Bone Deep

28

Becker followed Karen across the lobby of the Marriott, feeling like a recalcitrant dog on its owner's leash. They had driven to Stamford in complete silence, each of them nursing a different account of things, each of them too angry to sue for peace. For Becker, the final straw had been Karen's defense of Stanley as a "gentle man" who had done no one any wrong. His sense of the loss of Karen's love sickened him, eviscerated him, and left him feeling as lost and hopeless as he had been as a child when his parents-those mysterious, whimsical, vindictive demigods of his youth-had locked him in the darkened cellar to await, or recover from, his punishment. His response then, his ultimate defense and salvation from an inexplicable cycle of torture and caress, had been ultimately to turn to rage, and he felt it welling up in him now to shield him once more from a pain he could neither stop nor avoid.

"And they told me this was a quality place," Tee's voice boomed out across the lobby.

Becker came out of his funk to see his friend lumbering toward him, a guarded smile on his face. The two men had not seen each other since the evening Tee had tried to kill McNeil. Tee was uncertain of his welcome.

"What are you doing here?" Becker asked.

"I heard there was a party. Look, I've got a tie on and everything."

"I didn't know you were such a good friend of Kom's.

"I didn't either. But when Karen called and asked me to come, I figured, they, free eats."

"Karen called?"

"Yeah. I guess she knew it wouldn't be any kind of party without me. I have that reputation, you know."

"I hadn't heard."

"Oh, yeah." Tee crossed his arms across his chest, nodding awkwardly.

"Oh, yeah." They stood for a moment in silence, each looking for the words that would dispel the embarrassment. Becker pretended to scrutinize the lobby as if committing it to memory. He watched Karen continue on her way to the elevator bank with what he was certain was a familiarity with the terrain. Tee examined his shoes.

"So, how you doing?" Becker asked at length. The elevator swallowed Karen and she was gone.

"Great… great."

"Everything okay?"

"Terrific… McNeil resigned, by the way."

"Good move on his part."

"First wise thing he ever did."

Becker hesitated. "Ginny okay?"

"Yeah, she's uh… We talked it all out, you know. Her and me and Marge."

"Marge is all right with everything too?"

"Marge is a wonder. She's about eight times as strong as I am, I don't know what I'd do without her."

Becker nodded. "She's a good woman."

"Now here's the strange thing. They don't write songs about how a good woman is hard to find. Do you know why that is?"

"I'll bet you can tell me."

"I can, fortunately. It's because it's not true. A good woman is easy to find. There are a lot of them. It's us men who are the shit sticks."

"Couldn't agree more-allowing for certain exceptions."

"Well, allowing for that, sure." Tee dropped his voice into a confessional tone. Becker shifted uneasily in anticipation. "Listen, I just want to say…"

"I know," said Becker. He glanced at Tee; then both men quickly looked away.

"If you hadn't..

Hey.

"I was… I was..

"I would have been the same way," Becker said.

Kom and Tovah entered the lobby, Tovah clinging to his arm like a newlywed.

"Even so… and you wouldn't. Not you."

Becker snorted. His gaze was fixed on Kom with a lethal intensity.

"You'd be in control," Tee said. He noticed the direction of Becker's stare and turned to look. "The birthday boy himself. Christ, how does that little wart merit a woman like that?"

"I ask myself that question," Becker muttered.

"She looks like she just got laid," Tee said. "Can't hide that look with all the green eyeshadow in the world."

Kom turned and saw Becker and Tee and raised a hand in greeting, his face lighting with boyish pleasure at seeing his heroes. If Tovah saw them, she seemed not to take it in.

Becker took one step in Kom's direction, then stopped. Tee thought he looked like a cat about to pounce.

"See you upstairs," Kom said gaily, waving again. He led Tovah toward the elevators.

"Do you suppose he's got a shlong that reaches to his ankles?" Tee asked. "I don't know how else to explain his appeal to women."

"Shut up," Becker snapped.

"It can't be his looks, God knows. It'd be like fucking the dough boy.

Must be hung like a mule."

