Bones of the Barbary Coast (15 page)

"Why?"

"So they remember how to kill. So that part of their instinct doesn't atrophy."

Now they were getting somewhere. Ray's excitement rose and he crabbed closer, trying to formulate the right questions. "Judd, this is very important. Do you think a person needs to kill, too? To keep the instinctive thing alive? To make contact with that primal stuff, come to grips with it? Feed it? Does breaking the taboo make you stronger?"

"You and Charlie Manson, huh?"

"What?"

LeGrand shook his head. His confidence was returning, or maybe he just didn't give a shit how this turned out. " 'Come to grips?' I killed, I saw a lot of guys kill, and nobody ever came to grips with it. Too easy to do and too hard to get over. I didn't see anybody come off wiser. And it's not all that taboo, not half enough. That's another fucking superstition. Too bad."

"More. Dig deeper on that."

"There were two kinds of guys. One kind went to pieces the first time they killed or had to lie in a shell crater with chunks of their dead buddies all around. The other kind got proud and cocky. Bragged about their kills, kept ears or scalps on their belts. Got high on it."

"Which were you?"

"But you open yourself up to it, something gets inside and starts eating you. Making you hollow. The ones who thought they were the toughest, they're the ones that had the hardest time after. They had that thing inside."

Ray thought about that. "When you killed people, when you saw people die, up close—how did that change you? I mean, the way you think your own death? More afraid? More . . . accepting?"

"More nothing. More fucking nothing except screwed up. Me, I was very fucked up. Believe it. I had to work very, very hard to get back even this far."

"Maybe you should have kept going the other way," Ray muttered darkly.

LeGrand snorted, spat, shook his head. "You're a fucking kid. Lot of abstract ideas. You don't know what any of it means."

The preaching, superior tone infuriated Ray. He leaned into the light from the porch and turned his face so that all LeGrand would see were the scars. "You," he said very quietly, very deliberately, "don't know anything about what I am. And you have no fucking
idea
what I am capable of."

LeGrand didn't react, didn't seem to care. They were quiet for a long time like that, stalemated, and Ray heard some music start up in the house, a radio changing channels. The wife must have come out of the shower. Ray crabbed closer to LeGrand, ready for a sudden move, beaming his urgency at the dark silhouette.

At last LeGrand rasped, "You're trying to figure if killing can make you free or natural or . . . what, complete? If that makes it okay? You're trying to figure out if you're a werewolf?"

"Something like that," Ray said breathlessly. He didn't know the exact questions, but they were getting close to it now.

LeGrand's dark shape didn't move. "That's something you'll have to answer for yourself. That's what it's all about, man. Trying to answer that."

Ray had to admit that was a safe assessment. He'd known it all along, but disappointment flooded him. He'd had irrationally high hopes for what LeGrand might be able to tell him.

He had just decided it was time to go when the aluminum door scraped and LeGrand's wife called from the house: "Judd! The hell're you doing out there?"

LeGrand didn't move for several more seconds. Then he lifted his head and called, "I'll be in in two shakes, baby. I'm just seeing to one of the animals."

16

C
REE RETURNED TO the motel at four thirty, glad to have some time to regroup before meeting Uncle Bert for dinner. She ran the tub to its deepest and lowered herself cautiously into the scalding water until just her nostrils were above the surface: heavenly. Even on a bright day like this, San Francisco was brisk in November; after sitting for so long in the park, she felt deeply chilled. Plus, tubs were a great place to think.

Ray Raymond was insightful and even attractive in an odd way. But that icy gaze continued to trouble her. He had X-rayed the wolfman's skull and recognized its canine characteristics—was he the one sending the morphing e-mails? Then there was Uncle Bert's theory. Could Cameron Raymond be a murderer, too?

A new shiver went down her spine and legs despite the parboiling embrace of the water. Yes, it was easy to imagine that slow gaze and blink stemming from some deep hatred and resentment, possibly one requiring vehement expression.

But of course it was unwise to trust impressions like that, as she'd learned many years ago in an undergraduate class on forensic psychology. The instructor had begun the first session by showing slides, starting with a mugshot of an unsmiling, middle-aged businessman type, white shirt, tie, dark hair with receding hairline.

"This man is a convicted serial child molester," Dr. Danforth explained. "His victims were six girls, ages five through nine, each of whom he systematically befriended, entrapped, sodomized, and tortured. Let's take a close look at his face."

The students dutifully studied the screen, and they easily found the sadism in that rather ordinary face: lowered lids that failed to conceal the calculating glint of the eyes, a tidy tuck of the lips that controlled their expression, the smug bulk of those cheeks. Knowing what he'd done, Cree could see it all right there: the pathology, the secret savor of his awful acts.

After a long moment, Dr. Danforth turned to the screen and did a double-take. "Oops!" he said, "Wrong slide!" He fingered the controls and this time checked to see that he had the right picture. "Sorry about that. We'll get back to that gentleman in a moment. This is the real child molester."

