Balint had listened to the radio between patients all afternoon. Now that they’d found Sofia Constantinou’s corpse, no obstacle remained that would prevent him from killing his nemesis. By the time he discussed Sugarman with his wife, Norman Navare’s funeral felt like a distant memory.
Balint entered the bathroom while Amanda was brushing her teeth and sat down on the lid of the toilet. She’d had the room painted bright yellow—and he despised the color scheme. Half-rolled tubes of her assorted creams and ointments covered the countertops.
“I ran into Warren Sugarman a few days ago,” he said.
Amanda spit into the sink and rinsed. Her eyes widened.
“What’s this about us going on an ice-skating trip with his kid?”
His wife gargled again and shut off the faucet. “It was my idea. His son, Davey, is having a hard time. The boy doesn’t make friends easily . . . He’s not the most inspiring child, to tell you the truth. You’ve seen him. Other children just don’t seem to like him.”
“And what makes you think Jessie and Phoebe are going to like him?”
“They probably won’t. But they do like skating. I thought maybe it would do the poor child some good if the girls spent an afternoon with him.”
“And what good will that do Jessie and Phoebe?”
His wife began lacquering her face with a pale green lotion called Cucumber Rejuvenator. “I remember what it was like to be an unpopular kid, Jer. And, to be honest, it’s absolutely goddamn miserable. Anyway, I don’t see how it will kill Jessie to spend an afternoon with one of her classmates.”
Balint had been an extremely popular child from as far back as he could remember. That had been his one comfort—even after his father passed away. It genuinely irked him to think that his own wife had once been a friendless creature like Davey Sugarman. “I’m sorry that you had a hard time of it,” he said, “but that’s no reason to turn our daughters into guinea pigs. It’s not my fault that Davey Sugarman is a tubby little dolt—any more than it was my fault that Abby Goldhammer couldn’t swim. I’m raising children, Amanda, not running a charity for wayward delinquents.”
Amanda spun around. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Said what?”
“Something’s wrong with your brain, Jeremy Balint. He’s an eight-year-old boy, for Christ’s sake. Can’t you show some compassion?”
“Not when it comes at my daughters’ expense. Do you think they’re going to gain any popularity hanging out with that boy?”
“They’ll learn empathy,” snapped Amanda. “That’s just as important.”
“Are you going to phrase it that way to them?” pressed Balint. “They’re not stupid. Are you going to tell them that they have to play with Davey Sugarman because he’s an ugly, awkward loser, but it’s important to show compassion for ugly losers?”
Amanda swung shut the door of the medicine cabinet. The mirror rattled—and for a second, Balint feared that it might shatter.
“I’m going skating with Warren and his son,” she said firmly. “And I’m taking along your daughters. You can decide whether you’d like to join us . . . Or whether associating with an unpopular eight-year-old might compromise your sterling reputation.”
His wife stormed out of the bathroom and slammed the door. Then she slammed it a second time for effect. Balint waited until he was confident that she’d settled under the covers—and then crossed silently through the dark bedroom. He stayed up until the early hours of the morning, listening to radio callers discuss the Emerald Choker case with two “experts” on serial killings. That night—for the first time since a bout of poison oak six years earlier—he slept on the couch in the living room.
AMANDA DIDN’T mention their spat over breakfast the next morning. She acted as though nothing had happened, so he did the same. Her principal concern appeared to be that she’d managed to double-book them for the following Saturday evening—both for dinner with the Sucrams and for a gathering at the van Houtens’. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said. “Maria van Houten is having a farewell party for Alyssa Pickering—now that Herb’s dead, Alyssa can’t afford the property taxes—and I didn’t think twice about agreeing to come. But we’ve been pledged to Betsy and Vince Sucram for months . . .” If Amanda truly cared about Herb Pickering’s widow, she’d pay the property taxes herself, he noted—but Balint didn’t dare suggest as much. She’d either take him up on his offer, as nutty as it sounded, or she’d complain that he was ridiculing her.
“I’m sure you’ll work something out,” said Balint.
