Butterfield Institute - 01 - The Halo Effect (20 page)

“No, but it’s better than sitting and waiting. The police haven’t done a thing. It’s been over a week.”

“They don’t have any evidence that Cleo is—”

He interrupted me. “We shouldn’t talk about this. Not here. Not now.” He looked around. Besides his fear of our being overheard, I knew it wasn’t smart for me to be having this conversation. I was slipping back into being Cleo’s therapist, and I had to get out of that frame of mind if I was going to be meeting her clients and pretending to be a possible assignation.

“He just walked in,” Gil said as he got up to greet his client.

Cleo’s name for the first man I was going to meet was Judas. According to her book, he was fifty years old, married,
with two grown children. His wife was a judge who heard children’s rights cases.

A client for more than two years, Judas had seemed like the best place for me to start because he had a lot to lose if Cleo’s book was published, and because, sexually, he was one of her least-demanding clients.

I’d only had a few sips of my drink when Gil returned to the bar with a man who looked familiar. Of course. I knew who he was from photos that had been in the newspapers and magazines over the years. Judas wasn’t only married to a high-powered woman, he was one of the leading fund-raisers for the Democratic Party in New York and was often seen at gala events and balls for the state senators, the governor and the administration.

“Morgan, this is Nelson.”

Unlike the two men I’d met minutes ago, Nelson—or Judas, as I thought of him—didn’t give me an immediate once-over. He was too practiced and political for that. I was still a stranger to him, and he was too used to meeting people to let go of the routine of shaking hands, focusing on your eyes and offering back a sincere look of comradeship for the introduction to have any sexual overtones. He could have been meeting me at a fund-raiser, instead of in a men’s club where high-class prostitutes discreetly took men to a room in the adjoining hotel and engaged in the ancient art of the courtesan.

“Well, let’s sit you two down so you can get to know each other a little bit,” Gil said as he led us over to a table against the wall, exchanged a little more small talk and then left us.

Almost immediately a waiter appeared with a beer in a frosted glass for Judas and what was still my mostly full martini.

For fifteen minutes we talked about politics. Judas made no pretense about what he did for a living. That was part of their attraction to being with one of Cleo’s girls. The men
knew they could be themselves, however and whatever that meant, and trusted that not a word would ever get out. They paid for that privacy. Which was why Cleo’s deciding to write a book, no matter how well she ultimately disguised the men, would be such a betrayal.

Which was why she had been so very careful about whom she had told.

Was it even possible she would have confided in one of her clients? There might not be a single man among her regulars who knew that she had a brand-new laptop and had been typing out a tell-all tale of the sexual innocence and depravity of some of the richest men in New York, L.A. and the world. And if that was the case, this whole charade might be a waste of my time. But I had nothing more to lose than a few evenings. Dulcie was at her father’s for the week. I certainly wasn’t dating anyone. Working on Cleo’s disappearance this way was better than sitting at home alone, brooding about it and feeling helpless.

“Well, at least I know you’re a Democrat. That’s one hurdle we’ve jumped,” Judas said after I’d admitted to my political party affiliation.

“Is that part of your criteria?” I tried to tease with my voice. But I hadn’t flirted in a long time. And it was awkward for me to ask questions and lace them with attitude. As a therapist I did the exact opposite. I cleaned my questions up, erased the emotional tones and tried not to give away how I was feeling.

He smiled. I felt relieved. My question had been all right. Under the table I felt my legs shaking. This was never going to work if I was this nervous. But I had nothing to draw upon from my own life to help me with this. I had foolishly assumed that, because I wanted to figure out this mystery, I would be able to. What made me think I could just walk in here wearing a low-cut silk blouse, a skirt that was four inches shorter
than I normally wore and shoes that were like nothing else I’d ever owned, and just pretend to be someone I wasn’t?

“I could never have any kind of meaningful arrangement with a woman who votes for an ass.”

Laughter, from both of us.

