Play Dead

Chapter 10

"As your psychiatrist, I have to ask-are you thinking of harming yourself?"

"Of course not."

"Are you thinking of harming anyone else?"

With the phone to his ear, David Gould stared at the cat for a long time. Bern 's cat.

"David?" his psychiatrist asked in her calm voice. "David? Are you still there?"

"No. I mean yes-I'm here. And no, I'm not thinking of harming anyone else."

Getting off drugs cold turkey-no matter that they were pharmaceutical-had seemed like a good idea on Friday, not long after Elise had brought up his lack of engagement. Today was Sunday. Well, actually Monday, since it was long past midnight, and David was crawling out of his skin.

Stopping the antidepressants was doing a strange number on his head.

In all the time he'd been taking them, he hadn't experienced a single high or low. He hadn't experienced anger, or joy, or sorrow. He wasn't even sure he could

say he existed. But now… now all that was changing. Now he was AWAKE, with capital letters. Awake after almost two years of being dead.

But you wanted to be dead. Didn't you even ask the cops to kill you? To put you out of your misery? To stop the pain?

Agony rushed up his throat, threatening to choke him.

He couldn't deal with the memories now. One thing at a time.

Control. Control. Control.

It was an FBI agent's mantra. It was his mantra.

This was like a rebirth. A baptism.

Emotions he'd forgotten existed pulsed through him. Pain. Anger. Sorrow.

Wonderful emotions. Overwhelming emotions. Too many at once. Too intense. Let some of it in, but not all of it. Slam that door. He couldn't handle it all. Not yet.

"Is there anyone in Savannah you can call?" Dr. Fisher asked.

He hadn't switched psychiatrists when he'd moved to Savannah because he hadn't wanted the people he worked with to know he was seeing a shrink-something that had turned into an issue in Ohio. As soon as coworkers had become aware of his problem, things changed and they began to second-guess him. Not a safe situation for anyone involved. When he realized what was going on, he decided to start over somewhere new. A clean slate.

"Your partner, perhaps?"

His partner? "Out of the question."

What would he say to Elise? Hey, I'm flipping out and wondered if you could come over and hold my hand?

"You've been working with her for three months. Surely it wouldn't be out of line to give her a call."

Three months. Yeah, normally you would kind of know somebody by then. "I've been a little… disconnected."

David was sitting on the floor of the combination living room/kitchen, back to the wall, phone balanced on one thigh.

He noticed that his leg was jiggling.

He made it stop.

The room was dark-the only light he'd turned on was the one above the stove. "Believe me, calling my partner is out of the question."

What was that smell? Like wood that had been soaked in urine for twenty years. And sick, fevered bodies.

Yellow fever.

It's my apartment. My fucking apartment.

No wonder his sister had been so appalled.

Sorry, Sis.

His apartment smelled like a nursing home and he hadn't even known it.

His leg was jiggling again.

"Are you still on your meds? Both the Paxil and Valium?"

"I may have missed a few doses."

"You can't do that."

"Actually… I'm thinking of quitting them both completely."

"David, that's not a good idea. You've been through a very traumatic event."

"It's been almost two years."

"That's not much time when dealing with something of this magnitude."

Why had he called her? He knew what the problem was. And he knew how she'd fix it. But he was tired of being a lobotomized idiot. If the idea behind the* cocktail she'd prescribed was to feel nothing, then it had certainly done the trick.

Then she said the C word. And the T word.

"It's not good to quit cold turkey. There have been some serious problems with patients who weren't stepped down gradually."

Yep. David had heard about them. Not only heard, but seen. Some people went nuts. They even killed. Anti-depressants were being found in the bloodstreams of murderers. Was it because they were the ones who needed help, or did the drugs finally establish an unreality that allowed them to move past the thought, the fantasy stage, to take a step they would normally not have taken?

He'd been prepared for some violent mood swings. Maybe even a few crying jags he could blame on some old movie, but not the sweating and shaking and stomach cramps.

Not the crawling out of my fucking skin.

Not the desperate need to move, to do something, anything.

Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle.

Chewing on his knuckle.

This is like trying to kick heroin.

Not that he personally knew what that was like, but he'd seen Trainspotting, and he was expecting a baby to start making its way across the ceiling at any moment.

"I can't sleep. I haven't slept in three days."

He couldn't wind down.

He'd already run ten miles. Should he run ten more?

"Have you been drinking? Your voice sounds slurred. You aren't supposed to drink when you're taking either of your medications."

Too late. Desperation had come knocking. "Everybody knows that, Doc."