“I’m sure I will too. Still, it’s frustrating.” His wife cleared away his plate and called the girls downstairs for their oatmeal. “But remember. We’re doing something on Saturday night. So don’t get yourself called into the hospital . . .”
“I’ll ask my patients to hold off on having their heart attacks until Monday,” responded Balint. He considered kissing Amanda on the forehead—but didn’t. Only when he was already headed into town did he second-guess himself.
This was to be the morning that he was taping four sixty-second radio spots for Etan Steinhoff. He’d anticipated that four minutes worth of tape would require about twenty minutes of studio time, or half an hour, at most. The rabbi stunned him when he demanded a block of five hours. “It’s a complicated process,” explained Steinhoff. “We’ll try to get through things quickly, but it’s always better to err on the safe side.” So Balint was committed to the pointless project until one o’clock.
The recording studio occupied a loft over Laurendale Lanes, the local bowling alley, but the chamber was fully soundproofed. “If the building caught fire,” said the audio engineer, Eve, who hooked up his microphone, “they couldn’t hear your screams.”
“Then let’s hope there’s not a fire.”
The technician laughed. “That’s a good one. ‘Let’s hope there’s not a fire.’ ” She was cute enough—although she wore blue liner around brown eyes. Balint even considered inviting her out for coffee. He ultimately decided against it, but not because of any ethical scruples against betraying Delilah. Unlike cheating on one’s wife, cheating on one’s mistress seemed a minor transgression. The logistics of another intrigue, on the other hand, struck him as daunting.
Eve retreated behind a glass shield and settled into a chair beside the rabbi. “I need to test the mic,” she said into Balint’s headphones. “Say something.”
He thought for a moment. “Though the mills of God grind slowly,” he quoted. “Yet they grind exceeding small.”
She flashed him a thumbs-up. “And thanks for not saying ‘Testing 1-2-3,’ by the way,” she added. Of course, that had been his second choice.
Balint smiled at Steinhoff through the glass. The rabbi, who was speaking into his cell phone, gave him a vigorous nod.
“When you see the green light go on,” said the girl, “start reading.”
Balint glanced at the wall clock. He couldn’t imagine how this business could possibly take five hours. When the green light flashed, he started reading from the script that the rabbi had provided: “I’m Dr. Jeremy Balint and saving lives is my job. It’s also my passion. Every year in this state, thousands of adult men and women go without routine medical care. Many of these men and women die. The tragedy is that these people are entitled to free comprehensive care—often only minutes from their own homes . . .” He watched the second hand on the clock as he read. At fifty-nine seconds, he hit the final word. Perfect.
He shut the script and turned to Steinhoff. “How’d I do?”
The rabbi held his hand over his cell phone. “Good—but not good enough. There’s a long and complex history here, Dr. Balint. The Tuskegee experiments, Henrietta Lacks. These people have every reason to distrust doctors. So if we’re going to convince them to come to our clinics—clinics that are, quite frankly, run by rich white Jews from places like Laurendale and Hager Park—you’re going to have to sound like the most honest and
moral man they’ve ever heard in their entire lives. I want to hear Martin Luther King meets Marcus Welby, okay? And keep in mind that we’re not deceiving anybody. As far as we’re concerned, you are the most honest and moral man around. Got it?”
“I think so,” said Balint. “Would you like me to imitate Dr. King’s voice?”
“That won’t be necessary,” answered Steinhoff. “Just channel his spirit.”
Balint read the script again. All he had in common with Martin Luther King was that they’d both cheated on their wives—at least, if the media reports about King were to be believed—but he didn’t suspect Steinhoff would view that as a selling point. When he was done, the rabbi still wasn’t satisfied.
“You sound like a doctor. Like a real doctor. These people don’t know doctors from a hole in the ground. You need to sound like what they want a doctor to sound like. Pretend you’re a twenty-five-year-old mother in Newark with an eleven-year-old kid who has already been arrested twice for criminal mischief, and you haven’t been to a physician since your son was born—and that physician was some nitwit from Ghana or Pakistan who barely spoke English and operated out of a run-down basement. Pretend you’re that woman for a moment—and try to sound like the doctor who she’s wanted to take care of her for her entire life.”
