"Uh-huh. "The dog growled at her, and April stepped back uneasily.
"Wow, this is an unusual reaction for Freda. She always loves everybody."
"Uh-huh." April didn't believe it.
They crossed Central Park West and went through the routine with Regina again to get into Maslow's apartment. This time she kept a respectful distance as Sid unleashed the dog and let her run around the apartment, root into the armpit of Maslow's jacket that he'd left on the sofa. She leapt up onto the bed, dove into the pillows. Then, finished with that, she raced into the kitchen, where the rotting Chinese leftovers drove her into a frenzy.
Slocum glanced at the stereo, computer, medical texts. "What is this guy, a medical student?"
"Doctor. A psychiatrist."
"Jeeze. Hear that, Freda, this guy's a headshrinker." The dog raced back into the bedroom, nosed into the pants on the bed, and came up with the wad of bills and the wallet.
"How do you like that? I didn't even tell her to fetch. Good girl, Freda, but put it down. You don't get a tip unless you find the guy alive." The dog dropped the money. A bunch of twenties and fifties fanned out, looking to April like several weeks' pay.
"Interesting," she murmured. "Woody, bag that and the wallet so they don't disappear, will you?"
Woody stepped forward to comply. The dog growled when he reached for the money.
"Interesting," April said again. Freda had an interest in cash. So did April. She wondered why Maslow had so much on hand.
"Guess he wasn't heading off for a night on the town. Anything in the hamper? I need something only he touched."
"Nothing there, I checked."
"Was he depressed? Did he have any illness we didn't know about? What about his medications?" Slocum asked.
They went into the bathroom. Sid checked out the medicine cabinet. "Hey, look at all this. This guy has asthma, allergies, psoriasis, migraines. You name it. Today must have been laundry day."
"Maybe he has a maid. We can check that out." April glanced at her watch. "You have enough now. Let's get the show on the road."
Slocum swore at the neat apartment and empty hamper. He debated between the suit jacket flung on the sofa and the T-shirt and socks lying on the floor in the bedroom. He chose the T-shirt, approached it with a plastic bag, slid the thing inside without touching it himself.
"Freda, come, baby. We're going to work." He held out the bag for the dog to sniff. Freda leaped around for a while, trying to get into the bag. Then she lunged at April's crotch without warning.
April let out a yelp. Sniff, sniff, sniff, slobber, slobber, slobber. The dog nosed her privates while Slocum and Woody yucked it up. Then, Freda lost interest in April and moved on. She shoved her muzzle into Woody's crotch, smacking her jaws at the delights she found there, causing manly consternation and more macho jokes. Freda sure knew what she was doing. She then dived back into the bag for more of Maslow. Sid reattached the leash.
"Go find," he said.
The dog went for the door, knocking the hovering Regina out of the way and nearly off her feet. Freda panted at the elevator, sniffed it all over when it arrived, and they got inside. Down in the lobby she sniffed the rug, stopped, headed for the door. Sniffed the brass struts holding up the canopy, peed on one of them, then dragged Sid right to the corner and across the street to the park.
Thirteen
Maslow heard the sound of a barking dog and opened his eyes. He saw very little. He tried to move. But his whole body was stiff and aching. A hammer pounded in his head. The light now was gray, the smell of pond scum was overwhelming. He knew for sure it was pond scum when a bullfrog hopped over his face with a wet splat, spiking his heart with terror. Other creatures were alive in here, too. He could hear their movements around him. Things that he knew would start eating him as soon as he died.
Now he heard a dog and prayed that someone had come looking for him. He didn't want to die.
"Here, I'm here." When he opened his mouth to scream, all that came out was a soft moan. He couldn't seem to get his voice up to full volume.
He tried to move his fingers and his mouth, but pain was all he felt. He didn't know how long he had been here. He was aware that he'd felt sicker before, that he'd fallen asleep. He'd awakened, then dozed some more.
Maslow was irritated by his weakness. He couldn't seem to rally enough energy to get himself going. Through a haze that felt like a bad drunk, Maslow knew he was not dead. Chloe was not talking to him. Nor was he trapped on the drying rack in the linen closet in the Cape Cod house that was long gone from his life. He knew his fantasy that Chloe was still alive and ten years old in Massachusetts was only a fantasy.
He was not a child and not a sixteen-year-old, drunk for the first time. He was not twenty-five and knocked out on the street after trying to help someone in a bar fight. He was not an intern in ER. He was way past all that. He was a psychiatrist now, a candidate at the Psychoanalytic Institute. He remembered his class on personality disorders the night before. He remembered his session at his Central Park West office with Allegra and how upset she'd been because he'd told her it was normal for a child to have loving feelings for a father, even if the father abused her. But that was about it.
He couldn't remember anything after coming home and getting ready for his jog. If he had not gone for the jog, he could be dreaming. But the creatures crawling on him were no dream. He was not where he was supposed to be. He was in terrible pain. He couldn't move at all. Something had happened to him. And if he didn't do something about it soon, he might well die.
His brain worked slowly. He was a doctor. He should be able to figure out what was wrong with him. He heard the barking of a dog and other noises he couldn't identify. The persistent roar troubled him. He knew he should be familiar with the sound. He struggled to remember what it was. A roar just like it occurred every few minutes night and day all year around. What was it?
Roar, vibration, then quiet for a while. He should be able to identify it, get some clue to where he was. He tried to distract himself from his fear of the dark and the creatures scurrying around there. He was in a hole. Definitely a hole. His breath caught in his throat. A hole of some kind.
He heard people shouting. He didn't know if the shouting was real, or just the sounds of people in his memory. His voice wouldn't work to call back to them. Was he paralyzed? It hit him suddenly that the roar was the subway under Central Park West. He was underground. Yes, in a hole close enough to hear the subway.
But he could breathe, so there must be air coming in from somewhere. It was dark, but not always totally dark. He knew he had to get up, get out of there, but he couldn't seem to get going. His hips and legs wouldn't move. He didn't know why. Suddenly he was eye to eye with a rat. His heart almost stopped with terror. The rat scurried over him, and he couldn't do a thing about it. The sound of the barking dog faded. He closed his eyes and prayed. Come back. Please, God, come back.
Fourteen
When the phone rang at quarter to twelve on Wednesday morning Cheryl Fabman was writhing around on her stunning sea foam silk sheets in the bedroom of her fabulous new Park Avenue apartment. Simultaneously, she was trying to find a comfortable position and assign an appropriate name to her multiple miseries. First on her list: Her doctor, Morris Strong, the most prestigious plastic surgeon in New York -for whom she'd had to wait nearly a year just for a consultation-had assured her that a "slight discomfort" after the liposuction and lip-enhancing procedures was the worst she could expect.