“A live one—for now.”
Blond Man was trying to be funny but Marco didn’t laugh. He turned on his heel, disappearing into the cavernous home. A few minutes later, Bruiser got a text. In a thick Israeli accent he said, “You coming with me.”
“I’m coming too,” Blond Man said.
“Incorrect. The doctor want only him.”
“But my dad said—”
“Your dad says thank you and you go home now.”
Blond Man seethed as Bruiser herded me into a high-ceilinged vestibule, through an enormous room with mustard couches, a giant oak table, a stone bowl of potpourri, and the longest fireplace I’d ever seen. Above it, an enormous painting covered one wall—the Rape of the Sabine Women, bodies tangled, terror-filled eyes. He whispered something to Marco that I couldn’t make out. Marco took it in, sized me up, decoded the situation through a shield of agitation, then they disappeared down some piss-elegant oak passage.
Time passed. It might have only been ten minutes, but not all ten minutes are created equal.
Finally, Marco reappeared at the doorway, all business, brandishing a gun of his own. “Now—let’s go.”
Back out into the vestibule we went, down a long hall, through a kitchen fit to serve banquets, with industrial steel sinks and rows of ovens. Out a side door, we stepped back into the cold. Topiary, metal furniture, gargoyled separators—and in the dark distance, a flurry of wild turkey vultures moving through the trees, slow then frantically fast, ugly arched red faces zooming by like scalped skulls, the messengers of impenetrable fear.
“Fuckers keep me up all night,” he said. “You can hear ’em hissing a mile away.”
Marco opened a low garden gate and led me past a small waterfall bleeding into a long koi pond, then around the corner to a door—some kind of a dilapidated guest cottage, maybe the old service quarters. He unlocked the door—inside, a former office, piled high with junk.
“Go,” he said with finality. “Wait here for the doctor.”
I hesitated and he yanked me in. I steadied myself, looked around dumbly—a ratty old brown leather shrink chair and matching reclining couch, a busted green lamp, a busted moped lying on its side without a rear wheel, a golf bag without clubs, and stacks of old Playboys, rotting board games, precarious towers of musty books—Fromm, Perls, Cialdini—enough psych to choke a horse. A person could go crazy in a room like this—the moonlight blue damask wallpaper was unraveling in upside-down waves.
“Sit down,” he said, wagging the gun at me, “or lie down, whatever. But you will be monitored, so don’t try anything foolish.”
“Like what?”
“Like if you try to run? I’ll shoot you in the leg and drag you out back, let the turkeys peck you to death.”
He gave me one last scowl for good measure, but just as he turned away, a beam of light hit us so strong my eyes watered. Coming forward, a distant silhouette, short, wide, hobbling on a cane, and I knew it was him—Dr. Aharon Bahari, PsyD. Behind him, Bruiser kept the flashlight on my face but Bahari waved him back—lights cut and Bruiser retreated into shadows.
Now from the dark, Bahari shuffled into focus in pearl-colored slippers, baby blue pajamas, pearl-colored bathrobe over his shoulders, cane in his grip, curious, scratching his beard, squinting, trying to make sense of the dim scene before him. He stepped forward and the contours of that tragic face came into the moonlight—white bearded and sad eyed and vulnerable. There was something powerful in his countenance, though, a mystery force that hit the space between all of us in an instant.
“What…in God’s name is going on here?!” At the sight of the gun, Bahari flared with rage and in a single motion, yanked it right out of Marco’s hand. “Give me that thing, you nitwit.”
“But your son said—”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what that hysteric said.”
“But this is the one you were asking about, isn’t it? He’s been lurking around the warehouse.”
“All right, all right,” Dr. Bahari said, “cut the opera. Send them packing. And don’t bug me for the next three hours. Capisce?”
He said, “Yes, Doctor,” sounding relieved.
Then Dr. Bahari said, “Goodnight, Marco.”
As Marco made himself scarce, the doctor turned to me, shaking his head, embarrassed.
“Idiots,” he grumbled. “And the irony is I’ve been hoping you would pay me a visit…Adam—may I call you Adam?”
I nodded, watching Marco disappear, still wary. “How do you know my name?”
“Stanley and Roger,” he said matter-of-factly. “Come, let’s have a drink, you and me. We’ll talk like civilized human beings, not gun-toting mishugenas.” With a pointing wave of his cane, he turned and I followed, but at the pond, he stopped to cast a smile my way.
“My fish,” he explained, gazing down upon his orange-white koi with sleepy-eyed intensity. “Good evening, my little soul-mates. Daddy loves you.”
33
There are people whose raw Zen state will disarm you quickly, and Dr. Bahari was certainly one of those, but as he picked up the polished Brazos cane and led me out across the property, breathing heavy, thudding on the night-gray of tennis court, I had to warn myself that a demeanor is not a soul and the Zen state is not the itemized bill. We came to a wine cave door—he knocked on the wood with his cane and said, “Anybody home?” but it was just for show—then reached into his bathrobe pocket and pulled out a key. “Pretty sure what you want’s in here.”
He opened the giant doors, got into the vestibule, and flicked on a light. In we went—down a short flight of stairs to a long, narrow cellar cave, dark with cold, wet brick walls, a giant King Arthur table, a bottle of Courvoisier the size of a basketball, and an ornate tin tray on which lay a neat pile of too-perfect joints.
Bahari hugged himself. “Brrr, too cold. I prefer a sauna.” He grabbed two gold-laced goblets, stood at a barrel and turned the spigot—red poured. “Sit down, Adam, and tell me what’s what.”
I sat but I kept my eyes on him—as if that might stave off his powers to hypnotize.
“I’m here to learn about The Daily Telegraph.”
“Here’s a guy that gets right to the point. Comes waltzing in at gunpoint and first words out of his mouth, ‘Gimme the skinny.’ I like that too.” He brought our drinks over and sat. “So, what’s your connection? Tell me why you care.”
“The guitarist Emil was…a family friend,” I said cautiously. “His father is getting up there and he asked me to try to find out what really happened—he’s…he doesn’t have much time.”
“What happened, as in…”
“Emil’s father has strong reason to believe his son was framed.”
I stared Bahari down. When he said nothing, I went on, counting fingers.
“No discernible motive, witnesses who were definitely with him the night of, best buds, no history of violence—it doesn’t add up.”
Bahari nodded knowingly, lifted his glass in a gentle toast and we drank. I didn’t know good wine from bad, but this one went down easy as a parachute—nothing like the $4.99-ers I copped at Trader Joe’s. Still, all this luxus wasn’t making me trust him any more than I already didn’t.
After swilling his creation, Bahari said, “And so…you came to me. Makes sense. Did you hear the demo we made?”
“I did.”
“Not bad, right?”
“Quite a transformation.”
Bahari drank again and said, “I’m glad you came. I don’t have much of a memory these days—but I remember watching them record those songs like it was yesterday. It was a very exciting time for me.”
“You remember where you saw them last?”
