Dream of The Broken Horses, The Page 15

  "This window," she says, pointing at it.

  I ask her why she's drawn the blinds.

  She tells me she finds the summer light too harsh. "Even with the air-conditioning, it makes the room too hot."

  This causes concern about her vision. "Were you wearing glasses, Kate?"

  "No. I see very well."

  "Sunglasses?"

  She shakes her head.

  "So the harsh light might have made you squint?"

  Yes, she remembers that. She used to squint a lot. "Id get these sunburnt wrinkle marks from squinting all the time."

  Her mother was always after her to use sun lotion. Sometimes she'd come down to the pool area and massage it into Kate's back.

  She remembers the swimsuit she wore that summer, one piece, bright yellow, with straps that crisscrossed her back. She still likes yellow swimsuits, she says. She remembers the smell of chlorine from the pool, the sting of the cold water when the little boy she was playing with splashed her to induce her to jump in. She remembers slipping in a few times and the feeling in her arms when she held onto the rungs of the pool ladder to pull herself back out. She remembers the energy she had, the tiredness, the way her skin tanned, the sun marks left by her swimsuit straps. She remembers sitting on the edge of the pool with just her feet in the water, swishing the water around, kicking at it, kicking it in the face of the little boy.

  "That summer the pool was my life." She smiles. "I guess it still is. I'm out there most every afternoon now with my boys, reading, watching who's coming and going, whether guests look okay or whether they're the type I'd rather not have in-house."

  She was always aware of the motel guests, she tells me, even as a little girl. Her father taught her that, to always be on the lookout, keep track because some folks weren't decent. "A lot of people who go to motels are up to no good," he used to say. Guests, she tells me, sometimes do the most amazing things. There's one regular the chamber maids call "Mister-Piss-on-the-Bed." Then there are the people who steal stuff — toilet paper, shower curtains, pillows, mattresses, even the locks on the doors. Often they'll try to steal TVs. They'll check in with a box of tools, unscrew a room set from its stand, then lower it out a back window to a confederate in the middle of the night. Her father's policy was not to confront the crooks, just get their plate numbers and phone them into the cops.

  "Of course now we have a security system with round-the-clock videotape surveillance." If they'd had that back then, she tells me, the killings probably wouldn't have taken place... at least not at the Flamingo Court.

  She remembers people coming and going through the afternoon, though she doesn't recall any of them individually.

  I ask her if she was in the pool before the thunderstorm.

  She shakes her head. "Mom wouldn't let me swim when a storm was coming on. Too dangerous, she said. Lightning could strike and electrocute you right there in the water."

  "How would she know a storm was coming?"

  "The sky would get dark. It was dark that day and the storm was wild. It came in fast and fierce."

  "How long did it last?"

  "Ten, fifteen minutes. Pounding rain. Then the sky cleared, fast too. It was right after it cleared I asked Mom if I could go down to the pool. She said sure, go down, enjoy."

  "Was the concrete wet?"

  "It was slick. But it dried fast. When the sun came back out, it got real hot."

  "This was about—?"

  "Three, maybe a little past."

  "And the little boy — was he there when you went down?"

  She thinks for a moment. "No, he came down later. Maybe he saw me fooling around in the pool and asked his folks if he could go down and play."

  "So you played a while, then the man came into the courtyard?"

  Kate nods. She thinks she remembers seeing the man in the raincoat came in through the arch. It was nearly four o'clock. That's when folks usually start checking in, so there was always someone coming and going around that time. She thinks she remembers him, that he seemed to know where he was going — right up to room 201. Maybe because of that she assumed he was a guest. Maybe that's why she didn't pay him much attention. The raincoat didn't register because a lot of people wore raincoats when it rained. But of course it had stopped, was muggy and hot, so maybe the raincoat did register. In fact, she does remember him coming in. In that kind of heat, the raincoat didn't fit and neither did the hat. Most people caught out in the rain would carry their raincoats on their arms in heat like that. And a hat was for autumn, not a steamy August afternoon.

