Edgar tried to lean back. He bumped his bald spot against the mirrored wall. The breezy blustering rich boy was gone. He frowned at me with the disgust of a commander-in-chief confronted by a deserter. “That’s your question?”
“Assuming you believed me, what would you do?”
“I don’t run Minotaur,” Edgar said, winking at Stick. “I’m just an investor.”
“If you could,” I insisted. “Are you scared of answering truthful—?”
Edgar cut that off. “Nothing,” he said grimly.
“Take your time, Edgar.”
“I don’t need time. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just because I don’t need a man, you think I should fire him? Jesus, you haven’t fallen for this downsizing crap, have you? If you fired every American who isn’t obviously necessary half the country would be unemployed.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re not taking my question seriously. Let me ask it another way. Granting my premise — entirely hypothetical of course — that Stick doesn’t contribute to how Minotaur’s products are made or sold, what use is he?”
Edgar laughed. “Maybe you should withdraw your offer, Stick.”
At my elbow I heard Copley’s low tones, barely above a mumble, “It’s an interesting question. I don’t mind him asking.”
Didier shook his head. “This is strange,” he commented.
“Well, Edgar? You promised an answer.”
“You’re right. Let’s see … He is useful …” he paused, thinking, and then came out with an answer as if it had just occurred to him, “because he’s greedy.”
“No joking, Edgar.”
“I’m not joking. As you would say, he’s all id. Stick came to me for the money to take over from bozos who were too chicken to take on IBM and Toshiba toe-to-toe. If you’re right and he’s got no talent, then his coming to me is even more impressive — imagine having the balls to ask to run a company with someone else’s money when you really don’t have any skill at making or selling its product? The people under him at Minotaur may be talented but they’re not greedy. Or, at least, I don’t know that they’re greedy.”
I slapped the table. I was pleased that all three of them jumped. “Well. Then I’m in for the fall retreat. And I’ve got a basis for a psychological defense of greed, Edgar. I may write that book for you after all. Thanks a lot.” I put my hand on Stick’s bony shoulder. I squeezed. “I’ve got my mandate. I should head back to the labs to get started.” I squeezed harder.
He didn’t wince although it must have hurt — I’m not that weak. He looked at my fingers and smiled as if their presence was a delight. “Tennis on Saturday?” he asked. “There’s a round-robin tournament at my club and I’m allowed a guest for a partner.”
I let go. His eyes closed halfway, showing relief. “Definitely,” I said. “Together we’ll crush them.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Countertransference
THE GREATEST SURPRISE OF THIS TREATMENT WAS THAT IT WAS BOTH RAPID and effective. The difficulties of its unorthodox nature, such as how to create the regular, defined sessions of psychotherapy, were easily surmounted. I had already established a twice-weekly meeting with Stick, supposedly to debrief him on employee morale. In addition, we had the doubles game one night a week and I became a regular on Saturdays at his country club in Westchester. Each of these four weekly encounters had the shape of a therapeutic hour. It was a simple matter to feed Copley’s sadistic tendency to paranoia, as opposed to exploring its irrationality.
A typical exchange would go like this: “Andy is excited about presenting Centaur at the convention,” I said and frowned.
“Of course,” Stick commented.
“I guess it’s because he has many old friends he’ll get a chance to catch up with.” I maintained the frown.
“Old friends?”
I laughed. “He is a little young to have old friends. Do you have many friends in the business?”
“Not many.”
“How about George Jellick? He hired you at Flashworks? Do you get together?” This was a reminder of Copley’s betrayal of a boss. Stick had left Jellick’s company abruptly, taking with him the training and sales contacts he had acquired and raiding Flashworks for half the staff of engineers, including Gene, and several key marketers, Jack Truman being one. “Jellick’s retired,” Stick said. “Who is Andy excited about seeing?”
“Are the names important?”
“I’d like to know.”
“I’ll find out. I guess it’s natural that there’s a lot of socializing between rival companies at the conventions. Much of it seems to be competitive, not really friendly. There’s one reunion Andy isn’t looking forward to — with a buddy from college who’s made millions designing video games. Andy says he used to be brilliant at programming. He regrets going into machine design. ‘It’s a dead end,’ he says.”
The next day, much to Andy’s dismay, Stick announced he would be attending the convention. Andy had looked forward to being the sole representative.
Intensifying Stick’s innate pattern of excessive vigilance led naturally to exploring his anal fears of aging and weakness, and also to probing his homophobic modesty — another symptom of sadism. I took tennis lessons to sharpen my game and bought myself a new racquet. For a while I concentrated on playing my best. Stick became accustomed to our beating the men he found for opponents. Within a few weeks, I had sufficient control to contrive that we lose the second set in a way that seemed to imply Stick was tiring. Playing the net behind his serve it was a simple matter, by not poaching as aggressively as usual, or by making my volleys an easier get for our opponents, to arrange that our defeats seemed to happen because his serve was less effective.
Three losses of this kind and Stick complained. “After we get one win under our belts, we stop concentrating.”
I said, “I don’t think that’s the reason.”
He was in a shower stall at the Wall Street Racquet Club, talking to me by shouting over the noise of the running water. I was toweling off. He dawdled when undressing, waiting until I was in a stall before he stripped. He always brought his own kelly green towel with him to the club, although they supplied clean white ones, not as large or as thick as his, but sufficient. I assumed this was a mild version of the sadist’s fear of germs. There were hooks on the outside of the shower door to hang a towel, but he always entered with his lower half wrapped up, to conceal his privates all the way, despite the fact that carrying the towel inside meant it would get wet. “What did you say?” he called.
“I know why we’re losing the second set,” I said, moving beside the stall door. “You’re getting tired. Your serves lose power and I can’t get as clean a volley on their returns.”
“Bullshit,” he said.
I said nothing. When the silence had lasted long enough to be uncomfortable, I yanked the shower door open.
Stick backed against the tiles, chest smeared with soap, eyes blinking from the rain of water. I stared at his genitals (of course, there was nothing remarkable about them, they were of normal size) and said, “Is my sweatband in here?”
“You didn’t use this shower,” he complained.
“Sorry,” I slammed the stall door. I had seen the secret, so I made my judgment, “I’m pretty sure you’re getting tired in the second set. Maybe it’s my volleying, but I think your serve is too short.”
He chose not to continue the argument. He liked to eat after playing and that same evening afforded an opportunity for further infiltration of his subconscious. He showed a rare curiosity about my work with children. Appearing to ramble, I told a story about a boy who was anally abused. I didn’t have to invent it; unfortunately, my work provided many examples. I used Jeffrey Y, from one of my published case histories, who was repeatedly sodomized by his father and his uncle.