Shrink Rap

by Robert B. Parker

  “Maybe she’s just an incurable romantic,” I said.

  “Like me,” Tony said and put his arms around me and kissed me. I kissed him back. We moved to the couch. He began to fumble with my clothes. Here we go! I thought.

  And I helped him with the buttons.

  Chapter 33

  We were going home from LA, a couple of good-looking babes, traveling first class, each with a Bloody Mary and a small foil envelope of smoked almonds. The plane bumped slightly. I tensed my knees. I wasn’t actually afraid of flying, but I’d enjoy it more if I were driving.

  “You and Tony seemed to hit it off very well,” Melanie Joan said.

  “We did.”

  “Every night,” Melanie Joan said.

  “How sweet of you to notice,” I said.

  Melanie Joan smiled. “Just envy,” she said.

  The cabin attendant passed out menus. Melanie Joan filed hers in the seat pocket.

  “You’re after Tony?” I said.

  “Among others,” Melanie Joan said. “My heels get rounder every year.”

  “Have you ever… ? I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.”

  Melanie Joan shook her head. “Tony doesn’t sleep with clients,” she said.

  “How very professional,” I said.

  The plane droned eastward. Lunch was served. I ate some of it. Melanie Joan knew better. She had a second Bloody Mary.

  “You like him?” Melanie Joan said.

  “Yes. I like him quite a lot.”

  “Will you stay in touch?” Melanie Joan said.

  “Yes. I hope so.”

  Melanie Joan nodded and didn’t say anything.

  “What?” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “What?” I said again.

  “Tony’s very nice,” Melanie Joan said. “But he’s a Hollywood guy.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You’ve been in six pitch meetings with me,” Melanie Joan said. “All of the people in the meetings were Hollywood guys.”

  I nodded.

  “Tony seems very genuine,” I said.

  Melanie Joan nodded.

  “I’m in the business,” I said, “of distinguishing genuine from pretend.”

  “I know.”

  “Even though we haven’t been together for a terribly long time, we have been very intimately together in the time we’ve had.”

  Melanie Joan nodded.

  “People reveal themselves,” I said.

  “During sex?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re happy with what he revealed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” Melanie Joan said.

  “I think he cares about me,” I said.

  “I’m sure he thinks so too,” Melanie Joan said.

  Maybe she really was jealous.

  The cabin crew cleared the lunch, and offered us ice cream for dessert. Melanie Joan’s superior travel skills became apparent. Melanie had some with chocolate sauce and butterscotch sauce and strawberries and whipped cream and nuts. I’d wasted too many calories on the entree and had to decline. Live and learn.

  “Would you like a bite of my ice cream?” Melanie Joan said.

  “No,” I said grimly. “I would not.”

  Chapter 34

  The next morning Rosie woke me up at quarter to seven. It was only quarter to four on my still West Coast internal clock, and I wasn’t pleased. But Rosie is very insistent in a charming way. By eight o’clock I had walked her and fed her and showered and put on my face. I was drinking coffee at my counter when Melanie Joan called me.

  “He’s here,” she said.

  “Here where?” I said.

  “Outside my building. I can see him from my window.”

  “You should be all right,” I said. “It’s a secure building. Just stay inside until I get there.”

  She said she would. I hung up and called Spike. The morning traffic was still heavy and it was five past nine before we were able to come to Melanie Joan’s rescue. There was no sign of John Melvin.

  “He was right out there,” Melanie Joan said, “standing on the corner of Dartmouth Street.”

  “Far enough away,” I suspect, “so as not to violate the restraining order.”

  “That would be like him,” Melanie Joan said.

  Her shoulders were hunched in toward her chest. She rubbed her right forearm with her left hand as if the circulation were lagging. Her face was pinched as if she were cold.

  “Goddamn him,” she said.

  Her voice was shaky.

  “I thought in Los Angeles that I had some sort of breakthrough,” she said. “That I was implacable in my resolve not to fear him.”

