Mortal Fear (17 page)

 “What had she written?”

 “All kinds of things. She had codes. Simple ones. There were Xs on the days when she had her periods, that was easy. Then there were some initials, which I figured out were guys she knew—guys her age. Then there was “M.L.” on some days, which stood for “made love.” I knew that because I’d been with her on those days.”

 “All of them?”

 “Not all.”

 “How did you feel reading that diary?”

 “Like a spy.”

 “You put it back where you found it?”

 “No. I took it.”

 “Stole it?”

 “Mm-hm. There were a few of them. I just took the one.”

 “Do you still have it?”

 “No.”

 “When did you get rid of it?”

 “Just after I got married. With a bunch of old letters and stuff. I didn’t want Drewe finding that kind of thing. Stuff from old girlfriends, you know? Some of it was pretty explicit. And she knew some of the girls.”

 “Why did you keep those letters so long?”

 “All is vanity, right?”

 Lenz scribbles something on his notepad. “How many women have you slept with in your life?”

 I pause. “Fifteen.”

 “Approximately fifteen? Or fifteen exactly?”

 “Exactly.”

 “You could write down all their names? Here and now, I mean?”

 “Yeah, but I won’t.”

 “But you’ve written down their names before.”

 “Yes.”

 “Ever rated their performances? Their looks, what they did, things like that?”

 “Any guy who says he hasn’t is probably lying.”

 Lenz chuckles, a quick deep rumble. “Odd, isn’t it? This compulsion to prove what we have done? Were you in love with these women?”

 “I thought I was, with some of them. Some not. I guess I just wanted to know they wanted me enough to do that.”

 “One-night stands?”

 “Not my thing.”

 Lenz scribbles some more on his pad.

 “What experience would you say constitutes the best sex you’ve ever had?”

 “The best sex? Well . . . I guess the best sex—I mean the most uninhibited, unrestrained sex—I had with women who were a little crazy.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “I mean very intense women. Very jealous, or if not jealous, then kind of haunted . . . driven. Doomed, maybe.”

 “Doomed to what?”

 “I don’t know. Unhappiness. Unfulfillment.”

 “Can you elaborate?”

 “I’m talking about purely physical sex, now. Not necessarily . . . loving sex. I don’t know if I can explain. I think once you start down the road toward pure pleasure, some things get left behind. I know the PC line, how the best sex can only happen in the context of love, all that. But from an existential point of view, I’d disagree. The most intense sex takes place where there is no psychological limit. No moral limit. The word “no” has never been uttered, so possibility is infinite. And that covers a lot of territory, you know?”

 “Please go on.”

 “I’m talking about exploration, discovery, crossing thresholds. And once you cross some thresholds, I’m not sure you can get back. Sex engages the whole psyche, doesn’t it? Self-respect is involved, and your respect for the other person. Love, lust, obsession . . . it all blurs. Some women do things they might never ordinarily do because they want to be unique in your experience. They want to prove they love you more than anyone else ever did or could, and they do that by venturing onto erotically scary territory. And you pretend they’re unique, because to tell them the truth would probably deny you the physical pleasure of the act, and also devalue their gift to you in their eyes. Yet . . . these acts, these roads you travel down, aren’t a place you want to be all your life. A sexual relationship has an organic curve. The more intense the experience, the shorter the curve.”

 “You’re saying you don’t have or want these types of experiences with your wife?”

 “I guess I am. Maybe a taste of it now and then. But you can’t push sexual limits for thirty or forty years with one person. Eventually you run into a wall. I think you have to come to an accommodation. A nice warm place where there is heat and light, though maybe a little less fire. It sounds provincial as hell, I know, but there’s a lot more to marriage than sex.”

 Lenz taps the end of his pen against his lower lip, which is gray and bloodless. At length, he says, “What are you hiding from your wife?”

 My cheeks burning, I try to hide my embarrassment in anger. “What the hell are you talking about?”

 He looks at me like a state trooper watching a drunk driver claim he’s sober. After tapping the pen some more, he says, “You just described a problem of intimacy with your wife.”

 “Bullshit.”

