She couldn’t tell whether to believe me. Finally, she asked, “How many is that total?”
In my head, I counted. Jim Zebid and his story about Judge Heller’s husband’s cocaine. That was one. Gibbs Storey and her accusations about Sterling. That was two. Sharon Lewis and her ignominious behavior at Denver International Airport. That was three.
“Three that I know of,” I said.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Why it didn’t make sense escaped me. “What, Diane? You don’t like odd numbers?”
“Why would somebody plant a bug to discover something about one of your patients and proceed to broadcast information about three of them? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I don’t follow.”
“One person walks into a park and paints a statue pink, you think there’s something wrong with the painter, right? A wacko?”
“Yeah.” Although I replied in the affirmative, my tone conveyed more doubt than assurance.
“But if three different people walk into the park at different times, and they each paint part of the statue pink, you have to begin to think that there’s either a conspiracy going on-”
“Yeah.” Less doubt that time.
“Or… there’s something weird about that statue. Does anything-anything at all-tie those three patients of yours together?”
The possibility of a conspiracy was novel to me. “I can’t see anything. As far as I know they don’t know each other. They’re all in different professions. Different social circles. They’ve never mentioned each other to me, that’s for sure.”
“Well, then take a look at the statue.”
“Me? I’m the pink statue?”
“Exactly.”
“What are you saying?”
“Somebody’s out to get you.”
“Me? What are they planning to do, Diane? Humiliate me publicly by revealing what I say to patients in therapy? I may not always be pithy, but I don’t think what I say isthatbad.”
“Pithy? Did you say pithy? God, you’re something. Whoever planted that bug didn’t expect you to find it, Alan. Right? So why was it there? Not to embarrass you. A simple tape recording of your clinical wisdom would have embarrassed you. And I don’t think it was to learn some deep dark secret that one of your patients might be telling you. Don’t you see? Not with three different stories leaked already. Why would somebody do that?”
I’m sure I looked confused.
She went on. “If it was just one patient whose story was revealed, you could say that patient’s secrets were the target, but if there are three-with maybe more to come-you have to assume that you, and not your patients, are the target.”
“Then what? I don’t get it.” I was hoping we weren’t on our way back to the pink statue.
“What was it you once told me in one of your rare fits of perspicacity? You said that if I want to understand someone’s motivation for an act, then I should take a look at the consequences. Well, what are the consequences of all these leaks going public?”
“It’s going to ruin me.”
She walked close enough to me that she could rest a hand on my shoulder. “Exactly. Somebody’s been trying to set you up as a therapist who can’t keep secrets. You have an enemy, dear.”
I tried to inhale. I failed. “Diane, if somebody did that, it-”
“It sure would. Once people in town think you can’t keep secrets, you’re dead meat.”
“Hell.”
“Just a guess on my part,” she said. “But I would think that we’ve discerned the motivation. All you need to do is figure out who might want to destroy you.”
FORTY-EIGHT
Want to know dead? Dead is the downtown of any major midwestern American city on the eve of Thanksgiving Day.
If the whole center of Indianapolis erupted in a spontaneous conflagration and burned to the ground that night, it would have to be considered a cremation, not a fire; that’s how dead it was downtown.
If there were twenty people in downtown Indianapolis that evening, I somehow managed to miss fifteen of them. Even the faux-homeless guy with my money up his sleeve had packed up and gone somewhere for the night. Probably a suite in a fine hotel.
The clerk manning the desk at the motel where I was staying was a Sikh with a turban and an accent that made me smile. He suggested I try to find something to eat at the Marriott over by the RCA Dome. “Go there. They have to be open” was the precise nature of his melodic culinary recommendation. If he ever decided to change careers and shun all the opportunities available in the motel desk clerk business, I thought he had a promising future with Zagat.
I walked over to the Marriott, found an open restaurant inside, and got a table and a menu. A waitress wasted no time in ambling over and smiling a sincere midwestern smile. She asked, “You from out of town?”
I looked up and made good eye contact with her. “What, you get locals here? Like ever?”
She laughed.
“Didn’t think so.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “I’m bored, okay. It’s a slow day. Do you mind? I’m pretty good at this. Not as good as Wendy. She’s like a champion, but she’s off through Sunday. I’d say you’re from Wisconsin. Maybe… Michigan-but northern Michigan, like Traverse City.”
“Not bad, Christy.” Her name was written in capital letters on a plastic tag above her ample left breast. “Born and raised in Minnesota. But I’ve been in Colorado for a while now.”
She snapped her fingers. “That’s what threw me. The Colorado part.” She said “ColoRADo,” emphasizing the penultimate syllable in a way that made me want to grate my teeth.
Behind her a woman stood in the restaurant’s entrance craning her neck this way and that. I figured she was checking the room for her husband, or her date, or her girlfriend. I nodded in the direction of the foyer. “There’s somebody over there who needs your help. I’ll be ready to order in a minute, I promise. I’d love a beer when you get a second.”
“What kind?”
“Surprise me.” I’d already managed to forget that alcohol was on my post-MI do-not-consume list. Truth is, it wouldn’t have made any difference had I remembered.
“You’re nice,” she told me.
“Nah, I’m not really,” I said.
I could tell she didn’t believe me. A bad judgment on her part. I had no doubt that if I had a beer with Christy, the first thing I’d learn from her was that all her boyfriends had been assholes.
Growing up, my family always had soup the night before Thanksgiving. It was part of our tradition. My mother, bless her heart, could throw together a big pot of soup faster than I could say, “What’s for supper?” She considered soup a light meal that was appropriate in anticipation of the richness of the coming holiday feast. But Mom’s soups were never really light-she wasn’t a consommé kind of gal. Her soup was always something thick and chunky, hearty with sausage and white beans or kidney beans and plenty of rich cheese.
I endured a moment of sadness as I realized that all the love she’d put in her soups was now coating my arteries like spackling on a wall.
I’d returned my attention to the menu, looking for some soup not too much like my mom’s, when I felt the waitress approach again.
“Almost ready,” I said. “How’s the minestrone? Come from a can?”
She didn’t reply. I looked up.
The woman from the doorway stood with a hand on the top of the other chair at my table.
“May I?” she asked.
She was pretty. Well dressed. Polite. And tall. I was bumping into a run of tall women on my road trip. I thought of the Wolf sisters and the turducken that was about to begin roasting in their slow Georgia oven, and I lamented that not a single bite would cross my lips the next day.
I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times like I was some old fool who just realized he hadn’t remembered to replace his dentures, before I said, “Actually, I’m fine all by myself, thanks.”