The Syndrome (26 page)

Adrienne frowned, thinking about it. Finally, she asked, “And why would they have done that?”

“I’m just guessing,” Duran replied. “But maybe they were fugitives.” When Adrienne scoffed at the idea, he began to elaborate: “There was a lot of antiwar violence at the time—maybe they were a part of it. Maybe they were Weathermen, or something.”

Adrienne didn’t say anything for a while, and then: “That’s your theory?”

Duran shrugged. “Yeah.”

“And what about the schools you say you went to—Brown and Wisconsin?”

“What about them?”

“They never heard of you!” Adrienne insisted, sitting back and tossing her pencil aside.

“That’s just a computer glitch,” Duran told her. “I’m on the alumni list at both schools. I get mail from them every month. Either they’re looking for contributions or they want me to buy T-shirts with Bucky or the Bear on them. It’s just my transcripts that are missing.”

“And how do you explain that?”

“I don’t know, maybe I’ve got library fines. It’s just one of those administrative things. But the point is: I know where I went to school. And I’ve written to Brown, and I’ve written to
Wisconsin, and I’ve asked them to clarify things. So I’m guessing there’s an apology in the mail from each of them. And when I get it, I’ll fax it to you. That’s a promise.”

“Well, it’s an interesting theory—”

Duran laughed. “I just went to my reunion!”

“What do you mean?”

“Sidwell Friends. It’s a private school—”

“I know what ‘Sidwell’ is.”

“Well, that’s me. I’m a Quaker.”

Adrienne eyed him warily. “And what was that like?”

“What was it ‘like’? It was like a reunion. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been to one.”

“Well, it was great!” Duran enthused. “I saw everyone.”

“Like who?”

“Bunny Kaufman,” he replied, unhesitatingly. “Adam Bowman.”

“These were friends of yours?”

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then said, “Yeah!”

She looked doubtful.

“Well, ‘friends,’” he repeated. “Mostly they were people you said hello to in the hallway—though not Adam. We were on the basketball team together.”

“And they recognized you?”

Duran nodded. “Yeah … they seemed to.”

She looked bemused. “‘Seemed to’?”

A heavy sigh from Duran. “Actually, I don’t think they knew me from a bale of hay.”

Adrienne’s eyes widened, and she smiled. “Well, that was honest.”

The look on Duran’s face was one of loss and confusion. “There’s something going on with me,” he admitted. “I know that. I just don’t know what it is.”

She was surprised by his candor, or what seemed like candor. But as she knew from one or two of the pro bono work cases that she’d handled, sociopaths could be brilliant
manipulators. And maybe, she thought, that’s how she should look at Duran: as a potentially dangerous client whose innocence was very much in doubt.

“I’d like to believe you,” she told him, “but there are so many things that don’t add up.”

“Like what?”

She glanced at her notepad. “Your patient notes.”

“What about them?”

“There weren’t any.”

Duran shook his head. “I think that was just a misunderstanding.”

“‘A misunderstanding’? There wasn’t anything to misunderstand. There was a photograph. And that was it.”

“I know, but … When you think of it, everything was pretty confusing. I mean, your friend was acting like Dirty Harry, and—most of the file was probably sitting on my desk. I must have been working on it when you got there.”

Adrienne gave him a skeptical look.

“We can check,” Duran suggested. “We can go back there—not tonight, but … sometime. And there’s my computer. Most of the time, I wrote my notes in Word. So all of that’s there and—I guess you could subpoena the tapes.”

“What tapes?”

“Your sister and I met twice a week,” Duran explained. “All of our sessions were taped—for the insurance company.”

“Which one?”

“Mutual General Assurance. They’re in New York.” He paused, and opened a can of Coke. “Now
you
tell
me
something,” he said.

Adrienne gave him a puzzled look. “Like what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She thought about it for a moment, and said, “Well … Nikki had a gun.”

Duran looked surprised. “What kind of gun?”

“A rifle.”

It was Duran’s turn to look puzzled. “Why would she have a rifle?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe it was an antique,” Duran suggested.

Adrienne shook her head. “It was new. It had a telescopic lens. And a silencer.”

