Under his robe, Paul put his hand around his penis. Squeezing, rubbing, hoping that the elation he was feeling at seeing the article and thinking about the other men suffering would translate into another kind of elation.
If he could be this happy, wouldn’t he be able to get hard?
Nothing was happening.
He tried harder. His mind focused on the image of a woman demanding he undress for her. Of a woman pushing her breasts into his hands and telling him how to touch her. Of a woman standing over him and shoving her pussy into his face.
His flaccid dick betrayed him, and as if it were burning his fingers the way the coffee had scorched the inside of his mouth, he jerked his hand away.
Think about something else, anything else.
He looked down at the newspaper and started to read the article again, savoring the picture of the man’s feet. And the number 2. Envisioning another photograph of another man’s feet with the number 3 on them. And then another with the number 4 on them…
There was no telling how many would meet their fate this way.
He smiled, knowing even if he couldn’t get every kind of pleasure, at least this pleasure was not being denied him.
Picking up the cup of coffee, he drank from it. Bitter, black and lukewarm. It didn’t matter, the only thing he tasted was the sweetness of revenge.
Twenty-Five
Nina and I were walking up Fifth Avenue on the west side of the street, where there are still cobblestones and if you wear high heels they can get trapped in the cracks. We took walks often during lunch, most of the time without a destination, just a direction. The object wasn’t where we would wind up, but the excursion itself.
“I saw the article in the Times this morning about Timothy Wheaton, with your quote in it,” she said.
“I think he might have also been involved with the Scarlet Society.”
“Why do you think so? Have you met with the group again?”
“Not until Monday. But there are marks on his body that are exactly the same as those on Philip Maur’s. Marks that aren’t mentioned in either article.”
“Did the reporter tell you about them? Why would she?” Nina asked, confused.
“No. The reporter didn’t say anything.”
“Who did? Who told you about the marks?”
Damn, I never should have said anything. Now I would have to explain to Nina that I’d seen Noah the night before, and she didn’t have any faith in the police.
In 1996, when her husband Sam was Butterfield’s director, the NYPD suspected the institute was a front for an illegal prostitution ring. They had placed a detective inside who posed as a sex therapist and who found enough evidence to put Sam in prison. The case was under appeal when Sam died of a heart attack.
Rather than blame Sam, who had indeed been guilty as charged, Nina used the NYPD as her scapegoat, insisting that their undercover sting had been too much of a shock for him and that if they had been aboveboard he wouldn’t have died.
I’d experienced Nina’s irrational anger at the police for the first time when I’d gotten involved with the Magdalene Murders and met Noah. Now I braced myself for another explosion of it.
“Noah Jordain called me. He told me about the photos.”
“Oh?” She didn’t look at me, but I could sense the barely perceptible cooling of her tone.
“He saw this morning’s article yesterday before it went to press, read my quote and called to find out what my involvement was and why the reporter had interviewed me, out of all the therapists in the city.”
“What did you tell him?”
“There was nothing to tell him. I don’t know why the reporter called me.”
We’d reached the Metropolitan Museum on Eighty-first and Fifth. There were always food carts on the street and it was our lunchtime habit to stop and indulge in a New York City delicacy: Sabrett hot dogs with sauerkraut and mustard, enveloped in warm buns.
We got our food, sat on the wide stone steps leading up to the museum, ate and talked about a therapist we both knew who wanted to come to work at the institute. I was glad Nina had dropped any discussion of Noah.
Except she hadn’t. We stood up, and as we brushed the crumbs off our clothes, she asked, “You didn’t say anything to imply to Detective Jordain that Philip Maur belonged to any kind of group, did you?”
“How can you ask me that?”
“The rules get murky sometimes.”
“Not for me. And you know it.”
“No. Not for you. Not yet. But sweetie, you’re human. You went through a traumatic experience last June and Noah Jordain came to your rescue and you might-”
“He didn’t. I was not in any danger by the time Jordain showed up.”
“Okay.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“None of that has anything to do with anything, Nina. This is one of those times when you are getting mixed up, not sure if you should be my boss or play mother. You are confusing your roles. What are you really worried about? Me? The institute? Our clients?”
We walked to the bottom of the steps and headed back down Fifth. Neither of us said anything.
“You’re right,” Nina finally offered.
I smiled at her.
“It would just be easier if you didn’t see the detective again. It’s a loaded situation. It’s too tempting.”
“He’s not married, you know.”
She laughed. “I didn’t mean that kind of temptation. But it’s interesting to note where your mind went.”
I didn’t think it was funny at all. “Don’t shrink me, Nina. Just tell me what you want to tell me.”
“Okay. Fair enough. What I meant was that if you get involved with the detective, then when it comes to telling him something that might make his job easier, even if it means compromising your own professional ethics, you will feel tempted to do the wrong thing to help someone that you care about.”
“Haven’t I proved myself?”
“None of us is made of steel. We don’t face every situation the same way. What happened last summer was one thing. What happens next time will be something else.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about it. I’m not getting involved with him.”
“Okay. So this is settled?”
“Yes,” I said. And at that moment I was sure that it was. Nina was right. She had to be.
Twenty-Six
I don’t make house calls except in very unusual circumstances. Since Nicky’s estranged wife was suffering a severe case of agoraphobia, I’d made an exception and had agreed to see them at her house in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Nicky said his wife, a painter, normally spent long periods of time alone and so he hadn’t noticed the phobia creeping up on her, neither did he know what had triggered it. But since he’d moved out to an apartment in the city, he didn’t believe she had left the house. Forty minutes away from Manhattan, she’d imprisoned herself on a twentyacre estate that had been in her family for three generations.
Once a week, my colleague Simon and I drove to an upstate New York prison to work with incarcerated prostitutes. Usually he drove us, but if I was going to help Nicky and his wife, the best time to do it was on Thursday after my stint at the prison. So I’d rented a car, done my work with Simon, and then driven to Fairfield County.
A black mailbox identified number 26 Pondview Avenue. As per Nicky’s instructions, I made a right and drove for five minutes on a road that had been cut through a forest. Tall weeping pine trees on both sides cast a dark bluegreen shadow that blocked the sun and created a sudden evening, although it was only midafternoon.
After twisting and turning for a few hundred yards, the road ended in a clearing. The house was directly ahead of me, and in every direction there were fields and more forest.