Neuropath (17 page)

Thomas wasn't surprised. The fact that he was attracted to her said precious little: she was a fox, after all, and he was in the middle of the most emotionally tumultuous episode of his life. But she was also attracted to him—he was certain of it now—even though she was an FBI field investigator and he was a material witness, or so he supposed. She was attracted to him
despite
their circumstances. The old adage about 'opposites attracting' was largely untrue; the vast majority of people tended to fall for versions of themselves. People were like gravitational fields: sooner or later everything fell back to the earth of selfhood—hallucination or not.

Which was precisely the problem. He was simply medicating, he realized, using her to suture the wound inflicted by Neil and Nora. He was being the greedy one, the inconsiderate bastard. He was using her to prove that he still had what it took, that the whole cuckoldry thing was just a fluke. Sam, on the other hand, was simply wandering off the beaten track one step at a time, hoping she would find herself too far gone to turn back.

This was no joke, he realized. She was gambling with her career.

Nevertheless, when they pulled up to the driveway and she offered to help him carry the kids over from Mia's, he found himself saying yes. Drawn by some neighborly sixth sense, Mia met them at the door. Feeling breathless, Thomas formally introduced him to Sam.

'Hallo,' he said with admirable restraint as they stepped into the kitchen. Usually, Mia found coloring his tone with innuendos irresistible. 'Long drive, huh?'

'Oh yeah.'

'The professor talk your ear off? Stuff your head with creepy facts.'

Sam's smile was dazzling in the overhead light. 'Ooooooh yeah.'

The kids were crashed on the couch in their PJs, bathed in cartoon illumination. Thomas peeled Frankie from the cushions and handed him to Sam. Though she looked wonderful holding him, Thomas realized that his kids were just as much a liability as Sam's job. Not once in the course of their conversations had Sam mentioned anything about motherhood, let alone surrogate motherhood. Parenting wasn't among her talking points, and whenever Thomas mentioned it, she always steered the discussion elsewhere.

It just wasn't going to work.

But then, after carrying the kids over and putting them down, after sharing several wide-eyed
this-is-too-conjugal
looks, Sam asked him for a cup of coffee.

'It's still a long drive down to New York,' she explained.

At once cursing and congratulating himself, Thomas left her rubbing her feet on the living room couch. He filled the kettle and was surprised by the sound of the TV when he turned off the tap: the homogenized drone of an anchorman's voice discussing the Nasdaq. The voice disappeared, and he heard Sam laugh as he rooted through his cupboard for the instant decaf.

'What's so funny?' he called out, suddenly feeling as though he were back with Nora. Suddenly feeling good.

'Movie on a porn channel,' floated back to him, 'called
Weapons of Ass Destruction 14
.'

Thomas laughed. He found the coffee. 'Starring Agent Gerard?'

'That would be
Ass with Destructive Weapons
,' Sam said with mock seriousness. 'What's your code?'

He shouted the numbers to her one by one as he prepared her cup. His heart racing, he thought about Mackenzie and his final, enigmatic look. He was a perceptive old asshole, Thomas had to give him that.

She was curled up on the couch when he came out with the coffees, flicking between different channels, most of them full penetration—and various combinations thereof.

'All they have is gonzo,' she complained.

'Ah, an old-fashioned gal,' Thomas said, feeling himself stiffen. Anything goes, he supposed, after a day like today.

'Did you know that gonzo was actually how porn started off in the 1920s? Money shots and all. They called them "loops".'

Sam laughed in a kind of anxious, this-isn't-happening-way, curled her feet beside her. 'When I was fourteen my boyfriend and I would skip out and watch my dad's pornos. Pretty tame compared to all this… cock-slave stuff. I mean
look
at it.'

Thomas smiled, his heart racing. The scene flashed to a graphic close-up.

'No internet?' he asked. He shuddered to think of all the dirty cookies his computer had accumulated when he was fourteen.

'Too poor,' she said, crinkling her nose at the screen. She brought her feet to the floor, leaned forward with a skeptical frown. 'Now
that
looks about as sexy as stuffing a turkey.'

'Yeah, but it shows the spoons. Very sexy.'

