The Touch Read online

  Perhaps that was the key, she thought as she disengaged herself from his embrace. Perhaps that was why at the slightest provocation he gored anyone who came within range. No one was safe. Not Jeffy, not even her. He was like a rare jungle frog she’d seen on a television special—harmless-looking enough until it spit venom in your eyes. Sylvia found that the sense of imminent danger when he was around added a little zest to life.

  “I hope it won’t crush you to learn that you won’t be the only doctor here tonight.”

  “Hardly. Doctors are the bloodiest boring people on earth. Except for me, of course.”

  “Of course. The other two are both family practitioners, by the way. And they used to be partners.”

  “Really?”

  A gleam sparkled in his eyes and his thin lips curved into an impish grin. “I’m glad I came tonight.”

  “I told you it would be interesting.”

  She glanced out the window at the sound of a car on the drive. The first guests had arrived. She checked herself in the full-length mirror set on the closet door. The black dress looked just right—a bit too low in the front, a bit too low in the back, a bit too tight across the hips. In perfect keeping with her image.

  She linked her arm through Charles’.

  “Shall we go?”

  “Isn’t that a Rolls, Alan?” Ginny said as they pulled into Sylvia Nash’s driveway.

  Alan squinted through the windshield at the silver-gray car parked near the front door. “Sure looks like one. And there’s a Bentley right next to it.”

  Ginny made a small, feminine grunt. “And here we are in a Buick.”

  “A Riviera isn’t exactly a pickup, Ginny.” Alan cringed at the knowledge of where this conversation was headed. The two of them had been down this road before, many times, and he knew every turn. “It gets you to Gristede’s and the tennis courts in style and comfort.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean for me. I mean for you. Instead of that awful Outlaw—”

  “It’s an Outback, Ginny. An Outback.”

  “What ever. It’s a dull car, Alan. No pizzaz.”

  “Back in January you thought it was great when its all-wheel drive cruised us through the blizzard and we wound up being the only people to show up for Josie’s fortieth birthday party.”

  “I’m not saying it doesn’t have its uses. And I know it allows you to feel you can get to the office or hospital no matter what the weather—God forbid someone else should have to take care of one of your patients!—but so would a tractor. That doesn’t mean you have to drive around town in one. You should get one of those cute little sports cars like Fred Larkin just got.”

  “Let’s not talk about Fred Larkin. And I wouldn’t own a ninety-thousand-dollar car even if I could afford one.”

  “You can write it off.”

  “No, I can’t write it off. You know we don’t have that kind of money lying around!”

  “You’re shouting, Alan!”

  So he was. He clamped his lips shut.

  “You usually don’t get so hyper about money. What’s the matter with you?”

  Good question.

  “Sorry. Just don’t feel like going to a party tonight, I guess. I told you I didn’t want to come.”

  “Just loosen up and try to enjoy yourself. Vic is covering for you, so why don’t you have a few drinks and relax.”

  Alan smiled and sighed. “Okay.”

  He would have a few drinks but he doubted he would relax or enjoy himself. There was too much on his mind tonight. Especially after the phone call he’d received this afternoon.

  Murray Raskin, the hospital neurologist, had been catching up on reading the hospital EEGs today and had come across little Sonja Andersen’s. He had immediately called Alan at home, stuttering with excitement. Sonja’s routine EEG last year had been grossly abnormal with a typical epileptic pattern in the left parietal lobe—the same as it had been for the past half-dozen years. The one Alan had ordered yesterday was completely normal.

  All traces of her epilepsy were gone.

  Alan had been stewing ever since. He knew now there would be no peace for him until he had unraveled the Andersen and Westin incidents and made sense out of them.

  But that wasn’t all that was eating at him tonight. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be in a social situation with Sylvia Nash where he couldn’t play “Dr. Bulmer.” He’d have to drop the professional mask and be “Alan.” And he was afraid then that Sylvia and anyone else within half a dozen blocks would know exactly how he felt about her.

  “Isn’t that the Nash lady’s car?” Ginny said, pointing to the bright red sedan under the lights of the front door.

