There were also, he knew, a number of patients, perhaps two dozen over that ten-year period, who had started treatments and then interrupted them. The reasons for discontinuing therapies were complex: Some hadn’t the money or the necessary health insurance to cover his fees; others had been forced to relocate, because of job or school demands. A few had simply decided angrily that they weren’t being helped enough, or rapidly enough, or were too angry with the world and what it promised to deliver to them to continue. These people were rare, but existed.
They comprised his second list. This was a far more difficult list to come up with.
It was, he realized swiftly, on first appearance, the far more dangerous list. They were the people who might have transformed their rage into an obsession with Ricky, and then passed that obsession on.
He placed both lists on the desk in front of him, and thought he should start the process of tracking down the names. Once he had Rumplestiltskin’s reply, he thought, he could eliminate a number of people from each, then forge ahead.
All morning he had been expecting the telephone to ring, with a reply from his account executive. He was a little surprised not to have heard from the man, because in the past he’d always handled Ricky’s money with a boring diligence and dependability. He dialed the number again, once again reaching the secretary.
She seemed flustered when she heard his voice. “Oh, Doctor Starks, Mr. Williams was about to call you back. There’s been some confusion over your account,” she said.
Ricky’s stomach clenched. “Confusion?” he asked. “How can money be confused? People can be confused. Dogs can be confused. Money cannot.”
“I’m going to connect you with Mr. Williams,” the secretary replied. There was a momentary silence, and then the not exactly familiar, but not unrecognizable voice of his account executive came on the line. Ricky’s investments were all conservative, boring, mutual funds and bonds. Nothing hip-hop or aggressively modern, just modest and steady growth. Nor were they particularly substantial. Of all the professions in the medical world, psychoanalysts were among the most limited in what they could charge and the number of patients they could see. They were not like the radiologist who had three patients booked into different examining rooms for the same time slot, nor the anesthesiologist who went from assembly-line surgery to surgery. Analysts didn’t often become rich and Ricky was no exception to this rule. He owned his place on the Cape and his apartment and that was it. No Mercedes. No Piper twin engine. No forty-two-foot yawl named the Icutknees harbored on Long Island Sound. Just some prudent investments designed to provide him enough money for retirement, if he ever decided to cut back on his patient load. Ricky spoke with his broker perhaps once or twice a year, that was it. He’d always assumed he was one of the genuinely smaller fishes in the executive’s pond.
“Doctor Starks?” The executive came on the line brusque and speaking swiftly. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but we’re trying to figure out a problem here…”
Ricky’s stomach seemed empty, tight. “What sort of problem?”
“Well,” the executive said, “did you open up a personal trading account with one of the new online brokers? Because…”
“No, I haven’t. In fact, I hardly know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, that’s the confusing part. It appears that there’s been significant day-trading in your account.”
“What’s day-trading?” Ricky asked.
“It’s trading stocks rapidly, trying to stay ahead of market fluctuations.”
“Okay. I understand that. But I don’t do this.”
“Does someone else have access to your accounts? Perhaps your wife…”
“My wife passed away three years ago,” Ricky said coldly.
“Of course,” the broker answered quickly. “I remember. I apologize. But someone else, perhaps. Do you have children?”
“No. We did not have children. Where is my money?” Ricky spoke sharply, demanding.
“Well, we’re searching. This may turn out to be a police matter, Doctor Starks. In fact, that’s what I’m beginning to think. That is, if someone managed to illegally access your account…”
“Where is the money?” Ricky demanded a second time.
The broker hesitated. “I can’t say precisely. We have our internal auditors going over the account now. All I can say is that there has been significant activity…”
“What do you mean activity? The money has just been sitting there…”
“Well, not exactly. There are literally dozens maybe even hundreds of trades, transfers, sales, investments…”
“Where is it now?”
The broker continued, “A truly extraordinary trail of extremely complicated and aggressive financial transactions…”
“You’re not answering my question,” Ricky said, exasperation filling his voice. “My funds. My retirement account, my cash reserves…”
“We’re searching. I’ve put my best people on it. I will have our head of security contact you as soon as they make some headway. I can’t believe with all the activity that no one here spotted something wrong…”
“But all my money…”
“Right now,” the executive said slowly, “there is no money. At least, none that we can find.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I wish it were so,” the man continued, “but it is. Don’t worry, Doctor Starks. Our investigators will track the transactions. We’ll get to the bottom of this. And your accounts are insured, at least in part. Eventually, we’ll get this all straightened out. It’s just going to take some time, and, as I said, we may have to involve the police or the SEC, because it seems that what you’re saying is that a theft of some sort is involved.”
“How much time?”
“It’s summertime and some of the staff is on vacation. I’d guess no more than a couple of weeks. At the most.”
Ricky hung up the phone. He did not have a couple of weeks.
By the end of the day he was able to determine that the only account that he owned that hadn’t been raided and eviscerated by someone who’d gained access was the small checking account he kept at First Cape Bank up in Wellfleet. This was an account purely designed to make summer matters easier. There was barely ten thousand dollars in the account, money that he used to pay bills at the local fish market and grocery store, the liquor store and hardware store. He paid for his gardening tools and plants and seeds with that account. It was money to make his vacation run smoothly. A household account, for the month he spent in the vacation household.
He was a little surprised that Rumplestiltskin had not assaulted these funds as well. He felt toyed with, almost as if the man had left this parcel of money alone to tease Ricky. Regardless, Ricky thought he needed to find a way to get the funds into his hands, before they, too, disappeared into some bizarre financial limbo. He called the manager of the First Cape Bank and told him that he was going to need to close the account and was going to want the balance of the money in cash.
The manager informed Ricky that he would have to be present for that transaction, which was fine with Ricky. He wished some of the other institutions handling his money had had the same policy. He explained to the manager that there had been some trouble with other accounts, and that it was important that no one other than Ricky access the money. The manager offered to have the funds written into a cashier’s check, which he would personally keep for Ricky’s arrival. This was acceptable.
The problem was how to get the money.
Ignored in his desk was an open plane ticket from La Guardia to Hyannis. He wondered whether the reservation he’d made was still intact. He opened his wallet and counted out about three hundred dollars in cash. In the top drawer of his bedroom dresser he had another fifteen hundred dollars in traveler’s checks. This was an anachronism; in this era of instant cash from automatic teller machines seemingly everywhere, the idea that someone would keep an emergency fund in traveler’s checks was obsolete. Ricky took a small amount of pleasure in thinking that his antique ideas would prove helpful. He wondered for a moment whether that wasn’t a concept he should embrace more fully.