“My wife was already ill, and we were beyond the age guidelines for the state. My cousins were convenient. And for a fee, willing to help. Help and forget.”
“Sure,” Ricky replied sarcastically. “And their little accident? A domestic dispute?”
Dr. Lewis shook his head. “A coincidence,” he said.
Ricky wasn’t sure he believed that. He couldn’t resist one small dig: “Freud said there are no accidents.”
Dr. Lewis nodded. “True. But there is a difference between wishing and acting.”
“Really? I think you’re wrong there. But never mind. Why them? Why those three children?”
The old psychoanalyst shrugged again. “Conceit. Arrogance. Egotism.”
“Those are just words, doctor.”
“Yes, but they explain much. Tell me Ricky: A killer . . . a truly remorseless, murderous psychopath . . . is this someone created by their environment? Or are they born to it, some infinitesimal little screwup in the gene pool? Which is it, Ricky?”
“Environment. That’s what we’re taught. Any analyst would say the same. The genetic guys might disagree, though. But we are a product of where we come from, psychologically.”
“And I would agree. So, I took in a child—and his two siblings—who was a laboratory rat for evil. Abandoned by birth father. Rejected by his other relatives. Never given any semblance of stability. Exposed to all sorts of sexual perversities. Beaten endlessly by any series of his mother’s sociopathic boyfriends, who eventually saw his own mother kill herself in poverty and despair, helpless to save the only person he trusted in the world. A formula for evil, would you not agree?”
“Yes.”
“And I thought I could take that child and reverse all that weight of wrong. I helped set up the system where he would be cut off from his terrifying past. Then I thought I could turn him into a productive member of society. That was my arrogance, Ricky.”
“And you couldn’t?”
“No. But I did engender loyalty, curiously enough. And perhaps an odd sort of affection. It is a terrible and yet truly fascinating thing, Ricky, to be loved and respected by a man devoted to death. And that is what you have in Rumplestiltskin. He is a professional. A consummate killer. One equipped with as fine an education as I could provide. Exeter. Harvard. Columbia Law. Also a short stint in the military for a little extra training. You know what the curious aspect of all this is, Ricky?”
“Tell me.”
“His job is not that different from ours. People come to him with problems. They pay him well for solutions. The patient who arrives on our couch is desperate to rid himself of some burden. So are his clients. His means is just, well, more immediate than ours. But hardly less intimate.”
Ricky found himself breathing hard. Dr. Lewis shook his head.
“And, you know what else, Ricky, other than being extremely wealthy, do you know what other quality he has?”
“What?”
“He is relentless.”
The old psychoanalyst sighed and added, “But perhaps you have seen that already? How he waited years, preparing himself, and then singled out and pursued everyone who ever did his mother harm, and destroyed them, just as surely as they destroyed her. I suppose, in an odd way, you should find it touching. A son’s love. A mother’s legacy. Was he wrong to do that, Ricky? To punish all those people who systematically or ignorantly ruined her life? Who left her adrift with three small needy children in the harshest of worlds? I do not exactly think so, Ricky. Not at all. Why even the most irritating politicians opine endlessly how we live in a society that shirks responsibility. Is not revenge merely accepting one’s debts and cloaking them in a different solution? The people he has singled out truly deserved punishment. They—like you—ignored someone who pleaded for help. That is what is wrong with our profession, Ricky. Sometimes we want to explain so much, when the real answer lies in one of those . . .” The doctor gestured at the weapon in Ricky’s hand.
“But why me?” Ricky blurted. “I didn’t . . .”
“Of course you did. She went to you desperate for help, and you were too wrapped up with the direction in which your own career was heading to pay enough attention and give her the assistance she needed. Surely, Ricky, a patient who kills herself when under your care—even if only for a few sessions—well, do you not feel some remorse of your own? Some sense of guilt? Do you not deserve to pay some price? Why would you think that gaining revenge is somehow less a responsibility than any other human act?”
