by Herbert Gold
When a Psychopath
Falls in Love
Also by Herbert Gold
Novels
Birth of a Hero
The Prospect Before Us
The Man Who Was Not With It
The Optimist
Therefore Be Bold
Salt
Fathers
The Great American Jackpot
Swiftie the Magician
Waiting for Cordelia
Slave Trade
He/She
Family
True Love
Mister White Eyes
A Girl of Forty
Dreaming
She Took my Arm as if She Loved Me
Daughter Mine
Short Stories and Essays
Love & Like
The Age of Happy Problems
The Magic Will: Stories
and Essays of a Decade
Lovers and Cohorts:
Twenty-Seven Stories
nonfiction
Biafra Goodbye
My Last Two Thousand Years
A Walk on the West Side:
California on the Brink
Travels in San Francisco
Best Nightmare on Earth: A Life in Haiti (reissued as Haiti:
Best Nightmare on Earth)
Still Alive: A Temporary Condition
(reissued as Not Dead Yet)
Bohemia: Where Art, Angst, Love,
and Strong Coffee Meet
Herbert Gold
When a Psychopath
Falls in Love
A Novel
Copyright © 2015 Herbert Gold
All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 0988412276
ISBN-13: 978-0-9884122-7-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014940261
Cover: Keith Carlson
Jorvik Press
PMB 424, 5331 SW Macadam Ave., Ste 258,
Portland, Oregon 97239
JorvikPress.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Herbert Gold was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1924 and raised in the suburb of Lakewood. After several of his poems were accepted by New York literary magazines, he moved to New York at age seventeen and studied philosophy at Columbia University. While there, he fell in with the burgeoning Beat Generation and befriended many writers, including Anaïs Nin and Allen Ginsberg.
Gold won a Fulbright fellowship in his early twenties and moved to Paris, where he did graduate studies at the Sorbonne and worked on his first novel, Birth of a Hero, published in 1951. Since then he has written more than thirty books and received several awards, including the Sherwood Anderson Award for Fiction, the Commonwealth Club Gold Medal and the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley and at Stanford, Cornell and Harvard.
Since 1960 he has lived in San Francisco. When a Psychopath Falls in Love is his twentieth novel.
For my daughters,
Ann, Judy and Nina,
and my sons, Ari and Ethan.
You are blessings for me
Prologue
In his life filled with distractions and occasional secret lusts and rages that seemed perfectly justified to him – they were his, after all – Dan Kasdan had never killed anyone; never shot, strangled, poisoned, or stabbed – not even once. As a rational person, he believed that the first time should be fully earned.
He considered his incentives and found them reasonable. It was for the young woman who called herself Petal, which was not what her parents had named her, and how Dan and Petal shuddered into each other. It was for Amanda, his daughter, and Sergei, Amanda’s son. It was for D’Wayne, his daughter’s husband. And might as well admit the truth, it was for Dan Kasdan himself, because it was his first murder.
Earned or not, it became his life’s desire and his plan.
A clacking sound grew near. Overhead, gulls were fleeing, wheeling around, swooping, celebrating their wings, consecrating their dominion over the sky of San Francisco, darting onto morsels of urban street sushi, just as their mammal neighbors not far away, the scavenging seals of Pier 39, were snatching sea takeout into their snouts. These colleagues had developed an appetite for happenstance food. Ferd Conway grinned and waved skywards, accepting good fellowship with the gulls. He was fond of snacking, too. Pigeons or gulls, seals or sea lions, it didn’t matter what folks called them. Like Ferd, they had found a congenial home in this corner of the universe.
He was a friendly attorney-at-law, Ferdinand Conway, Esq., only called Ferdie sarcastically (recently by an investor in a sure thing project that became the victim of circumstances beyond the general partner’s control); but he was Ferd for almost everyone, a bite-sized name for a likeable dude, a live-and-let-live dude despite the formal “Esq.” on his business cards. Silence didn’t fit his lifestyle.
