Chance

CHAPTER 39

The sweat had soaked through Susan's black spandex leotard and made a dark blotch in the small of her back. The muscles in her bare shoulders and back moved intricately as she did a set of rows on the Cybex machine.

"Don't bend back," I said.

"Sit up straight. Use your arms."

"Are you sure I'm not just building up my arms?" she said.

"You're using mostly the lats," I said.

She finished the exercise and put her hand on her back a little above the hip bone.

"Right here," she said.

"I need to get rid of this."

"Your hip?" I said.

"No, of course not. Right here, this disgusting roll of fat."

I couldn't see any sign of fat. But we'd had that argument before and I saw no reason to lose it again. We'd also had the discussion about the impossibility of spot reducing.

"Think of it as a beauty mark," I said.

We were in Susan's club surrounded by men and women, though more women, fighting age and weight. Many of them did not seem to be winning the fight, but none of them appeared ready to surrender. Susan's trainer was in Wellfleet with her boyfriend, almost certainly in sinful congress, and I had been enlisted to train Susan. Enlisted is probably not the right word. Drafted is probably the right word.

"Would the back machine help me?" Susan said.

"It'll strengthen your lower back," I said.

"I doubt that it will reduce your vast corpulence."

"Show me how it works."

We worked on the back machine for a while. We did some lat pull downs. Susan declined the trunk twister.

"I've heard that people develop muscle there and their waist thickens."

"I doubt that," I said.

"I don't want to take the chance," Susan said.

"Of course you don't," I said.

"Let's work on the bicep thing-y," Susan said.

Women don't bulk up as easily as men, and they don't define as easily, but Susan had visible muscles. She had as much back fat as Akeem Olajuwon. She did three sets on the curl machine and went for a drink of water.

"Nice to see you drinking from the water fountain," I said, "instead of carrying your own personal bottle around."

"Woman of the people," Susan said.

"Have you made any progress on Bibi Whatshername?"

"Anaheim," I said.

"Is regress a word?"

"Yes, but probably not appropriate in this context."

"Well anyway, I'm accumulating information on the relationships among the players in the Boston mob scene, and I've learned that Shirley Ventura and Marty Anaheim were an item."

"Bibi's husband?"

"The same," I said.

"And how does that help you with Bibi?"

"It doesn't."

"But maybe it will," Susan said.

"But maybe it will."

"Do you have any idea how?"

"It's a little like you do, I think. You keep listening and nothing much makes any sense and you keep listening and you keep listening and then something appears a pattern, an event, an evasion, a contradiction. Maybe just the small end of something you get hold of and begin to tug."

Susan bent over and took another drink of water and stood up with a few drops of it on her chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. She was wearing leather weight-lifting gloves, the kind without fingers. Her nails gleamed.

"Yes," she said.

"Psychotherapy is like that. Though the hope is that it is the patient who sees the thing."

"All analogies are partial," I said.

"Anyway, that's what I'm doing. I'm walking around and listening."

"And your goal is?"

"To find Bibi."

"And when you've found her?"

"See that she's all right."

"You are a very sentimental man," Susan said.

"My profession permits it," I said.

"Which is a reason you chose it," Susan said.

I shrugged.

"It takes a very tough guy to remain sentimental in this world," Susan said.

"My profession permits that too," I said.

"Which is, of course, another reason you chose it."

"I chose it because I heard it was a good way to meet lascivious Jewish shrinks," I said.

"Is that your specialty?"

"No," I said.

"Lascivious Jewish women are my specialty.

Shrinks are a subspecialty."

"And how many have you met?"

"Lascivious Jewish women?" I said.

"Thousands. Shrinks?

One."

"Had I been a lascivious Irish shrink, would you have loved me anyway?"

"The answer is yes," I said.

"But I think you've just coined a tripartite oxymoron."

"Oy way," Susan said.

"Can the police help you find Bibi?"

"Vegas cops would like to talk with all three of them."

"Anthony's her husband, Bibi's his lover, and they both disappear after Shirley was killed. Who's the third one?"

"Marty. He was at the MGM Grand. She had the phone number for the Grand with her when she died."

"Will they keep you informed?" Susan said.

"I doubt it, but I'll call every once in a while."

"How about our police? Frank Belson owes you a pretty big favor."

"Quirk says he'll keep an eye on the wire for me."

"Not Frank?"

"I wouldn't ask Frank."

"Because he owes you a favor?"

"I wouldn't want him to think I'm collecting," I said.

Susan took another drink, and straightened and wiped her mouth, carefully so as not to smear her lipstick. She looked at me with her great dark eyes and smiled her wide-mouthed smile.

"Big boy," she said, "you are a piece of work."

"How nice of you to notice."