Hope to Die

THIRTY-FOUR

I had a dream that night, an awful one. I dreamed I was asleep and Michael called, waking me out of a sound sleep to tell me that his brother Andy was dead. That woke me, and I sat up in bed with the same awful uncertainty that characterizes an awakening from a drunk dream: Yes, I know it was a dream, but did I really drink? Is my son really dead?

I'd only slept an hour or so at that point, and I was tired, so I went back to sleep, and kept drifting into one variation after another of the same fucking dream. What I guess I wanted to do was go back into the dream and fix it, so that it resolved itself in some way I could be comfortable with, but that's not what happened.

I wound up sleeping late, and when I finally did wake up I knew it was a dream. I knew, too, that it indicated nothing more than that I was anxious about my younger son, and perhaps that my second piece of pizza had not been a good idea. But I couldn't shake the feeling of foreboding that was the nightmare's legacy. It stayed with me, through breakfast, through a second cup of coffee. I set it aside while I watched the news and then when I read the paper, but it hung around. It never left the room.

I picked up the phone, called Kristin. The line was busy. A busy signal's irritating, and I guess they must intend it to be or they wouldn't make it sound the way it does. This one irritated me more than usual, because her line wasn't supposed to be busy. She wasn't supposed to be on it.

But of course the busy signal didn't necessarily indicate she was talking to someone, as I realized after my irritation subsided. It could mean that someone was leaving a message on her answering machine- Peter Meredith, for example, telling her fifty reasons why he needed to talk to her. Or it could be that she'd tired of media types calling all the time, and had taken the receiver off the hook. I didn't really want her doing that, I wanted to be able to reach her if I had to, but I hadn't said anything to her about it. If I'd given her any more orders, you'd have thought she was working for me…

I tried the number again, got a busy signal again. I went into the bathroom, checked myself in the mirror. I didn't really need a shave, but it was something to do.

The next time I tried Kristin's number it rang through, and the machine picked it up on cue. I listened to her announcement and said, "Kristin, this is Matt Scudder. Please pick up the phone. I need to talk to you." I waited and nothing happened, and I said essentially the same thing a second time, and went on repeating myself for a while. Then I gave up, told her to call me, gave her my number, repeated it, and cradled the receiver.

I went into the kitchen to make myself another cup of coffee, and decided that was the last thing I needed, and thought about having it anyway. I said the hell with it and walked back into the living room, and when I got there the phone rang.

I picked it up, and it was Michael. I had a very bad moment, but only a moment, and then he was saying he just wanted to let me know that everything had gone according to plan, that Andy's boss had accepted his check and even returned the quitclaim Michael had thought to enclose, and that Andy had packed up and moved out of Tucson, not as a fugitive from justice, thank God, but as a young man looking to better himself in a more propitious location.

"I just hope he doesn't run out of locations," Michael said.

"Does he know where the money came from?"

"I didn't tell him."

That didn't quite answer the question, but I let it go. I asked about June and Melanie, and he asked about Elaine, and we were left with nothing to say to each other. I wished I could have talked to him about my work, and for all I know he wished he could have talked to me about his. Instead we told each other to take care, and be well, and give my love to so-and-so, and said goodbye and rang off.

A few minutes later I realized that Kristin hadn't called back. But then how could she, while I was on the phone with Michael? I called her number again and got the machine again, and asked her a couple of times to pick up if she was there.

When she didn't, and when five minutes went by without a call from her or anyone else, I decided that something was wrong.

I'm not sure how rational that was. I don't know how much of it derived from circumstance and how much from a combination of the dream and Michael's phone call. But I was sure something was wrong, and that I'd damn well better do something about it.

I called Wentworth, and for a change I got him at his desk. "Scudder," I said. "I just wanted to know if you've got men on Kristin Hollander."

"The order went in," he said.

"I know the order went in. What I wanted to know- "

"Just a minute," he said, and went away. I stood there, shifting my weight from foot to foot, and he came back and said the order was still awaiting approval.

I started to say something but I'd have been talking to myself. He was no longer on the line. I got a dial tone and tried Kristin one more time, but before the machine could pick up I cradled the receiver and got the hell out of there.

I got a cab right away. The driver may have been the only cabby in the city to brake for yellow lights, so it took a little longer getting there than it might have, but I made myself sit back and take it easy. By the time we turned into Seventy-fourth Street I'd cooled down enough to realize I was overreacting. We pulled up and I paid off my cabby and went up and rang her bell.

It didn't take her long, although it probably seemed longer than it was. Then I heard the cover of the peephole snick back, and I said my name, just in case age and anxiety had rendered me unrecognizable. And then she opened the door.

I felt a great rush of relief, and at the same time felt like an alarmist and a damned fool. I was on the point of apologizing- I'm not sure what for- but she beat me to it.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You were afraid something happened to me, weren't you? That's why you're here."

"You didn't answer."

"Oh, God," she said, and sagged against me. She was sobbing, and I held her for a moment, then took hold of her by her upper arms and set her upright. "I'm sorry," she said again. "Just give me a minute."

She turned and disappeared through a doorway, and when she came back a minute or two later the tears were gone and she'd regained her composure. "I did something I wasn't supposed to do," she said. "Peter called, it must have been the third or fourth time, and he talked right through the machine to me. It's as if we were having this conversation, except he was doing all the talking, and I hadn't picked up the phone."

"And then you did pick up."

"I couldn't help it," she said. "I tried to walk away but I couldn't, it would have been like hanging up on a person, except somehow worse. I don't know, it doesn't make any sense, but I picked up the phone."

"Don't worry about it."

"He was going on and on about destiny, and how he wanted to be there for me, how all of them wanted to be there for me, and I just couldn't take it."

