Silent Partner Page 11

  She ate quickly, unceremoniously. Ordered a hot fudge sundae for dessert and finished half of it before pushing the dish away.

  After wiping her mouth she said, “When they told me someone was calling about Sharon, frankly, I was uptight. She caused problems for me. We haven't worked together for a long time.”

  “What kinds of problems?”

  “One second.” She called the waitress over and asked for a refill of tea. I ordered coffee. The check came with the drinks.

  I took it. “On me.”

  “Buying information?”

  I smiled. “You were talking about the problems she caused.”

  She shook her head. “Boy. I don't know if I really want to get into this.”

  “Confidential,” I promised.

  “Legally? As in, you're my therapist?”

  “If that makes you comfortable.”

  “Spoken like a true shrink. Yes, it makes me comfortable. We're talking hot potato here—ethical problems.” Her eyes hardened. “There was no way for me to prevent it, but try telling that to a malpractice jury. When a shyster gets hold of something like that, he goes back in the chart, hits on every doc who's ever passed the patient in the hall.”

  “The last thing on my mind is fomenting a lawsuit,” I said.

  “Last thing on my mind, too.” She slapped her hand on the table hard enough to make the salt shaker jump. “Darn it! She shafted me. Just thinking about her makes me mad. I'm sorry she's dead, but I just can't feel any grief. She used me.”

  She sipped her tea.

  “I only met her last year. She walked in, introduced herself, and invited me out to lunch. I knew what she was doing—hustling referrals. Nothing wrong with that. I've only been in practice a little over a year, have done my share of brown-nosing. And my first impression of her was very positive. She was bright, articulate, seemed to have it all together. Her résumé looked terrific—lots of varied clinical experience. Plus, she was right here, in the building—it's always good business to cross-refer. Almost all my patients are women, most of them would be more comfortable with a female therapist, so I figured why not, give it a try. The only reservation I had was that she was so good-looking, I wondered if it mightn't threaten some women. But I told myself that was sexist thinking, began sending her referrals—not that many, thank God. It's a small practice.”

  “Was her office on the third floor? With Dr. Kruse?”

  “That's the one. Only, he was never there, just her, by herself. She took me up there once—tiny place, just a postage-stamp waiting room and one consulting office. She was Kruse's psychological assistant or something like that, had a license number.”

  “An assistant's certificate.”

  “Whatever. Everything was kosher.”

  Psychological assistant. A temporary position, aimed at providing experience for new Ph.D.'s under supervision of a licensed psychologist. Sharon had earned her doctorate six years ago, had been long eligible for full licensure. I wondered why she hadn't gotten it. What she'd done for six years.

  “Kruse wrote her this terrific letter of recommendation,” she said. “He was a faculty member at the University, so I figured that counted for something. I really expected it to work out. I was blown away when it didn't.”

  “Do you still have that résumé?”

  “No.”

  “Remember anything else from it?”

  “Just what I told you. Why?”

  “Trying to backtrack. How did she shaft you?”

  She gave me a sharp look. “You mean you haven't figured it out?”

  “My guess would be sexual misconduct—sleeping with her patients. But most of your patients are women. Was she gay?”

  She laughed. “Gay? Yeah, I could see how you might think that. Frankly, I don't know what she was. I was raised in Chicago. Nothing about this city surprises me anymore. But no, she didn't sleep with women—as far as I know. We're talking men. Husbands of patients. Boyfriends. Men won't go into therapy without prodding. The women have to do everything—getting the referral, making the appointment. My patients asked me for referrals, and I sent half a dozen to Sharon. She thanked me by sleeping with them.”

  “How'd you find out?”

