Silent Partner (14 page)

"He was up at her house this morning."

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"Up at her house? She gave a jerk like that her home address? What an idiot."

"She had an office there."

"Oh, yeah—the paper mentioned that. Makes sense, actually, because she moved out of this building right after I confronted her about the hanky-panky. Got a diagnosis on Rasmussen?"

"Some kind of personality disorder. Possible violent tendencies."

"In other words, a troublemaker. Terrific. He's the weakest link, a woman-hater with low impulse control. And he's already got a shyster. Wonderful."

"He won't sue for sexual harassment," I said. "Few men would. Too embarrassing."

"Frontal assault upon the old machismo? I sure hope you're right. So far, no one's made any moves. But that doesn't mean they're not going to. And even if I'm spared legal grief, she's already cost me plenty in terms of my reputation—one patient bad-mouthing to ten others. And none of the dropouts paid me for work I'd already done— we're talking solid four figures in lab fees alone. I'm not established enough to kiss off that kind of loss without pain—there's a doctor glut here on the West Side. Where do you practice?"

"Here on the West Side, but I work with kids."

"Oh." She drummed her nails along the rim of the teacup. "I probably sound pretty mercenary to you, huh? Here you are, talking altruism, debriefing patients, all that good Hippocratic stuff.

And all I'm worried about is covering my butt. But I make no excuses for it, 'cause if / don't cover my butt, no one else will do it for me. When I came out from Northwestern to do my internship at Harbor General, I met the greatest guy in the world, married him three weeks later.

A screenwriter, doing research at the hospital for a mini-series. Pow, love at first sight. All of a sudden I had a house in Playa Del Rey, till death do us part. He said he was turned on by my being a doctor, pledged he'd never leave me. Two years later he left me. Cleaned out our bank account and went to Santa Fe with some bimbo. It's taken me two years to climb out of it."

She looked inside the cup as if searching for gypsy leaves. "I've worked too darned hard to get this far and see some nymphomaniac ruin it all, so, no, I won't be calling to debrief any of the men she screwed. They're big boys— they can handle it. Probably turned it into a conquest by now, convinced themselves they're hot studs. You let it rest, too, Dr. Delaware. Keep her buried."

She'd let her voice rise. People were staring. She noticed and lowered it. "How does someone like that become a therapist anyway? Don't you people do any screening?"

"Not enough," I said. "How did she react when you

"Weirdly. Just looked at me with those big blues, all innocent, as if she didn't know what I was talking about, then started in with the uh-huhs, as if she were trying to play therapist with me.

When I was through she said, 'Sorry,' and just walked away. No explanation, no nothing. The next day I saw her carrying boxes out of the office."

"As her supervisor, Kruse was legally responsible for her. Did you talk to him?"

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"I tried to. Must have called him twenty times. I even slipped messages under the door. He never responded. I got pretty steamed, thought of filing a complaint. In the end I figured good riddance, just dropped it."

"His name's still on the office directory. Does he practice here?"

"Like I said, I've never seen him. And when I was looking for him, I spoke to the janitor and he said he'd never seen him. Ten to one Kruse set it up for her. She was probably screwing him too."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because screwing men was her thing, right? It was what she did. Probably screwed her way to that Ph.D."

I thought about that, got lost in thoughts.

She said, "You're not going to pursue this debriefing stuff any further, are you?"

"No," I said, making the decision at that moment. "What you've told me puts things in a different tight. But we should do something about Rasmussen. He's a time bomb."

"Let him blow himself up—more good riddance."

"What if he hurts someone else?"

"What could you do to prevent that anyway?"

I had no answer.

"Listen," she said, "I want to make myself very clear. I want out—free of all the garbage, the worrying. Got that?"

"Got it."

"I sure hope you mean that. If you use anything I've said to connect me with her, I'll deny saying it. The files of all the patients she saw have been destroyed. If you mention my name, I'll sue you for breach of confidentiality."

"Take it easy," I said. "You've made your point." "I certainly hope so." She snatched the check out of my hands and stood. "I'll pay my own way, thank you."

