Hope to Die (34 page)

"I'd left the house by then."

"And you're here, and you made the trip for nothing, and I'm really sorry."

"Forget it. I was as much to blame as you, and it got me out of the house, and that's not the worst thing that ever happened to me."

"Oh?"

"I had a bad dream last night," I said, "about one of my sons. It was groundless, and everything's fine, but sometimes you can't really shake off that sort of thing without a change of scene."

"I know what you mean."

"Yes, I'm sure you do."

"Well," she said, a little awkwardly. "Well, you were wonderful to come rushing over, but fortunately I'm fine, and, uh, actually I was going through some papers upstairs. And I know you've got things to do, and, well..."

"You're right," I said. "I'd better be going. It's just that I'm a little leery of leaving you here."

"Even if I promise not to answer the phone? Unless it's you, in which case I promise to answer right away? Remember, I've got a couple of guardian angels posted outside."

"Oh?"

"My police protection," she said. "I still haven't been able to spot them, but it's good to know they're there."

Should I let her go on believing that? And what if she waltzed out the front door, confident her guards were there to protect her?

I said, "I spoke to Wentworth. He hasn't been able to get authorization."

"But I thought it was just a formality."

"I guess some precincts are more formal than others," I said, "and some precinct commanders, or whatever deadhead's in charge up there. May I use your phone?"

"Of course," she said, and grinned suddenly. "I can't, but you can."

I have four numbers for Ballou, and at that hour I wasn't at all confident he'd be at any of them. But he picked up the phone at the third one I tried. I told him what I wanted in about five sentences, and all he wanted to know was the address.

"A friend of mine," I told her. "He'll stay here in the house with you, and God help anybody who tries to get through the door." And I told her a little about my friend Mick Ballou, and watched her eyes widen.

We were sitting in the kitchen, waiting for him to ring the doorbell, when she said, "Oh, I almost forgot. At least I managed to do something right when I talked to Peter."

"If you cooled his ardor for keeps, I'd say you did a lot of things right."

"Besides that. I found out his name." My confusion must have shown in my face, because she said, "No, not Peter's name. Remember you wanted to know the man we saw for couple counseling?"

"You said Peter called him Doc."

"They all called him Doc. I asked Peter what Doc's name was, and he couldn't believe I didn't remember. Doc played a much bigger role in Peter's life than in mine. Anyway, it turns out his name is Adam, and I swear I never knew that. I just remember him being introduced as Doc."

"Adam."

"And what did you say Dr. Nadler's first name was? Sheldon?"

" Seymour."

"Well, I was close. But not Adam, anyway."

"No," I said. "You said they all called him Doc. All his patients?"

She shook her head. "Peter and his friends. Maybe his other patients, too, but I don't know about them, just Peter and the four artists we were going to be sharing a house with in Williamsburg."

"They all knew Adam?"

"They were all patients of his. I think they all met each other in group therapy, or something like that."

"Really."

"When Peter was talking about destiny," she said, "and everything else he was saying, you could tell he was just parroting something he got from Adam. That was another reason I was sort of relieved when we broke up. Adam was good for Peter, I guess he was good for all of them, but I could picture the five of them all turning into little Adam Breit clones."

"Adam Breit."

"Yes."

"Describe him, would you?"

"Oh, gosh," she said. "I only met him at the counseling sessions, and Peter and I spent most of our time looking at each other. Or not looking at each other. Let's see. He's about your height, and maybe a little slimmer, and, well, sort of ordinary-looking. This isn't helping much, is it?"

"I need to use the phone again," I said, and went and picked it up. I found the number I wanted in my notebook, and dialed it, and caught her in. I said, "It's Matthew Scudder again, Mrs. Watling. About the name of that therapist."

"I'm afraid it hasn't come to me," she said. "I'm so ashamed of myself."

"A cheerful, optimistic name, you said."

