Mortal Fear. Greg Iles

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СКАЧАТЬ the numbers, man. And that’s just blues. Think about jazz. Music is math, what a load of crap.”

      “You’re a romantic, Cole.”

      “Music is romantic.”

      “Not all music.”

      “Mine is. The music of my generation, and the one before. Somebody—Oscar Wilde, I think—said that when trying to describe the act of love, humans have two choices, the language of science or the language of the gutter, both of which are inadequate. But rock and roll split the difference. That’s why it endures. It says the unsayable. Rage, angst, alienation, a dozen emotions. But the core of it is sex, Doctor. Sex, love, and obsession.”

      “An interesting thesis.”

      “That’s no thesis. It’s just life.”

      “I’d like to get back to your family for a moment.”

      “Did we ever leave?”

      “Your father was a physician. How did that affect you, growing up?”

      “I never had any anxiety about what my dad did for a living. ‘What does your dad do? He’s a doctor.’ End of conversation.”

      “Negatives?”

      I think a moment. “He wasn’t home a lot of the time. And when he was, it could be weird. I remember times I cut my legs, needed stitches, stuff like that. I’d run in the house yelling, he’d be watching the Saints play or something. He’d take a look through all the blood, then send me off with my mom to clean it up while he waited for the end of the first half. Then we’d finally go down to his office and sew it up. That bugged me when I was young. But I guess it taught me something too. A lot of injuries that look bad aren’t, really. No need to panic, you know?

      “What else?”

      “Uh … speeding tickets.”

      “I’m sorry?”

      “After I got my driver’s license, I’d get stopped by the sheriff or the Yazoo City cops, like every other kid. They’d be writing me a ticket, then they’d look up like they just realized something and say, ‘Are you Dr. Cole’s son?’ Most times they’d just tear up the ticket and let me go my way. At first I thought they were letting me go because they thought my dad was the greatest guy in the world. And some of them did. The black ones, especially. But even the white ones let me go, guys that probably hated my dad. Then I figured out the deal. Dad had been the police doctor for a while. Back several years before. A lot of these guys owed him money. He never would have tried to collect, but they didn’t know that. They figured, I write this kid a twenty-dollar ticket, I get a bill for eight hundred bucks or whatever.”

      “Why did these white police officers hate your father?”

      I take a long, weary breath and exhale slowly. “You’ve arrived back at your second question, only you don’t know it.”

      “Which question?”

      “What am I proudest of.”

      “Ah. Will you answer it now?”

      “I don’t see the relevance.”

      “Please let me decide what’s relevant.”

      “You think I’m going to spill my guts to you in the naive belief that you’d honor doctor-patient confidentiality?”

      Lenz straightens at his desk. “I honor patient confidences absolutely.”

      “Yeah?” Propelled by some contrary impulse, I take out my wallet, withdraw a hundred-dollar bill, cross the room, and stuff the bill into Lenz’s breast pocket. “You’re hired.”

      “You’re testing my patience, Mr. Cole.”

      “And I give you a C-minus. You want to turn off the tape recorder now?”

      “I do not tape my sessions,” he says indignantly.

      “Thank you, Doctor Nixon.”

      Lenz looks genuinely indignant. “You’re making me angry, Cole.”

      I back over to the couch and lie down again. “I’m now officially your patient. What if I tell you I killed those seven women?”

      He catches his breath. “Did you?”

      “Answer my question first.”

      Lenz nervously pushes up the nosepiece of his glasses. “If you’re telling me that you did … well … my honest answer would be that I … I would try to find some other way of proving your guilt than violating doctor-patient confidentiality.”

      “What if you couldn’t do that? And you knew I was going to kill again?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “You could always kill me yourself. Then doctor-patient privilege would no longer be in effect, right?”

      “You’re as bad as your friend.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “The levels of deviousness. I don’t know whether to tell Daniel to arrest Turner or to hire him as a consultant. I think he’s already figured out more about the EROS killer than the Bureau has.”

      “That wouldn’t surprise me.” Again I wonder if the FBI arrested Miles right on this couch and hauled him off to jail. “On the other hand, maybe Miles knows so much because he is the killer.”

      Lenz doesn’t bite.

      A telephone on the desk emits a soft chirp and the psychiatrist answers, his eyes still focused on me. He listens, then covers the transmitter and says, “Would you mind leaving the room until I’m done?”

      I stand up and step into the hall. Lenz’s sonorous voice resumes behind me, muted by the heavy door. The dark-skinned receptionist is still AWOL from the billing office. I open the waiting-room door on the off chance that Miles may be there, but he isn’t. Thinking I might catch Drewe on her cellular, I step over to the receptionist’s desk. I am reaching for her phone when I notice an envelope with my name on it at the center of the desk. Without hesitation I pick it up and scan the few handwritten words on the paper inside.

      Harper,

      Brahma just logged back onto EROS under alias “Shiva.” With that Wyoming court order, Baxter now has the power he needs to trace the call. I’ll talk to you when I can.

      Ciao

      As I slip the note back into the envelope, the waiting-room door opens and a blond, square-jawed yuppie in a blue business suit steps inside. I crush the envelope into my pants pocket and head back toward Lenz’s office.

      The psychiatrist almost bowls me over as he hurries up the hallway, tugging on his jacket to the jingle of car keys.

      “Sorry, Cole,” he says, his voice clipped. “We’re going to have to talk on the move. This is СКАЧАТЬ