“No-I think it's a legitimate question.”
“Then I'll give you a legitimate answer. It's no goddamn picnic being a multiple. You're always one slip away from humiliation. Hard to hold down a job. And as for a relationship, forget it- who'd want a relationship with a whole theatrical troupe? You'd never know whom you're making love to.”
Irene decided not to point out that the DID literature was rife with examples of multiples' spouses (usually male spouses of female multiples) who actively subverted therapy because being married to a multiple was like having your own imaginary harem.
“I'm still a little confused,” she told him instead. “You said you've restored order to the system. Why not just stay in control yourself?”
“I wish to hell I could. But it doesn't work like that. The only way I can stay in control is by letting the others all have their turns. If I don't, they're apt to force their way out. Sometimes they do anyway-that's how you met Useless the other day.”
Irene thought back to what the hapless host alter had said-that Max wouldn't allow any therapy. Now she was beginning to understand. “So what you're telling me is that you want to go into therapy not to achieve integration, but to maintain more effective control over the other alters. I don't know how much progress we can make under those ground rules.”
“A little fine-tuning, for a more efficiently functioning system? That's just textbook fusion, Irene-a textbook therapeutic resolution. I think it's doable, and I think it's worth a shot. How about you?”
Irene knew better than to ask him what her alternatives were. Suppressing a shudder, she turned her thoughts to the work ahead of her. Fusion was difficult enough to achieve in the best of circumstances-and time- consuming: three years at a minimum. But who could say for sure? This multiple was different from any of the others she'd treated-perhaps with a powerful alter like Max in charge, instead of the usual ineffective host, the possibility of an early resolution might not be all that far-fetched.
In any event, it would surely beat termination with extreme prejudice. So: start therapy, keep Max happy, keep your eyes open for any crack or weakness in the system that might be exploitable-and most important, stay alive.
“I suppose I'm game if you are,” she told him. Then she turned to her left, reached across the space separating them, and gently pushed that unruly comma of hair, blond now, back from his forehead, and tucked it under his watchcap for him.
38
Ed Pender had tossed his share of houses in his time, and one of the conclusions he'd come to was that it was often easier to find something that had been deliberately hidden than something that hadn't. Cops, like burglars, knew all the hiding places-mattresses and drawer bottoms, freezers and toilet tanks, wall safes and crawl spaces.
But Irene Cogan hadn't been trying to conceal her Dictaphone, which meant it might be anywhere. After a thorough search first of her office, then her living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, Pender had learned almost as much about Dr. Cogan as he would have from meeting her face to face-certainly more than she would have volunteered.
He knew her late husband had been named Frank, that he'd been a builder and a golfer and an amateur painter. He knew that either she and Frank hadn't been able to have children or didn't want any-although there was obviously no shortage of money, they'd purchased a small home with only one bedroom.
He saw that she was neat, but not a fastidious housekeeper, that she was a conservative dresser who preferred department stores to couturiers. He knew she was slender, small in the top and long in the legs, and that she had her hair dyed at the hairdressers but touched it up occasionally with L'Oreal. Her scent was Rain, her favorite color was blue, and she was probably proud of those long legs-she had more dresses than pantsuits, more skirts and shorts than slacks, and although she wore plain white cotton panties from Olga, she wasn't averse to shelling out the big bucks for high-end pantyhose and stockings, and understood the value of high heels.
From the journals and books on psychology in every room of the house, and the dearth of fiction in the bookshelves, videos in the TV stand, or publications other than professional in the bathroom, he gathered she was a workaholic. He also knew that she smoked Benson and Hedges, had recently taken up jogging, subsisted largely on salads, and probably didn't care for chocolate.
Pender could also make some informed assumptions as to Dr. Cogan's sexual habits. There were no signs that she'd entertained an overnight visitor in the recent past, much less that she was involved in a long-term relationship. Only one toothbrush in the bathroom, and one dainty Silk Effects razor by the bathtub. No man had left his pajamas folded in one of her drawers or hanging in her closet-there was no indication, in fact, that anyone but herself had been in that bedroom in a long, long time. No snazzy lingerie in her underwear drawer-just those Olga panties and a utilitarian-looking beige garterbelt for her beloved stockings- while the sexy satin nightgown in her closet had gone unworn for so long that there were deep-scored hanger marks pressed into the shoulders.
Most telling of all, there was no diaphragm in the bathroom, nor spermicidal jelly, contraceptive foam, or birth control pills, and no condoms, oils, or unguents in the drawer of the bedside table- there wasn't even a vibrator in evidence. All of which suggested strongly to Special Agent Pender that Dr. Irene Cogan had not (to put it crudely) been getting any lately.
Oh, and one other thing. He knew from the wedding picture of the Cogans on the mantel over the small fireplace in the living room that before she started coloring her hair, Dr. Irene Cogan had been a strawberry blond. He only prayed that Casey didn't know it.
But despite all that he had learned about Dr. Cogan, Pender still had no idea where the hell she'd stashed her Dictaphone, and after two hours of searching, his head was absolutely killing him.
Might as well call it a night, he told himself, entering the upstairs bathroom for the second time that evening. This time he wasn't looking for anything except relief for his bladder. When he bent forward (carefully, on account of his pounding head) to raise the toilet seat, he noticed that the decorative guest towel hanging from the rack on the wall behind the toilet had been pulled down until it brushed the top of the toilet tank. The front of the top of the tank-it wasn't hanging parallel to the wall.
And now he knew-he knew almost before he flipped the towel up. Thirty years an investigator, a re-creator of events, Pender tended to think first in terms of reverse process. Dictaphone on toilet, hidden by towel. Not hidden- shielded. From what? To protect it from getting wet-it's in a bathroom.
But why a bathroom? Of course: Dr. Cogan was a workaholic. Pender already knew she worked while eating. How about while bathing? You bet. So she put her expensive Dictaphone on the toilet seat, where she could reach it, but where there was no danger of it falling into the tub.
Once he had Dr. Cogan in the bath listening to the Dictaphone resting on the toilet seat, Pender worked forward again. Splish, splash, she steps out of the bath. Wraps a towel around her-not the guest towel-and maybe another to make a turban for her hair. But she needs to sit down, dry her toes or whatever. Moves the Dictaphone to the top of the toilet tank. Pulls the towel on the rack down to cover the apparatus so it won't get wet when she unwraps her turban.
All this Pender saw in his mind's eye within seconds of lifting the decoratively hemmed bottom of the towel to reveal a pearlgray, state-of-the-art Dictaphone the size of a paperback novel, with one tiny tape cassette beside it and another still inside. At the same time, though, he understood full well that for all his investigative prowess, he would never have discovered it if he hadn't needed to take a piss.
It's better to be lucky than smart, Ed Pender reminded himself, not for the first time in his long career.
39
Flashing lights in the passenger-side mirror.
Please, I want to live, thought Irene. Maxwell pulled the van over to the side of the highway, steering with his
