Bad Love

The chic thing to wear for homicide- the avenger reads GQ.

His mask had a mouth cutout. A sharklike smile filled the hole.

The dog scratched some more.

Under the mask, his forehead moved.

He crossed his legs, keeping the big black gun a couple of feet from the center of my chest. Breathing fast, but his arm was stable.

Using his free hand, he reached up and began rolling his mask up, doing it deftly, so that his eyes never moved from mine and his gun arm never faltered.

Doing it slowly.

The wool peeled away like a snake's molt, exposing a soft, unremarkable face with fine features.

Rosy cheeks. The hair brass colored, thi

Andrew Coburg.

The storefront lawyer's smile was wide, wet- impish.

A surprise-party smile.

He twirled the mask and tossed it over his shoulder. "VoilÀ."

I struggled to make sense of it- Coburg directing me to Gritz. Misdirecting me. Careful researcher… Mrs. Lyndon…

"I really like this place," he said. "Despite all the queer art. Nice, crisp, cruel, L.A. ambience. Much better than that little yuppie log cabin of yours. And cliffside- talk about perfect. Not to mention your little friend's truck-unbelievable. Couldn't have set it up better myself."

He winked. "Almost makes you believe in God, doesn't it? Fate, karma, predestination, collective unconscious- choose your dogma… do you have any idea what I'm talking about?"

"Delmar Parker," I said.

The dead boy's name blotted out his smile.

"I'm talking about consonance," he said. "Making it right."

"But Delmar has something to do with it, doesn't he? Something beyond bad love."

He uncrossed his legs. The gun made a small arc. "What do you know about bad love, you pretentious yuppie prick?"

The gun arm was board rigid. Then it began vibrating. He looked at it for just a second. Laughed, as if trying to erase his outburst.

Scratch, bump. The dog was throwing himself hard against the glass.

Coburg snickered. "Little pit puppy. Maybe after it's over I'll take him home with me."

Smiling but sweating. The rosy cheeks deep with color.

Trying to keep my face neutral, I strained to hear sounds from the bedrooms. Nothing.

"So you think you know about bad love," said Coburg.

"Meredith told me about it," I said.

His brow tightened and mottled.

The dog kept scraping. The old-man whining sound filtered through the glass. Coburg gave a disgusted look.

"You don't know anything," he said.

"So tell me."

"Shut your mouth." The gun arm shot forward again.

I didn't move.

He said, "You don't know a tenth of it. Don't flatter yourself with empathy, fuck your empathy."

The dog bumped some more. Coburg's eyes flattened.

"Maybe I'll just shoot it… skin it and gut it… how good can a shrink's dog be, anyway? How many shrinks does it take to change a lightbulb? None. They're all dead."

He laughed a bit more. Wiped sweat from his nose. I concentrated on the gun arm. It remained firmly in place, as if cut off from the rest of him.

"Do you know what my sin was?" he said. "The great transgression that bought me a ticket to hell?"

Ticket to hell. Meredith had called the school the same thing.

I shook my head. My armpits were aching, my fingers turning numb.

He said, "Enuresis. When I was a kid I used to piss my bed." He laughed.

"They treated me as if I liked it," he said. "Mumsy and Evil Stepdaddy. As if I liked clammy sheets and that litter-box smell. They were convinced I was doing it on purpose, so they beat me. So I got more nervous and pissed gallons. So then what did they do?"

Looking at me, waiting.

"They beat you some more."

"Bingo. And washed my dick with lye soap and all sorts of other wonderful stuff."

Still smiling, but his cheeks were scarlet. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his shoulders hunched under the designer sweatshirt.

My first thought, seeing those rosy cheeks, had been: a beautiful baby.

"So I started to do other things," he said. "Really naughty things. Could anyone blame me? Being tortured for something that I had no control over?"

I shook my head again. For a split second I felt my agreement meant something to him. Then a distracted look came into his eyes. The gun arm pushed forward and the black-metal barrel edged closer to my heart.

"What's the current lowdown on enuresis, anyway?" he said. "Do you pricks still tell parents it's a mental disease?"

"It's genetic," I said. "Related to sleep patterns. Generally it goes away by itself."

"You don't treat it anymore?"

"Sometimes behavior therapy is used."

"You ever treat kids for it?"

"When they want to be treated."

"Sure," he gri

"I-"

"Shut up." The gun jabbed my chest. "That was rhetorical, don't speak unless you're spoken to… sleep patterns, huh? You quacks weren't saying that back when I was getting beaten with a strap. You had all sorts of other voodoo theories back then- one of your fellow quacks told Mumsy and Evil that I was screwed up sexually. Another said I was seriously depressed and needed to be hospitalized. And one genius told them I was doing it because I was angry about their marriage. Which was true. But I wasn't pissing because of it. That one they bought. Evil really got into expressing his anger. Big financial man, spiffy dresser- he had a whole collection of fancy belts. Lizard, alligator, calfskin, all with nice sharp buckles. One day I went to school with an especially nice collection of welts on my arm. A teacher started asking questions and the next thing I knew I was on a plane with dear old Mumsy to su

He let his free hand drop to his lap. His eyes looked tired and his shoulders rounded.

The dog was still throwing himself against the glass.

Coburg stared straight at me.

I said, "How old were you when they put you in the school?"

The gun jabbed again, forcing me backward against the couch. All at once his face was up against mine, breathing licorice. I could see dried mucus in his nostrils. He spat. His saliva was cold and thick as it oozed down the side of my face.

"I'm not there, yet," he said, between barely moving lips. "Why don't you shut up and let me tell it?"

Breathing hard and fast. I made myself look into his eyes, feeling the gun without seeing it. My pulse thundered in my ears. The spit continued its downward trail. Reaching my chin. Dripping onto my shirt.

He looked repulsed, struck out, slapping me and wiping me simultaneously. Wiped his hand on the seat cushion.

"They didn't put me there right away. They put me in another dungeon first. Right across the street- can you believe that, two hellholes on the same street- what was it, zoned H1 for hell? A real shithole run by a nincompoop alkie, but expensive as hell, so, of course, Mumsy thought it was good, the woman was always such an arriviste."

I tried to look like a fascinated student… still no sounds from the bedrooms.

Coburg said, "A nincompoop. Not even a challenge. A book of matches and some notebook paper." Smile.

Firesetters and truants… Bancroft hadn't said the fire was at his school.

"Poor Mumsy was stymied, out on the next plane, the poor thing. This wonderful look of hopelessness on her face- and she such an educated woman. Crying as we waited for our taxi- I thought I'd finally scored a point. Then he walked over. From across the street. This goatish thing in a black suit and cheap shoes. Taking Mummy's hand, telling her he'd heard what had happened, tsk-tsking and letting her cry some more about her bad little boy. Then telling her his school could handle those kinds of things. Guaranteed. All the while tousling my hair- twelve years old and he was tousling my fucking hair. His hand stank of cabbage and bay rum."