The Dream of The Broken Horses

by William Bayer

  "Drawn her closer. She brought out strange things in him. Since he was smitten by her, any behavior, even the most improbable, couldn’t be ruled out. There's a reason I bring this up. It has to do with Mrs. Fulraine's dream and the possibility that, like the letters, the dream may have been bogus, too."

  Bogus! I find this notion disturbing, perhaps because it reminds me of how once I was disbelieved. Following Izzy back into the house, I'm drawn again to "The Wolfman's Dream."

  What if, I ask him, the patient Freud called The Wolfman made up his dream to gain Freud's attention? Or what if Freud made up the entire case to show off his brilliance? Can any dream by trusted? Any story? Don't humans depend on trust as a moral necessity? Isn't that why any breach, such as a shrink who sends crude anonymous letters to a patient or a patient who fabricates an erotic dream to seduce a shrink, strikes us as an outrageous breaking of a compact?

  Izzy nods at each of my points.

  "You're right to feel outraged," he says. "After all, how dare I question your father's integrity? But these are human failings I'm talking about, not issues of good and evil. No, I don't think Tom sent those letters and I don't really believe Mrs. Fulraine counterfeited her dream. I just raise those possibilities to show you how complicated the case was and the extent to which I'm still confused by it."

  He positions himself before his fireplace, the Wolfman etching looming above his head.

  "If I've learned anything," he says, "in all my years of practice, it's what my own training analyst, V.D. Nadel, told me when I started out – that the best interpretations, like the best equations in physics, are always the simplest, most aesthetic, most direct."

  "I disagreed with your father's interpretation. I found it tortuously complex. For me, the dream of the broken horses was not about a girl being sexually touched by her father but was simply about sexual guilt."

  "The elusive man on the horse ahead is Barbara's father, whom she lusts after and adores. The pursuing posse behind, horsemen of the apocalypse if you will, personified by the lone horsewoman with the red-lined hood, is her mother hounding her, threatening to punish her for her sexual feelings toward her father and by extension toward all men."

  "The horse she rides is a generic lover, a stand-in for all the lovers she rode hard and crushed with her sex. The excitement-pain she feels as she rides is the pain of sex her mother warned her about when she explained menstruation and which her riding instructor so memorably referred to as her ‘wound.’"

  "As for the end, the breaking of the horses – that's the crack-up, the destruction she brings to all her relationships, with parents, lovers, even her own children. In short, the broken horses are the wreckage she's made of her life."

  He stops, looks at me as if to say: Well, there it is! But I'm not impressed. There's something solid about his interpretation that compares poorly with what I believe Dad was grasping for. Anyway, it's time for me to leave. I'm to meet Pam in half an hour.

  At the door I hesitate. "Dr. Mendoza, I can't leave without asking you this. Did Dad and Mrs. Fulraine have an affair?"

  Izzy looks away. "She was a complex and highly sexed woman. Beside her Tom was relatively naive. So – why did they make love? Tom never said they did, so I honestly don't know. Do I think they did? That's another question. Sadly my answer is – I do."

  *****

  I feel the encroaching darkness as I drive through the silent tree-lined streets of Van Buren Heights, streets with British-sounding names: Woodmere, Tawsingham, Clarence, Exeter, Greenwich, Oak Hollow, Somerset, Dorset Lane.

  With the dusk, the oaks and maples cast heavy shadows upon the lawns, while the houses behind show well-made false fronts: Tudor, Georgian, Spanish colonial; there're even several little Norman chateaux with turret staircases and mansard roofs. Only occasionally do I pass pedestrians: a middle-aged man walking a tired dog; a girl on a bicycle, ponytail whipping behind, pedaling one-handed down a dark, tree-lined street.

  Our old house on Demington is just blocks away. It won't take but a few extra minutes to stop by. I turn the corner at Winslow, drive a block, make a left on Stuart, a right on Oxford, then take the right fork where it intersects with Demington. The street curves gently here, winds its way between park land and the Pembroke Country Club golf course. After Talbot, it becomes residential again. This first block is where we lived. I used to know it cold, every bump in the street, every break in the sidewalks. "Step on a crack, your mother gets a broken back," we kids on Demington would chant.

