Entombed

"How'd she show that?"

"She had a pretty vicious tongue, Mr. McKi

"Did you date her?" Pat asked. I knew that Mike was as ready to hijack the questioning and let Guidi tell his story as I was, but Pat plugged ahead.

"Aurora didn't date. She conquered. Took me home with her that night and-"

"Where did she live? On Third Street?"

Let him finish his goddamn sentences, I thought to myself.

"No. No, not where the bones were found. I don't know anything about that place. We went to a pad on Bleecker Street. I thought it was where she lived, but it turned out to be just a place she flopped for the night. Anyway, Aurora showed me some tricks," Guidi said, looking over his shoulder at me, as though to make sure he wasn't offending me. "Some experiences that were new to me. And then, of course, there were the drugs."

"What drugs?"

"Aurora introduced me to crack, Mr. McKi

"Why crack?"

Guidi leaned in and lighted a cigarette, throwing the match into a half-empty coffee cup. "Because Aurora Tait lit the pipe and put it in my mouth while she was lying naked next to me in bed. It seemed like a fine idea at the time."

"And then?"

"I guess you haven't talked with many crack addicts, have you, Mr. McKi

McKi

"I don't understand, Mr. Guidi."

"The first time I smoked crack I thought I had found nirvana. I wanted to do it again, that night, and every night thereafter. I felt a sense of freedom I'd never known before-no pressure, no anxiety- completely sensual and pleasurable. And like every truly addictive personality, I began by assuming that I could control my reaction to the drug. Denial worked just as well for crack cocaine as it did for alcohol."

"And Aurora was with you throughout all this?"

Guidi exhaled and laughed at the same time. "No. She was just the siren, luring me onto the rocks."

"Excuse me, what siren?"

McKi

"She was a stone-cold junkie who supported her habit by selling drugs. She'd found the perfect niche, Mr. McKi

"What happened to you?"

"I had a very sobering wake-up call about a year and a half later. I ran into the sharp end of a jackknife at four in the morning on Avenue C, desperate to find some crack. I was admitted to Bellevue Hospital and regained consciousness three days later. While I was convalescing, the shrink on intake was Dr. Wo-Jin Ichiko. He worked with me while I was in withdrawal and detoxing. Then he introduced me to SABA, the rehab program at the university."

Guidi paused and dropped his cigarette butt in the cup. "The prick probably saved my life. But today, I'll be honest with you, I was ready to kill him."

"Because?"

"Because I've spent two decades of my life trying to put the pieces back together. I've got a very understanding wife, who met me fifteen years ago. I flunked out of business school while all this drug involvement was going on, so I had to claw my way in by starting from scratch. I worked in the mail room at Credit Suisse until I could make enough money to get back into school. But my kids have no idea that for almost three years I lived like a derelict and came close to throwing every advantage I'd been given to the wind. And I bet they'd understand and accept it a whole helluva lot better than my partners and most of my clients."

"When's the last time you saw Dr. Ichiko?" McKi

"Eighteen, twenty years ago."

"And you haven't spoken to him either?"

Guidi tapped another cigarette out of his pack and lit up. "Yeah, I did. Last night. I called his house."

"You had his home number?"

"No. I called the office and got his service. I told them I was a patient with an emergency and they patched me through."

"Did you have a conversation with him?"

"When I stopped cursing at him, I guess you'd call it that."

"What did you say?"

"I called him every name in the book. I thought there was some kind of privilege between doctors and their patients. I didn't know why the hell he was going to go on television and give out the name of someone he treated years ago. I don't need this kind of shit, this kind of publicity, coming out now-not for my family, not for my clients."

"Why were you so concerned about Aurora Tait?" McKi

"I never said I was," Guidi replied. "But if a medical doctor could be paid by a television show to make Aurora's name public, what was to stop him from identifying the rest of us?"

"Well, she's dead, so the question of privilege-"

Guidi leaned forward and interrupted McKi

"The girl was buried alive, Mr. Guidi. Somebody had to hate her awful bad to wish that kind of ending."

Gino Guidi covered his eyes with his hand and leaned his head back. He actually seemed shocked. "I saw the news story. I just figured she ran into the wrong junkie, made the same mistakes I did," he said, now rubbing a finger along the length of his scar. "That's chilling."

"Did you threaten Dr. Ichiko?" McKi

Guidi tossed his head and took a draw on his cigarette. "I get it. He taped me. Yeah, I threatened him. So what? I told him I'd nail him, one way or another. I told him I'd sue his Oriental ass from here to Hong Kong."

Mike spoke for the first time. "Rugs are Oriental, Mr. Guidi. People are Asian. PC enough for you, Coop?"

Guidi snapped his head around to look at Mike. "I told him he was dead meat if he messed with me."

A sharp rap on the glass pane startled me. Without waiting for an invitation, someone pushed open the door and walked in.

"Cut it out, McKi