smoke pot from morning to night.
April Woo called just when he was on his way out to teach a class on transference to psychiatric residents at the medical school. He was in his office bathroom with the water on, scrubbing the spit-up out of his shirt. After drenching himself trying to get the water off in time to catch the phone, he launched into his apology.
'Thanks for returning my call. I'm really sorry about bothering you with the Atkins thing. I've been thinking about it, and I forgot to tell you he may have been on call last night. If you haven't gotten to it yet-'
'I'm on it now.'
April's deadpan voice jolted him. 'What's up?'
'It appears that your student, Atkins, went home around seven, changed his clothes, then went out for a jog. The doorman in his building says he met a young girl and they went into the park together. He didn't come back to his apartment last night.'
'Hmmm.' Jason dabbed at his wet shirt with a towel.
'Did he have a girlfriend, Jason? Maybe he had a change of clothes at her place.'
'Ah, I don't know.'
'Family?'
'I don't know much about his private life.'
'I thought you were his supervisor,' she said accusingly.
'I am.'
'How do you supervise them if you don't know what their countertransference issues are?'
'Jesus, April, how do you know about that?' Jason was stunned by the insight.
'I'm a supervisor myself, Jason. You think you own psychology?'
'Ah, this is different. Analytic candidates don't talk to their supervisors about their private lives. They talk to their
'Uh-huh, so this missing candidate of yours has two psychoanalysts, one for himself and one for his patients? Who's in charge of the two of them? Anybody know the whole story?'
'No, it's complicated. His own analyst keeps to strict confidentiality-' Jason broke off, knowing it must sound a little strange.
'So, what did you talk about with this guy, anything useful?' April herself sounded strange.
'Where are you?'
'In the park.'
'What are you doing there?'
'It's complicated. What did you talk about with him, Jason? I have to know what was going on in his life. I need the basic facts,' April said. 'Everything he did in the last twenty-four hours and the rest of his life.'
'April, you're scaring me to death,' Jason said. 'What happened?'
'We had a 911 of trouble in the area last night. We're thinking your friend might have been mugged. We have a vagrant who says he witnessed an assault on a jogger. There was no sign of him last night, though.'
'Have you checked the hospitals?'
'We've started checking ERs. Nothing yet.'
'You checked his home?'
'First thing. His wallet, telephone and appointment books were there. A big wad of cash. Does he have an office?'
'Yes.' Jason was silent for a second, thinking fast. 'Is this inebriated person homeless, April?'
'Yes.'
'Does he know more than he's saying?' Jason glanced at his watch. Shit, he was going to be late for his class. He wondered if he should cancel.
'It's possible.'
'What about the bum being the mugger-?'
'It's a possibility.'
Neutral. That damn neutral voice. Jason was really rattled.
'Look, I'm on my way to teach; what can I do to help?'
'This shouldn't be my case, Jason. Know what I mean? So I'm short-handed here, and out of my territory.'
'I'm sorry about that.' The clocks were ticking. Jason was late. Shit. 'What do you need?' he asked.
'Well, you know how shrinks hate to talk to cops about their patients. Maybe you could talk to Maslow's doctor, get me some background on him. Parents, friends, other relatives, habits, sexual preference. State of mind.' Her voice started to break up.
'April, are you on a cell phone? April?'
The voice came back. 'Yeah.'
'People don't just disappear.'
'No, of course they don't. So help me out here.'
'Of course. What's your next step?'
'I'm calling in the K-9 unit.'
'WHAT?' Dogs? Was she nuts?
'You can't be too careful.' The voice broke up again.
'Oh, Jesus, April-'
Silence.
'April, talk to me.'
'Kkkkkkk.'
The phone went dead. Shit! Jason didn't have time to wait for her to call back. He stuck his beeper on his belt and left his office, wondering what Maslow had wanted to tell him about Allegra before he disappeared.
Eleven
The nose of a cop is used to unpleasant things. But it turned out to be quite a chore for Woody to install the vile-smelling John Jasper James, a.k.a. Pee Wee, into the backseat and drive downtown to Midtown North in the close confines of the Buick. Woody opened the front windows all the way and leaned into the wind, but he still kept his right hand clamped over his nostrils. April noted the acute sensitivity without sympathy. She was wondering when Jason would have some information for her, and she was beginning to doubt her judgment about this action. Lieutenant Iriarte was going to freak out.
'When do I get something to eat?' Pee Wee demanded as they cruised down Ninth Avenue.
'As soon as you give us a story we can work with,' Woody told him. Woody loved this. He was used to making waves.
Pee Wee snorted.
'You happen to notice how bad this guy needs a bath?' Woody asked conversationally. 'He's stinking up the unit something criminal.'
'How'm I gonna take a bath, where I live, huh? It's not me, anyway. This outfit wasn't new when I got it.'
'Where'd you get it from, a corpse?' Woody turned left on Fifty-fourth Street, passed a parking place close to Ninth, then cursed when there wasn't a space any closer to the station house.
'Stop here. I'm going up. You park and escort John James here upstairs. Thanks.' April got out and slammed the door. This door-slamming was an American, not a Chinese, thing to do. Now that she was a sergeant, American self-expression was coming a little easier to her.
She smiled when Woody muttered, 'Fuck.' Now he had to take the flak when he came into the squad room with the odoriferous bum. She hurried inside.
'Your boss is looking for you,' barked Pete Mongers, the lieutenant on the desk.
'Thanks.' April took the stairs two at a time. When she opened the squad room door, something was up. Seven extravagantly dressed people-looked like South Americans-were all yelling in Spanish at once. Iriarte was using his smoothest manner to soothe their ruffled feathers. Then he saw April and his placating expression changed.
