Denial (12 page)
I took a drag off my cigarette and blew the smoke out in a thin stream. "Malloy told you that, too?"
"So it's true. Unbelievable."
"I knew Westmoreland wouldn't let me do much damage." I shook my head, thinking about what he'd done to the nurse he'd taken hostage. "At least I didn't think he would. After today I'm not sure about anything."
"Sounds like one for the record books."
"I'll tell you about it when my mind's a little clearer."
"You' re not alone in the fog. It's getting more and more confusing down here at the lab."
"How so?"
"Remember I told you Sarah had fibrotic changes at the margins of her wounds?"
"Sure."
"I figured she had fibrocystic disease."
"Or scleroderma."
"No. Not scleroderma. I specifically ruled out scleroderma as unlikely."
"Whatever. What do you think now?"
"It's not
whatever
, Frank. I never seriously entertained scleroderma. I told you her esophagus was too pink and most for scleroderma. Scleroderma leaves the tissue like rawhide. I don't want..."
I pictured him at home in a starched white button-down, squirreled away in his spotless study, surrounded by the hundreds of pathology books and journals he kept precisely aligned on the floor-to-ceiling shelves. "I wasn't accusing you of misdiagnosing the corpse," I reassured him. "I was just hoping you'd get to the point."
"Patience, Doctor. You do remember our discussion. We were at the microscope."
"I remember. I remember."
"Then you'll remember I never formally put forward scleroderma as a diagnosis."
"Fine," I strained.
"I never broke my wrist on that swing."
I felt like hurling the phone through the window. "You're absolutely right. You didn't."
"I stated that I didn't know the specific etiology of the fibrosis. And believe me, I've suffered over that."
"I can only imagine."
"Exactly. You can only imagine. Because — and I mean no offense — yours is a soft science. A set of theories. When all the answers must be in flesh and blood, when nothing counts that cannot be seen, a man can be brought to his knees by the whiplash of a loose end."
"Beautifully put. Especially for a hard scientist. I take it you have a plan to stay on your feet."
"Of course I do. I sent slides from the wound margins to Ed McCarthy at Johns Hopkins. Ed's the best pathologist I know."
"And what does he think caused it?"
"He couldn’t say for sure."
"Paulson, I've had a bad day," I pleaded. "What did this Ed guy find?"
"This
Ed guy?
That's a little like calling DiMaggio that
Joe guy
." He chuckled. "Anyhow, he couldn’t say
for sure
, but he had a pretty strong idea."
"I promise not to hold him to it."
"Fair enough. He thinks the tissue was exposed to a toxin."
"A toxin? Like what?"
"We don't know. Ed cleared the way for me to send a sample to the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Virginia. They've seen everything."
"I'd like to hear what they come up with," I looked at a photograph of Kathy on the coffee table. She was perched on the rocks outside my house in a little white sundress, holding her knees and pouting. The ultimate nymphet. "I might be hard to reach for about a week, though."
"Is that right? Good for you. It's about time."
"About time for what?"
"To stop polluting yourself. You've got the same twitching in your eyelids that you had before the last detox."
"It's that obvious? Have I seemed out of it?"
"If you'd been out of it, I would have locked you up myself until you were off that poison. On your worst day you're sharper than any psychiatrist I've met. I just miss your best days."
"When were they?"
"Soon, I hope."
I smiled. "Thanks."
"Get better, my friend."
I clicked the phone off. I knew Kathy and Paulson were right. I was like a ship taking on water, fast. I searched my wallet and pulled out the napkin Rachel had given me. I dialed her beeper. If I was going to a detox, I was going after one big night. The phone rang a minute later.
"Rachel?"
"Who's this?"
"Frank."
"Very funny."
"I didn't mean it to be." I took a drag off the cigarette and blew the smoke out through my nose. "I'm the psychiatrist who offended you at the Lynx Club last night."
"I'm sorry," she laughed. "You never told me your name."
"I got yours off a napkin."
"It's been worse places. I had to pay Max twenty bucks to get that napkin to you."
