Copley stepped back. Not a movement of surrender. He stiffened. “You want revenge.”
“Revenge?” I laughed. “For what?”
“You’re crazy if you think—”
I cut him off. “Revenge for my mistake? I don’t blame you.”
“I’m not a stupid man, Doctor. You said that I destroyed Gene.”
“I can’t blame you for your essential nature. That’s a basic principle of psychiatry. No. I misjudged the situation. I thought you were merely a salesman living off Gene’s talent. I didn’t understand you are a leader. Gene was happy as your second lieutenant. He needed your guidance, just as Andy needed Gene’s supervision. It’s your character to be a leader, that’s your genius. Of course, when he mutinied, you crushed him. You had no choice.”
Stick turned away, squinting at the damp streets. He talked to them, thinking aloud, “And you expect me to believe that’s what you’ll report to Edgar?” He looked at me fast, as if to catch me at something. “That it was your fault?”
Edgar. I had forgotten Edgar was my leverage. That’s why Copley was anxious. For a moment, I had hoped it was guilt, but no, he reacted entirely out of self-preservation. “I came for my own purpose. I’m just what you think I am. A harmless academic. You said it yourself, I don’t want to win. Good night.” I turned and walked briskly.
Copley reached my side effortlessly, with the silent tread of a predator. Of course, he was also wearing sandals. “Let’s rewind the tape. I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You always think in terms of power and manipulation,” I said, continuing to walk. “Both are foreign to my character. I came only for knowledge.”
“I’d like your help.” Copley put his hand on my arm and stopped me. “You said yourself that the corporate family would be a good subject for a book. I could use your observations while you’re doing research. Obviously, I overreacted to Gene. I know Andy’s in over his head. I like to win — you’re right. But there are lots of ways to win.”
A wave of people came out of a building, exiting from a party. They were loud and cheerful. One of the men stumbled into Copley. He was a beefy college kid. Nevertheless, Copley easily pushed him off.
The kid lurched our way again, coming between us. “Sorry,” he shouted, exhaling beer.
“No problem,” Copley said. One of his friends led him off. “How about it?” Stick asked with a smile. The interruption had given him time to put on a cheerful face.
“I don’t understand.”
“I want you to work for me,” he said. “As a consultant. It’ll be good research for your book and hopefully you’ll improve morale and teach me to be a better boss.”
“Work … for … you?” I spoke slowly, as if I were learning a foreign language.
“As a consultant. Any schedule you like. No obligation other than you tell me what you think. Just as straight and tough as tonight.”
Of course I didn’t comply right away. I waited through the weekend, calling from Baltimore on Monday to say yes. A quicker agreement, I feared, might have implied I had expected Stick’s offer all along.
CHAPTER SIX
Transference
THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER I ESTABLISHED MYSELF AS A MEMBER OF THE Minotaur family. An odd figure to be sure, the maiden aunt, or perhaps the mildly retarded cousin, but certainly I acquired the invisibility of a familiar face, the benign appearance of the predictable. I visited the labs three days a week. Not that I was idle on the subject the rest of the time. I researched Copley and his company thoroughly.
Stick had reason to fear what I might say to Edgar, at least if he believed I could influence Edgar’s opinion of his management. The leveraged buyout that elevated Copley from a mere employee to majority owner was accomplished with loans guaranteed by Levin & Levin, in exchange for options that, in essence, left Edgar in a position to take control of Minotaur at his whim. Some of the above was public information, some not. Molly Gray, a partner in Brian Stoppard’s firm, on retainer to Edgar for such deals, confided to me that there was a private side agreement, a shadow clause she called it, whose provisions allowed Edgar to hold Sticks personal holdings in Minotaur hostage should profits falter. Molly explained that the secret agreement was legal, although its exercise, under certain conditions, might not be.
She didn’t reveal the private deal right away. A week after briefing me on the public information, she invited me to dinner at her apartment to meet her husband, Stefan Weinstein. He is an eminent psychiatrist, on the board of New York Psychoanalytic and a trustee of Freud’s archives. He had read some of my books and knew of my work with children. He was flattering about both. That must have influenced Molly to violate her client’s confidentiality, although I think her difficult personal history was the deciding factor. Molly and Stefan adopted a girl whose mother, a close friend, had been murdered by the child’s father. Molly appeared to be deeply affected when I told her Gene’s story and the fate of his son, Pete.
“There wasn’t a pattern of battering?” Stefan asked.
“No,” I said. “His abusive behavior took the form of sexual and emotional withdrawal. It turned outward because of other factors. For Gene, in general, anger was always severely repressed, until …”
Stefan finished for me, “Until it wasn’t.”
“Until, abruptly, it wasn’t,” I agreed. “I’m afraid I’ve come to the conclusion that I wasn’t sufficiently vigilant.”
Stefan raised a brow. “Well,” he mumbled. “You said he hadn’t been seeing you regularly—”
“You feel responsible,” Molly interrupted.
“Yes. I saw the potential for its evolution, but I didn’t allow for it. Even in his irrational rage, Gene was repressed. He hit the wrong person.”
“What?” Stefan chuckled. “What do you mean? He was myopic?” Throughout all this, Molly observed me closely, eyes glistening.
“Well, Cathy, his wife, was certainly an obstacle, but she wasn’t …” I trailed off. There was a limit to what I wanted to reveal. “It’s complicated.”
“The person he wanted to kill is at Minotaur,” Molly said. “That’s why you’re hanging out there.”
“No,” I lied. “I’m trying to understand my mistake. I’m afraid there are similar patterns in place for the people who work there now.”
Stefan frowned. “What are you saying? You think this is some sort of psychological industrial hazard? Make computers and kill your wife?”
“Something like that.” I smiled. “No, I mean I believe I can reconstruct my error with Gene through a better understanding of his life. The best I can do is observe the people he dealt with.”
“I see,” Stefan said, in a tone that implied he didn’t. Molly, however, understood. Or, she saw through me and approved anyway. Whatever the reason, she wanted to help. When Stefan left the room to take a phone call, she revealed the shadow clause.
For two weeks I commuted between Baltimore and New York, sleeping on Susan’s foldout couch. Stefan made things more comfortable for me after that, finding an apartment I could sublet on Central Park West between Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth Streets. The owner was a psychologist taking the traditional August shrink’s vacation; luckily, in her calendar, August began in June and ended with Labor Day. We made a barter arrangement. The fee was caring for her calico cat, named Sally Rogers, in honor of the character on The Dick Van Dyke Show.