Jack-in-the-Box Read online

  Sam smiled. “You’ll have to forgive my ignorance of the New Testament, Phillip. What about this Beast you told me about?”

  “Six six six. The Mark of the Beast. It’s in Revelation. A lot of people believe that Satan’s children are born marked.”

  “And you?”

  “Hell, Sam, I don’t know what to believe. I’m not a religious person. I know practically nothing of the Bible.”

  “Have you played this tape to Jeanne?”

  “God, no!”

  “Dr. Harte?”

  “No.”

  “I’d like to play with Dr. Harte,” Sam said with a grin, trying to lighten the moment. “I’d let her psychoanalyze me any time she wanted to.”

  “You’re just horny.”

  “You got that right.”

  Phillip leaned back in his chair, glad to have something on his mind other than idiot phone calls from crazy women. “What about your hot patootie?”

  “She turned out to be a codfish.”

  Phillip struggled through the morning, finding he could not concentrate on his work. Luckily for him, his long-running case was over. The other party had just that morning agreed to settle out of court.

  The other partners would occasionally walk past Phillip’s office, looking in, seeing their friend staring into space, or breaking pencils in his big hands, or sitting with a look of frustration on his face. The junior partners and secretaries stayed away from Phillip that morning.

  Ed Weiskopf stuck his head into Phillip’s office just after lunch. “Got a minute, Phillip?” he asked.

  “Lots of minutes, Ed,” Phillip said, disgust in his voice. He threw his pencil on his desk. “I can’t get with it today.”

  Ed sat down, looking at his longtime friend. “Phillip, you haven’t taken a vacation in five years. You’re tired, buddy.”

  Phillip opened his mouth to protest, knowing what was coming. Ed waved him silent.

  “No arguments, Phillip. We’ve all talked it over. You’ve logged more air travel time, both stateside and overseas, than the rest of us combined. Man, you’re tired. We haven’t spoken of it, but I can sense that you. . . well, have some personal problems. You want to talk about it—fine. If not, that’s fine as well. But you are going to take a vacation. There won’t be any problem shuffling around your case load. A month, Phillip. That’s what we want you to take. You know we’re going to shut it down in a couple of weeks anyway. We’ve agreed on that. So come back after the first of the year. OK?”

  Ed was right. He was tired. Beat. Phillip felt as if his brains were bowlegged. He was not mentally alert. And that was dangerous for any lawyer. He nodded. “You’re right, Ed. Thanks for seeing it where I couldn’t.”

  “No problem. One more thing: If I’m to handle this Jenny Wright case of yours, I need to know more about it.”

  “It’s a nothing case, Ed. One I’m doing for a friend. But it’s a dead end. I’ll tell Ballinger to stop his snooping. I might pick it up when I come back.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. It’s OK.” Phillip smiled. “You guys are right, Ed. And I appreciate your concern.”

  “No sweat, sarge. Enjoy, and don’t worry about the office. I promise we’ll only take your most lucrative cases away from you.”

  The friends enjoyed a good laugh at that.

  * * *

  “You’re going to think I have lost my mind, Sheela,” Phillip said.

  She smiled across her desk. “Well, you have certainly come to the right person if that’s the case.”

  “I’m sure. Sheela . . . I have uncovered some, well, information you may find pertinent.”

  “Oh? Pertaining to Nora?”

  “Ah . . . yes. And then again, you might want to call whatever institution you use and have me committed.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Well, I’m intrigued, Phillip. Are you going to leave me in suspense?”

  Phillip took a deep breath. “My son Phil seems to think, believe, that his sister is possessed by the devil.” He dropped it into her lap and waited for some reaction.

  She did not change expression or bat an eyelid. “Oh? Well, that’s interesting. And what do you think?”

  Phillip opened his mouth, closed it, then finally said, “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “What happened, Phillip? Talk to me.”

  He told her everything Phil had told him. He wrapped it up by using her cassette player to play the tape of the last phone call he had received Sunday morning.

  Sheela listened intently. She lifted her eyes to his. “Have you discussed any of this with your wife?”

