Borderline Page 15

  It was Hanson who broke contact a few moments later. “Louis, maybe you should be doing therapy on me.”

  “But I do. I can tell you got a bee in your bonnet over Tammy’s death. It gives you a sense of purpose but fucks up your head. Like going to that strip bar.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “What’s the point of being old if you ain’t wise? I got lots of friends in town. That’s why you should work with me. You wanna know more about Vic.”

  “Such as?”

  “Now I’ve got your interest.” Louis sat back in the chair. “I won’t make you beg. Tammy was hoping to bring him in on her big deal. She told me she didn’t trust him, didn’t want to cut him in, but thought she might have to.”

  “What big deal?”

  “That I don’t know. I do know you’ve been bit by the investigating bug. You can’t tell if snooping is the right thing to do, but it feels like something you’ve got to do.”

  “What makes you say that?” Hanson asked, trying to not show surprise at Parker’s insight.

  “A good investigator is like a good shrink. Thinks a lot about people and what makes them tick. Asks questions, makes observations, tests hunches. You probably call them hypotheses or something, but that’s ’cause you got the fancy plaque on the wall.”

  “You continue to educate me, Louis.”

  Parker beamed. “Gotta go, Doc. You think about what I said. We’ll check in at our next appointment.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  Parker nodded and headed out. Hanson sat back, amused and confused. Given budget constraints, it was hard to justify the meetings with Parker. But Hanson had been around long enough that he could write a managed-care-acceptable, evidence-based practice progress note that showed that Parker still met criteria for medical necessity. “Explored and addressed symptoms of isolation and loneliness which had the potential to aggravate his age-related dysthymia. Identified and challenged negative cognitions. Blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. Continue treatment plan.”

  He was tucking the note in the chart when Betty Pearlman waved for him down the hall. He guessed that there was some crisis, one of the young clinicians dealing with a 4:55 suicide caller.

  “You got a tux?” Pearlman asked when he stepped into her office.

  “Huh?”

  “Tux. Or a fancy suit?”

  “I’ve got a gray suit I haven’t worn in years that came from Nordstrom.”

  “Dust off the mothballs. You’re going to be our agency representative at the civic awards ceremony this Saturday.”

  “I hate that crap. Why don’t you send someone who likes monkey suits and rubber chickens? Maybe Hanrahan.” Hanrahan was a young man with large ambitions, who had his eyes on being at least a director within the next few years. The kind who would shake hands while looking over your shoulder to see if there was anyone better to suck up to in the room.

  “Someone put in the word with the CEO. They want you and your wife as the guests. You must’ve done something right.”

  “Or wrong.”

  “No, for wrong they don’t give you the seven-course dinner. You know which fork to use for the salad?”

  “The same one I use to clean my ears?”

  “You see, you are getting refined. Ten years ago, you would’ve chosen another part of your anatomy.”

  “Over the past ten years I’ve learned how delicate a flower you are.”

  “Screw you too,” she said fondly. “Go home and read Emily Post.”

  “I prefer The Anarchist Cookbook. Seriously, want to go instead of me?”

  “Seriously, no,” she said. “Besides, they wanted you.”

  “I don’t understand why.”

  “Maybe because of that pregnant woman you talked off the bridge.”

  “That was four, five months ago.”

  “Yeah, but it got a fair amount of press. You never know when a politician is going to decide to cash in on it. All I ask, see if you can get more funding out of them.”

  On the ride home, Hanson mulled it over. Maybe it was the pregnant-jumper case. She had been in her twenties, from a well-established family, pregnant by a lower-class boyfriend her parents didn’t approve of, who had dumped her after finding out he was going to be a father.

  Hanson had been driving home from work, seen her at the railing, and spent more than an hour talking with her. There had been a photo in the newspaper of her leaning over the edge with him a few feet away, his face showing compassionate concern. Every time Hanson drove over the bridge, he thought of her and wondered where she was. He was still wondering about the young woman when he pulled into his driveway. “Hey, Jeanie, I’m home.”