Due to the little problem between them, Ferd Conway had invited Dan Kasdan, his dearest friend and partner, to an air-clearing stroll among Mother Nature; that is, on the paths that followed the contours of the Bay between Aquatic Park, Fisherman’s Wharf, and Pier 39. Other than a few hundred tourists, a tag team of bongo virtuosos gathered in the WPA-era cement Roman ruin bleachers, and competing antique ghetto blasters broadcasting rap calls to revolution, all was peace and harmony. Ferd, grateful for Dan’s forbearance, kept the silence for a moment, in case Dan wanted to offer something in the way of reproach. Why should a bird migrate toward the open sea when it could supplement the avian food group pyramid with discarded soft McDonald’s buns, garnished with mayonnaise, ketchup, and human saliva? The pterodactyls had gone extinct too soon. If they had only hung in there, Wendy’s, Burger King and Big Whoppers could have set up a bulwark against the ice age. “You know what the stock ticker symbol for McDonald’s is? Same as the first three letters.”
Kasdan waited.
“MCD. Ray Croc was a submarine, sneaked by the terrorists into Indiana or Iowa, wherever the hell. MCD, man – Mad Cow Disease!”
Ferd hated silence. The murmur of nature lovers on their cell phones and the cries of tourist children, needing immediate snacks, only deepened the silence between Dan and Ferd. He ducked as the flock swirled overhead. Once his hair had been the victim of an earthbound splat, and it was just after a nice professional shampoo, and the memory haunted him. Still, Ferd clung to a mood of fondness. The gulls, the barking seals, even the tourists, and Dan Kasdan were all his fellow seekers.
He scanned the sky, examined his shoes, aimed his suspicions at the sky again. “I’m a loyal friend if you’ll excuse a little shiftiness due to the times, amigo. This is America.”
“Thanks for leveling.”
“You’ll have a beautiful goddess to worship, I don’t care how old you get to be, plus the financials to keep her horny. Need I say more?” He read Kasdan’s expression. “Okay, I’ll say more. Security for your grandson the Crip, please excuse the expression, is what I really concentrate on. Your only daughter, plus the future healthy grandkids, no more retards, who she might bless you with later on... Not that a goddess to worship is anything to sneeze at, either. You know where Cartier is? Tiffany, downtown? Every goddess I ever met is a normal female unit. Rubies are red, pearls are white, your goddess likes jewelry, she’ll pump you all night?” He winced with appreciation of himself. “I’m a poet, who knew? But back then I figured to pass the Bar for the ample security. Some guys just settle into interpreting for the Speedy Gonzales chulos with low hourly rates…”
“Thanks for telling me where I went wrong,” Kasdan said.
“… and less security. You’re not even Civil Service. But with my help, thanks to me, I will never lie to you, amigo. D
idn’t a president say that, a primo example to all? I swear, I won’t mislead you, neither.” Was that a look of panic? Was he going too far? “Unless I do it for my own good, then of course it’s understandable. I’m a normal male unit. Ferd Giveth, Ferd Taketh Away.”
Ferd Conway grinneth, also. He believed teasing, right-on teasing, was one of his strong points, but sometimes, with the best intentions and all the good will in the City and County of San Francisco, it misfired. He knew how to deal with it. Looked nonchalant. Looked blithe. A minor embarrassment, more like acknowledging a burp than flatulence. He picked up the pace of their stroll along the beach at Aquatic Park with its babies and mothers, sturdy Dolphin Club swimmers out in the water, chattering schizophrenics, invigorating salt smells mixed with tidal urban wash. Now that the little problems about Amanda and Petal had been smoothed over, thanks to Ferd’s grace under pressure, his savoir get-along, surely Dan could see these hiccups in their friendship in the right light, put them into perspective for his own benefit, as Ferd sincerely desired.
Good thing seals didn’t fly like gulls. Nobody’s fresh shampoo or clean shoes would be safe.