"Yes, but I can't- "

I wasn't in court, no one was going to accuse me of leading the witness. I said, "Could it have been Adam Breit?"

"Yes!"

"You're sure? I don't want to- "

"Yes, that's it! I couldn't swear to the Adam part, but the Breit part is absolutely right. Bright and sunny, bright and cheerful, bright as day, bright as a new copper penny. I don't know why that name wouldn't come to me. It seems so obvious now."

I thanked her and told her I'd let her know how things worked out. Then I took a chair and we waited for Mick Ballou.

Smile in place, he emerges from the little room, saying, "Bye-bye, see you soon," as he draws the door shut. He nods and smiles his way past the expressionless Korean minding the desk, and keeps the smile on his face until he is down the stairs and out of the building. He walks quickly to the corner, turns, and maintains a brisk pace, but not so brisk as to draw attention.

No great need to hurry. No one will open her door, not right away. They'll wait for her to come out on her own. And, when they do lose patience and knock, and open the door when the knock goes unanswered, all they'll see is an empty room. She must have come out unnoticed, they'll think, and gone to the bathroom.

Eventually, of course, someone will open the metal wardrobe, where he stuffed her body, along with her slippers and her red-orange dress.

No one notices him, and in return he notices no one; waiting for the light at Columbus Avenue, he's so involved in his own thoughts that it changes twice before he remembers to cross the street.

He's had a revelation, and he has to get it written down. It may have some scientific merit, but that's almost beside the point.

At his building, he smiles at the doorman, smiles at a tenant stepping off the elevator. A nod here, a smile there.

As the elevator wafts him upward, his fingers find their way to the cool pink stone he wears around his neck.

He sits at his desk, looks at the screen of his computer, where the endless evolution of the New York nightscape continues. But he doesn't have time to watch it now. He presses a key, and the screensaver vanishes.

He doesn't log on, but opens his word-processing program and selects New from the menu. A blank page fills the screen. He stares at it for a moment, remembering the feel of the girl's hands on him, remembering the feel of his hands on her.

His fingers move, and words begin to fill the screen:

In respect to that type of serial murderer whose actions are motivated by a desire for the thrill of the act itself, the presumption has long existed that a distortion of the sexual impulse is present, and probably causative. The person in question cannot perform normally, and the thrill he finds in the act is the thrill of sexual fulfillment.

My research would indicate that this is not necessarily the case.

Let us consider a young man whom we will call A. Just recently, A confided to me that...

He stops, frowns at the screen. Later, if he decides to publish, he can tart it up like that. For now a more straightforward approach will serve better to get the words and thoughts down. He deletes the paragraph that begins Let us consider and resumes:

Earlier today, I felt a need for sexual release and went to a professional establishment where what I sought was offered for sale in a carefree and presumably hygienic environment. In the guise of a masseuse, a girl-woman of Asian extraction gave me a commendably skillful hand job. I was rock-hard as soon as she touched me, and the orgasm I attained was powerful. My performance (if such a word is appropriate, considering that all I did was lie on the table with my eyes shut, not even bothering to look at the body I'd tipped her extra to unclothe, not troubling to reach out a hand to touch her ivory skin)- my performance, indeed, left nothing to be desired. I had arrived in that room with a fierce desire- a need- for sexual release, and I had achieved that release.

And it was satisfying. The sopping-wet Kleenex she so casually flipped into the bucket was mute testimony to my satisfaction.

Yet I was not satisfied. The orgasm might as well have happened to someone else. I might be sexually sated, but something else within me was entirely untouched.

I didn't even know what I was going to do until I did it. I had almost finished dressing when the impulse came, and I knew instantly that this was what I craved, what I required, what had brought me to this dingy little room in the first place. And so I put my hands around her neck and squeezed.

She never made a sound. I cut off her air before she realized what was happening, lifted her off the ground. Her little feet kicked in the air, and one of her slippers went flying. Her eyes stared into mine, and, even as I watched her die, I felt something- kundalini? the life force?- enter through my hands and race up my arms, filling my entire being.