  “Good God, no.”

  “Your son?”

  “No. Only with one of my partners at the office. Sam Sobel.”

  Sheela leaned back in her chair and looked at him. She seemed undecided as to what she should do. She took a deep breath and said, “I think there is someone you need to talk with, Phillip. His name is Father Joseph Debeau.”

  “Why do I need to talk with him?” Phillip had not left the Church with any good will behind him. He still harbored many bitter feelings.

  “Because his field is—well, how to put this? It would be unfair to Joe—Father Debeau—to call him a mere exorcist. He is much more than that. He has studied Satan and his methods for most of his life. During my years as a psychologist, I have called on him several times.”

  “Possessed children?” Phillip was very doubtful about that, and it showed in his tone.

  She shrugged and smiled at that. “The children were helped, nonetheless. Besides, didn’t the woman tell you to get a priest?”

  “Sheela, as far as I’m concerned, this whole thing is a ugly joke.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Phillip stared at her for a moment. “No. I guess not. But how in the world would I explain my seeing a priest? To my wife, I mean?”

  “I don’t see why you should have to explain. I’m not asking that you take the girl. Just that you talk with Father Debeau.”

  “Well, maybe that way. Sheela, why do I get the feeling you’re not leveling with me? And I think I’m correct in feeling that during our first meeting you paid much closer attention when I mentioned that old jack-in-the-box—right?”

  “Very astute of you. Yes, I did. I collect antiques. That is how I met Father Debeau. At an antique shop. We became friends. He is really a fascinating man. After a time, he told me about this old jack-in-the-box that is supposed to be cursed. Tragedy always seems to befall its owner. I could not help but think this may be the jack-in-the-box Joe told me about.”

  Phillip waved her silent, as the same time shaking his head. “Sheela, this is getting a bit mumbo-jumboish for me. Now, as a professional person, I should think you would dismiss curses and hobgoblins and zombies and such as nonsense.”

  “I can’t dismiss evil, Phillip. Evil is very real. Evil is more than just morally wrong or injurious. It’s more than imputed bad character or conduct. It is a sin. And what is sin? It’s the transgression of divine law.”

  Phillip remembered something Sam had said one day. He smiled. “I have a friend that says some sin is downright delicious.”

  She laughed. “Stop trying to evade this, Phillip”

  “Oh? You don’t agree with my friend?”

  “No comment.”

  “Sheela, I can’t take this seriously. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

  “Won’t you even talk with Father Debeau?”

  Phillip expelled a breath of air. “Well, I have to come back to the city tomorrow to wrap up some matters at the office. I’m taking some time off. You gather up your priest and we’ll have lunch. You like frutta di mare salad?”

  “That depends on what’s in it,” she said.

  He smiled. “All sorts of things. Squid, octopus, shrimp—whatever you like. Mussels vinaigrette, tripe, mushrooms. I’ll meet you both at Felidia’s.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  * * *

 
The man sitting at the table with Sheela rose and extended his hand. Phillip shook hands, inspecting him.

  The priest was dressed in a pinstripe business suit, a light blue cuff-link shirt, dark tie. His hair was silver gray, his face tanned. His handshake was firm. About six feet tall, Debeau looked fit, solid, and rugged, more like a retired boxer than a priest. Mid-fifties, Phillip guessed. An inner strength seemed to flow from the man, touching Phillip with invisible force.

  Phillip saw that the man’s nose had been broken, probably more than once. And at least once badly set.

  “Forgive me for asking, Father,” Phillip said. “But did you used to box?”

  “Call me Joe,” Debeau said with a smile. “And I’ll call you Phillip. OK? Fine. Yes, I still work out with the heavy bag whenever possible. Sheela tells me you were quite a boxer.”

  Phillip did not recall mentioning his boxing days to the psychologist. So how did the priest know about that? Odd.

  “Yes, I did, Joe. I entertained—briefly—the thought of turning pro.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “My wife.”

  They all laughed at that.