  The windows in our old house are dark tonight, except for a flickering in what used to be my parents' bedroom on the second floor. It's a TV set, probably placed where my parents kept theirs, on a bureau facing their bed.

  I pull over to the curb, cut my engine and lights. No sounds outside except the whisper of the hot August night wind. In the darkness I catch the trails of fireflies dancing in the sticky air above the front lawn. Then I hear crickets chirping in the hedges. Somewhere in the distance a dog howls sorrow.

  We were happy here, I think. Or was that our family myth? Remembering Izzy's last words to me minutes ago, I think: Perhaps that summer we were the unhappiest family in all of Calista.

  A light comes on across the street. I turn, spot a man poised upon his stoop, silhouetted against the interior of his house. He's staring at me, doubtless wondering what a stranger is doing at this hour sitting silent in a darkened car. Burglar scouting the neighborhood? Private detective collecting evidence? Or a kidnaper perhaps, an abductor of prepubescent girls? Best, I decide, to be on my way.

  *****

  When I step into Waldo's, Tony tells me Pam called minutes before to say she was running late.

  "She's in a meeting with Mr. Starret. Says she'll be down soon as she's finished," Tony says, planting a perfect margarita before me on the bar.

  I pull out my sketchbook and start to draw. I'm halfway finished with a sketch of Dad sitting in his car in the Flamingo parking lot, when a shadow crosses the page and a hand descends upon my shoulder.

  "How's it going, old boy?"

  I look up to confront the cloying grin of Waldo's successor, Spencer Deval, flaunting his trademark open collar and silk ascot.

  "Mind if I join you?" he asks.

  "Actually I'm waiting for someone," I tell him, covering my drawing while easing my shoulder from his grasp.

  "Oh, I know. She'll be down in a bit. Meantime, I thought we might chat." He perches uninvited on the bar stool to my right. Though he's short and stout, I notice he sits erect, angling up his chin to assert dominance.

  "What about?" I ask him. "We don't really know one another."

  "I'd rather like to get to know you," he says, voice warm, unctuous. "I'm a great admirer of your work."

  I make a point of not returning the compliment. His raspy pseudo-British accent amuses me, but his transparent attempt at flattery annoys. Having long disdained him from a distance, I find I'm not yet ready to join his following.

  "Rumor has it you're looking into one of our old unsolved murder cases. Fascinating city, Calista, from the unsolved crime point of view. That old Flamingo Motel case, for instance. Lot more interesting than Foster-Meadows. Or maybe you just feel that way because you're bored."

  How would he know how I feel? "Who told you I was looking into it?" I ask, wondering if Deval was the man who'd asked Johnny whether I'd been around the Flamingo Court.

  "Oh… a little birdie told me." He lisps out the words in a musical birdlike voice, then adds a silent tweet-tweet with his lips.

  A little birdie: the same phrase Waldo used to source the blind item he ran about Dad and Barbara in his column.

  "Tell me something – when you say a little birdie, are you referring to a female source? Because if it was a guy who told you, you'd say ‘a little bird,’ right?"

  "Would I? Never actually thought of it that way."

  "You still haven't answered my question."

  His voice hardens. "A good newsman doesn
't reveal sources."

  "Way I hear it you deal in gossip."

  "‘Gossip is news, old boy’ – that's what dear old Waldo used to say whenever some scamp challenged the honor of his profession. Then he'd instruct by naming several of the great gossip-mongers: Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Madame de Sevigne… even Shakespeare, if you know how to read him. The list is long, a rollcall of greats. So let there be no mistake – what I write is news. What people say and do and think at social gatherings – that's the very essence of news. And now – would you believe it? – they study Waldo's old ‘About the Town’ columns in a course on a local social history at Calista State. He was not only this town's anecdotist, he was its chronicler, its Boswell." Deval squints, makes an I'm-a-modest-fellow face. "I like to think my own raconteuring, if there is such a word, meets the high standard he set."

  Taking in this little oration, I begin to understand why some of my media colleagues are so bedazzled. It's a style that either seduces you or totally turns you off. I put myself in the latter category.

  "When you're ready to identify your little birdie, Deval, I'll consider having a chat. Until then, please leave me alone."

