“Water,” Adam said solicitously. “This is a shock, I know. You need some water, Bunny.”
He went to the water cooler, tucked the gun under his arm and pulled down one of the paper cups. This was Bunner’s chance, his only chance, because he knew as surely as he knew that he’d give his testicles to see David Latovsky come through the door this minute that Adam Fuller was going to kill him.
He had to get around the desk to the door, across the outer office, down the hall and out the fire door. It was a long shot, it seemed impossible, but he knew the way; Adam didn’t.
He had a twenty-eighty chance if he tried; zilch if he didn’t.
He tried to stand, but his legs felt like melting rubber, the distance to the door was endless, and he felt the odds hit zero. The water cooler burbled; Adam turned with the cup in one hand, gun in the other. He’d let it droop, but now he raised it to the middle of Bunner’s face.
“Dumb Bunny,” he said almost fondly. “No way out of this except what I have to offer. It’s not much, but it’s the best I can do under the circumstances. First, drink the water.” He brought the cup to Bunner and Bunner tried to take it. His hand shook wildly; hah of it spilled on the blotter.
“I can hold it for you while you drink,” Adam said.
Bunner tried to shake his head and couldn’t. He put all his concentration into holding the cup, finally got it to his mouth, and drank what was left. The cool, sweet water hit his throat like oil on a seized engine, and he croaked, “She didn’t see his face, I told you she didn’t see his face.”
“But she will. I’m not psychic, but I know she’ll keep trving until she does. I wouldn’t worry if this were Boston or New York, but it’s not. They’ll get a sketch and someone’ll recognize me. They’ll get me and stick me in the deepest darkest hole they can find. And then... it’ll never happen, Bunny.”
“What?” It took a long time to choke that word out.
“I’ll never feel anything. God, how silly it sounds when you just say it. But it’s not silly; it’s why I’ve done everything in my life. I went to med school figuring sick people would be pitiful, vulnerable, most likely to stir something in me. Turns out they can be bitchy and vicious too, but it doesn’t matter. Gallant or strong, whiny or cruel, I don’t hate or love or feel anything for them.”
His voice dropped; he concentrated on the gun in his hand. “Same with the women, Bunny. What could be sadder, more pathetic, more deserving of pity and sorrow than a woman who should live another forty years, slit open and dying in the moonlight and not knowing why this happened to her. A woman you just made love to, a woman you liked. But that didn’t work either. Maybe you could’ve done something if I’d been up ffont with you, told you about my scars.”
Bunner tore his eyes away from the gun and looked at the hand at Adam’s side. It was unmarred from what he could see.
Adam smiled. “They’re not on my hands, Bunny; not just on my psyche either; they’re on my belly. They’re cuts, not burns like Ken’s, and there must be a couple of hundred of them, running every which way. Looks like I belly flopped into a net of knives. I asked my old man, of course, and my brother, but they didn’t know what I was talking about.
“I should’ve told you about them and maybe we could’ve found out together how I got them. It’s too late now and I’m sorry. At least as close to being sorry as I can get.”
It finally pierced Bunner’s haze of terror that this degenerate son of a bitch had killed five women to try to pity them! But why not? Madness came in more flavors than Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, which even had one called Monster Mash. Bunner almost grinned, but his lips trembled wildly and he came within a hair of laughing. If he laughed, he’d cry, and hysteria wouldn’t help him. Nothing would, except a deus ex machina in the form of someone coming in for a little extra work on the weekend. He listened with all his might for the elevator, a phone, footfalls in the hallway.
It was silent.
He turned his head to the window, away from the sick bastard with the gun. There was his ostentatious and beloved Caddy and a light blue Ford that must belong to Fuller. Nothing else; no one passing with a dog on a leash or even driving by. No one would hear if he banged on the window or risked throwing the tape recorder through it.
The tape recorder.
With her voice saying the last thing this prick wanted to hear. Fuller was in for a shock and Bunner was going to deliver it. He looked forward to it, because it was the last thing like fun he’d probably have for all eternity. The thought unmanned him; his throat filled, tears burned his eyes, and more hot urine leaked into his shorts. But he was not going to weep, wet his pants, and beg this monstrous shit for his life. He was not—
“Are you listening to me?” Adam demanded.
Bunner looked back at Fuller. He’d seen livelier eyes in the heads of anatomy-lab cadavers. But the rest of Adam’s face was composed into an expression of anticipation. He had more to say. This was going to be their last session, free of charge, Bunner thought, and the hysterical laughter that would turn to craven sobs almost got away from him. He choked it down.
“You should listen to this part, Bunny. It’s important to you.”
Wrong, Bunner thought. Nothing is ever, ever going to be important to me again.
“See,” Adam said, “if I don’t find her, stop her... if they find me first, and I’m never cured, then all this”—he waved his free hand, meaning the five dead women and Bunner’s imminent death—“will be for nothing.”
Cured? He made it sound like a genuine disease, like cancer of the emotions. But maybe Fuller had never felt anything, and undescended emotions, like undescended testes, might be more apt. Bunner tried to say it, but his voice was still among the missing.
Adam went on, “Of course I don’t expect you to care if I’m cured, if I ever love a woman, pity a patient, mourn my mother—”
He stopped. “My mother. Now why did I mention my mother?”
Hey, why not1 Bunner thought. Your mother... Ken’s mother... mothers are the weekend special. That laughter threatened again; he was on the verge of losing it.
“I guess because I never cried for her,” Adam said, “never felt the slightest twinge when she was killed. It must have shown, because the troopers who came to tell us about the accident wound up looking at me as if I were something smelly smeared on their shoes. Water under the bridge, my mother would say. She had a million little sayings, each more banal than the last. But I remember them; they’re about all I do remember about her.
“I don’t expect you to care about any of that, Bunny. I’m the one who killed you—will kill you. Why should you care about the state of my future mental health? But one thing should matter to you, Bunny. Matter mightily.
“If you don’t tell me who she is, where she is on your own, I am going to... kneecap you.” Then Adam chuckled, actually chuckled! A light rippling sound that was almost pleasant to the ear. “Jesus, how Hollywood Mafia. Didn’t think I could get it out with a straight face... and I couldn’t. But I’ll do it, straight face or not, and I leave it to you to imagine what that will be like.”