Analyst

by John Katzenbach

  This diagnosis came more easily: obsessive-compulsive disorder.

  He turned rapidly to that section of the encyclopedia, and saw the same series of highlighted letters. Using the key provided, he swiftly came up with a word that surprised him: arneson. It wasn’t exactly a jumble of letters, nor was it something that he recognized.

  He paused, because this seemed to make no sense. Then he persisted, and found the next letter was V.

  Ricky went back, checked the key again, knitted his brows, and then understood what he was being given. The remaining letters spelled out the word: fortier.

  A court case.

  He wasn’t certain which court he would find Arneson v. Fortier in, but a trip to a clerk with a computer and access to current dockets would likely turn it up.

  Turning back to the encyclopedia, Ricky thought of the man at the core of everything that had happened: Rumplestiltskin. He turned to the section under P which dealt with psychopaths. There was a subsection, for homicidal.

  And there were the series of dots that he’d come to expect.

  Using the key already given him, Ricky quickly deciphered the letters, writing them down on a sheet of paper. When he finished, he sat up straight, sighing deeply. Then he clenched the paper in his hand, crumpling it into a ball, and angrily throwing it toward the wastebasket.

  He let loose a string of epithets, which only masked what he’d half expected.

  The message he’d come up with had been: not this one.

  Ricky had not had much sleep, but adrenaline energized him. He showered, shaved, and dressed himself in a jacket and tie. A lunch-hour trip to a court clerk’s office and some modest cajoling of one of the impatient assistants behind the counter had provided him with some information about Arneson v. Fortier. It was a civil dispute in superior court, scheduled for a pretrial hearing the following morning. As best as he could tell, the two parties were arguing over a real estate transaction that had gone bad. There were claims and counterclaims and substantial sums of money gone astray between a pair of well-heeled midtown Manhattan developers. The kind of case, Ricky imagined, where everyone was angry and wealthy and unwilling to compromise, which meant that everyone would end up losing, except for the lawyers representing each side, who would walk away with a considerable paycheck. It was so utterly mundane and ordinary, Ricky almost felt contemptuous. But with a black streak of nastiness coursing through him, Ricky knew that in the midst of all that posturing, pleading, and back and forth threats and posing between a handful of attorneys, he would find Merlin.

  The court docket gave him the names of all the parties. None stood out. But one was the man he was seeking.

  The hearing was not set until the following morning, but Ricky went to the courthouse that afternoon. For a few moments he stood outside the huge gray-stone building, looking up at the sweep of steps leading up to the columns that marked the entranceway. He thought that the building’s architects dozens of years earlier had sought to endow justice with some sort of grandeur and stature, but after all that had happened to him, Ricky thought justice was really a much smaller and far less noble concept, the kind of concept that could fit into a small cardboard box.

  He went inside, walking through the corridors, between courtrooms, fitting into the ebb and flow of people, noting elevator systems and emergency stairwells. It occurred to him that he could find the judge assigned to Arneson v. Fortier and probably discover who Merlin was merely by providing a description to the judge’s secretary. But, he understood, that simple act would likely turn suspicious in quick order. Someone might remember later, after he’d achieved what he wanted.

  Ricky—thinking all along like Frederick Lazarus—wanted what he had in mind to do to be utterly anonymous.

  He saw one thing that he thought would help: There were many distinct types wandering through the courthouse building. The three-piece suits were clearly the attorneys with business within the walls. Then there were some less well heeled, but still presentable types. Ricky put these into a category that included the police, jurors, plaintiffs, accused, and courtroom personnel. All the folks that seemed to more or less have a reason for being there, and an understanding about what role they were to play. Then there was a third, fringe category, that intrigued Ricky: the buzzards. His wife had once described them to him, long before she was diagnosed, and long before her life had become nothing more than appointments and medications and pain and helplessness. They were the old pensioners and hangers-on, who found watching courtrooms and lawyers to be entertaining. They functioned a little like bird-watchers in the forest, moving from case to case, searching out dramatic testimony, intriguing conflict, perhaps staking out seats in courtrooms where high-profile, publicity-laden cases were taking place. In appearance, they were modest, sometimes only a cut above the folks who lived on the streets. They were a step away from a VA hospital or a retirement home, and wore polyester no matter how hot it was outdoors. An easy group, Ricky thought, to infiltrate for a few moments.

  He left the courthouse with his plan already forming in his head. He took a cab first to Times Square, where he entered one of the many novelty stores where one can buy a fake edition of the New York Times with one’s name in a headline. There he had the man with the printing machine make up a half-dozen phony business cards. Then he flagged another cab which bore him to a glass and steel office building on the East Side. There was a guard at the entranceway, who made him sign in, which he did with a flourish, signing Frederick Lazarus, and listing his occupation on the sheet as Producer. The guard issued him a small plastic clip-on badge with the number six on it, which designated the floor he was traveling to. The man didn’t even glance at the sign-in sheet after Ricky handed it back to him. Security, Ricky thought, operates on perceptions. He looked the part and handled himself with a brusque confidence that defied being questioned by a man at the door. It was a small performance, he believed, but one that Virgil would likely appreciate.