  “Sure is.”

  He parked the Riviera and they walked past Sylvia’s car on their way to the front door.

  “With all her money, you’d think she’d get something nice and new instead of this ugly old thing.”

  “Are you kidding?” Alan ran his fingers over the glossy red finish of the long hood to where it ended at the chromed, forward-leaning grille. He loved that huge grille with its vertical chromed rods gleaming like teeth. “This is a 1938 sharknosed Graham, fully restored.” He peered through the tinted windows. “More than restored. It was considered an economy car in its day. Look inside—she’s even put in a bar.”

  “But why this awful red color? It would look better on a fire engine.”

  “Red was Mr. Toad’s favorite color.”

  “I don’t get it, Alan.”

  “The Wind in the Willows—this is Toad Hall, and you remember Mr. Toad, always stealing motorcars, don’t you? Well, red was his favorite color. And the author’s name was Kenneth Grahame…get it?”

  Ginny stared at him, a frown forming. “Since when have you had such an interest in children’s books?”

  He reined in his enthusiasm. “Always been one of my favorite stories, Ginny. Let’s go in.”

  He didn’t mention that he’d bought a copy of The Wind in the Willows only after learning that Sylvia’s place was called Toad Hall.

  No, Alan thought as they approached the front door, he could not see how it could be a pleasant evening.

  “Ah! Here comes a special guest!” Sylvia said.

  Charles Axford glanced at her, then into the foyer, then back at Sylvia’s face. She’d suddenly become animated. That annoyed him.

  A chap with average good looks and a slim, athletic-looking blonde—Charles guessed them both to be slightly younger than he—were approaching. The woman was beaming, the man looked ill.

  “Which one’s so bloody special?”

  “Him. He’s one of the doctors I told you about.”

  “I’m a doctor, too, you know.”

  “He’s Jeffy’s doctor.”

  “I was Jeffy’s doctor for a while.”

  The corner of Sylvia’s mouth pulled to the right. “You only did some tests on him. Alan’s a real doctor.”

  “Two points for that one, Love.”

  Sylvia smiled. “That was worth five and you know it.”

  “Three, tops—because I’m precisely the kind of doctor I want to be. But let’s go meet this ‘special guest.’ It’s been so long since I’ve spoken to a real doctor.”

  “Come along, then, but try to limit the ‘bloodys’ to ten per minute.”

  Sylvie introduced them. Alan Bulmer was the fellow’s name.

  Decent-looking chap. The woman was a pert, beaming blonde with the most captivating green eyes; she gushed over Sylvie and burbled on about the house and grounds.

  Charles studied the doctor while he and the wife made nice-nice with their hostess. He looked acutely uncomfortable, like he was going to crawl out of his skin. His eyes kept moving to Sylvie and then richocheting off in all directions like misspent bullets.

  What’s the bloody matter with him?

  Just then some overdressed bird toddled over and tapped Bulmer’s wife on the shoulder. They squealed and hugged and did everything but call each
other “Dahling!”

  Charles turned away. Bloody doctor’s wife. How well he knew the type. He’d been married to one for eight very long years, and free of her for half again as long. This one reminded him of his ex: Probably a decent girl once, but now she was a Doctor’s Wife and on the status trip.

  Ba came by, resplendent in a white jacket and shirt, with a black bow tie and pants, carrying a tray full of bubbling champagne flutes. Some guests seemed afraid to take anything from him. Charles signaled to him.

  While passing out the glasses to all those around him, he appreciated the awed expressions on Bulmer’s wife and her friend as they looked up at Ba. Most hostesses would keep someone like Ba out of sight for a party. Not Sylvie. Good old Sylvie liked the stir he caused in the uninitiated.

  Charles decided to start some friendly-for-the-moment chatter with Bulmer and maybe find out what this real doctor was made of. He nudged him and nodded toward Ba’s retreating form.

  “Big fellow, what?”

  Bulmer nodded. “Reminds me of Lurch from The Addams Family.”

