The Girls He Adored

by Jonathan Nasaw

  “But when I opened it up, I saw that someone else had already started a diary in it. A boy by the name of Martin. A boy who'd lived in that very room. Went to my middle school. Had the same teachers I did. Slept with Miss Miller. I was so jealous I could have spit.”

  “So you weren't the first?” Irene said softly.

  “That's what I thought, too. Then I checked the dates. February nineteen eighty-two through June of eighty-three.”

  “He was an alter?”

  “One of us. One of us. But I'd never heard of him. So I started reading his diary. He'd been there almost from the beginning—he was one of the first split-offs. And he hated Max, he despised him. Called him an outsider. He wrote down that he was writing the diary for the rest of us to find. He wrote that Max was the devil incarnate, and was trying to destroy him. That eventually Max would destroy us all. But if only we'd work together we could fight Max, take away his power over the system.

  “Ten pages in, the last entry ended in the middle of a sentence. Below it, in a different handwriting, Max's handwriting, were the words Sic Semper Traditor.”

  “Thus always . . . ?” That was as far as Irene's medical Latin would take her.

  “Thus always to traitors. If it's possible for an alter to die, Martin was dead. Worse than dead—at least dead people leave memories behind. There was nothing left of Martin but that notebook.”

  He fell silent, but his eyes, only inches from Irene's, were eloquent: they spoke of fear, they begged for help.

  “I understand what you're trying to tell me,” she said. “You're afraid that what happened to Martin will happen to you if you try to resist Max—even though you know that that would be the best thing you could do for the system. But I need you to know that there's one big difference between yourself and Martin.”

  What? His lips moved soundlessly.

  “You have me.” But in her heart of hearts she was every bit as terrified as Christopher appeared to be.

  73

  “WHEN I COME UP FROM Compton to live with my auntie, I already done Juvie time down south.”

  Cazimir Buckley's yellow eyes were damp and dreamy. He kept his thumb on the infuser button for comfort. He seemed to have been energized by the social interaction, thought Pender—or perhaps he wasn't quite as indifferent to the prospect of a final reckoning as he'd pretended to be.

  “So the Juvie here, man, to me it's like one a them, whatchacallem, Med Clubs, Club Meds. Big ol' farm, first horse I ever seen outside the TV that a cop wasn' ridin'. First cows and pigs I ever seen. And they fed us good. Best I ever ate in my life. I didn' even mind shovelin' cow shit—it's shit, but it's, like, clean shit. At night they lock us down in one big dormitory together, trusties in charge.

  “Them farm boys, they ain't seen many brothers up here. I took some whuppins, give some whuppins. What save my ass from a real stompin', the trusties had this rule: all fights one on one. You want to mess with a dude, you call him out after lockdown. It's what we had instead a TV.”

  Buckley closed his eyes, mashed his thumb down on the infuser button. As they waited for the morphine to take effect, Pender had a delicate decision to make. His customary interviewing technique allowed for digression—sometimes you learned things going up side roads you'd never learn on the highway. But Buckley was already weakening, and he didn't appear to have much strength in reserve.

  “Max,” prompted Pender. “Tell me about Max.”

  Buckley's eyes fluttered open. “I'm gettin' there, man, I'm gettin' there. He come to Juvie straight out of the hospital, his hands is all burned to shit, got gloves on for the skin graffs. No way that li'l dude belong in Juvie, but he don' have no place to go back to, either, and wouldn' no foster home take him in, 'cause he burn that last place down.

  “Li'l sweet piece like that, you reckon he gon' be somebody's butt boy his first night. But got-damn if the li'l fucker couldn' fight like a man. Ka-ra-tay! He coulda taught Jackie Chan a move or two. First dude mess with him, kid kick his cracker ass just usin' his feet.

  “Then when them bandages come off and he can use his hands, nobody fuck with him, nobody call him out. So he start callin' dudes out his own self. Now you take me back then—back then Caz like to fight. And some dudes, they love to fight. But little Max, he need to fight.