  He could tell right away from her stiff posture that something was wrong. After so many years together, reading each other’s mood was as easy as guessing whether it would rain in the Northwest winter. Knowing what was driving the mood was a lot harder. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Nothing. I had a tough day. What about you?” she asked with more intensity than the question called for.

  “Not bad. But something’s a little odd. We have any plans for Saturday night?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, get out one of your nice outfits. We’re going to the mayor’s civic awards ceremony.”

  She blanched and said, “What?”

  “We were invited. Maybe because of that pregnant woman I talked off the bridge. Not really sure why. But it’s definitely a command performance.”

  He had expected her to be excited at the chance to socialize with the elite. Instead she hustled into the bedroom and shut the door.

  He made himself a TV dinner. After a half hour, he knocked at the door, then opened it slowly. She was sitting on the bed staring at Wheel of Fortune on the TV. She never watched Wheel of Fortune.

  “Honey, what’s going on?”

  She shook her head.

  “This isn’t the reaction I expected,” he said.

  “What did you expect?” she asked angrily. “Oh, goody. I’m supposed to be available to go wherever you want whenever you want. Well, I’ve got a life too, you know.”

  “You had something planned for Saturday?”

  “No, but I could have.”

  “I told you this was sprung on me today. I—”

  “Leave me alone,” she said, turning up the volume. The player spun the wheel, it came up bankrupt. The audience groaned while Pat Sajak offered his sympathy.

  Brian stood in the doorway, looking at his wife, who sullenly stared at the TV.

  “Is there anything you want to talk about?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Sajak’s voice brought back memories from when the TV personality was an Army disc jockey, with a hearty “Good morning, Vietnam” his tagline.

  He went to his gym and worked out, pounding the bag to exorcise frustration. He was unsure what the dinner invitation meant and needed to discuss it with her. Once again, she wasn’t there for him.

  An hour later he had worked up a sweat, but his anger had only deepened. As he’d pummeled the bag, he’d kept thinking about Vic throwing him out. Louis’s comments had made it clear that there was more to be discovered there. With each punch, Hanson had gotten more determined to find out what Vic knew. The counselor convinced himself that assuaging his own pride was a very secondary motivation. He pulled on a black hooded sweatshirt and left his wife a note saying, “Went out. Back by midnight.”

  Driving to the bar, he thought of all he could lose by getting in a fight. He dismissed being physically injured, but the damage to his reputation and licensure was considerable. He turned on an oldies station and Mick Jagger urged “Sympathy for the Devil.” Brian felt like a cartoon character with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. The devil was much more persistent.

  With sweatshirt hood pulled around his head, he looked like someone trying to hide his identity. Which wasn’t unusual at the strip bar.

&nbs
p; The spotlighted stage area was actually brighter lit than the street outside. As he scanned the crowd, he barely registered the dancer, a voluptuous white woman with a big butterfly tattoo on her back. Vic was nowhere in sight.

  A six-foot five-inch thick-necked type in a leather vest was eyeing him suspiciously. The bouncer had a broken nose and a ridge of scar tissue he wore proudly along his brow. Hanson took a seat toward the back and ordered an overpriced Seven-Up. It was the same androgynous waitress he had had before, but she didn’t recognize him.

  Hanson was in his “spider sense” threat-evaluation mode. He scanned the crowd, looking for cops, troublemakers, anyone who might know him. Nothing. He sipped the drink and waited for the bouncer to get distracted. The bouncer spent most of his time ogling the dancer, occasionally talking to one of the female bartenders or a waitress. His overmuscled presence was deterrent enough for most rowdy patrons.

  While the bouncer was distracted by a loudmouthed drunk at the far end of the bar, Hanson moved briskly back to Vic’s office. He moved on the balls of his feet, silent, even though the thumping beat of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” muffled any sound he made.

  The moment before the raid. No matter how much noise, the pounding of the pulse in his temples was always loudest. War isn’t seen, it’s heard, and felt. Where would the first shot come from? Who was going to die? Was there a hidden trip wire, a Bouncing Betty mine? An AK-47 trained on him as he prepared?

