Silent Partner
Page 48
“No,” I said, “this isn't about revenge. There's nothing to take revenge for—in the end, you did me a favor.”
“Glad to oblige,” she said. The tears began to flow, but she staunched them. “No, I won't do that—you deserve better than that. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, right?”
I extended my hand. She shook her head, bit her lip.
“There was another man,” she said. “Nothing serious—old flame from college, coffee and pie. I nipped it in the bud. But it came so close. I still feel I've betrayed you.”
I said, “I've betrayed you too.”
She gave a low moan and closed her eyes. “Who?”
“Old flame from college.”
“Is she . . . Are you still . . .”
“No, it's not like that, never was like that. She captured my head, not my cock. Now she's gone forever. But it changed me.”
She walked to the end of the room, folded her arms over her breasts and said nothing for a while. Then: “Alex, what's going to become of us?”
“I don't know. A happy ending would be nice. But I have a ways to go before I'm going to be much use to you—to anyone.”
“I like you just the way you are.”
“Like you, too,” I said, so automatically that it made both of us laugh.
She faced me. I extended my hand. She came back, looked up at me. We touched, merged, began undressing each other wordlessly, fell back on the couch and made love there. Made sex. Competent, seamless union born of practice and ritual, so seamless it verged on incestuous.
When it was over, she sat up and said, “It's not going to be that easy, is it?”
I shook my head. “What is that's worthwhile?”
She peeled away from me, got up, stood in front of the picture window. Backlit, naked, curls hanging down her back like a cluster of grapes.
“The shop's probably a godawful mess,” she said. “Messages slipped under the door, all those backed-up orders.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “Do what you need to do.”
She turned, ran back to me, lay on me, sobbed on my chest. We stayed together, cheek to cheek, before the restlessness set in, then went our separate ways.
Sharon. Kruse. The Ratman. Even Larry. Enough problems between us to fill a textbook.
Alone again, I thought of mine, all the unfinished business. I dealt with it by taking the easy way out: found a number in my Rolodex and dialed.
Fourth ring: “Hello?”
“Mrs. Burkhalter? Denise? This is Dr. Delaware.”
“Oh. Hi.”
“If this is a bad time—”
“No, no, it's . . . I'm . . . It's funny, I was just thinking of you. Darren's still, uh, crying a lot.”
“Some of that can be expected.”
“Actually,” she said, “he's crying more. Lots. Since the last time he saw you. And not sleeping or eating right.”
“Has anything changed since the last time I saw you?”
“Just the money—though I can't feel that yet. It's not real. I mean, Mr. Worthy says it could take months for it to come in. Meanwhile, we're still getting bank letters and my husband's insurance company is still dragging their damned . . . Why am I going on like this? That's not what you want to hear about.”
“I want to hear anything you want to tell me about.”
Pause. “I'm real sorry. About the way I ran my mouth at you.”
“That's okay. You've been through plenty.”
“Isn't that the truth. From day one—” Her voice broke. “I keep going on about other stuff, and it's my baby I'm all shook about—crying and yelling and hitting at me, not wanting to know me like he used to. Meanwhile, all the waiting. No one's around. I don't know what to do—I just don't understand why all this is happening.”
Another pause, this one mine. Therapeutic.
She sniffled through it.
I said, “I'm sorry, Denise. I wish I could take away your pain.”
“Take it and stuff it in a bag and drop it in the sewer,” she said. “Take everyone's.”
“Wouldn't that be something.”
“Yeah.” Small laugh. “What should I do, Doc? With Darren.”
“Has he been playing—the way he played in my office?”
“That's the thing,” she said. “He won't. I give him the cars and tell him what to do, but he just looks at them and starts screaming.”
“If you'd like to bring him in, I'd be happy to see him,” I said. “Or if the drive's too long, I can refer you to someone closer.”
“No, no, that was all . . . It's not too far. What else do I have to do all day but drive, anyway?”
“Then by all means come,” I said. “I can see you tomorrow, first thing.”
