by Fault lines
"The only evidence Willy could have to the contrary would have come from her therapy sessions. That's the first time she was ever able to talk about the abduction.
"The problem for Willy is that even if Camille said anything on tape that exonerated him, he'll never be able to use it. The tapes were illegally obtained, and I seriously doubt that his attorneys would even try to have evidence admitted of additional crimes the jury wouldn't know about —assuming you don't charge him with anything.
"So I'm asking you. I'm not asking what she said in the therapy sessions. I'm just asking you, how stable is this woman? How suggestible? Do you have any reason from your sessions to doubt Camille Robbins when she says that Alex B. Willy is the man who kidnapped and tortured her?"
I looked up at Adam's face and studied it for a moment. In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. "None at all," I said. "Coincidences happen."
Adam looked thoughtfully at me for a long moment. "Michael . . . ," he started, and then lapsed into silence. His face was full of indecision.
I held up my sweet, lying little face for his scrutiny. "If she says he's the one," I said calmly, "that's good enough for me, and I know her better than you do." I fell silent, too, but look all he wanted, Adam wasn't going to find any indecision in my face, not a single, solitary fair-is-fair-he-didn't-do-it-so-put-him-on-the-streets subatomic particle.
25
Nothing happened right away. Willy was too injured even to be arraigned. But he got better, and a few weeks later they arraigned him, and he found out what he was facing.
I suppose I was expecting the call. I didn't have to go, but I decided to. Partly I needed to face Willy again for my own reasons, maybe to be sure I could. But there was some kind of closure that I needed, too, although I couldn't really say why.
I went down to the visiting room of the county jail and for once was glad for the glass wall separating us. I might be ready to face Willy, but I wasn't ready to be in a room alone with him, at least not without Keeter. Willy's neck and shoulder were bandaged, and he had lost weight, but he was definitely alive, unfortunately, which I was still sorry for. I guess I'm not the forgiving type. I got it honestly. Mama always said, "When you've got your foot on a rattlesnake's neck is not the time to get religion."
I sat down, folded my arms, and said nothing at all. This was Willy's show, and maybe I came most of all to see how he would play it.
"Good morning. Dr. Stone," Willy said. "I trust you have recovered from my little games. I'm sure you are aware I would never have really ..."
"Don't insult me, Mr. Willy," I said.
"Surely you don't think . . . ," Willy started.
I stood up to go. "Well, now," he said hastily, "do sit down. We'll just move on. We may differ on whether I was really serious or not, but that isn't the issue," he added quickly. "Ah . . . there seems to be some kind of misunderstanding."
"Really?" I said.
"I believe you know what I'm talking about," Willy said. "I admit to playing a few games with Ms. Robbin's head, but it should be obvious to any moron that I wasn't the one who raped and tortured her."
"Tell it to the judge," I said. "You'll get your day in court."
"I don't think it's going to get that far," Willy said. "Not if you're who you say you are."
"Oh?"
"Well, this is where we get to find out. Dr. Stone, if you're any different than I am." Willy shifted in his seat and warmed to the topic. Clearly, he had rehearsed what he was going to say. "Oh, I know you don't have my particular aesthetic interests, but in regard to the larger issues —truth and justice and those ideals you profess to believe in —well, do you or don't you?
"Because if you do, you can't let an innocent man go to prison for something he didn't do. And you know that Camille's description of her assailant didn't match me until I started playing my little games with her—and I was just playing games with her."
"Mr. Willy," I replied calmly, "you set yourself up, not I. You tortured that poor woman until she couldn't separate you and the other perp. Who am I to get between you and thc^ fate you set up so carefully for yourself?"
"You can't be serious," Willy said. "So am I to take it that justice and the law are fine so long as they fit your agenda?"
"You talk like they're the same," I said. "The law and justice may sleep together occasionally, but it's not like they have an ongoing relationship. I'm a much bigger fan of justice than I am the law."
