'If the Red Rose killer does, in fact, surface in therapy, could you take the time to mention it to one of us,' I said.
'Oh, don't be so pissy,' Susan said. 'You know I will when I'm sure. I don't want anyone else killed, including me.'
'Pissy?' I said.
'Pissy,' Susan said. 'I shouldn't expect you to understand all the technical terms of my profession.'
'You want to clean out the tank?' I said.
'Yes,' Susan said. 'And I want to put more fish in.'
'Don't disturb the patients?'
'No, in fact I wish to disturb one. I wish to thwart and frustrate whoever poisoned the fish. It will force him to rechannel whatever he's trying to express, and perhaps he'll rechannel it my way.'
'You shrinks are a devious bunch,' I said. 'What if he re channels it violently?'
Susan smiled sweetly.
'Why, then you or Hawkie-poo will intervene,' she said. 'Why else are you hanging around?'
I had nothing to say to that. Neither did Hawkie-poo. . Was she scared? She must be scared. They were all scared when it came down to it. Any woman could be frightened. Had she guessed it was him? Had her boyfriend seen him clearly? The thought that she might know nearly smothered him with its lovely frenzy. Maybe someday…
'I saw your name in the paper.' She said, 'Um hmm.'
Maybe someday…
'Your boyfriend's working on the Red Rose case.'
'Um hmm.'
Maybe someday… The fear slivered through him.
'Why would a guy do something like that?'
She merely looked interested. She didn't speak.
The sensation he felt as he talked with her was reminiscent of the way it felt to wiggle a loose tooth when he was small. She suspected him.
It was like undressing in front of her. Look at this.
'I'm sort of fascinated with this guy, this Red Rose guy.'
'Um hmm?' she said. There was encouragement in her voice, no disapproval.
'You don't mind me talking about it?'
'No,' she said. 'See what it leads to.'
'My mother would have been .. He did an imitation of his mother's uncomfortable disapproving frown. 'She hated anything dirty.'
'What kinds of things did she consider dirty?'
'You know, sex, anything about sex.'
She nodded. She understood.
'And your father?' she said.
'He loved her so much. He did everything she wanted . except stop drinking.'
'So she was the power in the family,' she said.
'No, yes, well, it was funny. We all pretended she was, and we said how smart she was, and how she could always fix things and find things and figure out things. But in fact she was weak and stupid and scared of everything, and it was like a game my father and me played. Except we never said.'
'Did you know?' She sat very quietly, her big eyes on his face. She was very interested and very kind.
'Not then, except I did. I guess I did and I didn't, does that make sense?'
She nodded her head. 'Sure,' she said.
'I mean, she'd be telling you absolutely how things were and ought to be and you believed her and at the same time you knew she didn't know anything about it. I mean, she couldn't tell you where Brazil was. And she couldn't read very well, and she lived at home until she married my father and lived with him the rest of the time, until he died.'
She was sitting a little forward in her chair now, her knees together, her hands in her lap.
'And she was never really interested in either one of us. She said she was, but she never really paid any attention to what you said, or had any sense of what you cared about. I don't think she understood much, and when anyone talked about things it made her scared.'
The room was quiet. She sat, wearing a black suit. He thought of her putting on the suit in the morning. He could feel tears at the edge of crying. He was breathing only a little air at a time, small breaths, rapidly.
'But she loved me,' he said.