“Yeah, that would be great.”
We made an appointment.
She said, “You're a nice man. You really know how to help a person.”
That shored me up enough to make my second call.
Five minutes to twelve. Lunch break.
“Dr. Small.”
“Hi, Ada. It's Alex. Brown-bagging it?”
“Cottage cheese and fruit,” she said. “Battle of the bulge. Listen, I'm glad you called. I tried to reach Carmen Seeber, but her line's been disconnected and there's no record of a new one.”
“This isn't about her,” I said. “It's about me.”
Her therapeutic pause.
The damned things worked. I said, “A lot's been piling up. I thought if you thought it would be appropriate for me to come in . . .”
“I'm always happy to see you, Alex,” she said. “Do you have any concerns about the appropriateness of it?”
“Not at all. No, that's not true. I guess I do. Things have changed between us. It's hard slipping out of the colleague role, admitting helplessness.”
“You're far from helpless, Alex. Just insightful enough to know you're not invulnerable.”
“Insightful.” I laughed. “Far from it.”
“You called, didn't you? Alex, I understand what you're saying—shifting roles must seem like a step backward. But I certainly don't see it that way.”
“I appreciate your saying that.”
“I'm saying it because it's true. However, if you have doubts, I can refer you to someone else.”
“Start over? No, I wouldn't want that.”
“Would you like some time to think it over?”
“No, no. I might as well dive in, before I figure out some way to build up my defenses again.”
“All right, it's settled then. Let me check my book.” The sound of flipping pages. “How about tomorrow at six? The office will be quiet—you won't run into anyone you've referred.”
“Six would be great, Ada. See you then.”
“I'm looking forward to it, Alex.”
“Me too. 'Bye.”
“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“It's a very good thing you're doing.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JONATHAN KELLERMAN, America's foremost author of psychological thrillers, turned from a distinguished career in child psychology to writing full-time. His works include fourteen Alex Delaware books—When the Bough Breaks, Blood Test, Over the Edge, Silent Partner, Time Bomb, Private Eyes, Devil's Waltz, Bad Love, Self-Defense, The Web, The Clinic, Survival of the Fittest, Monster, and Dr. Death—as well as the thrillers The Butcher's Theater and Billy Straight, three volumes of psychology, and two children's books. He and his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, have four children.
BOOKS BY JONATHAN KELLERMAN
FICTION:
Billy Straight (1998)
Survival of the Fittest (1997)
The Clinic (1997)
The Web (1996)
Self-Defense (1995)
Bad Love (1994)
Devil's Waltz (1993)
Private Eyes (1992)
Time Bomb (1990)
Silent Partner (1989)
The Butcher's Theater (1988)
; Over the Edge (1987)
Blood Test (1986)
When the Bough Breaks (1985)
NONFICTION:
Helping the Fearful Child (1981)
Psychological Aspects of Childhood Cancer (1980)
FOR CHILDREN, WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED:
Jonathan Kellerman's ABC of Weird Creatures (1995)
Daddy, Daddy, Can You Touch the Sky? (1994)
Keep reading for an excerpt from
Jonathan Kellerman's
new Alex Delaware novel
A COLD HEART
Available
from Ballantine Books
CHAPTER 1
The witness remembers it like this:
Shortly after two A.M., Baby Boy Lee exits The Snake Pit through the rear alley fire door. The light fixture above the door is set up for two bulbs, but one is missing, and the illumination that trickles down onto the garbage-flecked asphalt is feeble and oblique, casting a grimy mustard-colored disc, perhaps three feet in diameter. Whether or not the missing bulb is intentional will remain conjecture.
It is Baby Boy's second and final break of the evening. His contract with the club calls for a pair of one-hour sets. Lee and the band have run over their first set by twenty-two minutes because of Baby Boy's extended guitar and harmonica solos. The audience, a nearly full house of 124, is thrilled. The Pit is a far cry from the venues Baby Boy played in his heyday, but he appears to be happy, too.