  “One night, finely he call me out. My auntie, she come out to visit me, bring me a box a homemade cookies. Max, he say how come you don' give me no cookies, dude? Share and share alike. I act all scared and shit, say here, man, take all the fuckin' cookies you want. Then when he got both hands full of cookies, I jump him. Bloody his nose, kick the shit out of him while he still down, cause I don' want no part of him after he get up.

  “Now you figure, after somethin' like that, dude gonna wait his chance, get some back. Not Max. It's like he my asshole buddy from there on. Follow me aroun' like a puppy dog—how you do that to me, Caz, how you do that? What I'm gonna tell him, wait til your man got his hands full of cookies and too greedy to let go? Got-damn, he'd a kicked my ass good, he figure that out. So I make some shit up 'bout countin' back from ten, and jumpin' your man before you get to one. Anytime 'fore you get to one, so long as you don't make up your mind too soon.”

  “I have to tell you, Caz, you just might have been onto something there,” said Pender, thinking of how fast Casey—Max—had jumped him in the holding cell.

  “Got-damn if he don' think so. He practice and practice—he just be out there feedin' his chickens—man, he love them chickens— and alla sudden, voom!—he bust a move. Standin' in the chow line, voom!—he bust a move. Got so good at it, finely wouldn' nobody on the ranch have no part of him, so they put him on the boxin' team. Unde-fuckin-feated. They hadn'a cut him loose, he'd a been junior lightweight Gold Gloves, maybe Oh-lympics, no lie.”

  Buckley pressed the infuser again, but not enough time had elapsed. “Fuck me,” he muttered.

  “You say they cut him loose?” said Pender quickly. “How'd that work?”

  “Well, like I tol' you, he never shoulda been in Juvie in the first place—all this time, he on'y waitin' trial. Finely the ol' lady he burn up, she get better enough, finely she tessify he was savin' her ass— say the man Max kilt, he was rapin' her. Say she call for help, Max jump him with a ice pick. Say the fire was a accident.”

  Again he pressed the button with his thumb. This time it clicked. Buckley closed his eyes and sighed with relief.

  Pender waited another few seconds, then pressed on. “Do you remember her name?”

  “Naw. All I remember, one day Max' PD show up, take him away to live with her.”

  “Have you seen him since Juvie?” asked Pender.

  “Thass a good question.”

  Oh-ho. “How do you mean?”

  “Last year. I got my parole, account of my liver cancer. Compassionate parole, they call it, but it's just, you dyin' and too sick to do nobody no harm, they don' wanna have to take care a you. You right 'bout that prison hospital—man, thass a hell hole. I'da been anybody else, I coulda got one a them transplants, but you a con, they don' even put you on the list.

  “So I been out about a month, I got me a room and board down by the river—my auntie done passed. I guess maybe it's July. I'm comin' outta the drugstore—the ol' one on Jackson Street, near the courthouse—I see this dude comin' in. I profile him pretty good, 'cause I'm thinking, got-damn, sure look like little Max. On'y he's too old to be Max—all gray-ass.

  “And damn if he don' eyeball me too, like maybe he's thinkin' that sure looks like ol Caz Buckley from Juvie, on'y it's way too old to be Caz. On account a I was down about a hunnerd ten, hunnerd twenty, no hair, skin all yellow, color of a old Laker unie. But he don' say nothin' and I don' say nothin'. On'y now you tell me cops is lookin' for him, so coulda been it really was him, on'y in disguise.”

  Buckley was at the end of his strength. His eyes had closed again, and his whisper was barely audible.

  “Beg pardon?” Pender had to lean over
to hear the last few words. His face was less than a foot from the yellow eyes when they finally opened again.

  “I said, we done now, you and me?” asked Buckley.

  Pender nodded.

  “You ain' gon' make no trouble with my parole?” He clicked the morphine button again.

  “No.”

  “Do it help any, what I tol' you?”