Ricky did not answer. After a moment, he asked, “When did you learn . . .”
“Of your connection to my adopted experiment? Near the end of your own analysis. I simply decided to see how it would play out over the years.”
Ricky could feel rage mingling with sweat within him. His mouth was dry.
“And when he came after me? You could have warned me.”
“Betray my adopted child in favor of my onetime patient? And not even my favorite patient, at that . . .”
These words stung Ricky. He could see the old man was every bit as evil as the child he’d adopted. Perhaps even worse.
“. . . I thought one might consider it justice.” The old analyst laughed out loud. “But you do not know the half of it, Ricky.”
“What is the half I don’t know?”
“I think that is something you will have to discover for yourself.”
“And the other two?”
“The man you know as Merlin is indeed an attorney, and a capable one at that. The woman you know as Virgil is an actress with quite a career ahead of her. Especially now that they have almost completed tying up all the loose ends of their lives. I think, Ricky, that perhaps you and I are the only loose ends remaining for the three of them. The other thing you should know, Ricky, is that they both believe it was their older brother, the man you know as Rumplestiltskin, who saved their lives. Not I, really, though I contributed to their salvation. No, it was he who kept them together, who kept them from straying, who insisted on their going to school and getting straight A’s and then accomplishing much with their lives. So, if nothing else, Ricky, understand this: They are devoted. They are utterly loyal to the man who will kill you. Who did kill you once, and will do so again. Is that not intriguing, Ricky, from the psychiatric point of view? A man without scruples who engenders blind and total devotion. A psychopath who will kill you just as surely as you might step on a spider crossing your path. But who is loved, and in turn loves. But loves only those two. None other. Except, perhaps, me, a little bit, because I rescued him and helped him. So, perhaps I have gained a loyalist’s love. Which is important for you to keep in mind, Ricky, because you have so little chance of surviving your connection to Rumplestiltskin.”
“Who is he?” Ricky demanded. Each word that the old analyst spoke seemed to blacken the world around him.
“You want his name? His address? His place of business?”
“Yes.” Ricky leveled the weapon at the old man.
Dr. Lewis shook his head. “Just like in the fairy tale, right? The princess’s messenger overhears the troll dancing about his fire, and blurting out his name. She doesn’t really do anything clever or wise, or even sophisticated. She’s just lucky, and so when he comes for his third question, she has the answer by dumb, blind luck, and thus survives, and retains her firstborn child, and lives happily ever after. You think this will be the same? The luck you have acquired which has you here, right now, waving a weapon in an old man’s face will win you the game?”
“Give me his name,” Ricky said quietly, voice as cold and evil as he could make it. “I want all their names.”
“What makes you think you don’t know them already?”
“I am so tired of games,” Ricky said.
The old analyst shook his head. “That is all life is. One game after another. And death is the greatest game of all.”
The two men stared across the room at each other.
“I wonder,” Dr. Lewis said cautiousl
y, lifting his eyes for a moment and examining a wall clock, then pausing with each word, “how much time you have remaining?”
“Enough,” Ricky replied.
“Really?” the old analyst responded. “Time is elastic, isn’t it? Moments can last forever, or else evaporate instantly. Time is really a function of our own view of the world. Is that not something we learn in analysis?”
“Yes,” Ricky said. “That’s true.”
“And tonight, there are all sorts of questions about time, are there not? I mean, Ricky, here we are, alone in this house. But for how much longer? Knowing as I did that you were heading this way, do you not think I took the precaution of summoning help? How long before it arrives?”
“Long enough.”
“Ah, there is a wager I am not sure I would be so confident about.” The old analyst smiled again. “But perhaps we should make it slightly more complicated.”
“How so?”
“Suppose I were to tell you that somewhere here in this room is the information you seek. Could you find it in time? Before help arrives to rescue me?”
“I told you, I’m tired of playing games.”