  Phillip added, “Plus a right cross from a welterweight that knocked me cold as a hammer.”

  Debeau chuckled as the men sat down. “And where did that happen, Phillip?”

  “In a honky-tonk outside of Fort Benning.”

  “Good place for it,” the priest said.

  The three of them ordered coffee. The maitre d’ had, at Phillip’s call-in reservation, placed them at a table offering relative privacy, enabling them to talk freely.

  “Forgive me for being blunt, Phillip. Are you Catholic?”

  “No. I was raised in the Church, however. I broke away from it as a boy.” Phillip waited for the priest to pursue that. He did not.

  “Sheela told me about Nora. Why do you think she objected so strongly to entering a church?”

  “I don’t know, Joe. To be honest with you, neither my wife nor I are especially religious, so we didn’t attach much significance to it. We wondered about it, but passed it off as a childhood stage.”

  Joe nodded his head. His eyes remained unreadable. “Would you please describe the jack-in-the-box, Phillip?”

  “It’s . . .” Phillip struggled for a one-word description. He could not find any one word. “It’s hideous. It’s grotesque. It’s . . .” His eyes met Sheela’s. “Evil,” he concluded.

  She smiled.

  “If you feel that way,” Debeau said, “why don’t you get rid of it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you buy it?” the priest asked.

  Phillip forced his thoughts back to the curio shop. That day. He struggled to recall exactly what had prompted him to purchase the old jack-in-the-box. But the memories were cloudy, distorted. He shook his head.

  “I can’t seem to think,” he said. “Ed was right. I’ve been working too hard.”

  “No, Phillip,” Debeau said softly. “You’re being manipulated.”

  “Manipulated? I don’t see how that could be. Manipulated by whom?”

  The waiter approached the table, interrupting any reply the priest might have been ready to offer. When they had ordered, Phillip again asked, “Manipulated by whom?”

  “Satan,” Debeau said softly.

  Phillip leaned back in his chair. “Joe, I don’t believe in all that cra—nonsense.”

  “Then I feel very sorry for you, Phillip. For Satan is most assuredly alive and well.”

  “If that is what you choose to believe, Joe.”

  “You didn’t believe it as a child?”

  “I suppose I did. I don’t remember. I’ve deliberately blocked most of that out. But that still doesn’t change my position on the subject.”

  “Yet,” Debeau said.

  Phillip shrugged noncommittally.

  “Why did you leave the Church, Phillip?”

  “My dad was killed, my mother took off for parts unknown. I haven’t seen nor heard from her since. I was undergoing terrible doubts and fears. The priests laid tons of drivel on me, meaningless platitudes. I may have been only a boy, but I knew lies when I heard them.”

  “We’re only human, Phillip. We don’t have all the answers. Priests, preachers, rabbis are not instant problem solvers. Most of us—but not all, certainly—know the Bible, at least in the way each of us was taught to interpret it. We understand, or profess to understand, divine law, and what the Bible teaches on dealing with human problems. But we are still frail human beings.”

  “Susceptible to mistakes?”

  “Of course.” Joe replied. “Unfortunately, some of us won’t admit to any mistakes. But I’m not one of them. I have a bad temper, Phillip. And I tend to speak my mind. I am something of a maverick.”

  Phillip put down his coffee cup and laughed. “I get your message, Joe, and I think we’re going to get along. I really do.”

  8

  They were alone in the school’s dressing rooms, and Nora had left her sweetness in the darkness of her mind. She was glad to be free of the pretense.

  “Nigger, nigger!” she taunted the black child, speaking softly, just loud enough for the girl to hear her.

  “You leave me alone!” the child said. “You leave me alone or I’ll tell on you, Nora Baxter. You’re evil.”

  Nora laughed at her. “No one will believe you. Nigger, nigger,” she taunted again.

  Gloria started crying.

  “Ugly!” Nora hissed at her. “You’re so ugly you belong in a zoo.”

  Tears running down her face, Gloria rushed toward Nora, running into her, knocking her down. Nora kicked at the girl.