"Don't rely on semantics, Dr. Stone. Sending me to jail for a crime I didn't commit is flouting the law, and it's hardly justice."
"Between your going free for a crime you did commit and going to jail for a crime you didn't commit, I figure the law isn't going to be served either way. And yes, in my opinion, justice will be served if you head straight for prison. The bottom line is this, Mr. Willy: I don't pay for no dead horses."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Willy asked.
"It means your whining to me about justice is a little like a cancer cell asking for fair play. Let me put it this way. I am not the sanest human being I know, but I've got enough of my mind intact not to buy what you sell. Actually I just figured out what you sell. You sell the idea that there is no real nastiness in the world.
"The problem is that there is: There is downright evil in the world, and you, sir, are a fair example of it. People who buy dead horses can't really deal with malevolence. But it's there. You meant to hurt me, and you meant to hurt Camille. You get a kick out of other people's pain."
Willy was silent. For some reason, he didn't seem prepared for this. Or maybe there was no good answer to this. Maybe he only had one thing to sell, and you bought it or you didn't.
"I've thought about this. If I interfered with your going to jail in any way, then for the next twenty years, I'd have to wonder if every face I passed on the street was going to be your next victim. I won't do it. I won't help you add more notches to your belt. You're going down for the count, Mr. Willy —and that's who I say I am."
Epilogue
I didn't hear from Adam for a while. Hard to blame him, but I found to my annoyance I missed him. Men are habit-forming: They ought to come with warning labels. Carlotta kept telling me to call him, but what was I supposed to say? The truth was, I probably wasn't going to change a whole lot, and if he couldn't live with my craziness, I couldn't blame him. I had, after all, thrown him out of my house for trying to help me. Then I lied to his face, probably several times actually.
But he did call, finally, and he said he wanted to talk. Could he come over? "Not tonight," I heard myself saying. "Tonight is the night I get over my phobia of b-ball courts. I've got to play basketball again, or I'm going to lose my mind."
Adam knew all about the guy who tried to strangle me in a gym—he was the one who rescued me —and he knew, too, I hadn't been able to go to a gym alone since then. I had planned to go to the gym tonight—I wasn't exactly lying—but I did hear a little voice inside my head saying, "Well, it doesn't have to be tonight, turkey." I ignored it. I had a bad feeling about what Adam wanted to say, and I really didn't want to hear it.
I hung up and looked at the phone. I just wasn't in the mood for an emotional bloodbath. If Adam was gone, he was gone. No point in holding a funeral service. Some people just want to talk things to death, and I'm not one of them.
But when I entered the gym, I found, to my surprise, that Adam was there shooting by himself. I went over and sat down on the bench for a moment just watching him. I should have been pissed off. I sure as hell hadn't asked him to come and keep me company. I was pissed off, sort of, but I had to admit I was mostly just relieved. The silent gym —once upon a time my favorite place in the world—didn't look too good to me these days. Adam waved but didn't speak. Probably he wasn't too sure of his reception.
He looked awfully good. Mostly, playing ball, I don't really notice. When I was a five-seven, one-hundred-pound thirteen-year-old, the gym was absolutely the only place in the universe I didn'
t feel awkward. People are sexless on a basketball court. They're fast or they're slow. They fake a lot, or they just power their way through. They have the economy in their moves of the well-coached, or they have all the superfluous mannerisms of the self-taught, but whatever it is, they aren't male or female.
So, it was odd, but Adam looked awfully good tonight. He was doing layups, and as he drove, the muscles in his thighs changed definition. I had noticed Adam's thighs before. They never looked bad. He had that kind of basketball long and lean muscle, not that bunchy weight-lifting leg muscle I didn't personally care for. I had had some experience with Adam's thighs up close and personal, and, yes, they were very nice indeed.
But I don't know why I was thinking about it with basketball to play. I finished tying my shoes and walked out onto the court with my ball. "Baby-sitting?" I said. My voice surprised me with its sarcasm. Habit, I guess.
