"Oh?"
"My police protection," she said. "I still haven't been able to spot them, but it's good to know they're there."
Should I let her go on believing that? And what if she waltzed out the front door, confident her guards were there to protect her?
I said, "I spoke to Wentworth. He hasn't been able to get authorization."
"But I thought it was just a formality."
"I guess some precincts are more formal than others," I said, "and some precinct commanders, or whatever deadhead's in charge up there. May I use your phone?"
"Of course," she said, and grinned suddenly. "I can't, but you can."
I have four numbers for Ballou, and at that hour I wasn't at all confident he'd be at any of them. But he picked up the phone at the third one I tried. I told him what I wanted in about five sentences, and all he wanted to know was the address.
"A friend of mine," I told her. "He'll stay here in the house with you, and God help anybody who tries to get through the door." And I told her a little about my friend Mick Ballou, and watched her eyes widen.
We were sitting in the kitchen, waiting for him to ring the doorbell, when she said, "Oh, I almost forgot. At least I managed to do something right when I talked to Peter."
"If you cooled his ardor for keeps, I'd say you did a lot of things right."
"Besides that. I found out his name." My confusion must have shown in my face, because she said, "No, not Peter's name. Remember you wanted to know the man we saw for couple counseling?"
"You said Peter called him Doc."
"They all called him Doc. I asked Peter what Doc's name was, and he couldn't believe I didn't remember. Doc played a much bigger role in Peter's life than in mine. Anyway, it turns out his name is Adam, and I swear I never knew that. I just remember him being introduced as Doc."
"Adam."
"And what did you say Dr. Nadler's first name was? Sheldon?"
" Seymour."
"Well, I was close. But not Adam, anyway."
"No," I said. "You said they all called him Doc. All his patients?"
She shook her head. "Peter and his friends. Maybe his other patients, too, but I don't know about them, just Peter and the four artists we were going to be sharing a house with in Williamsburg."
"They all knew Adam?"
"They were all patients of his. I think they all met each other in group therapy, or something like that."
"Really."
"When Peter was talking about destiny," she said, "and everything else he was saying, you could tell he was just parroting something he got from Adam. That was another reason I was sort of relieved when we broke up. Adam was good for Peter, I guess he was good for all of them, but I could picture the five of them all turning into little Adam Breit clones."
"Adam Breit."
"Yes."
"Describe him, would you?"
"Oh, gosh," she said. "I only met him at the counseling sessions, and Peter and I spent most of our time looking at each other. Or not looking at each other. Let's see. He's about your height, and maybe a little slimmer, and, well, sort of ordinary-looking. This isn't helping much, is it?"
"I need to use the phone again," I said, and went and picked it up. I found the number I wanted in my notebook, and dialed it, and caught her in. I said, "It's Matthew Scudder again, Mrs. Watling. About the name of that therapist."
"I'm afraid it hasn't come to me," she said. "I'm so ashamed of myself."
"A cheerful, optimistic name, you said."
"Yes, but I can't- "
I wasn't in court, no one was going to accuse me of leading the witness. I said, "Could it have been Adam Breit?"
"Yes!"
"You're sure? I don't want to- "
"Yes, that's it! I couldn't swear to the Adam part, but the Breit part is absolutely right. Bright and sunny, bright and cheerful, bright as day, bright as a new copper penny. I don't know why that name wouldn't come to me. It seems so obvious now."
I thanked her and told her I'd let her know how things worked out. Then I took a chair and we waited for Mick Ballou.
THIRTY-FIVE
Smile in place, he emerges from the little room, saying, "Bye-bye, see you soon," as he draws the door shut. He nods and smiles his way past the expressionless Korean minding the desk, and keeps the smile on his face until he is down the stairs and out of the building. He walks quickly to the corner, turns, and maintains a brisk pace, but not so brisk as to draw attention.
No great need to hurry. No one will open her door, not right away. They'll wait for her to come out on her own. And, when they do lose patience and knock, and open the door when the knock goes unanswered, all they'll see is an empty room. She must have come out unnoticed, they'll think, and gone to the bathroom.
Eventually, of course, someone will open the metal wardrobe, where he stuffed her body, along with her slippers and her red-orange dress.
No one notices him, and in return he notices no one; waiting for the light at Columbus Avenue, he's so involved in his own thoughts that it changes twice before he remembers to cross the street.
He's had a revelation, and he has to get it written down. It may have some scientific merit, but that's almost beside the point.
At his building, he smiles at the doorman, smiles at a tenant stepping off the elevator. A nod here, a smile there.
As the elevator wafts him upward, his fingers find their way to the cool pink stone he wears around his neck.
He sits at his desk, looks at the screen of his computer, where the endless evolution of the New York nightscape continues. But he doesn't have time to watch it now. He presses a key, and the screensaver vanishes.
He doesn't log on, but opens his word-processing program and selects New from the menu. A blank page fills the screen. He stares at it for a moment, remembering the feel of the girl's hands on him, remembering the feel of his hands on her.
His fingers move, and words begin to fill the screen:
In respect to that type of serial murderer whose actions are motivated by a desire for the thrill of the act itself, the presumption has long existed that a distortion of the sexual impulse is present, and probably causative. The person in question cannot perform normally, and the thrill he finds in the act is the thrill of sexual fulfillment.
My research would indicate that this is not necessarily the case.
Let us consider a young man whom we will call A. Just recently, A confided to me that…
He stops, frowns at the screen. Later, if he decides to publish, he can tart it up like that. For now a more straightforward approach will serve better to get the words and thoughts down. He deletes the paragraph that begins Let us consider and resumes:
Earlier today, I felt a need for sexual release and went to a professional establishment where what I sought was offered for sale in a carefree and presumably hygienic environment. In the guise of a masseuse, a girl-woman of Asian extraction gave me a commendably skillful hand job. I was rock-hard as soon as she touched me, and the orgasm I attained was powerful. My performance (if such a word is appropriate, considering that all I did was lie on the table with my eyes shut, not even bothering to look at the body I'd tipped her extra to unclothe, not troubling to reach out a hand to touch her ivory skin)- my performance, indeed, left nothing to be desired. I had arrived in that room with a fierce desire- a need- for sexual release, and I had achieved that release.
And it was satisfying. The sopping-wet Kleenex she so casually flipped into the bucket was mute testimony to my satisfaction.
Yet I was not satisfied. The orgasm might as well have happened to someone else. I might be sexually sated, but something else within me was entirely untouched.