  She looked disgusted. “I was doing my books, checking out bad debts and failure-to-shows and I noticed that most of the women whose husbands I'd sent her hadn't paid or kept their follow-ups. It stood out like a sore thumb, because other than those, my collections were excellent, my return rate close to perfect. I started calling around, to find out what had happened. Most of the women wouldn't speak to me—some even hung up on me. But two of them did talk. The first let me have it with both barrels. Seems her husband had seen Sharon for a few sessions—something to do with job stress. She taught him to relax; that was it. A few weeks later she called him and offered a follow-up session. Free of charge. When he showed up she tried to seduce him, really came on strong—she took her clothes off, for God's sake, right there in the office. He walked out on her, went home and told his wife. She was livid, screaming that I should be ashamed of myself for associating with a conniving, amoral bitch like that. The second one was worse. She just cried and cried.”

  She rubbed her temples, took an aspirin out of her purse, and swallowed it with tea.

  “Unbelievable, isn't it? Free follow-up visits. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop—as in see-you-in-court. I've lost plenty of sleep over it.”

  “I'm sorry,” I said.

  “Not as sorry as I am. Now you tell me Rasmussen's all freaked out. Great.”

  “He was one of them?”

  “Oh, yeah, a real prince. His girlfriend is the one who just cried. One of my walk-in patients, not too sophisticated, vague psychosomatic complaints—she needed attention. I got to know her a little and she started opening up about him—how he drank too much, took dope, pushed her around. I spent lots of time counseling her, trying to show her what a loser he was, get her to leave him. Of course she didn't. One of those passive types with an abusive father who keeps hooking up with papa surrogates. Then she told me the bum had injured himself on the job, was having back pain, and was thinking of suing. It was his lawyer who suggested he see a shrink—did I know one? I figured here was a chance to get him some help for his head and sent him to Sharon, told her all about his other problems. Boy, did she help him. How'd you meet him?”

  “He was up at her house this morning.”

  “Up at her house? She gave a jerk like that her home address? What an idiot.”

  “She had an office there.”

  “Oh, yeah—the paper mentioned that. Makes sense, actually, because she moved out of this building right after I confronted her about the hanky-panky. Got a diagnosis on Rasmussen?”

  “Some kind of personality disorder. Possible violent tendencies.”

  “In other words, a troublemaker. Terrific. He's the weakest link, a woman-hater with low impulse control. And he's already got a shyster. Wonderful.”

  “He won't sue for sexual harassment,” I said. “Few men would. Too embarrassing.”

  “Frontal assault upon the old machismo? I sure hope you're right. So far, no one's made any moves. But that doesn't mean they're not going to. And even if I'm spared legal grief, she's already cost me plenty in terms of my reputation—one patient bad-mouthing to ten others. And none of the dropouts paid me for work I'd already done—we're talking solid four figures in lab fees alone. I'm not established enough to kiss off that kind of loss without pain—there's a doctor glut here on the West Side. Where do you practice?”

  “Here on the West Side, but I work with kids.”

  “Oh.” She drummed her nails along the rim of the teacup. “I probably sound pretty mercenary to you, huh? Here you are, talking altruism, debriefing patients, all that good Hippocratic stuff. And all I'm worried about is covering my butt. But I make no excuses for it, 'cause if I don't cover my butt, no one else will do it for me. When I came out from Northwestern to d
o my internship at Harbor General, I met the greatest guy in the world, married him three weeks later. A screenwriter, doing research at the hospital for a miniseries. Pow, love at first sight. All of a sudden I had a house in Playa Del Rey, till death do us part. He said he was turned on by my being a doctor, pledged he'd never leave me. Two years later he left me. Cleaned out our bank account and went to Santa Fe with some bimbo. It's taken me two years to climb out of it.”

  She looked inside the cup as if searching for gypsy leaves. “I've worked too darned hard to get this far and see some nymphomaniac ruin it all, so, no, I won't be calling to debrief any of the men she screwed. They're big boys—they can handle it. Probably turned it into a conquest by now, convinced themselves they're hot studs. You let it rest, too, Dr. Delaware. Keep her buried.”