It has been a while since Baby Boy has taken the stage anywhere and played coherent blues. Audience members questioned later are unanimous: Never has the big man sounded better.
Baby Boy is said to have finally broken free of a host of addictions, but one habit remains: nicotine. He smokes three packs of Kools a day, taking deep-in-the-lung drags while on stage, and his guitars are notable for the black, lozenge-shaped burn marks that scar their lacquered wood finishes.
Tonight, though, Baby Boy has been uncommonly focused, rarely removing lit cigarettes from where he customarily jams them: just above the nut of his '62 Telecaster, wedged under the three highest strings.
So it is probably a tobacco itch that causes the singer to leap offstage the moment he plays his final note, flinging his bulk out the back door without a word to his band or anyone else. The bolt clicks behind him, but it is doubtful he notices.
The fiftieth Kool of the day is lit before Baby Boy reaches the alley. He is sucking in mentholated smoke as he steps in and out of the disc of dirty light.
The witness, such that he is, is certain that he caught a glimpse of Baby Boy's face in the light and that the big man was sweating. If that's true, perhaps the perspiration had nothing to do with anxiety but resulted from Baby Boy's obesity and the calories expended on his music: For eighty-three minutes he has been jumping and howling and swooning, caressing his guitar, bringing the crowd to a frenzy at set's end with a fiery, throat-ripping rendition of his signature song, a basic blues setup in the key of B-flat that witnesses the progression of Baby Boy's voice from an inaudible mumble to an anguished wail.
There's women that'll mess you
There's those that treat you nice
But I got me a woman with
A heart as cold as ice.
A cold heart,
A cold, cold heart
My baby's hot but she is cold
A cold heart,
A cold, cold heart
My baby's murdering my soul . . .
At this point, the details are unreliable. The witness is a hepatitis-stricken, homeless man by the name of Linus Leopold Brophy, aged thirty-nine but looking sixty, who has no interest in the blues or any other type of music and who happens to be in the alley because he has been drinking Red Phoenix fortified wine all night and the Dumpster five yards east of the Snake Pit's back door provides shelter for him to sleep off his delerium tremens. Later, Brophy will consent to a blood alcohol test and will come up .24, three times the legal limit for driving, but according to Brophy “barely buzzed.”
Brophy claims to have been drowsy but awake when the sound of the back door opening rouses him, and he sees a big man step out into the light and then fade to darkness. Brophy claims to recall the lit end of the man's cigarette glowing “like Halloween, you know—orange, shiny, real bright, know what I mean?” and admits that he seizes upon the idea of panhandling money from the smoker. (“Because the guy is fat, so I figure he had enough to eat, that's for sure, maybe he'll come across, know what I mean?”)
Linus Brophy struggles to his feet and approaches the big man.
Seconds later, someone else approaches the big man, arriving from the opposite direction—the mouth of the alley, at Lodi Place. Linus Brophy stops in his tracks, retreats into darkness, sits down next to the Dumpster.
The new arrival, a man, also good-sized, according to Brophy, though not as tall as Baby Boy Lee and maybe half of Baby Boy's width, walks right up to the singer and says something that sounds “friendly.” Questioned about this characterization extensively, Brophy denies hearing any conversation but refuses to budge from his judgement of amiability. (“Like they were friends, you know? Standing there, friendly.”)
The orange glow of Baby Boy's cigarette lowers from mouth to waist level as he listens to the new arrival.
The new arrival says something else to Baby Boy and Baby Boy says something back.
The new arrival moves closer to Baby Boy. Now, the two men appear to be hugging.
The new arrival steps back, looks around, turns heel and leaves the alley the way he came.
Baby Boy Lee stands there alone.
His hand drops. The orange glow of the cigarette hits the ground, setting off sparks.
Baby Boy sways. Falls.
Linus Brophy stares, finally builds up the courage to approach the big man. Kneeling, he says, “Hey, man,” receives no answer, reaches out and touches the convexity of Baby Boy's abdomen. He feels moisture on his hand and is repelled.
