The Syndrome

“So?”

“So his nurse says, he’s got about six months to live when he’s shot. Maybe a year if he’s real lucky. I mean—” The cop shook his head with a rueful chuckle. “What’s the point?”

Chapter 2

Washington, D.C.

Talk about “flying”—she had so much energy! And not just today. It was the same way as the day before, and the day before that. Basically, ever since she’d gotten back from—wherever.

Florida! She’d been in Florida.

This morning, she’d gotten up at five (it was impossible to sleep when she was like this), reorganized the kitchen cabinets and defrosted the refrigerator. She’d cleaned the oven after that, and washed and waxed the floors. Going into the bathroom, she’d emptied the medicine cabinet with a couple of sweeps of her hand, dumping its contents in a shopping bag. Then she’d cleaned the mirror and the shelves, thinking, I don’t need any of it, anymore. Not the Vicks, not the lithium, not the aspirin. This was the new Nico, clean and clear and energetic as an Evian waterfall.

Today was her day to see Duran.

His office was in Cleveland Park. To get there from Georgetown, she had to walk down M Street to the Key Bridge, cross the Potomac to Rosslyn, and take the Metro. It was a hike, but seeing Duran was about as optional as breathing. It wasn’t like the lithium. It was really important, so important that it never occurred to her not to go. Duran was her anchor, shrink and exorcist, all in one. He brought her face-to-face with the demons that bedeviled her and, with his help, she’d drive them out. He’d make her well. He’d promised.

Entering the subway, she was struck by the smell that floated up the stairs, a mixture of the cave and the vacuum cleaner. This was the underground scent that darkness gave off, the perfume of hidden places. Subways, tu

That underground smell was the subway’s olfactory background, like the bass line in music or the set on a sitcom. But there were brighter aromas, too. Coffee, sweat, tobacco, dust. A whiff of urine, a flash of perfume—or was it hair spray?

And the ride! The ride was a massage that left her almost dreamy. She liked the sound of it, the rush of air, the rhythmic sway of the segmented train hurtling through the tu

When the train got to Cleveland Park, she took the escalator up to the street, where the Juice Man was waiting, three doors down. As she always did, she bought a papaya smoothie and sucked it down so fast that it gave her an ice-cream headache. Even that was okay, though, because when her brain unclenched from the freeze, there was a moment—there was always a moment—when her mind felt so clean. It was worth the pain, almost, to feel it, that sweet blur of relief.

Once, she’d asked Adrie

Unlike Duran.

Who understood her—

To a T.

His building was a block north of the Metro stop, on the east side of Co

And then there were the old people.

They sat on the benches in front of Ivy’s Indo-Thai place, feeding the pigeons. One of them was there every week. She recognized him by the fisherman’s cap he wore, rain or shine. And by his hands, which were as big as di

Duran’s building was an old one and, while everything worked, it worked on its own terms. Which meant, among other things, that when the intercom buzzed, it really buzzed—as if to a

So when Nico buzzed, he jumped—and just as quickly, acted to compose himself. Took a deep breath, and blew it out. Then he pushed a button on the TV’s remote and watched the image in front of him implode in a swirl of sparks. (The sparks were what was left of Oprah, who’d been leaning forward to refine a question.)

Closing the door to the bedroom, Duran walked toward the intercom, knowing it was Nico, but knowing also that formalities had to be observed. He spoke into the metal grid.

“Yes?”

The reply came back an instant later, light and musical. “It’s Nico—Nico, Nico, Nico!”

He could tell by her voice that she hadn’t been taking her lithium. She was so full of herself, you could hear it in her tone. “You’re right on time,” Duran told her. “Come on up.”

While he waited for her, he found himself wondering what Oprah had been about to ask when the intercom buzzed. The image of her face remained in his mind—lips pursed, head inclined, brow slightly furrowed. Eyes narrowed. The Look. The one she adopted when she was about to ask a really prying question. It was a look that combined mischief with apology, inviting the person before her to enter into a kind of conspiracy. These questions—your answers—our pact. If I dare to ask, will you dare to answer? It was a brilliant look, much better than Barbara Walters’s po-faced ooze of sympathetic understanding, or Diane Sawyer’s wincing compassion.

He waited for Nico beside the door, imagining the change in air pressure when he heard the elevator doors open with a swoosh on the sixth floor. And then he heard her footsteps on the tiles in the hall, a soft click-click-click that grew louder and louder until, suddenly, there was nothing. And then the doorbell rang, a single note, clear and round, as if from a xylophone. It reminded him of the public address system in department stores like Macy’s and Saks.

Not that he went to department stores—or not often, anyway.

Duran opened the door at the sound of the bell and, as he did, Nico stepped back, a little surprised by the absence of any delay.

“Nico!”

“Oooh!” she exclaimed. “God, Doc, you made me jump!” Then she smiled. Relaxed. And came in.

“You’re looking great,” Duran told her, closing the door behind them. “Ta

She shrugged. “Just the beach.”

“No kidding. Which one?”

She shook her head. “One of the beaches. I forget what they call it.”

Together, they walked through the living room to his office. “Is that new?” she asked. Paused and pointed.

Duran followed her eyes to a bloodred Kirman that lay on the floor in front of the fireplace. Then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I just got it.”