Free Betrayers (Nameless Detective Novels) by Bill Pronzini Page B

I’m not in the mood for sex.”
    “We don’t always have to end up an evening in bed. I don’t expect that.”
    “I know you don’t. It’s not that I don’t want to be with you—I do. Just not tonight.”
    “No need to explain. I understand.”
    Inside, she poured herself another glass of wine. Drinking more than usual lately—not a good sign. But what could he say about it that wouldn’t sound preachy? If alcohol helped her cope, all right, as long as she stayed with wine and kept it under control. He’d seen firsthand what booze could do to a woman who didn’t have a self-governor. Andrea had let it control her, and it had destroyed their marriage, his relationship with Joshua, and finally herself.
    They sat side by side in front of the gas-log fireplace, Bryn on his left as always so that the frozen side of her face was away from him. Close but not touching; she didn’t like to be touched except by mutual consent. She was fond of classical music, but tonight it was silence and noncontact closeness she craved, neither of them saying anything, aware of each other but tuned in to their own thoughts. In a way, their intimacy was greater at times like this than when they were in bed together.
    They spoke only once, when he shifted his weight from one hip to the other. She turned then and looked at him, a kind of wondering, searching look. “You’re so good to me,” she said.
    “Why do you say that?”
    “We always do what I want to. Or don’t want to. Don’t you ever get tired of giving in to my moods?”
    “I don’t see it as giving in.”
    “How do you see it?”
    He shrugged. “I like to make you happy.”
    “Happy, Jake?”
    “Comfortable, then. If you’re comfortable, I’m comfortable.”
    Five-beat. Then, “You’re not only good to me, you’re good for me. You really are.”
    “I feel the same about you.”
    “You make me feel . . . safe. I need you right now, I don’t know what I’d do without you, but . . .”
    “But?”
    “I’m not sure I deserve you.”
    “Come on, now. I’m nobody special.”
    “Oh yes, you are. What I should have said is that I’m not sure you deserve me . . . someone like me. A woman with a boatload of problems and insecurities. You should be with somebody normal—”
    “That’s enough of that,” he said. “You are normal. And I don’t want to be with anybody else.”
    “Right now you don’t.”
    “Right now is enough. One day at a time, Bryn.”
    “Yes,” she said. “One day at a time.”

8
TAMARA
    Doctor Easy’s name was Hawkins, Eugene Z. Hawkins, D.C.M.
    And he was a scumbag.
    She ran him through six different databases and several linked sources, including the
Chronicle
and a couple of other Bay Area newspapers, and Felice ran him through the SFPD and NJIS files. Routine info at first. Age forty-two. Twice married, once divorced, no children. Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine for nearly twenty years, first in San Jose, then in Cupertino, then in S.F. for the last eleven. Shared offices with another chiropractor on Ocean Avenue. Lived with his second wife in a home in Monterey Heights, drove a Lexus, seemed to be well off financially.
    The rest of his background record told a different story.
    Arrested in San Jose in 1994 on a charge of soliciting a male vice cop for sex in a public restroom—an undercover sting like the one that’d caught the Idaho senator a while back. Protested his innocence, same as the senator, went to court, and walked on a technicality.
    Accused by a woman patient in 1997 of inappropriatetouching during soft-tissue therapy, whatever that was. Not arrested because she changed her mind, or had it changed for her, and dropped the charges. Nearly cost him his license to practice and was probably the reason for his move from Cupertino to S.F.
    Arrested in Petaluma in 2000, in another sting operation—this one for Internet solicitation of sex with what he believed to be a sixteen-year-old male. Nabbed when he