The Ties That Bind

Read The Ties That Bind Online

Authors: Warren Adler

Tags: #Fiction, Mystery and Detective, General, Women Sleuths, Political

BOOKS BY WARREN ADLER

Banquet Before Dawn

Blood Ties

Cult

Death of a Washington Madame

Empty Treasures

Flanagan's Dolls

Funny Boys

Madeline's Miracles

Mourning Glory

Natural Enemies

Private Lies

Random Hearts

Residue

The Casanova Embrace

The Children of the Roses

The David Embrace

The Henderson Equation

The Housewife Blues

The War of the Roses

The Womanizer

Trans-Siberian Express

Twilight Child

Undertow

We Are Holding the President
Hostage

SHORT STORIES

Jackson Hole, Uneasy Eden

Never Too Late For Love

New York Echoes

New York Echoes 2

The Sunset Gang

MYSTERIES

American Sextet

American Quartet

Immaculate Deception

Senator Love

The Ties That Bind

The Witch of Watergate

ISBN 978-1-59006-100-8

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced
in any form without permission. This novel is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, incidents are either the product
of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Inquiries: WarrenAdler.com

STONEHOUSE PRESS

Contents

For our family, our fortress

"That's it," Fiona FitzGerald said aloud. She
rose on an elbow and looked at the red digital numbers on the bedtable clock, a
reflex, as if the moment of revelation needed a marker.

"What's 'it'?" Harrison mumbled, stirring. She
felt the warmth of his naked flank where it touched hers. She had duly noted,
dating from their third or fourth all-night coupling, that the man slept on his
back.

Her occasional bed partners usually slept in a semi-fetal
position, fitted against her back like a spoon or vice versa where she was the
outside spoon. These were the cuddlers, her special preference. But, there were
also the non-touchers who needed their space to effect an untroubled slumber.
Whatever their choice, Fiona respected their preference.

Her own view was that if you were making such an intimate
trusting commitment as an all-night sexual encounter, you owed it to your
partner to maximize fleshly contact throughout all the cycles of activity from
arousal to satiation. Harrison Greenwald faltered only at the cycle's end when
he slipped into slumber on his back. Thankfully, his breathing passages were
not constricted and he did not snore.

"He is beleaguered by females."

"Who is?" Harrison said, lifting his head to view
the red digital numbers. Like her, he was programmed to the tyranny of time.
"At three in the morning."

He made way for her in the crook of his arm, where she lay
her head, and she slipped her arm around his far rib cage. In her normal single
state, which was most of the time, this was the part she missed the most, the
nocturnal tÃªte-Ã -tÃªte.

"My boss."

"The Eggplant?"

"A term of affection used only by his
underlings."

"So how is he beleaguered?"

"His mother is a black matriarch, a boss more exacting
than Simon Legree in any incarnation. His wife is a demanding, dissatisfied,
pushy, ambitious bitch who daily laments the Eggplant's lack of upward mobility
in the most class-ridden black society in America."

"These traits in women are not exclusive to
blacks," Harrison said. "May I remind you that I am Jewish."

"Not necessary. I have observed close-up the result of
that ancient barbaric Hebrew ritual to maim the male child."

"Merely an identification process, like branding. I'm
told it does not affect performance."

He grew silent, awaiting a response.

"If you're waiting for a comparative opinion, forget
it."

"We were on the subject of the Eggplant's being
beleaguered," Harrison said. "It apparently had a gender
context."

"Harassment," she said. "He is being
harassed by females. Reaches to the core of the psychology of male domination.
The new legal reality of sexual harassment is driving the poor bastard up the
wall. He's got two sticky cases in his bailiwick. Two women cops claiming that
they have been verbally abused and sexually intimidated and threatened."

"Which is illegal ... and wrong," Harrison said. A negligence lawyer, he was a bleeding-heart kneejerk liberal in the old
mode, a man whose compassion, real or contrived, was a weapon in his cause,
which was to help empty the coffers of insurance companies.

"In principle, I agree. On the other hand..."

"There is no other hand. The victimization of women is
unacceptable."

