Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 04 - Silent Partner

by Silent Partner

  There was a multiplex theater up the block from the market. I chose a feature at random, paid the early-bird discount price and sat low in my seat along with giggling teenage couples and other solitary men. The show was a low-grade thriller graced by neither coherent dialogue nor plot. I walked out in the middle of a sweat-soaked love scene between the heroine and the dashing psychopath who was going to try to carve her up for postcoital dessert.

  Outside, it was dark. Another day vanquished. I forced a fast-food burger down my throat, headed for home, then remembered that the newspaper had been temporarily therapeutic.

  Evening. A new edition. A blind vendor was hawking it from a curb on Wilshire. I pulled over, bought a paper, paying with a dollar bill, not waiting for the change.

  Back home, I called my service—no impersonal machine for old Alex. No messages either.

  Stripping down to my undershorts, I took the Times and a cup of instant coffee to bed.

  Slow news day; most of the evening special was a rehash of the morning edition. I stuffed myself on swindles and subterfuge. Found my eyes blurring. Perfect.

  Then I was brought abruptly back to focus by a story on page 20.

  Not even a story, just filler: a couple of column-inches next to a wire-service piece on the sociological structure of South American fire ants.

  But the headline caught my eye.

  PSYCHOLOGIST'S DEATH POSSIBLE SUICIDE

  Maura Bannon Staff Writer

  (LOS ANGELES) Police sources said the death of a local psychologist, found this morning in her Hollywood Hills home, probably resulted from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The body of Sharon Ransom, 34, was discovered this morning in the bedroom of her Nichols Canyon home. She had apparently died sometime Sunday night.

  Ransom lived alone in the Jalmia Drive house, which also doubled as an office. A native of New York City, she was educated and trained in Los Angeles, received her Ph.D. in 1981. No next of kin have been located.

  Sunday night. Just hours after I'd called her.

  Something cold and rank as sewer gas rose in my gut and bubbled in my throat. I forced myself to read the article again. And again.

  A couple of column inches. Filler... I thought of black hair, blue eyes, a blue dress, pearls. That remarkable face, so alive, so warm.

  No, you 're one person to whom I don't have to pretend. No, I haven't been fine, not at. all.

  A cry for help? The implied intimacy had angered me. Had it blocked me from seeing it for what it was?

  She hadn't looked that upset.

  And why me? What had she seen in that quick glance across the shoulders of strangers that had led her to think I was the right one to turn to?

  Big mistake... old Alex fixated on his own needs, soft white thighs and pillowy breasts.

  No, I haven't been fine. Not at all.

  I'm sorry to hear that.

  Dispensing vending-machine empathy.

  I'd reeled her in, not giving half a shit. Enjoyed the feeling of power as she floated toward me, passive.

  If it means that much to you, we can get together and talk... and let me fuck your ears off.

  It means a lot to me.

  I clawed the page free from the paper, crumpled it, and threw it across the room.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to let myself cry. For her, for me, for Robin. For families that fell apart, a world falling apart. Little boys who watched their fathers die. Anyone in the world who goddam deserved it.

  The tears wouldn't come.

  Wait for the beep.

  Pull the trigger.

  LATER, AFTER some of the shock wore off, I realised that I'd rescued her once before. Perhaps she'd remembered it, had constructed a time-machine fantasy of her own.

  The fall of '74. I was twenty four, a brand-new Ph.D., caught up in the novelty of being addressed as Doctor but still as poor as a student.

  I'd just returned to L.A. from the Langley Porter Institute in San Francisco to begin my fellowship at Western Pediatric Hospital. The position came with a jawbreaker of a title: National Institute of Mental Health Postdoctoral Scholar in Clinical Psychology and Human Development, jointly appointed to the hospital and its affiliated medical school. My job was to treat children, teach interns, do research, and come up with a paper or two the chief psychologist could co-author.

  My pay was $500 a month, which the IRS had just declared taxable. There was barely enough left over to cover rent and utilities on a dingy Overland Avenue bachelor flat, plain-wrap food, discount clothing, thrift-

  shop books, and ongoing life support for a moribund Nash Rambler. Not covered was an eight-year accumulation of student loans and debts Tiled too long under Miscellaneous. A number of bank creditors delighted in dunning me monthly.

  In order to earn extra money, I took on nighttime gigs playing guitar in dance bands, the way I'd scratched by in San Francisco. Irregular work with spotty pay and all the bar food I could get down between sets. I also let the University psych department know its illustrious graduate was available for free-lance teaching assignments.

  The department ignored me until one afternoon in November when one of its secretaries had me paged at the hospital.

  "Dr. Delaware, please."

  "This is Dr. Delaware."

  "Alice Delaware?"

  "Alex."

  "Oh. It says here Alice. I thought you were a woman."

  "Not the last time I checked."

  "Guess not. Anyway, I know it's short notice, but if you're available at eight tonight, we could use you."

