“I understand you’ve joined up again,” said Gold. He was playing with a three-colored pen, switching the nib from red to green to blue.
“Temporarily,” said Becker.
“That’s a start.”
“That’s all there is. It’s a convenience; the badge opens doors.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I hate when you do that,” Becker said.
“Do what?”
“Grunt knowingly. It sounds like a parody of a shrink. You might as well say, I zee, very interessting.”
“You’re in a good mood.”
“I was supposed to have a date tonight,” said Becker. “I came to see you instead. She’s going to be pissed and all I have is you for consolation.”
“How is that going? That relationship.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her enough to find out.”
“Evasive.”
“It’s none of your business. Sex is not my problem.”
“Did I mention sex? I asked about your relationship. Does that just mean sex to you?”
“I want to ask you some questions today.”
“That’s not the way it works.”
“Nothing personal.”
“That’s the only kind of question worth asking. How is the relationship?”
“Yours and mine? Fragile, I’d say.”
“The girl.” Gold glanced at his notes. “Cindi.”
“I remember her name. It’s fine. She’s too young for me. She probably has an Oedipal attraction to me, I probably have a dirty-old-man attraction to her. That sounds unhealthy but binding, wouldn’t you say?” Becker paused. “I like her,” he said.
“And how does that make you feel?”
“It scares me a little,” said Becker.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Maybe later. I have other questions first.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About sexual perversion.”
“Um.”
“I thought you’d like that. Don’t worry, it’s official business.”
“We don’t call it perversion anymore. It’s paraphilia now. Whose paraphilia are we interested m?”
“My man. His name is Dyce.”
“Your man?”
“The man I’m after. Yeah, he’s my man. Or he will be. I almost have him already, and if you give me the right information, he’ll be all mine.”
Gold placed the pen on his desk and looked squarely at Becker. There was an intensity in Becker’s tone he had not heard before. Gone, for the moment at least, was the caustic, bantering note that let Gold know he was being tolerated even when Becker was cooperating. Usually Gold felt as if he were a priest debating religion with an atheist who went along with the discussion purely for the sake of an argument. Gold was himself a doubting priest at best. The miracle of psychotherapy had long since been replaced by a form of utilitarian respect for the rituals. Now, however, he sensed an opening into Becker’s carefully constructed armament.
“You’ll have him in what sense? You mean you’ll catch him?”
Becker paused. He picked up the pen from Gold’s desk and stared at it blankly for a moment.
“I mean I’ll have his secrets. No. I mean his secrets will be my secrets.”
“Is that what it feels like? As if you’re sharing secrets with someone you’re after?”
“Not sharing. We both possess them.” Becker jabbed at the pen, changing the color back and forth as Gold had done.
“You empathize with him,” Gold prompted.
Becker dropped the pen on the desk.
“No,” he said impatiently. “I become him.”
Gold held his breath. He was afraid to speak at all for fear he would say the wrong thing. He stifled the urge to grunt and slowly nodded his head.
“I feel what he feels and think what he thinks. And that’s how I find him. It’s as simple as that.” Becker laughed at himself a brief snort. “As simple as that.”
“How can you do that?”
“I start with a lot in common.”
Gold felt the goose flesh on his arms.
“Will you help me?”
“I want to,” said Gold.
“I mean with Dyce. I need to know about paraphilia.”
“I’ll help you. Will you help me to understand you?”
“They may be the same thing,” said Becker.
Chaney glanced impatiently at his watch as Becker entered the actuarial room. The agent was half an hour late and Chaney had thought several times of leaving, just to show his independence, but his pride in his accomplishments had kept him there.
“Sorry I’m late,” Becker said. “I know how important your time is. I had to see a shrink.”
“You’re in analysis?”
“Group therapy,” Becker said. “Dyce and I are taking it together.”
“If you have Dyce…”
“Joke,” said Becker. “Inside joke. How did it go? Did you find out anything for me?”
“Certainly. I’ve printed it out for you, but you might want to take a look on the screen here. This is Dyce’s private log. He had it pretty well camouflaged with codes and countercodes, but I got it out.”
“Didn’t take you long.”
“Well, it wasn’t easy, but I didn’t have any great trouble with it.”
“That’s why I asked an expert,” said Becker, smiling.
“Well, it was only Dyce’s mind I was up against,” said Chaney. He ran a hand down the back of his shaven skull. “He was devious, but not terribly clever, if you follow.”
“I’m trying to,” said Becker. “What is it, exactly?”
“Names. He got them from the raw solicitations of field agents. These aren’t necessarily customers, you understand, just people who have filled out questionnaires, or that agents filled them out for.”
Becker looked at the screen. Some of the names he recognized immediately. Nordholm, Dahl, Hedstrom, Nilsson.
“Is there a pattern?” he asked innocently.
“Of course. Don’t you see it?” Chaney paused to punctuate his moment of superiority. “It’s fairly obvious. They all have mothers with Scandinavian names.”
“Why would that be?”
“Who knows?”
“Is there anything unique about Scandinavians as a group? Anything that sets them apart?” Becker asked.
“From an actuarial point of view, do you mean?”
“From any point of view. I need any ideas I can get.”
“Well, actually, I did think about that, I assumed you would want to know. There is one interesting thing-from an insurance perspective.” Again Chaney paused to feel his advantage. “Scandinavians tend to live longer than other ethnic groups. That’s mostly climate related, both in Scandinavia and here.”
“How do you mean?”
“People in Minnesota live the longest, on the average, of any state in the Union. Did you know that? Minnesota not only has the highest concentration of Scandinavians in the nation, it also has one of the coldest calumniates.”
“That’s important?”
“It seems to be. The same is true of Scandinavia, too, of course. Part of that might be the high level of social services in both countries, too. But people in cold climates tend to live longer anyway.”
“I would think Alaskans would live the longest in that case.”
Chaney shook his head dismissively. “Too cold. Too many people living high-risk lives. Too many indigenous peoples with a low standard of living, too many transients. No, your best bet, if you want to live a long time, is to have Norwegian parents and live in a cold state with good health care close by. Minnesota. We ought to charge less for a general life policy in the state, but it’s against federal regulations. Can’t discriminate.” Chaney said it as if it were an insult to the precision of his craft. “That pushes your premiums up, you know.”
“Why mine?”
“You’re a white Anglo-Saxon male. You’re going to live longer-on the average-than an Afro-American male. That’s just a statistical fact, not my opinion, but we can’t charge the Afro-American more for the same coverage just on the basis of his race. Or, put the other way around, we can’t charge you less. To the government, either way we do it, it’s discrimination. So we charge you the same as the other guy and you get cheated.” Chaney shrugged. “That’s democracy. Politicians aren’t interested in statistics.”