Portrait Of The Psychopath As A Young Woman Part 16

"What the f.u.c.k?" Chaplin, frowning, got up and walked back to the kitchen, glaring out. "Hey, your men Shemp and Larry just set off the motiondetector lights in my back yard. Come on, Lieutenant. This is my home, not a southeast hardhouse."

Spence rolled his eyes. He could see the two 3D plainclothes standing astonished in the floodlit back yard. "Just a precaution," he said, thinking Keystone Cops Keystone Cops. Kohls and the three TSD reemerged with their field kits. "Place is clean," Kohls told him. "It's just a house." Spence gave him the card with the address for Heather B. Willet's "crib," along with the warrant. "I'll be down in a few minutes," he said.

"Later, boys," Chaplin said as they were leaving. "You want to party with some pretty ladies, you ask for 'Rome."

"Back to Creamy," Spence said.

"Oh, right. Like I said, she booked. Happens all the time."

"She a kink?"

"No. None of my girls are. If a guy gets off on being tied up and walked on by high heels, I tell him to go to Miss Wanda's Ma.s.sage Parlor. My girls don't do kinks. It's too dangerous."

"Did Creamy ever work in a hospital or a hospital supplier?"

Chaplin set the beer down, making a face. "How should I know? All I know is she worked some t.i.ttie bars before she hooked up with me."

This was going nowhere. "What about her father? You know anything about her father? Her mother?"

"Hey, man, a girl's family life is her own business. She didn't tell me nothing about that, and I didn't ask."

"She have any wild friends? Weirdos? Like that?"

"As far as I know, she didn't have any friends. Pretty much a loner. Quiet. And like I said she was top drawer, never really knew what she was doing. All I can tell you about her is that she got four busts, two PBJ's, two suspended sentences, which I'm sure you already know. And she was beautiful. She had a little harelip you could barely see, but a body like angelfood cake. That girl looked good good on the street, I can tell you. She could put wood on a monk." on the street, I can tell you. She could put wood on a monk."

"You know if she was religious? You know of any reason why crosses would have any special meaning to her?"

"She ain't a vampire, if that's what you mean." Chaplin laughed. "These are some freaky questions. You gonna tell me what's going on?"

"No," Spence said. "I can't." He left his card. "Please call me if you see her. And let me ask you one more thing... Who's your clothier?"

(III).

"So where are we going?" Maxwell asked.

Kathleen pulled the TBird out onto P Street, and nearly got hit by a cab whipping into the Omni Hotel. "Inconsiderate d.i.c.k!" she yelled.

"Who? Me?" Maxwell asked.

"No," she droned.

"So you're in one of your better moods tonight, I see."

"Don't give me a load of s.h.i.+t, Maxwell," she said very coolly. She felt tempered, ticking. Her hands were clammy on the wheel. Her emotions felt like thread unwinding, each fiber flying in a different direction.

"So what's new?" he said once they got going.

"Nothing. Not really."

Not really? She couldn't get Spence off her mind; he was one of the threads. Something must be happening, Something must be happening, she concluded. Had he found any more victims? If not, then why did he persist strongarming her? she concluded. Had he found any more victims? If not, then why did he persist strongarming her? There must be a reason, There must be a reason, she thought. Spence knew more than he was telling. she thought. Spence knew more than he was telling.

Maxwell crooked his arm out the window. His fine blond hair blew around, and he was smiling. Georgetown pedestrians milled happily in their droves. Kathleen caught herself examining girls who waited at each crosswalk, and she dismally concluded that almost every single one was betterlooking than her. Most were trim young Was.h.i.+ngtonians in traditional summer yuppie garb. Sandals, shorts, loose, pretty blouses. I'm a dinosaur, I'm a dinosaur, she thought. she thought. Why can't I look like those girls? Why can't I look like those girls?

Last night, before what she could now only describe as a breakdown, Maxwell had told her she was beautiful. And today he'd left a note that said he loved her. These were nice things to hear. Maybe I'm just not a nice person, Maybe I'm just not a nice person, she reflected. Maybe that's why she didn't feel good. she reflected. Maybe that's why she didn't feel good.

