The Wicked Flea

the rock in my strong right hand, directly above the man’s head, I reached out with my left, grabbed the ski mask, and ripped it off.
    For the second time, I was utterly stunned. Surprised, amazed, astonished, incredulous!
    “Douglas?” I blurted out. “You?”
    Ceci’s eligible gentleman, the man she’d insisted I just had to meet. Douglas, the lovely person.
     

Chapter 34
     
    Imagine the letdown! The damned crash! I’ll tell you, the sight of Douglas’s ever so sickeningly nice face knocked the emotional wind out of me. Only seconds before, Rowdy and I had been soaring godlike through the woods in glorious pursuit of truth, justice, and the rights of women. And how had our noble and zealous chase ended? With the apprehension of this piddling nonentity.
    “You!” I exclaimed. “You perverted nebbish!” Douglas had fallen face down. When I’d pulled off that ridiculous ski helmet, he’d rolled onto his side. Now that I was yelling at him, he turned onto his back and looked directly at me. He made no effort even to sit up, never mind to rise to his feet and run.
    “What’s a nebbish?” he asked.
    “This is Newton! How can you not know the word nebbish ? It’s Yiddish for a goddamned nobody. You, for example. Nice, wholesome, polite, inoffensive, clean-cut Douglas.” As I’ve just said, he was now lying on his back. His trousers were buttoned, but his fly was still open. He knew it, too. His eyes were on me. “Zip your pants,” I added vehemently. “And keep them zipped.”
    Still flat on his back, he complied. “I didn’t have time before,” he said. “I was in a hurry.”
    “And exactly why was that? I’ll tell you why. Because you were too busy giving offense to an elderly woman who has been nothing but friendly and pleasant to you. You know, I am perfectly happy to give no thought at all to anything anyone wants to do in private. Or anything between consenting adults. But what you have been committing is a crime with victims. Pia was terrified. Ceci is undoubtedly still upset. And these are women who are supposed to be your friends.” Out of the comer of my eye, I saw Rowdy stir. No wonder he hadn’t sensed a threat. I caught his eye and mouthed a silent Stay!
    Douglas let his body relax completely, as if he were sinking into the depths of a soft couch. An analyst’s couch? “It’s a compulsion,” he said somberly. “A compulsion beyond my control.”
    “This is why you’re seeing Dr. Foote,” I said. “Is that what she told you? That this was beyond your control?”
    He sighed. “She’s a terrible therapist, isn’t she? Useless. To me, that is. I hope she’s been more helpful to you.”
    “Well, no, as a matter of fact, she hasn’t been very helpful,” I admitted. “But that’s different, because my problems... Douglas, this entire time, Dr. Foote has known about you?”
    “Of course she’s known about me. What are shrinks for?”
    “That you’ve been exposing yourself in the park? All this time, she’s known, and she’s done nothing to stop you from victimizing innocent women? How long have you been seeing her?”
    “Six months.”
    “She’s let this go on for six goddamned months ?”
    “Well, what do you expect her to do?”
    “Cure you. That’s what you’re paying her for, isn’t it?”
    “Dr. Foote says it’s a normal impulse.”
    “Your problem has nothing to do with impulses. It has to do with behavior.” Thus spoke the dog trainer.
    Sounding genuinely curious and gratified, he asked, “Do you really think so?”
    Now, he’d switched to flashing his symptoms. Damn it! I was about to remind Douglas that his career as a victim of impulse had just undergone a radical change because he’d finally been caught. Before I spoke, I felt a twinge of fear. As a dog trainer, I trust fear. When a strange dog gets a certain glint in his eye, fear is the saving voice that warns you to move smoothly out of range of his teeth. Sometimes, you don’t even see the glint. You just feel scared. You take a step back. The dog lunges. And misses your throat. So far, Douglas had remained flat on the ground. Fear, the dog trainer’s salvation, reminded me that it had been Douglas’s dog, Ulysses, who’d found Sylvia’s body and that this belly-up creature at my feet had been the first person at the scene of her murder. Had Ulysses really found Sylvia? Or had Douglas seized on the dog’s disappearance in these same woods to “find” his own victim?