Becker swiveled and thrust two fingers into the soft flesh under Tee's jaw. The bigger man choked and gasped.

"I said shut up," Becker hissed.

At the elevator, Tovah and Kom had a brief conference and Tovah turned to visit the rest room while Kom stepped into the cage by himself.

Becker released Tee and sprinted across the lobby. He managed to thrust a hand between the doors just as they closed. Obediently, they opened again and Becker stepped into the elevator with Kom.

"Hi," Kom said cheerfully. "How you doing?" He held out his hand to shake. Becker punched the button for the top floor, then took Kom's hand as the doors sighed shut. He pressed his forearm against the man's throat and pinned him to the wall. When Kom started to protest, Becker jabbed him in the solar plexus with three rigid fingers.

His diaphragm suddenly paralyzed, unable to draw a breath, his throat closing off, Kom gasped and sputtered, pinioned by Becker's forearm like a fish on a line. Becker punched the emergency button and the elevator jerked to a Stop. Becker leaned into Kom, his face only inches away. "Do I have your attention?" he asked.

Kom's eyes widened and his lips fluttered but he emitted only a strangled sound.

"If I have your attention, close your mouth," Becker said. Kom snapped his mouth shut but his hands clawed at Becker's forearm. Becker slapped him in the face.

"Keep your hands down, you're not dying. You're just uncomfortable,"

To Becker's astonishment, Kom tried to hit him back, landing a powerless blow without force or leverage against Becker's ribs. Becker laughed, a quick, amazed, but niirthless sound, then hit Kom in the mouth with a six-inch-long jab that drove the man's head against the wall. His lip began to bleed almost immediately. Still blinking from the shock of the blow, Kom surprisingly struck back again, slapping him ineffectually on the ear. Becker hit him solidly once more, this time on the nose. Tears sprang to Kom's eyes and blood flowed from his nose.

"This isn't a sparring match, Stanley, but if you keep struggling instead of listening, I'm going to make you wish you hadn't. Now just hold still and listen, this message is going to be brief." The alarm bell sounded insistently overhead as Kom ceased to struggle. Tears continued to flow as a result of the blow to the nose, and the first drops of blood from his lips cleared his chin and dripped onto Becker's forearm.

"I know about you," Becker said. "I know about your women, I know how you sneak out at night." Becker watched his eyes, seeing how Kom reacted to each statement. "I know that was you in the Caprice. I know that was how you got around to your women. I know what you've done and what you're up to, Kom. But you're not going to get away with it. This time you picked the wrong woman. If you ever go anywhere near Karen again, I'll kill you, I promise you that."

Becker knew he had gone wrong. In that instant the expression in Kom's face had changed. His eyes had altered in some indefinable way and it was as if another person were looking out at Becker now, a confident, assured, and deeply malevolent presence, not the stunned, hurt, and frightened man he had been just moments earlier. The eyes were mocking Becker now. "You might as well kill me now," Kom said.

Becker leaned into his face, snarling. "You think I can't? You think I can't!"

"Without the law to hide behind?… No, I don't think you can," Kom said. He smiled broadly. His teeth were smeared with blood. "I don't think you can kill someone just because you decide to do it. That takes someone special… And you're not that special, are you, John? You've got the reputation, but it really always was self-defense, wasn't it?"

Kom's eyes were merry, taunting Becker.

"Don't bet on it."

Kom laughed, jeering at him, daring him to prove himself. "Then go ahead, John. Kill me. You'll like it, I promise.

"Stay away from my wife," Becker hissed.

Kom continued to chuckle.

"You having trouble satisfying her, John?"

Becker hit him twice in rapid succession, each a short, powerful stroke delivered to the mouth. Kom's head bounced against the wall and as his body started to sag Becker removed his forearm and let him crumple to the floor.

Kom felt his lips and teeth with his fingers, probing gingerly. He looked up at Becker, his hands now smeared with blood.

"Well, it hurts, but it's hardly lethal, is it, John? Hardly the same as killing me."

Becker stood over him, feeling at once both murderous and impotent. He wanted to kick Kom until he was silent, wanted to smash the derisive smile off his face, but he now realized that short of rendering the man unconscious, neither force nor intimidation would do it.