 Another tired sigh. “The intense sexual experiences you described are essentially adolescent in character. The aggrandizement of the self and the depersonalization of the woman in pursuit of physical ecstasy. I’ve seen a photograph of your wife. She’s—”

 “Where did you get a picture of my wife?”

 “A beautiful woman,” he continues. “And obviously intelligent. You’ve been married only three years and have no children, yet you recall premarital sexual adventures with more than mere wistfulness. Furthermore, you spend a great deal of time pursuing relationships with other women through your computer, acting out virtual sexual fantasies with famous actresses who have no idea you know who they are—”

 “Did Miles tell you that?” I heave myself up into a sitting position.

 “Mr. Cole, I suggest that there is something preventing you from fully accepting the love of your wife, and thus from entering into a fully mature and satisfying sexual relationship with her. I doubt whether anything you could tell me would do more to exonerate you of these crimes, in my eyes, than what that is.”

 “Look, Doctor, I’ve done just about anything sexual I ever wanted to in real life. Do I miss sex for its own sake? Sure. Married sex is different. It gets weighted down by everyday life. I don’t care how imaginative you are. Everybody thinks he’s an expert on sex, from the frigid old schoolteacher to the great Arthur Lenz, but everybody has the same problem. Men want more sex and women want more love. We’re hardwired differently. Do Drewe and I have a perfect relationship? No. Do we have a good one? Yes. Next question.”

 Lenz seems about to argue further, then thinks better of it. “Have you ever struck a woman?” he asks.

 “Once,” I reply, forcing myself to lie back down.

 “What prompted it?”

 “She tried to kill me.”

 “Why?”

 “Jealousy.”

 “How did she try to kill you?”

 “Once with a car. Another time with a rifle. I don’t think she really knew who she wanted to kill, me or her.”

 “Where is this woman now?”

 “Married with kids.”

 “Do you consider yourself a handsome man?”

 “Handsome? In a regular kind of way, I guess. I don’t think it was necessarily my looks that attracted women to me, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

 “What was it?”

 “I knew how to talk to them.”

 A sudden heightening of awareness. “What do you mean? You were smooth? You had a good line, as they say?”

 “God, no. I understood them, is all. I could talk to them like their female friends did, but probably more honestly than their friends
would
. You know what I mean?”

 “Tell me.”

 “Most guys are into things I have no interest in. Sports, hunting, like that. I mean I played sports, but I could care less about watching them, you know? Vicarious thrills aren’t for me.”

 “You like to participate.”

 “Right.”

 “Have you ever participated in a murder?”

 “Is that your idea of a trick question?”

 “Will you answer it, please?”

 “Hell no, I’ve never committed murder.”

 “Ever thought about it?”

 “Sure. I’ve known a couple of dyed-in-the wool sons of bitches who deserved it. They never get it, though. It’s the good people that get it. Right, Doctor?”

 “Define ‘good people.’ ”

 “I mean regular folks. People who try to obey the rules. Little kids minding their own business and trying just to grow up. I think anybody that purposefully hurts a person like that has forfeited his right to much consideration. People say the world’s gone gray, but that’s bullshit. There’s still a line. And anybody who crosses that line deserves whatever they get.”

 “How do you feel about capital punishment?”

 “In first-degree murder cases? The murder of a child, like that?”

 “Yes.”

 “Fry the fuckers. Instant karma.”

 Lenz writes on his notepad again.

 “You think I sound like some reactionary Southern redneck, right? Let me tell you, Doctor, where I live I’m considered a
liberal
. If this nut kills a woman down my way, he’d better get clear in a hurry. There’s still a lot of Old Testament justice down South. And I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing.”

 “He killed a woman in New Orleans with impunity.”

 It’s my turn to chuckle. “New Orleans isn’t the South I’m talking about.”

 “I get the feeling you believe the killer is not from the South.”

 “You’re right.”

 “Why?”

 “For one thing, he doesn’t write like a Southerner.”

 “He is remarkably literate.”

 “Fuck you, Doctor. Ever read Faulkner? Thomas Harris?”

 “I meant for a serial murderer, Mr. Cole. No need to get defensive.”