"It's a free country," he replied. "Just working on my shot."
I didn't comment. I just started methodically warming up. Five under the basket on one side, five in front, five on the other side. Me and Bill Bradley. I moved a couple of feet out and started it all over again. There was no sound except the balls bouncing and the net swishing. Thank God Adam knew enough not to ruin the place with useless chatter. I caught my ball and turned to Adam. "I'm sorry I lied to you," I said. In the aftermath of catching Willy, it was the one thing I hadn't been able to say. I tried to tone down the grumpiness in my voice, but I only partly succeeded.
"It's okay," he said. "It goes with the territory."
I turned to shoot, but stopped and turned back to Adam. "What? Now you're saying I'm a chronic liar?"
"You're a predictable liar," he said.
Predictable. I didn't seem to have a comeback to that, so I started shooting again. His voice had this sound in it like he knew me or something. No, more like he knew me, fault lines and all —and he wasn't heading for the nearest exit.
Was that intimacy, I wondered? Not the free fall letting go followed by the I'm-out-of-here-buddy-and-besides-you-have-a-wife-so-don't-try-to-hold-onto-my-shirt kind of thing, which was the closest I had come to intimacy. I was good at the kind of intimacy that came with a safety harness.
I went back to shooting. I was working in a circle from one side to another, foul line distance from the basket. This was easy territory, and I didn't miss much. My range extended to the top of the key, and after that I'd start to get into trouble.
"Horse?" he said.
"In a moment," I replied. Jesus. Does he think he can interrupt my warm-up just like that? He wouldn't have done that to Bill Bradley. Adam seemed full of energy. He was putting more energy into his warm-up than most people put into their games.
Horse was the best idea —it was a straight shooting contest — but personally, I preferred one-on-one. We'd get around to that eventually, although we both knew I didn't stand a chance against Adam one-on-one. He had maybe sixty pounds on me and six inches. I did okay on offense with him, but you just can't defend against that kind of height.
I headed for the limits of my range to finish my warm-up. I started in the corner and to my delight was on. I sank three in a row and moved a couple of feet over and started again. Joy is when the ball just drops for you. It all seems so easy when it works. I was getting my legs under the shot, and the ball was just rolling off my fingertips straight and true. It had a lazy backspin and an arc you could die for. I could feel my mood lift with every shot.
Adam had stopped shooting and was just watching me. I faked and went up again. No sense just shooting without the move before it. You don't get to stand there in a game and just shoot. Adam walked over and stood under the basket. He started catching the ball as it swished through and throwing it back. I dribbled twice and put the ball up again, working carefully around the half-circle. I had caught the wave or something: Everything I threw up was going in. I came in closer and tried a fade-away jumper just for the hell of it.
I saw Adam smiling at me and missed the shot. I turned my back on him and dribbled a couple of times before I wheeled around. What was that smile? He had looked like a male Mona Lisa. The Cheshire cat? Whatever he was thinking, he hadn't said it.
I started to feel self-conscious and missed two more. "One-on-one?" I said, more to stop Adam from looking at me as much as anything. That smile just hadn't been a good-buddies-hit-each-other-on-the-shoulder basketball smile. I began to wonder if there was a way of leaving the gym tonight with a far better memory than the one of someone trying to kill me. Would it help with my PTSD —theoretically speaking? Would Adam contribute to a scientific experiment? I laughed out loud.
"What is it?" Adam said.
"Nothing," I said. "I'm losing it."
"One-on-one?" Adam asked. "Not horse?" I should have said horse. Horse was the great equalizer. One person shot, and if it went in, the other person had to make the identical shot or get a letter. If someone got all five letters, he or she was out. You didn't have to be tall or wide; you just had to know how to shoot. I should love horse, and I like it all right, but nothing gets the adrenaline flowing like one-on-one, in-your-face contact ball.