"I tipped him ten."
"He ended up making out alright, for a complete pain in the ass."
"He was just doing a job."
"That's very understanding of you."
I had started to pace like a schoolboy. "I called to see if we could have dinner tonight."
"You and Max, or you and me?"
"I don't know. I didn't get a chance to see him dance."
"The truth is, he's your only choice tonight. I'm working."
"Oh."
"But if you visit me at the club, we could have a drink after closing."
I wouldn’t have turned down an invitation like that when Kathy was sleeping at home, let alone with her unaccounted for all night. Maybe that was a weakness in me worth pondering, but I wasn’t about to ponder it just then. I told Rachel I'd stop in at the Lynx Club around ten.
I had time to kill. I walked into the study, turned on the antique standing lamp and dropped into a worn leather wing chair. The cigarette had relaxed me a bit. I grabbed another from a crystal cup on the side table and lighted it. I imagined the empty rooms of the house stacked like a maze around me. It was a much larger place than two people could make use of, let alone one. Four thousand seven hundred and thirty square feet. In that way, my mother's question about what I needed it for was on the mark, even if she had played a part in creating the need. I couldn’t deny that the house was partly my reaction against an inner fear of being insubstantial.
Kathy had not wanted to see that fear in me — or I had kept it from her — which explained why my coke habit brought out only her anger and no compassion.
I glanced at the bookcase against the far wall. It was an English piece with griffins carved at each corner. The top shelf was filled with Kathy's collection of Trixie Belden books. She had told me more than once that the stories, about a teenage heroine who solves mysteries, were her favorites when she was a girl. She was petrified of the dark, and they relaxed her enough that she could fall asleep. I had never taken the time to read one.
I got up, walked to the bookcase and reached for one of the volumes. It was number thirty-three of thirty-nine,
The Gatehouse Mystery
. I sat back down in the wing chair and opened the cover. The title page was marked with the word
Mouse
, written in pencil. Crude whiskers emerged from the
M
, and a tail curled off the
e
. Had that been Kathy's nickname? I wondered. She was anything but a mouse now. I flipped to the first chapter and started to read:
"Oh, Moms," Trixie wailed, twisting one of her short blond curls around the pencil she had stuck behind her ear. "Do I have to write Brian and Mart? They'll be home Saturday, and then I can tell them everything."
Mrs. Belden looked up from the sweater she was knitting for Bobby, Trixie's young brother. "That's the point," she said with a smile. "Your older brothers have been at camp all summer, and you've never sent them anything but a few scribbled postcards."
"There just wasn't time," Trixie said, staring down at the sheet of paper on which she had hastily scrawled, "Crabapple Farm, Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson, New York, Tuesday evening, August 22
nd
."
I liked thinking of Kathy young enough to lose herself in Trixie. I looked back at the long line of canary yellow volumes on the shelf, put my feet up and kept reading.
My last big night had to include coke. I wasn't about to risk another buy in front of the Emerson, or a delivery to the house, so I headed over to Pug's, a watering hole on the Lynn line. Willie Hightower, one of my connections, worked there on and off. He spent the rest of his time drumming for a heavy metal band called Four Point Restraints, a name I had come up with. Luckily, he was in.
I didn't have to tell Willie what I wanted, which felt a little like getting breakfast automatically at a neighborhood restaurant. I just threw my box of Marlboros on the bar. How's the music?"
"Hard and fast," he said. He cleared his throat and flipped his long, dyed black hair out of his face. He looked around as he poured me a Miller. "Malloy was in earlier. He was asking if you bought here." He put the drink down in front of me and picked up the Marlboro box.
I nodded. My heart had started to race.
"Of course, I didn't say jack. Never worry about that. But I thought you should know." The Marlboro box disappeared behind the bar.
"Thanks."
"It's not like I haven't been paying the fat shit three-fifty a month for the past year and a half to stay the fuck away." He cleared his throat again. It was a nervous habit. "I think you're alright. He was probably just putting me on notice to be discreet, because you do work for the city. With Hancock running for mayor, they don't want to be embarrassed." He lighted a cigarette and put the Marlboro box back on the bar.