Later that morning, Kasdan was home on Eddy in the upstairs flat which was what the career of translating for the many Speedy Gonzales of the criminal justice system had earned him in the way of housing. Despite his efforts to simplify his passage on earth, his mission in life turned out to be to interpret and sort through too much personal data.
Amanda, the daughter who had found him, was beautiful; not her fault. To be the young mother of Sergei…
Love and trouble do happen. Ferd’s appreciation of her wasn’t really Ferd’s fault, but perhaps it was. Many men might be tempted, and in Ferd’s case, feeling so close to Dan, maybe it seemed logical for him to crave Amanda. It was only human. Green sprouts push through cracks in asphalt or cement; the alleys of San Francisco give fertile hospitality to seeds blown by the wind and dropped by birds; dusty shoots hang on during the dry seasons; Ferd Conway loved. He freely acknowledged himself as a normal male unit.
Amanda’s dark-eyed beauty was her mother’s fault (Kasdan remembered that Margaret had muttered in Spanish when they made love). And Amanda’s lostness and need? Margaret’s fault, who never told her three-night lover that they had a child. Or Dan’s, who should have suspected something, who was only searched out and unearthed by his daughter when she was already a young woman. So now things were as they were.
Kasdan padded about in his socks, no shoes, picking up dust, opening and shutting the cupboard with his small stock of tomato soup, baked beans, corned beef hash, Dinty Moore fuel, tracking blame. He kept emergency rations in case of flu or debilitating gloom. He was practicing at home the craft of tranquil and preferably silent killing. He knew it was important to plan and anticipate. He turned it into a kitchen project. He pushed two cans of StarKist Chunk Light tuna fish into one of his socks and slapped it into his hand. Ouch. Swung hard against a skull, it would cause damage. He stared at the sock, dust balls still clinging to it. His left foot felt cold. Murder by tuna fish seemed undignified.
Then he tried a device one of his translation clients, a veteran of Soledad, had proudly described to him. Using a cigarette lighter – a Bic in an ashtray, left over from his smoking times – he melted one end of a toothbrush and embedded a razor blade in the plastic. The plastic cooled, the razor now barely visible. Pasqual Ramirez had explained about hiding it in his clothes… No. Unless he sliced an artery deeply and quickly, it would be slow, messy, and distressing. Out in the world there was no shortage of knives.
He stacked the tuna fish back on its shelf and pulled the sock back onto his foot. He finished off a Safeway orange juice carton and disposed of the toothbrush in the outgoing trash.
Poison was only an idea, a bad one, too complicated.
His personal strength might be sufficient for strangling, especially given the advantage of surprise, but probably not.
So it came down to a knife. Sometimes simple answers are the best.
Fred Conway’s condo was spotless until just a moment ago.
“It’s over now, Ferd.” Kasdan gripped the knife, point up, in ungloved hands. Blood and something like mucous, maybe it was mucous, trickled down his arm. He could deal with the matter of fingerprints later.
The genuine surprise enacted on Ferd’s face caused the same twitches, eyes-wide stare, and backing away gestures as the repertory of mock surprise during his normal business negotiations. He had no previous experience with being killed. Also, he was used to doing most of the talking.
“It’s past time for you,” Kasdan said.
Ferd extended his arms, palms forward. He was only human, like anyone else; and besides, he had no weapon. “Hey, you’re not even giving me a chance to defend myself.”
“Pick up something heavy.”
“I don’t want to do that. You’re my buddy.”
“Mi amigo, right?”
“My cowboy.” He was smiling and moving toward Kasdan, who stepped backwards. Dan’s lower back bumped against the wall. His shoulders must have been hunched; they didn’t touch the wall.
“Hey, hey,” said Ferd soothingly.
But Dan slipped sideways, not wanting to be touched, knocking over a lamp, glass shattering. It crunched under foot like snow.
“That’s my favorite lamp,” Ferd said. There was reproach in his tone. “It’s Tiffany, from a yard sale in Fairfax. You should be more careful, please.”
Kasdan stared at the kaleidoscope shards mixed with strips of plastic.
