"I don't know," Susan said.
"But you're a goddamned shrink," I said.
"You're supposed to know stuff."
"I know a lot of stuff, and one bit of stuff that I know is that it is unwise to generalize about the causes of compulsive behavior."
I ate some chicken with cashews.
"Can compulsive gamblers be helped?"
"Sure," Susan said.
"Same old conditions. If they want help. If they are able to do the work."
"Is it the hope?" I said.
"The chance for the big hit?"
"Often it's losing," Susan said.
"The thrill of defeat?" I said.
Susan shrugged.
"Something like that, maybe. Sorry I'm not more helpful."
"Only idle curiosity," I said.
"I don't need to know why he's compulsive to find him."
"I doubt that your curiosity is ever idle," Susan said.
There were a few grains of rice on the countertop near Susan's elbow, spilled when Susan had served it from the carton. Pearl got up with her forepaws on the counter and lapped it off.
"She likes a balanced diet," Susan said.
Susan's office was downstairs and she had come from work to dinner, still dressed in the conservative gray pants suit and understated jewelry that was part of her Dr. Silverman look. Her thick black hair was shiny. Her eyes were very large, and full of thought.
She had a wide mouth, faultlessly made up. Her perfume smelled like rain.
"Hawk and I are going to Las Vegas Monday," I said.
"We'd like you to join us."
"What about my appointments?"
"Can you reschedule for a few days?"
"Will Henry take Pearl?"
"Yes."
"Will we see Wayne Newton?"
"I can't promise anything," I said.
"Can I sleep with you?" she said.
"I can't promise anything," I said.
"The hell you can't," Susan said.
"I'll reschedule next week."
"Ever been to Vegas," I said.
"Years ago, with my first husband."
"Suze," I said.
"He's your only husband."
"Well, technically. Since you refuse to marry me."
"I thought you refused to marry me," I said.
"Hard to keep track, isn't it," Susan said.
"I think Anthony's in Vegas," I said.
Susan was drinking a glass of Merlot. She always chose red wine, regardless of what she was eating, because it didn't need to be chilled.
"With some of his father-in-law's money?"
"Yes. I figure he was carrying money between Ventura and Gino Fish. I don't know why but it would explain Marty Anaheim's interest. And I figure he either skimmed some, or simply took off one day with a bag of it."
"And Mr. Ventura doesn't want either his own people or Mr… what's his name?"
"Fish," I said.
"Gino Fish."
"Or Mr. Fish to find out. So he hires you to look for Anthony."
"Yeah. But Fish finds out about me. And very quickly."
"Which means that Mr. Fish has some source of information in Mr. Ventura's organization," Susan said.
"In fact, if he's trying to keep the whole thing secret it's probably someone very close to Mr. Ventura."
"Likely," I said.
"And Mr. Fish sends his man…"
"Marty Anaheim," I said.
"And Marty Anaheim sends some people to follow you to find Anthony."
"Which means what?" I said.
"Which means Mr. Fish either knows he's been robbed, or is suspicious."
"You therapists are a smart bunch," I said.
She shook her head.
"It's not because I'm a therapist," Susan said.
"It's because I'm Jewish. Jews are very smart."
"I've heard that," I said.
"I've also heard that their women are desperately oversexed."
"Some of them are, it's true."
"How about yourself?"
"Desperately," she said. And smiled her postlapsarian smile.
"I like that in a woman."
CHAPTER 12
I was in my office on the phone booking our Las Vegas trip when Vinnie Morris came in with a tall, angular, gray-haired specimen whom I knew to be Gino Fish.
Fish sat in one of the client chairs, directly in front of my desk, firmly upright, elbows on the chair arms, hands folded in his lap.
He glanced slowly around the room and then looked at me as if he were interested. Vinnie leaned on the wall to the right of the door.
I nodded at him.
"Do you know who I am?" Fish said.
His voice was dry and faintly hoarse, like wind whispering over sandpaper. His diction was precise.
"I do."
"Vinnie says you can be trusted."
"Under the right circumstances," I said.
"Vinnie says if you give your word, you will keep it."
"Generally," I said.
"Vinnie is not given to praise," Fish said.
"So his regard for you is impressive."
"Impresses the hell out of me," I said.
"Vinnie also said you are inclined to be flippant."
"Vinnie thinks flippant is the name of a dolphin," I said.
Fish smiled as dryly as it was possible to smile and not be frowning. His teeth were remarkably white. I wondered if he had them bonded.
"I did in fact rephrase Vinnie's remark," Fish said.
"I thought Marty Anaheim walked around with you," I said.
Fish shook his head very slightly.
"Marty is my business associate," Fish said.
"Vinnie has kindly agreed to be my bodyguard."
"You and Broz never patched it up," I said to Vinnie.
"Kid's in the way," Vinnie said.
"Kid wasn't the best thing that ever happened to Joe," I said.
"He knows that," Vinnie said.
"But what's he gonna do."
Fish seemed in no hurry. He sat perfectly still with his hands folded and waited for us to finish. He was wearing a gray three piece suit with a gentle glen plaid pattern. His shirt was blue with a white tab collar, and his tie was a gray and blue geometric.
While he waited he examined the sink in the corner, the big green file cabinet to the right of the window with the head shot of Paul Giacomin on top of it, the picture of Susan with Pearl on my desk.
"I have a problem," he said.
I tilted back in my chair and waited. Behind me the September air, with only the smallest edge of fall inside the still summery softness, drifted in through the half-open window that overlooked the Boylston-Berkeley intersection.
"May I assume that this discussion is entirely confidential?"
Fish said.
"No," I said.
Fish looked mildly surprised and glanced at Vinnie.
"He's just being a hard-on, Mr. Fish," Vinnie said.
"He does that. Means he'll decide whether it's confidential after he hears it.
Go ahead and tell him."
"I have been in business a long time," Fish said, "and I have learned prudence. I have learned that if you have associates you have to trust them."
He spoke slowly, with pauses between words that required no pauses, so you never quite knew when he was through talking. I waited.
"But I have also learned never to trust them beyond the limits of their venality."
"You go to Yale?" I said.
Again the driest of possible smiles.
"I have very little formal education," he said.
"But I have always valued language and during a long period of incarceration when I was very much younger, I took it upon myself to master language."
"Are you sure you're a bad guy?" I said.
"Yes," Fish said.
"I am."
I waited. Fish seemed to be thinking about something. Somewhere below me on Boylston Street I heard the boop beep of someone's car alarm remote.
"So, I have instituted a system of, ah, checks and balances in my organization. No single person is solely responsible for the management of money. Sometimes there are two, sometimes more than two, people who control a particular source of income and are responsible for its accounting. These people are generally not known to each other, or, two people are known to each other, but there may be a third or even a fourth who is unknown to the others, indeed, whose very existence is unknown to the others."
"Labyrinthian," I said.