  Then there was the great wash of adrenaline, the surge that would carry him in screaming, his comrades by his side, killing anything that moved before them. VC, NVA, or any poor peasant who happened to be in the way.

  The bar was more than a trigger for his addiction. The sweaty smells, smoke laced with spilled beer. The noise of a thumping bass through cheap speakers. A writhing nearly naked female figure surrounded by darkness and shadowy figures. It was every dive in Saigon, on Patpong Road in Bangkok, Olangapo in the Philippines, or anywhere horny young men found solace.

  The door to Vic’s office was open and he slipped in. Vic sat behind the desk, laying out lines of coke.

  “You’re not very smart, are you?” Vic asked, quickly pulling a gun from the drawer.

  Hanson raised his hands wordlessly. At the roughly six feet between them, he couldn’t reach Vic in the time it would take the bar owner to fire. Best to stand still and let the bar owner, who thought the gun in his hand gave him complete control, close the distance.

  Vic got up from behind the desk and moved toward him. His glittering eyes and jerky movements betrayed the coke already in his system. “This is what I get for being a nice guy. I’m going to make up for my mistake.”

  “I want to talk.”

  “Really, how special,” Vic said. He was about four feet away. Hanson was unconsciously calculating distances, times. One foot closer. Vic paused. “I’d fucking blow you away if it wouldn’t screw up my liquor license. Instead, I’ll give you time to think about things. How about a week in the hospital?”

  The bar owner threw a left jab first while keeping the gun aimed at Hanson’s middle. But as Vic’s attention focused on his punch, Hanson gently blocked it with a fast-moving slap from his own left. His right hand slapped the gun sideways, back toward Vic. Hanson grabbed the bar owner’s throat, catching his Adam’s apple in the webbing between thumb and index finger.

  Vic struggled to breathe and lift the gun. Hanson grabbed the barrel with his right hand and twisted back hard, breaking Vic’s trigger finger. He yanked the gun free and smashed the butt on Vic’s head. The whole fight had taken a little over a second.

  Vic was bleeding from his temple, gasping for breath, and dizzy from the pain of his broken finger. Hanson twirled the weapon gunfighter-style and tucked it into his waistband.

  Vic, moaning, was bent double.

  Hanson’s voice was soft, barely audible, as he growled, “You’re in a lot of pain from that finger. It would be unfortunate if I had to break another one.”

  “You fuck, you fuck,” Vic said through gritted teeth.

  “That’s your right index finger. What should be next? I’ve heard pinkies are surprisingly sensitive.”

  “You fucking fuck fuck,” Vic said, heaving and dribbling spittle. Hanson reached for him and Vic cringed. “Stay away from me.” “You’ve got something to tell me about Tammy, something you forgot to mention.”

  “Fuck you, you fuck, I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

  Hanson moved quickly, grabbing Vic’s wrist and twisting in a kote-gaishi lock that rotated his palm toward the pinkie edge of his hand and dropped him to the floor.

  “Tell me about Tammy. What’re you holding out? What’s worth a few broken fingers and maybe a broken wrist?”

  The bar owner winced as Hanson applied a few ounces of pressure. “She came in here about a week ago, with a guy who looked like one of them ZZ Top characters.”

  “What do you mean ZZ Top? Give me a better description.”

  Vic hesitated and Hanson applied pressure.

  “White guy, long beard and dark glasses. Couldn’t tell hair color.”

  “How old, anything I can identify?”

  “Somewhere between forty and sixty. Average height and weight, brownish hair, if it wasn’t a wig. The beard was fake, I’m pretty sure.” Hanson held his index finger tight and moved it slightly, making a noisy pop. Vic continued, “She had been in a few days earlier, without anyone. I asked if she wanted to pick up a shift, fold her another girl was out sick. She said no, that she had some big deal cooking. Wouldn’t give me details.”

  The door swung open suddenly, and the doorway filled with the bouncer’s bulk. “You okay?” he asked Vic.