She parked in a back pay lot on Wisconsin Avenue. Maxwell went to pay the attendant. "I'll pay," Kathleen said. "No," he countered. "It's only fair that I pay for parking, since you're paying for dinner." He laughed, his hair sifting. "I'm broke."

Walking down the street, he reached to hold her hand but she bogusly diddled with her purse.

"So where did you say we were going?"

"Sus.h.i.+," she said.

"Sus.h.i.+. Yes."

"You like sus.h.i.+, Maxwell?"

"Do I? I mean, I'm not complaining. I'll try anything once."

"You'll like it. Trust me," she said.

A few minutes later they were sitting up at the bar before a long gla.s.s case of multicolored slabs of fish. A whitesocked waitress in a kimono asked for their drink orders. "Two Asahi Drys," Kathleen said. "The big bottles." Behind the bar, the sus.h.i.+ man looked like a punk rock Tojo. Kathleen ordered expertly: "Two orders maguro, two orders toro, two orders amaebi, two orders ika, two orders ikura with quail eggs, two orders uni." The sus.h.i.+ man nodded and went to work.

"Wow, you really know your way around sus.h.i.+," Maxwell commented.

"I come here all the time."

"Special first." The sus.h.i.+ man leaned over the bar and placed a plate of fried shrimp heads between them. Maxwell leered. The waitress returned with their beers and set a little green tray beside each of them. "I don't smoke," Maxwell said. The sus.h.i.+ man guttered laughter.

"That's not an ashtray, Maxwell," Kathleen told him. "You mix your soy sauce and wasabi in it."

"I knew that," Maxwell said. He attempted to pick up a shrimp head with his chopsticks. The shrimp head flicked to the floor. "Can't take me anywhere, huh?" he said.

She showed him how to use the sticks, not to much avail.

"I read somewhere that certain amino acids in raw fish increase the s.e.x drive," Maxwell pointed out.

"True," the sus.h.i.+ man agreed and set an order between them. "Make you amorous amorous." He guttered more laughter, a keen light in his eyes.

"Maxwell," Kathleen groaned. "You don't pour the soy sauce on the fish, you put it in the little dish, and dip the fish."

"I knew that," Maxwell said. "Weren't we going to talk about something tonight?"

"Yeah." Kathleen dipped the end of her piece of maguro into the soy sauce and ate it whole. Maxwell followed suit. "Hey, this is pretty good," he said. "What was it we were going to talk about?"

"Maxwell, I-"

"Look, look!" he enthused. He'd actually managed to needle a shrimp head in the sticks. Before he got it into his mouth, though, it flicked to the floor.

"Maxwell, you're wasting perfectly good shrimp heads," Kathleen complained.

The sus.h.i.+ man guttered laughter.

"Yes, admittedly I am," Maxwell agreed. "But that does not dissuade the irrevocable fact that I love you."

Here it is. Kathleen couldn't think of a response just then. She stared at her sus.h.i.+, at her beer. She stared at her life. Kathleen couldn't think of a response just then. She stared at her sus.h.i.+, at her beer. She stared at her life.

"Yet you seem to be very bothered by that," Maxwell went on. "If we don't talk about it, we'll never get anywhere."

"Maxwell-" She sighed, looked up, looked down. She looked everywhere but at him. "We haven't even known each other a week." The sus.h.i.+ man busily prepared their orders of ikura, cracking the quail eggs over them, but she could tell he was eavesdropping. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "You can't know that. You can't know you love someone you haven't even known a week."

"Did a burning bush tell you that?" Maxwell asked. "What, did Charlton Heston come down off a mountain with that in his arms? Thou can't lovest if thou only knowest each other a week?"

"Don't be a smarta.s.s, Maxwell."

Maxwell shrugged. "Why not? I'm being honest. I don't think what we're talking about should be judged by some socially preordained set of proximal standards."

Preordained proximal standards? "Love at first sight isn't a reality, Maxwell," she said to the shrimp heads. "It only works in the movies." "Love at first sight isn't a reality, Maxwell," she said to the shrimp heads. "It only works in the movies."