'The spoons?'

'Yeah, where the bum meets the…' He swallowed, then said, 'It would be easier to show you.'

Her knees drifted a finger's-breadth apart. 'Show me, then,' she said, her voice thick, her eyes bright with an
oh-my-God-I'm-doing-this
look.

Thomas pushed the coffee table aside and knelt before her.

A low-volume '
fuck-me-fuck-me-fuck-me-fuck-me
' floated through the living room.

He placed his palms on her knees. She sighed. Parting her legs, he slowly pressed his hands under her skirt, sliding his thumbs past her knees, across bare skin, down into the hollow of her inner thighs.

'There,' he whispered, resting his thumbs in the divits to either side of her panties. 'The sexiest part of the female anatomy,' he said. 'The spoons.'

Her look was at once drunk, playful, and terrified. She squirmed, as though seeking his thumbs with her heat.

'You learn something new every day,' she gasped, her voice shaking.

Thomas hooked his thumbs beneath her panties, slowly rolled them down her legs.

This can't be happening…

He glanced at the TV screen. The scene had changed. Now a powerfully built man dressed as a priest was unbuttoning a veiled widow's blouse. Beneath the black gauze, her crimson lips pouted in sexual sorrow. Her breasts seemed shockingly white against the black silk, her nipples pubescent pink.

'Ever play sex-charades?' he asked, more joking than hoping. His face burned.

'You mean fuck-alongs?' Sam replied, joining him on the carpet. 'Growing up, all the boys I knew were porn freaks. Every one.'

Thomas laughed, then yanked her around—perhaps more forcefully than he intended. He tore her blouse open to catch up with the priest. Sam giggled as much as groaned through much of the foreplay, and Thomas found himself relaxing. She was honest both to her humor and her hunger, and she seemed entirely uninhibited.

They were here to play.

Finally the priest hoisted the widow, long pale legs askew, onto his bureau, and Thomas thrust deep into Agent Logan. It was like sinking into moist lightning. She was perfect.

'
Mmm, Jesussss
,' Sam moaned.

'
Now fuck me, Father
,' the widow gasped beneath her black veil. '
Fuck me…
'

Thomas hesitated. His whole body trembled.

'It's been a long time,' he said.

'What about all those perky coeds?' Sam murmured.

'They don't like my brand of birth control.'

'And what brand is that?'

'Scruples.'

She drew a shining finger along his cheek, as though tracing the path of a tear. 'It's the end of the world, professor. They don't sell scruples anymore.'

They kissed for the first time.

After he came across Sam's breasts, the camera focused on the widow. She smeared pearl across her nipples then lifted her veil to lick her fingertips. Her face was at once hooker-hard and high-school soft. Beautiful, yet plain in the way of abused children—

'My God,' Thomas whispered.

'What?'

'It's her… Unfuckingbelieveable.'

'Who?'

'Cream,' he replied in a dead voice. 'Cynthia Powski.'

Thomas woke with a start, his heart hammering. It was still dark. Sam was slender and warm beside him. His right ear ached. His pillow felt like an old woman's lap.

With his ears, he searched the dark hollows of his house for sound, heard nothing but hardwood quiet.

He closed his eyes, saw Cynthia Powski, her tongue trailing semen.

He felt a weight, as though a child stood upon his chest.

Shame.

Shame for weakness. Shame for stupid stupid lies. Shame for fucking a stranger while his children slept.

Shame for Cynthia Powski, for watching her as he…

With thumb and forefinger, he pinched tears from his eyes.

Shame for all those years. All those years!

All those years fucking. Being fucked.

Neil and Nora.

For a moment, it seemed he couldn't breathe.

Groaning, Thomas threw his feet over the side of the bed. He sat for a moment, slowly rubbed his chest.

He was a psychologist. He knew shame. He knew it was a so-called 'social emotion', that unlike guilt it involved one's self rather than one's acts. Shame was global, guilt local. This was why shame was typically unwarranted, a response all out of proportion to its situational triggers. Shame always had causes, but rarely any reasons. How many waifish, therapy-hungry undergrads had he told this to?