"In general victimization is unacceptable. But
sometimes what passes for victimization is a double-edged sword. In my world,
the macho male cups his crotch for reassurance, to be sure it's still there.
The perception that he is somehow oppressing women is sometimes like a nervous
giggle. His whole life is centered around receiving applause from women. 'Man,
did that earth move,' she mimicked. 'You are the best.' That's both the act and
the metaphor. If a man says to me: 'I'd love you to suck my Johnson.' Is it
victimization? Of me? Or of him? I can castrate his career, destroy him with
the stigma of sexual harassment. The stigma is the castrating knife. Or should
I give it back to him in kind, say something like: 'Not today, Jack, I left my
magnifying glass home.' He'd laugh. I'd laugh. End of story. We've harassed
each other. Only he won't even think of taking me to court."

"Not bad," Harrison said.

"They changed the rules in midstream. Especially for
the guys. Hell, they may have taken the fun out of the flirt, the double
entendre byplay. I can understand that and I feel sorry as hell for them.
They've got wives, mothers and daughters and we've got fathers, brothers and,
speaking for myself ... lovers."

"What is that plural 's' doing there?"

The sexual harassment discussion surrendered to the sudden
detour. Harrison had a sensitive, possessive streak and was a highly alert
listener.

"I was being generic."

Of course, loving partners all wanted to feel that she'd
given them exclusive rights to her body. In fact, she had. Aside from the
health considerations that were a given, she considered it a breach of faith to
be unfaithful. Trust was the highest priority in her life. And she expected it
to be returned in kind.

Unfortunately, trust had not been given the same priority
by some of those who peopled her past. Betrayal had made her wary, defensive.
Protecting her vulnerability was an obsession. Sometimes, like now, when she
was in the full flush of trust, she gave herself permission to believe that she
had, at last, found fealty, knowing it could be a false premise, but wanting it
badly enough to let her guard down.

"I'd rather you used the singular," Harrison said, turning his body to face her frontally, pressing her close to him.

"There are no plurals, Harrison. Not in the
present."

"My fantasy is that you had no past, no baggage, no
previous ... experiences. That I'm the first."

"The first was awful."

"Until you, all were awful."

Like a good Jewish boy, Harrison Greenwald had confessed
not only his many sins, but the many sins, real or imagined, that were
perpetrated against him. His fear of involvement, despite his longing for it,
was a mirror image of her own, which did not make for a very permanent
arrangement. Under these conditions, love or attraction, even their rutting,
frenetic couplings could not, they both were certain, be sustained.

Like a good Catholic girl, she was hopelessly indocrinated
despite years of denial and severance and lived in perpetual fear of being
chosen for the pit of hell, which did not necessarily mean the hell depicted by
the great Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Mostly, she
worried about the hell of her vulnerability, the hell of being betrayed, the
hell of broken trust. It was an idea that lay in her subconscious with the
tenacity of a maggot in the flesh of a corpse.

"Tell me, counselor, what is the defense against
sexual harassment, however defined?" she asked, the detour ended.

"That again?"

"Indulge me."

"The defense?" he sighed. "His word against
hers. Whatever gender makes the accusation."

"Doesn't the victim's word have more credence to a
jury in those circumstances?"

"In most circumstances there is a bias toward the
powerless," Harrison admitted. "That's how I make my living."
His arms insinuated themselves under her until he held her in a reclining bear
hug.

Finally, she was ready to get at the heart of her motive in
raising the subject.

"Which is why the Eggplant assigned a woman to be my
partner, thereby lowering the risk of more sexual harassment problems. It is
not uncommon in the cops for a male senior partner to harass a woman junior and
vice versa. It's more like a rite of passage than a vicious power game. Under
the guise of being a born-again feminist, the Eggplant is playing the evasion
game."

"And that bothers you?"

"Yes, it does. Especially since I understand his real
motive. This way, he avoids the hassle."

"It's a perfectly logical strategy."

"For him. Not for me. I don't like being
pigeonholed."

"Have you confronted him with your theory?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"From his perspective he's got a point. As a
representative of my gender, I don't want to create a full-blown misogynist. In
my opinion he's already halfway there. Besides, I like to leave people with
their illusions."

"And what are his?"

"He has many. But the one I want to leave him with is
that he's capable of manipulating people. He's a fabulous interrogator. I
wouldn't want him to lose confidence in his ability to do that."

