Jonathan Santlofer - Anatomy of Fear

“If it weren’t for the horns, no.” I laughed, then squinted at Terri.

“What?”

“It’s gone, but a second ago when you looked at that mask, your anatomy-your facial anatomy, that is-rearranged itself into a classic fear face.”

“How so?”

“Your eyes opened and tensed. Your brows raised, and your forehead wrinkled.”

“Not my forehead, Rodriguez. I’m way too young. Go on.”

“Your lips drew back, then opened, and for a second, just a second, your jaw dropped open and quivered.”

“It did not.”

“’fraid so. Dropped wide open-and it wasn’t pretty.”

Terri whacked my arm.

“Sorry, but the classic elements of fear were written all over your face.”

“You know, I see people lying dead in the street and I barely flinch. But I walk into a room with a papier-mâché mask and I freak out.”

“Facial muscles have a mind of their own. It’s totally involuntary.”

“You really know this stuff, don’t you, Rodriguez?”

“It’s my biz, but I’m still learning. And I spared you the anatomical muscle names because I didn’t want to show off.”

“I think you did a pretty good job-of showing off, I mean.” She looked up at me. “So what’s my face telling you now?”

I cocked my head and studied her. “Aside from your raised lip and the one cocked eyebrow-sure signs of disgust and arrogance-there’s a telltale sign of sadness in the downward slant of your outer eyelids, but I think what your face is saying is, ‘Hey, I’m gorgeous and I don’t always know it because I’m insecure, but I think this guy I’m looking at is way cool.”

“Asshole.” She laughed, and raised a hand to hide her face.

“Right on the money, huh?”

“All but that last part about you being cool.” She kept the hand over her face. “Just don’t look at me, okay, Rodriguez? I can’t have you reading my face all the time.”

“Afraid of what I’ll see?”

“Believe it,” she said and slapped my arm.

“You’re hitting me again.”

“Take it as a good sign.”

We ended up in the museum shop where Terri bought a box of Frida Kahlo stationery and I bought some postcards of tacky Spanish-language movies from the fifties.

Outside, a slate-gray sky was framing the naked winter trees of Central Park.

I looked at Terri, pulled her to me, and kissed her.

“Whoa,” she said, her hand pushing against my chest, but not before our tongues had done a little tango. “You could have asked.”

“I couldn’t take the chance of being turned down.”

She shook her head, but she was smiling.

He feels the bile rising into his throat; the picture of them kissing, vibrating on his optic nerve, sickening.

But what did he expect from her? Maybe she is half Spanish too, like Rodriguez. It was possible, some of them passed.

A school group is heading into the museum and he uses them like a shield to get closer. They are only a few yards apart. He sees them talking and laughing, completely unaware of him. Then the guy raises his arm and the sleeve of his jacket slides back.

He takes a deep breath and ticks off a few more pictures, then pulls the cap lower on his forehead and follows them.

We didn’t make it back to the precinct. We went to my apartment instead. Terri said it was her first day off in a year, but she still felt guilty.

After we fooled around, I pulled myself out of bed and got my pants back on. I wanted to show her my latest drawing.

“It’s still not enough for an identification,” said Terri,

“but there’s something familiar about it. When did you add to it?”

“The other night. I just had a feeling about it.”

She gave me a look, like she was trying to see inside my head.

“Don’t look at me like that.

It makes me feel like a crackpot, the way Denton was looking at me.”

“Oh, Denton just likes to have someone around to torture, and he thinks I’m sleeping with you, so you’ve been elected.”

“How would he know that?”

“He doesn’t. He’s just guessing,” she said, still gazing at the drawing. “What if we got one of the computer nerds to play with this, see what they could come up with?”

“You mean another sketch artist?”

“Oh, don’t look so wounded, Rodriguez, it was just a thought.”

“Well, it’s a sore spot with me. Most of the sketch artists who work on computers have no art training at all. They take a course in moving noses around on a computer screen and they think-”

“Okay, relax. It was just a thought. But do you think you’re going to get more of this face?”

“Maybe,” I said, but had a feeling I would. I thought I might show it to my grandmother too. It didn’t seem so far-fetched these days, particularly with her weird connection to the case.

“And you’ll show it to me if you do.” It was not a question.

It brought up my suspicion or paranoia or whatever you want to call it, that Terri just wanted me around to do my drawings. I don’t know why that annoyed me. I wanted to complete the drawing too.

“What?” Terri asked, looking up at me.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. I’m no face-reading expert, Rodriguez, but I can recognize annoyance when I see it.”

“I’m not annoyed.”

“Suit yourself,” she said.

I walked her out and we didn’t say anything until Terri slid into a cab.

“You know, Rodriguez, if something’s bothering you, it’s okay to say it.”

I tried to think of what I wanted to say, but I’d been tamping down my feelings since I was a kid and all I could come up with was “I’m going to Boston tomorrow.”

Terri sighed, pulled the door closed, and I watched the taxi drive away.

F inally.

He has watched them come out of the building, the woman get into a cab, the man stand in the street until the cab turned the corner. The whole time his lids opening and closing like a camera’s shutter, one fragmented picture after another sent to his brain, again…and again…and again.

Ipulled myself out of bed around eight. I was feeling edgy and sad but didn’t want to analyze it. I got my art supplies together and headed down Seventh Avenue, the morning sky over Manhattan silver, the tops of skyscrapers dissolving, a talc-like snow turning everything into sculpture.

Penn Station was crowded, people rushing for trains balancing briefcases and Starbucks. I bought a ticket for the ten-twenty Acela Express, which shaved the trip down to just under four hours. I got a seat to myself, and opened the latest issue of Rolling Stone but couldn’t concentrate on the music reviews or a story about Al Gore and his fight to save the environment, my mind going from Terri to the case to the sketch I was trying to make.

I closed my eyes and tried to picture something else: Terri, nude, the first thing that came to me, distracting but hardly relaxing. I exchanged it for a memory: sandy beach, blue sky, my first and only trip to Puerto Rico when I was nine years old, my father beside me, the enormous sand castle that had taken us half the day to build and five minutes for a wave to wash away. I could still picture the soft mounds of the castle’s remains and hear my father’s soothing voice: We can always build another. But I don’t think we ever did.