Savannah turned her tear-filled eyes upward. “I’m still hurting people. Good people in bad ways. I lie to myself and say it doesn’t matter. That we’re all getting what we deserve.” She blinked at looked to her therapist. “But it does matter. People end up ruined…worse… because of me. Last night I couldn’t stop thinking about all the shit I’ve done.” She huffed out a joyless laugh. “You know. Reflections on the past, resolutions for the future. All that New Year’s bullshit. My past is despicable. I don’t see my future being any different. Last night my head was hell bent on replaying my greatest hits, you know what I mean?”
Lydia nodded. “We’ve all had times when we dwell on the mistakes of our past.”
“But that’s just it.” Savannah leaned forward, pleading eyes focused on Lydia. “My mistakes aren’t left in the past. The hits just keep on happening. Last night I thought there was only one way out. Only one way to stop myself from hurting people ever again.”
“Were you thinking about killing yourself?” Lydia kept her tone conversational. Normalize the thought to keep her talking.
Savannah nodded. “Like there was no other move for me. So I called your service. It was either that or put a gun in my mouth.”
“I’m glad you called.” Lydia held herself steady, not adding to the drama. “Do you have guns in your home?”
For the first time that morning Lydia saw a flash of the polished, in-command Savannah she’d grown accustomed to.
“You’d be surprised what I have in my home.” She pulled herself taller. “Yes, Dr. Corriger. I have guns.”
Lydia kept quiet for a few moments. She wanted Savannah to watch her think.
“I promise I will never take the option of suicide away from you.” Lydia leaned forward to demand Savannah’s full attention. “But I hope you won’t do it in a fit of impulse. Because if you do, you’ll never have the chance to know what might come next. You’ll never have the chance to see if we could fix whatever it is you seem so convinced is broken.”
Savannah gave a weak smile. “Where’s the red lights and sirens? Aren’t you supposed to save me?”
“If that’s you want, you came to the wrong place. If you want to kill yourself I won’t stop you. I just want to make sure you’ve explored all your options first.”
Savannah’s tears spilled from bloodshot eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I believe that.” Lydia handed her a box of tissues. “Let’s see if we can work something out together. What do you want to tell me?”
Savannah blew her nose, tossed the tissue into the wastebasket, and pulled out another. “What I say to you is strictly confidential, right? Like you’re a priest.”
“That’s right. Unless I need to take steps to keep you or someone else safe, I can’t tell a soul.” Lydia smiled. “Like a priest.”
Savannah kept her eyes on her hands. “What if I’ve hurt people? Do you tell?”
“There’s nothing I can do about what’s already happened, Savannah. We can talk about it, learn from it, develop strategies to avoid future mistakes. But, no. I can’t tell anyone what you’ve done.” Lydia sensed a cracking in her patient’s wall of mistrust.
“What if I robbed a bank?” Savannah asked.
“We’re not playing games, remember? Confidentiality is blanket. It doesn’t apply to some things and not others.” Lydia took a deep breath to quiet her impatience. “What is it you’ve done that has you so ashamed?”
Savannah stayed focused on her hands. “Remember when I told you I was aware of the effect I had on men? How I use that to my advantage?”
“I remember. You’re a startling beauty, Savannah. You wouldn’t be the first woman to use that to get what she needs.” Lydia hoped normalizing her patient’s behavior would reduce her shame.
Savannah looked down at her disheveled clothes and turned a quizzical look. “Is that what you see? ‘A startling beauty’?”
Lydia joined her in a smile. “Well, maybe not this morning. Let’s just say you clean up real nice.”
Savannah held Lydia’s gaze. “Why don’t you, Dr. Corriger?”
“Why don’t I what?”
“Clean up real nice?” Savannah brought her legs up under her and cocked her head. “No offense, but you dress like a drudge. No make-up. Shapeless clothes. Hair pulled back in a scrunchee. I see the kind of bone structure you have. Those big beautiful eyes. You could be drop-dead gorgeous in no time.”
Lydia felt her gut clench. She took another deep breath. “I’ll assume you meant that as a compliment. But we’re here to talk about you. Tell me how you use your own beauty.”
Savannah’s smile disappeared. “People hire me. Not for sex, though that’s usually a part of it. I’m not that kind of prostitute.” She huffed in self-loathing. “At least not anymore.”
