Lost Girls

''Maybe a man feels like he has to do other things, too, sometimes,'' I say.

''What do you mean?''

I ignore the question, fall back to let my ass rest against the slippery edge of the sink. ''Sounds to me like your daughter had a good reason to run away from home.''

''You say another thing like that and I'll rip your goddamn throat out.''

''That's a threat.''

''No, sir. It's the truth.''

I push myself away from the sink with both hands as though launching a boat into rough water. Legs poured full of gelatin. Heading for the space between McConnell and the stalls next to him where there might be enough room to get by without touching.

''You think you don't feel so good now?'' he hisses, reading my mind. ''Believe me. This is nothing compared to the fire you're going to burn in when you're dead and buried, hotshot.''

I'm directly in front of him now, eyes level with his stubbled, heaving Adam's apple. It's clear that if there was room to pass around him a moment ago it's gone now. He's going to have to move. Or drop dead. Or explode into a fluttering cloud of ash.

''I would think that you should be worried about hell yourself,'' I tell him, my face weaving a foot and a half below his chin, ''seeing how you know that you never loved your daughter properly when she was alive, and now that she's dead you're--''

But I'm not allowed to finish. It's McConnell's palms slammed into my chest that prevent me. Lifting me an inch off the floor until my back crunches into the aluminum of the paper-towel dispenser. Part of me--a flailing hand or elbow--connects with the silver button on the hand dryer, and now there's a distant jet-engine drone along with the whirring of pressurized blood in my ears. And something else. A looping incantation pushing through everything, plaintive and thin.

''How dare you? How dare you? How dare you?''

I say nothing in response. I don't resist. Eyes on the four of our shoes assembled together like awkward dance partners. Then McConnell pulls his hands away and I slump in the effort to support the whole of my weight on my own again. When I finally look up it's to see his face twisted in what appear to be equal parts grief and puzzlement. But arms slack at his sides, no words left in him. Take the chance and slide to the door, blindly push my way into the cool air of the hall.

I manage to lurch back to the courtroom and sit at the defense table with eyes on the clock, refusing to look back into the gallery. Willing the sweat beading up on my forehead to stay where it is. But when Goldfarb calls me to my feet again it falls over my face anyway, salt drops trickling into eyes and open mouth.

''Now, Doctor,'' I start, clearing my throat with a loud percolation of loose stuff. ''I'll make this brief because, with all due respect, a cross-examination of a witness who has been unable to offer any evidence is a waste of the court's time. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, let me hit a couple of points. You have never met, let alone spoken to or examined my client. Is that right?''

''That's correct.''

''So all you're dealing with are mere possibilities--conditions that may or may not be applicable to Mr. Tripp?''

''I was asked to provide background on some established profiles.''

''Profiles, yes, but you don't know Mr. Tripp any better than you know me, or Justice Goldfarb, or him.'' I stab a finger in the direction of one of the jury's lumberjacks. ''Do you, Doctor?''

''There's a difference between knowing and the consideration of one's behavioral traits and tendencies.''

''There is? Could you explain that for me?''

''Well, simply put, psychology is the science of personality, whereas knowing someone is something, well, deeper.''

''Deeper. You mean 'deep' like the truth? To know someone is to know something of the truth about them?''

''I suppose, in a manner of--''

''And science, as you've said, isn't about the truth per se. It's about traits and tendencies. It's about categorizing, yes? Psychosis, neurosis. Sane, insane. It's about fitting people into slots. Isn't that right?''

''If by that you mean diagnosis, then, yes, that's a primary clinical function.''

''But it's not a primary clinical function to know a person, though, is it? Because, in the end, science can't tell us why a man does what he does or why he doesn't, why he forgets or why he remembers, can it?''

''I would suppose not with the precision you're suggesting, no.''

I wipe my face with the arm of my jacket and take two jagged breaths through the broken glass in my chest. My head separating from my neck, rising up into the white globes of the ceiling lights.

''So let me ask you. What good are your psychiatric speculations to this court, Doctor--a court charged with the job of determining innocence or guilt--if those speculations can say nothing about why?''

''I don't understand the question.''

''How's this, then? How can you, a psychiatric expert, say anything about my client when knowing him isn't your business?''

Approving coughs from the gallery. A telltale smirk at the borders of Goldfarb's lips. Goodwin harrumphs. But then, for the first time all afternoon, the expression on the doctor's face changes. The mouth puckers, the furry chin juts out, and the eyes--goddammit if the eyes don't twinkle .

''From what I can tell, I'm very glad I don't know your client, Mr. Crane,'' he says. ''But then again, as you've said, knowing him isn't my job. So I suppose it must be yours.''

chapter 35

Outside the window the night swirls and disperses like ink poured into water. ''The days are getting shorter,'' I hear the locals state the obvious to each other on street corners as I pass, their eyes held up to the sky. But for me the more accurate observation would be ''The night is coming sooner.'' And when it comes it stays longer, keeping me from sleep, from the fleeting distractions of work. I wish for night-lights. The pink plastic ones with the ten-watt bulbs. Maybe if I could stick a few of those around I could push the worst of the shadows back from all the corners.

Brush my teeth again. Never used to in the city, but up here I've really taken to it. I've found I can kill a whole seven minutes with a single meticulous scrubbing. What's important is to really get into ''those hard-to-reach places'' the packaging warns of. Such small pleasures also allow for a check to see how I'm scoring on the ghoul- o-meter. Every time I look in the mirror now it's like time-lapse photography, my face aging at the rate of one year for every passing day. Worse, these false years are not treating me with any kindness whatsoever, introducing colors to my skin better suited to the stuff collected in bus-terminal ashtrays. A little surprised I can still see myself in mirrors at all anymore the way I've come to live like a vampire: don't eat regular food, awake most of the night, fingernails the yellowed sharpness of talons. And feeling a little monstrous, too, in the pained, baffled way of the walking dead. Although I'm not. Not yet dead. There's still a heart (a clenched fist that sucker-punches surrounding organs from time to time). And still a soul. Or whatever weightless thing it is that lifts away on its own occasionally to look down at me as I try to work at my desk. Pauses before something jerks it back like a balloon whose string has almost passed beyond the tallest grasp. And whenever this happens I always think, plainly and briefly and in italics: I want to be alive. Not I'm too young to die or Life is good or even Happy to be here. Nothing else, neither gratitude nor relief. Just hangs there for a second like the product slogan flashed at the end of a commercial. I want to be alive. And then a wave of foolishness--it's a rather obvious thing to construct as a sentence, after all--along with a swift brush of fear, like hair pulled across your cheek.