from my group?' she asked.
'Only to follow the backward elbow strike with a left jab if there's a guy in front of me.'
'Other than the fisticuffs.'
'I'm not sure. Clarence was highly manipulative. The Fireman seemed dangerous, or at least wanted to appear that way. Ken was inscrutable, and Stephanie was-as the kids used to say-a trip.'
'It may be,' Pam said, watching the roadside fly by, 'that you don't have enough information yet about your killer.'
'I've got everything the cops have put together.'
'But they have only two victims. You may need…'
She stopped, both of us realizing the horror when bodies become data, mere input for the computerized profile, grist for the thesis and the government grant.
'There will be more deaths, won't there?' I asked.
'Yes, if the first two, or either of them, was a motiveless murder. If a psychopath is about.'
I heard Charlie snoring in the backseat. I turned and saw him curled contentedly in the fetal position, his mackinaw under his head for a pillow. Probably dreaming of a historic autopsy where he found a rare poison in the pancreas.
I opened a window and let the crisp air fill the Rover. I had sore ribs and an angry red knot was blossoming on my temple, but it was turning into a fine day in the English countryside. I turned and looked at the beautiful woman sitting next to me. I wondered why I misfired with her at every opportunity. She seemed genuinely peeved about my conduct at the hospital.
I decided to confess. 'I was scared.'
She looked at me skeptically.
'In the hospital with four lunatic killers and your two minimum-wage goons.'
'There was no reason to be frightened of the group. They only kill women, you know.'
'And their reasons for killing women?'
'Answering that question is my life's work. But we're talking about you. What frightened you?'
'Confinement, I guess. Claustrophobia, maybe. Not being able to come and go. Having hands laid on me. Plus the fear of getting knocked around by a couple of guys who know how to inflict pain without leaving scars.'
'I see.' She bit her lower lip and seemed to ponder my case. She was staring straight out the windshield, or windscreen, as she called it when we stopped for petrol, but she was thinking about me. I liked the attention. But I didn't know if she was interested in the big lummox as a person or merely an interesting case study. Freud had his Rat Man; maybe Maxson wanted her Macho Man. 'I wonder,' she said delicately, 'if you are using claustrophobia in a colloquial sense or if you have a true phobia, an anxiety far out of proportion to its danger.'
'I don't know,' I admitted.
'As for Clive and Francis, with your background as a footballer, you can certainly handle yourself, as you proved.'
I passed a double trailer in fifth gear and looked straight ahead. 'But I was afraid, even then.'
'Afraid, playing your game?'
I nodded.
'Afraid of what? Losing?'
'The pain, both physical and emotional. Getting hurt, getting embarrassed. I was always one step from getting cut.'
'Cut?'
'Fired, canned, let out to pasture.'
I politely allowed a Jaguar to take me on the right side. Pam seemed to be mulling over the contradictions of the ex-linebacker admitting his weaknesses. She inched closer in the seat. Maybe she liked me better this way, two hundred twenty-five pounds of neuroses. 'What caused these fears?' she asked.
I shrugged.
'We could find out, you know.'
'You mean analysis.'
She nodded happily. 'Let's call it a preliminary inquiry concerning your mental health.'
'Fire when ready.'
'Did you like playing your game?'
'The game…the game is stupid!' I stopped short. I'd never said that before, never even thought it, not consciously at least. Then I wondered if there is a subconscious. Or was I becoming a radical psychojock?
'What makes it stupid?' she asked.
I kept my eyes on the road. 'Let's start with the uniform.'
'Those knickers and plastic hats.'
I nodded. 'And the game itself, smashing into each other at full speed, pushing an odd-shaped ball a hundred yards, back and forth, according to a set of arbitrary rules. Only one forward pass per down, can't touch a receiver when the ball's in the air, offensive line can't hold but they all do. Viewed objectively, it's a pretty stupid game and a pretty stupid way to make a living.'
Her eyes brightened. 'But the smashing was a release of hostility like steam from a kettle. Or is there another reason you chose a profession certain to cause you anxiety and conflict? That's a classic counter-phobic attitude, you know, taking pleasure in precisely the activity that arouses anxiety. And when you derive satisfaction from triumphing over the anxiety, it's just a manifestation of a manic defense.'
'Something like a pass prevent?'
'More like an all-out blitz.'
My foot slipped off the gas pedal and I gaped at her, astounded.
She shrugged. 'I've done a little research on your game, that's all.'
'Why?'
'To better understand you. Why do you suppose you derived pleasure from the smashing and hitting?'
'Isn't my fifty minutes up, doctor?'
'Please. Don't joke your way out of this. We're making progress concerning the omnipotence you felt from mastering your fear of pain and failure.'
'I never felt omnipotent getting blind-sided by the tight end.'
She settled back into her seat, annoyed. 'Perhaps that's all we can accomplish for today.'
We sat in silence for a few moments, and then she pointed to the left to keep me from missing the turn toward Chipping Camden, ancestral home of the Maxson clan. If I'd stayed on the highway, we'd have headed straight for Stratford-on-Avon, and my mind wandered to Professor Prince and whether he ever played Hamlet in his meanderings.
After a while Pam Maxson asked, 'You don't want to explore what's under the surface, do you?'
That started something buzzing in the back of my mind. What was it?
'On the flight over here,' I said, stirring up a fuzzy memory, 'I dreamed about you.'
'Oh!' She straightened, tugging at the harness restraint. She was genuinely excited, whether from professional or personal curiosity I still didn't know.
'Yes, but it's hard to remember. I fell asleep thinking about you and woke up the same way, and in between…'
'Yes, yes. Think about it.'
'You were in Miami. You must have been, because it was very warm. And we were on the beach.'
She raised an eyebrow. 'We?'
'You and me. I was rigging a sailboard.'
She gave me a quizzical look.
'A Windsurfer,' I said. 'It was one of those spring days, a strong warm wind from the east, whitecaps on the water, sand blowing down the beach. I was tying the boom to the mast, and you were next to me. Yes, I see it now, in a bikini!'
'Indeed?'
'A red bikini, and your hair was blowing downwind. And you were saying something. What the hell was it?'
