Flesh and Blood

by James Neal Harvey

  “Don’t go to any trouble,” Ben said, and kissed her again. This one lasted longer than the first and was much deeper. When she came up for air, she whispered, “Maybe I should take something off, instead.”

  “Good idea.” They went into her bedroom and spent the next hour in bed in a state of bliss, feverish at first and then slowly winding down to pleasant exhaustion.

  Later she snuggled up to him, tucking her body in against his. He lay on his back, gently stroking her flank with his fingertips. Her skin felt smooth and velvety and slightly damp to his touch.

  “Ben?”

  “Mm?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Tender thoughts.”

  “About me?”

  “About a ham sandwich. I’m starved.”

  She dug her elbow into his ribs. “You’re just like all other men.”

  “How do you know—been doing research?”

  Her tone changed, taking on a coolness. “Maybe.”

  “Hey, I was only teasing. Honest.”

  “Better be.”

  “I think you’re wonderful, Shelley.”

  “You glad I’m your partner?”

  “Of course.”

  Her hand drifted over his belly. “I think you’re pretty great, too.”

  “Good. Then we’re friends again, right?”

  “We always were. At least since you got to know me.”

  “I’m happy I did.”

  Her hand drifted lower and gripped him. “So am I.”

  To his delight, he felt himself respond once more. He turned to her and they made love again, slowly and easily this time.

  “This is heavenly,” she whispered. “I wish we could stay like this all night.”

  Ben wished he could, too, at the same time wondering at the differences between men and women. That was at least one area where female superiority wasn’t even open to debate. Her description of what they were doing was accurate, but when this one ended, he was sure he’d have absolutely nothing left.

  He was right; he didn’t.

  It would have been easy to sink into sleep at that point, but the thought of food was keeping him awake. He got out of bed and put on his pants and his shirt and Shelley slipped back into her robe. They went into the kitchen and she made coffee and toast and scrambled a plate of eggs for him. Then she sat opposite him at the breakfast table, watching him eat.

  The eggs were delicious, done just the way he liked them, sprinkled liberally with fresh-ground pepper. He hadn’t been hungry, he decided, but ravenous.

  “That’s another thing,” Shelley said.

  He spoke around a mouthful. “What is?”

  “Men are always hungry afterward.”

  Ben looked at her questioningly.

  She smiled. “I must have read that someplace.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “The case? Sometimes I’m not sure. It seems as though a lot of people would like me just to forget all about it.”

  “Including the district attorney?”

  “No, not him. He’s the one guy who’s been willing to have me keep going, although he’s not convinced I’m making much progress. But at least he’s given me a little more time.”

  “How much time?”

  “He said a few days, but that’s all. Wasn’t for him, I would have packed it in long ago.”

  “I doubt that. Have you talked to the members of the family again?”

  “All except Clay’s wife, Laura Bentley.”

  “I interviewed her once. Know what she told me afterward? That she’d love to go back to her career as an actress. She was very serious about it, pumping me about how she could get started in TV. Said her agent wasn’t so hot on the idea but that she was. And then she said the big problem would be her husband. He wouldn’t want her to.”

  “And that was the end of it?”

  “Apparently. Imagine, like living in the Dark Ages. I’d love to see him try that with me, if he was my husband. Know what I’d tell him?”

  “What would you tell him, Shel?”

  “That I respectfully disagreed.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet that’s how you’d put it.”

  “What about the others—what did you learn from them?”

  “Nothing much. They’re not too pleased to have me still digging.”

  “I can imagine. The more I learn about them, the more I realize their public image is a sham. Not just now, either. When I started on the story, I read a lot of old newspaper accounts on microfiche. They’ve always had plenty of enemies.”

  “Interesting. Ties in with information the prosecutors have been gathering about the brokerage.”

  “How did that get started, and when?”

  “It was back in the twenties,” Ben said. “The Colonel would form a group of his friends and they’d pick a public company and begin buying shares. Then they’d trade the shares back and forth, driving the price up. At the same time, the Colonel would pay financial reporters to write stories about how great the company was and what a terrific future it had. The public would read that stuff and see how the stock was going and boom, the rush was on. When the price got to be astronomical, the Colonel and his pals would sell out, leaving the rubes holding the bag.”

  “Nice. No wonder he wanted to start a brokerage.”

  “Of course. Then he could run his schemes on a much broader scale. He’d not only be secretly pooling stocks, he’d also be brokering shares to other investors and collecting commissions.”

  “And that’s where the senator got his training?”

  “Right. The Colonel brought him into the brokerage, and eventually he headed it. Then when his children were old enough, he had them come into the family businesses, too.”

  “What made him go into politics?”

  “From what I can see,” Ben said, “they were always in it. Behind the scenes, anyway. I would guess the only difference with the senator was that he decided to run for office. Nobody can say for sure how many millions it cost him to get that seat.”

  Shelley filled his cup with fresh coffee. “But that was typical, too, wasn’t it? Whenever he wanted something, he just bought it. Have you turned up any more on his relationship with Jessica Silk?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “That’s something else I’ve been wondering about.”

