Line of Fire (29 page)

49

D
iane raised her hand. At first, she raised the hand that held the weapon. Two seconds later she realized her error and switched hands, pulling the gun back down.

I had missed a chance to rush her while the gun was in the air.

The STI thing had to be a detour. Diane’s thinking was impaired, so I doubted the detour was intentional. Her true destination? Amanda’s baby
.
Not good.

“Nobody?” Diane said. “I am the only one here with STIs? How is that possible? We all know it takes two to tango.” Diane broke into a little tango. Given the heels, and the semiautomatic, it wasn’t bad. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Maybe it’s a nomenclature thing. How about ST
D
s? Anyone? Hands up!”

Raoul didn’t seem to understand the venereal allusions, which I found perplexing. Had he, too, been asymptomatic? Was that possible? I so wished Adrienne were alive. I could have used one of her patented irreverent urological consultations right then—one specifically about the epidemiology and symptomatology of sexually transmitted infections. Adrienne had been a great storyteller.

Raoul said, “What was I supposed to say to her, Diane? What? Come on.”

The expression Diane shot his way seemed as dangerous as the handgun she was jostling about. “Let’s review,” she said in a bright tone. “What you said in your touching fucking email was that there was a time when you couldn’t have imagined having a baby, but that now—
now!
—you were having a hard time imagining not having a baby. Words I always wanted to hear from you. But when I heard you say them, you were saying them to
her
”—the gun became a pointer, directed toward Amanda—“not to me.”

Diane’s affect since her exit from the pantry had displayed the kind of wide range—falsetto to soprano to bass—that would make any singer envious. For Diane, that kind of range in her affect indicated to me that she was dangerously labile.

Lability and loaded handguns go together like seitan and fine steakhouses.

Amanda was crying. One of her hands was at her face, pushing away each fresh tear the moment it escaped her eyes. Her other hand rested unself-consciously on her lower abdomen.

I hadn’t really expected to be forced to test my theorem that Diane wouldn’t shoot me twice in one twenty-four-hour period. But that was what I felt compelled to do.

Wondering not only how many rounds Diane’s little Kahr carried in its magazine but also whether she had reloaded since she was in my office, I slid my phone into the pocket of the scrubs, pulled myself to my feet, and limped from the ice-cube chair to a spot on the floor directly between Diane and Amanda.

The ER doc, it turned out, had been prescient: my leg hurt like the dickens.

• • •

In between my wonder at the highs and lows of the drama I’d been witnessing since I found Raoul in the flat, I had been busy tracking the progress of the conversation, noting the presence of keywords that I wanted to be certain Sam Purdy had a chance to hear at his end of the open mobile phone line. Open, that is, if the number I had dialed blind had indeed been his. And if Sam had not concluded that the call he received was nothing more than a butt dial.

All in all, a lot of variables for one telephone call. If all those things had gone my way, Sam would have already had the opportunity to hear the word
gun
and the name Diane. Those two keywords should have served to mobilize him. He would also have learned that Raoul and Amanda were present in the room with me. I’d also managed to personally toss in the phrase
weird condo
and the word
buy
. I’d been grateful to Diane when she added that we were all only a half block away from Pearl Street.

Would it turn out that all those scavenger’s clues, along with any cell tower triangulation magic that could be done on the open call, could combine to provide data sufficient to guide Sam’s detective colleagues to the downtown flat?

I had no way to know. I hoped that Sengupta and his crew were finally on their way and that they would arrive any second. The timing was crucial; Diane’s pistol was presently pointed toward a much more vulnerable part of me than my calf.

“Move, Alan. Please,” Diane implored me. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

“Diane, I don’t think I will move. I don’t want you to shoot me, either. You know that shooting anyone isn’t a solution.”

She looked at me with affection. “You think you understand the problem, don’t you? That’s sweet. But you can be so naive.” For a moment her eyes brightened. “Do you like my dress?”

I took a moment to settle on a way to respond. “I do,” I said. “I don’t know anyone else who could pull off that look.”

“Mary-Louise Parker could.”

To that, I did not know how to reply.

“You know what?” she said. “The outfit doesn’t work without the shoes. They tie it all together. I don’t want to have to take off the shoes. So please, just move. Get out of my way.”

The roar of an explosion almost knocked me from my feet.

I thought,
Fuck, again?
as
tiny pieces of porcelain tile began to fall down from above my head. The shards rained fast. And they were sharp—the shower felt more like shrapnel than snowflakes.

I reacted to the ensuing chaos by rushing at Diane like a linebacker, albeit a hobbled linebacker, maybe one with a torn ACL. My shoulder impacted across her upper thighs. I knocked her, literally, out of her Jimmy Choos.

