Silent Partner (55 page)

"So did Sherry."

"No, no. Sherry had the features. But not the face."

We said nothing for a long time. Then, suddenly, as if forcing his way out of a sentimental stupor, he sat up, snapped his fingers. The waiter brought him a glass of ice water and was gone.

He drank, cleared his throat, touched his Adam's apple, swallowed hard. Forcing a smile, but looking drained, defeated. A man who'd sailed through life in first class, only to find out the cruise had gone nowhere.

I'd arrived at this place hating him, prepared to stoke my hate. But I felt like putting my arm
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around him.

Then I thought of dead bodies, a pile of them, and said, "Your temporary plan stretched to permanence."

He nodded. "I kept searching for another way, some other arrangement. Meanwhile, Shirlee and Jasper were doing a yeoman job—amazingly so. Then Helen discovered Sharon, made her a protegee, began molding her in a fine way. I decided nothing could be better than that. I contacted Helen; we reached an agreement."

"Helen was paid?"

"Not with money—she and her husband were too proud for that. But there were other things I could do for them. Scholarships for her children, aborting a plan to sell off corporate acreage in Willow Glen for development. For over thirty years, Magna's guaranteed to purchase any agricultural surplus and compensate for any losses below a specified level. Not just for Helen—for the entire town."

"Paying them not to grow apples," I said.

"An American tradition," he said. "You should taste Wendy's honey and cider. Our employees love them."

I remembered Helen's complaint:

They won't sell... For all intents and purposes they keep Willow Glen a backwater speck.

Keeping Shirlee and Jasper and their charge away from prying eyes...

"How much does Helen know?" I asked.

"Her knowledge is very limited. For her sake."

"What will become of the Ransoms?"

"Nothing will change," he said. "They'll continue to live wonderfully basic lives. Did you see any signs of suffering on their faces, Doctor? They don't want for anything, would be considered well-off by most people's standards. Helen looks out for them. Before she came along, I did."

He allowed himself a smile. Smug.

"All right," I said, "you're Mother Teresa. So how come people keep dying?"

"Some people," he said, "deserve to die."

"Sounds like a quotation from Chairman Belding."

No answer.

I said, "What about Sharon? Did she deserve to die for trying to learn who she was?"

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He stood, stared down at me. All self-doubt gone, once again The Man In Charge.

"Words can communicate only so much," he said. "Come with me."

We headed out toward the desert. He aimed a penlight at the ground, highlighting pitted soil, mammalian clumps of scrub, saguaro cactus stretching skyward.

About a half-mile in, the beam settled on a small, streamlined Fiberglas vehicle—the golf-cart I'd visualized during my ride with Hummel. Dark paint, a roll bar, knobby, off-road tires. A forward-slanting M on the door.

He got behind the wheel and motioned me in. No blindfold for this ride. I was either trusted or doomed. He flipped several switches. Headlights. The whine of the electric engine. Another flip and the hum rose in frequency. We moved forward with surprising speed, twice as fast as the bumper-car pace Hummel had taken— the sadist. Faster than I'd thought possible from an electric machine. But then, this was high-tech territory. The Patent Ranch.

We rode for more than an hour without exchanging a word, sailing across stretches of chalky wasteland. The air was still hot and grew fragrant, a mild herbaceous scent.

Vidal coughed a lot as the vehicle churned up clouds of fine clay dust, but he continued to steer with ease. The granite mountains were faint pencil marks on black construction paper.

He flipped another switch and made the moon appear, gigantic, milky-white, and earthbound.

Not the moon at all, but a giant golf ball, illuminated from within.

A geodesic dome, perhaps thirty feet in diameter.

Vidal pulled up to it and parked. The surface of the dome was white plastic hexagonal panels framed in tubular white metal. I looked for the booth Seaman Cross had described, the one he'd sat in while communicating with Belding. But the only access to the building was a white door.

" The Basket-Case Billionaire," I said.

"A stupid little book," said Vidal. "Leland got it into his head that he needed to be chronicled."

"Why'd he pick Cross?"