Adam walked up with the ball and handed it to me. True to the ethics of pick-up ball, he knew better than to just throw it to me: I might take a shot before he had a chance to get into position. Would I do that? Yes, I would.
Adam went into a defensive crouch. He was playing very close to me, which wasn't exactly a surprise. Adam was no dummy, and my outside shot was falling. I'd have to drive on him to back him off or I wouldn't get a single outside shot, but it was hell to drive one-on-one with someone like Adam. Sure, I could fake him and get a step on him, but he'd catch up before I got to the basket.
I faked left and drove right. I got a step on him, and as he accelerated to catch up I stopped, faked in the direction I had been heading, and pivoted back for a left hook. It wasn't a good idea to throw up something I had not tried one single time in warm-up, but because of that, it was the only shot Adam wouldn't be expecting. Yes, and because of that, it was also the only shot I couldn't make. The ball went long and bounced around between the rim and the backboard.
I tried to follow my shot, of course, but Adam had already spun to block me out. He had his hands behind him to keep tabs on me, and I was trapped behind him. I could feel the heat of his body as we stood like two spoons, Adam in front and me behind, waiting for the ball to quit bouncing and come down. Adam was pushing back to keep me out, and I, of course, was trying to push him under the rim so I could get the ball over his head.
It was the usual jostling and pushing under the boards, so I don't know why it bothered me. But I was having trouble concentrating. Adam's hand was on my hip, and I could feel the warmth of it right through my shorts. I was acutely aware of the feeling of his back on my breasts. The ball came down, and I could feel the power in his body surge as he jumped for it.
He dribbled to the top of the key, and I followed. I had barely got in my defensive stance when he headed right back for the basket with the smallest of fakes. Arrogant bastard. I guess he felt he got enough speed he didn't need to bother to fake. I scrambled to keep up and managed to reach in and knock the ball away. Okay, so the NBA might have called it a foul, but in pick-up ball, no blood, no foul.
In any case, Adam didn't call a foul. He just laughed and retrieved the ball. To my surprise, he headed right back in again. He pivoted with his back to the basket and started edging in backward.
It was something Adam rarely did with me. Sure, he could score that way, but proving he had enough height to outscore me under the basket wasn't much of a challenge. If I didn't know better, I'd say Adam was enjoying getting me under the boards. Maybe he hadn't faked before because he wanted me to keep up with him. He kept edging backward, and I, of course, braced against him trying to keep him out. My hips were wedged against his backside, and I don't know who was fooling whom but there was a lot of contact.
Ordinarily this is not a
problem. Ordinarily I don't even notice this kind of thing in your average rough-and-tumble game of pick-up ball, but Adam's body was starting to get warm and moist from playing, and his breathing was getting deeper, and I was getting in over my head, which I found very confusing because it was so bizarre. Bizarre to be noticing this kind of thing on a basketball court. He wasn't helping any; he didn't seem to be in any hurry to shoot, but just kept dribbling backward back and forth across the lane.
"Three seconds," I said. In a real game you can't spend more than three seconds in the lane on offense. It's specifically to keep people from parking there, but I had never heard of anyone calling it in a pick-up game.
"Three seconds?" he said. "Now we're calling three seconds? Okay." And he wheeled into a fade-away jumper. 1-0 Adam.
"Losers keepers," I said, meaning if you made your shot, the other person got the ball. I didn't usually play that way, but if I didn't, I could spend all night under the boards with Adam, and I wanted to concentrate on the game. It was sacrilege to be concentrating on anything but basketball in a basketball game.
"Hold it," he said and took off his shirt. Oh, Jesus. Adam did a little weight-lifting, and he didn't have the usual skinny, caved-in chest of the average workaholic middle-aged weekend ballplayer. He had a very nice chest and God-given shoulders. So now he was wearing nothing but a pair of short-shorts. I had a fleeting thought of what it would be like to pull those shorts down, but I banished it. At least I tried to banish it and concentrate on the game. Just kneel down and slowly inch-by-inch pull those shorts down.