The Syndrome (4 page)

Nico sat up, and broke down the gun.
No muss, no fuss.

Then she got to her feet, and returned the rifle’s components to the Underwater Kinetics case in which they belonged. Finally, she spun the custom-fitted, little brass wheels that locked the suitcase, and topped off her champagne. Then she walked out onto the balcony with her glass, sat down and waited for all hell to break loose.

There was still no reaction to what she’d done. The Jamaican was nodding in time to the Walkman’s lonely concert, eyes half-closed. The shell seekers and jogger were long gone, and the teenaged girls had packed it in. That left the woman who’d been in the Jacuzzi, who was shuffling toward the elevators, the kids and their mom. The kids were still there, splashing in the pool even as their mom stood over them, holding towels, pleading with them to get out. A minute went by. Then five. The sun was below the horizon now, so that there were only a few faint streaks of red left in the sky. Finally, as if he’d just realized that the night was almost upon them, the Jamaican removed the headphones from his ears, grasped the back of the wheelchair and, slowly, began to push
the old man up the boardwalk, never noticing that his charge was dead.

But when they reached the pool, the kids saw it. And Nico saw what they saw: the old man, lifeless beyond sleep, slumped in his chair with whitewashed eyes. And the bloom on his chest where the bullet had tumbled out into his lap, tearing a hole in his shawl.

One of the little girls began to scream, and her mother admonished her, thinking the kids were fighting. Standing at the edge of the balcony, sipping her champagne, Nico could hear the woman, warning her daughter: “That’s it, Jessie, that’s really
it
, that’s the last time—”

Then her voice evaporated, the wind died, and a frightened whoop cut through the air. Then a second whoop, as if someone were gathering the strength to scream. And, finally, the scream itself, cutting through the night.

Leaving the balcony, Nico stepped inside and picked up the remote. Turning on the TV, she sat down on the couch and surfed among the channels until she found her favorite show. Channel 67. MTV
The Real World.

An ambulance and three police cars arrived about ten minutes later, sirens blaring. A TV camera crew came soon after that, running through the lobby to the terrace, where they got some good shots of the bloodstained wheelchair, the old man being taken away on a gurney, and the Jamaican nursemaid, sitting in a deck chair with his face in his hands. Nearby, a dozen guests stood with tropical drinks in their hands, whispering among themselves and frowning.

More than an hour went by before a policeman knocked on Nico’s door to ask if she’d seen or heard anything unusual. She told him that she hadn’t, and asked what the commotion was all about.

“A man was shot,” the policeman told her. “Down on the boardwalk.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No.”

“But I didn’t hear anything—I mean, not until the ambulance came.”

“Nobody did,” the policeman said. “Not so far, anyway.”

“But he’ll be all right, won’t he? The man who was shot?”

The cop shook his head.

“You mean, he’s
dead?”
she asked.

“I’m afraid so,” the policeman said. “Murdered. You might even say ‘gunned down.’”

“Here?
That’s horrible!”

The policeman snorted, as if she’d told a joke. “‘Horrible’ ain’t the half of it.”

“What do you mean?”

The policeman looked embarrassed. “I shouldn’t say, but … it’s stupid.”

“What is?”

“Shooting that guy.”

“Why?”

“Guy’s name is Crane. He’s eighty-two years old. Cancer patient. Everybody knows him. Real prominent guy.”

“So?”

“So his nurse says, he’s got about six months to live when he’s shot. Maybe a year if he’s real lucky. I mean—” The cop shook his head with a rueful chuckle. “What’s the point?”

Washington, D.C.

Talk about “flying”—she had so much energy! And not just today. It was the same way as the day before, and the day before that. Basically, ever since she’d gotten back from—wherever.

Florida! She’d been in Florida.

This morning, she’d gotten up at five (it was impossible to sleep when she was like this), reorganized the kitchen cabinets and defrosted the refrigerator. She’d cleaned the oven after that, and washed and waxed the floors. Going into the bathroom, she’d emptied the medicine cabinet with a couple of sweeps of her hand, dumping its contents in a shopping bag. Then she’d cleaned the mirror and the shelves, thinking,
I don’t need any of it, anymore. Not the Vicks, not the lithium, not the aspirin.
This was the new Nico, clean and clear and energetic as an Evian waterfall.

