I can help you, she said to him that night.
With what? He reacted as if she had grabbed him under the table.
With your storms, Pete. Your internal storms. Tell me about your storms. I’ll say the same thing to you I’ve been saying to all these bright young students. You can master your weather. You can make it what you want. You can have storms or sunshine. You can duck and hide or walk out in the open.
In my line of work, you got to be careful about walking out in the open, he said.
I don’t want you to die, Pete. You’re a big, smart, good-looking man. I want you around for a long time.
You don’t even know me.
I know you better than you think.
He started seeing her. Within a month, he cut back on the booze and cigarettes and lost ten pounds.
“I don’t have the look right now. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marino says, feeling his face with his fingertips like a blind person.
“You have it. The instant the rain stopped, you got the look. Whatever you’re feeling is on your face, Pete,” she says with emphasis. “I’m wondering if the look doesn’t trace all the way back toNew Jersey. What do you think?”
“I think this is garbage. I came to see you originally because I couldn’t quit smoking and was eating and drinking a little bit too much. I didn’t come see you because I got some stupid look on my face. No one’s ever complained about some stupid look on my face. Now my wife, Doris, she complained about me being fat and smoking and drinking a little bit too much. She never complained about a look on my face. She didn’t walk out on me because of a look. None of my women did.”
“What about Dr. Scarpetta?”
He tenses, a part of him always retreating when the subject of Scarpetta comes up. It isn’t accidental that Dr. Self has waited until the session is almost over before introducing the subject of Scarpetta.
“I should be at the morgue right now,” he says.
“As long as you’re not in the morgue,” she says lightly.
“I ain’t got a sense of humor today. I work a case and get cut out of it. The story of my life these days.”
“Did Scarpetta exclude you?”
“She didn’t get a chance. I didn’t want a conflict of interest, so I stayed away from the autopsy in case somebody wants to accuse me of something. Besides, it’s pretty obvious what killed the lady.”
“Accuse you of what?”
“People are always accusing me of something.”
“Next week, we’ll talk about your paranoia. It all goes back to the look on your face, it really does. You don’t think Scarpetta’s ever noticed the look on your face? Because I’m betting she has. You should ask her.”
“This is fucking bullshit.”
“Remember what we said about profanity. Remember our agreement. Profanity is acting out. I want you to tell me about your feelings, not act them out.”
“I feel this is fucking bullshit.”
Dr. Self smiles at him as if he is a naughty boy who needs to be spanked.
“I didn’t come see you because of a look on my face, a look you think I have that I don’t.”
“Why don’t you ask Scarpetta about it?”
“I feel a fucking hell no coming over me.”
“Let’s talk it out, don’t act it out.”
It pleases her to hear herself say it. She thinks of the way her radio shows are promoted: Talk It Out with Dr. Self.
“What really happened today?” she asks Marino.
“Are you kidding me? I walked in on an old lady who had her head blown off. And guess who the detective is?”
“I would assume it’s you, Pete.”
“I’m not exactly in charge,” he retorts. “If it was the old days I sure as hell would be. I told you before. I can be the death investigator and help out the Doc. But I can’t be in charge of the entire case unless the jurisdiction involved hands it over to me and no way Reba’s going to do that. She don’t know shit but she’s got a thing about me.”
“As I recall it, you had a thing about her until she was disrespectful, tried to put you down, based on what you told me.”
“She shouldn’t be a damn detective,” he exclaims, his face turning red.
“Tell me about it.”
“I can’t talk about my work. Not even with you.”
“I’m not asking for details about cases or investigations, although you can tell me anything you like. What goes on in this room never leaves this room.”
“Unless you’re on the radio or that new TV show you’re doing.”
“We’re not on the radio or TV,” she says with another smile. “If you want to be on either, I can arrange that. You would be so much more interesting than Dr. Amos.”
“Star fucker. Monkey ass.”
“Pete?” she warns him-nicely, of course. “I’m well aware you don’t like him, either, have paranoiac thoughts about him, too. Right now, there is no microphone, no camera in this room, just you and me.”
He looks around as if he’s not sure he believes her, then says, “I didn’t like that she talked to him right in front of me.”
“Him beingBenton. She being Scarpetta.”
“She makes me have a meeting with her and then gets on the phone with me sitting right there.”
“Rather much the way you feel when my answering machine clicks.”
“She could have called him while I wasn’t there. She did it on purpose.”
“It’s a habit of hers, isn’t it,” Dr. Self says. “Introducing her lover into the mix right in front of you when she must know the way you feel about it, about your jealousy.”
“Jealous? Of fucking what? He’s a rich-boy has-been FBI fortune-cookie profiler.”
“That’s not true, now is it. He’s a forensic psychologist on the faculty at Harvard, comes from a distinguishedNew Englandfamily. Sounds pretty impressive to me.”
She hasn’t metBenton. She would like to, would love to have him on her show.
“He’s a has-been. People who are has-beens teach.”
“I believe he does more than teach.”
“He’s a goddamn has-been.”
“Seems like most people you know are has-beens. Including Scarpetta. You’ve said that about her as well.”
“I call it like I see it.”
