I looked down at my coffee.

"Oh, look, I've embarrassed him-don't worry, I'm okay. Damn proud of my blow jobs. You work with what you've got." Her grin was huge but hard to gauge.

"One fateful morning, Mommy discovered strange, yucky stains on my junior high prom dress. Mommy consulted with learned Doctor Daddy and the two of them threw a joint shit-fit. The day school ended I was shipped off to the wild and woolly hills of Santa Barbara. Little brown uniforms, ugly shoes, girls' bunks separated from the boys' bunks by a scuzzy vegetable garden. Dr. Botch stroking his little goatee and telling us this could turn out to be the best summer we ever had."

She hid her mouth behind her mug, broke off a piece of muffin, and let it crumble between her fingers.

"I couldn't read, so they sent me to Buchenwald-on-the-Pacific. There's juvenile justice for you."

"Did de Bosch ever diagnose your dyslexia?" I said.

"You kidding? All he did was throw this Freudian shit at me: I was frustrated because Mommy had Daddy and I wanted him. So I was trying to be a woman, rather than a girl-acting out-in order to displace her."

She laughed. "Believe me, I knew what I wanted, and it wasn't Daddy. It was lean, young, well-hung bodies and James Dean faces. And I had the power to get it all back then. I believed in myself until Botch botched me up."

All at once her face changed, loosening and paling. She put the mug down hard, shook her hair like a wet puppy, and rubbed her temples.

"What did he do to you?" I said.

"Tore my soul out," she said glibly. But as she spoke she brought strands of hair forward and hid her face.

Long silence.

"Shit," she said finally. "This is harder than I thought it would be. How did he mess me up? Subtly. Nothing he could go to jail for, darling. So tell your police pals to go back to giving parking tickets, you'll never pin him. Besides, he must be ancient by now. Who's going to drag a poor old fart into court?"

"He's dead."

The hair fell away. Her eyes were very still. "Oh ... well, that's okay by me, pal. Was it long and painful, by any chance?"

"He killed himself. He'd been sick for a while. Multiple strokes."

"Killed himself how?"

"Pills."

"When?"

"Nineteen-eighty."

The eyes tightened. "Eighty? So what's all this b.s. about an investigation?"

Her arm shot forward and she grabbed my wrist. Big, strong woman. "Fess up, psych-man: Who are you and what's all this really about?"

A few heads turned. She let go of my arm.

I pulled out ID, showed it to her, and said, "I've told you the truth, and what it's about is revenge."

I summarized the "bad love" murders, throwing out names of victims.

When I finished, she was smiling.

"Well, I'm sorry for those others, but ..."

"But what?"

"Bad love," she said. "Turning his own crap against him. I like that."

"Bad love was something he did?"

"Oh, yeah," she said, through clenched jaws. "Bad love meant you were a worthless piece of shit who deserved to be mistreated. Bad love for bad little children-like psychological acupuncture, these tiny little needles, jabbing, twisting."

Her wrists rotated. Jewelry flashed. "But no scars. No, we didn't want to leave any marks on the beautiful little children."

"What did he actually do?"

"He bounced us. Good love one day, bad love the next. Publicly-when we were all together, in the lunch room, at an assembly-he was Joe Jolly. When visitors came, too. Joe Jolly. Laughing, telling jokes, lots of jokes. Tousling our hair, joining in our games-he was old but athletic. Used to like to play tether ball. When someone hurt their hand on the knob, he'd make a big show of cuddling them and kissing the boo-boo. Mister Compassionate-Doctor Compassionate. Telling us we were the most beautiful children in the world, the school was the most beautiful school, the teachers the most beautiful teachers. The goddamn vegetable garden was beautiful, even though the stuff we planted always came out stringy and we had to eat it anyway. We were one big happy, global family, a real sixties kind of thing-sometimes he even wore these puka shells around his neck, over his pukey tie."

"That was good love," I said.

She nodded and gave a small, ugly laugh. "One big family-but if you got on his bad side-if you acted out, then he gave you a private session. And all of a sudden you weren't beautiful anymore, all of a sudden the world turned real ugly."

She sniffed and used her napkin to wipe her nose. Thinking of her Colombian coffee comment, I wondered if she'd fortified herself for our appointment. She cut me off midthought: "Don't worry, it's not nasal candy, it's plain old emotion. And the emotion I feel for that bastard, even with his being dead, is pure hatred. Isn't that amazing-after all these years? I'm surprising myself with how much I hate him. Because he made me hate myself-it took years to get out from under his fucking bad love."

"The private sessions," I said.

"Real private ... he hit me where it counted. I didn't need anyone tearing down my self-esteem-I was already fucked up enough, not able to read at thirteen. Everyone blaming me, me blaming myself ... my sisters were all A students. I got D's. I was a premature baby. Difficult labor. Must have affected my brain-the dyslexia, my other prob-"

She threw up her hands and fluttered her fingers.

"So now it's out," she said, smiling. "I have yet another problem. Want a shot at that diagnosis, Contestant Number One?"

I shook my head.

