“It may have been a mistake,” Pax said, “but he had a reason that seemed good to him. Listen.”
He knew that the next revelation would incense both Nancy and Murphy, but the greater shock would come when the captain revealed what it was that he helped the girl to forget.
“The memory trick worked so well not because I got it from a Gypsy or a hundred-year-old shaman, or from any place magical, like I made it sound. It worked because it was developed by a lot of smart people in the intelligence community, a defense against interrogation by the enemy. Once you were hypnotized and made to believe that the memory trick worked, it would work the rest of your life, whenever you needed to wipe something from your memory.”
Murphy’s tan had acquired a gray cast. “He hypnotized her?”
“Listen,” Pax said.
“This next part is a little tough for me, Bibi. It sounds worse than it is. But I knew it wouldn’t harm you in any way. See, sweetie, the hypnotism works so well to support the memory trick because the hypnotism itself is supported by a drug that puts the subject—in this case, you—in a state highly receptive to hypnotic suggestion. The night I taught you the memory trick, your mom and dad were out for the evening at a concert. We had dinner in their kitchen. Chili-cheese dogs and oven-baked fries. After dinner and before we had Eskimo Pies, I taught you the memory trick. The drug I mentioned was in your Coca-Cola.”
Such outrage fired Nancy’s face, Pax thought she might grab the recorder and throw it. He shielded it with one hand. “Just listen.”
“…your mom and dad were out for the evening at a concert…”
The voice wouldn’t stop. Bibi couldn’t keep it out because it came from within her. The longer that she listened, the warmer the voice sounded, the more clearly she remembered Captain, how he had protected her. She had felt safe with Captain living above the garage and looking down on the bungalow, where her bedroom window faced the courtyard, Captain up there keeping a watch over her.
Bibi found herself behind the black-granite desk without quite knowing how she’d gotten there. Two tall stools would allow security men or receptionists to work at the desk. She occupied neither stool. Somehow she had retreated into the kneehole. Like a child seeking a refuge. A hiding place.
The captain said, “I don’t know what I might have done. I mean, how having a big hole in your memory might affect you over time. Too late I realized maybe there might be some…disruption of a child’s psychological development. Using the memory trick when you’re a grown man, that’s different, your personality is formed. But what if…God help me, I hope nothing happens. Anyway, I don’t see how you could have lived and had a normal life with that memory…more than memory…with that knowledge of what had happened, of what you could do.”
Bibi realized that the moment was approaching when she would learn the central truth of the half-recovered memory, the identity of the intruder—the thing—in her bedroom when she was five years old. She tried to shrink farther back into the kneehole as dread overcame her, a double dread born of the fact that it was Captain making this revelation. If her imagination were inspired to a bright and terrible creativity, maybe both he and the bedroom thing would be conjured here tonight, to prowl the reception hall for the one hiding place that it provided. And what the hell did that mean? Conjured? She was no witch.