Lowboy (10 page)

“They did things,” he heard himself saying. “They did things.” He said it three more times before she stopped him.

“Why did you come back, Heller? Don’t you know how retarded that was? What makes you think that I won’t call this number?”

She was staring at him now the way a nurse would stare at a sick baby and he knew that it was going to be all right. She might kick him or laugh at him or push him down the steps but she wasn’t going to use her cellphone yet. She wasn’t as angry as she was excited. He pressed his back against the sandstone steps and counted down from twenty. She wasn’t going to send him back to school.

She asked him again what he wanted and he told her.

“Don’t act like nothing’s different, Heller. Everything’s different. The whole world turned to shit while you were gone.”

“I know that,” Lowboy said. He smiled at her. “That’s why I’m here.”

She twisted away from him then and kept her mouth shut for what seemed like a week. With anyone else he’d have started to have his doubts. Some girls leaning against the Crowley fence waved at her and giggled and one of them blew her a kiss. An Utz Potato Chips truck rolled toward them at the slowest possible crawl. He started to tell her more but stopped himself. There was nothing to do but let her think it over. The Crowley girls waved again but she ignored them. Finally she coughed three times into her sleeve, a put-on smoker’s cough, and waited until he was looking at her. Her face was as serious as he’d ever seen it.

“Apology accepted,” she said, pursing her lips. “What do you want to do now?”

U
lysses S. Kopeck’s practice was tucked discreetly away in a courtyard of The Phaeton, a West Seventy-second Street monstrosity that cut across its block like an Italianate aircraft carrier. “The largest residential building on the island, actually,” the doctor had said after Will’s first appointment. He’d said it modestly, in his trademark half-apologetic way, and Violet had nodded and smiled and said, “How interesting.” Like all desperate mothers the desire to defer to some expert, to anyone at all, had become her greatest passion by that time: he could have fed her any variety of horseshit and she’d have taken it as gospel. And in fact that was exactly what he’d done.

Returning to The Phaeton now was like waiting for the show to start in an abandoned theater. It seemed unnatural to her, even obscene, but there was no denying that it also thrilled her. For two years the building had been no more than a stageset, a backdrop to her greatest disappointment: occasionally it had menaced her in dreams. But now she was following a man, a virtual stranger, demurely through its burnished Roman doors. She walked into the
lobby as though she was expected, as though The Phaeton had been built just to receive her.

She noted her reflection in the antediluvian lobby mirrors, cow-eyed and compliant, no different than any other prospective patient. Her footsteps seemed to make no sound at all. Lateef kept half a step in front of her, the stiff-lipped official on confidential business, ignoring the doorman’s dull suspicious greeting. He was less sure of himself than he’d been in his office, conflicted in some way she couldn’t name, but his professional manner still came effortlessly. He was the parent on this visit, she the child. She found herself remembering Will’s stricken face during his first appointment, his mounting confusion, his anxiety when they reached the doorman’s desk. She’d gotten him past by putting her hands over his eyes and guiding him gently forward with her hips.

There were four identical lobbies in The Phaeton, each graced by an abstract expressionist poster from the permanent collection of the Met. The Rothko in Kopeck’s lobby suited him perfectly: he was as warm and indistinct as a color field, a mildmannered and uninsistent spirit. His bell had been broken three years before and it was broken now. Lateef pressed it, waited, shifted from foot to foot for a moment, then pressed it again. A minute went by. God knows why I’m not telling him, she thought. She was already eager for things to speed up, for the meeting with Kopeck to be done with. But it was beyond her power to do anything but wait.

Lateef glanced at her a second time, pursing his lips, then knocked on the door with military correctness. When Kopeck’s door swung open she found herself standing neatly at attention.

“Dr. Kopeck?” said Lateef.

“That’s me, Detective.” The same voice exactly. The same bookish awkwardness, the same studied calm. “Lateef, was it? Yes.” He tilted his bald childish head to take her measure. “Hello, Yda.”

“Hello, Doctor.” She glanced involuntarily down the hall, measuring the distance to the lobby doors, picturing her escape just as Will had done three years before. Kopeck smiled at her as though there was some joke between them.

“I have to apologize about that bell of mine: it works about one time in sixty. Come in, both of you.”

Lateef nodded and stepped aside for Violet. He doesn’t want to go in either, she thought. Kopeck had already turned his back on them, shuffling past the threadworn sofas and stacks of
In Style
magazine to his antiquated, guidance-counselorish office. She knew from experience that he was muttering to himself, the potty old bachelor uncle. Not a thing had changed about him. There was no cause whatsoever for alarm.

Lateef cleared his throat behind her. “Thanks for making time for us on such short notice, Dr. Kopeck. We’ll try to keep this brief.”

