Mary’d probably had a few too (although Latovsky had never seen her even vaguely drunk).
It was Saturday night, when construction crews and rangers came down for a little fun. Mary drove carefully, making full stops at every sign, always letting the other car have the right of way in case the driver was as plastered as her husband.
Latovsky followed them home, keeping a few car lengths back. The Caddy was huge, and Bunner had scraped the sides more than once on the narrow garage door. But Mary slid the car in without mishap, the automatic door ratcheted down and a few minutes later Latovsky saw lights on the second floor.
Bunner had ignored the psychic’s warning, gone to the party, and come home unscathed, except for getting drunk, and you didn’t have to be psychic to know that was going to happen.
“I’ve had enough to drink,” Adam told Naomi Segal.
“Me too.” She patted his arm. “Why don’t I make us some hot chocolate.”
With whipped cream on top that would coat his mouth, and a poisonously red maraschino cherry on top, he thought. He’d have to drink the crap, then make love to her. That was going to take some doing because she was so round, oily, jolly, like Santa without the beard. He wasn’t sure he could manage, unless he thought of someone else.
Abby in the moonlight, naked from the waist doun, lying back on the pine needles, holding out her arms to him...
But he’d just heard something amazing, and he had to think about it, not Abby or Naomi or how to get it up for a female Santa Claus. He had to understand what it meant to him—if it meant anything.
Naomi waited for his answer with her head tilted, and he saw longing in her eyes. She was head of pediatrics, it wouldn’t do to hurt her feelings. He didn’t want to anyway, because she was jolly and kind and he liked her.
He said, “I’d love some hot chocolate. Uh... where’s the john?”
“Just down the hall. First door you come to.” She gave him a glowing smile and took herself off to make the hot chocolate.
The washroom had a sloping ceiling, pink tile, pink sink and towels. Even the commode was pink, and the rosy glow of the pink bulbs in the light fixture over the mirror made him almost handsome.
She had not seen his face.
But if he were the cop who’d brought her to Bunner, he’d keep at her until she did.
It wasn’t a very distinctive face. A description of it would fit the faces of half the men under fifty in the state. But they’d get an Identikit or whatever they called it, use computer imaging under her direction, and they’d get a likeness. Sooner or later, someone would notice that the killer in the woods in the posters looked a lot like the nice young internist at Glenvale General.
He had to do something.
“Do what?” Bunner would exhort him. “Say it, Sport.”
Find her and kill her before she sees my face, the way she saw my back in the woods, and the scars on Ken’s hands...
Scars.
Two scarred men; what a remarkable coincidence.
She had seen Ken’s scars... Abby had seen Adam’s.
“God, what happened to you?” Abby had asked, and he’d made up a tale about an automobile accident when he was a kid, and getting cut with flying glass. It was a lie; there was no accident that he knew of. The truth was, he didn’t know how he’d gotten the scars any more than Ken had known until she showed up.
He undid his cummerbund, pulled up his shirt, then pulled down his tux pants and shorts and confronted them in the mirror for the first time in years. Hundreds of them crisscrossed his belly from his navel to his groin. Some were thin, pale lines, others had keloided into fat pink welts like bloodworms. They were cuts, not burns, and they looked as if someone had played tic-tac-toe all over him with a razor.
“Aaaaaddaaam,” Naomi called.
He started guiltily and pulled his shirt down to cover the scars. Then he flushed the toilet, redressed, and rehooked the cummerbund. After he drank the hot chocolate, he’d have to unhook it again and get a hard-on for Naomi Segal.
He’d manage, he thought, and she’d be perfectly safe with him because he could never feel enough for her to make it worth doing the... other.
“What other?” Bunny would chide. “Say it.”
To make it worth slicing her open to watch her die in the moonlight while I try to feel love, sorrow, pity... something. That direct enough for you, Dr. Bunner?
6
Mary Bunner was dressed, her hair was combed, and she looked like she’d gone to bed at nine last night. She had that gift, Latovsky thought.
“Hi, Mare, I guess it’s kind of early,” he said.
“Well, maybe just a tad on the Sunday morning after the big dance, but come in.”
“Can’t, I’ve got to hit the road.”
He had four hundred miles of driving to cover the people on Lydia Rodney’s list. He could just make it if he started now.
“I wanted to know...” He was not sure how to ask.
“You wanted to know...” she prompted.
“Uh... how everything is. Specifically... Bunny.”
She stared at him and his heart lurched. “Mary, is he okay?”
“You’re the second person to ask this morning, and it’s not even nine.”
“Is he...”
“First Isabelle on the service, sounding about the way you look. She got me so worried I sneaked back upstairs and watched him snoring.”
“Mary, is he...”
“He’s fine. If you discount the fact that he’s hanging over the toilet as we speak, puking up about two quarts of Chivas and Beefeater, mixed with the clubhouse red that’s about two weeks from turning to vinegar. In other words, he’s as fine as he’s got any right to be. Now what’s this about?”
“Just wanted to know.”
“Suddenly you and Isabelle just want to know if Bunny’s okay?”
He swallowed and felt his Adam’s apple bob. Mary was a tall, solid woman with a fearsome temper and he could see she was starting to lose it.
“Ask him about it, Mare.”
“Oh, you can be sure of that!” she said tightly.
“But don’t blame him. It’s not his fault.”
“What’s not his fault.”
“Sorry, gotta run.” He hurried across the lawn to the Olds.
“Dave...”
He gave her a big, dumb grin and waved. “Tell Bunny I’ll be back for the game.”
Everything back to normal, he thought as he climbed into the car. He’d come here for Mary’s good Sunday dinner, because it was not his weekend with Jo; he and Bunny would watch whatever game was on, then he and Bunny’s son Pete would shoot baskets in the long twilight. Then he’d go to Jeanne’s for a quickie or a longie, depending on how late it was.
A typical Sunday in Glenvale; familiar, static, and as comforting as a Norman Rockwell painting.
Mary called again, but he started the car, and waved as if he didn’t hear.
Bunner crept downstairs, clutching his bathrobe around him with one hand and the banister with the other, trying not to jar his head.
The house was quiet; whoever had rung the bell hadn’t come in, thank God, and Pete was still at the Cohens’, where he’d spent the night. No size-ten Nikes pounded overhead, no artillery-attack music blasted out of the stereo.
He went to the kitchen.
Mary was showered and dressed in pressed slacks and a clean blouse. Her hair was combed and shining and she looked good enough to address the PTA.