Knowledge—this was the heart of humanistic psychology. The faith that self-knowledge somehow made a difference. That knowing could heal…

Perhaps this was bullshit as well.

He stood in the darkness. His skin pimpled in the cool. He walked to the doorway, grasped the frame and leaned out as though over a balcony. The weight in his chest would not ease.

My heart is leaden
, he thought inanely. Like people, it weighed more dead than alive.

The source of the shame—the real shame—was obvious enough. He was a cuckold. He'd had few illusions about his marriage with Nora, but fidelity was one of them. In their 15 years together he hadn't once cheated on her, and he'd simply assumed that this, which had been an unspoken point of pride for him, had been duly noted and reciprocated by her. Unlike so many men, he deserved her fidelity. Didn't he?

What had he done?

Betrayal was a funny thing. In tests, subjects consistently rated threats involving betrayal as more dangerous than threats involving happenstance, no matter what the degree of objective risk'. This was why people feared psychopaths more than driving to the corner store, even though the latter was thousands of times more likely to kill. Betrayal struck deeper than statistics. Perhaps because its losses had no measure. Perhaps because people were fucking idiots.

But Neil and Nora. Why should he feel shamed by
their
betrayal? Where was the self-righteous indignation? Where was the rage that blackened eyes and pulled triggers? The shame was theirs! Wasn't it?

How could they
? he cried to no one. How could they, unless he had somehow deserved it? Was that it?

Still hanging from his door frame, he wept for a time.
What did I do
?

Then he gathered himself thoughtlessly, in the way of train wreck survivors, and walked down the hall.

Numb, he stared at his children in the night-light gloom. Bartender, who always slept with Frankie now, watched him with brown, infinitely wise eyes. His tail thumped the mattress.

Frankie had kicked his covers off and slept, as usual, with one hand shoved down the front of his pyjama pants. No kid alive was as protective of his balls. Ripley lay on her side, her hands folded as though in prayer. She looked frighteningly old with her hair undone and thrown across cheek and pillow. Like her mother.

Smiling, Thomas closed his eyes, and the thought—no the
warmth
—of them swept him away.

He could hear them breathe. Really truly
breathe
.

Could anything be more miraculous?

New tears branched across his cheeks.

'Who've I betrayed?' he whispered aloud.

No one. Not them, the only ones that mattered.

He'd been a fool, sure.

But no more.

You come home late.

While waiting, I peruse the books on your shelves. Freud and Nietzsche. Sedgewick and Irigaray. I like that you are educated. Will there be time for interpretation? I wonder. Will I be something more than what I am? A principle? A metaphor?

Am I broken, mutilated… or am I simply
honest?

I find a photo tucked between Updike and DeLillo.

It's you. I know this because you're everywhere: on the television, blissfully unaware of the cleft in your panties; on the magazine racks, a playful thumb hooked in your bikini bottoms; on the billboards, your tongue testing your teeth. You are the center of the eye's gravity. The universal solvent.

White. Female. Skinny-as-a-rail.

I retreat at the sound of keys. I love the feel of your carpet between my toes. I grin the grin of children ducking in ambush.

Will you outrun me with concepts? Will you declare me a symptom or a disease?

I watch you undress from the gloom of your closet. I wonder what your theories think of your thong, of the razors you draw to the very edge of your skin. What would they make of your smooth-skinned glory, twenty-eight going on fourteen?

How could they know I would be watching?

You scratch your buttocks with clear-coated nails, curse your wool skirt. I catch my breath when you turn to my hiding place, striding with thoughtless candor…

Once I used to wonder how people could abuse their pets. Now I understand.

They turn them into little people.

CHAPTER NINE

August 19th, 7.20 a.m.

Thomas dragged a raw cheek across his pillow, snuffled and groaned. True to form, Frankie and Ripley were arguing in the bathroom. How early was it? Before his alarm, anyway, the little bastards.

'Ripley!' Frankie was complaining. 'When it's yellow, let it mellow—'

'You're a piglet.'

'—when it's brown, flush it down. That's what Mia says!'

So. Fucking. Tired. Why couldn't they
ever
sleep in? Just once.

He heard a breathy groan. A warm hand brushed his back.