I had felt the floor absorb the force of the back of her skull as it thudded onto the hardwood.

The Kahr scooted from her hand, back toward the open pantry. I hooked it with my foot, kicked it toward my hand, and grabbed it.

Raoul said, “Who the hell are you?” I thought that’s what he said. My ears were ringing. I assumed everyone’s ears were ringing.

I scrambled past Diane, who was on her back, dazed. She was reaching to grab her head but seemed unable to find it. I peeked out the kitchen door down the hallway that led toward the other side of the flat. I wanted to see whose presence Raoul was questioning.

I was, again, expecting Sengupta. Again I was wrong.

To Raoul I said, “That is Kevin. He’s Diane’s friend, the real estate agent who showed her this place.”

Kevin’s wrists had been rubbed raw. The exposed skin on his forearms was as red as fresh-cut beets. The area around his mouth was swollen and pocked with petechiae. The flesh was a shade of pink that didn’t look natural on a man. The entire landscape below his nose looked like a cross between Homer Simpson and the butt of a baboon.

I concluded that Kevin had been bound and gagged. I had my money on Diane as the binder and gagger. I suspected she’d chosen to bind him with tape that had a powerful adhesive, an adhesive to which Kevin had the misfortune of being allergic.

Raoul asked me, “What is he doing here?”

Excellent question.
I knew the answer. I wished I didn’t. But I did.

Were Kevin a forthright man,
I thought,
and were his wrists not bound, he would have raised his hand during Diane’s STI quiz.

I said, “Raoul, toss me a pillow, call nine-one-one, get an ambulance here for Diane. I think she might have banged her head. Hard.”

While the standoff continued—my quick count of the shotgun’s barrels indicated that Kevin had at least one shell on standby—I kneeled over to tend to Diane. I feared she was concussed, or worse. I was terrified I might have hurt her. I pulled out my phone to call Cozy Maitlin. “Cozy, it’s Alan. Wake up. Your new client will be in Community’s ER in five minutes.” I hit
END
.

Diane tried to sit up to locate her Jimmy Choos. I wouldn’t let her. I put the pillow under her head. I phoned Sam. He hadn’t been asleep; he answered after half a ring. I said, “Find Sengupta. Diane is being transported by ambulance to Community. She’ll be there in . . . fifteen minutes.”

Sam said, “Sengupta?” as though he’d been raised in Mumbai.

I convinced Raoul to tend to Diane while I suggested to Kevin that he might not want to be holding the weapon when the authorities arrived.

“I just escaped. I was held hostage,” Kevin said. I presumed he was making an argument for why he should remain armed for the duration.

I wasn’t swayed. I said, “Yeah, well, believe it or not, that’s not the worst thing that’s happened today.” I really didn’t want to explain the whole progression to him. “You’re safe, Kevin. In your shoes”—literally, I was thinking Gucci, and figuratively, I was thinking the progenitor of the damn STIs—“I would go put the gun back where you found it. The police are on the way.”

I knew I could get distracted trying to imagine the circumstances under which Diane and Kevin had hooked up. I forced myself to postpone that query until another time.

Kevin stayed put. He kept hold of the weapon. Whatever. I led Amanda to the tangerine sofa. I asked how she was doing.

“She’s pregnant, too, isn’t she?” Amanda said. She meant Diane.

“I think that is possible, yes,” I said. I couldn’t tell if Amanda had gotten around to considering Kevin among the potential sperm donors responsible for Diane’s possible fetus.

“She didn’t know me. What I looked like. My name. I was just . . . a girl, to her. The latest girl.”

“Diane?” I said.

Amanda nodded. It took me a moment to realize that she was rationalizing her decision to select me as her therapist. The crazy night had already convinced me that Diane hadn’t referred Amanda to me, that Amanda had chosen me on her own.

The fact that Amanda was drawn to the risk involved in seeing a therapist who was so close to the wife of a man who was her employer, or lover, didn’t surprise me. I was well acquainted with Amanda’s boundary issues.

“He made a promise,” Amanda said.

She said it as though that explained everything. “The baby?” I asked.

She nodded before she shook her head. I was left wondering about the identity of the “he.” And about the unless.
There is always an unless.

“Your car is close?” I said.

She said it was.

I reminded her the police were on the way.

“See you next week,” she whispered as she turned toward the stairs.

I thought,
Transference.

50

T
he ambulance arrived first. I explained to the EMTs that I thought their patient could be pregnant and might have been injured in a fall. In a whisper, I added to the more assertive of the two medics that they should be prepared for her to show signs of emotional instability. He asked what I meant.

I suggested that he might want to keep sharps out of reach and restraints handy. The nonchemical kind.