"This isn't love at first sight," Maxwell corrected. "It's love at second sight. You want to know what's not a reality, Kathleen? Categorizing human emotions."

Was that what she was doing? Before she could form another reply, the sus.h.i.+ man, laying split raw shrimp atop rice lumps, nodded in gruff agreement. "Human love," he said in his elliptical accent. "Never bound. Is like lightning on summer night."

Kathleen was outraged. Just make the G.o.dd.a.m.n sus.h.i.+ and mind your own business! Just make the G.o.dd.a.m.n sus.h.i.+ and mind your own business! She lowered her voice further. "Maxwell, this isn't the place to-" She lowered her voice further. "Maxwell, this isn't the place to-"

"I see. Charlton Heston came down off a mountain with that in his arms too, right? Thou shalt not talk about how we feel in sus.h.i.+ bars."

Kathleen took a sip of her beer from the bottle. "You're being such an a.s.shole," she muttered.

"Oh?" Maxwell glanced up. "Excuse me, sir?" he inquired of the sus.h.i.+ man. "In your opinion, am I being an a.s.shole?"

Kathleen's teeth were grinding. The sus.h.i.+ man placed another order between them. "No," he said and shook his head. "No."

"We're leaving after this order," she said.

Maxwell dipped his raw shrimp-amaebi-into the little dish of soy sauce. "Why are you mad? There's no reason for you to be mad. We're communicating, aren't we? Most relations.h.i.+ps fail simply because the people involved fail to communicate-"

"Just because we had s.e.x a couple of times doesn't mean we're in a relations.h.i.+p!" came the fiercest whisper of her life. The sus.h.i.+ man turned away, raising a thin black brow. Kathleen sputtered, disgusted. I don't care, I don't care, she thought. she thought. I don't care if the whole world hears. So what? I don't care if the whole world hears. So what?

"Maybe it doesn't, you're right. So why don't we try to determine that? At the very least, I have a right to know how you feel, don't I?" Maxwell concentrated, again wielding his chopsticks toward the pile of fried shrimp heads. "Don't I?"

Yeah, you do, she thought, but what did that really mean? Anything? Each response that a.s.sembled in her mind fell apart before she could get it out of her mouth. She saw cars cras.h.i.+ng, seats flying off Ferris wheels, bridges collapsing. She saw children waving at her but they were too far away to hear what they were saying. She saw skeletons dressed in wedding gowns, and old withered women dying alone. In the gla.s.s sus.h.i.+ cabinet she stared at the reflection of her own face and saw a stranger staring back...

"What are you afraid of?" Maxwell said.

Chapter 15.

(I).

She remembers what he looks like.

That's good.

She remembers the night she picked up the prost.i.tute.

"Yeah, all right. Whatever you want."

"I have $300. Is that enough?"

The prost.i.tute looked momentarily old in the queer street light. She looked tired. Her red hair looked glossy, wet. "I usually don't do girls," she said. "But, yeah, that should be enough." Her smile looked brittle somehow, like she was very sad underneath. "There's a place up from Vermont. You have a car? If not we'll have to get a cab."

"I have a car," she said.

She'd put on plates she stole from the parking lot at Landover Mall. They were driving up L Street. The prost.i.tute smelled nice. Suddenly she put her head down in the seat. "What's wrong?" "That guy over there," the prost.i.tute replied. "I don't want him to see me."

"Why?"

"Never mind."

She looks across the intersection.

She sees the sharp, handsome black man getting into a BMW. She realizes that he's the prost.i.tute's pimp, and that the prost.i.tute is holding out on him. That's why she doesn't want the black man to see her. That's good, she thinks. That makes it even easier.

"What's his name?" she asked later.

Back at the house.

In Daddy's Room.

Don't hurt her, her mother says. her mother says. It's not her fault. It's not her fault.

"What's his name, the black man's? If you don't tell me, I'll have to hurt you. I don't want to hurt you."

The prost.i.tute told her.