The last few weeks he has been much worse. This afternoon, he is worse yet.
“Let’s talk aboutNew Jerseyfor the few minutes we have left.” Dr. Self deliberately reminds him that the session is about to end. “Last week, you mentionedNew Jerseyseveral times. Why do you thinkNew Jerseystill matters?”
“If you grew up inNew Jersey, you’d know why,” he says, and the look on his face intensifies.
“That’s not an answer, Pete.”
“My father was a drunk. We was on the wrong side of the tracks. People still look at me like I’m fromNew Jerseyand that starts it.”
“Maybe it’s the look on your face, Pete, and not theirs,” she says again. “Maybe you’re the one who starts it.”
The answering machine clicks from the table next to Dr. Self’s leather chair and Marino gets the look on his face, very intense now. He doesn’t like it when a call interrupts their session, even if she doesn’t answer it. He doesn’t understand why she still relies on old technology instead of voicemail that is silent, that doesn’t click when someone leaves a message, that isn’t annoying and intrusive. He reminds her of this often. Discreetly, she glances at her watch, a large, gold watch with Roman numerals that she can see without her reading glasses.
In twelve minutes, the session will end. Pete Marino has difficulties with endings, with codas, with anything that is over, finished, spent or dead. It isn’t coincidental that Dr. Self schedules his appointments for late afternoons, preferably around five, when it is beginning to get dark or afternoon thundershowers stop. He is an intriguing case. She wouldn’t see him if he wasn’t. It is just a matter of time before she coaxes him to be a guest patient on her nationally broadcast radio show or maybe her new television show. He would be impressive in front of the camera, so much better than that unattractive and foolish Dr. Amos.
She hasn’t had a cop yet. When she was the guest lecturer at theNationalForensicAcademy’s summer session and sat next to him one night at a dinner in her honor, it entered her mind then that he would be a fascinating guest on her show, possibly a frequent guest. Certainly, he needed therapy. He drank too much. He did so right in front of her, had four bourbons. He smoked. She could smell it on his breath. He was a compulsive eater, helped himself to three desserts. When she met him, he was brimming with self-destructiveness and self-hate.
I can help you, she said to him that night.
With what? He reacted as if she had grabbed him under the table.
With your storms, Pete. Your internal storms. Tell me about your storms. I’ll say the same thing to you I’ve been saying to all these bright young students. You can master your weather. You can make it what you want. You can have storms or sunshine. You can duck and hide or walk out in the open.
In my line of work, you got to be careful about walking out in the open, he said.
I don’t want you to die, Pete. You’re a big, smart, good-looking man. I want you around for a long time.
You don’t even know me.
I know you better than you think.
He started seeing her. Within a month, he cut back on the booze and cigarettes and lost ten pounds.
“I don’t have the look right now. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marino says, feeling his face with his fingertips like a blind person.
“You have it. The instant the rain stopped, you got the look. Whatever you’re feeling is on your face, Pete,” she says with emphasis. “I’m wondering if the look doesn’t trace all the way back toNew Jersey. What do you think?”
“I think this is garbage. I came to see you originally because I couldn’t quit smoking and was eating and drinking a little bit too much. I didn’t come see you because I got some stupid look on my face. No one’s ever complained about some stupid look on my face. Now my wife, Doris, she complained about me being fat and smoking and drinking a little bit too much. She never complained about a look on my face. She didn’t walk out on me because of a look. None of my women did.”
“What about Dr. Scarpetta?”
He tenses, a part of him always retreating when the subject of Scarpetta comes up. It isn’t accidental that Dr. Self has waited until the session is almost over before introducing the subject of Scarpetta.
“I should be at the morgue right now,” he says.
“As long as you’re not in the morgue,” she says lightly.
“I ain’t got a sense of humor today. I work a case and get cut out of it. The story of my life these days.”
“Did Scarpetta exclude you?”
“She didn’t get a chance. I didn’t want a conflict of interest, so I stayed away from the autopsy in case somebody wants to accuse me of something. Besides, it’s pretty obvious what killed the lady.”
“Accuse you of what?”
“People are always accusing me of something.”
“Next week, we’ll talk about your paranoia. It all goes back to the look on your face, it really does. You don’t think Scarpetta’s ever noticed the look on your face? Because I’m betting she has. You should ask her.”
“This is fucking bullshit.”
“Remember what we said about profanity. Remember our agreement. Profanity is acting out. I want you to tell me about your feelings, not act them out.”
“I feel this is fucking bullshit.”
Dr. Self smiles at him as if he is a naughty boy who needs to be spanked.
“I didn’t come see you because of a look on my face, a look you think I have that I don’t.”
“Why don’t you ask Scarpetta about it?”
“I feel a fucking hell no coming over me.”
“Let’s talk it out, don’t act it out.”
It pleases her to hear herself say it. She thinks of the way her radio shows are promoted: Talk It Out with Dr. Self.
“What really happened today?” she asks Marino.
“Are you kidding me? I walked in on an old lady who had her head blown off. And guess who the detective is?”
“I would assume it’s you, Pete.”
“I’m not exactly in charge,” he retorts. “If it was the old days I sure as hell would be. I told you before. I can be the death investigator and help out the Doc. But I can’t be in charge of the entire case unless the jurisdiction involved hands it over to me and no way Reba’s going to do that. She don’t know shit but she’s got a thing about me.”
“As I recall it, you had a thing about her until she was disrespectful, tried to put you down, based on what you told me.”
“She shouldn’t be a damn detective,” he exclaims, his face turning red.
“Tell me about it.”
“I can’t talk about my work. Not even with you.”
“I’m not asking for details about cases or investigations, although you can tell me anything you like. What goes on in this room never leaves this room.”
“Unless you’re on the radio or that new TV show you’re doing.”
“We’re not on the radio or TV,” she says with another smile. “If you want to be on either, I can arrange that. You would be so much more interesting than Dr. Amos.”
“Star fucker. Monkey ass.”
“Pete?” she warns him-nicely, of course. “I’m well aware you don’t like him, either, have paranoiac thoughts about him, too. Right now, there is no microphone, no camera in this room, just you and me.”
He looks around as if he’s not sure he believes her, then says, “I didn’t like that she talked to him right in front of me.”
“Him beingBenton. She being Scarpetta.”
“She makes me have a meeting with her and then gets on the phone with me sitting right there.”
“Rather much the way you feel when my answering machine clicks.”
“She could have called him while I wasn’t there. She did it on purpose.”
“It’s a habit of hers, isn’t it,” Dr. Self says. “Introducing her lover into the mix right in front of you when she must know the way you feel about it, about your jealousy.”