That's right… Sam.

'Morning,' she croaked as she stumbled by naked, searching for her clothes. Thomas watched her through bleary eyes, wondered at her perfect, figure-skater ass. Sunlight streamed through the sheers, making marble of her skin, illuminating her edges with otherwise invisible hair. It seemed the shape of her had been stamped into him—a million years of evolution, a lifetime of social conditioning—this one perfect woman. There was something glorious about that.

In the daily headline of his life, he thought, today's would read:

HOT FEDERAL AGENT BANGS WORN-OUT ACADEMIC

Too cool.

He was still drowsing when she returned wearing her skirt and blouse. He watched as she craned this way and that before his full-length mirror, frowning as she tried to flatten a fabric crease across her bum, first by rubbing a palm across it, then by endlessly readjusting the waist. She murmured, 'Shit…' over and over, each time with the why-me contempt women reserve for uncooperative clothing and seditious body-parts.

A long blink was all he needed to fall back asleep.

But as he dozed worry shot threads through the drift of associations, then like a pyjama-bottom drawstring, began to cinch things up. He saw Neil reaching into the nethers of Nora's skirt, as though about to shake another man's hand. He saw Frankie hunched in the shadows at the top of the stairs, watching him and Sam in the bounce of pornographic lights. Then everything began to smear, flicker… Gyges scowling at his reflection. Mackenzie laughing like a gnome. Cynthia Powski shrieking, cooing, bleeding—

The alarm went off.

He felt nailed to his pillow by his sinuses. Moving as little as possible, he grabbed the phone and croaked, 'Work.' Suzanne's digital recording tickled his ear. 'Mental health day,' he said after the tone.

Dragging his ass out of bed, he found the upstairs deserted. He hoped Ripley and Frankie were playing nice with Daddy's new friend. He shuffled to the bathroom, anxious and awake in a still-lurching body.

It was obscene how good a hot shower could feel. His body exulted in the steamy downpour, even as his thoughts lurched in recrimination.

Frankie and Ripley. They were the only important thing.

Sam would understand. Wouldn't she?

He trotted down the steps, still toweling his hair. Sam, looking almost as smart as she had yesterday, came out of the den with Ripley, who was clinging to her hand. They looked good, if somewhat uncomfortable, together.

'What are you two up to?' he asked.

Sam flashed him a baffled smile. 'I guess we're looking for something called—' she grimaced—'Skin-baby.'

'I can't find Skin-baby anywhere, Dad.'

'Did you look in Bart's corner?' Bartender had this corner in the basement where he liked to stash things from time to time.

'No.'

'Then go look there, sweetie. Bart's probably been chomping on him, her, whatever.'

'Bart!' Ripley shouted in the imperious manner of little girls playing cross mothers. 'Did you take Skin-baby, Bart?'

It was strange the way even the most natural moments could seem awkward in the presence of someone new. In the day-to-day routine of things, nothing felt self-conscious; all the edges were sealed by familiarity. But add a stranger to the mix and everything changed. With newcomers came the specter of judgment.

After Ripley disappeared, Sam said, 'Skin-baby, huh?'

'Bart! You mangy mutt!' floated up the basement stairs.

'One of those creepy real-as-life dolls,' Thomas explained. 'They started calling it Skin-baby after they lost its clothes. For all the world it looks like a warm, pink baby…' He pursed his lips in a sour line. 'Only dead.'

When Sam failed to reply, Thomas added, 'My kids are weird.'

'Ahh, so they take after their father, then.'

'Some days I think it has more to do with nurture than nature.'

She looked at him pensively.

'What's wrong?' he asked, even though he knew. The madness of the last couple of days had thrust intimacy upon them. Now, in the cobweb-calm of morning, that intimacy seemed a shocking thing, like mysteriously waking up without underwear. She was confused, perhaps even more so than he was, given that she was risking her career.

And confused people tended to beat a hasty retreat.

'I should—'

'Look,' he interrupted. 'Have some breakfast with me and the kids. Get a feel for the Thomas Bible animal in his home environment. Do a little fact-finding before making any decisions.'