FREE FOLLOW-UP visits. That brought back something I'd worked hard at forgetting.

Driving home, I wondered how many men Sharon had victimized, how long it had been going on. It was impossible now for me to imagine a man in her life without assuming a carnal link.

Trapp. The sheik. D.J. Rasmussen. Victims all?

I wondered especially about Rasmussen. Had he still been involved with her at the time of her
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death? It could explain why the loss had hit him so hard. Why he'd drunk himself stuporous, made a pilgrimage to her house.

Meeting another pilgrim: me.

How does someone like that become a therapist anyway? Don't you people do any screening?

I hadn't screened her out of my life, had long rationalized it by telling myself I'd been young and naive, too green to know any better. Yet three days ago I'd been jacked up and ready to see her again. Ready to start... what?

The fact that I'd broken the date was small comfort. What would have happened had she phoned, put a catch in her voice, told me what a wonderful guy I was? Would I have been able to resist being needed? Spurned the opportunity to hear about her "problem," maybe even solve it?

I didn't have an honest answer. Which said plenty about my judgment. And my mental health.

I lapsed into the esteem-sapping self-doubts I'd thought resolved during my training therapy: What gave me the right to mold other people's lives when I couldn't get my own life straight?

What made me an authority on other people's kids when I'd never raised a child of my own?

Dr. Expert. Who the hell was I kidding?

I remembered the good-mother smile of my training therapist, Ada Small. Soft voice. Brooklyn accent. Soft eyes. Unconditional acceptance; even the tough messages sweetened by kindness...

... your strong need to always be in control, Alex. It's not a totally bad thing, but at some point we will need to examine it...

Ada had taken me a long way; I'd been lucky to be assigned to her. Now we were colleagues, cross-referring, discussing patients; it had been a long time since I'd related to her as a patient.

Could I ever go back to showing her my scars?

Sharon hadn't been so lucky with her assignment. Paul Peter Kruse. Power junkie.

Pornographer. Equal opportunity flogger. I could only imagine what training therapy with him had been like. Yet she'd stayed with him long after graduating, remained his assistant instead of getting her license.

Doing her dirty work in space he leased. It said as much about her as about him, and I had to wonder who'd called the shots in their relationship.

Exploiters. Victims.

But her last victim had been herself. Why?

I forced myself to stop thinking about it, pushed Robin's face into my mind. No matter how things turned out, what we'd had once had been real.

The moment I got home I called San Luis Obispo.

"Hello."

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"Hi, Robin."

"Alex? Mom said you called. I tried to reach you several times."

"Just got in. Mom and I had a charming conversation."

"Oh. Did she give you a hard time?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. Main thing is, how's she treating you?"

She laughed. "I can handle her."

"You sure? You sound wiped out."

"I am wiped out, but that has nothing to do with her. Aaron's turned out to be a screamer—Terry's up all night. I've been relieving her—never been so exhausted in my life."

"Good. Maybe you'll yearn for the good old days and come back."

Silence.

"Anyway," I said, "I just thought I'd call and see how you're doing."

"I'm hanging in. How are you doing, Alex?"

"Just dandy."

"Really?"

"Would you believe semi-dandy?"

"What's the matter, Alex?"

"Nothing."

"You sound as if something's weighing on you."

"It's nothing," I said. "It just hasn't been a great week, so far."

"I'm sorry, Alex. I know you've been patient—"

"No," I said, "it has nothing to do with you."

"Oh?" she said, sounding more hurt than relieved.

"Someone I knew back in school committed suicide."

"How awful!"

"Yes, it is."

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"Did you know this person well?"

That gave me pause. "No," I said, "not really."

"Still," she said, "that kind of thing's so upsetting to hear."

"How about we change the subject." "Sure—did I say something wrong?" "No, nothing. I just don't feel like getting into it." "All right," she said. "Anyway, I'll let you go now." "I'm not rushing anywhere." "Okay."

But we found little more to talk about and when I hung up I felt empty. I filled the void with memories of Sharon.