“Not a problem, Detective. Though I must say I’m surprised to see you in the flesh.”

“We’re waiting on a call, Doctor—trying to make use of the time. There’s really not much else that we can do.”

“Of course. Sit down here, please.” Kopeck perched on his desktop. “May I ask your first name?”

Lateef’s discomfort was plain. “Ali,” he said quietly.

“Good to meet you, Ali. I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Ulysses.”

Lateef took the seat indicated, a hardbacked vinyl armchair that looked borrowed from some dated airport lounge. He glanced cautiously around him, then at Violet, as though unsure who was meant to do the talking. He’s at a disadvantage in other people’s offices, she decided. She resisted the urge to pat him on the shoulder.

“As I explained over the phone, Doctor, Miss Heller’s son is currently in some part of the MTA network—”

“You gave me the details, Ali, and I remember them. Please call me Ulysses.”

“Of course,” Lateef muttered, more ill at ease than ever. “As I mentioned to you, Ulysses, the boy was last seen in the company of a forty-year-old homeless woman named Rafa Ramirez. Mrs. Ramirez has since been questioned, but she didn’t give us much; one thing we’ve managed to establish is that the boy is not, at least at present, in a violent frame of mind.” He coughed into his palm. “Just the opposite, apparently.”

“You’ve managed to establish that, have you?” said Kopeck. He was no longer smiling. “You’re certain that he won’t act violently?”

“I didn’t say that,” Lateef said quickly. “I, for one, wouldn’t be surprised—”

“What is it that I can help you with, Ali?”

“Anything.” Lateef shrugged his shoulders. “Anything you could give us would be helpful.”

“Can you explain the note?” Violet blurted out, regretting it at once. “We’ve got a copy of it with us. I can follow it fairly well until—”

Kopeck shook his head. “I haven’t seen or treated Will in almost two years, Yda.” He let his mournful pink eyes rest on her until she gave him the nod he required. “What I knew once—what I
believed
I knew—may no longer apply.” He paused again. “I also feel the need to point out, for Detective Lateef’s benefit, that you had little confidence in my relationship with Will. In point of fact, Yda, you had him removed from my care.” He turned to Lateef. “This happened shortly before the boy’s arrest.”

She watched him breathlessly, still standing within easy reach of the door, waiting for him to go on. She had no doubt that more was coming, benign though he might look. He hadn’t met her eyes once, hadn’t asked her to call him Ulysses, and she was grateful for that, if for nothing else. But at the same time she was desperate for his answer.

“All right, Ali.” A sigh. “You want to know whether the boy is likely to act aggressively. Is that it?”

Violet felt the floor pitch underneath her. “That’s not it at all! We know he won’t. We just thought you might—”

Kopeck’s eyes remained fixed on Lateef. “Let Ali answer, Yda.”

“Please, Dr. Kopeck—
Ulysses
.” She paused to catch her breath. “If you’d take a quick look at this note—”

“Miss Heller,” Lateef said softly. He waited for her to sit down before continuing. “What I’d like to know first of all, Ulysses, is whether or not Mrs. Ramirez’s version of events strikes you as plausible. Is she telling the truth?”

“That’s impossible for me to determine, Detective. Mrs. Ramirez is not one of my patients.”

“You won’t be asked to sign any affidavits, Doctor. I’d simply like to hear your opinion.”

Kopeck glanced at Violet and shrugged his shoulders. “Schizophrenics rarely tell lies, especially when in psychosis—which doesn’t mean, of course, that one should take their statements at face value. In this case, however—assuming that Mrs. Ramirez has been correctly diagnosed—I see no particular reason to disbelieve her.” He turned back to Lateef. “I’m saying this informally, you understand. Based on nothing but the small amount you’ve told me.”

“You mean he actually tried to have sex with that woman?”

“For better or worse, Ali, Will’s schizophrenia doesn’t excuse him from being a sixteen-year-old boy.”

“But what could possibly have been the reason—”

“To lose his virginity, of course. Isn’t that what all teenagers want?”

Lateef looked hard at Kopeck. “Could it have been a straightforward assault that Mrs. Ramirez—” He stopped again. “Could she have misinterpreted it as sexual?”

“Some things are hard to misinterpret, Ali, even for the mentally ill.” His face went grave. “Which brings me back to my original assumption.”

“What would that be?”

“That you came here to find out whether Will may become violent.”

No one spoke for a moment. Lateef inclined his head toward Violet but did not look at her. When he answered he spoke very mildly. “It’s my responsibility, Doctor, to act under the assumption that he will.”

“A sound assumption,” Kopeck said, bringing his palms together.