“It is in plain sight. And you have already come closer to it than even I guessed you might. There. Enough clues.”
“I won’t play.”
“Well, I think you are wrong. I think you are going to have to play a bit longer Ricky, because this game has not concluded.” Dr. Lewis held both his hands up abruptly, and then said, “Ricky, I need to remove something from the top drawer of this desk. It is something which will certainly change the manner that this game is being played. Something that you will want to see. May I do that?”
Ricky aimed the pistol at Dr. Lewis’s forehead and nodded. “Go ahead.”
The doctor smiled again, a nasty, cold smile that had nothing to do with humor. An executioner’s grin. He removed an envelope from the drawer and placed it on the desktop in front of him.
“What’s that?”
“Perhaps, Ricky, it is the information you came here seeking. Names. Addresses. Identities.”
“Hand it to me.”
Dr. Lewis shrugged. “As you wish . . . ,” he said. He thrust the envelope across the desktop and Ricky eagerly grabbed at it. It was sealed and Ricky took his eyes off the old physician for an instant while he inspected the letter. This was a mistake, which he realized as soon as he’d done it.
He lifted his eyes and saw that the old man now had a grin on his face and a small, snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver in his right hand.
“Not quite as big as yours, is it, Ricky?” The doctor laughed out loud. “But probably just as efficient. You see, you just made a mistake that none of the three people you are involved with would. And certainly not the man you know as Rumplestiltskin. He would never have taken his eyes off his target. Not for a second. No matter how well he knew the person he had targeted, he would never have trusted them enough to remove his eyes from them for even the briefest of times. Perhaps that should tell you how little chance you really have.” The two men were facing across the desktop, weapons aimed squarely at each other.
Ricky narrowed his gaze, feeling sweat gathering beneath his arms.
“This,” Dr. Lewis whispered, “is an analytic fantasy, is it not? In the system of transference, do we not want to kill the analyst, just as we want to kill our mother or our father or everyone who has come to symbolize all that is wrong with our lives? And the analyst, in return, does he not have a murderous passion that he would like to exploit at much the same time?”
Ricky didn’t reply at first. Finally, he muttered, “The child may have been a laboratory rat for evil, like you say. But he could have been turned around. You could have done it, but you did not, right? It was more intriguing to see what would happen if you left him adrift emotionally, wasn’t it? And it was far easier for you to blame all the evil in the world and ignore your own, wasn’t it?”
Dr. Lewis paled slightly.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Ricky continued, “that you were as much the psychopath as he was? You wanted a killer, and so you found one, because that was what you always wanted to be: a killer.”
The old man scowled. “You always were astute, Ricky. Think of what you could have made with your life had you been a bit more ambitious. A little more subtle.”
“Put the weapon down, doctor. You’re not going to shoot me,” Ricky said.
Dr. Lewis kept the revolver trained on Ricky’s face, but nodded. “I do not really have to, do I?” he said. “The man who killed you once will do it again. And this time he will not accept an obituary in the paper. I think he will actually need to see your death. Do you not?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it. And perhaps, once I find this great array of clues as to who he is that you say are here, perhaps I’ll just disappear again. I succeeded once, and I suspect I can evaporate a second time. Perhaps Rumplestiltskin will simply have to settle for what he achieved the first time we played. Doctor Starks is dead and gone. He won that round. But I will go on and become whatever I want. I can win by running. I win by hiding. By staying alive and anonymous. Isn’t that an oddity, doctor? We, who worked so hard to help ourselves and our patients confront the demons that pursue and torment them, can actually preserve ourselves by fleeing. We helped patients become something, but I can become nothing, and thus win. An irony, don’t you think?”
Dr. Lewis nodded his head.
“I anticipated your response,” he said slowly. “I imagined that you would see the answer that you have just provided me.”
“So,” Ricky said, “I repeat: Put your weapon down, and I will take my leave. Assuming the information I need is in this envelope.”
