Lawrence Sanders - Private Pleasures

The other part was an emotional need, I wanted desperately to love and be loved in return. Not affection, not devotion, but love, mutual and complete. A romantic psychiatrist, you smile? Well, why not?

And so on a Saturday afternoon, I drove out to visit Chas Todd.

He unlocked the door for me, then wheeled over to switch off his word processor. His housekeeper had obviously been there that morning, the barny studio was as clean and ordered as it could ever be.

"Were you working, Chas?" I asked. "Sorry to interrupt." " "That's okay," he said gruffly. "I wasn't really working, just reading over what I wrote last night."

"How is it coming?"

"I like it," he said, and laughed. "And I think you will, too. It's a love story, Cherry."

"I like it already," I told him.

"Between a boy termite and a girl termite. My God, you look great today. A luscious bouquet!"

I was wearing a flowered sundress. The back was wholly straps. I twirled in front of him. "You approve, Chas? " "What's not to approve? How about a gin and tonic? " "Only if you'll let me make them," I said and went into his tiny kitchenette. "I know what I'll get you for your birthday, a set of decent highball glasses. I'm tired of drinking out of jelly jars. When is your birthday? " "You've got it in your records, doctor," he said.

There was an edge to his voice, but I let it pass. I handed him his drink and sat in one of his spindly kitchen chairs. We raised glasses to each other but made no toast. He took a deep gulp, then grinned at me. What a handsome hulk he was! A damaged hulk.

"Feeling all right?" I asked him. "No nightmares? No depression? "

"Nothing I can't handle," he assured me. "I'm fine. What have you been up to?"

"Work mostly. Plus an hour on the beach this morning and maybe another hour or two this afternoon."

"Yeah, you're getting a tan. But no serious mischief?

"No," I said. "No mischief. How about you?" I saw his expression and added hastily, "I'm asking as your friend, not your shrink."

He shrugged. "Friend or shrink, no mischief to report. "

"Drinking?"

"Of course I'm drinking," he said testily. "And smoking up a storm.

And thinking lewd, lascivious thoughts. Okay?

"The last part is," I said.

"You never give up, do you?" he said, shaking his head.

"No," I said, "I never do. Tell me more about the boy termite and the girl termite."

"He meets her, loses her, finally gets her. And they live HEA. That's trade talk for happily ever after."

"How does he lose her?"

Chas gave me a crooked smile. "Because the poor schlumpf can't get it up. Even termites have problems."

"But you said that eventually he gets the girl. How did he solve his problem?"

"Did you put any gin in this?" he demanded, holding out his empty glass. "I couldn't taste it."

I mixed a fresh drink and brought it to him. "Chas, you didn't answer my question, How did the boy termite solve his problem?"

"I was kidding, for chrissake," he said. "Let's just drop it."

"All right," I said.

He looked at me. "You never argue, do you?"

"Would it do any good?"

"No," he said, "it wouldn't. Tell me something, doc, Why do you waste your time with me?"

"I don't consider it a waste. I enjoy being with you." "You do? " he said, sounding surprised. "I can't think why.

I don't particularly enjoy being with myself."

I regarded him thoughtfully. For some time I had been wondering if shock therapy might cure his impotence, which, I was certain, was psychic in origin. I decided, at that moment, to try it. But it would have to be framed as a request rather than a question he could kill with an explosive "No!"

"Chas," I said quietly, "I'd like to make love to you." it was the first time I had ever seen him blush. His naturally ruddy face took on a deeper hue, and I saw how shaken he was.

"What the hell is this?" he blustered. "is this a new kind of treatment? Something you provide all your hung-up patients?"

"You know better than that. This is something for me."

"I don't believe it."

"Believe it," I said, confused by my own motives.

"It's impossible," he said hoarsely.

"Let's find out," I suggested.

"No!" he cried. "I don't want your pity."

"I want yours," I told him. "Please."

He sat there, face twisted, and I could see how this struggle was roiling him.

"No," he repeated in a softer voice. "I can't. I'm afraid.

"Of what?"

"Failure. Leave me alone, doc."

I finished my drink and rose. "You'll think about it after I go," I said. "I know you will."

"You think you know everything," he said furiously. "Get the hell out of here and don't come back." I left, wondering if that line from Hamlet could be correct. "I must be cruel, only to be kind."

That evening a florist's box was delivered to my home. inside was a luscious bouquet and a brief card from Chas, "Come back." don't care how smart you are or how rich you are, if you haven't got The Luck you've got nothing, zip, zilch.

Now take me, I've always had The Luck. All my life.

Like I was running a small crib out in

Denver.

Nothing flashy, but clean.

I had four girls three white, one black and a boy.

None of them dopers. I also had a police sergeant on the pad, a nice enough guy who was as straig lit as a crooked cop can be.

One night Phil comes up to my place and I poured him a Chivas which was all he drank.

Willie," he says, "I think you better get out of town."

That was all he had to say.

I closed up shop and caught a plane the next morning.

My kids got away, too.

I read later the Denver vice cops had made a sweep the afternoon I was flying east.

All the skin peddlers I knew got cuffed, and some of them ended up doing time.

See what I mean by having The Luck?

I went to Miami and looked up some wiseguys I knew to see if I could work a deal. But they were all in heavy stuff like drugs and guns.

Not my style. So I went to Fort Lauderdale and located Big Bobby Gurk who was my cell mate once when I did a little bitty stretch in a Frisco clink.

Big Bobby had a good thing going. He was a bookies' bookie.

Like if a street bookie had a real heavy play on a horse or a football team, he could lay off some of his bets with Bobby. For a fee, of course. Gurk was like a reinsurer and doing okay. But he had no place for me in his organization.

"But I heard of something you might like, Willie," he said to me. "I got a client and his brother-inlaw is in the tile business. Floor and wall tiles. It's Italian stuff and expensive. This guy has got a competitor who sells the same tiles at a discount and it's killing him.

The same importer sells to both of them and swears he charges both the same, but my client's brother-in-law don't believe him. He wants someone to crash his competitor's office and swipe the guy's invoices so he can find out what the guy is paying the importer for the tiles.

Know what I mean? "

"I follow, Bobby," I said. "I'm no B-and-E guy but there may be another way to work it. What's he offering? "

"He says he'll pay a grand, but I think he'll spring for two."

"What's his name and where do I find him?"

It took me a week to cozy up to the competitor's secretary.

She was a spacey broad who was saving up to put the down payment on a white Caddy convertible (used).

For five yards she delivered to me photocopies of all her boss's recent billings from the importer of Italian tiles. I delivered them to my client and collected my two grand.

The Luck again.

Anyway, that was my first caper in what I learned later was called industrial espionage. It was like spying but no one got hurt, and the take was so good I bought myself a condo, a new Infiniti, and more clothes than I had ever owned before -suits and dresses. if that stops you, I might as well confess I've been into cross-dressing most of my life. Now, in the bucks, I've got women's shoes, silk stockings, pantyhose, lingerie, evening gowns, sweaters and skirts, even a mink stole.