Ronnie Danvers texted Stef early in the morning: Need to see you as soon as you get in.
Hoping it wasn’t about Max, Stef headed to her office. In one of the chairs across from her desk sat Franklin Stein, head of Mount Sinai’s adolescent health center and a frequent consultant with the Coalition for Creative Therapy. If you looked up “mensch” in the dictionary, you’d find Frank Stein. He was one of Stef’s favorite people on the planet.
“Dr. Frankenstein,” Stef said, laughing as Frank hugged him hard.
“Gee, I haven’t heard that joke in an hour.” Frank slapped Stef’s shoulders a few more times as they took seats again.
“Is this an intervention?” Stef said.
“I wish,” Ronnie said. She looked grim. Stef noticed the window was cracked. The ash tray on the desk was full of butts, which was against the rules.
“I wanted to talk to you about a case,” Frank said.
“What kind of case?” Stef said.
“A horrible one.”
Stef glanced at Ronnie. “Why do you always do this to me before breakfast?”
The laugh he expected didn’t come. His eyes shifted between his colleagues’ unsmiling faces before he put out his palm, motioning for the file folder on Ronnie’s desk. Ronnie put her hand on top of it and shook her head. “Better Frank explains,” she said.
“A young man is coming to the Exodus Project next week,” Frank said. “His name is Geronimo Caan. Goes by Geno. Eighteen years old, grew up in New Jersey. Had an identical twin brother, no other siblings. His mother died when he was fifteen. Father worked in international law.”
Stef noted the past tense but said nothing.
“He’s a survivor of the pornography ring busted in New Jersey last summer.”
“Also known as the Mengele Ring,” Ronnie said.
Stef closed his eyes. “Must we?” he said lowly, but nodded to indicate he was listening.
“You recall the details of that bust?” Frank asked.
“It was part of the larger ring the Austrians brought down,” Stef said. “But this particular cell targeted twins.”
“That’s right. The Caan brothers were at the house when the police made the raid. They found Carlos Caan hanged from the shower head in a downstairs bathroom. Coroner ruled it a suicide. Allegedly, he had the established relationship with the ringleader, Anthony Fox. The theory is he was financially or emotionally blackmailed into delivering up his twin.”
“The details are all in here,” Ronnie said, tapping the file folder with her cigarette lighter.
From the top of his crown Stef imagined a smooth molten layer, cascading down like mercury, filling in his pores and making a semi-permeable barrier. A one-way emotional street. Compassion and empathy could go out. But nothing was allowed in.
When confident he was untouchable, Stef opened his eyes. “From what I last read, this guy Fox is still on the run.”
“Yes. As for Geno…” Frank lowered his glasses from his head to his nose, picked up the folder and flipped it open. “He suffered close to forty-eight hours of sexual assault. DNA analysis confirmed seven different men, including Fox.”
Stef felt a faint vibration as the words bounced off his protective armor, wanting in. He refused them.
I can be sympathetic to your pain. But I do not have to feel it for you.
“Severe internal injuries. Anal fissure, torn perineum, perforated bowel. A close call with peritonitis. He lived on a transverse colostomy for five weeks.”
“Lived where?” Stef asked. “With other family?”
“A half-sister for about a month,” Ronnie said. “He moved out shortly before he left for his freshman year at Brooklyn College. Reasons unclear.”
“I’d seen him regularly while in the hospital,” Frank said. “Intermittently in the weeks after he was released. Then not at all by August.”
“Toughing it out alone,” Stef said.
“I’m not sure it was entirely alone,” Frank said. “He was self-medicating with prescription drugs, but he also may have developed a dissociative disorder.”
“Conscious depersonalization or a fugue state?”
“I’m thinking conscious. He overdosed on Vicodin at a party on the Upper East Side. Paramedics took him to Mount Sinai and police found two driver’s licenses in his wallet, one his, one his brother’s. They called me down and of course I knew it was Geno, but the friends who called nine-one-one insisted his name was Carlos.”
Stef tapped his teeth together. “So, he switched places?”
“Possibly.”
“God,” Stef said. He put his elbows on his knees, raked fingers through his hair and held on tight. “Ronnie, you ruined breakfast.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and sounded sincere.
Stef pulled in another fortifying breath and let go his hair. “What’s his awareness now? I mean, does he know and accept who he is?”
“He does,” Frank said. “I don’t know what else he’s accepted, though.”
“All right.”
“He’s started on Prozac, and he’ll be seeing me weekly. But I’d like to be working in tandem with you. Give you the reins, so to speak. Truthfully, I can’t see anyone but you handling this boy.”
Stef glanced at Ronnie. “Don’t call me Obi-Wan.”
“I won’t,” she said. “And you don’t have to take him on.”
Stef smiled at the floor. “Yes, I do.”
Meeting adjourned, Stef walked Franklin down to the lobby.
“How’s your dad?” Frank asked, zipping his coat. He was an accomplished pianist, and when Stef’s father was still stateside, Stef had arranged a private tour for Frank at the Steinway workshops in Astoria. Frank still talked as if the tour were last week.
“Good,” Stef said. “I think he’s seeing someone.”
“Really?”
“He just got back from a river cruise up the Danube. Usually after one of his jaunts, I have to endure a two-hour recap of his itinerary. This time? He was awful quiet. And a little distracted.”
Frank laughed. “Good for him.”
A pregnant pause.
“I’m seeing someone myself,” Stef said.
“I wondered,” Frank said, smiling.
“Why? Am I distracted?”
“No. Just quieter than usual.” He reached and patted Stef’s shoulder. “It’s going to be a hard case.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know,” Frank said, not unkindly. “Look at me. I talked to the Stockton police chief to get some background. He told me about two officers who were at the bust with him. One quit the force within days. The other had to be hospitalized with severe PTSD. Both cops said they couldn’t get the Caan boys out of their minds. Chief said he still has nightmares.”
Stef nodded, not looking away.
“Part of what makes you so good is your compassion,” Frank said. “You’ve got more empathy radar dishes than that big-ass array out in New Mexico.” The hand on Stef’s shoulder squeezed. “You’re still working with the Springer boy, too, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You protect yourself. We work in tandem which means if you need a break, you tell me.”
“I will. Always good to see you, Dr. Frankenstein,” Stef said.
“Want to hear a better joke than that?”
Frank told terrible jokes. Stef braced himself. “Lay it on me.”
“Did you hear about the merger between El Al Israel Airlines and Air Italia?”
Stef shook his head and rolled a palm up to the sky.
Frank grinned. “They’re now called Oy, I’ll Tell Ya.”
Stef closed his eyes. “I haven’t had breakfast…”