"And this kind of biases your case, doesn't it, John? FBI brutality? An agent making charges against a man he thinks is shtupping his wife? How seriously is a judge going to take that case?"

Becker stabbed at a button and the alarm stopped, and the elevator continued on its way upward. At the first stop Becker got out, leaving Kom still on the floor. Kom made no effort to stand, but Becker heard his mocking laughter as he walked away.

"You can have your small triumphs. It takes someone special to really win, John," Kom called gaily after him, just before the doors closed and shut him off.

Thirty-five minutes later, at 9: 1 0 P.m., Dr. Stanley Kom, his face a mess with badly swollen lips and nose, rose to make a toast at the dinner whose guests included the Clamden Chief of Police and four agents of the FBI as well as the Bureau's Associate Deputy Director in charge of Serial Killings. He seemed to all those present to be in exceptionally good spirits for a man who looked as if he had just dived face first onto the sidewalk. He tapped his glass for silence, then made a heartfelt speech in honor of his great friend John Becker.

Karen squeezed Becker's arm and he tried to smile at her, to appear as surprised and touched as he was supposed to. His surprise was genuine, but as guest after guest rose to say something affectionate and funny and playfully insulting about him, Becker's real attention was on the scene in the elevator. He had missed something, his jealous fury had overwhelmed not only his good sense but his instinct as well. Now, in retrospect, as the heat of his rage seeped away, the intuition bred by a lifetime of experience returned to him. Kom had told him he could have his small triumphs, but he could never really win. He was not special.

Presumably that meant that Kom was special. In what way?

What did he think he had that Becker lacked? It was not Karen, Becker was certain of that much. It was when he mentioned Karen that Becker had seen the change in Kom's eyes. It was then that Kom changed character. If Karen had been the issue, Kom would have remained as frightened, but he had not, he had obviously thought initially that Becker was after something else.

Tee rose and launched into a deadpan series of insults that had the crowd in stitches. Karen glanced at Becker continually, squeezing his arm, checking on his enjoyment as if she would appreciate the jokes only if he did. The anger of their fight was long since behind her and she assumed that now Becker would understand the reason for the time she had spent with Stanley. Becker obliged both Tee and Karen, smiling happily, laughing when the others laughed, but his gaze kept shifting to Stanley Kom.

The eyes, Becker remembered. The eyes. A deep, primal malevolence within Kom's eyes, the taunting twinkle of a demon, knowing he had his enemy within his grasp. There was no stare like that in the animal world. Predators were cool and efficient, but they took no joy from their kill, they did not hate their prey, they slew to eat and ate to live. Kom's eyes had shone with malicious exhilaration as he spoke of killing.

"Go ahead. Kill me," Kom had said. "You'll like it, I promise."

And he had meant it, Becker realized. His eyes, his voice, his face, all had told Becker that he meant it, and Becker had been too far gone in his rage to understand.

He and Kom had been talking about two different things. It was not adultery that Kom feared Becker meant when Becker first assaulted him.

It was not adultery that took someone special. It was not a case of adultery that would be biased by Becker's brutal behavior, not a case of adultery that a judge would throw out of court.

From across the room Becker stared at Kom, barely aware of the laughter that Tee was eliciting at his expense. The doctor watched Tee with appreciation, guffawed heartily until his cracked and puffy lips hurt him when he smiled too broadly. He touched them gingerly, then glanced in Becker's direction and saw the agent staring at him. He grinned and even from a distance Becker could see the cold, taunting defiance in his eyes.

Becker felt a cold chill as he realized what he had missed in the elevator, and how difficult it would be to do anything about it now. He had stumbled across Johnny Appleseed and simultaneously ruined any chance of prosecuting him.

At noon the following day, one hour after checkout time at the Marriott, a chambermaid discovered a large leafdisposal bag in the bathtub of one of the rooms. It was too heavy for her to lift easily so she opened the bag and looked inside. She did not scream immediately but took three unsteady steps toward the bathroom door before fainting. Only when she recovered consciousness did she begin to howl.