Mark Fishman - No. 22 Pleasure City

He chose his words carefully, they were informal and solemn because he was defending himself even though he didn’t like having to defend himself, but they’d put him neatly in a corner and now he was having a bout with his conscience.

“What sort of thing?” Aoyama said.

“Trust.”

“Be practical.”

“Of course, trust. I understand that,” Shimura said. “I wouldn’t betray someone’s trust either.”

“Then you’ve got my point. I’m spending considerable time with her, listening. I want to help her, now it’s important to me. She asked me to—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Shimura interrupted him. “Just hear what we’ve got to say. You abducted her.”

“But—”

“If she has confidence in you, then all you’ve got to do is convince her that it’s the right thing to do to let her go,” Aoyama reasoned.

“Therapy,” Fitch said.

“What?”

“What she’s asked me to do for her, it’s a sort of therapy.”

He’d betrayed Angela with a singular confidence and now Fitch felt sick and he asked Aoyama for another cigarette because he didn’t want to reach abruptly into his own pocket and then he sat there smoking it without moving his eyes from the quiet street beyond the window. No one said a word.

“Then she’s got to go home, to give herself up if that’s what it’s about, and to keep it out of the papers — she’ll have to pay you for that,” Aoyama said at last. “She’ll be glad to pay whatever you ask.” He paused. “Maybe there’ll even be some left over for the agency.” He looked at Shimura, who wasn’t looking at him.

Fitch turned his head sharply around to stare at Aoyama, his face contorted with anger, then he faced Shimura.

“As far as we’re concerned, we don’t want anything but her safe return,” Shimura said calmly, trying to reassure him.

“I’ll take the salary she’s offered me, nothing more. And you won’t get anything out of it,” Fitch said. “At this stage of the treatment, I can’t stop. I won’t change a thing.”

“Okay, Fitch, suit yourself.” Aoyama flicked his cigarette out the window and gave Fitch a threatening look.

“What are you going to do about it?” Fitch asked firmly.

“What do you think we’re going to do?”

“Hold on a minute,” Shimura said to Aoyama, playing his role as they’d arranged it. “It’s better to reason with him than to have to turn him over to the police.”

“Maybe it is, but he isn’t doing us any favors.”

“Why should I?”

“What do you suggest?” Shimura said.

“I’ll let you know. But right now I’ve got to get over to 4 Nightingale Lane,” Fitch said, reaching for the door handle.

“Wait a minute,” Shimura said.

“I’m late,” Fitch said, letting go the door handle, turning toward Shimura. “She won’t know what time it is because she doesn’t have a watch, but she’ll know that I’m late and it’ll work against what’s taken a week to accomplish.”

“You’re a responsible man, Fitch.” Aoyama faced the windshield and the night beyond it.

Fitch ignored him, reached again for the handle. As he got out of the car Shimura gave him a card with a phone number on it. Fitch turned around, stuck his head through the open window and said: “It may take a bit of time but we’ll do our best.”

“Hurry it up, Fitch. We’ll give you twenty-four hours,” Aoyama said.

The two men in the car wore satisfied expressions on their faces as they watched Fitch walk away, then looked at each other and smiled because what they knew about Fitch was that he was one of the few men in that line of work who played it straight.

Violet rubbed the sleep from her eyes. It was a late morning for her, already midday, and she’d just got out of bed. She stared at the clock on the wall next to the refrigerator. It was twelve-thirty. She made herself a cup of coffee, then sat at the kitchen table and stared out the window at the trees in the adjacent yard, a red pine and two eastern red cedar trees with sturdy branches.

She was already finished with the man who’d been at the hotel bar on Jackson. She’d gained nothing from it but another layer of disappointment in herself because it had ended badly just as nearly all her relationships with men came to a bad end. His messy blond hair and soft gray eyes were out of her life as quickly as they’d entered it. She hadn’t been as careful with him as she should have been and he turned out to be a lot smarter than she thought he was.

But she never felt better than when she found herself in a jam since a good thing in the shape of a new idea always came to her out of a difficult situation. She worked best when she was in a corner and had to fight her way out of it and the pressure was too much and it squeezed her thoughts hard until they forced a spark in her head that gave her a new idea.

She was still short on cash or at least she always thought she was and she wanted to get her hands on some money so she figured she’d catch somebody else sleeping who wasn’t expecting anything more than the routine and she’d make them pay for walking in their sleep.

The first cup of black coffee went down smoothly and she accompanied the second with two slices of toasted bread and strawberry and rhubarb conserve and when she’d finished the second cup her mean, scheming little mind thought of the man who’d smashed in Burnett’s face, Burt Pohl.

Angela leaned awkwardly against the filthy bathtub with her hands tied behind her back and her eyes blindfolded as Fitch sat quietly reading the notes he’d taken from their last session. He wasn’t bothered by what Shimura and Aoyama had said and he didn’t want to waste any time worrying about it until he’d pulled Angela a bit further along the path she’d made for herself by speaking the truth.

He looked at his wristwatch. It was nine-thirty. He straightened his tie and smoothed it down under his crumpled linen suit jacket.

“I want to see your face,” she said.

He put the notebook on the edge of the sink and untied her blindfold.

He ignored her steady gaze, picked up his notebook and said: “Let’s begin.” He caressed the barrel of the pen with his fingertips, waiting.

“You’re late.” Her voice was quiet.

He didn’t reply. She looked at him without blinking her sea-blue eyes.

“I was worried you wouldn’t come.”

He calmly returned her gaze.

“I know that I love you,” Angela said. It came out of her mouth like a shot.

Fitch didn’t say a thing.

She repeated: “I love you, you know.” Her voice trailed off.

He cleared his throat and said at last: “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to let it ride. I’m going to sit back and watch you louse yourself up. And come to think of it, it’ll be a pleasure.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say to anybody.”

“I’m trying to make a point,” he said.

“You don’t believe me.” She’d made a flat statement that struck him as the truth.

“That’s more like it,” he said, nodding. “No, I don’t believe you. I know that you believe what you’re saying, but it’s not love.”

“No, Fitch. I’m leveling with you.”

“You’ve been playing with that thought since the other night when it came to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean the love angle.”

“Angles have got nothing to do with it,” she said, her voice turning a bit aggressive. “I’m being straight with you and you know it.”

Fitch scribbled a line in his notebook.

“Quit writing and listen to me.”