Bad Love

"Yup."

"How's Robin?"

"Fine. She's up in Oakland, giving a seminar- medieval lutes."

"Smart kid, working with inanimate objects. All right, I'll come by, rescue you from your hermitude. If you want me to I can fingerprint the tape, check it against Wallace's. If it's him, we'll report him to his keepers, at least let him know you're not going to roll over."

"Okay- thanks."

"Yeah… don't handle it anymore, hard plastic's a real good surface for preservation… Bad love. Sounds like something out of a movie. Sci-fi, splatter flick, whatever."

"I couldn't find it in any of my psych books, so maybe that's it. Maybe that's where Becky's murderer got it, too- all of us are children of the silver screen. The tape was mailed from the Terminal A

"I can check the rest of his gang, too. At least the ones with records. Don't lose any sleep over it. I'll try to get by around eight. Meanwhile, back to the slaughter."

"Buckets of blood, huh?"

"Big sloshing buckets. Every morning I wake up, praise the Lord, and thank Him for all the iniquity- how's that for perverse?"

"Hey," I said, "you love your work."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I do. Demotion never felt so goddamn glorious."

"Department treating you well?"

"Let's not lapse into fantasy. The department's tolerating me, because they think they've wounded me deeply with their pissanty pay cut and I'll eventually cave in and take disability like every other goldbricking pension junkie. The fact that one night of moonlighting more than makes up for the difference in take-home has eluded the brass. As has the fact that I'm a contrary bastard."

"They're not very observant, are they?"

"That's why they're administrators."

• • •

After he hung up, I called Evelyn Rodriguez's house in Sunland. As the phone rang, I pictured the man who'd carved up her daughter playing with a tape recorder in his cell.

No one answered. I put the phone down.

I thought of Rebecca Basille, hacked to death in a soundproof room. Her murder had really gotten to me- gotten to lots of therapists. But I'd put it out of my head until Milo reminded me.

I drummed my fists on the counter. The dog looked up from his empty bowl and stared. I'd forgotten he was there.

What happens to therapists who don't behave themselves…

What if Wallace had nothing to do with the tape? Someone else, from my past.

I went into the library and the dog followed. The closet was stacked with boxes of inactive patient files, loosely alphabetized with no strict chronological order, because some patients had been treated at several different time periods.

I put the radio on for background and started with the A's, looking for children whom I'd tagged with psychopathic or antisocial tendencies and cases that hadn't turned out well. Even long-term deadbeats I'd sent to collections.

I made it halfway through. A sour history lesson with no tangible results: nothing popped out at me. By the end of the afternoon, my eyes hurt and I was exhausted.

I stopped reading, realized grumbly snores had overpowered the music. Reaching down, I kneaded the bulldog's muscular neck. He shuddered but remained asleep. A few charts were fa

I returned to the kitchen, fixed kibble and meatloaf and fresh water, watched my companion sup, burp, then circle and sniff. I left the service door open and he bounced down the stairs.

While he was out, I called Robin's hotel in Oakland again, but she was still out.

The dog came back. He and I went into the living room and watched the evening news. Current events were none too cheerful, but he didn't seem to mind.

• • •

The doorbell rang at eight-fifteen. The dog didn't bark, but his ears stiffened and tilted forward and he trailed me to the door, remaining at my heels as I squinted through the peephole.

Milo 's face was a wide-angle blur, big and pocked, its paleness turned sallow by the bug light over the doorway.

"Police. Open up or I'll shoot."

He bared his teeth in a Halloween grimace. I unlocked the door and he came in, carrying a black briefcase. He was dressed for work: blue hopsack blazer, gray slacks, white shirt stretched tight over his belly, blue and gray plaid tie tugged loose, suede desert boots in need of new soles.

His haircut was recent, the usual: clipped short at sides and back, long and shaggy on top, sideburns down to the earlobes. Country yokels had looked that way back in the fifties. Melrose Avenue hipsters were doing it nowadays. I doubted Milo was aware of either fact. The black forelock that shadowed his forehead showed a few more gray streaks. His green eyes were clear. Some of the weight he'd lost had come back; he looked to be carrying at least two hundred and forty pounds on his seventy-five inches.

He stared at the dog and said, "What?"

"Gee, Dad, he followed me home. Can I keep him?"

The dog gazed up at him and yawned.

"Yeah, I'm bored, too," Milo told him. "What the hell is it, Alex?"

"French bulldog," I said. "Rare and pricey, according to a vet. And this one's a damned good specimen."

"Specimen." He shook his head. "Is it civilized?"

"Compared to what you're used to, very."

He frowned, patted the dog gingerly, and got slurped.

"Charming," he said, wiping his hand on his slacks. Then he looked at me. "Why, Marlin Perkins?"

"I'm serious- he just showed up this morning. I'm trying to locate the owner, have an ad ru

"For a moment I thought this tape stuff had gotten to you and you'd gone out and bought yourself some protection."

"This?" I laughed, remembering Dr. Uno's amusement. "I don't think so."

"Hey," he said, "sometimes bad things come in small packages- for all I know it's trained to go for the gonads."

The dog stood on his hind legs and touched Milo 's trousers with his forepaws.

"Down, Rover," he said.

"What's the matter, you don't like animals?"

"Cooked, I do. Didja name it yet?"

I shook my head.

"Then "Rover' will have to do." He took his jacket off and tossed it onto a chair. "Here's what I've got so far on Wallace. He keeps a low profile in slam and has some associations with the Aryan Brotherhood, but he's not a full member. As for what kind of hardware he's got in his cell, I don't know yet. Now where's the alleged tape?"

"In the alleged tapedeck."

He went over and turned on the stereo. The dog stayed with me.

I said, "You know where the meatloaf comes from, don't you?"

He cocked his head and licked my hand.

Then the screams came on and the hairs rose on the back of his neck.

• • •

Hearing it the third time was worse.

Milo 's face registered revulsion, but after the sound died, he said nothing. Taking his briefcase over to the deck, he switched it off, ejected the tape, and removed it by inserting a pencil in one of the reel holes.

"Black surface," he muttered. "Ye olde white powder."

Placing the cassette atop the plastic cover of my turntable, he removed a small brush and a vial from the case. Dipping the brush into the vial, he dusted the cassette with a pale, ashlike powder, squinting as he worked.

"Well, looks like we've got some nice ridges and swirls," he said. "But they could all be yours. Your prints are on file with the medical board, right, so I can check?"

"They printed me when I got my license."

"Meaning a week or two going through cha