The Second Trip Read online

  Macy noticed that the car no longer was moving. Hastily he plugged in the visuals again.

  They were parked in the central shopping plaza of a medium-sized suburban city, with two- and three-story Westchester Tudor half-timbered shops, freshly whitewashed and their brown beams newly painted, glistening in the amber light of late afternoon. Hamlin had his head out the side door; he was asking a policeman—a policeman!—how to find Lotus Lane. A rapid-fire stream of instructions. Turn left at the computer stanchion, follow Colonial Avenue to Route 4480, turn right at the yellow blinker, go about ten blocks, no, twelve, you’ll come to the industrial park, you turn right there past the tall building and you drive on to the sniffer palace—a grin, we’ve even got that stuff up here!—and make a left and that puts you on Route 519, all the cross streets there are marked, you won’t miss Lotus. On the left.

  Thank you, officer. And off we go. Left, right, right, left. Quiet country lanes again. Hamlin tense. No difficulty following the instructions, though. Left, right, right, left, the sniffer palace, the residential area, Cypress Walk, Redbud Drive, Oak Pond Road, Lotus Lane. Lotus. Number 55. A trim stucco house twenty or thirty years old, with a perspex sundome and glossy oval opaquer-windows. A sign out front: THE KRAFFTS. Hamlin presented himself to the door-scanner. From within, via intercom, a warm firm sweetly modulated mezzo voice: “Who is it?”

  “Paul Macy.”

  “Paul. Macy.” Doubtfully. “Paul Macy? Oh, my God! My God, you shouldn’t have come here!”

  “Please,” Hamlin said. “Just a few minutes. To talk.”

  A moment of empty humming from the intercom. Then, hesitantly, “Well, I suppose. All right. Although this is probably a big mistake.” Two moments more; then the door began to open. In the same instant Hamlin’s left hand rose toward his throat. For the purpose, Macy sensed, of ripping the telltale Rehab badge from his clothing. Macy blocked the attempt with a fierce neural jab, the accuracy of which surprised him; Hamlin, his arm arrested in midclimb, stiffened and let the arm sag to his side, while simultaneously snapping a furious silent curse at Macy. The door was open. Framed in the vaulted entranceway stood a woman of extraordinary poise and beauty. Tall, nearly to his shoulder, but slender, fine-boned, a delicate tiny-featured face, alert ironic eyes, sleek glossy black hair in tumbling cascades, full sardonic lips, strong chin, long columnar neck. An aristocrat. Paul guessed her age at thirty-one or thirty-two. She held herself well.

  “Why did you come here?” she asked.

  “To see you, Noreen.”

  “Noreen?” The lips quirking with distaste. “Are we so intimate, then, that we use first names?”

  “Formality’s foolish. We were married once,” Hamlin said.

  “I was married to Nathaniel Hamlin, God help me.” She conspicuously eyed the Rehab badge. “Your name is Paul Macy, and I have a stack of data cubes inside containing the documents that indicate that Paul Macy is in no way an heir or assign of the former Nat Hamlin. I don’t know you. I never did.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that. Won’t you ask me in?”

  “My husband isn’t home.”

  “What of it? Am I some kind of wild beast? I’m housebroken, Noreen. You can let me in.”

  Her invisible shrug was unmistakable. A quick grudging nod. “All right. For a few moments.”

  The house was small but handsomely and expensively furnished. Hamlin’s gaze traveled quickly along the walls, taking in a pair of nightmarish masks from New Guinea, an African figurine, a baffling shaped painting in the form of a tesseract, and three magnificent little crystallines. Macy would have liked to linger and study the tesseract, but he was the prisoner of Hamlin’s eyes, and Hamlin continued turning until he came to rest on one of his own works, an exquisite porcelain-finish image of Noreen, half life size, nude. Small high breasts, flaring waist, and, coming from the cloud of airborne speakers mounted in the dark hair, an ominously sensual viewer-responsive hundred-cycle rumble. Hamlin turned from Noreen to Noreen. “I wondered whether you’d kept it,” he said.

  “Why wouldn’t I? It’s superb.” Clouds crossing her face. “You remember it?”