Today was her day to see Duran.

His office was in Cleveland Park. To get there from Georgetown, she had to walk down M Street to the Key Bridge, cross the Potomac to Rosslyn, and take the Metro. It was a hike, but seeing Duran was about as optional as breathing. It wasn’t like the lithium. It was really important, so important that it never occurred to her not to go. Duran was her anchor, shrink and exorcist, all in one. He brought her face-to-face with the demons that bedeviled her and, with his help, she’d drive them out. He’d make her well. He’d promised.

Entering the subway, she was struck by the smell that floated up the stairs, a mixture of the cave and the vacuum cleaner. This was the underground scent that darkness gave off, the perfume of hidden places. Subways, tunnels, basements. The root cellar in South Carolina. Shenandoah Caverns in Virginia—where the whole family went once on vacation, and Adrienne got yelled at for touching a stalagmite. She could still remember the guard’s snotty voice:
It takes tens of thousands of years for a stalagmite to grow a quarter-inch and some selfish people just cannot keep their hands off. Please respect nature’s majesty! Thank you.

That underground smell was the subway’s olfactory background, like the bass line in music or the set on a sitcom. But there were brighter aromas, too. Coffee, sweat, tobacco, dust. A whiff of urine, a flash of perfume—or was it hair spray?

And the ride! The ride was a massage that left her almost dreamy. She liked the sound of it, the rush of air, the rhythmic sway of the segmented train hurtling through the tunnel. She liked the way her body felt as it made a series of intricate adjustments, compensating for every change in velocity and direction, reacting instantly to Newtonian forces that were as real as they were unseen.

When the train got to Cleveland Park, she took the escalator up to the street, where the Juice Man was waiting, three doors down. As she always did, she bought a papaya smoothie and sucked it down so fast that it gave her an ice-cream headache. Even that was okay, though, because when her brain unclenched from the freeze, there was a moment—there was always a moment—when her mind felt so
clean.
It was worth the pain, almost, to feel it, that sweet blur of relief.

Once, she’d asked Adrienne if she had the same reaction—if she knew what she meant, but … no. Of course she didn’t. Her sister just got this weird, worried look, and made a joke of it.

Unlike Duran.

Who understood her—

To a
T.

His building was a block north of the Metro stop, on the east side of Connecticut. It was a nice neighborhood (if you didn’t mind the constant surf of traffic). Moms pushed strollers past the firehouse. Joggers zigzagged down the sidewalk, sidestepping businessmen on their way to lunch. Outside Starbucks, a young couple did their best to ignore a schizophrenic black man, wheedling for change.

And then there were the old people.

They sat on the benches in front of Ivy’s Indo-Thai place, feeding the pigeons. One of them was there every week. She recognized him by the fisherman’s cap he wore, rain or shine. And by his hands, which were as big as dinner plates, but clumsy with arthritis, so that he fed the birds by tumbling popcorn at them from a brown paper bag.

Duran’s building was an old one and, while everything worked, it worked on its own terms. Which meant, among other things, that when the intercom buzzed, it really
buzzed
—as if to announce that the apartment’s occupant had gotten an important question dead wrong. But since no question had been posed, the noise was always unexpected, and sometimes startling—especially when, as now, Duran was watching television.

So when Nico buzzed, he jumped—and just as quickly, acted to compose himself. Took a deep breath, and blew it out. Then he pushed a button on the TV’s remote and watched the image in front of him implode in a swirl of sparks. (The sparks were what was left of Oprah, who’d been leaning forward to refine a question.)

Closing the door to the bedroom, Duran walked toward the intercom, knowing it was Nico, but knowing also that formalities had to be observed. He spoke into the metal grid.

“Yes?”

The reply came back an instant later, light and musical. “It’s Nico—Nico, Nico, Nico!”

He could tell by her voice that she hadn’t been taking her lithium. She was so full of herself, you could hear it in her tone. “You’re right on time,” Duran told her. “Come on up.”