“Get out!”

“I’m serious!” she insisted.

Duran turned pensive.

“What are you thinking?” Adrienne asked.

“I was thinking … Nico suffered from a dissociative disorder, brought on by post-traumatic stress.”

“So?” Adrienne’s eyes flashed with suspicion. She knew where this was likely to lead—and it was bullshit.

“So … maybe she was thinking about revenge.”

“For what?” Adrienne asked, her voice turning hard.

“What was done to her.”

“And what
was
that?”

“I know you don’t like to hear it, but I think your sister was the victim of systematic and long-standing sexual abuse—”

“Ohhh—”

“—at the hands of her foster parents.”

“Bull!”

“It’s not ‘bull.’ And your reaction is typical. One sibling is ready to confront the abuse, the other insists that everything’s fine. One accuses; the other defends.”

“It didn’t happen. I mean, think about it—it’s ridiculous. People with hoods!”

Duran shrugged. “Your sister presented a
lot
of detail and although it went on for years—you were a lot
younger.
Sometimes, the younger victims don’t understand that what happened to them was sexual abuse. Or even sexual in nature. So you could remember it, and not have the
vocabulary
to understand it in the same way Nico did.”

Adrienne just shook her head. “You’re in Candyland, Doc!”

“There was
a lot
of detail. You lived with Deck and Marlena in Beaumont, South Carolina,” Duran recited, “in a
house called Edgemont. It was white. The paint was peeling. And there were live oaks in the front yard.” He cocked his head, and looked at her. “How am I doing?”

She smiled. “You’re wrong about everything. Just for openers, I can tell you that we never lived in South Carolina—or in a house with a name,
any
name. We lived in a little brick rancher in Denton, Delaware. And there weren’t any live oaks—just a couple of Catalpa trees with flat tops from the electric company.”

“And your sister Rosanna?”

“There wasn’t any ‘Rosanna,’” Adrienne insisted. “It was just the two of us. Just Nikki and me—there was never anyone else.”

With a sigh, Duran got up and walked to the window. Looked out at the parking lot. Finally, he turned to her and said, “Well, I’m not your therapist … and maybe it doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not—it’s what your sister believed. And that might explain the gun.”

Adrienne thought about it. “I suppose it might,” she said. “Except …”

“What?” Duran asked.

“Who were the men in your apartment, and why did they want to kill me?”

Duran shook his head. “I don’t know. But if Nikki was telling the truth—you’d be a witness.”

“Except it was years ago, and I don’t ‘remember’ anything—”

“Maybe not now—”

“Maybe not ever! Because it didn’t happen!”

“Memories can be recovered,” Duran suggested.

She just looked at him for a long while. Then she shook her head, and said, half to herself and half to Duran: “I can’t believe I’m arguing with you about this …” And then, in a louder voice: “This is crazy!”

“What is?”

“Everything! You!”

“Why do you say that?” Duran asked.

“Well, this practice of yours …”

“What about it?”

“You said you had two clients.”

Duran groaned.

“And yet,” she continued, pressing the point, “you live in a big apartment in one of the nicest parts of Washington.”

“So?”

“So, how do you pay for it?” Adrienne asked.

“Well, for one thing, I charge eighty-five dollars an hour.”

“And you see—what? Two patients—how often?”

“Twice a week—each,” Duran told her.

“So how much is that? Fifteen hundred a month?”

Duran frowned. He was beginning to have trouble getting his breath. After a moment, he nodded, not quite trusting his voice.

“Well, your apartment costs more than that! How do you
eat
?
”

Duran rolled his eyes and got to his feet. Crossing the room, he picked up the remote, and pointed it at the television. While Adrienne watched, he flipped from one channel to another. A cop show. A movie. A talk show. Dan Rather.

Finally, she jerked the remote from his hands, and switched off the television. “You can’t live on two clients, Doc—you just can’t!”

“Two clients are normal,” Duran assured her. “Two clients are fine.”

She stared at him. It was exactly what he’d said before, when they’d been riding in the cab to the police station. She leaned closer to him.

“You can’t live on two clients!” she whispered.