"Hancock? For mayor?"
"You know, tough on crime. All that crap. It's like she thinks she's
Isis
or something." He turned around and grabbed a
Lynn Evening Item
. "See for yourself."
‘
Hancock Seeks Mayor's Post
’ was the lead story. I read the first few lines:
Emma Hancock, a veteran of the Lynn Police Department and the of Mayor, currently held by the Honorable William state's first female police captain, has announced she will seek the position McGinnis. Hancock, who had complained that her department is being strangled by City Hall budget cuts, promised a major crackdown on drugs and violence if elected.
No wonder she needed to wrap up Sarah's case. "She'll have power and religion. The age-old cocktail." I tossed the paper back on the bar. "We know what she's running
for
. The question is what she's running
from
."
"That's your deal. I just pour drinks."
I smiled. "Did you contribute to the campaign?"
"Of course. That's the other reason Malloy stopped by. He's got to fill Emma's campaign purse."
I drank half my beer and stood up. "On my tab."
"Like Bogart said, ‘Your cash is good at the bar.’"
"I figured. I pushed five twenties toward him. "Spend it wisely. I'm heading for detox tomorrow."
"Always glad to lose a customer. You know that. Good luck."
* * *
The Lynx Club parking lot was nearly full by the time I got there. I took my package out of the Marlboro box, sprinkled a thick line onto the blade of my hunting knife and inhaled it. Within thirty seconds a delicious numbness had spread through my nasal passages and down my throat. I closed my eyes and swallowed. I felt nothing. ‘Emma Hancock for Mayor’ meant nothing. All my worries receded from consciousness. I sucked up another fat line and went inside.
The rhythm of ‘Hit Me with Your Best Shot’ surged through me. Pulses of red and blue light flooded my eyes. I drank in the ripe curves of two blondes dancing naked on round platforms at either side of the runway, gripping chains anchored in the ceiling. As the music peaked, they pulled themselves up off the platforms, legs spread, and spun around in midair like jewelry box figurines. I took a seat under the one wearing a pink patent-leather dog collar and inhaled deeply of the musty Lynx Club air. I gazed up between her legs and felt the last of my anxiety leave me. Few things in life steady me; my primal connection to that soft flesh is one of them.
I ordered a Black Label straight up, lit a Marlboro, then reached into my pocket and tossed a dollar bill on the platform. The dancer, who looked about twenty years old, dropped off the chain and crouched like a crab in front of me. She was pretty, but a bit severe, with high cheekbones and a prominent chin. I looked her in the eyes because I feared staring at her crotch right away would be impolite. She met my eyes for a second, blushed, then looked down between her legs. I followed her lead. She was mostly shaved, just a little dirty blonde triangle left, and when she used two fingers of one hand to spread her lips, I saw she had pierced herself with a gold wire ring. I guessed it was a symbol of submission to a lucky truck driver somewhere. She picked up my dollar bill and rubbed herself with it, then slipped it in her garter. She struggled to her feet, turned around and bent over. I looked into her eyes again, feeling especially foolish since hers were upside down. She winked, struggled up on her spike heels and pranced to the other side of the stage.
My scotch had arrived. I took a sip, then downed half the glass. I looked around the room for Rachel but didn't spot her. Perverts’ Row along the runway and the long tables to either side of it were full of the usual potpourri of businessmen, construction workers and bikers.
I turned around and checked out the bar that spans the wall opposite the runway. My eyes passed over, then returned to, a man sitting on a stool nearest the door. His back was to me. "Couldn't be him," I muttered. I studied him to find something inconsistent with the man I knew. And yet, I could not deny that the wavy salt-and-pepper hair and the tailored blue-black suit could only belong to Trevor Lucas. My jaw tightened and my heart began to race. He threw his head back to finish a drink, and, sure enough, his gold Cartier wristwatch and bangle bracelet came into view. He turned and faced the runway.