  “Lurch? Oh, yes…the butler. Does remind one of him a bit, although I do believe Lurch’s face was more expressive.”

  “Possibly,” Bulmer said with a smile. “I imagine Ba’s height gave him some rough times as a kid. I mean, the average Vietnamese male is five-three, and Ba’s got to be at least a foot over that.”

  “Pituitary giant, wouldn’t you say?”

  Bulmer’s reply was immediate. “Uh-huh. Arrested in his mid-teens, I’d guess. Certainly doesn’t show any acromegalic stigmata.”

  Five points to you, Doc, Charles thought with a rueful mental grin. The bloke already had a diagnosis filed away and waiting. Sharp for a generalist.

  “Is that English you two are speaking?” Sylvie said.

  “Doctor talk, Love. We use it to befuddle the masses.”

  “But it was about Ba. What were you saying?” She seemed genuinely concerned.

  “We were saying that he probably had an overactive pituitary as a kid, maybe even a pituitary tumor. Made him a good foot taller than the average Vietnamese.”

  Bulmer chimed in. “But his pituitary must have slowed down to normal when he reached adulthood because he doesn’t have any of the facial and hand deformities you see with adult hyperpituitism.”

  “Lucky for him it stopped on its own. It’s eventually fatal if untreated.”

  “But doesn’t he ever smile?” Bulmer asked. “I’ve never once seen him smile.”

  Sylvie was silent a moment. “I have a picture of him smiling.”

  “I’ve seen that picture,” Charles said. “It answers the old Pepsodent question about where the yellow went.” Sylvie was studiously ignoring him. Her eyes were on Bulmer, and they glowed in a way he had never seen.

  “Want to see the picture?”

  Bulmer shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Good,” Sylvie said with a smile and a lascivious wink. “It’s upstairs in my bedroom…with my erotic Japanese etchings.”

  Charles bit his lip to keep from laughing as he watched Bulmer almost drop his glass and begin to stutter. “I…well…I don’t really know—”

  Sylvie turned to Charles and looked him squarely in the eyes. Her gaze was intense. “Charles, why don’t you show Virginia and Adelle around the ground floor. You know it almost as well as I do.”

  Charles resented the twinge of jealousy that stabbed through him. “Sure, Love,” he said as nonchalantly as he could. “Be glad to.”

  As he guided the two women away, he noticed Bulmer’s wife looking over her shoulder with a puzzled expression as Sylvie linked an arm through his and led him up the wide, winding stairway.

  Charles watched, too.

  Something going on between those two, but bloody damned if he could figure it out just yet.

  Does she fancy him, I wonder?

  Alan felt like a lamb led to slaughter. If she’d been sly and sneaky about getting him up here he would have backed straight out, no problem. But she’d been so open about it, dragging him away right in front of Ginny. What could he do?

  She led him down the hall as she had Tuesday night, but this time they passed Jeffy’s room and traveled farther on, farther away from the party downstairs. And tonight she wasn’t swathed chin to toe in flannel. She wore a filmy black something that exposed the nearly flawless skin of her back and shoulders just inches away from him.

  A turn of a corner and they were in her bedroom. Thank God it wasn’t dark. A nice bedroom, stylishly furnished with a king-size bed flanked by sleek, low night tables, long satiny curtains framing the windows. Feminine without being too frilly. And no Japanese erotica on the walls. Just mirrors. Lots of mirrors. At one point in the room, the mirrors reflected each other back and forth, and he saw an infinite number of Alans standing next to an endless line of Sylvias in an infinity of bedrooms.

  She went over to a dresser and picked up a Lucite-framed eight-by-ten color photo. She said nothing as she handed it to him.

  There was Ba—a much younger Ba—in a jungle setting, standing next to a shorter, dark-haired American soldier with Sylvia’s smile. Both were in fatigues, each with an arm around the other’s shoulder, and grinning from ear to ear. Obviously somebody had said, “Smile!” and they were complying with a vengeance. Ba’s teeth were indeed yellow. And very crooked. Small wonder he didn’t smile much.