While he waited for her, he found himself wondering what Oprah had been about to ask when the intercom buzzed. The image of her face remained in his mind—lips pursed, head inclined, brow slightly furrowed. Eyes narrowed. The Look. The one she adopted when she was about to ask a really prying question. It was a look that combined mischief with apology, inviting the person before her to enter into a kind of conspiracy.
These questions—your answers—our pact. If I dare to ask, will you dare to answer?
It was a brilliant look, much better than Barbara Walters’s po-faced ooze of sympathetic understanding, or Diane Sawyer’s wincing compassion.

He waited for Nico beside the door, imagining the change in air pressure when he heard the elevator doors open with a swoosh on the sixth floor. And then he heard her footsteps on the tiles in the hall, a soft
click-click-click
that grew louder and louder until, suddenly, there was nothing. And then the doorbell rang, a single note, clear and round, as if from a xylophone. It reminded him of the public address system in department stores like Macy’s and Saks.

Not that he went to department stores—or not often, anyway.

Duran opened the door at the sound of the bell and, as he did, Nico stepped back, a little surprised by the absence of any delay.

“Nico!”

“Oooh!” she exclaimed. “God, Doc, you made me jump!” Then she smiled. Relaxed. And came in.

“You’re looking great,” Duran told her, closing the door behind them. “Tanned and healthy. Though I guess ‘pale and healthy’ is the new paradigm.” He paused for a moment, and looked her up and down, trying not to be sexist about it—an impossible task, under the circumstances (the “circumstances” being high heels and a pink tube skirt about the size of a handkerchief.) “Where have you been?”

She shrugged. “Just the beach.”

“No kidding. Which one?”

She shook her head. “One of the beaches. I forget what they call it.”

Together, they walked through the living room to his office. “Is that new?” she asked. Paused and pointed.

Duran followed her eyes to a bloodred Kirman that lay on the floor in front of the fireplace. Then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I just got it.”

“You’ve been
shopping?”

Duran smiled ruefully, and shook his head. “It’s from a catalog.”

“I thought so. You know, you ought to get out more, Doc. You’re pale as a ghost.”

Duran shrugged. “I don’t have time. And, anyway, it’s like I said—a new paradigm.”

The “office” was a lot like the living room, but with recessed lighting and windows hung with heavy drapes. Neutral colors dominated—the walls a buttery cream, the furniture slipcovered in beige linen. Watercolor landscapes hung from the walls in tortoiseshell frames.

And so did Duran’s credentials. Like the oversized furniture and kilim-covered pillows on the couch, his bona fides were there to reassure his clients. There was a Bachelor’s degree from Brown, and a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Wisconsin. Flanking the diplomas were certificates from the American Board of Psychological Hypnosis and the Society of Cognitive Therapists.

“Why don’t you make yourself comfortable?” Duran asked, as he sat down behind the desk. “I want to take a look at my notes—and we can start the tape.”

“Do we
have
to tape?” Nico complained, tipping off her shoes as she flopped down on the couch.

“Yeah,” Duran said with a chuckle. “We have to. We really do.” Inserting a cassette in the tape recorder, he hit the
Record
button and, turning to his computer, began to type. “It’s not my idea, y’know—it’s the insurance company’s.”

“
I’m
not going to sue you, Doc.”

“Riii-ight,” Duran replied. “That’s what they all say.”

*    *    *

He had her in a light trance, reclining on her back with her limbs slack, eyes shut, expression neutral. Duran took her through the usual imagery-progression, his deep and soothing voice guiding her into and through an imaginary landscape.

“You’re on a soft, dirt path beside a cool stream, and you pause for a bit to listen to the water splashing over the rocks,” he said. “You see a leaf, caught on the surface of the water—it’s like a tiny ship—and you follow its progress as it sails downstream, caught for an instant against a rock, and then spinning free into the current. You watch it until it disappears around a bend and then look at the water—its miraculous texture, so smooth and silky as it rolls over the pebbles of the streambed.”

Nico frowned momentarily as he led her away from the stream, and winced slightly as she followed his instruction to crouch and duck under some “spiky” branches. Her brow furrowed with effort as she made her way through the “dense” vegetation. And then her faint and blissful smile returned as she crossed a meadow on a path that was “soft and spongy” under her feet.