  “You’re crazy!” Gloria gasped.

  Nora fell, then pulled herself up, sitting on the concrete floor of the dressing room. Her dark eyes glowed with evil and hatred. “No one touches me unless I want them to. No one! You’ll die for that.”

  The black girl turned and ran down the aisle between the rows of lockers, tears nearly blinding her.

  Nora sat on the floor and stared at the retreating back of the tormented girl. Then she heard muted laughter and strange voices in her head, and music playing.

  Nora smiled. Her dark eyes glowed with a strange light, glowing fiercely.

  The running child began screaming as her hair burst into flames. Blinded by fear and fire, her face blistered and peeling, the child slammed into a locker, bounced off, and fell to the floor, shrieking in pain, kicking and jerking as the flames reached her clothing and she burst into a human fireball.

  Nora sat where she was, some distance from the burning girl. She smiled as she listened to the girl’s screams of agony. At the sounds of running feet and excited voices, Nora suddenly began crying, the tears coming on mental request. She jumped up and reached into her locker, jerking out her coat. She ran to the ball of fire that once was a human being and began beating at the flames that now covered Gloria, from her smoking, cooked head to her shoes.

  Nora carefully placed her foot close to the flames, allowing her jeans leg to smoulder a bit. “Help, help! she screamed. She beat at the flames. “Somebody please help us!”

  Gloria had slipped into unconsciousness, burned over most of her body. The flames had destroyed her eyes, melting them. Gloria was now a charred mass of once-human flesh.

  Several teachers, a counselor, and a coach reached the smoking scene, pulling Nora away, beating at her ankles, putting out the flames that were threatening to consume her. They wrapped Nora in a blanket and the coach swept her up into his arms and ran toward the school’s small infirmary. A Vietnam combat vet and former Navy corpsman, the coach had seen many, many burn victims. After taking one look at Gloria Waltham, lying sightless and charred on the concrete, he knew the child had no chance. He knew that in all probability, her brains would be cooked.

  And suddenly little Nora Baxter was a media heroine, having risked her life in an attempt to save another child. TV, radio, and print journalist
s interviewed her, standing in her smoky jeans, her dark eyes shining. She was a real-life heroine.

  Almost everyone believed her. She was a good little actress. With her blond hair and pretty face, she suckered nearly everyone.

  * * *

  “Nora hates black people,” Phil reminded his dad that evening, after dinner. “You remember the black ladies we’ve had in here as maids? How Nora treated them? There is no way she would have risked her life to save a black child, dad. No way.”

  “People do change, son. Perhaps your sister is growing up.”

  The boy just sat and looked at his father, open doubt in his eyes.

  “How is the little girl?” Phillip asked finally.

  “Dead. She died about two hours ago. I heard it on the news. Nora set her on fire, dad. I don’t know how or why, but she did.”

  “You have no proof of that, son. And don’t ever say it where your mother can hear it. We are all going to try very hard to pull this family back together again. You understand?”

  “Yes sir. Dad? You know this goody-goody attitude of Nora’s is an act, don’t you?”

  But Phillip would not reply to his son’s question.

  A few miles away, Nora’s school counselor said to her husband, “Nora Baxter hated Gloria. Gloria came to me many times, complaining about the way Nora treated her. She told me Nora called her filthy names.”

  The coach, who was the counselor’s husband, only shook his head. “You were there, Bette. You saw the girl beating at the flames with her coat. Hell, Nora’s own clothing was on fire.”

  “I know, Rich. But it still doesn’t wash. The police could find nothing flammable or combustible in that entire locker room. Absolutely nothing to create that kind of intense heat. And they searched every locker. And I went over every inch of Nora’s clothing while she was in the infirmary. No matches, no lighter. No nothing.”

  “Then how could she have started it, Bette? And more important, why?”

  “I don’t know. But she did. I just know she did. There is something very wrong with that child, Rich. I’ve heard rumors about her for the past several years. The other kids—up until now—have never liked her.”

  “We’ve been over this before, Bette. Get off the kid’s back, will you?”