From his position on the floor, David looked up at the kitchen counter at all of the empty beer bottles. He didn't have a lot of experience with overindulgence. He'd planned to drink only one or two beers. Just to take the edge off. After six, the edge was still there, and he was feeling like a drunk on speed.

Jiggle, jiggle.

"You've probably built up a resistance to the Val-ium. I'd tell you to double your dosage if I could be sure you haven't been drinking," she said.

He tasted blood and realized he'd gnawed through the skin on his knuckle. He sprang up off the floor and grabbed the bottle of tranquilizers from the counter.

Had he taken one? Or two?

He squinted at the pills inside, as if they might be able to tell him something. And how long ago? Minutes? Hours? Couldn't remember.

"David, if things get worse, go to the hospital. Do you hear me? Or call your partner. I have an idea. Why don't I call her for you? Would you like me to do that?"

"No!" Jesus! "I have a reputation to maintain." Jesus.

His laptop was in sleep mode next to the beer bottles. He touched a key and it came to life. He opened the drop-down menu and scrolled to a bookmarked Savannah Web site, spotting something he hadn't noticed before.

Savannah Legal Escort Service.

Hmm.

The picture got fuzzy.

His head suddenly felt heavy as hell.

He let the cursor hover over a small photo of a dark-haired woman, clicked to enlarge it.

The antidepressants had made him almost asexual. He'd hardly thought about sex in almost two years. Now he was feeling horny. Maybe sex would make him sleep. Used to work. Years ago.

Bracing the receiver between his shoulder and ear, he typed his address into the form on the computer screen and ordered a girl.

Just like that. With a few keystrokes.

"Isn't the Internet amazing?" he asked around a thickening tongue, fighting the impulse to drop to the floor, thinking he'd better wait until he was off the phone.

"Oh, yes," Dr. Fisher agreed. "I never dreamed we'd be able to do the things we can do with it."

David stared at the blurry face on the screen. "Me either."

Flora Martinez drove through the deserted Savannah streets, the directions she'd printed from the Internet on the seat beside her. The wipers beat quickly, but with each sweep heavy dew reappeared.

Normally she didn't take cold calls. It was dangerous, and you never knew what kind of freak or freaks you might run into. But business had been slow, and she had a lot of bills to pay, so she'd had her photo put up on the escort service's Web site.

Escort service.

They'd been taught to always call it that, no matter what. A couple of girls had actually come across some naive gentlemen who'd thought it was an escort service.

Rent a date.

They'd just wanted to rent an attractive girl to decorate an arm at the company party. Sad and funny. A lot of things were sad and funny.

She located the address.

Mary of the Angels.

Shit.

She pulled to the curb, dug her cell phone from her purse, and called Enrique. "You know the job I just got? You won't believe where it is." She craned her neck to look up at the four-story stone building. "Mary of the Angels."

Enrique inhaled loudly. "No way."

"I'm looking at it right now."

"Don't go in. Only a crazy person would live there."

Anybody who'd been in Savannah long enough had heard of the place. There was supposed to be a tunnel that ran from the old Candler Hospital to a nearby cemetery. Years ago, the tunnels had been used to transport yellow fever victims straight from their bed to the ground so people wouldn't freak out over the high number of deaths.

The bodies were supposedly piled in the tunnels until they could be buried under cover of darkness. She'd heard that sometimes the piles moved, either from rats rummaging through the carcasses or because someone had been pronounced dead a little prematurely.

The building was haunted. That's what people said.

Flora believed it, because she believed in ghosts and if any place was haunted, it would be Mary of the Angels.

"Maybe he's new in town," she said into her cell phone. "Maybe nobody told him about it."

"Don't go, Flora," Enrique begged. "Come home."

She smiled. It was sweet of Enrique to worry about her.

"I'm going to check it out. If anything seems weird, I'll leave."

"Keep your phone handy."

She told him good-bye, and tucked the phone back in her purse, leaving it open for easy access.

David was the customer's name. She'd written it in her schedule book under the date.

She found his apartment number taped to the intercom system. Nearby, the heavy scent of tangled wisteria begged her to stay outside.

She pushed the button and the door buzzed. She entered and took the stairs to the correct floor.

She didn't have to knock. He was waiting for her, door ajar.

Dressed in faded jeans. Barefoot. Shirt unbuttoned, tails untucked. His hair was sticking up in every direction, as if he'd been raking his hands through it again and again.

"Don't let the cat out," he said thickly, stepping back as she entered.

She closed the door behind her, listening for any sound beyond the living room and kitchen. "Anyone else here?"

The place smelled like a litter box. But at least the guy had a cat. A guy with a cat was harmless, right?

