Color Blind (42 page)
She had no idea what he was seeing, if he was making it up, or if the drug had him hallucinating. Kate was feeling it too, a slight dizziness, her eyes begging to shut.
“They’re the most beautiful…sea green,” he said, his words coming slowly.
“Yes. Go back to that painting on the wall, there. I want you to see the blue. It’s a dark blue. Do you see it?”
He stared at the paintings, his lids only slightly twitching, going heavy. “Yes. It’s…midnight blue.”
“That’s it, midnight blue. Perfect.”
Was he really seeing it?
Kate had no idea. “Keep looking at it. Now just below the blue is a beautiful orange.” She slipped her hand into her bag. “Do you see it?”
“Orange…Yes.”
He was still holding the knife, but he was distracted, his slightly twitching lids half closed. Kate’s fingers touched the edge of her gun just as the soft crackling of a voice, like a radio, filtered into the room. She froze.
“What was that?” His eyes blinked open.
“I don’t hear it,” said Kate. A voice on her cell phone. “I don’t hear anything.”
“It’s…noise,” he said. “Noise. Like she always had going”
“It’s okay.” Kate spoke clearly, careful to enunciate every word. “You’re safe here, with me, in my apartment on Central Park West. You don’t have to hurt anyone anymore. Put the knife down. Don’t talk anymore,” she said, but not to him, to that voice on the other end of the phone. “Understand?
Do not speak.
”
Jasper cocked his head to the side, listening, but the voices, all the noise in his head had stopped. “I’m so…tired.”
Kate hoped Brown had heard her. “It’s time to rest,” she said. “You’ve seen enough colors. You know now that you are cured.”
“But…”He squinted at her. “I think they’re…fading.”
“That’s because you’re tired.” Kate’s hand was on her pistol again, a solid grip. She could shoot him now. It would not be difficult. He was going under. She hooked her finger into the trigger.
Do it.
But when she looked into his face and saw the sad little boy from Long Island City, she hesitated. She had made a promise not to hurt him. And seeing him now, mouth slightly open, lids closing, she knew she wouldn’t have to.
“The knife, Jasper. Put it down. Carefully.”
He regarded the knife in his hand as if surprised to see it and lowered it slowly toward the counter. Kate watched Nola’s belly rise and fall with her breath. “That’s it.”
Needs support and love.
“You’re a good boy. A wonderful boy. A smart and talented boy.”
He let go of the knife, and stared at it, his face gone slack, then glanced up, and his half-closed eyes were filled with tears.
“Leave the knife there and come to me. Let me take care of you.”
Kate still had her hand on the gun, but he didn’t seem to notice. The drugs had subdued him. She let go of the cell phone and offered him her hand.
He stared at it a moment, eyes blinking slowly, then took it, and Kate slid her arm around his slender waist, and he rested his body against hers, any strength he had left, gone. Kate plucked the knife off the counter and cut the tape from Nola’s wrists and ankles and carefully tugged the piece off the girl’s mouth and very quietly said, “Go.” She watched Nola run from the room, hugging her belly, terrified, but fine.
The warmth of his body burned against her side, and Kate thought of all he had done, this sad, ruined man-child, but she was not afraid. She could see something had broken in him as she led him to the couch, where he curled up and began to ramble again, but in a soft whisper, “Do you…really…want to hurt mesometimes you…feel like a…nutdouble…your…pleasure…double…”
Kate still had the .45 gripped tightly in one hand, but she put her other arm around him, and still mumbling bits of familiar jingles and songs, he laid his head on her shoulder and she could smell a soapy detergent coming off his hair. His reddened eyes opened and twitched. “Tell me…about them. Make me…see them again. The colors.”
Kate pressed her fingers lightly to his lids. “Close your eyes,” she whispered. And he did. “Now picture a flower.”
“What kind…of flower? I don’t know any flowers.” His eyes flicked open and there was an edge of panic in his drugged voice.
“Shhh. Close your eyes. I’ll choose one for you, okay?”
“Yes.” His breath tickled her neck, warm, as he curled against her again.
“This is a favorite of mine,” said Kate. “It’s a small flower, about the size of a silver dollar. Can you picture that?”
“Yes.”