The new photo showed a very different face. This was a young man, a surfer-dude type with white-blond hair, a band of freckles across his cheeks, a scruffy beard on a weak chin. He had a negligent, /
don't give a
shit
look in his eyes and wore a little self-satisfied, sharklike smile. Cree could readily imagine him befriending a child, then turning into a thrill-seeking persecutor.

Then, whoops, another apology and a third slide. This one was a classic dirty old man with a lecherous face, gaps in his teeth, narrowed eyes that told of a lifetime of evil thoughts and sick deeds. By now the class had clicked to the ruse, but to drive the point home Dr. Danforth showed four more slides, letting the class read evil into every man's features.

In fact, Dr. Danforth told them, none of the men were child molesters: The businessman type was a past president of Harvard, and the surfer dude was himself, twenty years ago.

His point was that appearance could never serve as a basis for either law-enforcement action or psychological assessment.
Anyone
could appear to have sinister, criminal, or psychopathological characteristics if seen with the proper mental prejudice; scrutinized with a bias, any life story or life style could suggest a criminal history or antisocial tendency.

After class, Cree and some of the other students joked about it: "Hey, but maybe they all
really were
child molesters, even Danforth!" They went out for drinks and experimented by studying the other patrons at the bar, easily finding indications that every person present was in fact a sadistic pedophile. They laughed their heads off, but Cree remained unsettled by what she'd found in herself.

Later, with more context under her belt, she'd learned that appearance
did
sometimes play a role in the psychology of violence; people with disturbing congenital abnormalities or facial disfigurements resulting from injury did sometimes become psychopaths or sociopaths. Perhaps as outcasts they felt entitled to revenge upon the society that rejected them; or maybe the absence of rewarding human contact impaired development of the sense of empathy that normally suppressed antisocial impulses. In some cases, the original cause of the deformity, whether congenital or injury related, was accompanied by neurological impairments that precipitated violent behaviors.

Still, it would be completely inappropriate to read anything into Ray Raymond's facial appearance or expressions. Besides, aside from his scars and the defensive stuff around that, he struck her as interesting, appealing—even, in his stranger status and perceptiveness, something of a kindred spirit.

Or maybe that was just her empathic thing again. Sometimes too much sight could make you blind.

Cree felt she'd simmered long enough to macerate. She got out of the tub with muscles so relaxed she half expected to sit up right out of her softened flesh.

"The other night," Bert said, "I don't know what I was thinking. Ben Black's daughter comes to town, I should take her someplace nice."

"This is pretty seriously nice, Uncle Bert."

The restaurant he'd chosen was an Italian place in North Beach, just off Washington Square. The waiters wore short-waisted tuxedos; the tables were covered in white linen and each place was set with three wineglasses of different sizes and shapes. Cree was glad she'd dressed up a bit: dark tights, heels, a conservative black skirt, a short embroidered jacket over a silk blouse. Bert looked almost distinguished in a navy blue, double-breasted suit, a red tie actually knotted at his throat, his gray hair combed. The maître d' seated them in a corner table at the end of a gorgeous mural of Venice. Pavarotti sang quietly from hidden speakers, and the deep red-brown woodwork gave off a burnished glow as if it had been polished with hundred-dollar bills.

"Only thing is, I can't smoke," he lamented. "Most places I go, I say, screw no-smoking regs, I'm a cop, after a while they know me and don't hassle me. But here, for all I know the person I'm offending at the next table is the mayor or the police commissioner, it isn't going to wash."

Cree chuckled. A waiter appeared with the wine list; Bert looked at it, selected a bottle.

"So you saw Horace last night," Bert prompted.

"Yes. No big revelations, but we got the bones washed. What a sweet man! He sure thinks highly of you, Bert. And I learned a lot."

"Guy definitely knows his field."

"He pointed out a lot of old injury sites. Bone callus. Some are clearly defensive, but Horace said that the wolfman could have received them while attacking someone."

"Yeah. Jeffrey Dahmer probably got 'defensive' injuries."

They nodded. In the silence that followed, Cree felt their conversation stall and start to lose cruising altitude. At least this time she had some idea of why it always did so.

"Listen, Uncle Bert. At some point, we're going to have to talk about personal things. Otherwise it's hanging over us and neither of us can figure out how to talk around it."

"Around what?"

"Your daughter, for example," she said gently. "Horace told me about her."

The waiter returned with the wine, pulled the cork and offered it. Bert waved it away, then impatiently signaled his approval as the waiter tipped a half inch into one of the tulip glasses. Getting the message, the waiter withdrew and let Bert pour.

"I told your father. He must have not talked about it with your mother, or they didn't tell you, can't blame them. It was no secret, trust me. After a few years it wouldn't go away, so I tried not ever talking about it. That's all."

"Did that work?"

His mouth kind of smeared on his face. He tasted his wine.

"What was her name?"

"Megan."