  She'd let her voice rise. People were staring. She noticed and lowered it. “How does someone like that become a therapist anyway? Don't you people do any screening?”

  “Not enough,” I said. “How did she react when you confronted her?”

  “Weirdly. Just looked at me with those big blues, all innocent, as if she didn't know what I was talking about, then started in with the uh-huhs, as if she were trying to play therapist with me. When I was through she said, ‘Sorry,' and just walked away. No explanation, no nothing. The next day I saw her carrying boxes out of the office.”

  “As her supervisor, Kruse was legally responsible for her. Did you talk to him?”

  “I tried to. Must have called him twenty times. I even slipped messages under the door. He never responded. I got pretty steamed, thought of filing a complaint. In the end I figured good riddance, just dropped it.”

  “His name's still on the office directory. Does he practice here?”

  “Like I said, I've never seen him. And when I was looking for him, I spoke to the janitor and he said he'd never seen him. Ten to one Kruse set it up for her. She was probably screwing him too.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because screwing men was her thing, right? It was what she did. Probably screwed her way to that Ph.D.”

  I thought about that, got lost in thoughts.

  She said, “You're not going to pursue this debriefing stuff any further, are you?”

  “No,” I said, making the decision at that moment. “What you've told me puts things in a different light. But we should do something about Rasmussen. He's a time bomb.”

  “Let him blow himself up—more good riddance.”

  “What if he hurts someone else?”

  “What could you do to prevent that anyway?”

  I had no answer.

  “Listen,” she said, “I want to make myself very clear. I want out—free of all the garbage, the worrying. Got that?”

  “Got it.”

  “I sure hope you mean that. If you use anything I've said to connect me with her, I'll deny saying it. The files of all the patients she saw have been destroyed. If you mention my name, I'll sue you for breach of confidentiality.”

  “Take it easy,” I said. “You've made your point.”

  “I certainly hope so.” She snatched the check out of my hands and stood. “I'll pay my own way, thank you.”

  Chapter

  11

  Free follow-up visits. That brought back something I'd worked hard at forgetting.

  Driving home, I wondered how many men Sharon had victimized, how long it had been going on. It was impossible now for me to imagine a man in her life without assuming a carnal link.

  Trapp. The sheik. D.J. Rasmussen. Victims all?

  I wondered especially about Rasmussen. Had he still been involved with her at the time of her death? It could explain why the loss had hit him so hard. Why he'd drunk himself stuporous, made a pilgrimage to her house.

  Meeting another pilgrim: me.

  How does someone like that become a therapist anyway? Don't you people do any screening?

  I hadn't screened her out of my life, had long rationalized it by telling myself I'd been young and naïve, too green to know any better. Yet three days ago I'd been jacked up and ready to see her again. Ready to start . . . what?

  The fact that I'd broken the date was small comfort. What would have happened had she phoned, put a catch in her voice, told me what a wonderful guy I was? Would I have been able to resist being needed? Spurned the opportunity to hear about her “problem,” maybe even solve it?

  I didn't have an honest answer. Which said plenty about my judgment. And my mental health.

  I lapsed into the esteem-sapping self-doubts I'd thought resolved during my training therapy: What gave me the right to mold other people's lives when I couldn't get my own life straight? What made me an authority on other people's kids when I'd never raised a child of my own?

  Dr. Expert. Who the hell was I kidding?

  I remembered the good-mother smile of my training therapist, Ada Small. Soft voice. Brooklyn accent. Soft eyes. Unconditional acceptance; even the tough messages sweetened by kindness . . .

  . . . your strong need to always be in control, Alex. It's not a totally bad thing, but at some point we will need to examine it. . . .

  Ada had taken me a long way; I'd been lucky to be assigned to her. Now we were colleagues, cross-referring, discussing patients; it had been a long time since I'd related to her as a patient. Could I ever go back to showing her my scars?