“It’s called a pansy. They grow in groups, close to the ground, clustered together like a group of friends.”
“Friends,” he said.
“That’s right. And each flower is made up of just a few petals, but the most beautiful colors, rich and varied, indigos and blue-violets, and magentas. Can you see them?”
“Yes. Magenta and…blue-violet. I
can
see them.”
“Pansies are almost like faces, big bright faces, made entirely of color, carnation pinks and purples and”
He lifted his head off her shoulder with some effort. “And…razzmatazz?”
“Yes, razzmatazz too.”
He let his head drop back to her shoulder, eyes shutting by themselves. His words came slowly, oozing out of him as he drifted toward sleep. “I can…see them. I…can. And…they’re…so…beautiful.” He put his thumb in his mouth.
Kate saw his eyes twitch beneath the closed lids, and then go still.
She was feeling the effects of the pill herself and trying hard not to forget that the sad young man lying in her arms was also a monster. “That’s good,” she said. “Very good.”
I
know what you think.” Kate and Nicky Perlmutter watched Jasper being led out of her apartment handcuffed, dragging his feet, a rag doll, two uniforms on either side of him, each with an arm around him, holding him up, trying to balance their weapons, though they hardly needed them; Floyd Brown and a medic beside them. “I know you think I should have killed him when I had the chance.” Kate was straining to keep her eyes open.
“Why didn’t you?”
“For one thing, I didn’t need to, the drug had kicked in. He was going under. And I think he wanted an excuse to stop, to rest.” Kate stifled a yawn. “I gambled that I could handle him.”
“Dangerous gamble.”
“I had my gun.”
The medic, who had been talking to Brown, called over to her. “What’s he on?”
“Sleeping pills,” Kate said. “Thirty milligrams of Ambien.”
Perlmutter took him in again. “He doesn’t look like much, does he?”
“No,” said Kate. “Not much at all.”
Another medic strode into the living room from the hallway. “She’s fine, but her water’s broken.”
“What? Oh, Jesus.” Kate was fully awake as Nola waddled into the room.
“I think it’s time,” said Nola.
T
he sun, a bright canary yellow, dapples through verdant trees, over the grass, and scatters diamonds onto the picnic blanket. Richard uncorks the champagne, light glittering off the bottle into Kate’s eyes, and for a moment the world goes white, then slowly, patches of green grass and blue sky begin to fill in like a paint-by-number oil, and Richard is smiling again, and Kate knows what he is about to say.
“Marry me.”
“Why not?” she says.
They both laugh and the picnic scene dissolves, replaced by a room crowded with people, walls covered with the psycho’s bright, garishly colored paintings. Kate accepts a cigarette from the man beside her, Charlie D’Amato, then stares at the paintings and the borders until her scribbled name tears free and floats into the room like a charmed snake bringing with it the small pencil-drawn faces with taped mouths, and she can’t remember what it is she is supposed to know about them and feels panic surge through her body.
Richard cuts through the crowd, and Kate notices that he is oddly transparent. “I wish you wouldn’t smoke,” he says.
“I quit,” she says.
D’Amato grins, offers her a light, and his handcuffs glisten as a flame shoots out of his lighter and swells into a blaze. The room goes orange, then fades, and Kate believes she is awake, and it is a normal morning like any other, with Richard beside her in bed, and she feels relieved.
Richard smiles at her and says, “It’s okay, you know.”
“Is it?”
He touches her face and his fingertips are warm. “I love you.”
“Do you?”
“Very much. But I have to go.”
“Please. Stay with me.”
Richard smiles and it is the most beautiful smile Kate has ever seen, his face radiant. “No, I can’t. But I’m always here when you need me.”
“Okay,” she says. “I understand.”
She can still feel his fingers on her face, but they’ve grown cold. “Thanks,” he says.
“For what?” she says, and looks toward the window. The shade rolls up to display an indigo sky with stars winking like Christmas lights.
“For caring so much.”
“It wasn’t so much.”
The stars gather into a nebula and swirl into the room.
And when Kate looked across her pillow there was no Richard and bright sunlight was streaming in through her bedroom windows for the first time in weeks, and she did not feel like she needed to stay in her dream but could get out of bed and face her life.
