With an innocent baby all that was needed was a slim trickle of water. But with a woman who had laid open her legs for hundreds of men, who had taken them in her mouth, her hands, her vagina, he had to clean her very well, indeed.
That was what he had missed. The one step he should have remembered. The one part of all this that he had forgotten. He lost his erection, thinking of his failure. How many nights had he wasted? How much money had he lost? All because he’d forgotten this one step.
No. He would not berate himself. Not now. Not when he was so close.
The steam in the bathroom was dissipating and condensation was dripping down the mirror and onto the tiles. The lights were still slightly diffused. This was like a heaven on earth.
Yes. He would do it tonight. Learn the lessons. Know the secret. And then put it to use on the one who deserved it the most.
Now that she is clean, you can prepare her for the rest.
In his mind, he was not hearing his own voice talking him through the steps. It was a holy voice, deep, professorial. The voice of the Holy Father. He could close his eyes and see his savior, halo around his head, hands outstretched.
If she is cleaned, if you have rid her of the stain on her soul, then she will not die, she will be saved.
He knew that this one would be the first of them to survive the trauma. Her salvation would lead to the salvation of others. He was sure of it. And it excited him.
He saw himself in the mirror. A naked man, dripping with sweat, his hair curled from the heat, his arms held high, a bright and shining gold object high above his head. It gleamed like the sun on a perfect day. He lowered the chalice. Precisely, carefully. But quickly with all his strength.
Her eyes went even wider. And in them he saw himself and the golden chalice reflected back. Shining. He was shining in her eyes. He was going to save her.
38
I didn’t really have enough of the right kind of clothes for all the evenings I had to spend at the Diablo Cigar Bar. For my third excursion into the dark and smoky lounge, I scrounged through my closet before I went to work and tried to put together an outfit.
I could repeat the short black skirt and the Jimmy Choo pumps that showed more toe cleavage than any other shoes I had ever owned. But I’d already worn the off-the-shoulder Donna Karan black top twice. The fact that this was the best I could do would have been funny if it weren’t such a sad statement about how little sexy dressing up I did.
I pushed all the hangers to the right, the way you do when you go to a department store and see a rack of sale clothes, not wanting to miss anything. Taking inventory at the same time, I went through a dozen white, light blue, bone and black tailored silk shirts-the staples that I wore almost every day with gabardine, linen or wool slacks in black, gray or khaki. No emerald shantung bustiers, no cobalt-blue dresses with plunging necklines. No golden, almost see-through silk blouses.
No symbolic clothes of seduction were hanging in my closet.
Every day for the past thirteen years I’d faced women who were unhappy and frustrated by not measuring up. I had seen what the pressures of being attractive, of being sexy, had done.
There was no way we could compete with what we saw every time we opened a magazine, turned on a television or watched a movie. The media instructed us-albeit subliminally-that other people were better-looking, more successful, having more sex, better sex, were happier about their sexual selves and had figured it all out.
We were inadequate no matter how much we accomplished or how happy we might be with ourselves or our mates. In the world of more and more, it was all too common to feel less than enough.
And now I had to dress the part of a woman who bought into those superficial values.
Disgusted, I looked through the rest of my clothes, finally finding an Armani jacket that I’d gotten on sale. It was short and only offered two buttons. With one of my safe shirts it was not a daring piece of clothing. But when I put it on over the black lace bra that I’d bought at the lingerie store, it was perfect. The odd combination of classic design, which seemed to say one thing, and the exposure of too much skin, which said quite the opposite, would work.
I undressed, packed up my costume, got dressed again in my typical work clothes, grabbed my briefcase and left for the office.
As I walked downtown, I thought about the Healer, the one man Gil hadn’t been able to identify from my description as gleaned from Cleo’s manuscript. The man who Cleo said had a fixation on saving women and who had treated her so differently than all the others had. And I thought about the odd coincidence that two of the most telling things about him were shared by Midas and Judas.
The Healer had a money clip that I had seen Judas pull out of his wallet.
And like Midas, the Healer only drank champagne. And only Cristal.
What did that mean? That the Healer wasn’t real? Or that Cleo was so concerned about anyone recognizing him that she had completely disguised him by giving him other men’s likes and accoutrements?
At noon Nina stopped by my office. “You up for a walk?” she asked.
It seemed as if it had been weeks since we’d taken a walk at lunch. The argument we’d had over Cleo and my helping the police still hung between us. I hated the coolness.
Having her angry with me was very difficult to tolerate. I’d worked on this in therapy, but it was still an issue. Without a mother for so long, and so needy for maternal attention, I had never rebelled as a teenager, instead always trying to be a good girl, at least in Nina’s eyes. Considering who she was, that had nothing to do with sex, drugs or rock and roll, and everything to do with facing adversity head-on, being honest about my emotions and trying to come clean when she asked a question, no matter how tough it was.
I nodded.
“Good. I need to stretch my legs and we need to catch up.”
A month ago I would have welcomed the company. Now the last thing I wanted was to have her ask me anything. Anything at all. I was breaking about a hundred rules. Doing things that were just on the line where ethics were concerned.
But wasn’t I doing them so that I would not cross that other line? The most important one? The patient-doctor privilege. That was what was sacred. That was what had to be protected.
It was a lovely June day. Seventy degrees with a slight breeze lightly scented with the curious New York City smell of car fumes, expensive perfume wafting off the coiffed and well-dressed women on their way out to lunch, and the flowers blooming in hanging baskets, window boxes and planted in the sidewalk gardens up and down the street
“Madison Avenue, Fifth, or the park? Your pleasure,” Nina said.
“The park.”
“You always choose the park. I didn’t need to ask, did I?”
“No. But you always do ask.”
“Why do you think?”
“Occupational hazard? You get so used to working with patients, taking nothing for granted, knowing if you don’t ask you might miss finding out the one fact or the one feeling that could change the whole picture and offer up the missing piece.”
We crossed the street and entered Central Park through the zoo. Everywhere were children and mothers. Many of the little ones holding blue, red or yellow balloons that bobbed in the sky, swaying in the breeze. Other kids had messy faces from hot dogs smeared with mustard, or chocolate mustaches from ice-cream cones. I remembered Dulcie at this age and could almost feel the sticky fingers.
“No-o-o-o,” a child wailed in agony. He was standing rigidly, staring up at the sky, pointing with one small finger. Tears streamed down his face. “No-o-o-o.”
A bright blue balloon sailed upward, its white string trailing behind as it ascended above the treetops and then higher and higher toward the clouds.