  “I remember plenty.”

  “But the Rehab—”

  “Let’s not talk about that. Who’s your new husband?”

  “Sy Krafft. I don’t think you knew him.” Pausing. As if to run the tape of her conversation back a bit for a correction. “I don’t think Hamlin knew him. He does floating spectaculars. A charming and cultivated person.” Pausing again. “How did you find me?”

  “I went to the old house. The woman who owned it gave me your name and address.”

  “The Rehab Center assured me that I’d never be troubled by you.”

  “Am I making trouble?”

  “You’re here,” she said. “That’s enough. What is it you want with me, Mr. Macy?”

  “Don’t call me Macy. You know who I am.”

  She stepped back from him, doing it artfully, so that she seemed merely to be moving about the room and not retreating. She looked like a bird thinking of taking wing. In a low voice she said, “I never expected this. They assured me you were gone forever.”

  “They made a mistake.”

  “Rehab doesn’t make mistakes. I saw your body after they burned you out of it. No, you aren’t Nat. You’re Macy, the new one, and you’re trying to play a joke on me, and I assure you it’s not in the least funny.”

  “I’m Nat Hamlin. His ghost walks the earth.”

  “You’re Paul Macy.”

  “Hamlin.”

  “It can’t be.”

  “You’re so fucking beautiful, Noreen. What is it, five years, and you haven’t changed at all. I get hard just standing in the same room with you. Are you making any films these days?”

  “I think it’s time you left.”

  “You still love me, don’t you? I know, I know, you feel uncomfortable having me here, you’re edgy and tense because you think Mr. Sy Krafft is going to walk in on us, but you want me as much as ever. I could prove it. I could put my hand between your legs and it would come away wet. It was always easy for me to smell a woman in heat, Noreen.”

  “You’re crazy, whoever you are. I want you to go.”

  “And I love you too, even more than before. Listen, don’t play-act with me, don’t give me that icy I-want-you-to-go crap. I’m back, Noreen. Don’t ask me how I managed it. I’m back. I’ll be going under the name of Macy, but it’s me, the real me here, and I’m going to start working again soon. I’ve already seen Gargantua. He’s signing me, he’s giving me money to open a studio. Very quietly I’ll reestablish myself. No rapes any more. None of that I’ll be sedate and bourgeois, Mr. Paul Macy, Mr. Nobody, only underneath it’ll be Nat Hamlin. And you’ll come visit me, won’t you?”

  “I’ll visit you in jail, yes.”

  “You’ll visit me in my studio. We’ll sit and talk about how good it was before I crapped everything up. Remember, ’02, ’03, when we were just starting out? Lying on the beach in Antigua, and we couldn’t leave each other alone, we did it right out there. Sand in your snatch, eh, Noreen? You didn’t like that so much, but even so, you loved it. And then. The other times. I’ve got them all up here in my head. They banged me around at Rehab, but they didn’t destroy me. They tried hard enough, but they didn’t destroy me.” He took a step toward her. Throat dry, fingertips cold. Getting harder and harder down below. “Don’t be afraid of me. I love you. I love you. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. Stop backing away. Listen, it’ll be our secret, you and me, the world will think I’m Macy, you can go on being Mrs. Sy Krafft, this cute little house, kids—do you have kids?—whatever you want, only on the side it’ll be you and me again, Nat and Noreen, at my studio.

  I’ll do another nude of you. Life-size. It’ll be better than The Antigone. Remember how sore you were, because I used Lissa for The Antigone instead of you? But we were drifting apart then. I didn’t know what was good for me. I had to go through hell t
o find out. But now. You’ll pose. Shit, I can see it now. You standing over there. Those sweet little tits of yours. Ten electrodes on you. And I’m at the machine, swearing like a bastard. Getting you down, immortalizing your body and your soul. An hour for work, an hour for screwing, an hour for work, an hour for screwing. Oh, Jesus, Noreen, stop staring at me like that!”

  “I’ll call the police. When they catch you, Nat, they’ll finish you for good. They won’t even put you through Rehab. They’ll chop you up and flush you away.”