“I’m wondering if you might feel like a has-been.”
“Who me? You kidding? I can bench-press more than twice my body weight now and was running on the treadmill the other day. First time in twenty damn years.”
“We’re almost out of time,” she reminds him again. “Let’s talk about your anger towards Scarpetta. It’s about trust, isn’t it.”
“It’s about respect. About her treating me like shit and lying.”
“You feel she doesn’t trust you anymore because of what happened last summer at that place inKnoxvillewhere they do all that research on dead bodies. What’s it called? The Decay Research something or other.”
“The Body Farm.”
“Oh, yes.”
What an intriguing topic for discussion on one of her shows: The Body Farm Isn’t a Health Spa. What is Death? Talk It Out with Dr. Self.
She has already composed the promo.
Marino looks at his watch, makes a big production of lifting his thick wrist to see what time it is, as if it doesn’t bother him that their time is about up, as if he is looking forward to its being up.
She isn’t fooled.
“Fear,” Dr. Self begins her summary. “An existential fear of not counting, of not mattering, of being left utterly alone. When the day ends, when the storm ends. When things end. It’s scary when things end, isn’t it? Money ends. Health ends. Youthfulness ends. Love ends. Maybe your relationship with Dr. Scarpetta will end? Maybe she’ll finally reject you?”
“There’s nothing to end except work and that will go on forever because people are shits and will keep killing each other long after I got my little angel w
ings. I’m not coming here anymore and listening to this bullshit. All you do is talk about the Doc. I think it’s pretty obvious my problem isn’t her.”
“We do have to stop now.”
She rises from her chair and smiles at him.
“I quit taking that medicine you prescribed. A couple weeks ago, forgot to tell you.”
He gets up and his big presence seems to fill the room.
“It didn’t do nothing, so why bother,” he says.
When he is on his feet, she is always a bit startled by what a big man he is. His sun-darkened hands reminded her of baseball mitts, of baked hams. She can imagine him crushing someone’s skull or neck, of smashing another person’s bones like potato chips.
“We’ll talk about the Effexor next week. I’m seeing you…” She picks up the appointment book from her desk. “Next Tuesday at five.”
Marino stares through the open doorway, scanning the small sunroom with its one table and two chairs and potted plants, several of them palms that are almost as high as the ceiling. There are no other patients waiting. There never are this time of day.
“Huh,” he says. “Good thing we hurried up and finished on time. Hate for you to keep someone waiting.”
“Would you like to pay me at our next appointment?”
It is Dr. Self’s way of reminding him that he owes her three hundred dollars.
“Yeah, yeah. I forgot my checkbook,” he replies.
Of course he did. He isn’t about to owe her money. He will be back.
33
Bentonparks his Porsche in a visitor’s slot outside tall metal fencing that is curved like a breaking wave and topped with coils of razor wire. Guard towers rise starkly against the cold, overcast sky from each corner of the grounds. Parked in a side lot are unmarked white vans with steel dividers, no windows and no interior locks, mobile holding cells used to transport prisoners like Basil off-grounds.
ButlerStateHospitalis eight stories of precast and steel-mesh-covered windows on twenty acres amid woods and ponds less than an hour southwest ofBoston. Butler is where offenders are committed by reason of insanity and is considered a model of enlightenment and civility with pods called cottages, each one housing patients requiring different levels of security and attention. D Cottage stands alone not far from the administration building, and houses approximately one hundred dangerous predatory inmates.
Segregated from the rest of the hospital population, they spend most of the day, depending on their status, in single cells, each with its own shower that can be used ten minutes per day. Toilets can be flushed twice an hour. A team of forensic psychiatrists is assigned to D Pod, and other mental health and legal professionals such asBentonare in and out regularly.Butleris supposed to be humane and constructive, a place to get well. ToBenton, it is nothing more than attractive maximum-security confinement for people who can never be repaired. He has no illusions. People like Basil have no lives and never did. They ruin lives and always will, given the chance.
Inside the beige-painted lobby,Bentonapproaches a bulletproof window and speaks through an intercom.
“How you doing, George?”
“No better than last time you asked.”
“Sorry to hear that,”Bentonsays as a loud metallic click grants him entrance through the first set of airlocked doors. “That mean you haven’t gotten around to seeing your doctor yet?”
The door shuts behind him and he places his briefcase on a small metal table. George is in his sixties and never feels well. He hates his job. He hates his wife. He hates the weather. He hates politicians and, when he can, removes the photograph of the governor from the wall in the lobby. For the past year, he has struggled with extreme fatigue, stomach problems and achiness. He also hates doctors.
“I’m not taking medicine, so what’s the point? That’s all doctors do anymore is throw drugs at you,” George says as he searchesBenton’s briefcase and returns it to him. “Your pal’s in the usual spot. Have fun.”
Another click andBentonsteps through a second steel door, and a guard in a tan-and-brown uniform, Geoff, leads him along a polished hallway, passing through another set of airlock doors into the high-security unit where lawyers and mental-health workers meet with inmates in small, windowless rooms made of cinder block.
“Basil says he’s not getting his mail,”Bentonsays.