Dulcie had been telling me about her acting classes over the phone that afternoon. She’d had an assignment to be a liquid. Any liquid she chose. And act the essence of it. She’d chosen honey. She’d told me that she’d thought about how slowly it spilled and how she’d walked across the stage making each step take forever, all the while just thinking over and over that she was honey. How, after the first step, just lifting her foot had been such an effort that she hadn’t been sure she was ever going to get to the other side of the room. Finally she’d just slid to the floor. She couldn’t walk. Then she inched her way across, moving her arms, then her torso, then her legs, all separately. And when she reached the other side and the teacher told her how good a job she’d done, Dulcie had said that it had taken her a minute to remember she wasn’t honey and just get up normally.

If my daughter could do that, then how hard could this be for me?

I imagined Cleo. Her mouth in a tortured O, her eyes wide with some kind of terror. I didn’t know where she was or what was happening to her, but I could conjecture. I knew the kinds of sadistic things a man could do to a woman if he wanted to.

I tried to hear her talking to me, telling me how to act this part. What would she say? What kind of advice would she offer? She’d tell me to take my time. To be the honey that Dulcie had been. That her clients would like honey: heavy, sweet, golden, viscous liquid.

I reached out and touched the hairs on the back of Judas’s hand. Lightly. The way Cleo might. Not the way I ever would.

“I hope you aren’t too disappointed,” I said softly. “I know you were expecting Cleo.”

“Well, I’m certainly surprised.” But had he seemed surprised when he met me? I didn’t think so. Perhaps he meant when Gil had first told him, before he’d brought him over to meet me. But even if Gil had just told him, only a few moments had passed.

On the other hand, if he was involved in Cleo’s disappearance, he wouldn’t be surprised.

“I’ve been seeing Cleo for two years. I didn’t know she was taking a vacation. Last time she did that she told me in advance. Why wouldn’t she have told me this time?”

I gave a shrug. “I don’t know.”

I try to teach my patients the power of not always answering a question. There is no rule of the universe that you must respond to what people ask. You have every right to hold your thoughts inside and not reveal them. In a time when revelation was fodder for the constant news-and-talk-show-type entertainment, questions were usually answered. But in real life you didn’t have to do that. And I didn’t. And Judas, as I had hoped he would, just kept talking.

“But I can’t stay mad at her for too long.”

“Have you ever been mad at her?” I put my hand on his.

To anyone watching, it would look like my fingers were courting his hand, but I had the pad of my forefinger on his pulse and I was feeling the steady flow of his blood through his veins. My own, not very accurate lie detector test. It would never, like its more scientific sibling, be admissible in a court of law, but I knew that it was a good way to judge. When people are telling the truth their heart rate tends to stay consistent, but when they lie, especially about something that might be making them nervous, the rate can speed up.

“I don’t know if it’s fair to talk about her,” he said.

His pulse seemed slightly faster.

“I don’t mind talking about Cleo,” I told him. “She’s very special. I don’t expect to take her place. Just fill in a little while she’s gone if that’s what you’d like.”

“Fill in.” He gave me a wicked grin. And then it disappeared. “It’s not just what we do together that matters to me. It’s that she doesn’t judge me.”

His pulse was definitely more rapid now.

“There isn’t anything to judge. What makes us happy, what gives us pleasure, isn’t about other people’s opinions. It’s not up for debate. We’re really fragile inside our skin, and the reasons that some things excite us and others don’t is a very mysterious science.”

He was nodding, but I was horrified. I had just slipped back into jargon. Luckily, he not only didn’t seem to mind, he actually became more attentive. But I had to be careful. I knew Cleo was smart and knew that her clients would expect someone who was equally intelligent. But I also knew there was a difference between pleasing someone and pandering to their desires, and being their therapist.

“You know, this is ridiculous, but I actually missed her last week. And it surprised me.”

I nodded.

“Do you think it’s strange? That I could get attached to someone I see once a week?”

I almost laughed and I might have if my heart wasn’t pounding in my chest, because he had just reached across the table and pushed my blouse off my shoulder.

“No. I think you must be a very sensitive man. Of course Cleo can mean something to you.”