As a younger man, Brophy had a temper. He has spent half of his life in various county jails and state penitentiaries, saw things, did things. He knows the feel and the smell of fresh blood.
Stumbling to his feet, he lurches to the back door of the Snake Pit and tries to pull it open, but the door is locked. He knocks, no one answers.
The shortest way out of the alley means retracing the steps of the newcomer: walk out to Lodi Place, hook north to Fountain and find someone who'll listen.
Brophy has already wet his pants twice tonight—first while sleeping drunk and now, upon touching Baby Boy Lee's blood. Fear grips him and he heads the other way, tripping through the long block that takes him to the other end of the alley. Finding no one on the street at this hour, he makes his way to an all-night liquor store on the corner of Fountain and El Centro.
Once inside the store, Brophy shouts at the Lebanese clerk who sits reading behind a Plexiglass window, the same man who one hour ago sold him three bottles of Red Phoenix. Brophy waves his arms, tries to get across what he has just seen. The clerk regards Brophy as exactly what he is—a babbling wino—and orders him to leave.
When Brophy begins pounding on the Plexiglass, the clerk considers reaching for the nail-studded baseball bat he keeps beneath the counter. Sleepy and weary of confrontation, he dials 911.
Brophy leaves the liquor store and walks agitatedly up and down Fountain Avenue. When a squad car from Hollywood Division arrives, Officers Keith Montez and Cathy Ruggles assume Brophy is their problem and handcuff him immediately.
Somehow he manages to communicate with the Hollywood Blues and they drive their black and white to the mouth of the alley. High-intensity LAPD-issue flashlights bathe Baby Boy Lee's corpse in a heartless, white glare.
The big man's mouth gapes and his eyes are rolled back. His banana-yellow Stevie Ray Vaughan t-shirt is dyed crimson and a red pool has seeped beneath his corpse. Later, it will be ascertained that the killer gutted the big man with a classic street-fighter's move: long-bladed knife thrust under the s
ternum followed by a single upward motion that slices through intestine and diaphragm and nicks the right ventricle of Baby Boy's already seriously enlarged heart.
Baby Boy is long past help and the cops don't even attempt it.
Don't miss these thrilling suspense novels from Jonathan Kellerman!
The Murder Book
L.A. psychologist-detective Alex Delaware has received a strange, anonymous package in the mail. Inside is an album filled with gruesome crime-scene photos. When his old friend and colleague, homicide detective Milo Sturgis, views the compendium of death, he is immediately shaken by one of the images: a young woman tortured, strangled, and dumped near a freeway ramp. The murder was one of Milo's first cases as a rookie homicide cop: a vicious killing that he failed to solve-and has haunted him ever since. Now, two decades later, someone has chosen to stir up the past. As Alex and Milo set out to uncover what really happened twenty years ago, their relentless investigation reaches deep into L.A.'s nerve centers of power and wealth-past and present. While peeling back layer after layer of ugly secrets, they discover that the murder of one forgotten girl has chilling ramifications that extend far beyond the tragic loss of a single life.
Flesh and Blood
Lauren Teague is a beautiful, defiant, borderline delinquent teenager when her parents bring her to Dr. Alex Delaware's office. Lauren angrily resists Alex's help—and the psychologist is forced to chalk Lauren up as one of the inevitable failures of his profession. Years later, when Alex and Lauren come face-to-face in a shocking encounter, both doctor and patient are stricken with shame. But the ultimate horror takes place when, soon after, Lauren's brutalized corpse is found dumped in an alley. Alex disregards the advice of his trusted friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, and jeopardizes his relationship with his longtime lover, Robin Castagna, in order to pursue Lauren's killer. As he investigates his young patient's troubled past, Alex enters the shadowy worlds of fringe psychological experimentation and the sex industry—and then into mortal danger, when lust and big money collide in an unforgiving Los Angeles.