“What kind of prostitute are you?” Lydia was happy to have the focus back on her patient.
“You really aren’t like other shrinks, are you?” The smile, though weary, was back. “I was expecting some sort of comforting words.”
“When I offer comforting words you’ll know they’re sincere.” Lydia leaned back. “What kind of prostitute are you?”
Savannah took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before exhaling loud and long. “Just for the sake of argument, pretend that you’re the chairman of a major bank. And this bank is about to launch a program of investments that are, let’s say, questionable at best. Maybe even unethical or illegal.”
“Okay. I’m with you so far. Are you telling me you’re a stockbroker?”
“No. I’m more specialized than that.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “Pretend you have a member of your board who’s opposed to these investments. Despite the fact that billions of dollars will be made, this board member thinks it’s wrong and can’t be convinced otherwise. You might hire me to make sure that person isn’t available when it comes time to vote.”
“But if I’m the chairman, why wouldn’t I just replace that board member?”
“Maybe letting him go would raise the kind of questions you don’t want splashed across the front page of The Wall Street Journal.” Savannah stared into middle space. “People have their reasons for using me.”
“Okay, let’s stick with your scenario,” Lydia said. “How might you keep the person from voting?”
Savannah shrugged her shoulders. “It’s incredibly easy for a beautiful woman to distract a man.” She turned to face Lydia. “Something tells me you know that.”
Lydia held her gaze. “This is about you, remember? So you distract this fellow. What stops him from crying ‘foul’ when he learns he’s been duped? Going public with his dissent and how he was manipulated?”
Savannah sat numb and silent for several long moments. “Let’s just say he wouldn’t want the details of the distraction to be known.” She shredded a tissue into her lap. “The people who hire me always have full documentation of my work.”
“Blackmail?”
“At its most benign, yes, that could happen.”
“And at its most malignant?” Lydia was certain she didn’t want to hear the answer.
Savannah stared straight ahead. “People die.”
Lydia heard her heartbeat pounding in her ears. “Dead, Savannah? By your hands?”
Savannah blinked and said nothing.
Lydia’s mind raced. Her training hadn’t prepared her for this. “How many, Savannah?”
“Hires or deaths?” Savannah returned her stare into nothingness.
“Deaths, Savannah. How many deaths are you responsible for?” Lydia felt her breath become rapid and shallow.
Tears spilled freely from Savannah’s eyes. “Too many, Dr. Corriger. Too many.”
Lydia blew out a breath and looked out the window. The sky was beginning to lighten. A heavy fog obstructed any view. “When was the most recent?”
Savannah sat quietly. Lydia wondered if she was contemplating how much more to reveal.
“Did you read about that guy at the university? The animal researcher?” she asked. “The one who died right before Christmas?”
Lydia raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking about Fred Bastian?” Her breathing relaxed. “Savannah, he died of a heart attack. It was all over the papers.”
“There’s lots of ways to cause a heart attack.” Savannah reached for her jacket. “But whatever the cause, you’re just as dead, aren’t you? Besides, there are worse things than killing people. Far worse.”
Lydia watched her patient stand and cross the room. “Savannah, you didn’t kill Fred Bastian. Please sit down.”
Savannah glanced over her shoulder as she walked away. “Not today. I’m exhausted.” She stopped and turned before walking through the door. “Thanks for seeing me, Dr. Corriger. I feel better.” She bit her lower lip to stop its quiver. “And I didn’t think that was possible. You’ve come to my rescue yet again.”
Lydia tilted her head. “You’ll come back? And you’ll call me if you feel like hurting yourself? Or anyone else?”
Savannah gave a tentative nod. “I promise. On both counts.” She looked down at the door knob before looking back. “I really would like to see how this turns out.”
Lydia bent over, hands on her knees, breathing rapidly. She’d been unable to shake thoughts of her morning meeting with Savannah despite throwing herself into a rugged workout regimen. She tried to make sense of the contradictions but couldn’t. Was Bastian’s death a surrogate for some guilt Savannah was experiencing? Or was it all a game? Lydia recalled her first meeting with the beautiful stranger. Savannah promised lies and conundrums. She challenged Lydia to make sense of the nonsensical.
