Witch Water

it yourself. Get yourself cleaned up, and stay out of your father’s way for a while. You’re all lit up like a pinball machine, and if your father sees you like that he’ll have no choice but to think you’re on something. And wipe your nose; you look like you’ve been eating those powdered donuts.”

She kept looking at him, forlorn. “I’m sorry to disappoint you like this.”

“I’m not disappointed,” he half-snapped, “just surprised is all.”

A black chuckle. “Life’s full of surprises. I guess I wear a pretty effective mask.”

“We’ve all got a mask or two, Abbie.”

“Yeah? Do you?”

Her cursed himself for his own placating remark because her question unnerved him. Suddenly the room felt hot as a sauna. “I better go now, I’ll talk to you later.” He turned in the light, then started down the darker corridor.

She rushed up behind him. “Have some guts! Don’t run away, answer the question!”

He bristled, gritting his teeth, then turned back to her. “Yeah, I’ve got a mask, too, Abbie.”

“Then tell me.”

He almost stuttered when he said, “No.”

“Oh, that’s just great! Just like what I was saying before. More bullshit. If you were for real, you’d tell me.”

The cords in Fanshawe’s neck stiffened.

“What’s the matter, Stew?” she taunted. “Am I ruffling your feathers? Huh? Getting you hot under the collar? Why not be even up?”

“Even up?”

“What gives you the right to stand there and make judgments about me, when you won’t even—”

“I’m not making judgments!” he almost yelled.

“Sure you are! You and your rehab. You and your knight in shining armor jive.” She grinned. “Here you are making me feel like shit for the skeletons in my closet, but it sounds to me like you’ve got a few in your own.”

“Maybe I do, but you don’t need to know it.”

She stepped closer. “Just make me squirm, huh? That’s the deal? You can dump my blow down the fucking drain and preach to me about rehab, but the fact is, you got no idea what it’s like.” She inclined herself forward. “You ever been addicted, Stew? You ever get into you something that turned you into a slave?”

“Yes!” he barked.

“Are you kidding me? I can tell an ex-junkie when I see one, and you ain’t it.”

“It’s something else!” he blurted.

“Well then why don’t you tell me? Even the playing field. I told you my secret, it’s only fair you tell me yours.”

He knew she was right, but he just…couldn’t…do it.

“That’s good, that’s a good little billionaire. You’re a cliche, Stew. You’re like these financial assholes in the papers every day, the type of guy who won’t play a fair game. He’ll only play the game that’s fixed.”

He jabbed a finger at her. “Now you’re the one making judgments!”

She shrugged haughtily. “Then convince me. Prove it to me that you’re for real. How can I trust you with my secret if you won’t trust me with yours? All your money doesn’t mean shit if you can’t be real. For fuck’s sake, I just told you I’ve whored myself for my boyfriend in Nashua. Do you have any idea how it made me feel telling you that? Whenever he set up a big dope deal, I was the deal-sealer, Stew. Blow-jobs, gang- bangs—”

“Stop it!”

Her grin rose and fell as she nodded. “One time I fucked a roomful of bagmen to lock up a two-key sling.”

“Stop talking like that!”

“Then have some balls. Make the game fair. Take off your mask.”

The tiniest voice in his head whispered, Don’t be fake, but it was not a tiny rage that made him slam his fist into a storage box. “Shit!” His knuckles throbbed when he reeled back, holding his hand. The box was full of frying pans; he felt instantly inane.

The second he began to talk, the pain disappeared. “I’m what my therapist calls a chronic scoptolagniac —”

“A wwwwwhat?”

He uttered the most dismal laugh of his life. What the hell? What difference does it make? Go ahead and tell her…

So he did.

“I’m a pervert, Abbie, a voyeur. You want to look into my closet? Well there you go. I’m a peeping tom.”

Abbie could only stare, her face screwed up.

“Sounds pathetic, I know. You wouldn’t think someone could be addicted to something like that, but I am, for most of my adult life. I can’t explain it, it just is.”

“I’m-I’m…speechless,” she said.

“So was my wife, so were my lawyers and business partners. Crazy, huh?”

“You mean, like…looking in women’s windows?”

“Yeah. It’s as addictive to me as cocaine is to you. It’s caused by a chemical imbalance in my brain, like the imbalance that causes people to be gambling addicts. And the thrill of peeping stimulates the same kind of endorphin release that drugs stimulate. It’s madness, Abbie, but it’s me.”

Many moments ticked by with Abbie staring dumbfounded at him.

Fanshawe went on, not even hearing what he was saying anymore. “The funny part is…you thought I’d be disappointed with you. How’s that for irony? I’m a pervert and a criminal. I can’t help myself. When I got caught, and after my wife left, I started psychotherapy…and it worked. I didn’t peep for over a year. But then—”

“Relapse,” Abbie said.

He nodded. “It all fell apart, and I don’t know why.”

Her expression finally went from twisted bewilderment to something like mollification. “I feel a lot better now,” she said very quietly.

“I don’t,” Fanshawe snapped. “I feel like scum.”

She sighed dreamily. “I learn something new every day. I never knew people could be addicted to peeping in windows.”

“Well, now you know.”

She laughed. “I’m addicted to coke and you’re addicted to that. We’re both addicts. Of all the things to have in common…”

Fanshawe felt weak in the knees from her comment.

She has more in common with you than you think, Letitia had prophesied.

“I feel idiotic standing here—I’m going to go. If you want to see me again, well…let me know.” He turned abruptly and headed for the door.

“Stew, wait.” Her footsteps rushed behind him. “There’s one thing…”

Fanshawe turned.

crack!

Abbie couldn’t have laid her open palm harder across Fanshawe’s face. His head jerked, and he thudded into a wall of boxes. The pain exploded.

He couldn’t remember what happened immediately after that. His cognizance fizzed away, and his heart tightened in his chest. He heard another thud and felt substance in his hands: something