  “It helps. It helps more than you know,” said Pender, with a catch in his voice. He wasn't sure where all the emotion was coming from. It had something to do with the dying man in front of him, sure, but it was more than that. He knew this was his last case. He also knew that with the information Buckley had given him, he could break it—soon. It was a bittersweet realization, a valedictory sort of feeling.

  “Good,” said Buckley, as the morphine eased him again. “Like the man say, do the right thing.”

  “You did, Caz.” Pender patted Buckley's shoulder. “Anything I can do for you before I go?”

  “Yeah,” said Buckley. “Gimme back the call button.”

  “Oh—sorry. Here you go.”

  “And lemme know how it turn out—you know, if you ketch him.”

  Pender promised that he would, then hurried out of the room. The elevator door opened before he reached it, and the gray-haired black nurse stepped out, pushing a medication cart before her.

  “You all right?” she asked him.

  Pender nodded, adjusting his Stetson as he stepped into the elevator.

  “Will you be coming back?”

  Another nod.

  “Don't wait too long,” she called, as the elevator door closed. She hoped he'd understood what she meant—that Buckley didn't have long to live. This big bald cowboy seemed like a strange fellow to be visiting poor Caz, but they were obviously close. She could have sworn she saw a tear in the man's eye.

  74

  BEING A PSYCHIATRIST INVOLVED a certain amount of acting. In some ways, a therapy session was like a long improvisation. The trouble was, Irene wasn't sure she was a good enough actress for the role she had to play.

  Because as the morning session wore on, it had become clear to her just how high a price she would have to pay to maintain Christopher's dominance over Max and the other alters. Not only would she have to actively encourage his transference, she would have to feign a countertransference. It wasn't enough that Christopher was in love with her—she had to convince him that she was in love with him.

  “My poor Christopher. It must have been so difficult for you, living with Miss Miller after what she'd done to Mary.”

  “Not really. I went away for a few months.”

  “Where were you?”

  “It's hard to describe to somebody who hasn't been there. It's like the place you go when you're sleeping but not dreaming. Time doesn't pass.”

  “And when you woke up, when you came back?”

  “I opened my eyes in the morning, and I was me.”

  “Was it of your own volition, do you think?”

  “No. They needed me.”

  “They?”

  “Max and Miss Miller.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I was only there for part of it.”

  “But you remember the rest? You and the others share memory?”

  “I don't remember it directly, but I know what happened. Sort of like a dream. And of course there's always Mose, for the details. Like we always say, Mose knows.”

  “Do you communicate directly with Mose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any of the others?”

  “Ish. Max, sometimes.”

  “Now?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me what happened when you woke up, then—why did Max and Miss Miller need you?”

  “You'll hate me.”

  “I won't—I couldn't.”

  He slid off the chaise, sat down on the carpet of needles, then reached out toward Irene. She climbed off her chair and sat crosslegged in front of him.

  “Hold my hand,” he said. “Hold my hand and look into my eyes. And if you see me starting to switch, kiss me like you love me.”

  “I will,” said Irene, trying not to sound as miserable as she felt. “I do.”

  “The second one's name was Sandy Faircloth. It was Miss Miller's idea. Three months had gone by since Mary's death. At first Max was afraid somebody would come around asking questions, but as far as he could tell from reading the local paper, Mary was never even reported missing. The Witnesses may have just thought she ran away—who knows?

  “He and Miss Miller settled back into the routine. He put all his energy into fixing up the place, gardening, raising the chickens, putting in the electric fence to keep the predators out.

  “Then one day in August Max was out hoeing. Miss Miller was sitting in the shade watching him, wearing her new wig. It was hot, he was only wearing a pair of cutoffs, he had a hard-on, and frankly, he just didn't give a damn whether she saw it or not.

  “She did—she said he ought to consider finding himself a girlfriend. Said a healthy young boy like him had needs. He thought she was teasing him at first, but she was serious. I think she knew she couldn't keep him penned up forever. She said if he brought another one back, he could keep her—that as long as it was a strawberry blond, and as long as he didn't get too attached, she wouldn't interfere.

