Sarah nodded and stood. I put a hand on her arm and steered her out of the office and down the narrow back stairwell to where we’d parked on the street. In the car, we were quiet. I started up and drove slowly toward Mass Avenue. Sarah rode with her head turned away from me, looking out the window.
Without looking at me, she said, “If he’s not my father, and she’s not my mother... who the fuck am I?”
We stopped for the light at Mass Avenue. I had nothing to say. I put my right hand out and patted her thigh. Then the light changed and I turned left toward the expressway.
43
I settled into my chair next to her desk. The box of Kleenex was there, where it always was. She was at her desk, sitting sideways, facing me, her chair slightly tilted, her legs crossed. Today she had on a camel-colored suit with a wine-colored top, and a quiet gold necklace.
“I was thinking about my Rosie dream,” I said.
Dr. Silverman nodded.
“Do you understand about dogs?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Do you have a dog?”
“Yes.”
My God, two personal revelations. She must really like me.
“Then you know,” I said, “the degree to which one can love them.”
She nodded her head once, very slightly. Getting herself back under control.
“I realize this isn’t a breakthrough discovery, but I think the dream was symbolic.”
Dr. Silverman looked noncommittal.
“And I think, in the dream, Rosie is love.”
Dr. Silverman cocked her head slightly and raised her eyebrows. It was her code for “Please pursue the thought.”
“If she represents love, and in the dream, I’m afraid because she’s off her leash...”
She nodded her head very slightly, so that it was barely visible, another clue that said “Keep going.” Sometime, I’d have to ask why tiny clues were okay, but you weren’t allowed to say, “Oh, boy, that’s interesting!”
“Help me with this,” I said. “Are dreams warnings? Wish fulfillments? What?”
“Dreams are sometimes simply dramatizations of the circumstance we are in.”
“It’s saying this is how you are?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s not saying this is how you want to be?”
“Probably not,” she said.
“Okay, so I’m afraid to what? Let my love off the leash?”
“You say in the dream Rosie running loose makes you fearful?”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
“I’ll lose her.”
“Lose love?” Dr. Silverman said.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“In dreams, things often represent more than one thing.”
I sat. Dr. Silverman waited.
“Me?” I said.
She smiled. Bingo! What a good girl am I.
“But not instead of love. Rosie is love, and Rosie is me, and I’m afraid I’ll lose love if I let go, and I’m afraid I’ll lose what? Me, if I let it run?”
I was excited. I felt like something was happening.
“And you felt how when you thought of the dream afterwards?”
“While I was awake?”
Nod.
“I liked it that Rosie was running free,” I said. “The opposite of how I felt in the dream.”
Dr. Silverman nodded.
“So, which is it?” I said.
“Both,” Dr. Silverman said.
44
I came home from Dr. Silverman’s with my head resonating inarticulately. Sarah was watching television at the far end of the loft, smoking cigarettes and drinking Coke. Someday, I’d have to discuss smoking in my home, but today was not the time. There was a message on my answering machine to call Detective Second-Grade Eugene Corsetti, Manhattan homicide. I sat on my bed and hugged Rosie until she rebelled, then I called Detective Corsetti.
“Thanks for calling back,” he said. “Just routine. I got a homicide down here, and the vic had your business card in his wallet.”
“Who’s the victim,” I said.
A part of me already knew what Corsetti would say.
“Lawyer, fella named Peter Franklin.”
“I know him,” I said.
“Can you tell me what your relationship was?”
“How did he die?” I said.
“Your relationship to the victim?”
“If you have my card, you know I’m a private detective,” I said.
“I do,” Corsetti said.
“He was connected sort of indirectly to a case I’m working on.”
“How so,” Corsetti said.
I thought how to phrase it.
“Oh, God,” I said. “I’ll come down there.”
“We can probably do this by phone,” Corsetti said.
“No, it’s complicated. And maybe you can help me, too.”
“For the record,” Corsetti said. “Were you in New York last night, between about six p.m. and midnight?”
“I was here,” I said. “Having dinner with a young woman and a male friend at the male friend’s restaurant.”
“Could I get phone numbers?”
“The young woman is here,” I said. “I’ll put her on. The man’s name is Spike, and I’ll give you the restaurant phone number.”
“What’s Spike’s last name?”
I told him and then I put Sarah on and she confirmed.
Back on the phone, I said to Corsetti, “How did he die?”
“I’ll check with the restaurant, but you sound okay to me.”
“Damn it,” I said. “How did he die?”
“He was executed,” Corsetti said. “Shot once in the chest that put him down, and once in the head. Perp pressed the muzzle right against his forehead.”
“I’ll drive down in the morning. Can I see you, say, at one?”
“Sure,” he said. “You don’t have to come to the station. I’ll meet you someplace.”
“Saint Regis Hotel?” I said. “In the lobby?”
Corsetti whistled softly.
“Pretty snazzy for a shoofly,” Corsetti said.
“I’m a pretty snazzy shoofly,” I said.
“Besides looking for someone snazzy,” Corsetti said, “how do I recognize you?”
“Five-seven, one hundred thirty pounds, blond hair, late thirties.”
“What’ll you be wearing?” Corsetti said.
“Tomorrow?” I said. “How do I know what I’ll be wearing tomorrow?”
“Dumb question,” Corsetti said, and hung up.
45
Detective Corsetti and I sat in a couple of wine-and-gold armchairs in the lobby of the St. Regis, to the right of the front desk, and talked about the murder of Peter Franklin. Corsetti wasn’t very tall, only about my height. But laterally, he filled the armchair entirely, and very little of his width appeared to be fat.
“You’re right,” Corsetti said. “You are snazzy.”
“You’re kind of cute yourself,” I said.
“I know,” Corsetti said. “Talk to me about Franklin.”
“I was hired,” I said, “by a young woman who doubts that her parents are really hers. One day, two thugs beat her up and told her to lay off. I tracked them back to Franklin. They say he hired them.”
“You talk to him?” Corsetti said.
He was more casually dressed than some of the St. Regis patrons. He had on a leather bomber jacket, and an adjustable Yankee’s cap worn backwards.
“Yes.”
“Lemme guess,” Corsetti said. “He denied everything.”
“Almost. One link in the connection was a disbarred lawyer named Ike Rosen.”
Corsetti made a note of the name.
“In New York, or Boston?” Corsetti said.
“New York, West Ninety-second Street.”
Corsetti wrote that down.