'To be who I am. To be the woman you love, to be part of what we are, which is not like anyone else is, to be Susan, I have to be able to deal with this as I must. I must use my judgment and my skill and I mustn't let fear change any of that.'
I looked at her small hands lying on my forearms. It seemed as if we were alone in a void, no waiters, no diners, no restaurant, no world.
And it seemed as if we sat that way for twenty minutes.
'No,' I said finally, 'you mustn't. You're perfectly right.'
I looked up at her big eyes, and they held me. She smiled slowly.
'And,' I said, 'you're about to put your tit in the tortellini.' . He'd heard the boyfriend on the radio, Spenser. He'd been saying that the schwartze didn't do it. Did they know about him? Did the sonovabitch make him when he'd left the rose? Everybody else thought the schwartze did it. How come Spenser didn't? Did she? Did she know he did it? Did she know he tied all the other broads up and gagged them and watched them struggle and try to scream through the gag? He looked at the fish in the tank swimming quietly, the morning sun shining through the tank.
She'd come out in a minute and say come in and then he'd be in the tank.
Maybe she'd like being tied up. Some women did. They liked being tied up and naked and begging for it. He could feel the rush again as he thought about it. But he couldn't come talk to her anymore if he did something. And she might tell the boyfriend. Big bastard. In the papers it said he'd been a fighter. Fuck him. Maybe she'd told the boyfriend. Maybe she suspected him from what he said in there. They knew. Shrinks knew stuff even when you didn't want them to. She watched him all the time. She watched when he moved his arm or jiggled his foot, or shifted in the chair. She watched everything. She concentrated on him… the fish cruised in slow circles in the sunny water… she cared about him. She wouldn't tell the boyfriend. She wouldn't. The boyfriend thought it on his own. The has tard. She wouldn't tell. The office door opened. She was there in a dark blue dress with red flowers on it.
'Come in,' she said.
When he stood, it startled the fish and they darted about in the tank.
'My father used to go to whores,' he said. 'And then he'd feel bad about it and the next day he'd bring her roses.' The shrink seemed interested. He thought she would be.
'And she used to say, 'You been with some floozie, George? 'And he'd just sort of look at the floor and say, 'A rose for you, Rosie,' and he'd go away.'
'He wouldn't fight with her,' the shrink said.
'No, he never fought with her. He just got drunk and went to the whores.'
She looked quietly at him. There was always that quiet about her, that peaceful welcoming stillness. No judgments.
'How did you feel about that?' she said.
He felt himself shrugging, felt himself being casual.
'Hell, he took me once,' he said. He felt the feeling again in his stomach, the feeling of void ness She raised her eyebrows slightly.
'Black hooker,' he said. 'I was about fourteen.' The void was expanding and behind it the sensation, the hotness and tingle that always came. He heard himself telling her. He felt his daring and that added to the tingle. 'Christ, she smelled bad.'
The shrink waited, inviting him with her calmness.
'Turned me off,' he said, still feeling himself being casual.
They were both quiet, the shrink sitting perfectly still, he sitting as casually as he could, one arm leaning on the back of his chair. He could feel his eyes begin to tear. Still casual, he looked at her, blurred now, waiting.
'I couldn't,' he said, his voice shaky and hoarse. 'I couldn't do anything. She was fat, and, and .. He felt his shoulders shake a little. '… hairy and… she was mean.'
'To you?' the shrink said.
'Yes.' So he was telling her. 'Yes. She teased me and talked about how little it was and how weak it was and she tried to make me do it, tried, you know, to make me hard, and I couldn't and she got mad and said I was insulting her and I better do it or she'd cut it off and I was a bigot 'cause she was black.'
'Terrifying,' the shrink said.
'And my father was off somewhere fucking some other whore and I couldn't get away.'
He struggled for breath. The sentences had been too long.
'And,' the shrink said.
'And finally she threw me out of the room with no pants on and locked the door. And I had to wait there until my father came and took me home with his jacket wrapped around me. And some of the other whores saw me.'
'Did you talk about this with your father?'
'He was mad at me for losing my pants. He said my mother would be mad at us.'
Belson came by Susan's place at eleven in the morning and gave me a thick folder that had everything he and Quirk had learned about all seven suspects.
'Quirk says read it and think about it and then we should talk,' Belson said. 'You, me, Quirk, and Susan, if she
