Therapy

the genocide.

From the safety of her office in Dublin, a tribunal registrar named Maria Robertson responded by scolding the survivors for their “incendiary language” and cautioned against “instigating a cycle of violence.” Speaking in Lagos, consultant Professor Albin Larsen stressed the complexity of the situation and advised patience.

The nineteenth hit also emanated from the Nigerian capital, and it gave me pause: description of a program called Sentries for Justice, aimed at helping steer young African men away from lives of crime.

The group, staffed by European volunteers, functioned by “offering synergistic alternatives to prison that engender efficacious rehabilitation and attitudinal shifting through a holistic emphasis upon the interplay between socially altruistic behavior and communal social norms set into place during the pre-Colonial era but disrupted by colonialism.” Services offered included parenting education, jobs skills training, drug and alcohol counseling, crisis intervention, and something called “cultural demarginalization.” Synergy was illustrated by the use of Sentries buses, driven by Sentries alumni, for transporting criminal detainees to court. Most of the volunteers had Scandinavian names, and Albin Larsen was listed as a senior consultant.

I printed the citation, and moved to the last few hits. More speeches by Larsen, then the final reference, posted three weeks ago: calendar of events at a Santa Monica bookstore named The Pen Is Mightier. A Harvard professor named George Issa Qumdis was scheduled to deliver a speech on the Middle East, and Albin Larsen would be there to introduce him.

The speech was tonight, in four hours. Professor Larsen was a busy man.

I scanned the Sentries for Justice citation for buzzwords and keyed them into several search engines. “Syngerstic alternatives,” “efficacious rehabilitation,” “attitudinal shifting” “demarginalization” and the like pulled up lots of academic verbiage but nothing useful.

It was 5:30 P.M. when I pushed away from the computer, and I had nothing much to show.

I made some coffee, munched on a bagel, and drank, thinking and looking out my kitchen window at a graying sky. I realized I’d been seduced by the cheap trick that was cyberresearch and decided to do it the old-fashioned way.

*

Olivia Brickerman and I had worked together at Western Pediatric Hospital, she as a supervising social worker, I as a fledgling psychologist. Twenty years my senior, she’d seen herself as my surrogate mother. I hadn’t minded one bit because she’d been a benevolent mother, down to home cooking and a cheerfully nosy interest in my love life.

Her husband, an international chess grand master, had written the Final Moves column for the Times. He’d since passed on, and Olivia had dealt with her loss by plunging herself back into work, taking a series of short-lived, well-paying state consultantships, then easing into a position at the genteel old school across town where I was nominally a med school professor.

Olivia knew more about grantsmanship and the way government operated than anyone else I’d ever met.

At five-forty, she was still at her desk. “Alex, darling.”

“Olivia, darling.”

“So nice to hear from you. How’s life?”

“Life is good,” I said. “How about you?”

“Still kicking. So, how’s the new one working out?”

“She’s working out great.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “Both of you in the same profession, lots of common ground. Which isn’t to say I have anything against Robin. I love her, she’s lovely. So’s the new one- that hair, those eyes. No surprise there, a good- looking guy like you. Get yourself a new dog?”

“Not yet.”

“A dog is good,” she said. “I love my Rudy.”

Rudy was a walleyed, shaggy mutt with a lust for deli meat. “Rudy rocks,” I said.

“He’s smarter than most people.”

Last time I’d spoken to her- three or four months ago- she’d sprained an ankle.

“How’s the leg?” I said. “Back to jogging yet?”

“Hah! Can’t get back to a place you’ve never been. Truthfully, the leg’s still a little gammy; I should take off weight. But thank God. The latest thing is, I’m on blood thinners.”

“You all right?”

“Well,” she said, “I’ve got thinner blood. Unfortunately, nothing else got thin. So what can I do for you, darling?”

I told her.

“Department of Corrections,” she said. “Haven’t had much to do with those yokels in a long time. Not since I consulted to Sybil Brand. Back then they had some state grants for therapy, but that was all for inside the prison, helping inmates with kids learn to be good mothers. Good idea, but the oversight was pathetic. Never heard about an outside project such as you’re describing.”

“It may not exist,” I said.

“And you’re asking about this because…”

“Because it may relate to some murders.”

“Some murders,” she said. “Ugly stuff?”

“Very ugly.”

“You and Milo… how’s he doing, by the way?”

“Working hard.”

“He’ll always be doing that,” she said. “Well, I’m sorry nothing comes to mind but just because I haven’t heard about it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I’ve been teaching, have kind of lost touch with the divine world of public monies… what you’re describing could be a pilot study, let me fire up my Mac and see… okay, here goes, click click click… can’t seem to find any pilot postprison rehab therapy studies from NIH or HHS or… the state… maybe it’s private… no, nothing on that list, either. So maybe it was approved as a full-term grant, not a pilot.”

I said, “You might want to check under ‘Sentries for Justice,’ and if that doesn’t work, I’ve got some other buzzwords for you.”

“Give them to me.”

“ ‘Synergy,’ ‘demarginalization,’ ‘attitudinal shifting,’ ‘holistic interplay-’ ”

“That sound you’re hearing in the background is Mr. Orwell groaning.”

I laughed. Waited. Listened to Olivia humming and muttering to herself.

“Nothing,” she said, finally. “Not on any databases I can find. But not everything makes it into the computer in a timely fashion, there are good, old-fashioned printed lists. I don’t keep them here, have to go over to the main office. Which is locked for the night… give me some time, darling, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Olivia.”

“You’re more than welcome. Come over sometime, Alex. Bring Allison. Is she a vegetarian or something like that?”

“On the contrary.”

“Oh, lucky you,” she said. “Then definitely bring her over. I’ll marinate some skirt steaks, my skirt steaks are famous. You bring Allison and some wine. I could use some adorable people in the house.”

*

Six-thirty. Milo called me from his desk.

“Jerry Quick’s CPA was cagey, but I managed to get a few things out of him. First of all, I got a clear impression Quick is not a big-money client. Secondly, Quick’s income comes in spurts, he’s got no regular income coming in, just whatever deals he can close, and the CPA never sees the checks, just writes down what Jerry tells him. His main gripe was that Jerry’s income was unstable, so establishing estimated tax was a hassle.”

“Not a big-money client,” I said. “How’s he’s been doing recently?”

“Couldn’t get the guy to spill specifics, but he did say Quick was late to pay his bill.”