The Museum of Desire: An Alex Delaware Novel(83)

“Rigid and repetitious. That’s consistent.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. Anyway, Haley called the kid’s therapist and she said nice things about you so everything’s set up. Sooner would be better than later, though I’m not convinced the kid really has anything to say. Probably just craves attention.”

I checked my calendar. Custody interview in the morning. Third-time meeting with a cranky, resistant father. I’d warmed him up a bit but more needed to be done.

“I’m free around one.”

“Great, I’ll tell her,” he said. “The kid’s at home all day, don’t imagine you’ll need an appointment.”



* * *



—

At twelve fifty-five, I pulled up to the white Georgian. On the way, I’d slowed and glanced at Clearwater Lane—a quick scan. No cars in front of the blue house.

Haley Moman opened the door, hair combed out, her face coated with full makeup. Cosmetics couldn’t mask weary eyes and worry lines.

“So you’re a therapist. You couldn’t tell me that?”

“It didn’t seem necessary.”

“Honesty’s always necessary…lucky for you, Dr. Sontag says you’re solid. A professor.”

“I do some teaching.”

“Yeah, yeah, at the med school crosstown,” she said. “I looked you up. You worked with kids with cancer. That had to be depressing.”

“For the most part, it was rewarding.”

“Was it? Anyway, you’ve been vetted and approved so I’ll allow you to talk to my baby, let’s get this over with.”

“Any idea what Crispin wants to tell me?”

“As if.”



* * *



—

Crispin sat cross-legged on the floor, facing the massive aquarium. Gaudy fish glided through a coral forest, pecking and browsing and nose-jabbing one another. Bubbles carbonated and broke the surface of the water, setting off glints of light.

Haley Moman cleared her throat.

Crispin waved his hand dismissively. “Go.”

She flinched. Took her shame out on me with a kill-the-messenger glare.

“Go, Haley!”

Fighting back tears, mother fled son.

I walked toward Crispin, evoking no reaction. He wore the same green, old-guy poly jumpsuit and the out-of-place black wingtips. His pageboy was a mess, beige hairs spiking in odd directions. His skin had broken out, what looked like a crop of miniature pomegranate seeds on the cramped pallid face.

“Hello again, Crispin.”

“Sit or stand.”

I got down beside him.

“Just as I thought.”

“Pardon?”

“You want to establish rapport so you sat. I knew you would. I gave you a fictitious choice.” He continued to stare at the aquarium. But not at the fish; no eye movement. “Alexander Dumas Delaware. Writers are professional liars. Apparently so are psychologists. You’re named after a professional liar. Was your mother dishonest?”

I laughed.

He said, “Do you think I’m funny or are you still trying to establish rapport?”

“That was pretty funny.”

“That your mother was a liar?”

“That you see the world in an interesting way.”

“That sounds like rapport-building. I have a supposed therapist. She’s always pretending to be nice.”

I knew his therapist. Genuinely nice.

A few seconds passed. He said, “Don’t bother with what I think of you. I could think you were dog excrement and I’d tell you what I brought you here for.”

“Okay.”

“Aren’t you going to ask what that is?”

“You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

He half turned toward me. Regarding me with purplish eyes, narrowed and impermeable. Returning to the aquarium, he set about picking a zit. Drew blood and transferred the activity to a ring finger cuticle and raised a crimson thread that traced the bottom of his nail.

“I lied,” he said.

“About…”

“Complete the sentence. Add an object. About…?”

“You lied about what?”

“Good,” he said. “You’re being cooperative. People don’t like to cooperate with me. People don’t like me.”

I said nothing.

“Good,” he repeated. “You didn’t argue.” He uncrossed his legs, extended his feet straight out, wiggled the tips of the black shoes. “When you were here with Milo Bernard, I lied about what I saw. Ask me why.”

“Why did you lie?”

“I don’t know. That applies to much of what I do and think. I have trouble coming up with easy explanations. It makes me more interesting to me.”

I said, “You prefer questions that can’t be answered.”

“Are you ridiculing me?”

“Nope.”

He got to work on an index finger cuticle. Thicker blood trail. He licked it. “I sometimes drink myself. Recycling.”

I said, “Was your lie false information or incomplete information?”

Pick, pick, lick. He rubbed his eyes for a long time. “Tell me what I told you the first time.”