a smile, more a misshapen grimace.
“You mean her husband?” I hesitated, unsure if I understood. “You asked Alicia if her husband deserved to be killed?”
Elif nodded and played a shot. “And I asked what he looked like. When she shot him and his skull was broke, and his brains all spilled out.” Elif laughed.
I felt a sudden wave of disgust—similar to the feelings I imagined Elif had provoked in Alicia. Elif made you feel repulsion and hatred—that was her pathology, that was how her mother had made her feel as a small child. Hateful and repulsive. So Elif unconsciously provoked you to hate her—and mostly she succeeded.
“And how are things now? Are you and Alicia on good terms?”
“Oh, yeah, mate. We’re real tight. Best mates.” Elif laughed again.
Before I could respond, I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. I checked it. I didn’t recognize the number.
“I should answer this. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
Elif muttered something unintelligible and went back to her game.
* * *
I walked into the corridor and answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Is that Theo Faber?”
“Speaking. Who’s this?”
“Max Berenson here, returning your call.”
“Oh, yes. Hi. Thanks for calling me back. I was wondering if we could have a conversation about Alicia?”
“Why? What’s happened? Is something wrong?”
“No. I mean, not exactly—I’m treating her, and I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about her. Whenever’s convenient.”
“I don’t suppose we could do it on the phone? I’m rather busy.”
“I’d rather talk in person, if possible.”
Max Berenson sighed and mumbled as he spoke to someone off the phone. And then: “Tomorrow evening, seven o’clock, my office.”
I was about to ask for the address—but he hung up.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MAX BERENSON’S RECEPTIONIST had a bad cold. She reached for a tissue, blew her nose, and gestured at me to wait.
“He’s on the phone. He’ll be out in a minute.”
I nodded and took a seat in the waiting area. A few uncomfortable upright chairs, a coffee table with a stack of out-of-date magazines. All waiting rooms looked alike, I thought; I could just as easily have been waiting to see a doctor or funeral director as a lawyer.
The door across the hallway opened. Max Berenson appeared and beckoned me over. He disappeared back into his office. I got up and followed him inside.
I expected the worst, given his gruff manner on the phone. But to my surprise, he began with an apology.
“I’m sorry if I was abrupt when we spoke. It’s been a long week and I’m a bit under the weather. Won’t you sit down?”
I sat on the chair on the other side of the desk. “Thanks. And thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure I should at first. I thought you were a journalist, trying to get me to talk about Alicia. But then I called the Grove and checked you worked there.”
“I see. Does that happen a lot? Journalists, I mean?”
“Not recently. It used to. I learned to be on my guard—” He was about to say something else, but a sneeze overtook him. He reached for a box of tissues. “Sorry—I have the family cold.”
He blew his nose. I glanced at him more closely. Unlike his younger brother, Max Berenson was not attractive. Max was imposing, balding, and his face was speckled with deep acne scars. He was wearing an old-fashioned spicy men’s cologne, the kind my father used to wear. His office was similarly traditional and had the reassuring smell of leather furniture, wood, books. It couldn’t be more different from the world inhabited by Gabriel—a world of color and beauty for beauty’s sake. He and Max were obviously nothing alike.
A framed photograph of Gabriel was on the desk. A candid shot—possibly taken by Max? Gabriel was sitting on a fence in a country field, his hair blowing in the breeze, a camera slung around his neck. He looked more like an actor than a photographer. Or an actor playing a photographer.
Max caught me looking at the picture and nodded as if reading my mind. “My brother got the hair and the looks. I got the brains.” Max laughed. “I’m joking. Actually, I was adopted. We weren’t blood related.”
“I didn’t know that. Were you both adopted?”
“No, just me. Our parents thought they couldn’t have children. But after they adopted me, they conceived a child of their own soon after. It’s quite common apparently. Something to do with relieving stress.”
“Were you and Gabriel close?”
“Closer than most. Though he took center stage, of course. I was rather