“Except then it leaves nobody who cares,” Healy said.
Jesse looked at his coffee cup for a moment. Then he looked up at Healy.
“You and me,” Jesse said. “We care.”
“We’re supposed to,” Healy said.
32
Jonah Levy held his office door for Jesse and waited until Jesse was seated before closing it and going to his own desk.
“Dix called me,” Dr. Levy said, “on your behalf.”
“Good,” Jesse said.
“He says you are a very smart man.”
“He would know,” Jesse said.
“How can I help you?”
“Did you treat Walton Weeks?” Jesse said.
“Myself and my colleagues.”
“For infertility?”
“Yes.”
“Successfully,” Jesse said.
“I gather that he had fathered a child before his death,” Levy said.
“Yes. With Carey Longley.”
“We worked with her as well,” Levy said.
He was a small man in a gray suit and white shirt. His hair was receding. His glasses had gold rims. His tie was flamboyantly red and gold.
“What was the problem,” Jesse said.
Levy examined one of his thumbnails for a moment.
“Mr. Weeks rarely ejaculated,” Levy said.
“He was impotent?”
“No. He had no trouble erecting. He had trouble ejaculating.”
“So,” Jesse said. “He could do the deed, but he couldn’t, ah, finish it off.”
Levy smiled.
“One could put it that way,” he said.
“Did he ever?” Jesse said.
“Infrequently. Too infrequently, it seems, to give him much chance of engendering a child.”
“That’s it?” Jesse said. “Just that? No biomechanical obstruction, no physical dysfunction, just didn’t finish?”
“Just didn’t finish,” Levy said. “Had it been something physical, it might well have been easier to fix.”
“Why?” Jesse said.
“Why didn’t he, ah, finish?”
“Yes.”
Levy leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head, and smiled at Jesse.
“How much time do you have?” Levy said.
“I don’t need to be board-certified,” Jesse said. “A concise summary would work.”
Levy closed his eyes and pursed his lips and tilted his head back and thought for a moment.
Then he said, “You are, I assume, familiar with ambivalence.”
Jesse smiled.
“My old friend,” he said.
“Weeks wanted a child,” Levy said. “And desperately did not want to share it with a woman.”
“That’s it?”
“There’s never an it,” Levy said. “There are always several its. There were issues of power — if he could arouse a woman sexually, he had power. If she could cause him to ejaculate, she had power. There was rage against all the women who had failed to give him full sexual release.”
“Whom he punished by not achieving full sexual release,” Jesse said.
“And punished him by denying him what he wanted.”
Jesse whistled softly.
“Craziness has a nice symmetry, doesn’t it,” Jesse said.
“Often,” Levy said.
“Can we say concisely why he was like this?”
“Not really,” Levy said. “No surprise — it had to do with his mother and his childhood encounters with women. Certainly his mother sexualized their relationship.”
“She molest him?”
“In the conventional way?” Levy said. “Probably not. But because of the inappropriate nature of their relationship, sex became the ultimate expression of love and, because it was his mother, horribly frightening. And it remained so, lodged there in his unconscious, all his life.”
“So what happened?” Jesse said.
“To bring him here?”
“Yeah. He’s fifty, he’s had three wives, a million women, no kids. What made him come to you all of a sudden?”
Levy looked at his thumbnail again. He didn’t answer. Jesse waited. Finally Levy looked up at Jesse.
“I don’t know.”
“Wow,” Jesse said.
Levy smiled.
“We don’t like to say that much.”
“I say it all the time,” Jesse said.
“I’m saying it more often,” Levy said, “than I used to. Clearly, it had to do with the woman.”
“Carey Longley,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“He wanted to have a baby with her.”
“Yes,” Levy said. “They talked of buying a home together.”
“Where?” Jesse said.
“In Paradise,” Levy said. “Unless they were being metaphorical.”
“What about his current wife?”
“It is my impression he had given her no thought. He was entirely consumed with this relationship.”
“Ain’t love grand,” Jesse said.
Levy smiled. The two men sat quietly for a moment.
“What do you think about love, Doctor?” Jesse said.
“I remain agnostic about love,” Levy said. “But there is clearly a connection between... there clearly was a connection between them that seemed to have been lacking in other instances.”
“What made her special?”
“I don’t know,” Levy said.
“Did he have an explanation?”
“He simply said that he loved her, and had never loved anyone else.”
“You talk with her?”
“Yes.”
“She deserve it?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know that deserve is an issue in these kinds of situations,” Levy said. “She seemed to reciprocate.”
“So it wasn’t because she was, for lack of a better word, better than all the others?”
Levy looked at Jesse for a moment.
“No, often in these matters, flaws are the appeal.”
“How about in this case?”
“I don’t know,” Levy said.
“But if you weren’t agnostic about it, you could probably say that we love who we love whether we should or not, even though there are more suitable people to love.”
“Are we still talking about Mr. Weeks?” Levy said.
Jesse was silent for a moment. He could feel his heartbeat; he was aware of his own breathing. Then he smiled at Levy.
“No,” Jesse said. “We’re not.”
33
It was a little after noon. Jesse and Suit were having sandwiches and coffee at Daisy’s Restaurant. Daisy herself was being interviewed by a woman in front of a television camera.
“Still news?” Jesse said to the waitress.
“Now it’s follow-up,” the waitress said. “You know, how has the discovery of a body in your Dumpster affected your business and your life.”
“I thought Daisy hated the press,” Suit said.
“I guess she don’t,” the waitress said. “We got rhubarb pie for dessert. You want me to save you some.”
“Please,” Jesse said.
“The poor bastard,” Suit said.
“Weeks?”
“Yeah, he finally finds the girl of his dreams and she’s finally pregnant and somebody comes along and dumps them both.”
Jesse nodded.
“Might be a connection,” Jesse said.
“Maybe the wife?” Suit said. “Jealous?”
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
They ate for a moment in silence, watching Daisy talk to the reporter on camera.
“You know the one thing is bothering me?” Jesse said.
“Just one?” Suit said.
“One of many,” Jesse said. “They, together, had an appointment with Dr. Levy two weeks before they were killed. And they didn’t show up.”
“No cancellation?”
“No. Just never appeared. Levy’s office called them and no one answered.”
“Where’d they call?” Suit said.
“Hotel,” Jesse said.
“Here? In Boston?”