I DROVE out of the parking lot and reflected on my dismissal. Souza had fished me out of a sea of experts, using the twin lures of flattery and professional responsibility: I was vital to the case because of both my prior treatment of Jamey and my ostensible brilliance. Now, given the first opportunity, he'd thrown me back like some undersized hatchling, having filled his bucket with more substantive catch. I shouldn't have been surprised. We hadn't really got along; although we were outwardly cordial, there was an unmistakable tension between us. He was a man who thrived on manipulation, a sculptor of behaviour, and I'd proved less than pliable and thus expendable. After all, he had Chapin from Harvard, Donnell from Stanford - full professors both, well published and respected. No matter that they had no problems assuring an insanity defence before examining the patient. They were the kind of expert who thrived in Souza's system.
I didn't regret leaving his team, but I rued how little I'd learned about Jamey. The case had produced far more questions than answers. The only issue that had come close to generating a consensus was his psychosis. Everyone except Sonnenschein had agreed that he was crazy, and even the deputy had relaxed his cynicism after witnessing the damage the boy had done to himself. But the crimes of which he was accused weren't those of a psychotic, as a first-year graduate student had noticed. Souza's quick answer laid the blame - not without some justification - on a dead man. In fact, both his guardians and his peers had seen Ivar Digby Chancellor as a major influence in Jamey's life. The man had steered him from sonnets to securities, from cola to sprouts. But whether that influence had extended to serial homicide was far from clear.
Upon closer inspection, not even the diagnosis of schizophrenia was free from confusion: The disease had run an atypical course, and Jamey's response to medication had been inconsistent. In addition, he'd shown some, though admittedly minor, evidence of drug use. Sarita Flowers and Heather Cadmus were certain he'd never taken dope. But the Project 160 kids thought otherwise. As far as Mainwaring was concerned, it didn't matter, and the inconsistencies could be explained by subtle brain damage. Perhaps the psychiatrist was right, but he'd never carried out a comprehensive neurological workup. And his lack of interest in anything other than dosage levels as well as his slipshod charting weakened my confidence in his judgment.
Then there was the matter of the Cadmus family history - a lineage steeped in psychopathology. Were the similarities among the declines of Antoinette, Peter, and Jamey meaningful? Had the trussing of Chancellor been a primitive attempt at symbolic patricide? Dwight Cadmus certainly merited a second interview.
There were others I wanted to talk to as well. Gary Yamaguchi and the nurses - the gushing Ms. Surtees and the caustic Mrs. Vann. The contrast between the two women was yet another rub: The private-duty nurse had described Jamey more positively than had anyone else. Yet it was she he'd attacked the night he'd bolted. Andrea Vann had viewed him as dangerously disturbed, but that hadn't stopped her from leaving the C Ward nursing station unstaffed that night. And now she'd quit.
Too many questions, not enough answers. And a battered, mad young man destined to live out his days in a nightmare world.
Souza had cut me out before I'd had a chance to look into any of it.
As I ruminated, the Seville drifted toward the Union District, not far from the address Sarita had given me for Gary.
Souza had reminded me of my ethical obligations. I couldn't discuss my findings with anyone, but that didn't stop me from evaluating further - as a free agent.
The building sat in the middle of the block, embroidered at street level with a daisy chain of dozing winos. Bottles and cans and dogshit turned my progress down the sidewalk into a spastic ballet. The doors were rusted iron, warped and dented, and set into the crumbling brick facade of the former factory like a fistula. A band of concrete striped the brick. In it was carved PELTA THREAD COMPANY, 1923. The letters were pigeon-specked and cracked. To the right of the door were two buttons. Next to each button was a slot for an address sticker. The first was unfilled; the second framed a taped-over strip of paper that read R. Bogdan. I pushed both buttons but got no response, tried the door, and found it locked. After driving around through the alley, I saw a rear entry identical to the one in the front, but it, too, was bolted. I gave up and went home.
