Lassiter 07 - Flesh and Bones by Levine, Paul (best fiction books to read TXT) 📗

Thinking.

Twice he had said it: "Anything you need, just ask."

Here's what I wanted to ask: Why this talk about insanity? Dr. Schein hadn't said anything about it, at least not to me. Insanity means confinement and treatment. Maybe you get out, and maybe you're John Hinckley.

And Seattle? There are a lot of institutions that are first rate, to use Guy's term. So why choose the one that's farthest from home?

Tracks of the Monster

If you're a lawyer in a TV show, you handle only one case at a time, wrap it up by the last pitch for Pepto-Bismol, after which you're toting your briefcase down the courthouse steps with a beautiful client congratulating you for a wonderful job.

Real life is different.

After lunch, I avoided three phone calls from Roberto Condom, who was leaving messages with Cindy on how to plea-bargain his gator-poaching case, the gist being that he would give the Wildlife Commission fifty-seven live gator eggs to replace the grown animals he'd killed. Next time he called, I'd ask him just where he'd get the eggs without stealing them or hatching them himself.

I also spent an hour not answering my mail, not drafting pleadings, and not attending a partners' meeting intended to choose new artwork for the office. The choice was between Wins-low Homer sailboats and Pablo Picasso nightmares. I once suggested that the conference room be decorated with several Jacques Cousteau shots of sharks in a feeding frenzy. No one took me seriously, except the managing partner, who slashed my bonus in half at the annual meeting where we devour thirty-two-ounce porterhouse steaks and carve up the profits. Firm motto:

We eat what we kill. The spoils are divided (and eaten and drunk) at the Fiscal Year Banquet, as the firm brochure describes it. Pig Pool is a better description.

Cindy was away from her desk, so I inadvertently accepted a call from Silvio Sánchez at the jail. He'd taken a fall as a serial diner, eating in expensive restaurants, just to get room and board on the county when he couldn't pay the tab. Now he wanted to sue because they don't serve decaffeinated coffee behind bars. All the caffeine was keeping him up, and surely that must violate his constitutional right to a good night's sleep.

I interviewed a new client, a man wearing leather pants, loafers without socks, an open-necked silk shirt, and a gold chain. If they were doing a remake of Saturday Night Fever, maybe Morris Gold could get a part, even though he was fifty-three years old and his shiny black toupee was out of kilter.

After he plopped down in the client chair, he asked, "Can I show you my dick?"

"Let's get to know each other first," I said. "Now, how did you come to visit Dr. Pedro Cordeón?"

"I saw his ad on TV. Right after American Gladiators."

I nodded appreciatively, as if this were an act of great diligence worthy of praise.

"So then I called the toll-free number, 1-8OO-BIG-COCK, for more information." Morris Gold pulled out a clipping and handed it to me.

"Circumferential Autologous Penile Engorgement," I read aloud. "What the hell is that?"

"CAPE. They liposuction fat from your stomach, then inject it into your dick. Makes it thicker." He winked and added with a little tune, "It takes two hands to handle the Whopper."

"Clever," I said. "What seems to be the problem?"

"You wanna see?"

"Later we'll take photos, put you on Hard Copy, whatever you want. For now, just tell me what's wrong. Have you become impotent? Is it misshapen? Why do you want to sue for malpractice?"

"It looks shorter."

"Looks? Is it or isn't it?"

"No, it's an optical illusion. By getting bigger around, my dick looks shorter. The doc should have warned me."

Should have warned.

Sure, we need to be warned not to stand on the top rung of a ladder, or not to crawl under the wheel when changing a tire, or that objects are closer than they appear in a rearview mirror. We are a fundamentally stupid people in the eyes of the law, and if we are surprised by perfectly logical risks in our lives, well . . . sue the bastards.

I buzzed Cindy, interrupting her weekly routine of painting her toenails fuchsia. At my request, she ushered Morris Gold out of the office, but not before taking him up on the offer of a sneak peak. She also advised him to eat more legumes and cut out all lactose, but I haven't the slightest idea why.

Having cleared my desk by simply placing everything on the floor, I opened Dr. Lawrence Schein's file and began reading. The notes corroborated what he had told me about Christina Bernhardt. Complaints of headaches, nightmares, feelings of dread. Bouts of insomnia alternating with patterns of lethargy and excessive sleep. Bulimia while a teenager, booze and cocaine by the time she hit twenty-one. A general, indefinable malaise for as long as she could remember. Blocks of missing memories from childhood.

I slipped a cassette into a portable player on my desk, pushed the Play button, stood, and walked to the window. From the thirty-second floor, I could see the beach at Virginia Key. A steady line of whitecaps, corduroy to the horizon. Twenty knots from the southeast. A few boardsailors were on the water, their outhauls pulled taut. I imagined the multicolored sails crackling in the wind, the whistle of a steady breeze through the boom. But the next sound I heard wasn't the wind at all.

"Do you feel you have to control your emotions?" Dr. Lawrence Schein asked.

A pause. Then Chrissy's voice. "Doesn't everyone?"

"No, not really. Do you overreact or misdirect your anger when you're frustrated?"

"I suppose so. Sometimes."

The scratch of pen on paper. Then, "Do you space out or daydream inappropriately?"

Another pause, and I found myself daydreaming about windsurfing. Maybe inappropriately, who the hell knows?

"Yes, I think so. I drift off sometimes."

The questions kept coming. "Do you feel different from other people? . . . Do you feel you have to be perfect? .