Hugger Mugger

SEVENTEEN

"SO WHAT DO you think?" I said.

I was lying in my shorts on the bed in the Holiday Inn in Lamarr, Georgia, talking on the phone to Susan in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She said she was in bed. Which meant that she had her hair up, and some sort of expensive glop on her face. The TV would be on, though she would have muted it when the phone rang. Almost certainly, Pearl was asleep beside her on the bed.

"I think you're trapped inside the first draft of a Tennessee Williams play."

"Without you," I said.

"I know."

"You're in bed?" I said.

"Yes."

"Naked?"

"Not exactly."

"White socks, gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt with a picture of Einstein on it?"

"You remember," she said.

"Naked makes for better phone sex," I said.

"Pretense is a slippery slope," she said.

Her voice was quite light, and not very strong, but when she was amused there were hints of a contralto substructure that enriched everything she said.

"Don't you shrinks ever take a break?" I said.

"So many fruitcakes," Susan said, "so little time."

"How true," I said. "What do you think of Polly Brown's theory that Stonie goes to truck stops to avenge herself on her husband?"

"It would be better if I had a chance to talk with her," Susan said.

"I'll be your eyes and ears," I said.

"Have you talked with her?"

"Once, at a cocktail party, for maybe a minute."

"Oh, that'll be fine then," Susan said. "No therapist could ask for more."

"Gimme a guess," I said.

"Her husband is actively gay, with a special interest in young men," Susan said.

"Yes."

"Would you say that she would experience that as him having sex in the most inappropriate way possible?"

"Yes."

"And is that what she's doing?"

"Seems so. So it is revenge?"

"Could be. Tit for tat. People often are very crude in their pathologies."

"Like me," I said. "I keep pretending you're naked on the bed."

"On the other hand, it may be more subtle than that. She may be simply enacting her condition."

"Her condition is smoking the cannoli in a parking lot?"

"It's good to know that you haven't lost that keen edge of your sophistication. Perhaps her activities in the parking lot are, at least symbolically, how she experiences herself."

"Because of her husband?"

"Not only her husband," Susan said. "You said her father got her husband out of a couple of boy-love jams."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Appearances," I said. "Save the family from scandal."

"So he knows her marriage is probably a sham. Other than covering up for the husband, does he do anything about it?"

"Not that I can see."

"So as far as we can tell, her father and husband don't value her beyond whatever ornamental use they put her to."

"I get it," I said.

"I knew you would," Susan said.

"There's another thing bothering me," I said. "The shooting of the horse over in Alton."

"Why does that bother you?"

"Becker and I speculate that it might be to distract me," I said. "And that's a reasonable speculation."

"But?"

"But if it's the work of some kind of serial psychopath, which is what it seems like, then distracting me would seem to be too rational an act."

"Possibly," Susan said.

"I mean, the compulsion isn't about me."

"You may have been added to what it is about," Susan said.

"Or maybe it's not a compulsion," I said.

"Are you just casting about, or have you any other reason to think it's something else?"

"Well, what kind of compulsion is this? A compulsion to shoot horses, with no concern for the result?"

"No way to know," Susan said. "Compulsions are consistent only to their own logic."

"Well, I remain skeptical."

"As well you should."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"Will that be Visa or MasterCard?" Susan said.

"I'll recompense you in full," I said, "when I get home."

"Soon?"

"I have no idea."

"It's annoying, isn't it," Susan said, "to have our life scheduled by the pathology of someone we can't even identify."

"You should know," I said.

"Yes," she said. "Sometimes I think we're doing the same work."

"Do you think that absence makes the heart grow fonder?"

"No. I'm already as fond as I'm capable of being," Susan said. "Makes me miss you, though."

"Yes," I said. "I feel the same way."

"Good," Susan said. "And stay away from the truck stops."