“It might be easier to pretend,” quipped Balint, “if I did it in blackface.”
The audio technician grinned. Steinhoff shook his head.
“We don’t have time for costumes,” he said. “Just do the best you can.”
His best required exactly five hours, it turned out. The rabbi claimed that the final versions were indeed perfect—far better than the earlier takes—but the truth was that Balint couldn’t tell the difference.
NOW THAT Sofia Constantinou’s death was front-page news, Balint had no excuse for putting off his final encounter with Warren Sugarman. Nevertheless, January drifted into February and he found himself delaying the necessary preparations. He still had enough green ribbon on his person for one more crime, but he’d made no effort to map out Sugarman’s schedule or to find a window when he might slip away from Amanda. Securing sufficient time apart from his wife would prove more complicated in this case, because he couldn’t kill the surgeon while Amanda was away at a “bridge tournament” or similar event, if she was actually meeting up with Sugarman on these occasions. Of course, now that Norman Navare had died, the immediate time pressure was off. He could act quickly or wait as long as he wished; some serial killers disappeared and resurfaced years later. As much as he hated to admit it, he actually enjoyed following the efforts of Chief Putnam and Detective Mazzotta as they tried to reassure the public that they had the situation under control—when anyone with half a brain realized that they didn’t. By now the bounty on the killer of Kenny McCord exceeded $300,000.
Whatever was causing Balint to drag his feet, it certainly wasn’t any sympathy for his rival. He despised Warren Sugarman more than he ever had. If he could have pressed a button and vaporized the man without any consequences for himself, he’d have done so in a heartbeat. The real obstacle, he realized, was fear. Killing strangers seemed fundamentally different from killing someone whom he knew well—a colleague he interacted with on a weekly, and often a daily, basis. Once again Balint feared he might freeze up at the last instant. Or that Sugarman, who was smart enough in his own way, might utter something during those final seconds to knock him off his guard. Maybe it was merely that he’d come so close to victory that he feared taking any steps which might jeopardize his previous successes.
This was Balint’s state of mind on the Saturday night that they joined the Sucrams for dinner at the new oyster house in Pontefract. Amanda had salvaged the evening by dropping by the van Houtens’ home earlier in the day and leaving a crystal salad bowl for Alyssa Pickering. Balint didn’t understand what a woman who couldn’t afford to pay her property taxes was supposed to do with a $200 bowl—unless she was supposed to sleep in it—but he kept his commentary to himself.
He’d been forewarned that his job was to tell Betsy and Vince Sucram how much he’d enjoyed their daughter’s wedding, and then to steer clear of politics and religion and anything else that might insult them. “Just don’t cause any trouble, Jer,” pleaded Amanda. “If you have to ask yourself whether something will offend anybody, please don’t say it. Trust me, it will.”
“Give me some credit,” he replied. “I’m not a Neanderthal.”
“I’m not saying you are. But you do have a track record. And the Sucrams are the leading donors on Rabbi Steinhoff’s new tabernacle. Etan will have my head if you manage to insult them.”
“You and Etan are on a first-name basis now?”
“Yes, we are,” said Amanda. “And that would be precisely the sort of remark I’d rather you didn’t air in front of Vince and Betsy.”
“Duly noted.”
He pulled up the Mercedes in front of the restaurant and handed his keys to the valet. The Sucrams were already waiting for them at the bar. Balint found himself in the midst of a flurry of handshakes and kisses, then whisked off to a table in an oak-paneled side room. On the opposite wall hung an enormous sailfish.
“Your daughter had a fine wedding,” said Balint. “We had a marvelous time.”
“Thank you,” said Betsy Sucram. “We were so glad you could join us.”
“That fellow you sat us with—tax lawyer—the guy was hilarious.”
“Must have been Vincent Hearn,” interjected Vince Sucram. “My namesake.”
“That’s right. Hearn. He and I had a long debate over whether we should be referring to your daughter and her partner as ‘bride and bride’ or ‘spouse and spouse.’ ”
Amanda kicked him in the knee. Hard.
Betsy Sucram pursed her lips. “And what, pray tell, did you decide?”
