Laura and I exchanged a glance. I was impressed by Willie's confidence, and I admired his sass. I think Laura did, too.
"I'll stick," she said. "What the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound."
I nodded. "I'm still in, Willie," I said.
He smiled at us. "You ladies are the real thing," he said.
"I love you. We'll come out of this smelling like roses, you'll see.
Now, Jessica, I want you to find the Barrow home and learn the neighborhood. Not only the main drags but the back roads.
Make a couple of trips from the Barrow place to here at legal speeds, and time how long it takes. This whole caper is going to depend on timing."
So I did what he said. The Barrows lived in a nice clean development, a real family place where everyone seemed to have little kids and big lawns. There was nothing Town amp; Country about it, but it looked solid and respectable, and you just knew that no one who lived there had problems.
I drove around and learned how to get in and out of the development and the fastest route back to my home. I kept track of the times and how long it would take even if traffic was heavy or I got stopped by red lights. I also found another route that took a little longer, a two-lane road with no traffic lights.
On the second day I did this, I drove back to my home in the late afternoon and as I turned into my street, a black Toyota Camry passed me, going the other way. it had just gone by my house. I was spooked me model that Teddy O when I saw that car, the sa shadow Willie Brevoort. the hit man, was using to of a good But that wasn't what set me shaking. I got a look at the guy driving it, and like Willie had said, he was a small gink wearing wire-rimmed cheaters. I had seen him before.
He was John R. Thompson, who had talked his way the property tax appraiser into my house to count the rooms-he said. I started e me, I know how to do it. cursing-and believe The moment I got home I looked up the property directory… he tax appraiser's office in the telephone number was different from the one Thompson had make absolutely certain I had given me to call. just to aid been diddled, I phoned the legit number. They s med John R. Thompson. they had no appraiser na at myself I could scream."hung up, so furious had let that little prick con me, and it made me feel like a moron. I thought I was street-smart, and I fell for a crude scam like that.
Then I started thinking. If Teddy O. knew where I lived and had cased my home, he and Big Bobby Gurk would know I was connected with Willie Brevoort and the chemist at Mcwhortle Laboratory. g time. I knew I'd I thought about my choices a Ion have to tell Willie and Laura that our "safe house" wasn't so safe anymore.
But before I did that, I decided, I better call a real estate agent and get my beautiful home listed. I had a feeling I wouldn't be living in it much longer.
DR. CHERRYNOBLE you would think, wouldn't you, that being a practicing psychiatrist with all my working hours filled with the problems of my patients, I would welcome a placid and trouble-free private life. But that wasn't the case at all. Sometimes I wondered if problems are necessary to feel truly alive. And if they don't come to us, we create them.
All I know is that my existence would have been unutterably empty and sterile if it hadn't been for my relationship with Chas Todd. My work was satisfying on a professional level, but it didn't totally engage me, I wanted something more. I suspected it might be a need for personal drama.
Chas asked for my advice on how he might assist his brother and how best to handle the intention of his niece, Tania, to run away from home. What was most significant to me was his confidence in my judgment and his willingness to seek my help.
It was an added bond between us, another signal of our growing intimacy.
"Chas," I told him, "I find your brother's problems as troubling as you do, and I wish I could suggest a simple and guaranteed solution, but I can't. Some problems are insoluble, you know that."
"I don't want to believe it," he said. "It means I can't do a damned thing but wait for a disaster to happen. Herman told me he went to see you."
He told you that?" I said, mildly surprised. "Yes, we had a single introductory session. Then he called and said he had decided not to continue."
"My brother is an asshole," Chas said gloomily. "Even he knows it, but he's unwilling to make an effort to change. And as for Tania, she says she and Chester Barrow plan to leave home before school starts after Labor Day. Cherry, do you think I should tell their parents?"
"Yes," I said,,"I think you should. I know you feel it will be a betrayal of Tania's trust, but the physical safety of the children comes first."
"Yeah," he said, "I guess you're right. And maybe if I tell, it'll convince the parents that they better start paying more attention to their kids. I'll think about it. Will you fix us a drink?"
"I thought you'd never ask," I said. "It's a good night for it."
I was referring to a heavy rain that had started early in the evening and was continuing with no sign of a letup. I had driven to Chas's studio after dinner, through flooded streets and over palm fronds blown down by a blustery wind. The rain was still rattling against the roof of his barn and streaming down the windows, but we were snug and dry.
I poured us glasses of a tawny Spanish port we were, both developing a taste for. The only illumination in the big room came from the desk lamp. It made a cone of light, holding back the shadowed corners. Chas wheeled his chair in reverse until his face was in semidarkness.
"Hey," I protested, "I can't see you."
"That's the way I want it," he said. "Because I have a confession to make to you, Cherry."
I waited.
"Remember when I was under treatment, I told you about a woman named Lucy I was engaged to?"
"I remember," I said. "She was killed in a car crash."
"It was all bullshit. There never was any woman named Lucy.
I made the whole thing up."
"Why did you do that, Chas?"
"I don't know. Maybe I wanted your sympathy. I really don't know why the hell I told you that lie. It just seemed a good idea at the time."
"And why are you telling me now that it was a lie?
He took a deep breath. "Because," he said, "I don't want any more lies between us. Nothing fake, nothing make-believe. No more bullshit."
"Perhaps you told me about Lucy to persuade me that you had been attractive to women before you were injured."
"That's possible," he acknowledged. "At that stage in my therapy I wasn't thinking too clearly."
"Chas," I said, "Lucy is the name of Tommy Termite's girlfriend in your new book, isn't it?"
He wheeled his chair back into the lighted area and stared at me. I had no doubt whatsoever that he was startled.
"My God, he said, "that's right. And I never made the connection.
What does it mean, doc?"
"it means you're Tommy Termite," I said, laughing.
"Searching for romance."
He looked at me thoughtfully. "You know," he said, "you may be on target. I'm writing a fucking autobiography."
"Only it's not about your life," I reminded him. Itit's about the way you want to live-a projected autobiography.
I was still taking it lightly, but Chas wasn't. I could see he was shaken.
"I was going to have them marry," he said slowly. "Tommy Termite and Lucy. if the book was a success, I planned sequels.
They'd have kid termites, raise a family. it could go on forever.
Was I dreaming of me?"
"Only you can answer that, Chas."
He laughed suddenly. "I could have picked a more impressive insect than a termite to serve as my alter ego- Termites have some "Oh, I don't know," I said. admirable qualities.