She showered and washed her hair and dressed. A quick spray of Bal à Versailles, rather than Richard’s aftershave.
The burned-out votive candles were still on the dresser beside the photo of Richard. Kate gathered them up and took them into the kitchen, tossed the candles into the trash, and when she found the empty vial of Ambien on the floor beside the dining room counter she reflected for a minute about the young man she had held in her arms, and she was glad she had not killed him. There had been way too much killing, far too much death. Maybe Nicky Perlmutter was right, that someone like Jasper should not be allowed to live, but had the boy ever really lived? Kate thought about that night, so many years ago, in the Long Island City apartment, and wondered if Denny Klingman had survived. He had a family, a real family, and that, Kate knew, counted for something. At least he had a chance.
Sunlight was streaking in through the living room windows, a beautiful dawn filled with promise. Kate was anxious to see Nola and the baby, but it was far too early to go to the hospital, and she was due at the station to fill out reports and hand in her badge, which she was happy to do, but even that was hours away. She put up some coffee, gathered the
Times
from outside her apartment door, and when she saw the story on the first page of the Metro section“Serial Killer Captured”she wondered how they always got the news so fast, and decided not to read the story, and skipped to the Arts section, where a small piece recounted the fact that Herbert Bloom was renting a newer, bigger gallery, with the slightest hint that he still had a few of the psycho’s paintings, which Kate figured he was either painting himself, or farming out to one or more of his outsider artists to make for him.
Willie’s show had not only been reviewed the day after the openinga coupbut had snared the pictureanother coupat the top of the first Arts page. The caption read: “
Harm’s Way,
WLK Hand, at Vincent Petrycoff,” and the review, two columns, was glowing.
Kate went for the phone, anxious to congratulate him, then stopped. It was unlikely he would appreciate a call at 6:30
A
.
M
.
She read the review for a second time, this time for Richard, then sat a moment, memories of their life together coming faster than a Hollywood chase scene, and she worried because some of the memories were already blurring at the edges.
In the den she found a CD Richard had bought just before he died, and never played,
Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra,
slipped it into the player, hoping the music might clarify his image, but it wasn’t until the CD was half over and the Stereophonics haunting version of “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” started playing, that she saw Richard’s face, and remembered the first time she saw him, in a courtroom, the young lawyer in his suit and tie, tall and handsome and commanding, and how he had looked at her and the way he had smiled, and she knew then she would never forget.
K
ate finished typing up the report, felt that there was a lot more to say, but the NYPD wasn’t interested in her feelings, though she figured she might get a chance to state themat the trial, which would undoubtedly be a media circus that she did not look forward to.
Mitch Freeman leaned into the cubicle. “Didn’t think I’d find you here.”
“Didn’t think I’d see you here either.”
Freeman smiled, pushed his sandy gray-streaked hair off his forehead. “Just finished a few reports. I’m heading back over to the Bureau in a few minutes.” He glanced at his watch. “You have a minute to grab a coffee?”
“As long as it’s not here.”
T
hey settled into a Starbucks on Eighth Avenue, Kate sipping a latte, Freeman devouring a crumbly scone. “I haven’t had breakfast,” he said.
“No excuses necessary.”
“By the way, Agent Grange said to send you his best. He’s back in D.C. And very happy about it too. Your getting that info out of Charlie D’Amato didn’t hurt.”
“He wasn’t so bad.”
“D’Amato?”
“No, Grange.” Kate thought a moment about how the agent had helped her, though she still wasn’t sure why. Maybe Nicky Perlmutter had been right, that Grange did carry a bit of a torch for her. Whatever. She was glad it had worked, and glad it had helped Grange too.
“And you? Feeling somewhat better than when we last talked, I hope.”
“Is that a question, Dr. Freeman?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like therapy. I was asking as a friend.”
Kate thought back to their previous conversation about whether or not she wanted to go on living. She set her latte aside, thought a moment. “Nola’s had her baby. And there are the kids for next season’s Let There Be a Future. I’ll be busy.”
“That’s good.”
“You don’t like my answer, I can tell.”
“It’s a fine answer. I was just wondering about
you,
that’s all, and you told me about other people.”
“And you said this
wasn’t
a therapy session.”