Balint shrugged. “I can’t remember anymore. Five martinis and they could have been two grooms for all I knew.”
This time, Amanda’s shoe came inches from his groin, and he grabbed the tablecloth—nearly toppling their water glasses. “Sorry,” he said.
That was about the time when he first noticed two women who’d just been seated at the far end of the nearly empty dining room. One was their peculiar neighbor, Bonnie Kluger, who wore an odd, kimono-style robe and a bright crimson hat. Her outfit looked a bit like casual wear for the Pope—if the Pope had been Japanese. The other patron was Sally Goldhammer. Balint hadn’t seen Sally since the day her daughter had drowned.
He drew Amanda’s attention to the newcomers. The Sucrams also noted their arrival and maintained an awkward silence.
“You really must say something, Jeremy,” Amanda said. “She’s seen us. We can’t just pretend she’s not here.”
“So why do I have to say something?”
“Trust me. It’s better that way. She’s already made it clear that she wants nothing to do with me—but if you went up to her and apologized, it might go a long way toward making her feel better.”
“I can’t apologize,” said Balint. “That’s practically an admission of guilt. Her lawyers will eat me alive.” He turned to Sucram for support. “You’re a businessman, Vince. You understand where I’m coming from.”
Vince Sucram nodded politely. Later, Balint learned that he’d been mistaken and their dinner companion was actually an anthropology professor—that the money came from his wife’s family enterprise. “Maybe you could express your sadness over the situation without actually taking any blame.”
“Could this get any more awkward?” asked Amanda. “Please just get it over with, Jeremy. Before we all die of embarrassment.”
So he dropped his napkin on his chair and strode across the dining room. A look of sheer terror suffused across Sally Goldhammer’s face. Bonnie Kluger, unfazed, gnawed a crust of bread.
“I hope I’m not intruding, Sally,” said Balint. “I wanted to let you know how sorry I am about all you’ve been through.”
The woman stare
d at him without acknowledgment.
“She appreciates the thought,” Bonnie answered for her. “But you’ll forgive her if she’s in no mood to talk to you at the moment.”
“I understand.”
He was about to return to his own table when Bonnie said, “I hear you were bitten by a raccoon.”
“Scratched,” he corrected her.
“Yes, scratched. Very unusual.”
Balint felt threatened. “I interrupted its lunch, I’m afraid. But I learned my lesson. Next time I’m going to be much more careful.”
Bonnie’s eyes latched into him like fishhooks. “I know all of the raccoons on our street intimately,” she said—as though claiming to know all of their human neighbors. “It would be highly out of character for any one of them to attack you unprovoked. Surely you must have done something to antagonize him.”
If he could have chosen a second local victim after Sugarman, this woman would certainly have been next on his hit list.
“You’re mistaken, Bonnie,” he said. “I did nothing of the sort.”
The strange woman stared straight through him—as though she alone could sense his inner core of iniquity. Then she waved her hand before her face, sweeping him toward inconsequence and oblivion.
“Very well. No sense in arguing,” said Bonnie. “But I urge you to take care of yourself. If you do provoke raccoons, they’re capable of gouging your eyes out.”
Apparently Bonnie’s voice had carried across the dining room, because when Balint returned to his own table, after a brief detour to the restroom, Vince Sucram was already whispering an anecdote about eye-gouging rituals among the Pau-Gha people of Indonesia.
CHAPTER TEN
Balint dithered so long that Sugarman was still alive when the weekend arrived for their family ice-skating adventure. He had only himself to blame. Yet the prospect of spending an afternoon in the company of both the surgeon and Amanda together was so repugnant to him that, on the night before the outing, he contemplated throwing caution to the wind and attempting to kill the surgeon without any advance preparation. In the end, good sense prevailed—and instead of murdering his rival, he spent the night fantasizing that an outside force might intervene. He imagined that the skating rink burned to the ground or that Davey Sugarman contracted an acute and fatal case of meningitis. But when dawn arrived the next day, the world hadn’t ended in nuclear holocaust and gorillas hadn’t escaped from the zoo to carry off his rival’s dopey offspring. So Balint loaded his wife and daughters into the Mercedes and resigned himself to his fate.
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