We got out of the cart. "I haven't the slightest idea—I told you he never let me inside his head. I was out of the country when he cooked up the deal. Later he changed his mind and demanded Cross fold up his lent in return for a cash payment. Cross took the money, but went ahead with the book. Leland was very displeased."

"Another search-and-destroy mission."

"Everything was handled legally—through the courts."

"Burglarizing his storage locker wasn't exactly working within the system. Did you use the same guys for the Fontaine break-in?"

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His expression said that wasn't worth responding to. We started walking.

I said, "What about Cross's suicide?"

"Cross was weak-willed, couldn't cope."

"You're saying it was a genuine suicide?"

"Absolutely."

"If he hadn't done himself in, would you have let him live?"

He smiled and shook his head. "As I told you before, Doctor, I don't squash people. Besides, Cross was no threat. No one believed him."

The door was white and seamless. He placed his hand on the knob, looked at me, and let the message sink in:

Cross had poisoned the well when it came to Leland Belding stories.

No one would believe me. This day had never occurred.

I looked up at the dome. Starlight made it shimmer, like a giant jellyfish, the plastic panels gave off a new-car

smell. Vidal twisted the knob.

I stepped in. The door closed behind me. A moment later, I heard the buggy depart.

I looked around, expecting screens, consoles, keyboards, a Flash Gordon tangle of electronic pasta.

But it was just a big room, interior walls sheathed in white plastic. The rest could have come out of any suburban tract home. Ice-blue carpet. Oak furniture. Console TV. Stereo components topping a record cabinet. Prefab bookcase and matching magazine basket. An efficiency kitchen off to one side. Potted plants. Framed samplers.

Apple drawings.

And three beds arranged parallel to one another, as in a bunk room. Or ward: the first two were hospital setups with push-button position controls and chromium swivel tables.

The nearest one was empty save for something on the pillow. I took a closer look. It was a toy airplane—a bomber, painted dark, with a forward-slanting M on the door.

In the second, a crippled woman lay under a cheerful quilt. Immobile, gape-mouthed, some gray streaking her black hair, but otherwise unchanged in the six years since I'd last seen her. As if disability had so dominated her body it rendered her ageless. She took a deep sucking breath and air came out in a squeak.

A waft of perfume filtered through the new-car ambience. Soap and water, fresh grass.

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SHARON SAT on the edge of the third bed, hands folded in her lap. A smile, tissue-thin, graced her lips.

She wore a long white dress that buttoned down the front. Her hair was combed out, parted in the middle. No makeup, no jewelry. Her eyes purplish in the light of the dome.

She fidgeted under my stare. Long fingers. Arms smooth as butter. Breasts straining against the dress. Silk. Expensive, but it resembled a nurse's uniform. "Hello, Alex."

Shirlee Ransom's swivel table held tissues, a hot water bottle, a mucus aspirator, a water pitcher, and an empty drinking glass. I picked up the glass, rolled it between my palms, and put it down.

"Come," she said.

I sat down next to her, said, "Risen like Lazarus." "Never gone," she said. "Someone else is." She nodded.

I said, "The red dress? Strawberry daiquiris?" "Her."

"Sleeping with your patients?"

She shifted so that our flanks touched. "Her. She wanted to hurt me, didn't care she was hurting others in the process. I didn't know a thing until the cancellations started pouring in. I couldn't understand it. Everything had been going so well—mostly short-term cases, but everyone liked me. I phoned them. Most of them refused to talk to me. A couple of wives got on, full of rage, threatening. It was like a bad dream. Then Sherry told me what she'd done. Laughing. She'd been staying with me, had taken my office key and made a copy. Used it to get into my files, picked out the ones who sounded cute, offered them free follow-up visits and... did them, then dumped them. That's the way she put it. When I was calm enough, I asked her why. She said she'd be damned if she'd let me play doctor and lord it over her."

She placed her hand on my thigh. Her palm was wet. "I knew she resented me, Alex, but I never imagined she'd carry it that far. When we first got together, she acted as if she loved me."

"When was that?"

"My second year of grad school. Autumn."

Surprised, I said, "Not the summer?"

"No. Autumn. October."