  An attractive receptionist greeted him when he entered the office of The Jones Agency.

  “How can I help you?” she asked.

  “I spoke with someone earlier,” Ricky lied. “About a commercial shoot we’ve got coming up. We’re looking for some fresh faces and checking out some of the new talent available. I was going to have a look through your portfolio . . .”

  The receptionist looked slightly askance. “Do you remember who you spoke with?”

  “No, sorry. It was my assistant who made the call,” Ricky said. The receptionist nodded. “But perhaps I could just flip through some headshots, and then you could steer me?”

  The young woman smiled. “No problem,” she said. She reached beneath the desk and came up with a large leather binder. “These are the current clients,” she said. “If you see anyone, then I can direct you to the agent who handles their bookings.” She gestured toward a leather couch, in the corner of the room. Ricky took the portfolio over and started flipping through it.

  Virgil was the seventh photo in the book.

  “Hello,” Ricky said under his voice, as he flipped the page and saw that her real name, address, phone number, and agent’s name were listed on the back along with a list of off-Broadway theater performances and advertising credits. He wrote all this down on a pad of paper. Then he did precisely the same for two other actresses. He took the portfolio back to the receptionist, checking his wristwatch as he did so.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m late for another appointment. There are a couple of people who seem to have the right look, but we’re going to need to have a face-to-face before committing to anything.”

  “Of course,” the young woman said.

  Ricky continued to appear harried and hurried. “Look, I’m in a terrible bind here, with time. Perhaps you could call these three and set up meetings for me? Let’s see, this one at lunch tomorrow at noon at Vincent’s over on East 82nd. Then the other two, say at two and four in the afternoon, same place? I would appreciate it.
We’re a little under the gun, here, if you know what I mean . . .”

  The receptionist looked discomfited. “Usually the agents have to set up every meeting,” she said reluctantly, “mister . . .”

  “I understand,” he said. “But I’m only in town until tomorrow, then back to Los Angeles. Sorry to be so rushed on all this . . .”

  “I’ll see what I can do . . . but your name?”

  “It’s Ulysses,” Ricky said. “Mister Richard Ulysses. And I can be reached at this number . . .”

  He pulled out one of the fake business cards. They were emblazoned with the title: penelope’s shroud productions. Acting as if this was the most natural thing in the world, he took a pen from the desk and crossed out a phony California exchange, and wrote in his last remaining cell number. He made certain that he obscured the fake number. He also doubted whether any of the agents had a classical education.

  “See what you can do,” he said. “If there’s some problem, call me at that number. Come on, bigger breaks have occurred on less. Remember Lana Turner in the drugstore? Anyway, I have to run. More pictures to see, if you know what I mean. Lots of actresses out there. Hate to see someone miss a chance because they passed up a free meal.”

  And with that, Ricky turned and exited. He wasn’t sure whether his breezy, devil-may-care approach would work.

  But he thought it might.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Before Ricky left for the courthouse the following morning, he confirmed with Virgil’s agent the luncheon appointment, as well as the subsequent meetings with the two other actress-models that Ricky had no intention of attending. The man had asked a few questions about the commercials Ricky the producer was intending to shoot, and Ricky had answered breezily, lying elaborately about product placement in the Far East and Eastern Europe, and the new markets opening up in these areas, therefore the need for new faces to be established by the advertising industry. Ricky thought that he’d become adept at saying much that amounted to nothing, which he realized was one of the most effective sorts of lies one could tell. Any skepticism that the agent might have held dissipated rapidly in the fabric of Ricky’s fictions. After all, the meeting might amount to something, for which he’d get ten percent, or it might amount to nothing, which left him no worse than he was already. Ricky knew that if Virgil had been a more established star, he might have had a problem. But she wasn’t yet, which had helped her when it came time for her to help ruin his life, and he played on the necessity of her ambition easily and guiltlessly.

  In his rented room, he reluctantly left behind his handgun. He knew he couldn’t risk setting off a metal detector at the courthouse, but he had grown accustomed to the reassurance that the pistol gave him, although he still did not know whether he would be able to use it for its true purpose—a moment he believed was quickly closing in on him. Before leaving, though, he stared at himself in the mirror in the bathroom. He had dressed nicely, in blazer and tie, dress shirt and slacks. Well enough to slide easily into the crowds that would be sweeping in and out of the courthouse corridors, which, in an odd way, was the same kind of protection that the handgun offered, although less final in its actions. He knew what he had in mind to do, and he understood it was all a balancing act.

  The edge, for him, he understood, between killing, dying, and being free was very narrow.

  As he stared at himself in the mirror, he recalled one of the first lectures he’d ever heard on psychiatry, where the physician at the medical school had explained that no matter how much was known about behavior and emotions, and no matter how confident one was in diagnosis and in the course of action that neurosis and psychosis created, ultimately, one could never predict with total certainty how any one individual would react. There were predictors, the lecturer had explained, and more often than not, people would play out the scene that one expected. But sometimes they defied prediction, and this happened enough to make the entire profession often resemble guesswork.

  He wondered whether he’d guessed right on this occasion.