  Kate's trying hard to work for me now, putting her story together. And if she's distorting her recollections a bit, imposing adult logic on childhood memories, that's okay too. I've deliberately put off asking her to describe the shooter, wanting first to get her into a proper recollective state.

  "I remember the shots," she says. "To me they were loud, a lot louder than people said. Some folks said they sounded like firecrackers, but down there in the pool — I was in the water, not on the concrete — they came to me like roars. I even think they made the water shake. So of course we looked up."

  "We?"

  "Me and the boy, Jimmy. It's coming back now. Jimmy was his name. We were right next to each other in the water, splashing around. That was the game — to splash the other kid, try to make him duck."

  She didn't see the man come down. She was probably still turning around. But she remembers him appearing at the bottom of the stairs. That's when their eyes locked and she got a good look at his face.

  He didn't look urgent or upset, surprising considering what he'd just done. He seemed calm. She thinks he may even have smiled at her. There was kindness in his eyes, at least that was her impression. He had a kind man's face, the face of a man who listened to you, listened to your troubles, cared about you, cared about how you felt.

  My heart sinks. How is that possible? How could the shooter have presented himself like that just seconds after committing murder?

  She insists on her description, that no matter what he'd done he had a kindly face. A certain amount of insistence can validate a description; too much will tend to impeach it. But if he really looked so kindly, I wonder, what was he doing in her nightmares?"

  He had large, sensitive eyes. Nice eyes, she says. His eyebrows arched above them. He was clean-shaven, his cheekbones prominent, his cheeks slightly sunken, making him look somewhat gaunt. His chin was sensitive, too. He was probably in his late thirties. She couldn't see his hair — he was wearing a fedora — but she had the impression it was full...

  "I'm sketching rapidly now, working from her impressions, altering features as she refines her memories.

  "The eyes were bigger... the nose a little longer, I think... lips fuller. No, that's too much. A little less... yeah, like that... I don't think you got his eyebrows right. They weren't so heavy. Lighter, nicer... Can't remember anything about his ears. Maybe his hair curled down over them. Which means I saw his hair, doesn't it? So I ought to know what color it was. Brown, I guess..."

  I assure her hair color isn't important, only its lightness or darkness since I'm working in a range of grays.

  I ask her to show me his smile, imitate it for me. She tries, screws up her face several times before finding the right fit. In the end, she shows me a friendly half-smile. So... perhaps his face did show kindness. Perhaps he was the kind of sentimental killer who related well to children, a psychotic hitman who loved his mother, visited her religiously on Sundays, went all teary-eyed over the plight of orphans, broken-winged birds, and mangy, three-legged dogs.

  There was nothing furtive about him, she says, no attempt to hide his face. His gaze was penetrating and direct, without challenging her or trying to force her to look away.

  His skin was smooth. His teeth were even.

  There was nothing mean about him, nothing predatory. His eyes and smile were warm.

  "He was almost..."

  "What?"

  "Plea
sant."

  "Show me what you mean."

  The face she shows me is almost sweet.

  She didn't see the gun. Must have been hidden under his raincoat, though she doesn't remember a bulge. Could he have gotten rid of the gun before he came down the stairs? Impossible, of course, since the gun was never found.

  "Oh, that's close!" she says. "I think you're onto him now. Maybe loosen the skin a little beneath the eyes. I don't remember him so young, so tight."

  Seeing him in my drawing doesn't make her afraid, she says. She was never afraid of him, she says.

  If that's true, I ask, why was he so fearful when she saw him in her dreams?"

  "Because of what he'd done," she says. "He killed that couple, blasted them to bits. It was all the more scary that he didn't look like a man who would do a thing like that. My mom used to warn me about men who seemed nice but weren't. She said never get in a car with one, especially when he acts nice and seems to like kids. He'll trick you, she said, give you candy and stuff, then take you away with him, and you'll never be seen again."

  I know what to do now. I start to sketch on a fresh page. No erasures this time, no changes. I work rapidly, drawing him just as she's described him from start to finish. She lights a cigarette, inhales, watches intently as I draw, fascinated as the face emerges out of the whiteness of the paper.

