to saw partway through your ropes, Doctor. If you struggle with them for half an hour or so, you’ll be able to free yourself. Which gives me time enough to get out of here.”

  As the man stooped behind the chair and set to work, Markwell expected to feel the blade slip between his ribs.

  But in less than a minute the stranger put the knife away and went to the bedroom door. “You do have a chance to redeem yourself, Doctor. I think you’re too weak to do it, but I hope I’m wrong.”

  Then he walked out.

  For ten minutes, as Markwell struggled to free himself, he heard occasional noises downstairs. Evidently the intruder was searching for valuables. Although he had seemed mysterious, perhaps he was nothing but a burglar with a singularly odd modus operandi.

  Markwell finally broke loose at twent
y-five past midnight. His wrists were severely abraded, bleeding.

  Though he had not heard a sound from the first floor in half an hour, he took his pistol from the nightstand drawer and descended the stairs with caution. He went to his office in the professional wing, where he expected to find drugs missing from his medical supplies; neither of the two tall, white cabinets had been touched.

  He hurried into his study, convinced that the flimsy wall safe had been opened. The safe was unbreached.

  Baffled, turning to leave, he saw empty whiskey, gin, tequila, and vodka bottles piled in the bar sink. The intruder had paused only to locate the liquor supply and pour it down the drain.

  A note was taped to the bar mirror. The intruder had printed his message in neat block letters:

  IF YOU DON’T STOP DRINKING, IF YOU DON’T LEARN TO ACCEPT LENNY’S DEATH, YOU WILL PUT A GUN IN YOUR MOUTH AND BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT WITHIN ONE YEAR. THIS IS NOT A PREDICTION. THIS IS A FACT.

  Clutching the note and the gun, Markwell looked around the empty room, as if the stranger was still there, unseen, a ghost that could choose at will between visibility and invisibility. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Who the hell are you?”

  Only the wind at the window answered him, and its mournful moan had no meaning that he could discern.

  At eleven o’clock the next morning, after an early meeting with the funeral director regarding Janet’s body, Bob Shane returned to the county hospital to see his newborn daughter. After he donned a cotton gown, a cap, and a surgical mask, and after thoroughly scrubbing his hands under a nurse’s direction, he was permitted into the nursery, where he gently lifted Laura from her cradle.

  Nine other newborns shared the room. All of them were cute in one way or another, but Bob did not believe he was unduly prejudiced in his judgment that Laura Jean was the cutest of the crop. Although the popular image of an angel required blue eyes and blond hair, and though Laura had brown eyes and hair, she was nevertheless angelic in appearance. During the ten minutes that he held her, she did not cry; she blinked, squinted, rolled her eyes, yawned. She looked pensive, too, as if perhaps she knew that she was motherless and that she and her father had only each other in a cold, difficult world.

  A viewing window, through which relatives could see the newborns, filled one wall. Five people were gathered at the glass. Four were smiling, pointing, and making funny faces to entertain the babies.

  The fifth was a blond man wearing a navy peacoat and standing with his hands in his pockets. He did not smile or point or make faces. He was staring at Laura.

  After a few minutes during which the stranger’s gaze did not shift from the child, Bob became concerned. The guy was good looking and clean-cut, but there was a hardness in his face, too, and some quality that could not be put into words but that made Bob think this was a man who had seen and done terrible things.

  He began to remember sensational tabloid stories of kidnappers, babies being sold on the black market. He told himself that he was paranoid, imagining a danger where none existed because, having lost Janet, he was now worried about losing his daughter as well. But the longer the blond man studied Laura, the more uneasy Bob became.

  As if sensing that uneasiness, the man looked up. They stared at each other. The stranger’s blue eyes were unusually bright, intense. Bob’s fear deepened. He held his daughter closer, as if the stranger might smash through the nursery window to seize her. He considered calling one of the creche nurses and suggesting that she speak to the man, make inquiries about him.

  Then the stranger smiled. His was a broad, warm, genuine smile that transformed his face. In an instant he no longer looked sinister but friendly. He winked at Bob and mouthed one word through the thick glass: “Beautiful.”

  Bob relaxed, smiled, realized his smile could not be seen behind his mask, and nodded a thank you.

  The stranger looked once more at Laura, winked at Bob again, and walked away from the window.

  Later, after Bob Shane had gone home for the day, a tall man in dark clothing approached the creche window. His name was Kokoschka. He studied the infants; then his field of vision shifted, and he became aware of his colorless reflection in the polished glass. He had a broad, flat face with sharp-edged features, lips so thin and hard that they seemed to be made of horn. A two-inch dueling scar marked his left cheek. His dark eyes had no depth, as if they were painted ceramic spheres, much like the cold eyes of a shark cruising in shadowy ocean trenches. He was amused to realize how starkly his face contrasted to the innocent visages of the cradled babies beyond the window; he smiled, a rare expression for him, which imparted no warmth to his face but actually made him appear more threatening.

  He looked beyond his reflection again. He had no trouble finding Laura Shane among the swaddled infants, for the surname of each child was printed on a card and affixed to the back of his or her cradle.

  Why is there such interest in you, Laura? he wondered. Why is your life so important? Why all this energy expended to see that you are brought safely into the world? Should I kill you now and put an end to the traitor’s scheme?

  He’d be able to murder her without compunction. He had killed children before, though none quite so young as this. No crime was too terrible if it furthered the cause to which he had devoted his life.

  The babe was sleeping. Now and then her mouth worked, and her tiny face briefly wrinkled, as perhaps she dreamed of the womb with regret and longing.

  At last he decided not to kill her. Not yet.

  “I can always eliminate you later, little one,” he murmured. “When I understand what part you play in the traitor’s plans, then I can kill you.”

  Kokoschka walked away from the window. He knew he would not see the girl again for more than eight years.

