“Those are just words, doctor.”
“Yes, but they explain much. Tell me Ricky: A killer… a truly remorseless, murderous psychopath… is this someone created by their environment? Or are they born to it, some infinitesimal little screwup in the gene pool? Which is it, Ricky?”
“Environment. That’s what we’re taught. Any analyst would say the same. The genetic guys might disagree, though. But we are a product of where we come from, psychologically.”
“And I would agree. So, I took in a child-and his two siblings-who was a laboratory rat for evil. Abandoned by birth father. Rejected by his other relatives. Never given any semblance of stability. Exposed to all sorts of sexual perversities. Beaten endlessly by any series of his mother’s sociopathic boyfriends, who eventually saw his own mother kill herself in poverty and despair, helpless to save the only person he trusted in the world. A formula for evil, would you not agree?”
“Yes.”
“And I thought I could take that child and reverse all that weight of wrong. I helped set up the system where he would be cut off from his terrifying past. Then I thought I could turn him into a productive member of society. That was my arrogance, Ricky.”
“And you couldn’t?”
“No. But I did engender loyalty, curiously enough. And perhaps an odd sort of affection. It is a terrible and yet truly fascinating thing, Ricky, to be loved and respected by a man devoted to death. And that is what you have in Rumplestiltskin. He is a professional. A consummate killer. One equipped with as fine an education as I could provide. Exeter. Harvard. Columbia Law. Also a short stint in the military for a little extra training. You know what the curious aspect of all this is, Ricky?”
“Tell me.”
“His job is not that different from ours. People come to him with problems. They pay him well for solutions. The patient who arrives on our couch is desperate to rid himself of some burden. So are his clients. His means is just, well, more immediate than ours. But hardly less intimate.”
Ricky found himself breathing hard. Dr. Lewis shook his head.
“And, you know what else, Ricky, other than being extremely wealthy, do you know what other quality he has?”
“What?”
“He is relentless.”
The old psychoanalyst sighed and added, “But perhaps you have seen that already? How he waited years, preparing himself, and then singled out and pursued everyone who ever did his mother harm, and destroyed them, just as surely as they destroyed her. I suppose, in an odd way, you should find it touching. A son’s love. A mother’s legacy. Was he wrong to do that, Ricky? To punish all those people who systematically or ignorantly ruined her life? Who left her adrift with three small needy children in the harshest of worlds? I do not exactly think so, Ricky. Not at all. Why even the most irritating politicians opine endlessly how we live in a society that shirks responsibility. Is not revenge merely accepting one’s debts and cloaking them in a different solution? The people he has singled out truly deserved punishment. They-like you-ignored someone who pleaded for help. That is what is wrong with our profession, Ricky. Sometimes we want to explain so much, when the real answer lies in one of those…” The doctor gestured at the weapon in Ricky’s hand.
“But why me?” Ricky blurted. “I didn’t…”
“Of course you did. She went to you desperate for help, and you were too wrapped up with the direction in which your own career was heading to pay enough attention and give her the assistance she needed. Surely, Ricky, a patient who kills herself when under your care-even if only for a few sessions-well, do you not feel some remorse of your own? Some sense of guilt? Do you not deserve to pay some price? Why would you think that gaining revenge is somehow less a responsibility than any other human act?”
Ricky did not answer. After a moment, he asked, “When did you learn…”
“Of your connection to my adopted experiment? Near the end of your own analysis. I simply decided to see how it would play out over the years.”
Ricky could feel rage mingling with sweat within him. His mouth was dry.
“And when he came after me? You could have warned me.”
“Betray my adopted child in favor of my onetime patient? And not even my favorite patient, at that…”
These words stung Ricky. He could see the old man was every bit as evil as the child he’d adopted. Perhaps even worse.
“… I thought one might consider it justice.” The old analyst laughed out loud. “But you do not know the half of it, Ricky.”
“What is the half I don’t know?”
“I think that is something you will have to discover for yourself.”
“And the other two?”
“The man you know as Merlin is indeed an attorney, and a capable one at that. The woman you know as Virgil is an actress with quite a career ahead of her. Especially now that they have almost completed tying up all the loose ends of their lives. I think, Ricky, that perhaps you and I are the only loose ends remaining for the three of them. The other thing you should know, Ricky, is that they both believe it was their older brother, the man you know as Rumplestiltskin, who saved their lives. Not I, really, though I contributed to their salvation. No, it was he who kept them together, who kept them from straying, who insisted on their going to school and getting straight A’s and then accomplishing much with their lives. So, if nothing else, Ricky, understand this: They are devoted. They are utterly loyal to the man who will kill you. Who did kill you once, and will do so again. Is that not intriguing, Ricky, from the psychiatric point of view? A man without scruples who engenders blind and total devotion. A psychopath who will kill you just as surely as you might step on a spider crossing your path. But who is loved, and in turn loves. But loves only those two. None other. Except, perhaps, me, a little bit, because I rescued him and helped him. So, perhaps I have gained a loyalist’s love. Which is important for you to keep in mind, Ricky, because you have so little chance of surviving your connection to Rumplestiltskin.”
“Who is he?” Ricky demanded. Each word that the old analyst spoke seemed to blacken the world around him.
“You want his name? His address? His place of business?”
“Yes.” Ricky leveled the weapon at the old man.
Dr. Lewis shook his head. “Just like in the fairy tale, right? The princess’s messenger overhears the troll dancing about his fire, and blurting out his name. She doesn’t really do anything clever or wise, or even sophisticated. She’s just lucky, and so when he comes for his third question, she has the answer by dumb, blind luck, and thus survives, and retains her firstborn child, and lives happily ever after. You think this will be the same? The luck you have acquired which has you here, right now, waving a weapon in an old man’s face will win you the game?”
“Give me his name,” Ricky said quietly, voice as cold and evil as he could make it. “I want all their names.”
“What makes you think you don’t know them already?”
“I am so tired of games,” Ricky said.
The old analyst shook his head. “That is all life is. One game after another. And death is the greatest game of all.”
The two men stared across the room at each other.
“I wonder,” Dr. Lewis said cautiously, lifting his eyes for a moment and examining a wall clock, then pausing with each word, “how much time you have remaining?”
“Enough,” Ricky replied.
“Really?” the old analyst responded. “Time is elastic, isn’t it? Moments can last forever, or else evaporate instantly. Time is really a function of our own view of the world. Is that not something we learn in analysis?”
“Yes,” Ricky said. “That’s true.”
“And tonight, there are all sorts of questions about time, are there not? I mean, Ricky, here we are, alone in this house. But for how much longer? Knowing as I did that you were heading this way, do