I had no idea what to do. Gil had said that these meetings were “dates” in order to give both the client and Cleo’s girls the opportunity to see if they wanted to do business together. All the girls had twenty-four-hour veto power. Cleo relied on them to follow their instincts about the men they met. She
didn’t want anyone to go with a man she didn’t feel comfortable with. Certain girls didn’t mind going with strangers, but they were the ones who usually did the “outside” dates and trips.

I wouldn’t have to go to a room with any of these men; just meet them and get a sense of who they were and see if I could pick up on anything untoward, any hint that they were capable of harming Cleo. Then Gil would take it from there and go to the police with one name.

If, indeed, she was even missing. If she had not just decided to run away from her life and not tell anyone
. The idea kept repeating like the notes of a song you can’t get out of your head.

Cleo was a very confused young woman in love with a man who had issues with her profession, a man she couldn’t make love to, and at the same time she was writing a book that she knew was going to create havoc and possibly cause a lot of pain. She was also a woman with two boyfriends, neither of whom, it seemed, knew anything about the other.

Judas trailed his fingers across the inside of my wrist and up my arm. It was an unfamiliar sensation. I wasn’t used to the feeling of having a man touch me like this.

For the last few years of my marriage to Mitch and all the nights we held each other, there had been love and there had been comfort, but there had not been much more. And now a total stranger was making me feel something that I hadn’t remembered forgetting.

Skin is alive. It breathes. It is made up of nerve endings. It is sensate. His fingers were doing something to me that had nothing to do with our knowing each other or liking each other or even caring if we ever found out anything more about each other. My skin didn’t care that this was obscene, that I was playing a very dangerous game. My skin was enraptured by the ever-so-slight pressure of a man’s fingertips sailing
across its expanse. I shut my eyes, not pretending, not being coy, but rather finding myself in this unusual place, sitting across the table from a successful and nice-looking middleaged man who liked to touch women’s skin and knew how to do it with exactly the right pressure.

The rest of my body was jealous of that thin line of skin. It hadn’t been touched lately, either. It hadn’t touched. There was a war going on between my mind/body and sensation/intellect.

I moved away. “Not yet,” I said as coyly as I could but not really sure what coy sounded like.

“I know I’m being bad. But your skin is so luscious.”

“Should I know anything about your being bad? Is that something you do? You need to tell me. I have to make sure that I can be who you want.”

There were things I knew from the book that had made me nervous about Judas. He was conflicted. He cared about his wife and their children and his life. His professional stature was immensely important to him. But he was sexually impotent unless he felt that he was doing something wrong. It was the thrill of danger and deceit that turned him on. Not only was it something he didn’t know how to explain to his wife, the judge, but out of every possible scenario of what could turn him on, the need to be bad—to do illegal things—this was the worst.

“I like to be afraid.”

“Of what?” I whispered.

“Of being found out.”

I nodded. “What else?”

“To know I’m doing something that could blow the whole fucking lid off my life,” he said.

I wanted to ask him why. To get him to talk about that. I wanted to help him. But I was the honey, not Dr. Morgan Snow. I didn’t have those two letters before my name in here.
I didn’t even have a last name. I was just Morgan. Someone whose job was to figure out how to give pleasure.

This was far more confusing than I had imagined. But I couldn’t stop. I needed to understand what kind of danger he meant. How far that danger would go. Would it translate into taking a woman and hiding her away somewhere, or to hurting her, or to making her tell him if she really was writing a book and if he was in it?

It was strange to know things about Judas that he didn’t know I knew. To have read about him and studied his psychology as Cleo had laid it out.

“If it would be okay with you, can you tell me what you’d want me to do? So I can figure out if I’m right for you? If I’m not I can find someone who would be.”

He leaned forward. Even closer. “I’d like to tell you. But first you have to take this.” He pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket and peeled off five one-hundred-dollar bills.

The soft light from the small lamp on the table shone on his money clip, which was in the shape of a snake, curling around itself. The sinuous creature had a small tongue—black enamel—and two tiny ruby eyes. It was unusual, yes, and worth looking at on its own, but what stopped me was that I had read a description of this money clip in Cleo’s book.