  “Who’s the soldier?”

  “My father. That was taken in 1969, somewhere outside Saigon.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Gone.”

  “Sorry.”

  She took the picture from his hands, gave it a lingering look, then replaced it on the dresser.

  “My father and Ba fought together in Nam. They lost touch after we deserted the country. Then one night, shortly after his discharge, Dad happened to catch a news special on the continuous flow of Boat People from Nam. They showed some film from the Philippines about this fellow who had just piloted a fishing boat full of his friends and neighbors across the South China Sea. Dad recognized him at once. It was Ba.”

  “He brought him back here?”

  “Sure,” she said offhandedly. “They were friends. Dad wouldn’t leave a friend hanging. He found Ba and Nhung Thi jobs in the city. A few years before you came to town my father had a massive coronary—woke up dead, as they say. I met Ba at the funeral and learned he was out of work and his wife sick. I sensed he wasn’t the type to take a handout so I asked him if he’d like to work for me. He did, and you know the rest…about Nhung Thi and all that.”

  Alan knew about Ba’s wife. She’d thought she had bronchitis, but she’d been sicker than anyone had guessed. He wanted to move the conversation to a lighter level. He glanced out the window into the floodlit yard and saw two trees in full blossom.

  “Are those new?”

  Sylvia moved up close behind him. “Only one—the one on the right.”

  Alan was surprised. “I would have guessed this one here—that other has so many more blossoms.”

  “Some secret root food Ba is trying. What ever it is, the new tree is really responding to it.”

  She was so close. Too close. Her perfume was making him giddy. Without saying anything more, Alan eased out into the hall and waited for Sylvia there. She caught up and they strolled back toward the party. She was more subdued than he could ever remember.

  At Jeffy’s door he stopped and waited in the hall while she tiptoed in to check on him.

  “All’s well?” he said as she returned.

  She nodded and smiled. “Sleeping like a baby.”

  They walked on and stopped at the banister overlooking the front foyer. The glittering crowd below swirled in conflicting, intermingling currents, eddying into side pools of conversation in its ceaseless flow from one room to another. He recognized the bulky form of one of the Jets’ better-known defensive backs as he passed through. The familiar face of a longtime New York TV weatherman was there, and Alan swore he reco
gnized the voice of his favorite morning disk jockey but couldn’t find the face.

  That friend of Sylvia’s, Charles Axford, passed through below. He wondered what Axford was to Sylvia. Her current lover, no doubt. She probably had a lot of lovers.

  Then he saw a face he recognized from the newspapers.

  “Isn’t that Andrew Cunningham?”

  “Right. I told you there’d be a few politicos here. Congressman Switzer is somewhere around, too.”

  “You know Mike?”

  “I contributed to his campaign last year. I hope he won’t be too disappointed when he doesn’t get any money from me this time around.”

  Alan smiled. “Was he a bad boy in Washington?”

  “I wouldn’t know. But I have a rule: I never support incumbents.” Her eyes narrowed. “Once they get comfortable, they get dangerous. I like to keep them off balance.”

  Alan sensed that he was seeing a hint of the anger Tony had mentioned last night.

  “Why?”

  Her features were taut as she spoke. “Comfortable incumbents sent my father to Nam and sent my husband off to Iraq. Greg came back thinking he could handle anything. It got him killed.”

  Alan recalled the story. It had happened before he came to Monroe, but back then people were still talking about Gregory Nash’s murder. Apparently he’d been waiting on line in the local 7-11 when someone pulled a gun on the clerk and told her to empty the cash register. According to witnesses, Nash stepped in and neatly disarmed the robber. But he hadn’t known about the man’s accomplice, who shot him in the back of the head. He was DOA at the hospital.

  He looked down again at Cunningham, and thought of Mike Switzer, and suddenly remembered their feud.

  “God, Sylvia! When Switzer and Cunningham run into each other tonight, all hell could break loose!”

  Sylvia’s hand darted to her mouth. “Oh, my! I never thought of that!”