She stared, her face all the more lovely for the small signs of their previous night. Puffy-vulnerable eyes. Slightly disheveled hair. Ad hoc cosmetics. He thought of the blue heart she had made on her tackboard back in her cubicle.
Don't…

'Sound fair?' he asked.

She nodded nervously. 'Sounds fair.'

He cursed himself for a fool as they walked to the kitchen. What the fuck was he doing? She wanted him—he could tell that much. But he couldn't shake the feeling that she wanted his
help
more. For some reason, this case had gotten its hooks into her—deep hooks.

And he wasn't interested in package deals.

My kids are all that matter.

Breakfast on summer mornings never failed to remind Thomas why he loved his house, despite all the calamitous and claustrophobic memories of the divorce. It was shallow, he knew, but it seemed to have the character of a movie still. There was something poetic about the pose of things: the sunlight glowing off the panes, the kids awash in the waking glare, the gleam striping the fixtures, rolling across the clatter of knife, spoon, and fork. The shadow cast by the kettle's steam.

Now if only Nora hadn't taken all the fucking plants.

'Ah,' Frankie said to Sam in the best Scottish accent a four-year-old could manage, 'yew're keeper, lass!'

Sam shot Thomas a
what-planet-is-he-from
? look. Her smile caught the sun.

Thomas refilled her tea cup, then asked who wanted the last piece of bacon before—as he always did—popping it into his mouth. The kids laughed, as they always did. 'Aww, you wanted it?' he cried to Frankie in mock astonishment. 'You should have said something!'

Sam's palmtop twittered from her purse. She swore softly after looking at the ID, then retreated into the living room. Thomas found himself admiring her buns yet again, this time through her skirt.

'Did you show her your thingy too, Dad?' Ripley asked.

Thomas nearly coughed up bacon bits. 'Did I show her
what
?'

'Do you flush when you pee, Dad?' Frankie asked. Obviously this was Relentless Embarrassing Question Hour.

'Okay, guys, this poopy-talk has got to stop. It's not cute anymore. Keep this up and you're going to get me arrested. No. More. Poopy-talk. Okay?'

'Was that why the FBIs was here?' Frankie asked.

He'd been dreading this one.

'No,' he started carefully, 'that's not—'

'They were here,' Ripley interrupted, 'because Uncle Cass is a psycho.'

'Not funny, Ripley.'

'What's a psycho, Dad?' Frankie asked.

He glared at Ripley, warning her not to interrupt. 'A psycho is someone whose thoughts are broken. Someone who's sick. But I don't want to hear you using that word. It's not a nice word, Frankie. That goes for you too, Ripley.'

'But aren't you a psycho?' Frankie asked.

Thomas smiled. 'I'm a
psychologist
, son. I help fix people whose thoughts are broken.'

That was the idea, anyway. Aside from mentoring the odd student here and there, all he did was pontificate in front of classrooms and argue obscure positions in journals and in conferences. But technically he was still a healer. He was just at several removes from those who needed to be healed.

Until recently, that is.

'How do you know when they're broken? Do they bleed?'

'No,' he replied.
Other people do
.

'They act crazy,' Ripley said. 'They don't do what they're
supposed
to do. Like flush the toilet.'

'When it's yellow,' Frankie hollered with small-boy savagery, 'let it
mellow!'

'That's
enough!'
Thomas shouted, hitting the table. Everything jumped, cereal bowls, cutlery, and children alike.

Scared witless, Frankie began to cry. Ripley glared.

Thomas shook his head and grabbed a cloth to wipe up the spilled milk and Cheerios.

'Sorry guys. Sorry-sorry. Your dad's just a little stressed, that's all.' At some point, he told himself, all this madness would end. He would invoice it, wrap it with flattering rationalizations, then store it in the Do Not Scrutinize section of his brain. He knelt before Frankie, who leapt like a little monkey into his arms. 'Shush, sweetheart. I'm not mad at you.'

'Are you mad at Ripley?' Frankie sniffled.

'He's mad at Uncle Cass,' Ripley said. 'Aren't you, Daddy?'

Thomas turned to his daughter and caressed her cheek. Good God, she was going to be an extraordinary woman. How could he be part of such a miracle?

