The examination was done in Pappas’s den-office and now they sat across from each other, Pappas in his usual seat on the sofa by the low table, Royale in the same place Lew Fonesca had sat the day before.
“So,” said Pappas, “I just keep taking that white stuff and that’s it?”
Pappas knew what the white stuff was and Dr. Royale knew he knew. Pappas smiled. He lived for games like this.
“That’s it,” said Royale. “And something new.”
“What?” asked Pappas, reaching for an apple in the silver bowl on the table.
“You should get out of this room, this house,” Royale said. “It’s closing in on you and your ulcer. You didn’t call Dr. Crasker for an appointment.”
Pappas held the green shiny apple in his hand and looked at the doctor.
“I’ll think about it. What else? You were going to say something else.”
“Forget it,” said Royale, getting up and reaching for his black leather bag.
The bag, which looked exactly like the black leather bag in Norman Rockwell paintings, had cost almost five hundred dollars. Dr. Royale didn’t want to risk his retainer, but his obligation to his patient overcame his love of fine new cars, a home in the Bahamas, another in Maywood and an apartment on 57th Street in New York that was a block away from Carnegie Hall. All of them had hot tubs that soothed Royale’s spine.
“I think you should see Dr. Crasker.”
“Shrink? You want me to get shrink-wrapped?”
He bit into the apple, grinning.
“He would be willing to make a house call. Talk to him once. Then decide,” said Royale.
“I told you last time I don’t need a therapist,” said Pappas, taking another bite of apple before he had finished chewing the first bite. His words came out with a gentle spittle that rained on the fruit. “Nothing wrong on that end. Trust me.”
“I have a choice?” asked Royale.
“You take care of the body. I’ll take care of this.” Pappas tapped his head, still chewing. He got up, stepped around the table, remnant of apple in his left hand, jaws working. He put his hand on Royale’s shoulder and guided him to the door.
“Suit yourself,” said Royale.
Pappas dropped his apple core in what looked like a ceramic bowl big enough to hold a bowling ball. The bowl was decorated with white figures of almost-nude men chasing one another around the bowl. Dr. Royale had been told it was ancient Greek. Pappas was using it as a garbage receptacle.
“Want me to walk you to the door?”
“No,” said Royale.
“You know, Doctor, you should get more exercise, work out a little. Forgive me, but you’re a little overweight. You’re busy, okay, but there’s always a little time.”
“I’ll consider it,” Royale said with a smile.
Taking advice from a neurotic patient who wouldn’t listen to advice himself was not a likely scenario for Donald Royale.
“Oh, wait, almost forgot,” said Pappas, snapping his fingers.
He moved to his desk and picked up a white paper bag. He handed it to Royale who knew from the smell that he was holding a bagful of loukoumathes, Greek donuts. Royale had considered trying again to convince Pappas to be seen by a therapist, but the prospect of losing the retainer and the goody bags of homemade Greek pastries was more than Dr. Royale could bear.
Pappas’s mother, amazingly healthy, was beyond help. He was sure of that. Bernice Pappas, multiple murderer, made him uneasy. Whenever he treated her, she had looked at him with unblinking eyes as if he were an uncooked pork loin ready for roasting. At least it felt that way. Pappas? Well, there was definitely something wrong inside the head to which his patient had occasionally pointed. Pappas was alternately grandiose, paranoid, given to long ramblings about everything from Mayan Indians to the difficulties of establishing colonies in outer space. Royale couldn’t give it a name. Crasker could and, if given the opportunity, would give it a name. Donald Royale really didn’t want to know his patient’s secrets, certainly didn’t want to know the body count for which these people were responsible.
The sons might be salvageable. Probably not, but Royale was the family physician and he took his responsibility seriously.
Dimitri seemed almost normal, in need of his father and grandmother’s approval, unwilling to step out of the circle of his family. Stavros, whose eye socket had healed well, was loyal to his father and dedicated to getting the man who had turned him into a cyclops, the man who was his father’s enemy, the man whose name Royale had heard whispered. Posno.
When the front door had closed behind Royale, Pappas went down the stairs and to the kitchen where his mother sat drinking coffee and reading her favorite magazine, Cottage Living. She looked up over her glasses.
“The ulcer,” Pappas said, touching his stomach.
“Stress,” she said. “You’ve got too much stress in your life. Get rid of the stress. Get rid of Posno and then just kill the little Italian.”
He nodded. She was right. She was a great cook but more than a little crazy. It ran in the family. His grandfather, Bernice’s father, he had been crazy too, killed some people with a shotgun in a fishing village in Greece, had to get out of the country.
“They were looking at me with eyes of the devil,” the old man had explained once, a year before he died.
Yes, his mother was nuts, but she was also right.
“The boys are out looking for Posno,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “It’s time for Posno to die.”
She kept repeating that. She was right, but she kept saying it and he wanted her to stop.
“It’s time,” he agreed.
A remnant of forgotten nightmare burst open. The doorbell had been ringing, ringing. Pappas had hurried to open it. When he flung it open, there stood Posno, grinning.
“Is this a bad time?” Posno had asked.
The doorbell had not been ringing. Posno was not there. But even Posno in his fleeting daydream had been right. It was a bad time.
Posno knew that Stavros and Dimitri were trying to find him. He had played with them, dangled hints, whiffs, suggestions through the words of a doorman, a waitress, a drugstore clerk.
Now he looked down at the street as the car parked and the brothers got out. They would go to his apartment. He had already moved out, but he had left hints, clues-a parking stub, a receipt for dry cleaning, a pad of paper with names and phone numbers. All of it was invention, none of it led to him. He enjoyed the moment. He liked the boys, was even sorry that he had shot Stavros. The shot had been a warning to the father. He had not meant to hit the son.
Couldn’t be helped now.
While the brothers bumbled on, Posno came down the stairs in the building, went through the alley door and to his car parked a few feet away.
Fonesca. He had to find and kill Fonesca. Posno had decided that Fonesca couldn’t be allowed to find Catherine’s file. Something might go wrong. He might turn it over to the police before Posno could take it. Fonesca might not even find it, at least not this time, but would he come back? Wherever the file or files were, someone finding them, if anyone ever did, might not know they were important. No, the biggest threat to Posno was Fonesca. If he lived, the little man with the idiotic baseball cap could be the end of Andrej Posnitki.
Posno drove to his new apartment.
As Lew Fonesca pulled out of Toro’s Garage on Taylor Street, the killer sat drinking a fresh too-hot cup of coffee. The cup was white ceramic with a quotation from his favorite
president, Teddy Roosevelt, printed in red block letters: DON’T HIT AT ALL IF YOU CAN HELP IT; DON’T HIT A MAN IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY AVOID IT; BUT IF YOU DO HIT HIM, PUT HIM TO SLEEP.