  “No. A silver bullet in my head. A stake through the heart.”

  “I’ll call them, Nat.”

  “Wait. Please, no. Look, I don’t mean to frighten you. I came here to tell you how much I love you. I’ve been in hell, Noreen, literally in hell, and now I’m coming out, I’m going to live again. And I had to come to you. Why be afraid? Tell me you love me.”

  “I don’t love you, Nat. You disgust me.”

  Hamlin began to shake.

  “Brava!” he cried. “Brava! Bravissima!” He started to applaud. “What an actress! What fire in your reading! What steel in your voice!” Imitating her: “‘I don’t love you, Nat. You disgust me.’” Wildly applauding. “Curtain. End of Act Two. Now tell me the real stuff, Noreen. How much you want me. You’re scared, yes, you remember me when I was crazy, when I was doing all that hideous crap, but you’ve got to remember the other me, too, the one you loved, the one you married, everything we did together, the places we saw, the people, the stuff in bed, remember, even the weird stuff, you and me and Donna in the same bed, and then you and me and Alex, eh, Noreen? Love. Trust Passion.” He reached toward her. “Come on. Now. Where’s the bedroom? Or right here on the floor. Let me prove it to you, that you still turn on for me. Okay? Why the hell not? You opened your gate for me five hundred times. Eight hundred. So one more won’t cost you anything.”

  He was shouting now. Her cool poise was deserting her. She looked terrified, moving away from him, stumbling over things. He lunged at her. Seizing her wrist, pulling her close. The sweet fragrance of her body mixed with fear-sweat. Her eyes glazed with fright “Noreen,” he muttered. “Noreen. Noreen. Noreen.” The syllables losing meaning and becoming hollow sounds. His skull aflame. His jaws aching. His hands clutching at her clothing. Ripping. The little round breasts popping into view. Oh, Christ, how tender they are! His hands on them. Squeezing. She flailed at him with her fists, clubbing him on the mouth, the nose, the ears. He had one arm locked around her waist; the other, having laid bare her bosom, went to her crotch. To see if she was wet there. To prove to her how wrong she was to refuse him. He was snorting. Like the old days, the bad old days. Hamlin the animal. Hamlin the horny Minotaur. Fragile woman struggling in his arms. A red haze before his eyes. Sweat running down his sides. Noreen kicking, screaming, clawing.

  Now, Macy thought, and shoved with all his might Hamlin toppled from his perch. Fell moaning into the abyss. A moment of total disorientation, infinite in duration. Who am I? What am I? Where am I? He let go of the woman he held. She slumped to the floor; he lurched backward and slammed against the wall, and stood there, gasping, exhausted. Blood draining from his skull.

  But it was all right. He was in charge again. He was Paul Macy, and he was back in charge.

  THIRTEEN

  TO get away from there, fast, that was the important thing now. But first some peacemaking. Gestures of reassurance. Noreen Hamlin Krafft lay looking up dazedly at him, a dribble of bright red on her swelling lower lip, hair in disarray, angry blotches on her exposed white breasts where Hamlin had clutched her. They would be dark braises tomorrow. She didn’t move. Waiting numbly for the next onslaught. Resigned to her fate. He said, his voice coming out oddly furry and unfocused, “It’s okay now. I’ve taken control away from him. I’m Macy. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Macy?”

  “Paul Macy. The Rehab reconstruct. They did a bad deconstruct job on Hamlin and he’s still loose in my head. He grabbed the body’s motor and speech centers last night.” Last night? Last week, last month? How long had Hamlin been running things, anyway? “But he’s down underneath again, where he can’t make trouble. While he was fighting with you I was able to take over.” Gently helping her to her feet. He wondered if she had gone into shock. Making no attempt to cover herself. Tip of her tongue licking at the cut on her lip. He said, “I’m sorry you had to go through all this. Are you badly injured?”

  “No. No.” Staring at him. Trying to come to terms with his abrupt transformation. Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde. “Just shaken up.” With trembling fingers she concealed her bosom, tidied her hair. Staring at him. Was his face different now? The lunatic glare of Hamlin gone from his eyes? He knew it wasn’t easy for her to understand any of what had taken place. These shifts of identity: he had come to accept them as part of the human condition, but to her they must be alien, incredible, bizarre. Maybe she thought he had been Macy all along, playing insane pranks on her. Or that he was still Hamlin.