  "Use away."

  "Don't you want to hear what it's about?"

  "Why not?"

  "Okay, we need someone to supervise Course 305A— the clinical practicum for first- and second-year graduate students. The professor who runs it was called out of town and none of the usual substitutes are available."

  Barrel-scraping time. "Sounds fine to me."

  "Okay. You're licensed, right?"

  "Not until next year."

  "Oh. Then I'm not sure... Hold on." A moment later: "Okay. Because you're not licensed the pay is eight dollars an hour instead of fifteen and subject to withholding. And there's some paperwork you'll have to fill out first."

  "You've twisted my arm."

  "Pardon?"

  "I'll be there."

  In theory, clinical practicum is a link between book learning and the real world, a way to introduce therapists-in-training to the practice of psychotherapy in a nurturant environment.

  At my alma mater, the process started early: During their first semester clinical-psych graduate students were assigned patients—undergrads referred from the campus counseling service and poor people seeking free treatment at the University health clinic. The students diagnosed and treated under the supervision of a faculty member. Once a week they presented their progress, or lack thereof, to peers and instructors. Sometimes things stayed on an intellectual level. Sometimes they got personal.

  Psych 3O5A was held in a windowless garret on the third floor of the Tudor mansion that housed the clinical program. The room was bare of furniture, painted a grayish blue, and carpeted in grubby gold shag. In one corner was a pair of foam-padded bats—the kind provided by marriage counselors for good clean fighting. In another were piled the remains of a disassembled polygraph.

  I arrived five minutes late, "some paperwork" having turned out to be a mountain of forms. Seven or eight students were already in place. They'd removed their shoes and positioned themselves against the sloping walls, reading, chatting, smoking, catnapping. Ignoring me. The room smelled of dirty socks, tobacco, and mildew.

  For the most part they were an older, seasoned-looking bunch—refugees from the sixties in serapes, faded jeans, sweat shirts, Indian jewelery. A few wore business clothes. Every one of them looked serious and burdened— straight-A students wondering if the grind was worth it.

  "Hi, I'm Dr. Delaware." I let the title roll off my tongue with delight and some guilt, feeling like
an imposter. The students looked me over, less than impressed. "Alex," I added. "Dr. Kruse can't make it, so I'm taking over tonight."

  "Where's Paul?" asked a woman in her late twenties. She was short with prematurely gray hair, granny glasses, a tight, disapproving mouth.

  "Out of town."

  "Hollywood's not out of town," said a big, bearded man in plaid shirt and overalls, smoking a free-form Danish pipe.

  "Are you one of his assistants?" asked the gray-haired woman. She was attractive but pinched-looking, with angry, nervous eyes; a Puritan in blue denim, she appraised me baldly, looked eager to condemn.

  "No, I've never met him. I'm—"

  "A new faculty member!" proclaimed the bearded man, as if uncovering a conspiracy.

  I shook my head. "Recent grad. Ph.D. last June."

  "Congratulations." The bearded man clapped his hands silently. A few of the others imitated him. I smiled, squatted, assumed a lotus position near the door. "What's your usual procedure?"

  "Case presentation," said a black woman. "Unless someone's got a crisis to bounce around."

  "Does anyone?"

  Silence. Yawns.

  "All right. Whose turn is it to present?"

  "Mine," said the black woman. She was stocky, with a hennaed Afro haloing a round, chocolate face. She wore a black poncho, blue jeans, and red vinyl boots. An oversized carpetbag lay across her lap. "Aurora Bogardus, second year. Last week I presented the case of a nine-year-old boy with multiple tics. Paul made suggestions. I've got some follow-up."

  "Go ahead."

  "For starters, nothing's worked. The kid's getting worse." She removed a chart from the carpetbag, flipped through it and gave a brief case history for my benefit, then described her initial treatment plan, which seemed well thought-out, though unsuccessful.

  "That brings us up to date," she said. "Any questions, gang?"

  Twenty minutes of discussion followed. The students' suggestions emphasized social factors—the family's poverty and frequent moves, the anxiety the child was

  probably experiencing due to lack of friends. Someone commented that the boy's being black in a racist society was a major stressor.

  Aurora Bogardus looked disgusted. "I believe I'm well aware of that. Meanwhile, I've still got to deal with the damned tics on a behavioral level. The more he twitches, the angrier everyone gets at him."

  "Then everyone needs to learn to deal with that anger," said the bearded man.

  "'Fine and dandy, Julian," said Aurora. "In the meantime, the kid's being ostracized, I need action."

  "The operant conditioning system—"

  "If you were paying attention, Julian, you would have just heard that your operant conditioning system didn't work. Neither did the role manipulation Paul suggested last week."

  "What kind of role manipulation?" I asked.

  "Change the programming. It's part of his approach toward therapy—Communication Dynamics. Shake up the family structure, get them to change their power positions so that they'll be open to new behaviors."

