Destroy the person to save her.”
“No one’s being destroyed.”
“What about Gina?”
“
“I didn’t know she needed justifying.”
“Then
“Who determines what’s useful?”
“Those who control the stimuli.”
“One thing you might consider,” I said, “is that despite all this high-minded theorizing, you may not be aware of your true motivations.”
The corners of his mouth turned up. “Are you applying to be my analyst?”
I shook my head. “No way. Don’t have the stomach for it.”
His lips snapped down.
I said, “Women. The way they’ve let you down. The custody battle with your first wife, the way her drinking caused the fire that killed your son. The first time we met you mentioned a second wife- before Ursula. I didn’t get a sense of what she was like, but something tells me she wasn’t worthy either.”
“A nonentity,” he said. “Nothing there.”
“Is she still alive?”
He smiled. “Unfortunate accident. She wasn’t quite the swimmer she fancied herself to be.”
“Water,” I said. “You’ve used it twice. Freudian theory would say it has something to do with the womb.”
“Freudian theory is horse shit.”
“It could be right on the mark this time, Professor. Maybe this whole thing has nothing to do with science or love or any of that other horse shit
His mouth opened, and he jammed his hand down on the button.
Machine screams. A higher frequency than before…
His voice above the whine- shouting but barely audible: “Fifteen seconds.”
I threw myself at him. He backed away, kicking and punching, throwing the black remote at me and hitting me in the nose. Fingers white on the gray module. The stench of burning flesh and hair clogged the room.
I tore at his hands, hit him in the belly, and he gasped and doubled. But his grip was like steel.
I had to break his wrist before he let go.
I put the remote in my pocket, kept my eye on him. He was stretched out on the floor, holding his wrist, crying.
The women didn’t stop jerking for a long, long time.
I unplugged the machines, ripped off the electrical cords, and used them to bind his arms and legs. When I was certain he was immobilized, I went to the women.
36
I locked Gabney in the barn, took Gina and Ursula into the house, put blankets over them, got Ursula to drink some apple juice that I found in the refrigerator. Organic. Like everything in the well-stocked fridge. Survival books on a kitchen shelf. Rifle and shotgun in a rack over the table. Swiss Army knife, case full of hypodermic needles and drug spansules. The professor had been preparing for the long haul.
I phoned 911, then put in an emergency call to Susan LaFamiglia. She got over the horror remarkably fast, turned efficient, took down crucial details, and told me she’d handle the rest.
It took half an hour for the paramedics to arrive, accompanied by four cars of Santa Barbara County sheriffs from the Solvang substation. During the wait I found Gabney’s records- no great feat of detection. He’d left half a dozen notebooks on the dining room table. A couple of pages were all I could bear to read.
I spent the next couple of hours talking to grim-faced people in uniforms. Susan LaFamiglia arrived with a young man wearing an olive-green Hugo Boss suit and retro tie, had a few words with the cops, and got me out of there. Mr. Fashion turned out to be one of her associates- I never learned his name. He drove the Seville back to L.A. and Susan took me home in her Jaguar. She didn’t ask me any questions and I fell asleep, happy to be a passenger.
I missed my ten o’clock appointment the next morning with Melissa- but not for lack of trying. I was up at six, watching baby koi the size of threadworms wiggle their way around the pond. By nine-thirty I was at Sussex Knoll. The gates were open, but no one answered the door.
I spotted one of the Hernandez sons who was thinning ivy near the outer wall of the estate and asked him where Gina was. Some hospital in Santa Barbara, he said. No, he didn’t know which one.
I believed him but tried the door again anyway.
As I drove away he gave me a sad look- or maybe it was pity, for my lack of trust.
I’d just nosed out onto the street when I saw the brown Chevy approaching from the south. Traveling so slowly it seemed to be standing still. I backed up and waited, and when it pulled up in the driveway, I was ready, at the driver’s window, greeting a frightened-looking Bethel Drucker.
“Sorry,” she said, and put the car into reverse.
“No,” I said. “Please. No one’s here but I’d like to talk to you.”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Don’t know,” she said. She had on a plain brown dress, costume jewelry, very little makeup. Her figure refused to be suppressed. I took no pleasure in looking at it. It would be a while before looking would be fun again. “I really don’t know,” she repeated. Her hand remained on the gearshift lever.
“You came to pay your respects,” I said. “That’s very kind of you.”
She looked at me as if I’d spoken in tongues. I walked around the front of the car and got in beside her.
She started to protest, then, with an ease that bespoke a lifetime of acquiescence, her features assumed a resigned look.
“What?” she said.
“Do you know what happened?”
Nod. “Noel told me.”
“Where is Noel?”
“Drove up there this morning. To be with them.”
The unspoken words:
I said, “He’s a great kid- you’ve done a wonderful job.”
Her face quavered. “He’s so damn smart, sometimes I think he’s not mine. Lucky for me, I remember the pain- pushing him out. You wouldn’t think to look at him but he was a big one. Nine pounds. Twenty-three inches. They told me he was gonna play football. No one knew how smart he was gonna be.”
“Is he going to Harvard?”
“He doesn’t tell me everything he’s gonna do. Now, if you’ll ’scuse me, I’ve got to be going. The place needs cleaning.”
