His father had a big nose that he despised. Maslow didn't like thinking his own nose would grow as prominent as the one his father disliked so much. He'd been hurt by his mother's nickname. But she told him his nose was a good thing. "Noses" were paid big money in perfume companies, at wineries, and all places where the palate counted.
"You have a palate, Maslow. If all else fails, you can smell for a living." And she'd laughed, but not really in a mean way.
The laughter and the name had hurt Maslow anyway. He'd wondered where one could smell for a living in America. Later he found out the nose played a role in the history of psychoanalysis. It was first thought by Freud and his best friend, Wilhem Fleiss, that sniffing cocaine could cure hysteria.
Maslow was exercising his fingers and arms, and letting his mind wander around his sister's death, his mother's decline, his father's withdrawal from their lives. He heard the swish of someone walking through grass, the crunch of feet on stones. His heart started pounding loud as thunder again. Someone was coming. No one was calling his name, so it must be Allegra returning for him as he'd prayed she would.
He closed his eyes. "Allegra?"
"Allegra." His cry was only a whisper.
Nothing.
"Don't go."
After a pause, he heard the harsh sound of metal grinding against stone. That ferrous smell. Then a worse smell. The smell of the lab, the autopsy room. Powerful. A sharp pinpoint of light stabbed at him from his feet in. He shut his eyes against it.
"Hey." It was a girl voice. Sharp as a knife, but not familiar at all.
"Allegra, help me," he said weakly.
"Jesus Christ, he's got fucking food!" Boy voice.
"And water!" Girl voice.
"Where did it come from? Hey, you!"
Someone kicked his feet, and the feet exploded with stabbing needles. Another kick, and tears poured out of his eyes.
The girl screamed, "Ahhhh. Did you see that?"
"Turn on the flashlight. I can't see a fucking thing."
"It's a rat."
"Jesus. Will you shut up." Someone crouched down and shone a powerful light on Maslow's wet, sand-crusted face.
"Help me."
"Look at that. He's alive!" Boy voice.
"Shit, now he's seen us."
Maslow couldn't believe it. They sounded like kids, little kids. He held out his hand to the person at his feet. "I can't see a thing. Help me out."
Sound of revulsion. "Don't touch him. He's disgusting."
Maslow was lying on his back, helpless as the two examined him from far enough away so that he could not grab them. He didn't want to debate the matter. "I promise no one will know," he said softly. "Just let me out."
"Kill him, David, and let's get out of here." Another kick and explosion of pain.
"No. Don't do that," Maslow ordered sharply. He was not going to let two kids murder him as if he were nothing but a kitten or a bird they'd caught.
"What's the matter with you, do it!" the girl said impatiently. "I want to go home now. It's creepy here."
No sound from the boy.
"Here, take my knife. Stab him in the throat."
Maslow's breath came faster. The threat of the knife made him hyperventilate. "Don't even think that. You'll go to jail for the rest of your lives."
The girl blew air through her mouth.
"I don't know who you are or why you did this. Doesn't matter why. Just pull me out and take off. I won't tell anyone."
"Uh-uh, too late. Go ahead, David, kill him. Two will make you a serial killer."
"Shut up, Brandy."
"Help me. Nothing will happen to you. I give my word."
"Jesus. He has a phone! And food and water." The girl reached in and grabbed them. "Fuck it, I'll do it myself."
"What's going on?" A shout. "Dr. Atkins!"
"Holy shit, who's that?"
"Jesus, it's that girl, spying on us."
The flashlight went off.
"Go out and get her, David."
"Shhh."
"Dr. Atkins!" Maslow knew that voice. It was Allegra's.
Two of them were in here, and she was out there. What the hell was going on? Maslow held his breath, not knowing what was going on.
"Get help," he called.
Silence. Maybe she was leaving.
He called out again. "Allegra, get help."
"Maslow?" Puzzled voice. "What's going on?"
Then she came inside. And the two kids turned their attention to her.
Thirty-five
In April's first seconds of consciousness, she was hit with a blinding headache and didn't know where she was. Then she turned her head and saw the white ruffled curtains in the small windows of her bedroom and groaned. Her legs explored the confines of her narrow bed, and she remembered a few things. She was not in Mike's apartment in Forest Hills in a bed as big as a playground, where the kitchen, living room, and bathroom were bigger, newer, and higher than hers; there was air conditioning that cooled the whole place, and a terrace where she and Mike had sat many times over the summer, drinking beer, kissing and fondling each other, and watching the lights of Manhattan in the distance.
The headache escalated as she remembered Skinny Dragon Mother insisting that the man she loved was a she (snake). She remembered telling Zumech a search in the park would be no problem. She remembered her little slipup of losing Jason's mental patient without a name. She dragged herself out of bed to face the day.
Like millions of American-born Asians, April believed that she was 100 percent American, with no foreign accent and none of her mother's ridiculous superstitions or prejudices about the nature of people, character, or luck. And yet, she had no doubt that something was in the air. Call it the stars, the ghosts, the dragons, the yang that was the force of irritable, risky male action. Didn't matter, something was weird. Events were spinning out of control.
The missing shrink had a patient who wasn't the person anyone thought she was-and who was also a good enough liar to fool everyone, even April. Mike's judgment had failed over Carla. In the boys and girls department, it was pretty clear that the girls were winning.
Now April was losing her harmony, too. Whenever it came to Jason Frank, she couldn't let go. She just couldn't let go. She just couldn't. In Asian thinking, good luck (lots of money) and long life were the most important things to have. Getting face and saving it were the most important things to do.
In the face department, April suffered humiliations everywhere she turned. On the job she was bossed around by people stupider than her. She was doubted and snubbed by the civilians she served, by the males she outranked and the males who outranked her. At home she was constantly humiliated and berated by her mother, who wanted for April only what she wanted for herself. She wanted her only child, and a daughter at that, to be rich, idle, the wife of a Chinese businessman or doctor, with many babies and a big house she could fill with anything she wanted. A TV the length of the room. A big car. Big one. Maybe two. She wanted that important married daughter to spend more time caring for her, listening to her problems, buying her gifts, and making her happy in all the little ways that daughters should.
April was angry with her mother for failings of her own, like not learning how to drive and change light-bulbs, speak better English, read the labels on cans and bottles, work for the community as other Chinese matrons did. But when April weakened she felt sorry for her mother. Skinny was not educated, was not a college graduate as she was. April had gone for six years at night to get her degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and she did not consider herself by any means finished in the education department. She felt sorry that her mother worried and suffered so much over so many wrongheaded ideas. April had no doubt that Skinny suffered a great deal, and she knew at the same time she had to both set limits and social-work her mother to ease that suffering just a little. Call that filial duty.