He said, “I leave you alone for a few hours and you invent another wheel? Okay, go.”
I recounted what Will Steckel had told me.
He said, “Brother’s right, it is a weird story. You’re saying Flick’s got that short of a fuse?”
“Far from it,” I said. “The picture I’m getting of Flick is he expends a lot of mental energy maintaining his self-image as smart. Which would be consistent with child abuse. He has no tolerance for being challenged and certainly not for being humiliated and registers rage immediately. But he controls it and doesn’t act out impulsively. Instead, he takes a reasoned, step-wise, problem-solving approach to revenge.”
“Mathematical approach.”
“Exactly. And now that I think about it, just like the Unabomber. He murdered because he enjoyed it but he got as much gratification from stewing, mapping out a plan, choosing his time and place, then basking in self-congratulation and writing a manifesto.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Hope none of Flick’s students have pissed him off.”
“Now that you mention it,” I said, “tutoring college applicants would be perfect for someone craving admiration. He enters the situation as an expert, his students are anxious and needy and grateful for every bit of edge he gives them and so are their parents. That’s in sharpcontrast with his experience as a grad student where he ultimately ended up failing.”
“Haven’t heard of any math profs at the U. reaching an untimely demise.”
“So far, so good,” I said. “But let Flick mull on it too long and who knows?”
“Don’t even say that, Alex. Yeah, yeah, I need to catch him. So let me go back to his damn phone records and his moolah records and start to invent my own wheel.”
Chapter
42
The next couple of days were taken up by new court referrals and that was just fine because I’d adjusted my focus to what I’d learned in school and had nothing to offer Milo.
On the first day, he called me at eight p.m.
“Think of anything?”
“Nope.”
“Keep trying. Here’s our situation. Records haven’t come in yet and nothing earth-shattering from the surveillance. Today was a yawner. Flick lives in a rented guesthouse, there doesn’t seem to be anyone sharing the place. At eleven a.m. he drove to a Starbucks for coffee and a sandwich then on to five fancy houses. First Boykins in B.H., then two in Brentwood, one in Holmby, one in Santa Monica. Back home by five where he washed his car in the driveway, went inside, and hasn’t shown himself since.”
I said, “Westside clientele.”
“Adoring clientele. Three of the kids walked him to his car hanging on his every word. Hero worship, like you said. One of them was Keisha who seemed a little frail according to Petra. Hope her family’s innocent, not looking forward to burstingthatbubble.”
“Five clients adds up to nine hundred bucks for a brief day’s work. Well compensated hero.”
“Yeah, it’s a nice setup, a helluva lot more than he’d make as a T.A. He’s not spending it conspicuously. The place is a converted garage and his rent is six hundred a month.”
“Who owns the house?”
“A nice old lady. Also smiling at Flick as he chatted with her then wheeled the garbage cans to the curb.”
“Model tenant.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Hate that kind of thing.”
—
On the second day, he called just after nine p.m. “More of the same except only four clients, all in Encino and Sherman Oaks.”
“Consolidating his Valley shift. Very efficient.”
“What a guy,” he said. “He worked from two to six p.m. and raked in another seven hundred twenty bucks. It keeps up like that, he’s making serious change. Good for the self-esteem, no?”