  If he did, he would be free. If not, he would be dead.

  Ricky searched the corners of his image in the mirror. Who are you now? he asked himself. Someone or no one?

  These thoughts made him grin. He felt a wondrous surge of almost hilarious release. Free or dead. Like the license plate on his New Hampshire rental car. Live Free or Die. It finally made some sense to him.

  His thoughts crept over to the three people who had stalked him. The children of his failure. Raised to hate everyone who’d failed to help.

  “I know you now,” he said out loud, picturing Virgil in his mind. “And you, I’m about to know,” he continued, conjuring up a portrait of Merlin.

  But Rumplestiltskin remained elusive, a shadow in his imagination.

  This was the only fear he had left, he understood. But it was a substantial fear.

  Ricky nodded to the image of himself in the mirror. Time to perform, he told himself.

  There was a large drugstore on the corner, one of a chain, with rows of over-the-counter cold remedies, shampoo, and batteries. What he intended for Merlin that morning was something he remembered from a book he’d read about mobsters in South Philadelphia. He found what he needed in a section that contained cheap children’s toys. Then the second element in a portion of the store that carried a modest selection of office supplies. He paid cash and after placing these items in his jacket pocket, Ricky walked back out on the street and hailed a cab.

  He breezed into the courthouse building as he had the day before, appearing like a man with a purpose far different from that which he actually had in mind. He stopped in the second-floor bathroom and took out the items that he’d purchased, and prepared them in a few seconds. Then he killed some time before heading to the courtroom where the man he knew as Merlin was arguing a motion.

  As he suspected, the room itself was only partially filled. Some other attorneys lounged about waiting for their cases to be called. A dozen or so of the courthouse buzzards occupied seats in the middle portion of the cavernous arena, some dozing, others listening intently. Ricky slipped quietly through the door, past the baliff who guarded it, and into a seat behind several of the old folks. He slid down, making himself as unobtrusive as possible.

  There were a half-dozen lawyers and plaintiffs inside the bar, seated at sturdy oaken tables in front of the judge’s bench. The area in front of both teams was filled with papers and boxes of pleadings. They were all men, and they were intent upon the reactions of the judge to what they had to say. There was no jury, in this preliminary stage, which meant that everything they spoke was directed forward. Nor was there any need to turn and play to the audience, because it would have had no discernible impact on the proceedings. Consequently, none of the men paid the slightest attention to the folks seated haphazardly about in the rows of seats behind them. Instead, they took notes, checked citations from legal texts, and busied themselves with the task at hand, which was trying to win some money for their client, but more critically, for themselves. It was, Ricky thought, a type of stylized theater, where no one cared anything about the audience, only the drama critic in front of them, wearing the black robes. Ricky shifted in his seat and remained hidden and anonymous, which was what he expected.

  A surge of excitement raced through him, when Merlin stood.

  “You have an objection, Mr. Thomas?” the judge demanded sharply.

  “Indeed, I do,” Merlin replied smugly.

  Ricky looked down at the list he’d made of all the lawyers involved in the case. Mark Thomas, Esquire, with offices downtown, was in the middle of the group.

  “Then what is it?” the judge demanded.

  Ricky listened for a few moments. The self-assured, self-satisfied tones of the attorney were the same that he’d remembered from their meetings. He spoke with a confidence that was the same, whether what he was saying had any basis in truth or the law or not. Merlin was the exact man who had come into Ricky�
�s life so disastrously.

  Only now he had a name. And an address.

  And just as it had for Ricky, this would be like opening a door on who Merlin was.

  He pictured the lawyer’s hands again. Especially the manicured fingernails. Then Ricky smiled. Because in the same mental image, he noted the presence of a wedding ring. That meant a house. A wife. Perhaps children. All the trappings of the upwardly mobile, the young urban professional, heading aggressively for success.

  Only Merlin the attorney had a few ghosts in his past. And he was brother to a ghost of the first degree. Ricky listened to the man speak, thinking what a complicated system of psychology was on display in front of him. Sorting through it all would have been an intriguing challenge for the psychoanalyst he once was. Sorting through it for the man he’d been forced to become was a significantly simpler issue. He reached into his pocket and fingered the children’s toy he’d placed there.

  On the bench, the judge was shaking his head, and beginning to suggest that the matters be continued over into the afternoon session. This was Ricky’s cue to exit, which he did quietly.

  He took up a position next to the emergency stairwell, waiting across from a bank of elevators. As soon as he spotted the group of lawyers exiting the courtroom, he ducked into the stairwell. He had lingered just long enough to see that Merlin was carrying two heavily stuffed briefcases, no doubt filled to overflowing with endless documents and court papers. Too heavy to carry beyond the closest elevator, Ricky knew.

  He took the stairs two at a time, emerging on the second floor. There were several people waiting by the elevators for rides down the single flight. Ricky joined them, keeping his hand around the handle of the toy in his pocket. He stared up at the electronic device that shows the location of the car and saw that the elevator was stopped on the floor above. Then it began to descend. Ricky knew one thing: Merlin wasn’t the type to move to the back and make room for anyone else.