"Not a gambler? Oh, well, there's no reason I should be ashamed, it's all chemistry-that was my point, wasn't it? Bipolar affective disorder. Your basic, garden variety manic-depressive maniac. You tell people you're manic and they say, oh yeah, I'm feeling really manic, too. And you say, no, no, no, this is different. This is real, my little pretties."

"Are you on lithium?"

Nod. "Unless the work piles up and I need the extra push. I finally found a psychiatrist who knew what the hell he was doing. All the others were ignorant assholes like Dr. Botch. Analyzing me, blaming me. Botch nearly convinced me I did want to fuck Daddy. He totally convinced me I was bad."

"With bad love?"

She stood suddenly and snatched up her purse. She was six feet tall, with a tiny waist, narrow hips, and long legs under a charcoal-colored silk miniskirt. The skirt had ridden up, revealing sleek thigh. If she realized it, she didn't choose to fix it.

"He's worried I'm leaving." She laughed. "Mellow out, son. Just going to pee."

She made an abrupt about-face and sashayed toward the rear of the restaurant. A few moments later, I got up and verified that the restrooms were back there, and the only exit a grimy gray door with a bar across it marked EMERGENCY.

She returned a few minutes later, hair fluffed, eyes puffy but freshly shadowed. Sitting down, she nudged my shin with a toe and gave a weak smile. Waving for the waitress, she got a refill and drank half the cup, taking long, silent swallows.

Looking ready to choke. My therapeutic impulse was to pat her hand. I resisted it.

"Bad love," she said softly. "Little rooms. Little locked cells. Bare bulbs-or sometimes he'd just light a candle. Candles we made in crafts. Beautiful candles-actually they were ugly pieces of shit, with this really disgusting scent. Nothing in the cell but two chairs. He'd sit opposite you, your knees almost touching. Nothing between you. Then he'd stare at you for a long time. A long time. Then he'd start talking in this low, relaxed voice-like it was just a chat, like it was just two people having a nice, civil conversation. And at first you'd think you were getting away easy, he'd sound so pleasant. Smiling, playing with that stupid little beard or his puka shells."

She said, "Shit," and drank coffee.

"What did he talk about?"

"He'd start off lecturing about human nature. How everyone had good parts of their character and bad parts and the difference between the successful people and the unsuccessful people was which part you used. And that we kids were there because we were using too much bad part and not enough good part. Because we'd gotten warped somehow-damaged was the way he put it-from wanting to sleep with our mommies and our daddies. But how everyone else at the school was now doing great. Everyone except you, young lady, is controlling their impulses and learning to use the good part. They are going to be okay. They deserve good love and are going to have happy lives."

She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Funneled her lips into a pinhole and blew air out through it.

"Then he'd stop. To let it all sink in. And stare some more. And get even closer. His breath always stank of cabbage ... the room was so small the smell filled it-he filled it. He wasn't a big man, but in there he was huge. You felt like an ant, about to be crushed-like the room was running out of air and you were going to strangle ... the way he stared-his eyes were like drills. And the look-when you got the bad love. After the soft talk was through. This hatred-letting you know you were scum.

" 'You,' he'd say. And then he'd repeat it. 'You, you, you.' And then it would start-you were the only one who wasn't doing good. You couldn't control your impulses, you weren't trying-you were acting just like an animal. A dirty, filthy animal-a vermin animal. That was a favorite of his. Vermin animals-in his creepy Inspector Clouseau accent. Vermeen aneemals. Then he'd start calling you other names. Fool, idiot, weakling, moron, savage, excrement. No curse words, just one insult after another, sometimes in French. Saying them so quietly you could barely hear them. But you had to hear them because there was nothing else to hear in that room. Just the wax dripping, sometimes a plumbing pipe would rumble, but mostly it was silent. You had to listen."

A lost look came into her eyes. She shifted as far from me as the booth would allow. When she spoke again, her voice was even softer, but deeper, almost masculine.

"You are acting like vermin animal, young lady. You are going to live like vermin animal and you will end up dying like vermin animal. And then he'd go into these detailed descriptions of how vermin lived and died and how no one loved them and gave them good love because they didn't deserve it and how the only thing they deserved was bad love and filth and humiliation."

She reached for her mug. Her hand shook and she braced it with the other one before raising the coffee to her lips.

"He'd keep going like that. Don't ask me how long because I don't know-it felt like years. Chanting. Over and over and over. You will get the bad love, you will get the bad love ... pain, and suffering and loneliness that would never end-prison, where people will rape you and cut you and tie you up so you can't move. Horrible diseases you will get-he'd go into the symptoms. Talk about the loneliness, how you'd always be alone. Like a corpse left out in the desert to dry. Like a piece of dirt on some cold, distant planet-he was full of analogies, Dr. B. was, playing loneliness like an instrument. Your life will be as empty and dark as this room we are sitting in, young lady. Your entire future will be desolate. No good love from anyone-no good love, just bad love, filth, and degradation. Because that is what bad children deserve. A cold, lonely world for children who act like vermin animals. Then he'd show photos. Dead bodies, concentration camp stuff. This is how you will end up!"

She shifted closer.