  “But you do,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Everyone fears things,” I said.

  Spike smiled. “Almost everyone,” he said.

  “Who’s this?” Melanie Joan said.

  “Spike,” I said. “He’s going to help us.”

  Melanie Joan didn’t seem pleased about Spike but she made no comment until we were sitting in her living room with coffee.

  “How is he going to help us?” she said.

  “Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” Spike said.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Melanie Joan said.

  Spike smiled at her.

  “Here’s what I’ve been thinking,” I said. “I’ve been thinking that we can spend the rest of our lives guarding you against John Stalker. Or, we can put John Stalker out of business and solve the problem permanently.”

  Melanie Joan nodded. Spike drank some coffee and ate one of the miniature corn muffins Melanie Joan had presented on a silver salver.

  “Is he going to, ah, put John out of business?” Melanie Joan said.

  “No,” I said. “I am. Spike is going to look out for you while I’m doing it.”

  “Look after me?”

  “He won’t stay here all the time,” I said. “The building is secure. But when you need to go out, or if you’re scared, Spike will be available to you.”

  “No.”

  “Spike is very formidable,” I said. “He can keep you safe.”

  “I don’t want a man hanging around me everywhere I go.”

  “Right on, sister,” Spike said.

  “See?” Melanie Joan said.

  “Spike would joke at his own funeral,” I said.

  “I hope,” Spike said.

  I ignored him. “He can really take care of you,” I said. “Better, probably, than I could.”

  She looked at Spike.

  “And how long before the suggestive remarks begin?” Melanie Joan said.

  Spike grinned.

  “I am a practicing homosexual,” he said.

  She stared at him for a moment. “Homosexual?”

  “Gayer than toe shoes,” Spike said.

  “My God,” she said. “But you’re so…”

  “We don’t all look like Michael Jackson,” Spike said.

  “Oh, no, of course not. I didn’t mean… You’re so large.”

  Spike smiled.

  “The better to look after you, my dear,” Spike said. He looked like a pleasant Kodiak bear.

  “And what will you be doing,” Melanie Joan said to me, “while Mr. Spike is here?”

  “I can’t believe this is the only thing John Melvin’s ever done wrong,” I said. “I’m going to see if I can find out what else he’s done.”

  “And if you do?” Melanie Joan said.

  “He can’t stalk you if he’s in jail.”

  “Oh my God,” Melanie Joan said. “Can you send him to jail?”

  “Let’s find out,” I said.

  Chapter 35

  “If the therapy is effective,” Max Copeland said, “his patients will share with Dr. Ex the fact of our interest.”

  “So if I go visit the women whose names I got through grueling surveillance, I’ll give myself away.”

  “Probably,” Copeland said. “One of the
necessities of effective therapy is a trusting relationship between the therapist and the patient.”

  “Don’t you think it a little odd,” I said, “that in the first ten minutes of our first session, Dr. Ex was asking about my sexuality.”

  “Sexuality is an important question for a patient whose presenting symptoms include an inability to fully separate from a divorced spouse.”

  “Granted,” I said. “But would you have asked right off the bat?”

  “I might have let it emerge from the therapy,” Copeland said. “But it would not be inappropriate to introduce the topic.”

  I said, “I know it’s nothing I can prove, just a feeling…”

  “This is not a court of law,” Copeland said. “What you feel is probably more important in here than what you think.”

  “He’s reacting to me sexually,” I said.

  Copeland nodded.

  “I mean, I can feel it, any woman can feel it, if it’s strong enough. It’s like when he looks at me he’s seeing me naked.”

  Copeland nodded again.

  “It’s not just me,” I said. “I know the difference. You’re not doing that.”

  Copeland smiled again and made a little motion with his head, which indicated nothing more than he’d heard me.

  “I feel as if he’s trying to penetrate me,” I said.

  “Well, in some sense, that is the business of therapy,” Copeland said.