  "Get them to change in what way?"

  She gave me a weary look. "Paul had me instruct the parents and siblings to start twitching and shaking, too. Exaggeratedly. He said once the symptom became part of the family norm, it would cease to have rebellion value for the boy and would drop out of his behavioral repertoire."

  "Why's that?"

  She shook her head. "It's his theory, not mine."

  I said nothing, maintained a look of curiosity.

  "Okay, okay," she said. "According to Paul, symptoms are communications. Because the tic communication wouldn't be unique anymore, the kid would have to find some other way of working through his rebellion."

  It sounded ill-conceived, potentially cruel, and made me wonder about Dr. Paul Kruse. "I see."

  "Hey, I thought it was bullshit too," said Aurora. "Going to tell Paul that, next week."

  "Sure you will," said someone.

  "Watch me." She closed the chart and put it back in her bag. "Meanwhile, this poor little boy's shaking and twitching and his self-esteem is going right down the tubes."

  "Have you thought of Tourette's syndrome?" I asked.

  She dismissed the question with a frown. "Of course. But he doesn't swear."

  "Not all Tourette's patients do."

  "Paul said symptoms didn't conform to a typical Tourette's pattern."

  "In what way?"

  Another weary look. Her answer took five minutes and was seriously flawed. My doubt about Kruse grew.

  "I still think you should consider Tourette's," I said. "We don't know enough about the syndrome to exclude atypical cases. My advice is, refer the boy to a pediatric neurologist. Haldol may be indicated."

  "Ye olde medical model," said Julian. He tamped his pipe, relit it.

  Aurora moved her jaws as if chewing.

  "What are you feeling now?" one of the other men asked her. He was narrow-shouldered and thin, with rusty hair tied in a ponytail, and a drooping, ragged mustache. He wore a wrinkled brown corduroy suit, button-down shirt, extra-wide rep tie, and dirty sneakers, and spoke in a soft, musical voice saturated with empathy. But unctuous, like a confessor or kiddie-show host. "Share your feelings with us, Aurora."

  "Oh, Christ." She turned to me: "Yeah, I'll do what you say. If the medical model is what it takes, so be it."

  "You sound frustrated," said the gray-haired woman.

  Aurora turned on her. "Let's cut the shit and move on, okay?"

  Before Gray Hair could reply, the door opened. All eyes drifted upward. All eyes hardened.

  A beautiful black-haired girl stood in the doorway, holding an armful of books. Girl, not woman—she looked girlish, could have been an undergrad, and for a moment I thought she'd come to the wrong place.

  But she stepped into the room.

  My first thought was time warp: She had a dark, wounded beauty, like an actress in one of those black-and-white late-show films noirs, where good and evil blur, visual images vie for control with a sinuous jazz score, and everything ends ambiguously.

  She wore a clinging pink knit dress piped with white and bisected by a white leather belt, pink pumps with medium heels. Her hair had been rolled and set, every strand in place, gleaming. Her face was powdered, mas-caraed, her lips glossed a wet-looking pink. The dress reached her knees. The leg that showed was shapely, encased in sheer nylon. Her jewelry was real gold, her nails long and polished—the hue of the polish identical to that of the dress but precisely one shade deeper.

  And perfume—the fragrance cut through the stateness of the room: soap and water, fresh grass, and spring flowers.

  All curves and swells, porcelain whiteness and dusty rose, flawlessly put together. Almost painfully out of place in that sea of denim and deliberate drabness.

  "Suzy Creamcheese," somebody muttered.

  She heard it and winced, looked around for a place to sit. No empty spaces. No one moved. I shifted to one side, said, "Over here."

  She stared at me.

  "He's Dr. Delaware," said Julian. "Alex. He's endured the rites and rituals of this department and emerged seemingly unscathed."

  She gave a fleeting smile, sat down next to me, folded her legs under. A stretch of white thigh showed. She tugged the dress down over her knees. It caused the fabric to go tight over her breasts and accentuate their fullness. Her eyes were wide and bright, midnight-blue, so dark the pupils blended with the irises.

  "Sorry I'm late," she said. A sweet, creamy voice.

  "So what else is new," said Gray Hair.

  "Any more follow-ups to present?" I asked.

  No one answered.

  "Then I guess we can move on to new material."

  "What about Sharon?" said Ponytail, grinning at the new arrival. "You haven't shared a thing with us all semester, Sharon."

  The black-haired girl shook her head. "I really don't have anything prepared, Walter."

  "What's to prepare? Just pick a case, give us the
benefit of your wisdom."

  "Or at least Paul's wisdom," said Julian.

  Snickers, nods of assent.

  She pulled at her earlobe, turned to me, seeking reprieve.

  The crack about Kruse helped explain the tension that had accompanied her entrance. Whatever his therapeutic skills at manipulating roles, this supervisor had allowed his group to be poisoned by favoritism. But I was hired help, not the one to deal with it.