  "This is amazing," she says. "You draw so quickly. I can't believe the way you make him come alive."

  She nods when I've finished. "Yes!" she says. "That's the man! That's him, that's him!"

  And then I know she never saw the man she's been describing so fully to me this afternoon. I have drawn a self-portrait. The face that stares back at me out of the paper is... my own.

  9

  Who can know the human heart?

  We call it ‘transference,’ the phenomenon that occurs when a witness believes he or she can recall a face, and then, failing to do so, describes the features of the artist. In such cases, the witness does not intend to deceit and rarely recognizes what he/she has done. It's an unconscious process, but when it occurs the witness must be considered unreliable. Even if Kate were now to revise her description of the shooter, her memory has been contaminated. Any drawings made with her must now be held suspect.

  * * * * *

  After some serious drinking in Waldo's, I return to my room, tape the drawing to the mirror above the desk, sit before it, and gaze at the two images of myself.

  Not a bad self-portrait, I think. In retrospect, I'm not surprised Kate couldn't recall the shooter. My wish that she could was founded more in hope than in belief.

  Except... there's another possibility, one so abhorrent and painful I can barely bring myself to consider it.

  I step over to the closet and retrieve the locked briefcase I keep hidden at the bottom of my garment bag. It's here I've secreted the folder I came upon last spring in he attic of my mother's house in L.A. when, following her death, my sister and I cleaned it out.

  The folder contains various documents concerning my father: a copy of his will; papers having to do with the sale of our old house on Demington Drive; personal letters; family photographs; the incomplete draft of a professional paper he'd been working on at the time of his death; an agenda book showing his professional appointments that final year; and the strange photograph of Barbara Fulraine bearing the signature Studio Fessé.

  It doesn't take me long to find what I'm looking for, a formal studio photograph of Dad taken but a few months before he leapt to his death. It appeared, along with similar photos of other local shrinks, in a Fetschrift published by the Calista Psychoanalytic Institute to honor Dad's mentor and training analyst, the much-loved and admired Dr. Isadore Mendoza, who'd studied with and been analyzed by Dr. V. D. Nadel, who in turn had studied with and been analyzed by Sigmund Freud himself.

  I take the photo over to the mirror, tape it beside my drawing, resume my seat, then study the three images together.

  Sensitive eyes, prominent cheekbones, slightly sunken cheeks: no question there's a strong resemblance. When Dad took the plunge he was forty-three, five years older than I am now.

  A kind man's face, the face of a man who listens to you, cares about you, cares about your feelings — the face of a man who can help you uncover and comprehend your truth.

  Yes, Dad and I, father and son, definitely look alike. The resemblance, I've been told, is striking. People have mentioned it to me all my life.

  So... was Kate's description a classic transference reaction, as I would like to think, or was it, as I would hate to believe, an uncannily accurate description of the man she saw in a black raincoat and fedora departing the Flamingo Court just seconds after Barbara Fulraine and Tom Jessup were shot?

  * * * * *

  Tonight, lying in bed, I reread Dad's unfinished draft case history, the same document I copied for Mace:

  D R A F T

  "THE DREAM OF THE BROKEN HORSES"

  by Thomas Rubin, M.D.

  INTRODUCTORY NOTE: The following case study is of necessity incomplete due to the death by homicide of the patient while undergoing psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, I believe it to be of special interest on account of the nature of the patient's neurosis, including a debilitating recurrent dream; difficult resistance, transference and countertransference issues; and the possibility that these issues, being still unresolved, contributed to the tragic end of the patient's life.

  Although for this reason one might conclude that the analysis was a failure, I hope it will be viewed in a different light: an example of the limitations of traditional therapeutic practice and an inspiration to those in our profession who, out of a desire to alleviate human suffering, are willing to plough new ground even when doing so creates risk.