  He stares at me, astonished. Watching his throat contract beneath his ascot, I know he's thinking up a rejoinder to save face. Finally, he comes out with it:

  "‘Have you no decency, suh?’" he asks, switching to a Southern accent. "‘At long last. Have you no decency?’" Then, resuming the phony British intonation: "Those were Amy Counsel Welch's words to Senator McCarthy back in the Fifties, days when class still reigned and a gentleman didn't behave rudely toward his betters."

  He displays a steely little grin, picks up his drink, and, with studied dignity, withdraws.

  *****

  Pam arrives, panting and apologetic. Seems some CNN honchos flew in unexpectedly this afternoon. She pecks my cheek, says she hopes I'm not annoyed.

  "Not at all," I tell her. "By the way, have you talked to Deval?" She shakes her head. I recount our conversation. "Do you think he was the guy who talked to Johnny at the motel?"

  "Probably not. I doubt he'd strike anyone as a cop type. But let's face it, he's a pro. He's got his antennae out. You've been asking a lot of people a lot of questions."

  "I wonder why he's interested?"

  "Probably because the Foster case is a dog and he's always on the lookout for a juicy item. Look at it from his point of view – this weird guy, David Weiss, turns up in town asking questions about an old murder case. When he finds out you're Dr. Thomas Rubin's son, then he will have something juicy, won't he?"

  "I hate the way he calls me ‘old boy.’"

  "He calls everyone that. And I got news for you, darling – I can't stand him either."

  *****

  I drive her out to Covington, show her the Gold Coast, then turn onto Indiana where I park. Waling past the coffeehouses and boutiques, Pam responds to the neighborhood.

  "Gays with poodles. Dykes with German shepherds. Kind of a mini Greenwich Village." Outside Spezia, she sniffs the air. "Um! smells good! Is this the place?"

  Jurgen Hoff's greeting is smooth and warm.

  "Mr. Weiss, how nice to see you again."

  He leads us to a small table in back. "This is absolutely our best table… from the romantic point of view," he adds.

  Almost immediately we receive two complimentary kirs, apparently standard treatment for friends of the house.

  Pam lets me know she's impressed. "He's handsome and oh-so suave," she says, gesturing at Jurgen, now chatting with a middle-aged couple at the bar.

  "He served in the French Foreign Legion. They say he killed a man in Mexico."

  "I get it, a Bogart type. He looks like a womanizer, too."

  "He likes black call girls. Doesn't get it on with white chicks."

  "Hmm, kinky Bogie. Interesting…"

  I've got to hand it to Pam, the way she takes in everything I say without asking where I heard it. this, I realize with admiration, is her trademark technique – getting people to talk by not asking questions.

  Near the end of our meal, Jurgen stops by to ask if everything's been all right. As Pam assures him it has, I start a quick sketch of his face.

  "You know Tony the bartender over at The Townsend?" I ask.

  "Sure, known him for years."

  "Please, Jurgen, hold it like that. I want to get the line of your nose."

  Jurgen, suave as always, indulges me with an ironic grin.

  "Good." I draw his eyebrows, then his chin. "I gather you and Tony worked together out at The Elms?"

  Jurgen nods. "Tony did a stint there. Most of the better old-time barmen did."

  "I like his mouth," I tell Pam as I sketch. "You've got a sensual mouth, Jurgen." I glance at Pam. "Don't you think?"

  "Oh, very sensual," she agrees.

  "The other night, after I left here, I dropped in at Waldo's to ask Tony about Rakoubian. Tony said Max was kind of a sleazeball, that he did “bust-in stuff.’ Said he was close to Waldo Channing too."

  "That sounds about right," Jurgen says. He appears unfazed by my questions.

  "The other night you described Max as “one of the best.’"

  "He was an excellent photographer, Mr. Weiss – one of the best in town." Jurgen raises an eyebrow. "Oh, I see, you thought I meant he was the best in – what? Human values?" Jurgen chuckles. "Max was a good guy, but ethics weren't his strong suit. One time he showed me some private stuff he'd shot. Not nice pictures." Jurgen winks at Pam. "Okay now if I move?"

