'Do you really think you can get her out?' Susan said.
'I don't think that way. I suppose I have to assume I can. But mostly I think about how I'm going to do it.'
'Of course,' Susan said. 'The question was dumb. It's like asking a baseball player, do you really think you can get a hit? If he didn't think so, he wouldn't be doing what he does.'
'You weren't really asking me that anyway,' I said.
Susan smiled at me, which is always a treat.
'No, I was asking you to reassure me,' she said. 'Thank you for noticing.'
'Hey I'm a sensitive guy,' I said. 'I'm scoring a shrink.'
The waitress brought me a second glass of Pilsner Urquell beer, which went especially well with brisket. Susan's single glass of Merlot was sipped but slightly. A thin air woman in an Armani suit stopped by the table and said hello to Susan.
'Sarah Gallant,' Susan said. 'Don't you look wonderful.'
We were introduced. I agreed with Susan but thought it prudent not to say so. The two women talked for a moment. I listened. And Sarah moved on.
'I wonder how she's being treated,' Susan said.
'Sarah?' I said. 'She looks like she's being treated fine.'
'You know I mean Lisa. Aside from the fact that she's probably a captive. We have to wonder what the conditions of her captivity are.'
'Freddie Santiago says that Luis Deleon is ferocious.'
'It doesn't mean he is abusing her,' Susan said. 'He may have what he wants.'
'Which is?'
'Possession. She is under his control. It may be enough.'
'It hangs over everything, doesn't it?' I said. 'Even we have trouble bringing it up.'
'The question of sexual abuse? Yes, it does, regardless of Lisa's past.'
'Any thoughts?' I said.
'On whether he will or won't? Has or hasn't? No. Maybe the control is enough, maybe it isn't. Even if I knew them in a therapeutic relationship…'
'His mother was a prostitute, according to Santiago.'
'Where did she turn tricks?' Susan said.
'I don't know. According to Santiago, she O.D.'d in the washroom at his club and died on the floor.'
Susan paused and drank some wine. 'How old was he?'
'Deleon? Around fourteen, Santiago says.'
'And no father?'
'None that anyone knows about.'
'If she brought men home,' Susan said, 'and a lot of prostitutes do, because they have nowhere else to bring them, it would have been very difficult for him.'
'I guessed that,' I said.
'You are sensitive,' Susan said. 'They were mother and son, but they were probably a couple too. He would be very angry. And he would be very angry that she died and left him and very angry that she did it for so little reason.'
'Would it lead him to sexual abuse?' I said.
'It would make him very angry,' Susan said. 'And he might take it out on Lisa.'
'It is easy to transfer feelings you had for one important person onto another important person.'
'They both left him,' I said. 'He probably had sexual feelings for both. They were both whores.'
I knew Susan had started with those assumptions and had already moved on. I was just showing off. Susan made one of those little head and facial motions that she made, which acknowledge that she heard you and didn't indicate what she thought of what you'd said. They probably teach it in shrink school.
'We do much better,' she said, 'explaining why people did things than we do at predicting what they will do.'
I nodded and gave some attention to the brisket and the skin Susan carefully cut the skin from a piece of lemon roasted chicken. She never ate any fat, being very careful of her weight, which was important, because her waist was nearly the size of my neck, and she worked out barely two hours a day.
'Would you say that you know me in a therapeutic relationship?' I said.
Susan widened her big eyes so that she looked like a Jewish Dolly Parton. She shook her head.
'I would say our relationship is more fuckative.'
'Well the effect is very therapeutic,' I said.
