Hoover was silent a moment, then spoke in a tone that was quietly respectful, and even sympathetic.
“Do you have a religion, Mrs. Templeton?”
“No, I don’t believe in religion.”
“Were you always an atheist?”
“Yes, always. And I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop sending me your religious books, your flowers, your sayings, or anything else regarding your beliefs, as I have absolutely no interest in the subject, nor do I have the time to continue this conversation, so goodbye, Mr. Hoover....”
Janice quickly lowered the receiver onto its cradle without giving him a chance to say another word. She was trembling with the fevered excitement of an athlete who has just won a race, her heart fluttering, but her soul uplifted by success. A drink, she thought, would be marvelous. She had never drunk liquor this early in the morning, but this was a morning like no others.
Sipping the neat scotch, seated in the rocker, vaguely hearing the television upstairs, Janice wondered why she had lied to Elliot Hoover about the history of Ivy’s nightmares. It was fear. He was seeking a wedge into her mind. He was the enemy. One doesn’t share truths with the enemy.
Actually, the nightmares had struck only once before—beginning one night soon after Ivy’s second birthday and persisting for nearly a year.
Dr. Ellen Vassar, whom Bill promptly nicknamed Braünnhilde, had swooped down into their lives like an avenging angel, her strong, heavily accented voice and razor-sharp Freudian mind probing, questioning, analyzing, and finally succeeding in casting the demons out of Ivy’s dreams.
Janice recalled the strong, humorless face of the German psychiatrist at their last session and her parting words to them.
“Your child was expressing some special fears of separation from you, Mrs. Templeton, and she appears now to have mastered those fears, which children do as they grow older. However, do not treat her as though she were in any way special and fragile. Simply treat her as any three-year-old. You should have no further trouble.”
And now, seven years later, the demons were back, with a renewed and murderous fury.…
Janice felt a glacial chill rise within her and quickly swallowed some scotch to dispel it.
Suggestive hypnosis? That was Bill’s theory. It had worked for Dr. Vassar. Why not for Elliot Hoover? Well, why not? His explanation was too self-serving and convenient to be believed.
She was less certain of why she had lied to Hoover about her religion.
Born a Catholic, she had gone through all the rituals of that somber faith and had actually enjoyed being frightened by the nuns’ talk of death and resurrection when she was a child. The church, St. Andrew’s, was hewn out of ancient and silent stone, covered with fungus and stained with bird droppings. Entering its massive, silent mustiness was like walking into Dracula’s castle. Yet she had truly believed in all the lovely, improbable promises of heaven, the sick, terrifying threats of hell.
She had stopped believing even before high school. She went to mass each Sunday to please her parents, as a matter of rote. The Latin words and rites had been reduced to a meaningless jumble by then. In her third year of high school she left the Church. Her parents never said a word. They were pained by her decision, but they never said a word. In the back of her mind, Janice feared a terrible retribution for her sin of inconstancy. She knew that when the time for death came, she would wish to have the last blessed sacrament read over her and receive extreme unction.
Maybe this was God’s retribution, she thought—the empty glass dangling from her fingers—sent down to her in the form of Elliot Suggins Hoover.
Harold Yates lay stretched across the Barca-Lounger like a reclining Buddha. His damp features were screwed up in a curiously bemused smile as the tape came to an end.
“Boy, when you bump into ’em, you sure bump into ’em.” He chuckled softly.
“He’s gotta be a kook, right?”
“I don’t know, Bill. That’s hard for me to say. He seems to know what he’s talking about. I means, he certainly puts his case forth in a logical manner. He’s not a ranting hysteric. He’s a clam, reasonable person who seems to believe what he’s saying.”
“What the hell are you saying, Harry?” Bill’s voice was unsteady. “You telling me I’ve got to honor this guy’s demands?”
Harry held up the flat of his palm in Bill’s face.
“Whoa Bessie! Back up! I said nothing about honoring his demands. I said you can’t stop him from believing what he wants to believe in. When it comes to honoring his demands, you certainly cannot give in to him, for then you will have taken another member into your family. So regardless of what he wants, you must take steps initially to protect yourself and your family, and the law will help you in doing this.”
“Okay, give! What steps?”
“Well, initially you might adopt a less vigorous attack. You might tell him, next time he calls, that whatever he believes, thinks, or feels about your daughter sheltering the spirit or soul of his daughter, you do not subscribe to his thinking, you don’t feel that you can permit him visitation privileges, nor can you allow him to interfere with the normal course of your family life. And then you tell him, if he’s going to persist, that you’ll take legal steps to restrain him from bothering you.”
Bill thought about this, a look of uncertainty on his face.
“Is there some special way, some special legal language I should use to tell him these things?”
“If you want, I could write you a letter,” obliged Harry. “you could send it to him, registered mail, or even have it hand-delivered, return receipt requested, telling him to cease and desist from doing this objectionable act and, if he does not stop, that you are authorized to seek whatever legal remedies are available. The effect of this letter is of no real legal significance, except it is evidence to the court, should you seek injunctive relief, that Hoover was advised that what he was doing constituted a nuisance and was objectionable to you and your family.”
With a slight strain of tension in his face, Harry advanced the Barca-Lounger to the sitting position and depressed the button for his secretary. “It’s the best way to proceed, Bill; we find ways to discourage him, ways short of hauling him into court or a police station. I mean, we try all kinds of peaceful ways before we bring down the majesty and the awesome force of the law.”
The secretary, a tall woman in her early sixties, had silently entered, taken her chair, and pencil poised over memo pad, was waiting.
The “majesty and awesome force of the law.” The words had a fine, comforting ring to them, Bill thought with a tinge of emotion as he entered the elegant elevator and smiled his routine hello to Ernie.
Harry had written a strong, solid letter, couched in all those intricate, fearsome phrases that lawyers use to strike terror in the hearts of their opponents. They had sent it via special Red Arrow messenger to Hoover’s YMCA address, to be delivered into his hand, and with signed receipt to be returned to Harry’s office for safekeeping.
Having opened both locks with his two keys, Bill still had to ring, as Janice had kept the chain bolt on the door.
She seemed gayer, her mood lighter, as she took the tape recorder from his hand, placed it shakily down on the floor, then rose on her toes to kiss him, losing her balance in the process. Bill held her arms to steady her and chuckled, “Well, well, somebody’s been juicing it up.”
Janice grinned. “What the hell—”
It was just after three o’clock—a bit early in the day to be potted but, “What the hell,” Bill agreed and went to the kitchen for ice.
Janice told him the good news as he knocked ice cubes into the martini shaker. Ivy’s temperature was down to absolute normal, and Bill was an absolute genius for having predicted as much, at which point she started humming “Isle of Lovely Hula Hands” and doing sensuous things with her hips. Bill hummed along with her as they hulaed their way to the liquor cart in the living room, where Bill filled the shaker with gin and refreshed Janice’s drink. Oddly, the crisp, cold jolt of pure alcohol had a sobering effect on Bill, and a moment of seriousness ensued as he told Janice about Harry’s letter, trying to recall the specific words and phrases: “harassing, molesting, invading …” and “an ex parte order shall be issued …” and the majesty and awesome force of the law.…”