“My God! Is that you, Taylor? Did you hear? Oh, my God! You can’t say anything, Taylor, you can’t. You got that? Keep your mouth shut. Oh, my God.”
Taylor let the man’s shock and fear run itself out. He said finally, “I have to talk to the cops, Demos. I have no choice, surely you realize that. I would suggest you pay off these thugs and keep clean after this.”
“Yes, yes, I swear I will, but don’t tell the cops, you can’t!”
Taylor stared at the phone. “Why not?”
“You fool, they’ll kill me, that’s why not! If you tell the cops, they’ll be on my doorstep in no time at all. What the hell would I tell them? Give them names and addresses? Are you out of your fucking skull? God, the moment I spit out one single name, I’m history! I’m dead meat. These guys don’t know I hired you, Taylor—and they still don’t, because they weren’t ever after Eden. They believe it’s just me who knows. You can’t call the cops!”
Taylor sighed. Demos was right. He didn’t want the man killed, no matter how much of an ass he was. “Do you promise me you’ll pay them off?”
“Sweet Jesus, yes, yes!”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes!”
“And you’ll break your own neck before you ever get yourself into a mess like this again?”
There was a brief hesitation. “I mean it, Demos. Damn your eyes, I don’t want Eden in any more danger. If they threatened you, that would be different, but not Eden, not any more innocent people, you got that?”
“Yeah, I got it. I swear, Taylor, I swear. You can trust me.”
Very doubtful, Taylor thought. “Good. Don’t forget, Demos, that I know. If ever you screw up again, I’ll go to the cops and your hide will be on the line. Another thing, if George Hudson dies, it’s a new ball game. No covering up. I have to go to the cops then.”
“He won’t die. Don’t tell the cops. I’ll do anything, I swear.”
“Yeah, right.” Taylor hung up, turned slowly, and said to Lindsay, “It’s over. Demos has promised to pay his debt.”
“That’s good,” she said, her voice as blank as a sheet of paper.
“I hope Hudson hangs on.”
“I do too. I’ll visit him tomorrow. Make sure he’ll be okay.”
He smiled at her. She was getting her balance back. “Good idea. You know something? I still think you need protection. Anyone who prowls in front of the TV biting her nails over an intercepted pass and howling whenever a penalty is called, definitely needs a guard. What it comes down to is this: I want to see you again. A date this time, not a job. How about it, Eden?”
She’d met him two days before. It seemed much longer. He was smiling but she saw the tension in him. He really wanted to see her again. It surprised her and pleased her and made her only mildly wary.
“Yes,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. “Yes, I’d like that.”
The following Tuesday, the temperature plummeted to the mid-twenties. It had rained during the night and stopped early Tuesday morning, leaving frozen streets and sidewalks. Traffic was a god-awful mess, taxi drivers screaming and cursing, tempers short and foul, and pedestrians extra careful when crossing the streets even with the light. Lindsay was bundled up to her eyebrows. She was walking toward the library on the Columbia campus to search out articles for Gayle on the dangers of gymnastics for preadolescent children. “The most recent articles only,” Gayle had said. She listed out the articles she’d downloaded off the Internet so she wouldn’t duplicate them, and she needed more. “You’re wonderful, Lindsay. I love you and I owe you. Call it my Christmas present. Now you don’t have to spend a dime on me.”
It was so bloody cold that Lindsay had quickly forgotten how wonderful she was. She looked up, but the library still seemed a goodly distance away. She thought of George Hudson and the horror she’d felt when she’d visited him the day before. His face was a battered mess, his nose broken, stitches on his jaw and over his left eye. The bruises made him look a nightmare. He’d been very surprised to see her, but pleased in his way. He was going to live and he would heal. He just didn’t understand why anyone would beat him up. It was a mystery. She felt such guilt she’d left as soon as politely possible. She stopped off and ordered flowers sent to him.
Finally, the Columbia library loomed up, its pale brick facade looking as cold and damp and uninviting as it ever had when she’d been an undergraduate.
She took the deep steps two at a time, stopping when she heard a man’s voice. “Lindsay! Lindsay Foxe! Wait a minute. Stop!”
She wasn’t about to stop. Once she was inside, she unwrapped the scarf around her neck and lower face, not wanting to turn but knowing he would come after her, knowing as she stood there that she’d have to look at him, face him.
There was Dr. Gruska, breathing heavily, his tweeds covered with a Burberry coat, coming toward her.
She forced herself to remain perfectly still. Students were all around. It was warm. She was safe.
He hadn’t changed. Of course it had been only four years, but still, she’d expected him to be sporting more white in his hair, more wrinkles on his neck. He looked just the same, only now he must be in his mid-fifties. Old enough to be her father.
“Lindsay,” he said, smiling, stopping in front of her. He held out his hands to her but she didn’t move. He dropped them. He rushed into hurried, intense speech. “I have tried to find you but you don’t have a listed number. I’ve tried so hard. I even saw your friend Gayle Werth some time ago and she gave me your phone number, but she got it wrong.” The stupid bitch hung in the air, unspoken but well understood by Lindsay. “I was just about ready to try one of those people locator services on the Internet.”
He stood there, now in front of her, looking for the world like a hopeful aging puppy. He pulled the expensive fox fur hat from his head and stripped off his expensive leather gloves.
“How are you, Dr. Gruska?”
“Oh, things go along here, but there are changes, horrible changes. Now that my profession has debunked Freud, philistine unenlightened fools that they are, I find I must accommodate myself to approaches of which I do not approve. Can you imagine—it is expected now that a psychologist deal not with the root causes of an illness but only with the aberrant symptoms! The idiots call it eclectic therapy or survival therapy or reality therapy to make it sound legitimate. It’s absurd, and then there’s all this drug nonsense to control people but not understand them. I am considering private practice since my colleagues are so shallow, but what I have always preferred is dealing with bright students. They, I have always found, grasp the truth of things, and Freud is unvarnished truth.”
Jerk.
“How unfortunate for you, Dr. Gruska. I trust your father is well?” Old Dr. Gruska, from what Lindsay had heard about him, was reminiscent of the robber barons of the last century. He was still chairman of the board of the Northwestern New York Bank and ruled all with his iron hand, including his only son, Dr. Gruska the Younger. His “ doctor” handle had been conferred in the late seventies by Northwestern University. On that day he had become Dr. Gruska the Elder to all and sundry.
“Oh, yes, my dear father, Dr. Gruska, is in top form. He’s nearly eighty, you know, but a man of great stamina and fortitude. I still cherish his guidance. If Dr. Gruska knew you, he would send his love, I know. I’ve spoken of you so often to him. Please, let me buy you a cup of coffee. It’s so cold today and I didn’t want to come in, but I’m so glad I did. Come, Lindsay, I want to speak to you, I must speak to you. There is so much for us to discuss, for me to share with you.”
She forced herself to look at him with clear unafraid eyes. She remembered her father and her heels. She’d won then. No intimidation. Never again. And she said, smiling slightly, “No, thank you, Dr. Gruska. I’m in a rush right now. It was nice to see you again.”