  2

  In southern California rain falls rarely in the spring, summer, and autumn. The true rainy season usually begins in December and ends in March. But on Saturday the second of April, 1963, the sky was overcast, and humidity was high. Holding open the front door of his small, neighborhood grocery in Santa Ana, Bob Shane decided that the prospects were good for one last big downpour of the season.

  The ficus trees in the yard of the house across the street and the date palm on the corner were motionless in the dead air and seemed to droop as if with the weight of the oncoming storm.

  By the cash register, the radio was turned low. The Beach Boys were singing their new hit “Surfin’ U.S.A.” Considering the weather, their tune was as appropriate as “White Christmas” sung in July.

  Bob looked at his watch: three-fifteen.

  There’ll be rain by three-thirty, he thought, and a lot of it.

  Business had been good during the morning, but the afternoon had been slow. At the moment no shoppers were in the store.

  The family-owned grocery faced new, deadly competition from convenience-store chains like 7-Eleven. He was planning to shift to a deli-style operation, offering more fresh foods, but was delaying as long as possible because a deli required considerably more work.

  If the oncoming storm was bad he would have few customers the rest of the day. He might close early and take Laura to a movie.

  Turning from the door, he said, “Better get the boat, doll.”

  Laura was kneeling at the head of the first aisle, across from the cash register, absorbed in her work. Bob had carried four cartons of canned soup from the stockroom, then Laura had taken over. She was only eight years old, but she was a reliable kid, and she liked to help out around the store. After stamping the correct price on each of the cans, she stacked them on the shelves, remembering to cycle the merchandise, putting the new soup behind the old.

  She looked up reluctantly. “Boat? What boat?”

  “Upstairs in the apartment. The boat in the closet. From the look of the sky, we’re going to need it to get around later today.”

  “Silly,” she said. “We don’t have a boat in the closet.”

  He walked behind the check
out counter. “Nice little blue boat.”

  “Yeah? In a closet? Which closet?”

  He began to clip packages of Slim Jims to the metal display rack beside the snack pack crackers. “The library closet, of course.”

  “We don’t have a library.”

  “We don’t? Oh. Well, now that you mention it, the boat isn’t in the library. It’s in the closet in the toad’s room.”

  She giggled. “What toad?”

  “Why, you mean to tell me that you don’t know about the toad?”

  Grinning, she shook her head.

  “As of today we are renting a room to a fine, upstanding toad from England. A gentleman toad who’s here on the queen’s business.”

  Lightning flared and thunder rumbled through the April sky. On the radio, static crackled through The Cascades’ “Rhythm of the Rain.”

  Laura paid no attention to the storm. She was not frightened of things that scared most kids. She was so self-confident and self-contained that sometimes she seemed to be an old lady masquerading as a child. “Why would the queen let a toad handle her business?”

  “Toads are excellent businessmen,” he said, opening one of the Slim Jims and taking a bite. Since Janet’s death, since moving to California to start over, he had put on fifty pounds. He had never been a handsome man. Now at thirty-eight he was pleasantly round, with little chance of turning a woman’s head. He was not a great success, either; no one got rich operating a corner grocery. But he didn’t care. He had Laura, and he was a good father, and she loved him with all her heart, as he loved her, so what the rest of the world might think of him was of no consequence. “Yes, toads are excellent businessmen indeed. And this toad’s family has served the crown for hundreds of years. In fact he’s been knighted. Sir Thomas Toad.”

  Lightning crackled brighter than before. The thunder was louder as well.

  Having finished stocking the soup shelves, Laura rose from her knees and wiped her hands on the white apron that she was wearing over T-shirt and jeans. She was lovely; with her thick, brown hair and large, brown eyes, she bore more than a passing resemblance to her mother. “And how much rent is Sir Thomas Toad paying?”

  “Six pence a week.”

  “Is he in the room next to mine?”

  “Yes, the room with the boat in the closet.”

  She giggled again. “Well, he better not snore.”

  “He said the same of you.”

  A battered, rusted Buick pulled up in front of the store, and as the driver’s door opened, a third thunderbolt blasted a hole in the darkening sky. The day was filled with molten light that appeared to flow liquidly along the street outside, sprayed lavalike over the parked Buick and the passing cars. The accompanying thunder shook the building from roof to foundation, as though the stormy heavens were reflected in the land below, precipitating an earthquake.

  “Wow!” Laura said, moving fearlessly toward the windows.

  Though no rain had fallen yet, wind suddenly swept in from the west, harrying leaves and litter before it.

  The man who got out of the decrepit, blue Buick was looking at the sky in astonishment.

  Bolt after bolt of lightning pierced the clouds, seared the air, cast their blazing images in windows and automobile chrome, and with each flash came thunder that struck the day with god-size fists.

  The lightning spooked Bob. When he called to Laura—“Honey, get away from the windows”—she rushed behind the counter and let him put an arm around her, probably more for his comfort than hers.

  The man from the Buick hurried into the store. Looking out at the fulminous sky, he said, “You see that, man? Whew!”

  The thunder faded; silence returned.

  Rain fell. Fat droplets at first struck the windows without much force then came in blinding torrents that blurred the world beyond the small shop.

  The customer turned and smiled. “Some show, huh?”

  Bob started to respond but fell silent when he took a closer look at the man, sensing trouble as a deer might sense a stalking wolf. The guy was wearing scuffed engineer boots, dirty jeans, and a stained windbreaker half zipped over a soiled white T-shirt. His windblown hair was oily, and his face was shaded with beard stubble. He had bloodshot, fevered eyes. A junkie. Approaching the counter, he drew a revolver from his windbreaker, and the gun was no surprise.

  “Gimme what’s in the register, asshole.”

  “Sure.”

  “Make it quick.”