"Destiny," I said.

"And I knew the only way to end this was to end it, so I told him to forget about destiny and forget about me, because I had to make a life for myself, and the life I had in mind didn't have room for him in it." She frowned. "That sounds terribly cold and cruel, doesn't it? If anybody talked to me like that I'd probably want to stick my head in the oven. But that's not how he took it."

"Oh?"

"He said he was really grateful to me for telling the truth about how I felt. He said it helped cut through a lot of illusions. He said it was liberating."

"You think he meant it?"

"You don't know Peter. If he didn't mean it, he wouldn't say it."

But the conversation took a long time, she said, and that must have been when I was getting the endless busy signals. Then when she got off the phone she felt exhausted, and decided she wanted to sit in the tub with last month's Vanity Fair and just wallow in somebody else's misery. She was just ready to get into the tub when the phone started to ring, and she thought it might be Peter, and she didn't want to talk to him again, and if it wasn't Peter it was probably some reporter, and whoever it was she wasn't supposed to answer it, so she just got in the tub.

And while she was soaking and reading about the murder of a Connecticut socialite, still unsolved after thirty years, the phone rang again. And again she let the machine get it, and stayed right where she was.

"And then I got out and got dressed and came down here and played the messages," she said, "and they were both from you, and you sounded really upset, and I grabbed the phone and called your number, but all I did was get your machine."

"I'd left the house by then."

"And you're here, and you made the trip for nothing, and I'm really sorry."

"Forget it. I was as much to blame as you, and it got me out of the house, and that's not the worst thing that ever happened to me."

"Oh?"

"I had a bad dream last night," I said, "about one of my sons. It was groundless, and everything's fine, but sometimes you can't really shake off that sort of thing without a change of scene."

"I know what you mean."

"Yes, I'm sure you do."

"Well," she said, a little awkwardly. "Well, you were wonderful to come rushing over, but fortunately I'm fine, and, uh, actually I was going through some papers upstairs. And I know you've got things to do, and, well…"

"You're right," I said. "I'd better be going. It's just that I'm a little leery of leaving you here."

"Even if I promise not to answer the phone? Unless it's you, in which case I promise to answer right away? Remember, I've got a couple of guardian angels posted outside."

"Oh?"

"My police protection," she said. "I still haven't been able to spot them, but it's good to know they're there."

Should I let her go on believing that? And what if she waltzed out the front door, confident her guards were there to protect her?

I said, "I spoke to Wentworth. He hasn't been able to get authorization."

"But I thought it was just a formality."

"I guess some precincts are more formal than others," I said, "and some precinct commanders, or whatever deadhead's in charge up there. May I use your phone?"

"Of course," she said, and grinned suddenly. "I can't, but you can."

I have four numbers for Ballou, and at that hour I wasn't at all confident he'd be at any of them. But he picked up the phone at the third one I tried. I told him what I wanted in about five sentences, and all he wanted to know was the address.

"A friend of mine," I told her. "He'll stay here in the house with you, and God help anybody who tries to get through the door." And I told her a little about my friend Mick Ballou, and watched her eyes widen.

We were sitting in the kitchen, waiting for him to ring the doorbell, when she said, "Oh, I almost forgot. At least I managed to do something right when I talked to Peter."

"If you cooled his ardor for keeps, I'd say you did a lot of things right."

"Besides that. I found out his name." My confusion must have shown in my face, because she said, "No, not Peter's name. Remember you wanted to know the man we saw for couple counseling?"

"You said Peter called him Doc."

"They all called him Doc. I asked Peter what Doc's name was, and he couldn't believe I didn't remember. Doc played a much bigger role in Peter's life than in mine. Anyway, it turns out his name is Adam, and I swear I never knew that. I just remember him being introduced as Doc."

"Adam."

"And what did you say Dr. Nadler's first name was? Sheldon?"

" Seymour."

"Well, I was close. But not Adam, anyway."

"No," I said. "You said they all called him Doc. All his patients?"

She shook her head. "Peter and his friends. Maybe his other patients, too, but I don't know about them, just Peter and the four artists we were going to be sharing a house with in Williamsburg."

"They all knew Adam?"

"They were all patients of his. I think they all met each other in group therapy, or something like that."

"Really."

"When Peter was talking about destiny," she said, "and everything else he was saying, you could tell he was just parroting something he got from Adam. That was another reason I was sort of relieved when we broke up. Adam was good for Peter, I guess he was good for all of them, but I could picture the five of them all turning into little Adam Breit clones."

"Adam Breit."

"Yes."

"Describe him, would you?"

"Oh, gosh," she said. "I only met him at the counseling sessions, and Peter and I spent most of our time looking at each other. Or not looking at each other. Let's see. He's about your height, and maybe a little slimmer, and, well, sort of ordinary-looking. This isn't helping much, is it?"

"I need to use the phone again," I said, and went and picked it up. I found the number I wanted in my notebook, and dialed it, and caught her in. I said, "It's Matthew Scudder again, Mrs. Watling. About the name of that therapist."

"I'm afraid it hasn't come to me," she said. "I'm so ashamed of myself."

"A cheerful, optimistic name, you said."

"Yes, but I can't- "

I wasn't in court, no one was going to accuse me of leading the witness. I said, "Could it have been Adam Breit?"

"Yes!"

"You're sure? I don't want to- "

"Yes, that's it! I couldn't swear to the Adam part, but the Breit part is absolutely right. Bright and sunny, bright and cheerful, bright as day, bright as a new copper penny. I don't know why that name wouldn't come to me. It seems so obvious now."

I thanked her and told her I'd let her know how things worked out. Then I took a chair and we waited for Mick Ballou.