Weiss sat brooding in his high-backed chair. He swiveled slightly back and forth, his elbow on the armrest, his cheek pressed into his fist. The pressure of his knuckles scrunched his dreary face, mashed the bags beneath one eye up toward one bushy brow. The other eye, wide, seemed all the more baleful. With that one baleful eye, he gazed upon Sissy Truitt.
She sat across from him in one of the client’s chairs. I was there, too, seated next to her in the other. Sissy had a folder on her pleated skirt. The cover was open; the obscene e-mails to Professor Brinks lay visible, complete with Sissy’s markings in red ink. She and I had come to tell Weiss what clues we had gleaned from our readings of the letters.
“Well, I don’t blame her one bit for coming here,” Sissy said in her gentle whisper of a voice. “I mean, these letters are just disgusting, aren’t they? They’re assaultive, demeaning. Just sick. I mean, the images! I don’t know how she stood it as long as she did.”
Weiss answered nothing. His heavy heart grew heavier with every word. Sick. Disgusting. Assaultive. He listened to her with half a mind while the other half obsessively replayed his weekend: the whores he’d called for, the things he’d done with them. What the hell had come over him? he wondered. What the hell had he been thinking? But he already knew. It was those letters, that’s what it was. The images in those damn letters. They had put ideas in his head. Sick. Disgusting. Assaultive.
Eesh, he thought.
“The one thing I think we can say for certain is that whoever thought this stuff up is a truly foul individual,” sweet Sissy went on. “The things he describes are just so…dehumanizing. Sadistic. They’re all about dominating her, forcing her into all these sexual acts. Reducing her to…just a piece of meat. It’s obvious, he’s just some angry, threatened little man who wants to turn the professor into a helpless object—you know, some sort of doll he can use for his pleasure. Obviously the first thing we ought to do is go through the sex offender registry. This guy is definitely a pervert.”
She had the most delicate features, Sissy did, the most golden hair, the warmest blue eyes you can imagine. She had a musical laugh, that little wisp of a voice. And though she was well into her thirties, she wore these schoolgirl clothes—cardigans and pleated skirts—that gave her a beguilingly innocent, maidenly air. She was so gentle usually, so kind, sympathetic. She had this way of listening to you, when you were talking, with a sort of maternal tilt of her head as if you were the most fascinating person in the whole world. She was one of Weiss’s top operatives because everyone trusted her, everyone told her everything. And Weiss himself—well, of course, he just adored her, idolized her. To have her say these things—and to think about the whores, what he’d done with the whores…
Usually—normally—his trysts with Casey’s girls were very decorous, gracious even. He was one of their favorite clients, always generous with his money, always modest in his requests. It was just their company he wanted, after all. Just the touch of a woman. The smell, shape, hair, voice. He’d never had more than one at a time before. And he’d never, ever done anything like he had this weekend. All because of those letters. Those fucking letters. What, what, what had he been thinking?
“Also, I think we really ought to have a serious talk with Professor Brinks,” Sissy whispered on. “Try to change her mind about going to the police. I mean, she really should, Scott. The man who wrote these e-mails could definitely be dangerous.”
Weiss shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Dangerous. The police. Jesus. He nearly groaned aloud in his shame and remorse. Not that the hookers had minded or anything, not that they’d complained in the least. They’d giggled at his apologies, in fact. They said he was silly; they were glad to do it. And they sure as hell hadn’t minded the tips. In his guilt and embarrassment, he’d thrown so much cash at them, it’d be months before he could afford to call Casey again.
With a great sigh, he sat up, folded his hands in his lap. “She says she doesn’t want the police,” he said heavily. “She was pretty clear about it. And the cops won’t have time to deal with this like we can, anyway. It’s not just a matter of running a trace. Hwang says the guy used some kind of system where he routed the mail through a screening center—an anonymizer, I think he called it. We’re gonna have to track him down some other way.”
“Well, can we get in touch with him ourselves?” Sissy asked. “I mean, if he got an e-mail from us, that might scare him off.”
“No, we just missed our chance. Apparently he shut down this address a week or so ago.”
“I don’t blame him,” Sissy said. “I’d hide, too, if I were a creep like that.”
Weiss nodded. He sank back down again, leaned his face on his fist again, forlornly. He swiveled back and forth in his chair. He thought about the whores. What he’d done with the whores. Those damn letters. Those damned images.
Eesh, he thought.