“You’re not serious, are you? You’re just testing, aren’t you?”
The leaded separations between the colored glass weren’t leaded at all. They were glue and plastic. Kasdan knew it was wrong to be distracted by the thought of a Cost Plus Imports lamp from Taiwan which had traveled into the bedroom of folks in Fairfax who later changed their minds and moved it into their yard on a Saturday afternoon. This was one of Kasdan’s bad habits, his thoughts drifting, at the mercy of distraction, settling for a skimpy life… And finally the lamp had been carried into Ferd’s condo, where Dan Kasdan was putting an end to things.
Ferd’s lips were bunched in a pout. He opened his hands again. Still nothing to hide; stretched open his pink-palmed hands, pink with normal blood circulating normally, amigo, the blood of a fellow human being.
“You want to see how I’ll, I don’t know, beg or plead, one of them? Yo, amigo?”
He was moving closer. Kasdan held the knife handle down because he had heard it was how a knife should be held in combat, but the blade up, pointing toward what he believed, without formal training in anatomy, to be vital organs. Ferd stopped moving.
“How many times I got to ask if you’re serious, Dan? Now I really need the answer, okay?”
No answer.
“See, Dan, I know how it looks, but I really like Amanda a lot. She’s special. A mature guy like me could be a good friend to her over the long term. No need for D’Wayne to find out or even suspect, and why should he care if he doesn’t know? A shower and you’re clean again. Everybody’s got a little history. But okay, I could just stop, back off… So you’re not serious, am I right?”
Now he might say it takes two to tango and Dan shouldn’t step in the way of nature, and this is San Francisco, after all – but he didn’t. He said something else. With a knife near his peristaltic regions, in the dangerous ready position, twitching upwards, preparing to slide upwards, Ferd avoided the blah-blah-blah of poetry about the force of nature in a place of perpetual springtime. It was time for practicality, designer brass tacks out of the Ferd Conway Law Office.
“Okay, I know, I admit it, always knew, that’s why I decided to be your buddy, even-steven, anything I make, half is yours, okay? Like part of your family – look at it that way. You can oversee the counting. Halfies, man. Do the accounting yourself if you like figures, okay? I admire you cause there’s a lot of dog in you, even if you don’t bark much.
How’s about that? So bark, will you?”
A space of silence to give Kasdan time for consideration. Space of silence ended.
“Why don’t you, cat got your tongue? My opinion, why waste words, but I think I’m asking in a nice way.”
Kasdan was trying to hold his extended hand steady. The knife was vibrating a little. It was an unfamiliar posture, right arm stretched out, hand gripping, fingers tight. He had prepared for the occasion by buying a switchblade with a good fit in the handle, but it was meant to be a slicing instrument, not a waiting one. He was standing in Ferd’s condominium, fully equipped with a range of human emotions, only asking decent gratification, just as his clients did, the miscreants and the merely hot-tempered, who had trouble with both impulse control and the American language.
Kasdan’s lips were moving as if he were counting. Ferd took this as a good sign. Kasdan was continuing the discussion with himself, counting Ferd’s virtues, the plusses and minuses, sure that other qualities, both positive and negative, would reveal themselves in due course if he put his mind to it.
No gold chains. (Not since the Seventies.)
Showered every day. (Except when late for a hearing.)
Generous splashes of aftershave. (Not necessarily a virtue.)
Also helped the frail and distraught mother of a client, Enrique Gutierrez, a miscreant, a stupid schmuck who thought he could shoplift a stack of negligees at Victoria’s Secret, cross dangerous Bryant, in front of the Hall of Justice, steadying with his arm the stupid madre of the stupid jackoff shoplifter. Kasdan, who translated for Enrique, was watching; he noticed; Ferd’s eyes in their restless scanning had made sure of this. On the other side of Bryant, on the steps of the Hall of Justice, Ferd slapped his hands together to try to shed the madre’s burrito aromas off his person, but smiled magnanimously, like a priest, over the pleasure of doing a nearly rewardless good deed.