  “It’s not that,” I said. “The man wants my soul.”

  Copeland tilted his head slightly and widened his eyes.

  “Most men want to dominate you,” I said. “Except Richie…”

  “Your ex-husband,” Copeland said.

  “Yes. Richie was very non-controlling.”

  “Did you have any control over him?” Copeland asked.

  I started to speak and stopped. I hadn’t ever thought about controlling Richie.

  “Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by control,” I said. “We cared about each other, but we didn’t belong to each other.”

  Copeland nodded and with his right hand made a tiny circular gesture that encouraged me to go on.

  “We were a democracy,” I said. “Not a kingdom.”

  “How did that make you feel?” Copeland said.

  “Oh God,” I said. “The ultimate therapy cliché. I knew it would come.”

  Copeland nodded. He didn’t say anything. I was quiet too. I was not going to let him therapize these sessions. Copeland seemed perfectly comfortable with the silence. I could last as long as he could, the bastard. It was hard to sit motionless in the silence. I wanted to cross my legs, clear my throat, rub my hands together. I didn’t. I sat still. I would outlast the bastard if it lasted the whole hour. The weight of the stillness pressed on my chest. I had trouble swallowing. All of a sudden there were tears in my eyes and on my face. I was, for crissake, crying. Copeland pushed a box of Kleenex closer to me on his desktop. The son of a bitch was prepared for everything. I wiped the tears on the Kleenex. My nose was running. I blew it on the Kleenex. Copeland moved a wastebasket nearer to me. I deposited the tissue.

  “I don’t know where this came from,” I said.

  My voice was shaky. I was still crying.

  “Go ahead, let it come,” Copeland said. “See what comes with it.”

  I shook my head. We sat some more until I got control.

  “Well,” I said. “I guess we know how it makes me feel.”

  My voice was still shaky. Copeland nodded. It was almost a nod of approval. Maybe.

  Chapter 36

  I sat at my kitchen counter that night and sipped white wine and talked on the phone for an hour and a half with Tony Gault.

  “You’ve ruined my sex life,” he said.

  “I had hoped to enhance it,” I said.

  “Oh, God yes, you did. But now nobody else interests me.”

  “Not even the starlet of the week?”

  “Especially not her.”

  “Is that because I’m so innovative in bed?”

  “Yes. And also because I had forgotten the pleasure of boffing someone I could talk with after.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I like that too.”

  “When are you coming back?” he said.

  “I don’t know. I’m still working for Melanie Joan, and… I need to stay on it for a while… Could you come east?”

  “I’m working on it,” Tony said. “But so far I can’t contrive a reason.”

  “How about to see me?”

  “I mean a business reason,” Tony said. “Then I can get the agency to pick up the tab.”

  Rosie was lying in one of the armchairs near the coffee table by the window. She was curled up so that only one almond-shaped black eye was looking at me. But the gaze of that one eye was penetrating. I smiled at her and her tail thumped once against the arm of the chair.

  “Do you miss me?” I said.

  “Real bad,” he said.

  “Do you miss the lovely chats we had after?”

  “Well,” Tony said, “yes. But to tell you the truth I especially miss before the chats.”

  “So it’s not just my mind?” I said.

  “No,” Tony said. “It’s also your pelvis.”

  We talked awhile longer about pelvises until Tony said he had a client to meet for drinks at the Peninsula bar. We said goodbye and hung up. I felt like someone who had not drunk quite enough to quench her thirst.

  I took my wineglass to the stove and sipped a little more while I cooked myself broccoli and pasta. When it was done I brought it to the window table and sat opposite Rosie to eat my supper. Rosie sat up briskly. Alert.

  “Now here’s the problem we have to resolve,” I said to Rosie. “Should I talk to the people we spotted coming and going at his office? The several women, the two men. You remember?”

  Rosie was looking at my pasta.

  “If I do, they’ll tell Melvin that some broad named Randall was asking about him.”

