Monika was waiting for him. they drank it out of the goblet she'd given him in Venice. The wine tasted very good, they agreed. If anything the ancient glass enhanced it.
He told her about his interview with Kit, the deal they'd made, the pressure he was under now to develop sufficient proof to keep his investigation alive.
"I'm not going to be able to do the kind of deep background work I like," he said. "That'll take months, and we don't have months. No support team either. Just Aaron and me."
"Then you'll have to focus your search," she said. He nodded. "Any ideas?"
She thought about it. "The lady in the picture, the mother up there on the wall-I'd look to her first. Look to the past, Frank. Try to reconstruct the family history. The secret is always there…
Later, after they had made love, they clung to each other in the dark.
He was filled with passionate adoration for his stylish, brilliant, nurturing German psychoanalyst.
"I love you," he told her in the middle of the night. "I love you more than anyone I've ever known. Has anyone ever said that to you before, Monika? Has anyone ever loved you so much?"
9
The Gauntlet
On Christmas morning he cooked breakfast for Monika, then taxied with her out to Kennedy Airport. After she had checked in, they went to the Lufthansa waiting lounge and exchanged gifts. He presented her with a framed vintage Berenice Abbott photograph of the New York skyline.
"A little remembrance of New York," he said. "I hope this'll make you want to come back."
She held the picture to her chest. "It's beautiful. I love it.
But if I come back, it'll be because of you."
Even as he opened her gift, a heavy blue envelope tied with golden ribbon, she apologized for its modest value. He was delighted with what he found inside, a picture she'd snapped of him surreptitiously in Mexico while he lay out on their terrace in his bathing trunks trying to draw the trophies. "You really helped me. You know that?"
She smiled. "It was for my own benefit. It's hard to sleep next to a guy who's having bad dreams all the time."
"You!" He embraced her. "What am I coing to do without you?"
"You'll do fine. Promise me you'll %-isit soon." "As soon as this case is finished." he promised.
He waited until her plane took off, then walked slowly back through the nearly empty ten-ninal to catch a bus to Manhattan. There was a certain poignancy, he thought, in the tawdry, commercial Christmas decorations placed sporadically about the airline lobby.
The next morning he drove out to the airport again, this time to La Guardia to see Aaron off for Cleveland. In front of the terminal Aaron briefed him on the peculiar traits of his car, which he was leaving in Janek's trusted hands.
"She drinks oil the way my ex drank booze, so it's best to check whenever you gas her up. And remember, don't stick your finger in the little hole where the cigarette lighter used to be."
"Yeah, yeah, very funny. Call me when you find something, okay?"
Aaron looked at him. "This is a big one, right?"
Janek nodded. "I thought Sullivan was a real asshole when he called it a great crime. Now I think maybe he was right."
"Don't worry, Frank, I won't blow it. If there's anything out in Cleveland, I'll find it for you."
That afternoon, back in the city, Janek waited until it was exactly ten to three. Then he dialed Beverly Archer's number. "Pick it up, butterball," he whispered. "I know you just finished with a patient. So pick up the goddan-m phone."
She answered on the sixth ring.
"It's Janek," he said. "I need to talk. How about tomorrow morning?"
There was a long pause at the other end. "All right." Beverly's voice was steady. "I have a cancellation at eleven."
When he set down the receiver, he looked at his hands. No shaking, no trembling.
Ijust might bring this off, he thought.
When she showed herself at the waiting-room door, she looked exactly as she had the last time they'd talked. Gone were the distraught features and agonized grimaces of Aaron's videotaped interview. She was once again the cool and proper professional, the superior, unflappable clinical psychologist.
"Lieutenant." She smiled her thin-lipped smile.
"Doctor." Janek smiled back, imitating the position of her lips. they stared at each other, engrossed in their mirrored expressions. For just a moment, Janek thought, Beverly looked nonplussed.
As she ushered him into her office, she commented on his healthy appearance. "The last time I saw you, you were bleeding heavily on my bedroom floor. You look a lot better now." The same small, thin-lipped smile.
"You look better, too." He sent her a mental message: I know you did it! The idea that she might actually pick up on it filled him with a savage joy. "Last time I saw you," he said, "you were carrying on about what a failure you'd been as Diana Proctor's therapist."
At first she seemed confused. She recovered quickly. "Oh, of course," she said. "On the videotape. I've tried to regain my perspective since then."
"Have you?"
"What?" "Regained it?" "Oh, I've tried, Lieutenant. It's a terrible blow when a patient goes off… turns out… whatever. But there's only so much a person in my position can do.
Psychotherapy's not a science; it's not exact. We know so little, you see. And we're all such frail creatures underneath, which, I think, may be the real lesson in all of this. The only thing to do after a failure like Diana is try to pick yourself up and go on as best you can."
"Still," Janek said, "I congratulate you on a remarkable recovery." She looked at him curiously. "And I congratulate you." "It was a pretty bleak night for both of us." "I put a cushion under your head. Do you remember?" "I must have been unconscious. Did you put it there before or after you discovered Diana was dead?"
This time her glance was sharp. "I don't recall. After, I suppose. "
"I imagine you were pretty busy before Aaron Greenberg got to the scene?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"With three of us lying there. Two dead, of course. And you still had things to move around."
She stared at him. "I don't know what you're talking about, Lieutenant. "
"Okay, Beverly, have it your way, let it go for now." He watched carefully for her reaction to his familiar use of her first name. She looked as if she were trying not to react. "Please forgive my informality, but since I nearly died in your bedroom and you were kind enough to cushion my head-well, I hope it's all right to call you Beverly. I'd like for you to call me Frank."
She smiled. "Thank you. That's fine. I'll feel very comfortable calling you that." She paused. "Now, what can I do for you… Frank?"
"I want to ask about the picture of your mother, the one upstairs."
"What about it?"
"I'd like to see it again if you don't mind."
"I don't understand." She was struggling, he could see, to regain her slightly rumpled composure. If there was one thing, it seemed, that Beverly Archer did not like, it was to be caught off guard by a man.
"It made a striking impression on me. I'd like to see it again."
She smiled sweetly, her composure restored. "I'm sorry, Frank, but no house tours today."
He stared at her. She stared back. Now she knows I know, he thought. Finally, when she spoke, her smile was guarded. "When you called, I assumed you wanted to talk about Diana. I already told everything to your Sergeant Greenberg and to that very kind Inspector Sullivan of the FBI. But I'll be happy to tell it all again to you-if that's why you're here."
"I didn't come to talk about Diana."
She blinked. "Why did you come?"
"to see you."
"Well, here I am!" She beamed.
"I wanted to look into your eyes."
She squinted. "I get the feeling you're trying to intimidate me, Frank." She paused. "I was told I was cleared. "