I nodded.
“I can see that,” I said.
He shook his head and poured a little scotch over the ice in his glass.
“All my life I been a tough guy. You know?”
“Till now,” I said.
Z looked at me. I looked back.
“Whaddya want?” I said finally.
He shook his head again. We sat. He drank a little of his drink.
“I never lost a fight before,” he said.
“Have many?”
“People always careful around me.”
“Ever fight somebody knew what they were doing?” I said.
He held his glass of whiskey and looked at it some more.
“Guess not,” he said.
We were quiet again. He drank a little. I was watching something happening. I wasn’t sure what. But I kept watching.
“You know what you’re doing,” he said.
“Yep.”
“I want you to show me how,” he said.
“If you don’t get the booze under control, it’s a waste of time,” I said.
“I can not drink,” he said.
“You just got no reason not to,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“You been juicing?”
“Like HGH?” he said. “That kind of thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Little,” he said.
“Rock bottom,” I said.
“Yeah.”
We sat for a time, contemplating how rock-bottom he was.
Finally I said, “Good place to start.”
“Good as any,” he said.
Zebulon Sixkill III
Her name was Lucy, and he’d never seen anything like her. She was a Southern California sorority girl, and she was the color of honey. Golden hair, golden tan. Golden prospects. She was homecoming queen during his second season. The first time they had sex, he discovered that her golden tan was all over. He loved that. He loved the fresh smell of her. Expensive soap. Shampoo. Cologne. She always sat close to him. She always looked right at him when he talked. Her lips were glossy and parted slightly when she listened to him. She was rapturous when they made love, and she was always waiting outside the locker room after a game. He could talk to her. He talked about his parents, and their friend Mr. Booze. About his grandfather, and the loss of him. About being a Cree. They went together to dinners at Mr. Calhoun’s home in Bel Air. On the weekends they went to uproarious parties at Mr. Calhoun’s place in Malibu. They clubbed on Sunset. They came to know a lot about good wine and fine whiskey. They became increasingly sophisticated about which drug to use for which effect. Their pictures were in the style section. Paparazzi began to notice them coming out of clubs. At the end of sophomore year, they moved into a condo owned by Mr. Calhoun, near the campus.
Zebulon loved her so intensely that he felt somehow submerged in it. He saw everything through the golden haze of it. He felt as if he were fully breathing for the first time. When he was small and lived with his mother and father, they were mostly drunk, or gone. He remembered feeling mostly afraid. He had felt safe with Bob. He admired Mr. Calhoun, and he respected Coach Stockard. But Lucy was something he had no words for. She seemed to contain him, to roll over him like surf. She seemed to be reality. And nothing else did.
13
“Where is he now?” Susan said.
We were having breakfast in the café at the Taj hotel, which used to be the Ritz. Our table was in the small bay that looks out on Newbury Street, and the spring morning was about perfect.
“He’s asleep on my couch,” I said.
“You’ve taken him in,” Susan said.
“For the moment,” I said.
“Good God,” Susan said.
I smiled becomingly.
“Sometimes,” Susan said, “I think you are far too kind for your own good.”
I ate a bite of hash.
“And some other times?” I said.
“I think you are the hardest man I’ve ever seen,” she said.
“So to speak,” I said.
“No sexual allusion intended,” Susan said.
She broke off the end of a croissant, put very little strawberry jam on it, and popped it in her mouth.
“Do I have to be one or the other?” I said.
She finished chewing her croissant, and touched her mouth with her napkin.
“No,” she said, “you don’t. And in fact, you are both. But it’s an unusual combination.”
“So are we,” I said.
Susan smiled.
“We surely are,” she said.
“But a good one,” I said.
“Very good,” Susan said. “What are you going to do with him?”
“Try and fix him,” I said. “After all, he might be able to help me with Dawn Lopata.”
“Ah,” Susan said. “A practical purpose.”
“Keeps me from being a do-gooder,” I said.
Susan nodded.
“Successfully,” she said. “I’m sure you can get him in shape and teach him to box and all, if he sticks with you. Do you think you can get him off the booze?”
“I don’t think he’s an alcoholic,” I said.
“Why?”
“Informed guess,” I said. “You ever work with alcoholics?”
“People become dependent on alcohol for many different reasons,” Susan said. “If the reasons are amenable to psychotherapy, sometimes I can help.”
“Such as?” I said.
“Reasons?” she said. “Oh, childhood abuse leading to feelings of low self-worth, maybe. Whatever it is, for me, it is a process of curing the whole person.”
“Not everyone wants that,” I said. “Some of them just want to stop drinking.”
“And they perhaps go elsewhere.”
“And if they stop drinking, they’re still the same person they were, except they don’t drink,” I said.
“Possibly,” Susan said.
“But doesn’t what caused them to drink in the first place remain undisturbed?”
“Might,” Susan said.
“And maybe work its way out in another form?” I said.
“Could,” Susan said.
“Try not to be so dogmatic about this,” I said.
She smiled. Which was like moonlight on the Seine.
“We are both in uncertain professions,” Susan said.
She shrugged.
“Can’t hurt if I train him,” I said.
“Probably can’t,” Susan said. “But you might wish to remind yourself that people develop a means of coping with stress, and, even after the stress is gone, the coping mechanism is there and working.”
“Which can cause a lot of trouble,” I said.
“A lot,” Susan said.
“On the other hand,” I said, “you gotta start somewhere.”
“Or,” Susan said, “you could tell him to peddle his problems someplace else.”
“I think I’ll start somewhere,” I said.
“There’s a shock,” Susan said.
14
The inn on the wharf was a new boutique hotel for the very uppermost crust, which translated roughly into those who could afford it. It was on the waterfront, and all rooms had a view of the harbor. The top-floor suites, where Jumbo had been, probably had a view of Lisbon.
I was off the lobby, in a windowless little office, talking to the director of hotel security, a former FBI agent named Dean Delmar. Hotel counsel was also present.
“Nice view,” I said.
Delmar shrugged.
“Our job is not ostentatious,” he said.
“I can see that,” I said. “What can you tell me about the night Dawn Lopata died?”
“I went over this with a couple of detectives already,” Delmar said. “Can’t you just access their notes?”
“I like to start from scratch,” I said. “That way, my mind is uncluttered, so to speak.”