The Analyst (28 page)

The attorney eyed Ricky with a half grin. Then he added, “You seem under pressure, doctor.”

“You would know about that, Mr. Merlin. Because it is either you or your employer who has created this.”

“I am employed by a young woman that you took advantage of, as I’ve said before, doctor. Really, that is what has brought me into contact with you.”

“Sure. You know what, Mr. Merlin?” Ricky said with the first harsh tones of anger sliding into his voice. “You know what? Go find another seat. That seat is being used. By me. I don’t want to speak with you anymore. I dislike being lied to as much as you do, and I won’t listen to any more. There are plenty of seats on this train…” Ricky gestured wildly at the nearly empty car, “… take one of those and leave me alone. Or at least stop lying to me.”

Merlin did not budge.

“That would not be wise,” he said slowly.

“Perhaps I’m tired of behaving wisely,” Ricky said. “Maybe I should behave rashly. Now leave me alone.” He didn’t expect the attorney would act upon this demand.

“Is that how you’ve behaved?” Merlin asked. “Wisely? Have you contacted an attorney as I recommended? Have you taken steps to protect yourself and your possessions from lawsuit and embarrassment? Have you been rational and intelligent about your choices?”

“I’ve taken steps,” Ricky answered. He wasn’t certain that this was accurate.

The attorney obviously didn’t believe him. He smiled. “Well, I’m delighted to hear that. Perhaps we can discuss a settlement, then. You, your attorney, and I?”

Ricky lowered his voice. “You know what the settlement demand is, don’t you, Mr. Merlin, or whatever your real name is. So, please, can we dispense with the charade you persist in employing, and get to the reason you are on this train and sitting beside me?”

“Ah, Doctor Starks. I detect some desperation in your voice, as well.”

“Well, Mr. Merlin, just how much time do you think I have remaining?”

“Time, Doctor Starks? Time? Why all the time you need…”

“Indulge me, Mr. Merlin, by either moving or quit lying. You know what I’m saying.”

Merlin eyed Ricky closely, the same Cheshire cat grin playing around the corners of his mouth. But despite the self-satisfied smile, some pretense dropped alongside it. “Well, doctor, ticktock, ticktock. The answer to your last question is this: I would think you have less than a week remaining.”

Ricky breathed in sharply. “There’s a truthful statement. Finally. Now, who are you?”

“Not important. Just another bit player. Someone hired to do a job. And certainly not the person you might hope I am.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I told you: encouragement.”

“All right, then,” Ricky said firmly. “Encourage me.”

Merlin seemed to think for a moment, then answered, “There is a line from the opening of Dr. Spock’s
Baby and Child Care
, which I think is appropriate for this moment…”

“I never had occasion to read that book,” Ricky said bitterly.

“The line is: ‘You know more than you think you do. ’”

Ricky paused, considering, before replying sarcastically: “Great. Dandy. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“It would be worth your while.”

Ricky did not reply to this. Instead, he said, “Deliver your message, why don’t you. That’s what you are, after all, right? A message boy. So get on with it. What is it that you want to get through to me?”

“Urgency, doctor. Pace. Speed.”

“How so?”

“Pick ’em up,” Merlin said, grinning, slipping into an unfamiliar vernacular. “You need to ask your second question in tomorrow’s paper. You’ve got to get a move on, doctor. Time is being if not exactly wasted, at least flitting past.”

“I haven’t figured out my second question yet,” Ricky said.

The lawyer made a slight face, as if he was uncomfortable in his seat, or felt the twinge of a toothache coming on. “That was the fear,” he said, “in some circles. Hence the decision to prod you along a bit.”

Merlin reached down and lifted the leather briefcase that was beneath his feet up to his lap. He put it down and opened it up. Ricky saw that it contained a laptop computer, several manila file folders, and a portable telephone. It also contained a small, steel-blue semiautomatic pistol in a leather holster. The attorney pushed the weapon to the side, grinning when he saw Ricky stare at the weapon, and seized the phone. He flipped it open, so that it glowed with that unique electronic green that is so commonplace in the modern world. He turned to Ricky. “Isn’t there a question left over from this morning on your mind?”

