Her apartment was as large as an oversized packing crate. That’s how people existed in New York. Each one with his allotted ten square feet of space. In a research laboratory it would have sent mice into convulsions. It was a junior one-bedroom. Modest, to say the least. Calligraphers don’t make a great income. But it was neat and well-furnished.
I was standing at the window looking out at Seventy-sixth. The rain had stopped and the first stars were trying to show through the clouds. The sidewalks were still wet and caught the reflections of the streetlights. Diagonally across the street on the far corner, an all-night grocery store cast shafts of light through the mist.
Laura got up and stood next to me looking out at the night. She held the mug in both hands and slowly brought it to her lips. She took a small sip and then stared down into the steaming coffee, as though she were searching for some meaning.
“Why did they kill her?” she asked finally. “She never hurt anyone.”
“We don’t know that.” I wasn’t about to tell her Alicia had nailed at least one person.
She started to say something, then bit her lip and stopped.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Say it. Whatever it is, you knew her better than anyone. At least you used to. You and Rachel…”
She cut me off. “Rachel. That whore.” Her eyes flashed.
“Why do you say that?”
“Never mind.” She waved a dismissing hand at me. “Forget I said it.”
I let it go. “Tell me anything you can remember.”
She chewed on her lip as she tried to think. Then she remembered the cup of coffee in her hands and took several sips. Finally she shook her head apologetically.
“I can’t think of anything that could help you. We weren’t that close lately. I mean, she didn’t tell me everything the way she used to when we were growing up. I guess she entered a new kind of life and left me behind.”
“Was there anything different in the last couple of months?” I prodded.
She was silent for a minute. Then she shook her head. “We spoke maybe once or twice a month and she wasn’t very specific about what she was doing. She did mention that she wasn’t happy in her work. She…she did say that Steve Wheelock had called her.”
“Was that unusual?” The bile started its work carving craters out of my gut again.
“Well, yes. Because they hadn’t spoken for a couple of years. And then, all of a sudden, he calls her out of the blue.”
“Did she see him again?”
She considered the possibility. “I don’t think so. She said we should never go backward-only forward. She said that seeing him would be the same as going backward.”
The vision came back to me, as it had so many times before. Alicia on her back, he ravaging her insides. I put the vision out of my mind.
“Are you sure she didn’t see him again?”
“I can’t be sure, but I know she didn’t want to see him. That was over a long time ago.”
She finished her coffee and grimaced as she drained the dregs. “Do you still hate him?”
I didn’t answer. How do you know hate, measure it, sound out its resonances? Do you need hate to keep you going?
I put down my cup and got up to leave. She walked with me to the door, moving with soft steps. When she turned her face up to me, I put my arms around her and kissed her on the forehead. She rested her head on my shoulder. I could feel her heart beating. She was a delicate blossom.
She answered my unasked question. “I’ll be all right. Even though I do miss her.”
“Do you know where I can find Wheelock now?”
“No.” She cast a quick glance at me, looked away, and then turned back to me. “Do you think he had something to do with it?”
“I won’t know until I talk to him.”
CHAPTER XV
Dr. Donald Pasternack lived and worked out of a white stone townhouse on Eighty-eighth, just off Fifth Avenue on a block that fairly reeked of quiet old money. He buzzed me through the wrought iron outer door and then through the inner door to the vestibule. There was no receptionist. Was he cheap or was it just her day off?
I checked the alarm system on the way in. It was one of those rudimentary motion detectors that was at least fifteen years old. It wouldn’t pose any problem.
The good doctor stood at the top of the stairs looking down at me as I walked up. That was the last time he was able to look down on me. It wasn’t until I got to the top of the stairs that I could see he was at least a foot shorter than me. He wasn’t a dwarf exactly, but he was really short for a full-grown man, like one of those little people in the Wizard of Oz. Five-two maybe. He had a powerfully-built upper torso and a head that looked too big for the rest of his body. This, and his full-face bushy black beard and sharp eyes, gave him the look of a lion. A voracious pussy cat, at that.
When I faced him, he put out his hand and gave me a strong grip. Overcompensating?
Then he spoke and his voice came out as a full-throated growl. “Mr. Rogan, follow me.”
Definitely overcompensating.
The landing was sparsely furnished with some expensive art objects. The house looked more like an architect’s place than a psychiatrist’s. The floors were white marble and the walls were stark white. The whole setting gave off a cold and unwelcoming appearance. It was tough to see how any patient would feel comfortable here.
He took me into his consulting room and shut the two soundproofed doors behind us, even though no one was within earshot. Matter of fact, there didn’t appear to be anyone else in the house. The room was silent as a tomb. He sat down on a large comfortable chair. There was no place for me to sit except the couch. But it was one of those torture racks that designers love-all chrome and leather that they think is pleasing to the eye but is pure hell for a real human being to sit on.
I sat on it and cursed him under my breath.
He was a dapper man. One of those guys who takes too much care about his appearance. His hair was black and bushy, just starting to show the first hints of gray like his beard, and just as well-trimmed. He was wearing an expensive cashmere sport coat, a Hermes tie, gray slacks and Gucci loafers. On one wrist hung a chunky gold bracelet and on the other a Santos watch.
He was sizing me up too, and he didn’t like what he saw either.
“I’m here…” I started to say.
He cut me off. “I know why you’re here. I’ve been expecting you. I suppose you think you can dance in here, get whatever information you believe you’re entitled to and then dance out again without taking any of the responsibility.” He leaned forward in his chair and put his hands on his knees. “Well, it doesn’t work that way. We all share the blame for Alicia’s death, but you most of all.” His eyes blazed. “Yes, you most of all. You were the one who killed her.”
I was beginning to get his drift, but I wasn’t buying a nickel’s worth of his psychobabble. These shrinks lived in a world of their own. They were all insane to begin with and heartily distressed with anyone who wasn’t.
“Was something troubling her the last few months?”
“Yes,” he said.
Now we were finally getting somewhere. “What?”
“You. You were constantly on her mind. You were an obsession with her. You were the one who was going to save her, rescue her from the mess she’d made of her life. Sir Galahad on a white charger. But I told her she was wrong. You weren’t going to save her.”
This shaman was right about that. “Why was I an obsession with her?”
“She never forgave you.”
I laughed. It wasn’t a pretty laugh. “Shit. Forgave me? She was the one who fucked Wheelock and walked out on me.”
He shook his head. “No, my friend.” It was obvious from the way he said it that I wasn’t his friend. He pointed a manicured finger with clear nail polish at me. “You weren’t there for her when she needed you. Sure, you were there physically, but you cut yourself off from her emotionally. You were out to lunch, emotionally-speaking. You didn’t communicate with her. You couldn’t give yourself to her spiritually. She said you never told her you loved her.”