His finger jabbed at me like he wanted to poke out my eye. “You kept your emotions bottled up inside you. You never talked with her about the way you felt.”
“All this rhapsodizing doesn’t have anything to do with Alicia’s death,” I said.
He grinned at me. One of those grins you give when you want to knee someone in the balls. “You’re wrong. It has everything to do with it. Because that’s when she started down the road that led to this end.”
“What do you mean?”
He gave me his evil grin again. “You sent her into Wheelock’s arms with your indifference. That led her into further situations which she shouldn’t have been in-situations and relationships that were destructive to her well-being.”
Now we were getting to the red meat. “What situations?”
He got up and walked over to where I was sitting. He came so close I could smell his cologne-a sweet powdery scent that men with manicures wear.
“Even if I could tell you, I wouldn’t.” He smiled with the command of his withheld knowledge. “Suffice it to say that she began her descent into her own private torment when you split up.”
He was standing next to me now and his head was almost on a level with mine. Two could play this amusing power game. I stood up and towered over this toy psychiatrist with his Olympian view of the human species.
I took a long shot. There was nothing to lose. “Dr. Pasternack, why were you engaged in sexual activity with your patient against her wishes? You know that’s a strong breech of professional ethics.”
He took an uncertain step back and stared up at me.
“I…I never…”
“She told me all about you. She told me what you did to her. How you had your way with her when she didn’t want to. How you took advantage of her weakness with your so-called therapy. I could take a little walk up to the state licensing board and give them all the details of your indiscretions with your patients. They could pull your ticket for a stunt like that. Then you’d be reduced to selling bagels on Forty-eighth street in all kinds of inclement weather.”
He waved his hands helplessly in front of him as if he was brushing me away. “It’s not…what you think…the way you think.”
“That’s not what she said. She gave me the story…about what a lowlife son of a bitch you are.”
“The only thing I ever did to her…I swear, I once got my finger in only a little way…for a very short time…and only once. She must have exaggerated…she was given to exaggeration.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what she told me.”
“She lied…she lied.” He was near tears. “I swear it. One finger…once. I loved her. I swear it. I loved her. She shouldn’t have been killed. You killed her.” He started to babble and blubber at the same time. Tears rolled down his hairy cheeks. “I wanted to but she wouldn’t let me. I loved her but she didn’t love me…she called me her love pygmy.”
The guy was out of control now. He couldn’t hold back the sobs or the torrent of words.
“I loved her. God, how I loved her. Now she’s dead. Gone forever…” His hands went over his face and his fingertips pressed into his eyes in a futile attempt to stop the tears.
He was carrying this transference nonsense a trifle too far. There was no sense in hanging around here any longer. He was no use to anybody like this.
I went down the cold marble staircase. Were his tears from grief or guilt? How much more did he know that he didn’t tell me? The only sound in the house was the rhythmic fall of my steps, the echoes of his nemesis walking away, leaving him with his solitary agony.
Downstairs, sitting on a flat leather bench in the entranceway, was a pale nondescript woman dressed in black and gray, a rust-colored Gucci scarf wrapped around her head. Her eyes were cast down, refusing to meet mine- a patient waiting for the uncertain relief of her therapy session.
Upstairs, Pasternak’s sobbing was clearly audible through the open door.
“I’d give him a couple of minutes to pull himself together,” I told her. “He hasn’t had a very nice day.”
CHAPTER XVI
“Last I heard he was flogging some junk public-housing munis for a bucket shop in New Jersey. He knew the paper wouldn’t survive till maturity. And he was right.”
Dave Tanner grabbed the neck of the bottle and held it upside down so the last drops of beer could wet his throat.
“Guy could perish of thirst in this joint,” he said. Tanner had a point. The bar was one of those overdecorated yuppie watering holes where the staff does you a favor by waiting on you. We hadn’t seen a waitress in ten minutes.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said. “I feel like stretching my legs.” I tossed a twenty on the table, got up and straightened my tie.
Tanner nodded in agreement and grabbed his jacket. As soon as we stood, the waitress was all over us. She looked like an aspiring actress who would have had trouble remembering her lines.
“What’s the matter, gentlemen,” she said with an edge to her voice. “Didn’t you like our service?”
“Sure,” I said. “The same way the cow likes it when the bull gives her service.”
We were out the door before she could frame her reply.
The night was cool for June and there was a good breeze as we headed north on Third. The sun was just setting and the sky was the kind of red you sometimes see in a Turner painting. Even Tanner looked at the sky and made a comment on the light, and he wasn’t the kind of guy who notices those things. It was the time of evening when couples start to stroll around and take the measure of each other.
“Is Wheelock still working in that boiler room?” I asked.
“Nah,” he shook his head. “Place folded soon as the SEC started poking around. The owners closed it and opened a new outfit across the street under a different name and they used new straw men as the principals. The Feds never had a chance. Soon as they smelled a rat, these guys would shut the shop down and open a new one with the same salesmen. Always two steps ahead of the law.”
We walked past a succession of boites, cafes and gin mills where the new generation was learning the unalloyed joys of the liquid fermentation process.
“What happened to Wheelock after that?”
Tanner shrugged. “Lost track of him. He dropped out of sight.”
“Who would know where to find him?”
Tanner watched a couple of girls coming toward us. “Wheelock was a strange bird. He didn’t have many friends. Laura might know.” When the girls reached us, Tanner turned to them and said, “Excuse me, ladies. I was wondering if you subscribed to the Apollonian or Dionysian world view.”
The girls stopped and exchanged glances. I mean, we looked presentable enough. No disfigurements that they could see. Two decent-looking apparently successful fellows in well-tailored dark business suits. They wanted to believe we were sincere and well-intentioned but there was dissonance in our words. They were at a loss as to how to reply.
Finally one of them, the plainer one, said, “I really don’t understand your question.”
They were in their early twenties, obviously out-of-towners, new to the Morris dance mating rituals of the unforgiving city. You could see the quandary they were in. They didn’t want to blow a chance at a hot night on the town but, on the other hand, they had no idea what the hell Tanner was talking about.
“What I mean to say is do you prefer Apollo or Dionysus?” Tanner went on in his sardonic tone.
The girls exchanged another glance. The prettier one allowed a gleam of insight to shine through her heavy-lidded eyes.
“Hey,” she said. “Are these like discos or nightclubs or something?”