  I release him. Jurgen lets his arms hang loose. "Tough work, modeling. I had no idea."

  "I'd like to come back one day and do a serious portrait, sit you down, get you into a comfortable position. It wouldn’t take more than half an hour."

  Again he looks at Pam. "Sounds like fun."

  "I'll call you."

  "Please." He moves away.

  Pam leans forward. "God, what was that all about?"

  "Just one of the curious contradictions surrounding the cast of characters."

  "Characters in the Flamingo thing?"

  "Uh huh."

  "And am I going to be privy to these contradictions?"

  "You'll be privy soon enough," I assure her.

  *****

  "You know. You're quite the bad cat in bed," Pam tells me, a couple hours later. "Tomcatty, frisky." I start to laugh. "What's so funny?" she demands.

  "The first time I slept with you I thought: “Making love with her's like driving a Lamborghini, so smooth and elegant.’"

  She pouts. "I'll have to consider whether I like that."

  I kiss her to let her know I never thought of her as a machine. Then, changing the subject, I remind her of what she said about Barbara being too stylish a woman to enjoy spending time at the seedy Flamingo.

  "I thought it was too tacky for more than a couple of nights," she says, "There must have been something else made her want to keep going there."

  "Something dangerous, you said. Well, try this. The woman drove a Jag, a fairly flashy car. She and Jessup arrived separately. She parked her Jag in the motel lot. Not exactly secretive behavior."

  Pam, alert, props her head up on her elbow. "Not at all," she says. "And that's interesting."

  "Now try this: She met Tom Jessup the same day she engaged my father as her analyst. In the paper he was writing about her case-"

  "He wrote about her?"

  "Just a draft. In it-"

  "David, you didn't tell me!"

  "I'm telling you now. In his paper, Dad calls Jessup “my double’ and “my love-proxy.’ He found it significant they both had the same first name. He had some suspicions she might be fantasizing the affair, so he followed her out to the motel."

  "Your father stalked her!"

  "He was very attracted to her. This old shrink, Dr. Mendoza, Dad's mentor – I met with him this afternoon – he thinks they may have had sex. He's not sure, but one thing that's certain in Barbara masturbated in Da
d's office right on his analytic couch. He mentions it in his paper. In fact, that's where the paper breaks off."

  "Jerked off in front of him! I think that's the kinkiest thing I've ever heard!"

  "Suppose they did have sex – but not in his office? Suppose she lured him out to the Flamingo, the same room where she and Jessup shacked up? How's that for ‘dangerous’?"

  "Oh, that's dangerous, David! Creepy, too. So you're saying there was a second love triangle – between Barbara, Jessup, and your dad?"

  "Maybe."

  She winces. "That means your father could have… you know. Do you think it's possible?"

  I tell her about my sketching session with Kate Evans and the drawing that came out of it, also how closely I resemble Dad and the phenomena of eyewitness transference and screen memories.

  "There're pros and cons," I tell her. "The biggest con being I knew the man. He was totally nonviolent. He never raised his hand to me, rarely raised his voice. Not the type to commit a premeditated murder. Still, I'd have to put him on my list."

  "Who else is on it?"

  "Cody, of course. He stays suspect Number One. Andrew Fulraine's up there, too. Both had motives and both could've paid a hitman to do the job. There's also Jurgen, who could've acted as Cody's henchman or done it on his own. He refuses to talk about it even to this day, which I find odd. Then there's Max Rakoubian, the ‘bust-in’ guy. He'd been known to bust into love nests with his camera, so why not, if he were obsessed enough, bust into this love nest with a gun? Then there's the woman Tom Jessup befriended, the one Hilda Tucker told me about who lived next door in his rooming house. Suppose she was a stalker? She found out he'd been lying to her, not only that he wasn't gay but was having a secret affair with a haughty socialite. If she was nutty enough, she might have killed them, dressed up in a man's raincoat and fedora. So she's a possible though not a likely. Even, I hate to say it, less of a likely than Dad."

  "How will you narrow the list?"

  "Talk to more people, reinterview a few. There're still lots of loose ends. If Dad had something to do with the Flamingo, I have to know. If he didn't, I need to know that, too."