"But you're always telling me that a badge has no
gender."

"It hasn't. But the person who wears it has a
gender."

"And you'd prefer a male partner?"

"In my heart of hearts?"

"Where else?"

"Yes. I'll miss the byplay, the innuendo, the
flirting, the double entendre, the fun of confrontation. And yes, the dirty
talk. I love casting joking aspersions on their dick power. It's all part of
the culture."

"You also like the feeling of superiority. You're
better educated, betterâsorry about the snobberyâbred, and a lot prettier.
You're also financially secure and, of course, you've had all the advantages.
You're a white princess lost in a blue-collar world."

"You are a snob. And I'm not lost. Besides, some of
them are a hell of a lot smarter than you nose-in-the-air lawyer types. And
most of them are prettier."

"And what happens when they hit on you?"

"In their mind, it's obligatory. Actually, it's only
theater. I usually threaten dire physical consequences, mostly in the crotch
area. That, too, is obligatory for the girl cops."

"You're confusing me," Harrison said, kissing her
neck, caressing the back of her head, then moving downward until both hands
were squeezing her buttocks.

"He's assigned this black amazon to be my partner and
has indicated that he's putting us into investigating female homicides."

"Exclusively."

"That's his implication. It's also his cover story. He
has concocted this crackpot theory that women must know more about their gender
than males and therefore would be more effective in busting cases where the
female is the victim."

"What does your new partner say about that?"

"Oh, we haven't met yet. I've been told about her. Her
name is Gail Prentiss. She worked LA homicide and is transferring over, no
small achievement. She's from DC, her father's a prominent surgeon, she's
highly educated and is supposed to be a knockout."

"One would think that a woman detective would be more
effective if the woman was the perpetrator. You know,
they'd-be-able-to-get-into-her-mind sort of thing."

"Not enough female perps to go around, I'm afraid.
Murder is primarily a male avocation."

"And this just occurred to you"âhe turned
slightly to see the digital clock againâ"at three-thirty A.M."

"Moment-of-truth time," she said. "That's
when you have it out with yourself and/or your partner."

"Here's one," Harrison said. "Why the
cops?"

"For me or for them?"

"Both."

"You try first."

"I say it's for people who like enforcing. A sense of
control for people who do not ordinarily control anything."

"Now explain me?" she asked, feeling suddenly
younger, girlish, asking Daddy a question. In the FitzGerald home Daddy, the
senator, the man, was everything, her mother merely a saintly supporter,
bearing silent witness to his many betrayals.

"Being in the cops?" he asked, obviously
stretching the time to find an appropriate answer, letting it cook in his mind.

"Go on, let's hear it," she said, reaching down,
caressing. He did not need the special attention, she noted. His breathing grew
deeper, the intakes shortening. "From my smartass Jewish lover."

"Shiksa whore," he said, reaching down in a
mutual caress.

"Tell me then, before I forget the subject
matter," she said, reveling in the exquisite softness of his touch.

"You are deep into guilt," he whispered.
"You love guilt. Catholics and Jews love guilt. It is their reason for
being. You like to be around guilt, playing with guilt, exposing guilt. How's
that?"

"Do you feel guilty, Harrison?" she said, feeling
the accelerating moisture of desire begin to work its way into her cells.

"Always," he whispered. "Especially
now."

"About what?"

"Betraying my forefathers. Eating treif."

"Treif?"

"That which is not kosher."

"Me, too," she said, moving on top, feeling him
inside of her as she leaned backward, her hands supporting her on either side
of his thighs as she rotated her body. Their eyes, accustomed to the darkness
now, locked together in an ecstatic mutuality. "Fucking Christ
killer."

"Treif."

"Christ killer."

She felt it begin, at first the distant rumble, then the
approaching waves, moving with the accelerating tide, a mysterious pounding
force of nature.

"Wait for me," she heard him say.

"I won't," she cried.

"Oh yes, you will."

He thrust upward, meeting her movements, his hands grasping
the corners of the mattress.

"Jew bastard."

"Shiksa cunt."

The waves crested, engulfing her, releasing long spasms of
pleasure.

Spent, she folded over him, her lips close to his ear.

"Man, that earth sure moved," she whispered.