Ricky continued to eye the pistol, before speaking.

“What do you mean?”

“What did you see this morning, on the way to the train?”

Ricky paused. He did not know that Merlin or Virgil or Rumplestiltskin knew about his visit to Dr. Lewis, then, in a burst, he realized that they must know, because otherwise they would not have been able to place Merlin on the train to meet him.

“What did you see?” Merlin asked again.

Ricky’s face was set, his voice steely. “An accident,” he answered.

The lawyer nodded. “Are you certain about that, doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Certainty is such a wondrous conceit,” Merlin said. “The advantage to being a lawyer over, say, a psychoanalyst, is that lawyers work in a world devoid of certainty. We live in the world of persuasion, instead. But now that I think about it, perhaps it isn’t that different for you, doctor. After all, are you not persuaded of things?”

“Get to your point.”

The lawyer smiled again. “I’ll bet that’s a phrase you’ve never used with a patient, is it?”

“You’re not my patient.”

“True. So, you believe you saw an accident. Involving…?”

Ricky was unsure how much the man knew about Dr. Lewis. It was possible he knew everything. Also possible he didn’t know anything. Ricky remained silent.

The attorney finally answered his question. “… involving someone you knew once and trusted, and whom you went to visit in the rather optimistic hope that he might be able to help you with your current situation. Here…” He punched a series of numbers onto the phone’s keypad, then handed Ricky the cell phone. “Ask your question. Press
send
to make it work.”

Ricky hesitated, then took the phone and did as suggested. The line rang once, then a voice came on: “State Police Rhinebeck. Trooper Johnson. How can I help you?”

Ricky paused just long enough for the trooper’s voice to repeat, “State Police. Hello?” Then he spoke.

“Hello, trooper, this is Doctor Frederick Starks calling. As I was heading toward the train station this morning on River Road there was apparently an accident. I’m concerned that it involved someone I knew. Can you fill me in on what happened?”

The trooper’s reply was curious, but brisk: “On River Road? This morning?”

“Yes,” Ricky said. “There was a trooper waving traffic around a detour…”

“You say today?”

“Yes. Not more than two hours ago.”

“I’m sorry, doctor, but we have no reports of any accidents this morning.”

Ricky sat back hard. “But I saw… involving a blue Volvo? The victim’s name was Doctor William Lewis. He lives on River Road…”

“Not today. In fact we haven’t had an accident investigation around here in weeks, which is pretty unusual for the summertime. And I’ve been on dispatch duty since six a.m., so any calls for police or an ambulance would come through me. Are you sure about what you saw?”

Ricky took a deep breath. “I must have been mistaken. Thank you, trooper.”

“No problem,” the man said, disconnecting the line.

Ricky’s head whirled dizzily. “But I saw…,” he started.

Merlin shook his head. “What did you see? Really? Think, Doctor Starks. Think carefully.”

“I saw a trooper…”

“Did you see his patrol car?”

“No. He was standing, waving traffic around and he said…”

“‘He said… ‘ what a great phrase. So, ‘he said… ‘ something and you took it for the truth. You saw a man dressed a little bit like a state trooper, and so you assumed it was one. Did you see him direct any other vehicles, in the time you were at that intersection?”

Ricky was forced to shake his head. “No.”

“So, really, this could have been anybody wearing a campaign hat. How closely did you inspect his uniform?”

Ricky pictured the young man, and what he remembered were the eyes peering out beneath the Smokey the Bear hat. He tried to recall other details, but was unable. “He appeared to be a state trooper,” Ricky said.

“Appearances mean little. In your business, or in mine, doctor,” Merlin said. “Now, how sure were you there was an accident? Did you see an ambulance? A fire truck? Other police or rescue squad members? Did you hear sirens? Maybe the telltale chop-chop-chop of a life flight helicopter’s rotors?”

“No.”

“So, you merely took one man’s word that there was an accident that possibly involved someone you had just been in close proximity to the day before, but you didn’t see a need to check further? You merely fled in order to catch a train, because you believed that you needed to get back to the city, right? But what was the real urgency?”