“It isn’t.” Freeman smiled. “I’m just worried about you.”
“But those things
are
meNola’s baby, the foundation.” Kate glanced into Freeman’s gray eyes, then out the window at the passersby and the traffic. “Well, they’re something to wake up for, to care about, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“I know I’ve still got a lot to sort out.” Kate looked back at the FBI shrink. “It’s sweet of you to worry about me, but I can take care of myself.”
“I’m sure you can. But, listen, if you ever need anyone to talk to”
“As a patient?” Kate picked a bit of scone off his plate and popped it into her mouth.
“No, as a friend.” He reached over and dusted a crumb off the corner of her lips.
Kate looked into his eyes, noticed they were actually more blue than gray. “Uh-oh. Was I drooling?”
“Hardly.” He touched her hand briefly, almost as though it were an accident, then picked up his napkin. “I was thinking we could have dinner sometime. Just to talk, but nothing professional, I promise.” He crossed his heart.
“Damn. And here I was hoping for some more free therapy.”
Freeman smiled, and for a moment neither one of them spoke. “Hey, I hear you were quite heroic,” he finally said.
“Depends on who you talk to. I think some people would have preferred I just shot him.”
“Well, he’s safely locked up in Bellevue, then he’ll be shipped off to some maximum-security facility for the criminally insane, get some treatment, if possible. But he’ll be studied, for sure.”
The image of Jasper in her arms came into Kate’s mind, and she hoped that maybe his tortured life would come to mean something after all.
D
aylight cut through the blinds, painting broad stripes across the hospital bed.
“Have you seen him?” Nola asked.
“He’s beautiful,” said Kate.
“And long, did you notice? I think he’s going to be tall.”
“There are worse things.”
Nola smiled, though she looked worn out. Was it simply the ordeal of birth, or the trauma that had preceded it? “Are you okay?” Kate asked.
“I guess. For a while there I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, you know?”
Kate nodded, laid her hand over Nola’s, had a flash of the knife swinging above Nola’s belly and knew for certain that she would have killed the boy if she’d had to.
“I was thinking that maybe, when my life gets back to normalwhenever that will bethat I might switch my area of concentration from something other than surrealism. I mean, what happened was surreal enough to last me a lifetime.”
Kate was about to agree when the door opened and the nurse carried the newborn into the room. She placed him into Nola’s arms. “The jaundice is just about gone. You can take him home tomorrow.” She adjusted his head at Nola’s breast.
“I don’t know if I’m doing this right,” Nola said to Kate.
Kate watched the baby fasten his lips onto Nola’s nipple and begin nursing. “Looks like you’re doing just fine.”
“Feels a little weird.”
“You’ll get used to it,” said the nurse. “Buzz me if you have a problem.”
Nola petted her son’s dark chestnut curls. “He’s got a lot of hair, don’t you think?”
“He’s gorgeous,” said Kate. “So, have you settled on a name?”
“Oh. Hadn’t I told you?”
“No.”
“Richard.”
“Richard,” said Kate, laying her hand onto the baby’s back as tears cut smooth paths down her cheeks. “Good name.”
“It’s okay? I mean, you don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind? No, of course not.” Kate dabbed at her tears. “I think Richard would have been thrilled.”
Nola glanced down at her nursing baby and frowned.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I’m just a bit terrified. I mean, I want to go back to school, and I still have that semester abroad to deal with, and how am I going to do it? How am I ever going to do
anything
? Oh, God, you must think I’m awful.”
“Not at all.”
“It’s just that I don’t know how I’m going to handle it all.”
“You don’t have to do everything at once, sweetie.” Kate caressed the back of the baby’s head. “And I’m here. You can go to school, and I’ll watch the baby.”
“You’re busy too.”
“Not that busy.” Kate pictured the baby in the room she had just redecorated, the painted clouds on the ceiling, the new crib. “You do what you have to do, Nola. I can handle this little fella.”
Nola smiled, and yawned.
A few minutes passed and the baby’s lips fell from Nola’s breast and first the baby’s eyes closed, and then Nola’s. Kate gazed at the two of them until the baby started to fuss, then she lifted him off Nola’s chest and wrapped him in her arms.