  “What about it?”

  “The article she was supposed to be writing. What do you suppose happened to that material?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “She was right about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’d be worth a fortune right about now.”

  “I imagine it would.”

  Shelley drank some of her coffee. Then she said, “Ben? I have something to ask you.”

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  “My editor’s been pressing me to do a piece on the story of the senator and Jessica—about their relationship, and their deaths.”

  “So?”

  “So I need to freshen it up, put in some new things.”

  He sipped his coffee. “You can put in anything you want, just so long as it isn’t anything to do with me or what I’ve been telling you.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair.”

  “Fair doesn’t have anything to do with it. This isn’t field hockey.”

  “Who said it was? What I meant was that some of what you’ve learned came from me. So I should have the right to go on the air with part of it.”

  “Remember what we agreed on back in the beginning. You use nothing unless I give you a green light.”

  “Yeah, but damn it, you can’t just muzzle me. Instead of giving me an edge, that puts me at a disadvantage.”

  “Nobody’s trying to muzzle you. I just have to be careful about what gets out.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “A rehash of old stuff would be okay, wouldn’t it?”

  “Sure it would. Listen, Shel.
I’m not trying to make this tough for you. It’s just that there are things I don’t want to become public. If they got to the wrong people, they could screw things up big. You already know more about this investigation than you should.”

  “All right, Lieutenant. Sir.”

  “Come on, don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not. Just hurt. Why don’t you take me back to bed and comfort me?”

  “I’ll be happy to go to bed, but I don’t know if I can do much about the comfort part.”

  She got up from her chair and came over to where he sat, pressing her body against his face. “You could at least give it a try, couldn’t you?”

  He put his hands on her hips and drew her tight, becoming aware of a faint but tantalizingly pungent bouquet. “Yeah,” he said. “I could do that.”

  Getting to his feet, he picked her up in his arms and carried her back into the bedroom.

  42

  “I want him stopped,” she said.

  Orcus gripped the telephone. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Her voice rose. “Don’t worry about it? What am I supposed to do—just sit here, pretend he’s not a problem? Do you realize how much trouble the son of a bitch has already caused? He keeps it up, he could tip the whole thing over. And you’re telling me not to worry?”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “You’d better. He has to be out of the picture. Permanently.”

  “I know that. It’ll be done.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as I get it worked out.”

  “And how soon will that be? Tomorrow? Next week?”

  He hated being goaded, especially by a female. “You think it’s simple, don’t you? As if he’s some dummy you can just walk in on. Nothing to it, right? You snap your fingers, it’s all over. Let me tell you, that’s not the way it is. It has to be done in a way that he’ll never know what hit him. And that takes planning.”

  “So plan it. I don’t want this fucked up by some jerk-off cop.”

  “It won’t be. I said I’ll take care of it.”

  “You’d better. Or else somebody else will.”

  “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “And don’t make me angry. I don’t care to hear any insolent remarks from you. All I want to know is that you did it, that this Tolliver no longer exists. Is that clear?”

  “Yeah, it’s clear. Just be patient, all right?”

  But she’d already hung up. He put the phone down and ground his teeth until they ached.

  43

  In the morning they made love again. It was, Ben thought, a beautiful way to start the day. Made him feel relaxed and happy, glad to be alive. Put his problems in perspective, too; cut them down to size. He resolved to do it more often.

  Afterward they showered together, with plenty of laughing and mutual soaping, and then they got dressed and had a breakfast of orange juice, croissants, and coffee. While they ate, they watched the news on a small TV that sat on the kitchen counter.

  There was the usual stream of depressing reports, including a tape of Shelley delivering her piece on the mother who’d been shot by the crack dealer. But there was nothing on the deaths of the senator and Jessica Silk, which was fine with Ben.

  Before leaving Shelley’s apartment, he called Dr. Alan Stein, a psychiatrist who was a consultant to the NYPD. He told Stein what he was working on and asked whether he could have a few minutes of the doctor’s time. “Come ahead,” Stein said. His first patient wasn’t due until eleven.

  Ben dropped Shelley off at WPIC TV and from there he took Second Avenue down to East Tenth Street. The psychiatrist lived and practiced in one of the old row houses near Tompkins Square that had been built a century ago as middle-income homes. The houses now went for a fortune, if you could find one for sale.

  Tolliver parked the Ford on the street and walked up the front steps. He rang the bell and a moment later heard the sound of bolts being thrown and locks undone. The door swung open and Alan Stein greeted him.

  Whenever Ben saw this man, he was struck by how little the doctor resembled other psychiatrists he’d run across, usually in court cases where they’d been expert witnesses. Whereas most of them tended to be effete, Stein looked more like a steelworker. His massive chest and shoulders were encased in a red-and-black-checked wool shirt, his legs in khakis. His head was massive, too, with wiry gray hair coming down over his ears and a full beard covering his jaw. Only his eyes seemed scholarly, blinking behind thick glasses.