'Yes,' he admitted. 'I'm mad at Uncle Cass. I thought he was my friend. I thought that he loved me, you, and Frankie—'

'And Mom?' Frankie asked.

Thomas swallowed. The little buggers never made it easy, that was for sure.

'And Mom,' he added. 'I thought he loved all of us, but he didn't. Listen to me, both of you. This is very important. You have to promise me that if you ever see Uncle Cass, you—'

Just then Sam marched to her purse on the counter. She looked at them quizzically. 'Jeez, you guys, I was only in the other room.'

'We missed you,
babeeeee
,' Frankie chortled. Thomas tickled him, and he squealed with laughter. He let go his father's neck and danced backward, his hands out in warding, his elbows pressed against his tummy.

'Gotta go?' Thomas asked Sam.

'Yeah, that was Shelley. Duty calls.'

Moments later they were all congregated by the door, Thomas scratching his scalp, Frankie and Ripley acting like darling little hams. Sam seemed flustered by all the attention. She hitched a leg up, then leaned to pull on her left shoe. She glanced at Thomas, her eyebrows arched.

'Hey, Sam?' Frankie asked.

'Yes, honey?'

'Where's your underwear?'

Sam paused for a moment.

'Frankie!' Thomas coughed.

'The kid's short,' Sam muttered to herself. 'How could I forget that the kid's short?'

'Where did they go?' Frankie persisted.

'Good question.' Pained smile. 'Ask your Daddy, honey…'

'Me?' Thomas exclaimed. He almost asked her if she'd checked the cushions, but thought better of it.

Then it came to him. 'Bart,' he said, red-faced.

'Mmm, nice,' Sam said. 'Tell ol' Bart he can keep 'em.'

'I'll walk you to your car,' Thomas said. 'You two mouthpieces finish your breakfast.'

He and Sam shared a significant look. People were always testing their roles against their circumstances. It was an important social reflex. She was freaked out, Thomas knew, not because of what his kids had said or done, but because they were simply
there
, suggesting roles and possibilities far out of proportion to a single night of crazy sex.

'So
that
,' Sam said as they stepped into the morning cool of the porch, 'was a Thomas Bible animal in his home environment, hmm?'

She laughed as he struggled for words. 'It's okay, Tom. I had fun. I'm glad I stayed.'

Thomas could only shake his head. He hugged his shoulders as if the morning was chill, which it wasn't. He glanced down the street, struck by the way illuminated planes and complicated shadows could pinpoint an unseen sun.

'Never a dull moment,' he said lamely.

'I guess not.'

'I'm sorry about Bart,' he added, still shamefaced and bewildered. 'He must have run out of pig's ears or something.'

'Professor?'

Call me Tom!

'Yeah?'

'You should quit while you're ahead.'

Thomas sighed and laughed all at once. 'Good advice.'

Without warning, Sam kissed him full on the lips. Her tongue probed deep.

They disengaged after an anxious moment. Sam actually glanced toward the street, obviously worried that someone might be watching. They had broken rules, and after the night before last, Thomas was certain he would be the talk of the neighborhood. Celebrity was the last thing he wanted just now.

'So when can I expect you at the Field Office?' she asked, as though in passing.
This is crazy
! her eyes shouted.

Thomas hesitated.

'Ah. I've been wanting to talk to you about that.'

Her smile faltered. 'About what?'

'About what you said the other night. You know, how it seemed Neil was doing all this for my benefit.'

'Which is exactly why we need your help.'

Thomas scratched his brow.

'Maybe.' He looked at her intently. 'But I have more than myself to think about.'

Sam searched his eyes. 'You're afraid that—'

'Wouldn't you be?'

She paused. 'I suppose I would. But there's measures we could take. We could make it impossible for him to find you.' She hesitated, then said, 'Or your children.'

She felt it too, he realized, the superstitious paranoia that mere talk could turn horrific possibilities into horrific eventualities. Humans were hard-wired to see story-arcs where none existed. The hero had to suffer—everyone knew that.

'You don't know him,' Thomas said. 'Neil is… gifted. He has an uncanny ability to circumvent obstacles.'