Kiss the Girls

CHAPTER 64.

SMALL TALK, surveillance talk; it was familiar territory for me.

Sampson and I had a saying about surveillance back in D. C.: They do the crime; we do the time.

“How much could he make with a successful Beverly Hills medical practice? Ballpark number, Kate,” I asked my partner. We were still watching the doctors' private parking lot of Cedars-Sinai. There was nothing to do but eyeball Rudolph's spiffy new BMW and wait, and talk like old friends on a front stoop in D.C.

“He probably charges about a hundred and fifty to two a visit. He could gross five or six hundred thousand a year. Then there are surgery fees, Alex. That's if he has a conscience about the prices he charges, and we know he doesn't have a conscience.” I shook my head in disbelief as I rubbed my palm over my chin. “I have to get back into private practice. Baby needs new shoes.” Kate smiled. “You miss them, don't you, Alex? You talk about your kids a lot. Damon and Jannie. Poolball-head and Velcro.” I smiled back. Kate knew my nicknames for the kids by now. “Yeah, I do. They're my babies, my little pals.” Kate laughed some more. I liked to make her laugh. I thought of the bittersweet stories she'd told me about her sisters, especially her twin, Kristin. Laughter is good medicine.

The black BMW coupe just sat there, shining brightly and expensively in the California sunlight. Surveillance sucks, I thought, no matter where you have to do it. Even in sunny L.A.

Kyle Craig had gotten me a lot of rope here in Los Angeles. Certainly much more than I'd had in the South. He'd gotten rope for Kate, too.

There was something in it for him, though. The old quid pro quo. Kyle wanted me to interview the Gentleman Caller once he was caught, and he expected me to report everything to him. I suspected that Kyle himself hoped to bag Casanova.

“Do you really think the two of them are competing?” Kate asked me after a while.

“It makes psychological sense out of some things for me,” I told her.

“They might feel a need to ' up' each other. The Gentleman's diaries could be his way of saying: See, I'm better than you. I'm more famous. Anyway, I haven't decided yet. Sharing their exploits is probably more for thrill purposes than intimacy, though. They both like to get turned on.” Kate stared into my eyes. “Alex, doesn't it make you feel creepy as hell trying to figure this out?” I smiled. “That's why I want to catch Butt-Head and Beavis. So the creepiness will finally stop.” Kate and I waited at the hospital until Rudolph finally reappeared. It was nearly two in the afternoon. He drove straight to his office on North Bedford, west of Rodeo Drive. Rudolph saw patients there. Mostly women patients. Dr. Rudolph was a plastic surgeon. As such, he could create and sculpt. Women depended on him. And ... his patients all chose him.

We followed Rudolph home at around seven. Five or six hundred thousand a year, I was thinking. It was more than I could make in a decade. Was it the money he needed to be the Gentleman Caller? Was Casanova wealthy, too? Was he a doctor also? Was that how they committed their perfect crimes?

These questions were rolling around in my head.

I fingered an index card in my trouser pocket. I had begun to keep a “short list” on both Casanova and the Gentleman. I would add or subtract what I considered key attributes to the profile. I carried the card with me at all times.

CASANOVA collector harem artist, organized different masks ... to represent moods or personas? doctor?

claims to “love” victims gaining a taste for violence knows about me competing with Gary Soneji? competing with the L.A.

Gentleman?

GENTLEMAN gives out flowers sexual?

extremely violent and dangerous takes beautiful young women of all types extremely organized not artistic in terms of his killing doctor cold and impersonal as a killer ... a butcher craves recognition and fame possibly wealthy penthouse apartment graduated Duke Medical School, 1986 raised in North Carolina I thought some more about the connection between Rudolph and Casanova as Kate and I twiddled our thumbs outside the apartment. A relevant psychological condition had occurred to me. It was called twinning, and it could be a key. Twinning just might explain the bizarre relationship between the monsters. Twinning was caused by an urge to bond, usually between two lonely people. Once they “twin,” the two become a “whole”; they become dependent on each other, often obsessively so. Sometimes the “twins” become highly competitive.

Twinning was like an addiction to couple. To belong to a secret club.

Just two people and no passwords. In its negative form, it was the fusing of two people for their own individual needs, which weren't mutually healthy.

I ran it by Kate. She was a twin, too.

“Quite often, there's a dominant figure in a twinning relationship,” I said. “Was that true of you and your sister?” “I probably was with Kristin,” Kate said. “I got the good grades in school. I was a little pushy sometimes. She even called me Tush' in high school. Worse names than that, too.” “The dominant twin can act in a male role-model behavior structure,” I said to Kate. The two of us were talking doctor to doctor. “The dominant figure might not be the more skillful at manipulation, though.” “As you could imagine, I've read a little about the phenomenon,” Kate said and smiled. “Twinning creates a uniquely powerful structure within which the bonded pair can operate in complex ways. Something like that?” "That's correct, Dr. Mctiernan. In the case of Casanova and the Gentleman, each would have his own bodyguard-cum-supportive person.

That could be why they achieve so well. Perfect crimes. They each have a built-in, and very effective, emotional support system."

The question ringing loudly in my mind was how had they originally met?

Was it at Duke? Had Casanova been a student there, too? It made some sense. It also reminded me of the Leopold-Loeb case in Chicago. Two very smart boys, special boys, committing forbidden acts together.

Sharing evil thoughts and dirty secrets because they were lonely and had no one else to talk to ... twinning at its most destructive.

Was that the beginning of the solution to this puzzle? I wondered.

Were the Gentleman and Casanova twinning? Were they actually working together? What was their nasty little game all about? What game were they playing?

“Let's go smash in his picture windows with a tire iron,” Kate said.

She was feeling it, too. We were both ready to rumble.

We wanted to take down this grown-up Leopold and Loeb.