“He says a lot of things,” Geoff replies without smiling. “All he does is run his mouth.”
He unlocks a gray steel door and holds it open.
“Thanks,”Bentonsays.
“I’ll be right outside.” Geoff fires a look at Basil, shuts the door.
He sits at a small wooden table and doesn’t get up. He is unrestrained and wears his usual prison garb of blue pants, white T-shirt and flip-flops with socks. His eyes are bloodshot and distracted, and he stinks.
“How are you, Basil?”Bentonasks, taking a seat across from him.
“I had a bad day.”
“That’s what I hear. Tell me.”
“I’m feeling anxious.”
“How are you sleeping?”
“I was awake most of the night. I kept thinking about our talk.”
“You seem fidgety,”Bentonsays.
“I can’t sit still. It’s because of what I told you. I need something, Dr. Wesley. I need some Ativan or something. Have you looked at the pictures yet?”
“What pictures?”
“The ones of my brain. You must have. I know you’re curious. Everybody over there is curious, right?” he says with a nervous smile.
“Is that what you wanted to see me about?”
“Pretty much. And I want my mail. They won’t give it to me and I can’t sleep or eat, I’m so upset and stressed. Maybe some Ativan, too. I hope you’ve thought about it.”
“About?”
“What I told you about that lady who got killed.”
“The lady in The Christmas Shop.”
“Ten-four.”
“Yes, I have been thinking quite a lot about what you told me, Basil,” Benton says, as if he accepts that what Basil told him is true.
He can never let on when he thinks a patient is lying. In this instance, he’s not sure Basil is, not at all.
“Let’s go back to that day in July, two and a half years ago,”Bentonsays.
It bothers Marino that Dr. Self shut the door behind him and wasted no time flipping the deadbolt, as if he is the one she is locking out.
He is insulted by the gesture and what it implies. He always is. She doesn’t care about him. He’s just an appointment. She is glad he is out of her way and she won’t have to subject herself to his company for another week, and then it will be for fifty minutes and fifty minutes only, not a second more, even if he’s quit his medicine.
That stuff is shit. He couldn’t have sex. What good is an antidepressant if you can’t have sex. You want to be depressed, take an antidepressant that ruins sex.
He stands outside the locked door on her sunporch, staring rather dazedly at the two pale-green cushioned chairs and the green glass table with its stack of magazines. He has read the magazines, all of them, because he is always early for his appointments. That bothers him, too. He would prefer to be late, to stroll in as if he has better things to do than show up for a shrink, but if he is late, he loses those minutes, and he can’t afford to lose even one minute when every minute counts and is costly.
Six dollars a minute, to be exact. Fifty minutes and not a minute more, not a second more. She isn’t going to add a minute or two for good measure or goodwill or for any reason. He could threaten to kill himself and she is going to glance at her watch and say, We’ve got to stop. He could tell her about killing someone and be right in the middle of it, about to pull the trigger, and she is going to say, We’ve got to stop.
Aren’t you curious? He has asked her in the past. How can you just end it right here when I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet?
You’ll tell me the rest of the
story next time, Pete. She always smiles.
Maybe I won’t. You’re lucky I’m telling you, period. A lot of people would pay money to hear the whole story, the God’s-truth story.
Next time.
Forget it. There ain’t gonna be a next time.
She won’t argue with him when it is time to stop. No matter what he does to steal another minute or two, she gets up and opens the door and waits for him to walk out so she can lock it behind him. There is no negotiating when it is time to stop. Six dollars a minute for what? To be insulted. He doesn’t know why he comes back.
He stares at the small, kidney-shaped pool with its colorful Spanish-tile border. He stares at orange and grapefruit trees heavy with fruit, stares at the red-painted stripes around the trunks of them.
Twelve hundred dollars each month. Why does he do it? He could buy one of those Dodge trucks with the V-10 Viper engine. He could buy a lot of things for twelve hundred bucks a month.
He hears her voice behind the shut door. She is on the phone. He pretends to be looking at a magazine, listening.
“I’m sorry, who is this?” Dr. Self is saying.
She has a big voice, a radio voice, a voice that projects and carries as much authority as a gun or a badge. Her voice really gets to him. He likes her voice and it really does something to him. She looks good, really good, so good it’s hard to sit across from her and imagine other men sitting in his same chair and seeing what he sees. Her dark hair and delicate features, her bright eyes and perfect white teeth. He isn’t happy that she’s started a television show, doesn’t want other men to see what she looks like, see how sexy she is.
“Who is this, and how did you get this number?” she says from behind the locked door. “No, she’s not, and she doesn’t take those kinds of calls directly. Who is this?”
Marino listens, getting anxious and overheated as he stands on the sunporch outside her locked door. The early evening is steamy, and water drips from trees and is beaded on the grass. Dr. Self doesn’t sound happy. She seems to be talking to someone she doesn’t know.
“I understand your privacy concerns, and I’m sure you understand it isn’t possible to verify the validity of your claim if you won’t say who you are. Things like this have to be followed up on and verified or Dr. Self can’t have anything to do with them. Well, that’s a nickname, not a real name. Oh, it is, I see. All right, then.”
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