  THE ANALYSAND: Mrs. F, a white divorced female in her mid-thirties of high social and financial standing, well-educated and in excellent physical health, the mother of three children, the youngest of whom was abducted and, it is believed, murdered five years prior to the commencement of treatment. Mrs. F could be fairly described as possessing great beauty and personal allure, qualities for which she was well-known in her community. She came across as extremely poised and self-possessed, yet stated: “All the people who envy me would pity me if they knew how screwed up I am.”

  PRESENTING SYMPTOMS: Mrs. F, self-referred, described herself as deeply unhappy (“I see myself as a tragic figure”); suffering from erotomania (“I think I might be a nymphomaniac”); ego disturbed (“sometimes I feel like I don't know who I am”); perverted (“I have these kinky fantasies, which I guess is all right... except I try to live them out”); in spiritual pain (“I feel wounded in my sex”); and possessed by a terrifying enigmatic recurring dream (“it haunts my days, ruins my nights”). Mrs. F, summing up: “So, doctor, I'm one sick babe, right?”

  FAMILY HISTORY: Mrs. F had unusual parents. She described her father as ‘drop-dead handsome, a lady-killer. Women would take one look at him then go weak in the knees.’ Her father, Jack, was a racehorse trainer and self-described racetrack character and tout. People around the track called him ‘Blackjack’ on account of his dark complexion and dashing good looks. Mrs. F described him as charming, easygoing, a philanderer, and ‘a man's man in that men instantly liked him and usually continued to like him even when they found out he was making it with their wives.’

  Mrs. F's mother was also a member of the gambling demimonde, an expert poker player and racetrack handicapper. Mrs. F described her as ‘pale and beautiful, a glacial ice goddess type.’ According to Mrs. F, her mother, unlike her father, was respected but not well liked. Mrs. F described her as tough, aloof, and extremely strict. Whenever she caught Mrs. F in a fib, she would slap her hard across the face, telling her ‘You're acting like your father's child’ and/or ‘You want to know why you're a liar? Because you're from a bad seed.’

  Mrs. F's parents fought constantly and were divorced when she was seven. After that, she lived with her mother while seein
g her father two weekends a month until, two years later, he relocated to another part of the country. Although her parents moved in the same racetrack circle, during that two-year period they rarely spoke and could barely bring themselves to be civil. Mrs. F recalled her mother constantly referring to her father as ‘that bastard,’ ‘that son of a bitch,’ etc. And although her father did not speak poorly of her mother, he would ask after her in such a way as to suggest barely concealed contempt.

  A couple of years after Mrs. F's father left town, he stopped sending child-support payments. Nevertheless, Mrs. F's mother made enormous sacrifices to keep Mrs. F in the exclusive private girls' day school in which she was enrolled. In return, her mother required her to maintain top grades, excel in sports, and participate in extracurricular activities and student government. As Mrs. F put it": “She turned me into a supreme competitor. I was to compete in every possible field with the goal of achieving total victory in each. Nothing less would be tolerated. Even the slightest failure was punished.” Beside such punishments as slaps and grounding, Mrs. F's mother's favorite disciplinary method was to withhold affection. “If she wasn't happy with me, she'd go glacial. Then she'd act like I was this object of revulsion, too disgusting even to be acknowledged.”

  Mrs. F believes her mother's sole objective those years was to groom her to make what her mother would term ‘a magnificent marriage.’ Later, when Mrs. F married into one of the wealthiest, most socially prominent families in her city, her mother changed her tack. The morning of her wedding day, she whispered into Mrs. F's ear: ‘I know you're marrying for money and position and in my eyes that makes you a whore.’

  Mrs. F stated that throughout her school years she loathed her mother while adoring the memory of her absent father, spending hours recalling their wonderful times together. Most of those memories centered around horses. Her father had taught her to ride, first putting her on a horse when she was three years old. “He was a wonderful teacher, kind, helpful, always calm. ‘You'll be a great horsewoman,’ he'd tell me. ‘Maybe the first girl jock to win a major derby.’ When I was five, he gave me my first horse, a filly with a white-tipped tail whom I named Banjo. He taught me how to groom her, care for her, and love her. He trained us together, me to ride her, she to be ridden by me. Oh, he was so proud!”