  He said, “It would be best if you didn’t tell anyone about this. The police, your husband, anyone. I’m trying to have Hamlin permanently eradicated before he can do some real harm, but there are problems, and getting the police into things would only make it worse for me. You see, I’m in constant danger from him, and if I went to the authorities he might force the destruction of this body, so—” He stopped. She didn’t seem to be comprehending. “Just don’t say anything, yes? If it’s at all in my power I’ll see to it you never go through a scene like this again. Do you follow me?”

  She nodded distantly. Pacing about, now, working off her fright. Time for him to go. At the front door he turned and said, “One last thing, though. Can you tell me today’s date?”

  “Today’s date.” She repeated it in a flat empty tone. As if he had asked her the name of the planet they were currently on.

  “Yes, please. The date. It’s important.”

  She shrugged. “The fourth of June, I think.”

  “Friday?”

  “Friday, yes.”

  He thanked her gravely and went out. His body was stiff and he moved gracelessly toward the car, arms flailing spastically, shoulders ramming the air. He and Hamlin evidently had different notions of physical coordination, and his muscles, having taken orders from another mind for eighteen hours or so, were reluctant to go back to the mode he preferred. Not surprising: Hamlin’s way was this body’s normal way, and his own was something imposed from without. He concentrated on reimposing it. Damned good thing Hamlin had only been running the show since last night, since that takeover during the mugging in the hallway of Lissa’s house. Macy had been afraid he might have been unconscious for a week or more before surfacing this morning. In which case he’d have an endless trail of Hamlin’s deeds and misdeeds to trace and follow.

  But no. It seemed that he had been awake for most of the period of Hamlin’s dominance, missing only the first eight hours or so after the takeover. Some comfort in that. Where had Hamlin been in those eight hours? Most likely at my place, getting some rest. And the mugging? It couldn’t have been too serious. Macy patted his pocket. Wallet gone. Okay, so he must have collapsed at the moment of takeover, the mugger cleaned him out, then Hamlin picked himself up and left unharmed. The wallet was no big loss. Identity papers, credit cards—all replaceable, all useless to the assailant Macy didn’t even need them himself, so long as he had a thumb with a fingerprint on it. Why, Hamlin had even managed to rent this car using only his thumbprint, not even his, my thumbprint. Ours, I guess. But the charge is debited to me. Macy felt vaguely sorry for the mugger, living a squalid lower-class life on a level of society where cash still called the tune. Fine lot of good it must have been for him to lift an executive’s wallet, the wallet of a thumb-tripper, five or six dollars in it at most. Oh, well.

  Moving more easily now, Macy reached the car and thumbed the doorplate. The door slid open. He got behind the controls and tentatively grasped the steering-stick. The prospect of havi
ng to drive scared him. Suddenly. They had taught him how to drive at the Rehab Center, a couple of years ago, but he hadn’t had much chance to practice lately; and just now there was the special risk that Hamlin might surface and screw him up on the highway. I hit him pretty hard when I grabbed control, but even so.

  Hamlin? You awake?

  No reply from the depths. Macy felt his other self’s presence, though: a tinny faint reverberation out of the far-below, like the cries of an angry djinn who has been conjured back into his bottle.

  Good. Stay like that. I don’t need any static from you while I’m driving.

  If only I can keep the goddam stopper in place on the bottle this time.

  He put his thumb to the ignition panel, and the car, scanning the print and finding it to be that of its duly licensed present master, came to life. Warily Macy let out the brake. Cautiously he rolled forward. The car responded well, great snorting beast under harness. Which way New York, now? Long afternoon shadows. The sun halfway down the sky on his right. Pick a direction, any direction. He found his way out of the residential area, cut off two drivers as he blurted into the business road, was rudely but deservedly screeched at, and discovered a green-on-white sign directing him to the city. Onward. Homeward. A ticklish trip. He survived it.