  “Do I look okay, you dumb fuck? Get this guy out of here.”

  The bouncer tried to surprise Hanson by raising his hands as if he were going to throw a punch but attempted a snap kick as the initial attack. A foot in the belly or groin would have been a stunner for most drunks. Hanson was neither drunk nor an amateur and the bouncer’s movements were as clumsy as if he were attacking underwater.

  Hanson sidestepped the kick, caught the foot, and yanked it up higher. The bouncer landed flat on his back, knocking the air out and bashing his head on the cement floor. Hanson stood over him, ready to deliver a kick, but the bouncer was unconscious. Hanson felt his neck—there was a strong pulse.

  “I would’ve thought he had a harder skull,” Hanson said to Vic, who was leaning on his desk for support. “Now, what else can you tell me about ZZ Top?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Anything about his voice, his movements?”

  Vic seemed to really be considering the question. “Didn’t hear his voice. Him and Tammy were talking in each other’s ears, playing kissy face. I saw him go to the john once. He didn’t move like an old man, but I’d guess he wasn’t a twenty-year-old either. Maybe fifty to sixty. Skin wasn’t pale, but not dark either.”

  “Now what about Trixie?”

  “Trixie? Which one? I know about four.”

  “Friend of Tammy’s. In her twenties. Brunette, kinky, swings both ways?”

  “She never danced here. Not that I can remember them all, they come and go so fast.”

  The bouncer groaned.

  Hanson thought back to Vietnam, to interrogations that had gotten out of hand. The little man, down on his knees, eyes taped shut, hand tied behind his head, might have known who killed your buddy the night before. Hanson would leave when the spooky-spooks came, the ones who enjoyed inflicting pain, offering prisoners flight lessons from Hueys.

  “Pity we couldn’t chat peacefully,” Hanson said. “Maybe next time.”

  “You’re a fucking head case,” Vic said.

  “I suppose so,” Hanson said, abruptly walking out on Vic and the reviving bouncer. As Hanson passed through the bar, the smells of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and sweat called to him like Sirens to Ulysses. How many times had he lost himself in a Saigon bar? Sweet, petite barmaids, with squeaky
giggles and girlish ways. More hardened than a Marine Corps drill instructor.

  Brian focused on the current moment. The women looked different. There wasn’t the sound of mortar or cannon, or the thump of bombs in the distance. Nor the fertile, mildewy humidity that enveloped the tropics. No one was wearing camos, and there wasn’t a gun in sight. Brian made it to his car without stopping or melting down. One minute at a time.

  Hanson drove halfway home, then pulled into a gas station and called the only person who he thought might understand. McFarlane’s machine was on. It was reassuring hearing his voice.

  “This is Hanson. I had a relapse. Not using substances, more of a dry-drunk. I’m feeling grounded right now, but it would be good to talk.” On his way home, after a brief internal debate, he detoured to toss Vic’s gun in the Willamette River.

  TWELVE

  “It felt good,” Hanson said as he and McFarlane sat on the green-slatted park bench. There were names carved into the wood of young men whose major achievement was that they could carve their name into a park bench and of lovers wanting to proclaim their passion.

  The popcorn gone, they sipped Starbucks coffees and stared at the pond where ducks quacked harshly. A low-lying fog concealed the birds and softened the scenery. The park had been designed by the same family of landscape architects that did Central Park in New York.

  “So good it was scary,” McFarlane said.

  Hanson nodded and said, “I was closer to relapsing than I’ve been in years.”

  “You were high on your anger. Rage-aholic.”

  “I guess. But there was more to it.”

  McFarlane rotated the hot paper cup in his hands. “You sure it’s not just stinkin’ thinkin’?”

  “Doesn’t feel like it. I was in the groove.”

  “Why’d you call me, then?”

  Hanson hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said this morning.”

  A pretty brunette jogger passed, tugged forward by a gleaming black Labrador. McFarlane’s eyes followed the woman until she disappeared into the fog. “Nice.” He returned his attention to Hanson. “Even if the war was screwed up, you served your country.”