“In a way, it is,” the old man said. He was whispering, with a nasty smile. “But I have just a final question or two for you, Ricky . . . if you do not mind.”
Ricky nodded.
“I have told you of the man’s past. And told you far more than you yet understand. And what did I tell you of his relationship with me?”
“You spoke of a kind of odd loyalty and love. A psychopath’s love.”
“One killer’s love for another. Most intriguing, do you not think?”
“Fascinating,” Ricky said briskly. “And were I still a psychoanalyst, I would likely be intrigued and eager to investigate. But I am not. No longer.”
“Ah, but I think you are wrong.” Dr. Lewis shrugged his shoulders. “I think one cannot walk away from being a physician of the heart quite as easily as you seem to think it can be done.” The old man shook his head in a negative. He still had not relaxed his grip on the revolver, nor had it wavered from Ricky’s face. “I think our time is up for the evening, Ricky. One last session. The fifty-minute hour. Perhaps now your own analysis is nearly complete. But the real question I have for you to take away from this is this, Ricky: If he was so devoted to seeing you kill yourself after you failed his mother, what will he want to happen to you when he believes you have killed me?”
“What do you mean?” Ricky asked.
But the old physician didn’t reply. Instead, in a single sweeping gesture, he lifted the revolver up to his temple, grinned maniacally, and then fired a single shot.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ricky half shouted, half screamed, in surprise and shock. His voice seemed to blend with the echo of the revolver’s report.
He rocked back hard in the chair, almost as if the bullet that exploded into the old psychoanalyst’s head had actually been diverted and struck him in the chest. By the time the reverberation from the gunshot had faded into the night air, Ricky was on his feet, standing at the edge of the desk, staring down at the man who once he’d trusted so implicitly. Dr. Lewis had slammed backward, twisted slightly by the force of death delivered to his temple. His eyes had remained open, and now they stared out with macabre intensity. A scarlet mist of blood and brain matter had painted the bookcase, and deep, maroon blood was seeping from the gaping
wound down across the physician’s face and chin, staining his shirt. The revolver that had delivered the fatal shot slipped from his fingers to the floor, its weight muffled by the fine Persian carpet beneath their feet. Ricky gasped out loud, as the old man’s body twitched once with muscles coming into tune with death.
He breathed in harshly. It wasn’t, he realized, the first time he’d seen death. When he’d been an intern, doing rotations in internal medicine and the emergency room, more than one person had died in his presence. But that was always surrounded by equipment, and teams of people trying to save life and fight off dying. Even when his wife had finally succumbed to cancer, that had still been part of a process that he was familiar with, and provided a context, even if awful, for what took place.
This was different. It was savage. It was murder, specialized. He felt his own hands shake with an old man’s palsy. He fought hard against the overwhelming instinct to panic and run.
Ricky tried to organize his thoughts. The room was silent, and he could hear his own labored breathing, like a man at the top of a high mountain, sucking in cold air without significant relief. It seemed that every sinew inside of him had tightened, knotted, and that only fleeing would loosen the tension. He gripped the edge of the desk, trying to steady himself.
“What have you done to me, old man?” he said out loud. His voice seemed out of place, like a cough in the midst of a solemn church service.
Then he realized the answer to his own question: He’s tried to kill me. One bullet that can kill two people, because the old physician’s death was likely to be taken hard by three people on this earth who had no restrictions on how they would respond. And they would blame Ricky, regardless of what evidence of suicide stared them in the face.
Only it was even more complicated than that. Dr. Lewis wanted to do more than simply murder him. He’d had the gun leveled at Ricky’s face, and he could easily have pulled the trigger, even knowing that Ricky might return fire before dying. What the old man wanted was to endow all the people playing out the murderous game with a moral depravity that equaled his own. That was far more important than simply killing Ricky and himself. Ricky tried to breathe past the thoughts which flooded him. All along, he thought, this hasn’t only been about death. It’s been about the process. It’s been about how death was reached.
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