"What was the family business that prevented you from going to San Francisco?"

"Therapy."

"Conducting or receiving?"

"My therapy."

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"With Kruse."

Nod. "It was a crucial time. I couldn't leave. We were dealing with issues... It really was family business."

"Where were you staying?"

"His house."

I'd gone there, looking for her, watching Kruse's face split in two....

Have a nice day...

"It was pretty intense," she said. "He wanted to monitor all the variables."

"You had no trouble sleeping there?"

"I... No, he helped me. Relaxed me."

"Hypnosis."

"Yes. He was preparing me—for meeting her. He thought it would be a healing process. For both of us. But he underestimated how much hatred remained."

She stayed calm but the pressure of her hand increased. "She was pretending, Alex. It was easy for her—she'd studied acting."

Some gravitate to the stage and screen.... "Interesting career choice," I said.

"It wasn't a career, just a fling. Just like everything else. First she used it to get close to me, then again to target what she knew was dearest to me: you; then, years later, my work. She knew how much my work meant to me."

"Why didn't you get licensed?"

She tugged her earlobe. "Too many... distractions. I wasn't ready."

"Paul's opinion?"

"And mine."

She pressed against me. Her touch felt burdensome.

"You're the only man I've ever loved, Alex."

"What about Jasper? And Paul."

The mention of Kruse's name made her flinch. "I mean romantic love. Physical love. You're the only one who's ever been inside of me."

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I said nothing.

"Alex, it's true. I know you suspected things, but Paul and I were never like that. I was his patient—sleeping with a patient's like incest. Even after therapy stops."

Something in her voice made me back off. "Okay. But let's not forget Mickey Starbuck."

"Who?".

"Your co-star. Checkups

"Was that his name? Mickey? All I knew about him was that he was an actor whom Paul had treated for cocaine addiction. Back in Florida. I've never been to Florida."

"Her?"

She nodded.

I said, "Who cast her?"

"I know what it looks like, but Paul thought it might be curative."

"Radical therapy. Working it through."

"You'd have to see it in context, Alex. He'd worked with her for years without much success. He had to try something."

I looked away, took in my surroundings. Hooked rug on the blue carpet. The samplers spouting truisms. No goddam place like home.

Spaceship homey. As if extraterrestrials had swooped down on a specimen-hunt, plundered Middle America of its cliches.

When I turned back, she was smiling. A shiny smile. Too shiny. Like glaze before crackling.

"Alex, I understand how strange all this must sound to you. It's hard to sum up so many years in just a few minutes."

I smiled back, let my confusion show. "It's overwhelming—the dynamics—how it all fits together."

"I'll do my best to clear it up for you."

"I'd appreciate that."

"Where would you like me to start?"

"Right at the beginning seems as good a place as any."

She put her head on my shoulder. "That's the problem. There really is no beginning," she said, in the same disembodied voice she'd used years ago, to talk about the death of her "parents." "My
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primal years are a blur. I've been told about them, but it's like hearing a story about someone else. That's what therapy was about, that summer. Paul was trying to unblock me."

"Age regression?"

"Age regression, free association, Gestalt exercises—all the standard techniques. Things I've used myself with patients. But nothing worked. I couldn't remember a thing. I mean, intellectually I understood the defensive process, knew I was repressing, but that didn't help me in

here." She placed my hand on her belly.

"How far back could you recall?" I asked.

"Happy times. Shirlee and Jasper. And Helen. Uncle Billy told me you met her yesterday. Isn't she an exceptional person?"

"Yes, she is." Yesterday. It seemed like centuries. "Does she know you're alive?"

She winced as if bitten. Hard tug on the lobe. "Uncle Billy said he'd take care of it."

"I'm sure he will. What were you and he talking about at the party?"

"Her. She was forcing herself on me again—dropping in at all hours, waking me up, screaming and cursing, or crawling into bed with me and mauling me, trying to suck my breasts. Once I caught her with scissors, trying to snip off my hair. Other times, she'd arrive stoned or drunk on her daiquiris, get sick all over the place, lose bladder control on the carpet. I kept changing the locks; she always found a way to get in. She ate pills like candy."