With the arrival of professionals, Kevin chose to lean the shotgun against the wall in the nearest corner. He then announced that he wished to share the ambulance with Diane. In a low voice, I suggested to the paramedics that might not be the best idea of the night. The EMTs concurred with my assessment that Kevin’s injuries—although hideous—were hardly ambulance-worthy. I assured them I would put him in a taxi.

I stayed beside Diane until the paramedics pushed her gurney to the elevator. There was not a solitary inch to spare inside the narrow car. Diane raised her head and asked me for her Jimmy Choos. I found them. She cradled them in her arms.

I leaned in close to her. I said, “You and Kevin? Really?”

She winced. “Oh man. Us? A week, maybe. Or twice. You know what, I kind of blocked it out. Like it was Mary-Louise who did it? She is sluttier than me. Same thing, though. Yeah? Genes? Bad day. Bad day.”

She pulled me close to her. She said, “How did I miss her this morning? How? How did I miss her and shoot you? You weren’t in your chair. Or were you? Was it the little Kahr’s fault?” She looked confused. “Were you?” Her eyes grew huge. “How did I miss her, Alan?” She moved her lips to within an inch of my ear. “She’s really here, right? I’m not crazy, am I?”

The EMT squeezed in, forcing me to exit the elevator before the door closed.

Did Diane not know she had shot Lauren?

Wow.

The Kahr? I could feel its dense presence at the small of my back.

I was packing heat.

• • •

I didn’t consider it wise for Kevin and Raoul to share a ride to Community. I called the number on the card in my pocket. My favorite Boulder cabbist arrived in minutes to shuttle Kevin to the ER. The sweet driver leaned out the window and asked me what the hell happened to his face. I told her I didn’t know, but that it wasn’t me. She blew me a kiss when I gave her a twenty for the five-buck fare. I really hoped she was somebody’s doll.

When Kevin finally got around to explaining his injuries at the ER, Sengupta’s night—certainly no picnic thus far—was going to grow much more complicated.

• • •

When I’d originally left Lauren’s bedside, I had expected to be absent for thirty minutes. An hour, max. I was desperate to resume my vigil. I felt I was due some good news. A smile on a nurse’s face. A squeeze from my wife’s fingers. Something.

Raoul drove me to the hospital in his old Mercedes coupe. He cut down Thirteenth off Spruce instead of taking Broadway. In other circumstances, I would have asked why. I didn’t. I said, “Diane doesn’t know she shot Lauren, Raoul.”

“I was wondering about that,” he said.

I said, “She’s not well.” I intended for my assessment to serve as a poignant preface to a necessary conversation between us. Diane’s mental collapse. Her possible pregnancy. It did not. It was the totality of our discussion.

My phone vibrated. A text. The ICU nurse wanted me to return “stat.”
Shit.

Raoul left his car at the edge of the ER bay as though he expected it to be whisked away by a valet. Despite my anxiety, or perhaps because of it, I allowed him to enter the building before me. Below his cotton sweater, at the small of his back, I spotted a telltale bulge.

Raoul was carrying a handgun.

The gun caused me to recognize a truth I had been avoiding.

God. Raoul
isn’t
George.

Raoul is the Buffer.
The Buffer was the one of Amanda’s gentlemen with the gun in his briefcase.

Instinctively, I rejected the conclusion.
That can’t be right. The Buffer is broke. He lost all of his money.

Raoul and I parted as we crossed through the waiting area of the ER. My mind insisted on replaying the Buffer’s story of loss.

Shit. Has Raoul,
I wondered,
lost his fortune?

Raoul’s unaccented voice intruded into my reverie. He had stopped walking. He said, “Alan? I didn’t understand what Diane was saying earlier about diseases. Venereal and the like. Did you?”

I was too distracted to sugarcoat things for him. I said, “You may want to get tested.”

The reality hit me like a slap.
Diane and Raoul are broke. Raoul lost all their money.

And Diane knows. She may be pregnant with the wrong man’s baby. Her dreams, and security, are in flames.

For her? Which recent insult was the final straw?

I thought I heard Raoul mumble, “What?” But before I could reply, he said, “Alain? There is something that I, I think I should . . . confess.” Then he shook his head. He forced his lips together. “No,” he said under his breath. “Ah, no.”

He can’t tell me the truth,
I thought. I remained unable to digest the preposterous idea that Raoul’s empire had collapsed. I had been so sure that he was golden. Perennially golden; that he was George. Absent his admission, I needed confirmation.

As Raoul turned to continue to the ER, I called out, “Enzo!”

Raoul didn’t break stride.

Raoul isn’t George.

As I limped toward the elevators, I passed Sengupta jogging from the main lobby on his way to the Emergency Department. He looked as exhausted as I felt.

I wondered if he was always a little bit late.