That second autumn, we remained lovers, of sorts. When I managed to reach her she always said yes, always had sweet things to say, stimulating bits of academic knowledge to share. She whispered in my ear, rubbed my back, spread her legs for me with the ease of applying her lipstick, insisting I was her guy, the only man in her life. But reaching her was the challenge. She was seldom home, never left a clue to her whereabouts.

Not that I was knocking myself out trying to find her. The hospital owned me fifty hours a week and I'd taken on private patients at night, in order to save up the down payment on a house of my own. I kept busy solving the problems of others and ignoring my own.

A couple of times I dropped in on her unannounced, making the drive up Jalmia only to find the gray house locked, the carport empty. I gave up trying, went without seeing her for a couple of weeks. But late one Saturday night, stuck in the stop-and-go on Sunset after a wrenching evening with the parents of a mercilessly deformed newborn baby, I found myself wanting a shoulder to cry on. Like a homing pigeon I veered north to Hollywood Boulevard, turned off at Nichols Canyon. When I pulled up the driveway, the Alfa Romeo was sitting there.

The front door was unlocked. I walked in.

The living room was brightly lit but empty. I called her name. No answer. Repeated it. Nothing.

I checked her bedroom, half-expecting to find her with another man. Half wanting to.

But she was in there, alone, sitting cross-legged on the

bed, stark naked, eyes closed, as if meditating.

I'd entered her body so many times, but this was the first time I'd seen it unclothed. She was flawless, unbelievably rich. I restrained myself from touching her, whispered, "Sharon."

She didn't budge.

1 wondered if she was engaging in some kind of self-hypnosis. I'd heard Kruse was a master hypnotist. Had he been giving her private lessons?

But she looked stricken rather than entranced—frowning, breathing rapidly and shallowly. Her hands began to tremble. I noticed something in the right one.

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A small black-and-white snapshot, the old-fashioned type, with sawtooth edges.

I came closer and looked at it. Two little beautiful black-haired girls, about two or three years old. Identical twins with Shirley Temple curls, sitting side by side on a wooden garden bench, clear skies and dark, brooding granite mountains in the background. Picture-postcard mountains, perfect enough to be a photographer's backdrop.

The twins looked solemn and posed. Too solemn for their age. They'd been dressed in identical cowgirl suits— chaps, fringes, rhinestones—and held identical ice cream cones. Carbon copies of each other except for one small detail: One girl clutched her cone in her right hand; the other, in her left.

Mirror-twins.

Their features were set, hyper-mature.

Sharon's features, times two.

I was their only little girl.

Surprise, surprise.

I looked up at her, touched her bare shoulder, expecting the usual heat. But she felt cold and dry, strangely inorganic.

I leaned down and kissed the back of her neck. She jumped, cried out as if bitten. Striking out with her fists, she fell back on the bed, legs wide-flung in a helpless caricature of sexual welcome, panting, staring up at me.

"Sharon..."

She was looking at me as if I were a monster. Her mouth opened in a silent scream.

The snapshot fell to the floor. Picking it up, I saw something written on the back. A single sentence, in a strong hand.

S and S. Silent partners.

I turned the photo over, looked at the twins again.

"No!" she screamed as she sprang up and charged me. "No, no, no! Gimme, gimme! Mine, mine! Gimme!"

She clawed for the picture. Her fury was absolute, a hellish transformation. Stunned, I tossed it onto the bed.

She snatched it, clutched it to her chest, got up on all fours and crawled backward until she was up against the headboard. Her free hand struck out at the air between us, defining a no man's land. Her hair was tangled, Medusa-wild. She got to her knees, swayed and shook, big breasts bobbling.

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"Sharon, what's the matter—"

"Go! Go!"

"Honey—"

"Go! Get out! Go! Go!.Get out! Go!"

Sweat poured out of her, flowed down her body. Hot pink patches rose on the snow of her skin, as if she were burning from within.

"Sharon—"

She hissed at me, then whimpered and curled fetally, holding the snapshot to her heart. I watched it rise and fall with each labored breath. Took a step forward.