David Wiltse - Bone Deep

With self-disgust and a deep sense of shame, he turned to a private detective. When he confronted her, he wanted to know the facts. He was prepared to forgive her, to work even harder to make her happy-but he had to know the truth, and he no longer trusted her to give it to him.

His quandary, however, was to protect his wife. If she were the object of an investigation, it could slip out in the myriad ways that rumors did. A woman in her position in the Bureau had to be Caesar's wife, beyond even the suggestion of impropriety. It could not be known that Karen was being watched; it could not be known that her husband had ordered the surveillance. Becker ordered the tail to be put on Stanley Kom.

Karen was deep in the analysis of a number of unsolved bombings that had taken place over a fifteen-year span. Three people had been killed in the bombings, many wounded, and hundreds of millions of dollars had been lost in the explosions. Karen, goaded by Deputy Director Hatcher, was attempting to establish the case that the bombings were linked, which would make the bomber a serial killer by the Bureau's definition. There was little doubt in Karen's mind that Hatcher wanted her Serial Killings department to become involved so that he could justify putting Becker on the case. Becker despised Hatcher and had refused to ever work directly for the man again. Karen knew that he hated Hatcher for good reason; she also knew that Hatcher wanted to use Becker for good reason. As a high-level administrator she had a duty to her superior. As a woman she had a duty to the man she loved. Performing the calculus that stabilized these two duties was a difficulty with which she had struggled almost since meeting Becker. Being made head of the department had only increased the problem.

She took Kom's call as a welcome distraction. "I know I shouldn't bother you at work, but I really needed to hear a friendly voice," he said. She could hear the smile in his tone, but the sadness, too.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, Tovah, of course. You don't know how lucky you are, married to a man who you get along with so well."

"We have our rocky times," Karen said, then hastily added, "But I know that I'm lucky."

"No relationship is perfect, I didn't mean that," Kom said. "I know there must be times when you wish John were different in some way… I mean, everyone wishes that at some time, don't they? Or am I just crazy?"

"No, everyone wishes that sometimes."

"But Tovah… Christ, I get so lonely."

"Oh, Stanley. I'm sorry."

"I can't talk to her. Her paranoia is bad enough, but then I can't trust her either. If I say something private to her 1 don't know who else is going to hear it. One of her lovers? Can you imagine how that feels, thinking maybe she's lying in bed with another man, laughing and telling him some secret I told her?"

"I'm so sorry, Stanley."

"Who in hell am I supposed to talk to, Karen? I have feelings that I need to express, you know what it's like, you have to share your life or it's almost like you're not living it at all. Who can I share with?

I've tried John, but he just doesn't seem to want my friendship, not on the level I need."

"John takes time…" she started.

"Who can I talk to, Karen? Who can I talk to?"

"You can talk to me, Stanley," Karen said. She did not see how she could say otherwise. She heard the catch in his breath and knew that he was moved.

"Bless you," he said. "You're a wonderful woman. A wonderful, wonderful woman. I'll tell you, Karen, the few times we've been able to talk the last few weeks are the moments I'm hanging on to. If I didn't have those, if I didn't have that outlet at least- You're saving my life here. "

"I'm glad I can help, I wish there were something.

"Just let me talk to you. You are so compassionate. I mean it, I really mean it. You have such a good heart, it comes out, it just radiates, it affects everyone around you. I can feel the warmth just being in the same room, it's like, you're like a stove, Karen, you're so warm."

Karen laughed. "Stanley, you're just lonely."

"God yes, I am, that's true, but-what are you saying, that I wouldn't feel your warmth otherwise? You don't know, how would you know what your presence feels like? You're the source of it, not the recipient.

I'm telling you that you're a godsend, you're a lifesaver… Listen, I'm going nuts again, have you been listening to me?"

"Yes…

"Do I sound nuts or not? What is there about talking to you? I just crack open like a ripe melon and start spilling my insides when I'm with you. Like nothing is too intimate, nothing is too personal, I feel that I can say anything at all to you and you won't judge me and you'll understand."

Karen noticed her secretary pausing in her doorway, an eyebrow arched in his habitual request for permission to enter. Karen turned just slightly away from the door an. d the secretary immediately interpreted the request for privacy and withdrew.

Kom detected the lapse in her attention as if he were standing in the room. "Listen, did I get you at a bad time, can you talk?"

"Well…"

"I understand, I'm practically at the hospital now myself, I have to operate in a few minutes. The reason I called, I've got a few more thoughts about the party for John. Can we get together and discuss them?"

"Of course."

He set a time and place for their meeting, then he said, "I hope you appreciate yourself, Karen. I hope you know what a good person you are and how good it is for me to have you in my life right now." His tone had dropped to the barely audible and Karen found herself reacting in kind, speaking in a near whisper.

"You're very special too, Stanley. I hope you come to realize it, I really do, because it's important."

"Bless you," he whispered, his voice scarcely more than a breath.

When she looked up the secretary was in the doorway once more, watching her. His face showed nothing but the proper formal deference but she thought she could detect the trace of a knowing look, as if it had been on his face a second before she glanced at him and now hung somewhere in the air, slowly dissolving. Karen felt herself blush to the roots of her scalp.

She told herself that she had nothing to be ashamed about, that she had been having a conversation with a friend, but in her heart she knew that was not entirely true. There was something about speaking to Stanley Kom that was unlike speaking to other men-the stakes always seemed higher, yet far less explicitly defined, as if by the very act of conversing she had agreed to play a game whose rules and wagers she was completely ignorant of. Yet the game did not seem dangerous, there was a very nonthreatening quality to Kom's friendship. Where with other men a friendship held the constant threat of emergent sex, however elaborately denied, with Stanley the sex seemed to be sublimated into trust and intimacy in a form that was almost neutered. Almost neutered. Karen did not delude herself that there was no element of sex whatever between them. He made her feel very good about herself, he flattered in a way that appeared totally, gratefully sincere, and therefore acceptable-but it never made her forget that he was a man. If she was being wooed-and at times she felt she was and at times she knew she wasn't-it was in a way she'd never experienced before.

What there was about Stanley, she thought, that made him different, the thing that replaced sex and yet added a flavor of excitement that would otherwise be missing, was the sheer intensity of his needs. Whatever it was he wanted from her, he seemed to want it completely. Nakedly.

Unapologetically. And he made her think she could give it to him. That was very attractive to a woman, she realized. It was nurture, after all. And perhaps that was why she liked him so much, she thought.