Cree gave him an encouraging smile. "Pretty! Not what I'd think a Guinea from Brooklyn would name his daughter, though. Was your wife Irish?"

"Chinese. Big extended family here in town. Good people. We just liked the name."

Cree sipped from her wine, too, the glass blearing Bert's face. "So, do you stay in touch with your ex?"

"No. Fran remarried, to a Chinese guy. I guess being married to me got her over Big-Nose Devils." He was trying to be funny, but his face looked like death itself as he picked at the tablecloth and then lifted his glass and tossed off his wine. "Could we talk about something else? This was a long time ago. We're supposed to be having a good time here."

"Of course." She gave it a beat and then miscalculated by prompting, "I just thought—"

"You want to know what it was like?" His eyes seared at her. "At first it was like I could
feel
her, I knew she was out there somewhere but I couldn't
find
her. And what really hurt was, I knew I'd let her down. When she was little and she'd cry in the night, we'd say, 'Don't worry, Daddy's here, Mommy's here, we'll never let anything bad happen to you.' And she'd stop crying, she'd believe us. But we lied, because it turns out we couldn't protect her. I
knew,
I
knew,
when whoever it was grabbed her, she was thinking,
No, this can't happen, my daddy said there's no such thing as
monsters. My daddy is a policeman, my daddy said he'd protect me.
But I couldn't. Couldn't find her. Couldn't do anything. I let her down. /
lied
about the monsters!"

Cree breathed slowly and shut her eyes. When she opened them again, Bert was leaning across the table, red face close to hers, cords in his neck making the loose flesh jump and shiver.

"There was a long time when I didn't think I could keep going. The department gave me personal leave, all I did was look for her. I drove my wife away. I badgered every cop in fifty miles, I
threatened
cops, my friends, said I'd kill them if they didn't help me. What kept me going was, I'd go home and I'd suck on my gun. Yeah, I'd put it in my mouth and remind myself there was that, it was a split second away if I needed it. And the only thing that kept me from doing it was that every time I got close I'd think maybe there was one detail I hadn't looked at hard enough, maybe I had a lead or a clue or a contact that would pay off, if I pulled the trigger I wouldn't be able to follow up on it."

Bert's throat was gulping air. Quietly, almost to himself, he finished, "In my whole life there was one perfect thing, one delicate thing ever put in my hands, and I lost it.
I let it get broken."

He was whispering, but he was far too intense, on the verge of causing a scene. The people at the next table were glancing over. Cree covered for him by taking his big fists in her hands and nodding understandingly, as if the intensity was about their relationship, something remotely normal, acceptable.

Suddenly the waiter was there. Bert reared back in his chair, wide eyed, taken by surprise. The waiter was a short, dark-haired, middle-aged guy, a perfect Italian penguin in his tux, and though his nostrils flared wide at Bert's reaction, he managed a tight smile.

"Have you decided on your antipasto," he asked expressionlessly, "or would you like a few more minutes?"

Which is why you don't talk about it,
Cree realized.
Because there's no end, no
bottom, no top. No stopping it once it gets going, but no place for it to go.
A condition she was personally all too familiar with.

They ordered prosciutto with cantaloupe for the antipasto, a
primo
of
conchiglie con il sugo per gramigna
and
a secondo
of steak
alia fiorentina
and for right away another bottle of wine, a Barolo the waiter recommended. Then they sat in silence for a few minutes, letting it subside.

After the second bottle had been opened and poured, she tasted the Barolo and rolled it around the globe, sneaking a look at Bert through the red-washed glass.

"When I was talking to Horace," she said, "I asked him if the handsome guy in that graduation picture was his son."

Bert's little smile ticked one cheek.

"Point is, I put my foot in my mouth a lot, Uncle Bert. All in the interest of being Miss Honesty USA, but it still adds up to the hoof in the yap, as Pop said. You'd think with a Ph.D. in psychology I'd have some finesse. But it's a genetic disorder. Probably inherited it from Mom."

He dismissed the apology with a wave.

"No, don't let me off the hook, because I'll probably keep doing it. Especially since I have just drunk a couple glasses of wine and my judgment is even worse than usual. But I'm sorry in advance."

She'd conjured the smile again, longer, a nice reward.

"So, since I've already apologized, can I ask you something?"

"Oh Christ."

"Were you and Mom—were you ever, you know . . . sweet on her?"

"Why would you—"

"I remember you dancing with her. You'd be in the kitchen, you'd put the radio on. Mom pretended she hated it, but I could tell she didn't. Seeing you two, I thought it looked very romantic."

The memory seemed to please Bert. "We were kids. I used to goof like that, thought I was a real Romeo. Your father deserves a lot of credit for putting up with me. Far as your mother goes, sure, I was sweet on anything in a skirt and she was a great gal, a lot of fun. I didn't mind taking her for a turn on the linoleum." He checked Cree's eyes to make sure she wasn't misinterpreting. "But that's it. All three of us were old-fashioned when it came to marriage."