  Sharon hadn't been so lucky with her assignment. Paul Peter Kruse. Power junkie. Pornographer. Equal opportunity flogger. I could only imagine what training therapy with him had been like. Yet she'd stayed with him long after graduating, remained his assistant instead of getting her license.

  Doing her dirty work in space he leased. It said as much about her as about him, and I had to wonder who'd called the shots in their relationship.

  Exploiters. Victims.

  But her last victim had been herself. Why?

  I forced myself to stop thinking about it, pushed Robin's face into my mind. No matter how things turned out, what we'd had once had been real.

  The moment I got home I called San Luis Obispo.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Robin.”

  “Alex? Mom said you called. I tried to reach you several times.”

  “Just got in. Mom and I had a charming conversation.”

  “Oh. Did she give you a hard time?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. Main thing is, how's she treating you?”

  She laughed. “I can handle her.”

  “You sure? You sound wiped out.”

  “I am wiped out, but that has nothing to do with her. Aaron's turned out to be a screamer—Terry's up all night. I've been relieving her—never been so exhausted in my life.”

  “Good. Maybe you'll yearn for the good old days and come back.”

  Silence.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I just thought I'd call and see how you're doing.”

  “I'm hanging in. How are you doing, Alex?”

  “Just dandy.”

  “Really?”

  “Would you believe semi-dandy?”

  “What's the matter, Alex?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You sound as if something's weighing on you.”

  “It's nothing,” I said. “It just hasn't been a great week, so far.”

  “I'm sorry, Alex. I know you've been patient—”

  “No,” I said, “it has nothing to do with you.”

  “Oh?” she said, sounding more hurt than relieved.

  “Someone I knew back in school committed suicide.”

  “How awful!”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Did you know this person well?”

  That gave me pause. “No,” I said, “not really.”

  “Still,” she said, “that kind of thing's so upsetting to hear.”

  “How about we change the subject.”

  “Sure—did I say something wrong?”

  “No, nothing. I just don't feel like getting into it.”

/>   “All right,” she said.

  “Anyway, I'll let you go now.”

  “I'm not rushing anywhere.”

  “Okay.”

  But we found little more to talk about and when I hung up I felt empty. I filled the void with memories of Sharon.

  That second autumn, we remained lovers, of sorts. When I managed to reach her she always said yes, always had sweet things to say, stimulating bits of academic knowledge to share. She whispered in my ear, rubbed my back, spread her legs for me with the ease of applying her lipstick, insisting I was her guy, the only man in her life. But reaching her was the challenge. She was seldom home, never left a clue to her whereabouts.

  Not that I was knocking myself out trying to find her. The hospital owned me fifty hours a week and I'd taken on private patients at night, in order to save up the down payment on a house of my own. I kept busy solving the problems of others and ignoring my own.

  A couple of times I dropped in on her unannounced, making the drive up Jalmia only to find the gray house locked, the carport empty. I gave up trying, went without seeing her for a couple of weeks. But late one Saturday night, stuck in the stop-and-go on Sunset after a wrenching evening with the parents of a mercilessly deformed newborn baby, I found myself wanting a shoulder to cry on. Like a homing pigeon I veered north to Hollywood Boulevard, turned off at Nichols Canyon. When I pulled up the driveway, the Alfa Romeo was sitting there.

  The front door was unlocked. I walked in.

  The living room was brightly lit but empty. I called her name. No answer. Repeated it. Nothing.

  I checked her bedroom, half expecting to find her with another man. Half wanting to.

  But she was in there, alone, sitting cross-legged on the bed, stark naked, eyes closed, as if meditating.

  I'd entered her body so many times, but this was the first time I'd seen it unclothed. She was flawless, unbelievably rich. I restrained myself from touching her, whispered, “Sharon.”

  She didn't budge.

  I wondered if she was engaging in some kind of self-hypnosis. I'd heard Kruse was a master hypnotist. Had he been giving her private lessons?