Self-Defence

He looked into his beer glass.

"She was pretty, if you liked ski

He turned and faced me.

"She was nice to talk to, a little lady. Then when I drove her home, she put her hands all over me, and when I parked in front of her house she told me she loved me. It was like being sucker-punched. Genius that I was, I told her I liked her as a friend but couldn't love her. Then I explained why."

He gave another frightful laugh. In the bad light he looked homicidal.

"She didn't say a thing for a while. Just let her hands drop and stared at me as if I was the biggest goddamn disappointment in her eighteen-year life. She didn't have it easy. Her whole family was a bunch of assholes, brothers in jail, father a drunken shit who slapped her around from time to time, maybe worse. And here I was, the last straw."

He rubbed his eyelids. "She kept staring at me. Finally shook her head and said, "Oh, Milo, you're going to end up in Hell.' No anger. Sympathetic. Then she patted her brand-new Tonette and got out of the car and that's the last I saw her. Next week she shipped off to a convent in Indianapolis. Five years ago my mother wrote me she was murdered, over in El Salvador. She and a bunch of other nuns washing clothes in a stream." He threw up his hands. "Let's do a screenplay."

"Lucy reminds you of her that strongly."

"They could be sisters, Alex. The way she carries herself- the vulnerability."

"The vulnerability's definitely there," I said. "Given what I've learned of her childhood, it's no surprise. Her mom died right after she was born; her father deserted the family. She's functionally an orphan."

"Yeah, I know. She was talking to me about Shwandt, once. Said he had two parents, nice home, father who was a lawyer, so what was his excuse? Said her own father was a lowlife."

"Did she tell you who her father is?"

He looked up. "Who?"

"M. Bayard Lowell."

Staring, he put his hands around his beer glass. "What is this, Big Fucking Surprise Day? The goddamn moon in Pisces with Herpes or something? Lowell as in Mr. Belles Lettruh?"

"None other."

"Unbelievable. He still alive?"

"Living in Topanga Canyon. His career died and he moved to L.A."

"I read him in school."

"Everyone did."

"She's his daughter? Unreal."

"You can see why he'd have impact, even being absent."

"Sure," he said. "He's just there, like the goddamn Ten Foot Gorilla."

"Lucy compared it to being the President's kid. I can understand her looking for a benevolent authority figure. Maybe your thoughts about a big brother weren't all that far from the truth."

"Great. And now I disappoint her, too… So how do I handle this? Visit or keep my distance?"

"Let's see how she does during the next few days."

"Sure. Head in the oven… No idea what could have led her to it?"

I shook my head. "She was upset, but nothing that pointed to suicide."

"Upset about me."

"That, but we'd also started to get into other things- the prostitution, feelings toward her father. And the dream she mentioned to you. That's something else I want to talk to you about."

I described the buried girl story.

He said, "I'm no shrink, but I hear, "Daddy scares the shit out of me.' "

"She started having it midway through the trial, right after you testified about Carrie. I figured all that horror raised her anxiety level and released long-buried feelings toward Lowell- seeing herself as some kind of victim. His last poems are viciously anti-woman; she may have read them and had a strong reaction. And the last time we discussed the dream she said she'd felt her soul entering the dark-haired girl's body- as if she were being buried too. Explicitly identifying with the victim. But something the half brother told me in the hospital makes me wonder if there's even more. She claims she's had no contact with Lowell her entire life, but the brother said twenty-one years ago she spent the summer with him in Topanga. All four of his kids did. Lucy was four years old at the time- the age she feels in the dream. And Lowell's place has log buildings, exactly what she describes. Now, the newspapers did cover the opening of the retreat, down to the architecture; I found the clippings so she could've also. Or she could have heard about it from her brother Peter. He did some family research and filled her in. If that's the case, she's flat out denying being there. But the alternative is that she really doesn't remember. Maybe because something traumatic happened that summer."

His jaw flexed. "Daddy did something to her?"

"Like I said, his last poems are grossly misogynistic. If he abused her, I can see why the trial might kick in the memories- sex and violence thrown together. One thing's for sure, she's struggling with something major. The recurrent nature of the dream and its intensity- when she talks about it she actually seems to experience it- she's trancelike. Almost as if she's going into hypnosis by herself. That tells me her ego boundaries are weakening; this is something potent. So maybe I should've been more careful. But there was no profound depression, no hint she'd do this."

"What about the other two guys in the dream?"

"Could be that part's fantasy, or maybe what happened to her wasn't a solo act. And I've got another possible participant. That summer, Lowell had a protégé living with him named Terry Trafficant. Career criminal, history of attempted rape, assault, manslaughter. Locked up long-term till Lowell helped him get parole and publish his jail diary. It became a best-seller."

"Yeah, yeah, I wasn't a cop yet, still in college, but I remember thinking how asinine."

"So did a lot of other people. The last cop who arrested him called him a stick of dynamite waiting to go off. There was a stink about Lowell's patronage, then Trafficant disappeared. A guy like that, all those years in confinement, stick him in Topanga Canyon with a cute little girl ru

He grimaced. "Trafficant's record include pedophilia?"

"I don't remember reading that, but a guy like him might very well not be repulsed by sex with a little girl."

"Yeah. The other possibility, Alex, is that nothing happened directly to her but she saw something. And not even criminal violence- maybe wild sex, some kind of orgy. A girl and three guys- that would freak out a four-year-old, right? What if the grinding was exactly what she first thought it was and her mind ran away with it? Like you said, sex and violence are all mixed up in her head."

I thought about that. "It's sure possible. The half brother said the kids were at the retreat for the opening. A big party took place. The papers described it as a pretty wild scene. And in the dream, Lucy talks about noise and lights the night she leaves the cabin. She could've seen something X-rated."

"Involving Daddy. He and a couple of buddies having their way with a girl," he said. "Not the kind of thing a little kid could handle easily."

"And the trial reawakens it… On the other hand, what if she did witness violence and that's why hearing about Shwandt evoked memories of a crime? Maybe- unconsciously- she was motivated to be a juror in order to right some kind of wrong. Maybe that's the toughness the prosecutors sensed."

"Possible," he said.

"Trafficant was an attempted rapist, Milo. And he dropped out of sight right after the party."

"On the lam?"

"Why else would he disappear at the height of his celebrity? All those years behind bars, then he's a best-seller; it wouldn't have made sense to quit unless he had something to hide. He and Lowell- the publicity would have been devastating. So maybe he took the money and ran. For all we know, he's on some tropical island living off his royalties."