Jamey's Canyon Oaks chart had arrived. I locked it in my desk and retrieved Souza's cheque. I addressed and stamped an envelope, sealed the cheque inside, jogged down to the nearest mailbox, and dropped it through the slot. At three-thirty the service called to deliver a message from Robin: Billy Orleans had come into town early and would be at the studio until five. After he left, we could have dinner together. I changed into jeans and a turtleneck and drove to Venice.
Robin's place is an unmarked storefront on Pacific Avenue, not far enough from the Oakwood ghetto. The exterior is covered with gang graffiti, and the windows are whitewashed over. For years she lived upstairs, in a loft she had designed and built herself, and used the main floor as a workshop. A dangerous arrangement for anyone, let alone a single woman, but it had been an assertion of independence. Now the place was alarmed and she shared my bed and I slept a lot better for it.
Both parking spaces in back of the shop were taken up by a white stretch Lincoln limo with blackened windows, gangster whitewalls, and a TV antenna on the rear deck. Three hundred hard pounds of bodyguard leaned against the side of the car -fiftyish, a sunburned bull mastiff face, sandy-grey hair, and a white toothbrush moustache. He was dressed in white drawstring pants, sandals, and a sleeveless red singlet stretched just short of bursting. The arms folded across his chest were the colour and breadth of Virginia hams.
I coasted to a stop and looked for a place to leave the Seville. From inside the studio came deep, pulsating waves of sound.
'Hi, sir,' said the bodyguard cheerfully, 'you the shrink friend?'
'That's me.'
'I'm Jackie. They told me to be on the lookout for you. Just leave the car here with the keys in, and I'll watch it for you.'
I thanked him and entered the shop through the rear door. As always, the studio smelled of confifer resin and sawdust. But the rumble of power drills and saws had been replaced by another wall of noise: thunderous power chords and screaming treble riffs resonating from every beam and plank.
I walked to the rear, where the test amplifiers were kept and saw Robin, wearing a dusty apron over her work clothes and padded earphones half buried in her curls, watching a gaunt man assault a silver-glitter solid-body electric guitar shaped like a rocket ship. With each stroke of
the pick, the instrument lit up and sparkled, and when the man pressed a button near the bridge, a sound similar to that of a space module leaving the launching pad issued forth. The guitar was plugged into dual Mesa Boogie amps and cranked up to maximum volume. As the thin man ran his fingers up and down the fretboard, it screamed and bellowed. A smouldering cigarette was wedged between the strings just above the fretboard. The windows shuddered, and my ears felt as if they were about to bleed.
Robin saw me and waved. Unable to hear her, I read her lips and made out 'Hi, honey' as she came over to greet me. The gaunt man was lost in his music, eyes closed, and went on for a while before he noticed me. Then his right hand rested, and the studio turned funereal. Robin took off the ear pads. After unplugging the guitar, the man removed the cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, then placed the instrument tenderly in a clasp stand and grinned.
'Fabulous.'
He was about my age, hollow-cheeked, pale, and pinch-featured, with dyed black hair cut in a long shag. He wore a blue-green leather vest over a sunken, hairless chest and crimson parachute pants. A small rose tattoo blued one bony shoulder. His shoes were high-heeled and matched the pants. A pack of Camels extended halfway from one of the vest pockets. He removed the cigarette smouldering between his lips, put it out, pulled out the pack, extricated a fresh one, and lit up.
'Billy, this is Alex Delaware. Alex, Billy Orleans.'
The rocker extended a long, calloused hand and smiled. The nails of his right hand had been left long for finger picking. A diamond was inlaid into one of his upper incisors.
'Hello, Alex. Head doc, right? We could use you on the road, the band's precarious mental state being what it is.'
I smiled back. 'My specialty is kids.'
'Like I said, we could use you on the road, the band's blah-blah-blah.' Turning to Robin: 'It's fabulous, Mizz Wonderhands. Do some fooling with the lead pickup to get a bit more punch on the high registers, but apart from that,