Lydia grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off her neck. There was something about Savannah that nagged in the back of her mind. She’d overlooked something major. She glanced at the clock on her basement’s wall. Nearly midnight. Her sixty minute workout was over ten minutes ago. Lydia crossed over to the heavy bag hanging from a rafter and gave it a strong side kick. One more hour. She needed to clear her head of the taunting tune of inadequacy that was stuck on repeat since Savannah’s session. She needed to stay away from the pink box in her bathroom.
The Fixer checked the papers the first Thursday in January and saw the personal advertisement requesting her service. But Bastion was only two weeks ago and she had no intention of responding. Her eyes dropped to the box just below the ad.
Thank You, Miss Carr
Rage sprang her to attention. She ran downstairs and placed a call.
“Fuck this shit, Wally.” She snarled into the headset when she was greeted by the same digitally disguised voice that had initiated the fix on Fred Bastian. “Lay off the toys, damn it.”
She listened to mechanical clicks and a feedback squeal before Walter Buchner’s nasal voice greeted her.
“I’m so sorry, Ms Carr. But I have to tell you.” He sounded scared. She hoped to ratchet it up to terrified.
“A man is dead because you bought him that way and you reach out for a Hallmark moment?” The Fixer looked at the timer on the computer that bounced her call around cell towers in nine states. She had seventy-two seconds before the connection would automatically end. “This call is my one courtesy, Wally. This is over. You clear on that?”
“Meet me at the warehouse Sunday noon.” Walter’s voice was a blend of tears and terror. “You killed the wrong person.”
He hung up.
The Fixer yanked off her headset, threw it across the cinderblock room, and instantly regretted it. She hated extremes. Especially emotions. She closed her eyes and rocked, still seated behind her communication console, hoping for a moment of calm.
What did Buchner mean, she’d killed the wrong man?
Sweat pooled under her arms. Metallic bile collected in the back of her throat as her swallow reflex shut down. She clenched her rectal muscles, trying to slow her loosening bowels.
She remembered this feeling. Naked, primal fear. A documentary of prior experiences with the elemental emotion played across her closed lids. The shadow of a man slipping into a darkened bedroom. The stench of whiskey churning her ten-year-old stomach. The sound of a belt clearing his trousers. His massive hand reaching for her hair, pulling her from beneath the covers and throwing her to her knees. The belt around her throat. Tighter. Her head yanked back against the ridge of leather at her neck. The stinging slap forcing her mouth open. The slippery flesh jammed in deep before a scream could escape.
“Suck, Little Cracker. Suck Daddy’s cock real good.”
She snapped her eyes open and spun her chair around just in time to avoid covering the console in vomit.
The Fixer never resurrected a character and she never saw a client twice. She broke both rules that Thursday when she pulled on latex gloves and picked the lock on Walter Buchner’s back door a few minutes before midnight.
She’d rented a vehicle as Darlene Ritz, a pregnant redhead with a taste for Pucci prints and faux fur. But it was Carr, the young Goth, who parked the green Subaru three blocks from Buchner’s University District bungalow. He’d demanded she meet him at the Seattle warehouse on Sunday. Perhaps he was allowing her travel time from whatever arctic lair he imagined served as her headquarters. He didn’t know she was less than seventy miles down I-5. She’d give him two minutes to explain. His story would help her decide what role the Ruger .380 holstered in the small of her back would play.
The Fixer eased the back door open and slipped into Buchner’s darkened kitchen. The glow of a television played in an unlit room straight ahead. She stood in the shadow of the refrigerator and listened as David Letterman and Paul Schaffer traded one-liners about Madonna’s latest adoption. A studio audience laughed. No other human sounds. Buchner was alone. She let her eyes adjust and surveyed the room. Pizza boxes and soda cans littered a table to her right. Dirty dishes filled a small sink. A gallon milk jug, uncapped and two-thirds empty, sat on the counter next to a stack of junk mail and two rotten bananas.
The Fixer reached behind her, released the Ruger’s safety, and left it in the holster. She entered the living room as quietly as her work boots would allow. Buchner was on the couch, facing the television. Feet propped on a coffee table covered with beer cans and text books. The back of his head tilted to the right. The acrid odor of marijuana filled the room.
“Turn the television off, Wally.” She planted her left foot four inches in front of her right, ready to kick if Buchner got frisky.