I did not, while this was happening, experience any sort of feeling I can characterize as sexual, nor did my body respond sexually. I did not get an erection, did not feel a stirring in my loins.

On the other hand, I was left with a feeling of satisfaction, of fulfillment, infinitely greater and more abiding than my orgasm had provided. This, clearly, was what I had been seeking, although I had not known it consciously until I reached out and took the little darling by the throat. I was not depleted, as one sometimes is by sexual release, but rather reinvigorated, able to think clearly and act decisively. To wit: I not only tidied up, stuffing her body where it would not be quickly noticed, along with her dress and the slippers she'd kicked off in her struggles, I also had the presence of mind to use her dress to wipe away fingerprints, and to retrieve from her change purse the $100 I'd tipped her. (Indeed, there were three twenties and a ten along with my $100, and I took them as well. I'd paid $40 at the door, so I made a $30 profit on my visit, which, given the time involved, compares not unfavorably with my professional rates!)

He smiles at that last line. When it's time to publish his findings, and he knows he'll want to do so, considerable editing will be required. It will be some anonymous patient who's confiding all of this to him. And yet, isn't there some value in presenting the material directly and authentically? As it stands, his report provides first-person testimony by one who is himself a professional in the field. Aren't his perceptions all the more valuable because of his professional perspective? And won't they be undercut for being disguised as those of some unnamed analysand?

He needs to give this some thought. Perhaps there's a way to post it as written on some appropriate Internet site. Of course he can't e-mail it from this machine, or through an existing account. But what's to prevent him from dropping in at an Internet cafe, say, and logging on to AOL with a stolen password (not too hard to come by, certainly) and posting it that way? They can trace it, they have the technology to trace anything these days, but there'll be nothing to point them in his direction.

Meanwhile, he'll want to work on this, shape it, refine it. Maybe add a little more detail to the report, make the whole process of her dying a little more vivid. First, though, a word or two of summary:

There is a line to be drawn, it would seem, between Eros and Thanatos. The two can walk side by side, yoked in harness, plowing a double furrow. There is surely some overlap. Part of the pleasure of killing is sexual, just as part of the pleasure of the sex act lies in imposing one's will upon another. But when all is said and done...

His watch beeps.

And that's a good place to leave it, right in the middle of a sentence, so he'll be able to recapture the thought train when he returns to the work. Now, though, he has other duties calling him. He's canceled his afternoon appointment, but that doesn't mean he lacks for things to do.

He moves the cursor, clicks the mouse. Night falls in the form of his screensaver. Lights come on and lights go out.

He gets to his feet. Does he have time for a shower, a change of clothes? Surely he does. And, on his way out, might it not be a good idea to leave his suit at the dry cleaner?

He wears a camel's-hair blazer with leather buttons, dark brown flat-front trousers, a white shirt, a tie with half-inch stripes of tan and royal blue. On the way to her house, he stops at a florist, wonders what's appropriate. Surely not roses, but what?

He leaves empty-handed, deciding that the occasion does not call for flowers at all. But one wants to bring something. Candy? Does anyone come calling with a box of chocolates?

Inspired, he walks on down to Seventy-second Street, where there's a wonderful place for pastry. I passed this shop, he hears himself saying, and I couldn't help myself. He selects an eclair, a napoleon, and a couple of tartlets that look appealing. Does she even care for pastry, his future bride, chatelaine of his castle?

There is so much still to be learned about her...

The little white box tied up with string and tucked under his arm, he walks the two blocks to Seventy-fourth Street. He is within two houses of hers, striding merrily along, when her front door opens and a man emerges, turning for a last word, then turning again and pulling the door shut.

And it's that man again, the man whose card he took from Lia Parkman's room. Scudder, Matthew Scudder! It's him, coming down the steps, and what's he supposed to do now? Stop short and invite attention? Maintain his pace and walk right into the man?