"He'd just chant it," she said, touching my cuff. "Like some priest ... throwing out these images. Not giving you a chance to speak. He made you feel you were the only bad person in a beautiful world-a shit smear on silk. And you believed him. You believed everyone was changing for the better, learning to control themselves. Everyone was on his side, you were the only piece of shit."

"Cutting you off," I said, "so you wouldn't confide in the other kids."

"It worked; I never confided in anyone. Later, when I was out of there-years later-I realized it was stupid, I couldn't have been the only one. I'd seen other kids go into the rooms-it seems so ridiculously logical now. But back then, I couldn't-he kept focusing me in on myself. On the bad parts of me. The vermin animal parts."

"You were isolated right from the beginning. New environment, new routine."

"Exactly!" she said, squeezing my arm. "I was scared shitless. My parents never told me where we were going, just shoved me in the car and tossed in a suitcase. The whole ride up there, they wouldn't speak to me. When we got there, they drove through the gates, dumped me in the office, left me there and drove away. Later I found out that's what he instructed them to do. Have a happy summer, Meredith ..."

Her eyes got wet. "I'd just repeated seventh grade. Finally faked enough to barely pass and was looking forward to a vacation. I thought summer would be the beach and Lake Arrowhead-we had a cabin, always went there as a family. They dumped me and went without me ... no apologies, no explanation. I thought I'd died and gone to hell-sitting in that office, all those brown uniforms, no one talking to me. Then he came out, smiling like a clown, saying, what a pretty girl you are, telling me to come with him, he'd be taking care of me. I thought: what a jerk, no problem putting it over on him. The first time I stepped out of line, he let it pass. The second time, he pulled me into a room and bad-loved me. I walked out of there in a semi-coma ... blitzed, wasted-it's hard to explain, but it was almost like dying. Like bad dope-I felt I was on a rocky island in the middle of a storm. This crazy, black, roaring sea, with sharks all around ... no escape, him working on my bad parts-chewing me up!"

"What a nightmare," I said.

"The first week I hardly slept or ate. Lost ten pounds. The worst part was that you believed him. He had a way of taking over your head-like he was sitting in your skull, scraping away at your brain. You really felt you were shit and belonged in hell."

"None of the kids ever talked to each other?"

"Maybe some did, I didn't. Maybe I could've, I don't know-I sure didn't feel I could. Everyone walking around smiling, saying how great Dr. B. was. Such a beautiful guy. You found yourself saying it, too, mouthing along without thinking, like one of those dumb camp songs. There was this-this feverish atmosphere to the place. Grinning idiots. Like a cult. You felt if you spoke out against him, someone would pour poison Kool-Aid down your throat."

"Was physical punishment ever part of bad love?"

"Once in a while-usually a slap, a pinch, nothing that hurt too much. It was mostly the humiliation-the surprise. When he wanted to hurt you, he'd poke you in the elbow or the shoulder. Flick his finger on the bone. He knew all the spots ... nothing that would leave a scar, not that anyone would have believed us, anyway. Who were we? Truants, fuckups, rejects. Even now, would I be credible? Four abortions, Valium, Librium, Thorazine, Elavil, lithium? All the other things I've done? Wouldn't some lawyer dig that up and put me on trial? Wouldn't I be a piece of shit all over again?"

"Probably."

Her smile was rich with disgust. "I'm jazzed that he's dead-doubly jazzed he did it to himself-his turn for humiliation."

She looked up at the ceiling.

"What is it?" I said.

"Killing himself-do you think he could have felt some guilt?"

"With what you've told me, it's hard to imagine."

"Yeah. You're probably right ... yeah, he slapped me plenty of times, but the pain was welcome. 'Cause when he was getting physical, he wasn't talking. His voice. His words. He could reach into your center and squeeze the life out of you ... did you know he used to write columns in magazines-humane child rearing? People sent in problems and he'd offer fucking solutions?"

I sighed.

"Yes," she said. "My sad, sad story-such pathos." Looking around the restaurant, she cupped one ear. "Any daytime-serial people listening? Got a bitchin' script for you."

"You never told anyone?"

"Not until you, dear." Smile. "Aren't you flattered? All those shrinks and you're the very first-why, you've deflowered me-busted my psychological cherry!"

"Interesting way to put it."

"But fitting, right? Therapy's just like fucking-you open yourself up to a stranger and hope for the best."

I said, "You said you saw other kids going into the rooms. Were they taken by other people, or just de Bosch?"

"Mostly by him, sometimes by that creepy daughter of his. I always got personal attention from the big cheese-Daddy's social position and all that."

"Katarina was involved in treatment? When exactly were you there?"

"Seventy-six."

"She was only twenty-three. Still a student."

Shrug. "Everyone treated her as if she was a shrink. What she was was a real bitch. Walking around with this smug look on her face-Daddy was the king and she was the princess. Now there's one dutiful daughter who really did want to fuck Papa."

"Did you have any direct dealings with her?"

"Other than a sneer in the hall? No."

"What about other staffers? Did you see any of them doing private sessions?"

"No."

"None of those names I mentioned rang a bell?"

She gave a pained look. "It all blurs-I've been through changes, my whole life until a few years ago is a blur."