He frowned, as if he didn't get the question or its purpose. He shook his head.

"I like to ask," she explained, dropping her purse on the counter. "If there's more than one person, I don't stay. You know what I mean?"

"That you're a one-guy woman?"

"That's right. One at a time." More than one could get ugly. More than one could get dangerous.

"You're in luck," he said. "Because I'm a one-woman man."

He was making a joke.

"You're cute," she said suspiciously.

Most of her clients were gross. They were often fat and bald, and they sweated profusely with the kind of nervous perspiration that smelled so bad. They were usually businessmen with wives and kids. She rarely got cute ones. When she did, they always wanted her to do something she didn't want to do, and she usually ended up running.

"So what's wrong with you?" she asked. Should she get the hell out of there? "What kind of weird shit you into?"

"I'm antisocial."

She laughed. A real laugh. "That's why you called me?"

"I'm not going to go to a bar and pretend to be interested in a girl just so I can have sex. I have no interest in socializing. That's all. Too much work." He waved a hand. "Too much trouble. This way there is no pretense. Nobody gets hurt."

He was okay. Just wasted. Really wasted. Barely able to stand, wasted. "Did you see our price list?" she asked.

Some of her associates played fantasy games with the customers. Flora never pretended it was anything more than what it was. A business transaction. Payment for goods received.

"We take cash or credit. No checks. Pay is by the. hour. If we go as much as one minute over sixty, you pay for another full hour. Those are the rules."

"I might want you to stay all night."

"Night's almost over"

He glanced at a window, as if the news surprised him. "Until I have to leave for work, then."

She shrugged in signature prostitute lingo, then followed with the cliche, "As long as you're paying. And just so you'll know, that payment is for my visit. Sort of a consultation. The sex is free." All legal that way. Or kind of legal.

"Want something to drink?" he asked.

"How about a glass of water?"

With slow, deliberate movements, he filled a glass and handed it to her.

"I like your place," she told him.

Now it was his turn to laugh. "You're kidding, right?"

"It's creepy, and I like creepy things." She took a swallow of water and strolled around the room. "I'll bet a lot of people died in this building."

She put down the glass and pulled her white, gauzy top over her head, dropping it on the floor. "Bedroom this way?" she asked, heading down the short hall and peeking into the only other room in the apartment. It was dark, with a rectangle of light from the living room spilling on the floor. "You haven't lived here long, have you?"

"Three months."

"You need something on your walls." There was nothing but a bed with rumpled white sheets, and a dresser. "Posters or something."

He came up behind her. "What's this?" He touched a small, circular, raised area on her lower spine that was exposed by low-slung black pants.

"Amojo."

"Mojo?"

"It protects me from evil."

"Evil… is everywhere."

"That's why I need a mojo."

"A little scar… won't protect you."

"It might."

"You talk too much," he said.

"Oh, that's right." She turned in his arms. "You don't want any socialization."

She smiled at him. He smiled back.

He was so damn cute! He took her fucking breath away.

They stripped.

He had an athletic body.

Not a spare ounce of flesh.

Swimmer? Runner?

All sinewy muscles just below a smooth layer of skin.

She produced a condom.

He wasn't too drunk to put it on.

He cupped her waist with his hands. He tasted her breasts.

She dug her fingers into his damp arms, and lifted herself closer.

He smelled like beer and soap.

He was intense. Alive. Electric.

"Lie back on the bed," he said softly, gently, as if he cared about her.

She tumbled backward, and suddenly imagined that she wasn't a whore, and that they'd met somewhere else. At the office. No, jogging through Forsyth Park. They saw each other every day. They always smiled and said hello. One day he asked if she'd care to join him for sweet tea in a little nearby cafe\ A week later, dinner.

"I'll bet somebody died in this room," she whispered against his jaw. "Maybe in this very bed."

"You're weird."

"Thank you."

"I'm dying right now."

They fell in love.

After the jogging and the caf6 and the dinner, they fell in love.

She was a nurse.

No, an art student at SCAD. He was-

He slipped inside her.

She had a moment to marvel at the sensation. Because she was a young art student. Not a virgin, but not very knowledgeable when it came to men and sex.

"You're shaking," she said. His body was trembling.

"I haven't had sex in a long time."

"How long?"

"I don't know."

"A couple of weeks?" she guessed.

"Years. It's been years."

Years. "Oh, sweetie." His confession made her feel special, made her feel in some way… brand-new.

She wrapped her arms around him, sheltering him, lifting herself to meet his strokes. She was a young art student; he was her dark, mysterious lover.