“Sure you can,” Duran replied. “Two clients are normal—they’re fine.” But he looked troubled by her words. He frowned, as if trying to prise something out of his memory. Then he brightened, the distress easing from his features.

“Besides, I have some money of my own. My parents, you know—there was insurance.”

She sat down beside him on the bed. “Right,” she said. “Your parents.”

After a moment, he looked at her.
“What?!”

“Even if that’s true,” she said, “two clients isn’t exactly a
practice
, is it? I mean—what do you do with the rest of your time?”

With an exasperated groan, Duran got to his feet, and crossed the room to the window overlooking the parking lot. For a long while, he stood there, lost in thought, expressionless, while Adrienne stared. Finally, he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool glass. He stayed there like that for ten or fifteen seconds, then turned to her, and with a regretful smile, explained, “Two clients are normal. Two clients are fine.”

She couldn’t sleep with Duran in the room.

Though he’d saved her life, there was obviously something very wrong with him. The panic attacks and robotic replies, the imposture and false identity … he was way off the deep end. And knowing that, it was easy to imagine this otherwise handsome and easygoing guy going through some dark chrysalis in the middle of the night. Without wanting to, she could imagine him morphing into Anthony Hopkins, while muttering his weird little mantra about two clients being normal …

But it wasn’t as if there was anywhere else for her to go. Her apartment wasn’t her own anymore, not after what had been done to it. Whoever had been there before could go there again, whenever he liked. The police weren’t going to stop him.

So she sat in the chair next to the window, reading and dozing, waking with a start, then falling off again. Eventually, dawn seeped across the highway behind the hotel, turning the parking lot into a table of gloom.

Getting to her feet, she clapped her hands, and gave a tug to the blanket that covered Duran. “Let’s go!”

“Wha’?” Duran pushed up on an elbow, blinking in her direction. “What time is it?”

“Six-thirty!”

“Jesus,” He groaned, and rolled over, pulling the covers over his head.

“C’mon,” Adrienne said. “I want to go to your apartment.”

Drugged with sleep, Duran sat up and rubbed his eyes. “You sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

Adrienne shrugged. “The police were just there. I thought we should look at your computer.”

Duran nodded, still half-asleep. Finally, he swung his feet from the bed. Patted down his hair, and said, “Lemme get dressed.”

“I was thinking about what happened,” Adrienne explained. “About how they knew Bonilla and I were there.”

Duran grunted, and began pulling on his socks. “Yeah … and what did you decide?”

“That your phone’s tapped. Either that, or …
you
told them we were coming.”

Duran frowned. “I didn’t tell anybody anything.” He yawned, and shook his head, and blinked away the sleep.

“You said one of the men looked familiar,” Adrienne reminded him.

“Yeah, but—that was just in passing. Like I’d seen him on the street, or something.”

“But—”

“Why would anyone tap my telephone?” Duran asked.

Adrienne looked him in the eye. “You want an honest answer?”

Duran nodded, surprised by her question. “Yeah.”

“Because there’s something going on with you.”

His brow plunged. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Adrienne replied.

He thought about that for a moment. Finally, he said, “Maybe you’re right.” He paused. “Then again, maybe you’re wrong.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean:
you’re
the one they tried to kill.
You’re
the one whose apartment was torn apart. Maybe it’s
your
phone they bugged.”

She thought about it for a moment. What he said made sense. (Then again:
Two clients are normal, two clients are—
) “Trust me,” she said. “It’s you.”

They took the Metro from Springfield to the Cleveland Park station, emerging a few steps from Whatsa Bagel and Starbucks. From there to the Towers was only a five minute walk.

Duran used his Medeco key to enter the lobby. This was a large and marbled space beneath a huge chandelier, whose lights shone down on an array of tasteful couches and framed black-and-white photographs of old Washington. There were no doormen, as such, just a security desk that, at the moment, was unmanned.

Neither Adrienne nor Duran said a word as the elevator took them to the sixth floor, shaking a little from side to side. Finally, it shuddered to a halt with a loud
dinggg
, and the doors rattled open on the hallway.