Even Lateef seemed startled. “What are you saying, exactly, Doctor? Are you telling me the boy—”

“I’m telling you that Will has never responded well to stress, and
that he’s under enormous stress now. What’s more, his current environment has acted as a trigger for him in the past. If it’s true, as you tell me, that he’s gone off his meds completely, then I’d advise you to alert the MTA at once—every transit post along the line—and instruct them to use extreme caution. Every train that goes by is a temptation to Will.”

That was too much for Violet at last. “What the hell are you saying?” she murmured, feeling herself lurching to her feet. “A temptation to what? Don’t you understand that this man is a—“

“This man is a policeman, Yda. His duty is to the public safety. The safety of everyone, not just your son. Kindly sit down.”

“Sit down, Miss Heller,” Lateef said absently.

She stared at them both without speaking. The confirmation of the thing that she’d most feared made her feel almost clairvoyant. Will was a public danger now and would be dealt with as such, just as she had foreseen. Hunted with the blessing of his doctor. She sat down tremblingly beside Lateef.

“The common perception of schizophrenics as violent is inaccurate, of course,” Kopeck went on. “They’re no more violent, as a group, than the rest of us are.” He smiled at Lateef. “But most likely you knew that already.”

“I didn’t, actually,” said Lateef. “In my job, I tend to get the raving—”

“That said, however, Will has always been exceptional.” Kopeck nodded toward Violet. “Let’s reason with the worst that may befall.”

“Will put his trust in you,” Violet said through her teeth. “Will thought of you as a friend.” It made her stomach cramp to speak the words.

Kopeck leaned forward on his elbows, reasonable, regretful. “I don’t doubt that Will thought of me as a friend, Yda. I was trying to help him, after all. But you certainly never thought of me that way.”

Lateef coughed into his fist. “With all respect, Doctor, this hardly strikes me as the moment—”

“Permit me to finish. You never thought of me as Will’s friend,
Yda, and you were perfectly right. I wasn’t Will’s friend, which is precisely the reason I could help him: I was able to talk to him plainly and unsentimentally about his life. And Will, in turn, was able to answer me plainly. Which is presumably the reason that you’re here.” Kopeck studied his hands, rubbing the fingertips together, as though he’d picked up something faintly greasy. “You’re here because Will told me things he wouldn’t have said to a friend, and most definitely wouldn’t have told you. You’re here to find out what Will said to me in confidence.”

Lateef made as if to speak, then coughed once more and sat back in his chair. Violet couldn’t have said whether he looked exasperated or content. She herself felt nothing whatsoever.

Finally Lateef took a breath. “I couldn’t care less what the boy said to you in your sessions, Doctor. Nobody’s trying to make you break your pledge.” He passed a hand over his face. “But we need to find him quickly—you said as much yourself. You might not care for Miss Heller, but I hope that you can appreciate my problem, and the boy’s. I’d like to know where you think he might go.”

“Have you ever been in therapy, Detective?” Kopeck said amiably. “Something tells me that you have.”

“Where do you think the boy might go, Doctor?” Lateef repeated. But Kopeck seemed not to be listening.

Violet brought a finger to her mouth and bit it. She was shaking severely now, shivering with fear and foresight, but she managed to keep her voice intelligible. “Answer the question, hypocrite,” she stammered. As always when she was enraged or terrified she found herself having to translate her thoughts from the language she’d spoken as a girl, to struggle to keep her accent within bounds, but today it was almost more than she could do. The last of her composure fell away as she stared into Kopeck’s damp, insipid face. She hated him more desperately now than when she’d first discovered his fraud, first realized that he’d been setting Will against her. She hated him with unabashed devotion. “Answer the question,” she heard herself hissing. “Answer the question, cocksucker.”

Lateef was on his feet before Kopeck could say a word. “I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside, Miss Heller,” he said hoarsely. Whether he’d gone hoarse out of anger or amusement made no difference to her, although she would wonder about it later. Later she’d ask herself which side he’d been on, but not then. She got up obligingly and followed him out without a word of protest. Kopeck clucked but said nothing. She had no doubt that he’d gotten what he wanted.

For the briefest of instants, looking back from the door, the hope she’d felt three years before revisited her. The heavy armchairs and curtains hummed invitingly, like a bed at the close of a long day, and the diplomas and framed certificates on the walls glimmered like proof of promises upheld. I expected so much from this room, she thought.

“Move,” said Lateef. His hand on her forearm was a creature of pure authority. A practiced grip, she thought, stumbling ahead of him like a hostage. He held her just tightly enough to call attention to the strength held in reserve. She’d been the child when they’d come into The Phaeton; now she was the difficult child. Before the door had shut behind them she was twisting and kicking and cursing at the top of her lungs, but even now he acted with economy and restraint. The doorman leaned out from his terracotta grotto, vanished for an instant, then rose up imposingly before them. To her astonishment he called her by name.