Ricky did not reply.

“And, for all you now know, in reality there was no accident down the road at all.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps not. I can’t be sure.”

“No, you can’t be sure,” Merlin said. “But we can be certain of one thing: that you felt that whatever you had to do was more important than ascertaining whether someone needed help. You might keep that observation in mind, doctor.”

Ricky tried to swivel in the seat to be able to look Merlin in the eye. This was difficult. Merlin continued to smile, the irritating appearance of someone in utter control. “Perhaps you should try to telephone the person you went to visit?” He waved his hand at the cell phone. “Make certain they are okay?”

Ricky quickly punched in Dr. Lewis’s telephone number. The phone rang repeatedly, but there was no answer.

Surprise clouded his face, which Merlin registered. Before Ricky could say anything, the lawyer was speaking again.

“What makes you so sure that that house truly was Doctor Lewis’s place of residence?” Merlin asked with a slightly stiff formality. “What did you see that connected the good doctor directly to that place? Were there family pictures on the walls? Did you see any signs of other folks? What papers, knickknacks, what we would call the furniture of life-what was there that persuaded you that you were actually in the good doctor’s house? Other than his presence, of course.”

Ricky concentrated, but could see nothing in his memory. The study where they’d sat most of the night was a typical study. Books on the walls. Chairs. Lamps. Carpets. Some papers on the desk surface, but none that he’d inspected. But nothing that was unique and stood out in his recollection. The kitchen was simply a kitchen. The hallways connected the rooms. The guest room where he’d stayed the night was noticeably sterile.

Again, he remained silent, but he knew that his silence was as good a response as the attorney needed.

Merlin took a deep breath, his eyebrows lifted in anticipation of an answer, then lowering, relaxed, becoming part of the knowing smile he wore. Ricky had a brief memory of being in college and staring across a poker table at another student and knowing that whatever cards he held, they weren’t adequate to beat his opponent.

“Let me summarize briefly, doctor,” Merlin said. “I find that it is always wise to periodically take a moment to assess, tote up the score, and then proceed. This might be one of those moments. The only thing that you can be sure of is that you spent some hours in the presence of a physician that you knew from years ago. You don’t know now whether that was indeed his home, or not, or perhaps whether he has been in an accident, or not. You don’t know for certain that your onetime analyst is alive, or not, do you?”

Ricky started to reply, then stopped.

Merlin continued, lowering his voice just slightly, so that it had a conspiratorial quality to it, “Where was the first lie? Where was the critical lie? What did you see? All these questions…”

He suddenly held up his hand. Then he shook his head, as one might when trying to correct a wayward child. “Ricky, Ricky, Ricky, let me ask you this: Was there a car accident this morning?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I just spoke to the state police. That guy said…”

“How do you know it was the state police you spoke with?”

Ricky hesitated. Merlin grinned. “I dialed the number and handed you the phone. You pressed
send
, right? Now, I could have dialed just about any number, where just about anyone was waiting for the phone call. Maybe that’s the lie, Ricky. Maybe your friend Doctor Lewis is on a slab in the Dutchess County Morgue awaiting some relative to come identify him right now.”

“But…”

“You’re missing the point, Ricky.”

“All right,” Ricky said, snapping sharply, “what is the point?”

The attorney’s eyes narrowed just slightly, as if irritated by Ricky’s brisk reply. He indicated the waterproof gym bag at his feet. “Maybe he wasn’t in an accident at all, doctor, but instead, in that bag right now I’ve got his severed head. Is that possible, Ricky?”

Ricky recoiled sharply in surprise.

“Is it possible, Ricky?” the lawyer probed, his voice now hissing.

Ricky’s eyes fell to the bag. It was a simple duffel shape, without any external characteristics that might indicate what it contained. It was big enough to carry a person’s head, and waterproof, so that it would be without stains or leakage. But as Ricky assessed these elements, he felt his throat go dry, and he was not sure what terrified him more, the idea that there was a head of a man he knew at his feet, or the idea that he didn’t know.