  “How’ve you been, Lieutenant?”

  “Okay, Doc. Glad you could see me.”

  “So am I. You’re on an interesting case. I’ve been following the developments.”

  Stein locked the door and shoved the bolts back into place, then led Tolliver to the rear of the house, where his study was.

  The room was large and cluttered: a desk stacked high with books and papers, a worn leather couch, two upholstered chairs. Packed bookcases covered one wall and a table held a PC and more books. There was a bar in the corner, but it was too early for a drink; instead, Stein poured mugs of coffee from an electric pot behind his desk. Both men sat in the comfortable chairs.

  “The newspapers imply the senator died during a tryst with the writer,” Stein said, “and that the rumors are what drove the lady to suicide. So tell me—did she or didn’t she?”

  Ben sipped coffee. “What’s your guess?”

  “An emphatic no. I never met her, but some things seemed obvious. For one, she was not only functioning at the time but was highly effective. A tough young woman, succeeding in a tough business. Someone like her wouldn’t cave in because she was in the center of a controversy. Or because the spotlight was on her, no matter how egregious the publicity. In fact, she’d be more likely to do the exact opposite. She’d look for a way to turn it to her advantage.”

  Ben smiled. “That’s how I see it, too, Doc. It’s part of why I’m here. I don’t think she went off that terrace of her own accord.”

  “Suspects?”

  “Not yet.”

  “And the senator?”

  “Also suspicious. But I’m getting a lot of pressure to revise that opinion. Not only from the family, but also from the powers that be. Seems that everybody’d like to see the whole thing marked closed.”

  “Everybody except the media.”

  Ben thought of Shelley and what she’d told him about her editor urging her to keep the story alive.

  “Which is only to be expected,” Stein continued. “They’re not called vultures for nothing. What about all these innuendos concerning the old man’s sex life? Anything to them?”

  “At first, I didn’t think so. You hear crap like that about everybody who’s in the public eye. People can’t get enough of it. But then I also picked up rumors about his abusing women. And after that, I went to the autopsy on the Silk woman. There were marks on her body.”

  “What kind of marks?”

  “Bites and bruises, and burns. The burns were the worst. They were from a lighted cigar, the ME thought. Some of them were old and scabbed over, but some were very recent—raw and open. The senator smoked cigars.”

  “Ah. Fascinating.”

  “Was to me, too. Assuming he did the burning, I wondered what you could tell me about that. Might give me some better insights into what he was like, what their relationship actually was.”

  “Where on her body were the burns?”

  “Upper thighs, and her buttocks.”

  Stein put his head back, thinking about it. “So if he did inflict them, it would have been during sex, in a classic act of sadism. Which is a form of rape.”

  That was another way this guy was different from other shrinks Tolliver had known. Most of them couldn’t give you a straight answer if their lives depended on it. But Stein never failed to be objective in his appraisal of a personality, his sizing up of a situation involving human conduct. Ben knew why: The doctor had worked for eight years at Fairlawn, the hospital in Virgini
a for the criminally insane. Stein had no illusions about people who habitually committed violent crimes, nor did he apologize for them, as did so many of his colleagues.

  “Let me make a few things clear,” the doctor said. “First of all, the popular view nowadays is that sexual assault has little or nothing to do with sex. Analysts claim that a man who rapes does so essentially to exert power over his victims. It’s a matter of control, they say. Or else the rapist is using sex as a weapon, because he hates women. He was abused by them as a child, so he’s taking revenge on his mother, or whoever it might be. You’ve heard those theories often enough, haven’t you?”

  “Every cop has,” Ben said.

  “Sure. Prosecutors and defense lawyers both play variations on the theme. And both find it very easy to produce psychiatrists who’ll back them up. The theories are also popular among other so-called experts. Sociologists, for instance—because the ideas fit so nicely with their own attitudes about the relationships between men and women in contemporary life. All examples, the social workers’ll tell you, of how males try to subjugate females: dominate them, tyrannize them, through sexual aggression.”

  “But in many cases it’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is. But it’s only part of the story. Fundamentally, sex crimes are the result of human instinct run amok. And as you know, nearly all such crimes are committed by men. Very rarely by women. But what’s not known—or at least not accepted even in the face of incontrovertible evidence—is that many of the offenders commit their crimes because they truly enjoy them.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “It’s most apparent among sexual abusers of children. They derive intense pleasure from behavior a normal person would consider horrifying. And yet they often make a huge game of their sickness. Which is a form of denial, of course. It’s really okay, they’re saying—just a lot of harmless fun. So they form clubs, pass pictures around, swap victims, act for all the world like some sort of ghoulish hobbyists, which in a way is what they are. Except that what they collect are not coins or stamps.”

  “A lot of that’s come to light recently.”

  “Right. But the sexual sadist can be even worse. Much worse. Because his aggressions more often lead to murder. Which is why this is an area in which gays and straights meet on common ground. Both groups are appalled by sadism.”