 A soft knock sounds at the door. I look over quickly, half expecting Miles. When the door opens, a slender woman with cinnamon skin enters soundlessly and places a silver tea service on Lenz’s desk. The sweating pink Tab can looks incongruous on the gleaming tray. Without meeting my eyes she offers me a glass of ice, but I take only the can, pop the top, and drink half the contents in a few long swallows. Her black eyes rise to mine with disapproval. I try for a moment to guess her race but find myself at a loss. Living in Mississippi doesn’t give you much practice for this. There it’s either black or white, with a smattering of Vietnamese, Chinese, Lebanese, and Hispanic.

 Lenz watches the dark woman pour his tea without comment. After she exits, he says, “Why don’t we leave sex and violence for a moment?”

 “Fine.”

 “Do you earn a lot of money?”

 “Making money’s not a crime yet, is it?”

 “Were your parents wealthy?”

 I lie back on the couch and focus on the stained ceiling tiles. “My mother grew up on a farm that didn’t have electricity until she was fourteen years old. She picked cotton with her own hands all the way through college. In case you don’t know, wealthy people don’t pick cotton.”

 “Is money important to you?”

 “Is that a serious question?”

 “Your friend Mr. Turner seems to think you place an inordinate value on it.”

 “He talked to you about me?”

 “A bit.”

 I lean up on one elbow. “Tell me one thing he told you.”

 “He told me you keep a cache of gold buried beneath your land.”

 “That lying son of a bitch.”

 “It’s not true?”

 “About the gold? Yeah, it’s true. My grandfather Grant put in a nuclear bomb shelter at the farm during the fifties. Some company was traveling through Mississippi selling plans. Big concrete bastard sunk into the ground. I keep some gold there.”

 “Why?”

 I lie back down and think for several moments. “I was raised by people who grew up during the Depression. I think the memory of that time stayed so real to my parents that it somehow entered me. Not the physical deprivation, but the knowledge that it could
actually happen
. That the whole social and financial structure of this country could implode and leave nothing but hungry and confused people.”

 “You feel anxiety about something similar happening again?”

 “I work in financial markets, Doctor. Most of the guys I know in Chicago have no real conception of the Depression. They know the
word,
but the only mental reference point they have is 1987, and that was over in a couple of days. They leverage positions to the moon, trade derivatives they don’t understand, tear apart companies in a day that took decades to build, and don’t see any farther than next week’s paycheck. You’re asking me if I think it could happen again? You should be asking
when
.”

 “This hoarded gold is insurance against some sort of final collapse?”

 “Laugh if you want. Ask the Russians how important gold is right this minute.”

 “Well, given these apocalyptic feelings, you seem like the last man in the world who’d be playing a game as risky as futures trading.”

 “I don’t mind risk. Because I’m not playing a game.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “No one who trades commodities has any intention of taking delivery of anything they buy or sell. It’s all a paper illusion, a numbers game. Until that fatal margin call, anyway. One day I decided I’d take delivery on something, just to find out if any of it was real. I’d heard of an old guy in Baton Rouge who took delivery of a truckload of soybeans for the same reason. I chose gold. They delivered it, too. And right now it’s locked in the bottom of that bomb shelter next to some forty-year-old cans of Spam.”

 “Remarkable.”

 “What does that tell you about me? Paranoia’s in my genes? I’ve always known that. I consider it a Darwinian advantage.”

 “Is paranoia the reason a man of your youth and wealth chooses to live in such an isolated place?”

 I raise my hands as if echoing his question.

 “Let’s try another tack. Why did you wait so long to go into the career for which you seem so singularly suited?”

 “I don’t know.”

 Lenz’s voice swings back at me like a pendulum. “I’m sure you do.”

 “Does everybody with a green thumb run out and become a gardener?”

 He folds his notepad shut and leans back in his chair. “Let’s say a man is a gifted mathematician. He may not choose mathematics as his career, but he will likely choose a related field, such as architecture or engineering.”

 “I didn’t.”

 “Of course you did. Music is fundamentally a mathematical art.”

 “That’s what I’ve always heard. Usually from people who don’t know diddly about music.”