  “Looking back, I can't honestly tell you whether I knew what they had in mind—really, really knew. If I did, I was in denial about it, at least consciously. I found myself in the body. I knew I was supposed to pick up a girl, and I knew she had to be a strawberry blond. But subconsciously I must have known that once I brought her to the ridge, she wouldn't be leaving, because I didn't even bother trying to pick up any girls in Umpqua City, or even down in Medford, or over in Roseburg. Instead I stocked the freezer with enough food to last Miss Miller a week or two, then drove all the way to Eugene.

  “I stayed in a cheap motel, hung around the University. I fit in pretty good, sat in on a few lectures—it was summer session. Sandy Faircloth was a secretary in Human Resources. Not much of a looker, except for her hair. But that didn't bother me. I figured it would help my chances. The prettier they were, the more likely they already had a boyfriend.

  “Seducing her was a snap. It's a talent I didn't even know I had until I used it. I start off pretending I'm falling in love with the girl. Then after a while, I really do. Fall in love, I mean. Even though on some level I know I really don't. Does that make any sense?”

  Irene lobbed the question back to him. “Does it make sense to you?”

  “I'm not sure. But it happens every time. And then they fall in love with me. The hard part is maintaining a low profile, staying away from their friends and families. One thing about a girl in love, she wants to tell the world about it. I got better at it later. I'd tell them I had a stalker, or I was with the FBI. That's another thing about a girl in love—she'll believe anything.

  “With Sandy, I didn't even bother making up a story. She had a week's vacation coming to her. I told her she could come home with me, see my place, but it had to be our secret, that she had to just trust me.

  “And she did—not the brightest star in the firmament, my Sandy. I brought her back here, installed her in the guest bedroom, and screwed her brains out every night for a week—me or one of the others. Miss Miller, she laid low.

  “Eventually the time came for Sandy to get back to Eugene. But by then, we were hooked. Not on Sandy—on sex. I personally couldn't imagine going back to the way things had been before. I tried everything. I told her I was in love with her, that I'd kill myself if she left. I even proposed marriage. No good—she was frightened by then, and maybe not quite as head over heels as she'd been before. She said it was over—no more sex, time for Sandy to go home now.

  “I didn't know what to do, how to handle it. So Max took over. She freaked on him—he smacked her around. First time for that, for him. He liked it—it turned him on. He locked her in the drying shed
when he was done. From then on the die was cast. We couldn't exactly let her go, could we?”

  “I see,” said Irene, making a promise to God that if she survived, she would never say I see to a patient again.

  “Long story short, we kept Sandy another few months. Everybody got to take their turns with her—even me, I'm ashamed to say. Sometimes Miss Miller would watch. Sandy didn't like that at all. Eventually she stopped taking care of herself, stopped talking, even stopped begging. We had to force-feed her, wash her. Sex wasn't much fun. She'd just lie there—it was like fucking a hole in the mattress. Didn't make me feel very good about myself, I can tell you. After a while I gave up on it, personally, but for Max and the others it didn't seem to matter.

  “Then one night the two of them, Miss Miller and Max, were in the parlor playing chess. Max asked Miss Miller what she wanted for Christmas. Another wig, she said—Mary was starting to fade, so she wanted another long beautiful head of strawberry blond hair, just like the girl in the drying shed.

  “Of course Max knew she wasn't talking about him buying her another wig. So on Christmas Eve Max washed Sandy's hair, and harvested it with an electric razor. On Christmas morning Miss Miller got her present, and so did Kinch.”

  So little remorse, even for his own actions, thought Irene. It was almost as if Christopher were trying to paint himself in the least favorable light. Perhaps he was trying to test her. If so, she was determined to pass. She opened her arms to him. He leaned forward, put his arms around her in return. They rocked together awkwardly for a moment, then he lay down with his head in her lap. She stroked his brow.