  I gave Rosie a small broccoli floret. She ate it as thoroughly as she did things she likes a lot better.

  “Broccoli is good for you,” I said. “He still won’t know that Sunny Randall and Sonya Burke are the same.”

  I poured myself a little more wine.

  “It might be good if he has a sense someone is after him. Stalking the stalker so to speak.”

  I giggled a little at my own cleverness. Talking to Rosie was perfectly normal. I did it all the time. Giggling at what I said to her was a sure sign that I had drunk too much. I looked at my wineglass. So what?

  I took my wineglass with me to the kitchen counter and looked at my notebook.

  “Okay,” I said. “Tomorrow we’ll start with Kim Crawford. Our lady of the silver Volvo.”

  I sat on the stool and leaned my back against my counter and looked at my reflection in the dark window across the room. Rosie had gone to sleep in the armchair. I raised my glass to my reflection. There I was, a woman in her middle thirties, living alone with a dog, getting drunk. Pathetic. Pretty soon I’d have to start listening to the tick of my biological clock. Tick tock. I wasn’t even sure I wanted a baby. And if I did, who did I want to father it? Maybe Spike and I should have a child. We loved each other. We got along. He was funny and smart and brave… and gay!

  I looked at myself some more.

  “Hell,” I said to Rosie. “I don’t even own a turkey baster.”

  Richie was funny and smart and brave. We loved each other.

  “And,” I said, “I wouldn’t need a turkey baster.”

  Wouldn’t need one with Tony Gault, either. He was smart and funny. He might be brave. We had certainly gotten along in LA. When I thought about Tony, I thought about us together in bed. I thought about how strong he felt, and how supple. It was odd. I didn’t think of him naked. I thought of myself naked in front of him. I felt it in the bottom of my stomach. It made my throat close a little. I wanted to be naked in front of him again.

  “… Could yo
u come east?”

  “I’m working on it. But so far I can’t contrive a reason.”

  “How about to see me?”

  “I mean a business reason. Then I can get the agency to pick up the tab.”

  Maybe I wasn’t worth the airfare? Maybe being naked wasn’t as important to Tony. But it was important to me. I wanted him here. I wanted him against me. I stood looking at myself. I looked good. I had a good body. Men liked it. I looked at Rosie sleeping in the armchair. I wondered why I had cried in Dr. Copeland’s office.

  Chapter 37

  Kim Crawford lived in a condominium townhouse among a whole village of them off Route 2 in West Concord.

  “My name is Sunny Randall,” I said to her at the door. “I’m a detective and I need to talk with you.”

  “A detective?”

  “Yes. It’s not about you. It’s just part of a thing I’m investigating.”

  “What?”

  “Could I come in?”

  “Oh, yes, sure,” she said and held the door open. “Come on in. Don’t mind the dog. You want some coffee or something?”

  The dog I was asked not to mind appeared to be the Akita that ate Tokyo. He stood against her leg and looked at me the way big fighting dogs look at you. Not hostile exactly, more just appraising. I put my clenched fist down and let him sniff it. His tail wagged slightly. Oh good.

  We sat in the living room. The townhouse looked as if it had been built on a tight budget. Everything looked thin. Except the Akita. Kim was barefoot, wearing jeans and a man’s white tee shirt. She was carefully made up, and her blond hair was clean and slightly wavy. She had her feet tucked up on the sofa. Her toenails were painted.

  I would have killed for that hair.

  The Akita sat on the floor next to her and stared at me with his pale eyes.

  “I can’t tell you much about my investigation, Kim, it’s confidential.”

  “I understand,” Kim said.

  The living room was done all in pink and gray. Over the mantel was a large framed color photograph of Kim in a wedding dress. The color had the garish tone that only wedding photos and class pictures can achieve. It did not go well with the rest of the room.

  “Great picture,” I said.

  “Thanks. I love that dress.”