There was no doubt in Ricky’s mind that these were keys. Now he had to uncover the locks.
Ricky bent forward slightly in his seat, rocking back and forth gently, as if trying to accommodate a slight upset stomach, movements that were almost involuntary, as he concentrated on the problem in front of him. It was a conundrum of personality as complex as any he’d ever experienced in his years as an analyst. The man who had treated him to chart his own way through his own personality, who had been his guide into the profession, and who had provided the means of Ricky’s own death, had delivered a final message. Ricky felt like some ancient Chinese mathematician, working on an abacus, the black stones making clicking noises as they were shunted speedily from one side to the other, calculations made and then discarded as the equation grew.
He asked himself: What do I really know?
A portrait began to form in his imagination, starting with Virgil. Dr. Lewis said she was an actress, which made sense, for she had constantly been performing. The child of poverty, the youngest of the three, who had gone from so little to so much with such dizzying speed. How would that have affected her? Ricky demanded of himself. Lurking in her unconscious would be issues of identity, of who she truly was. Hence the decision to enter a profession that constantly called for redesigning one’s self. A chameleon, where roles dominated truths. Ricky nodded. A streak of aggressiveness, as well, and an edginess that spoke of bitterness. He thought of all the factors that went into her becoming who she was, and how eager she’d been to be the point player in the drama that had swept him to his death.
Ricky shifted in his seat. Make a guess, he told himself. An educated guess.
Narcissistic personality disorder.
He turned to the encyclopedia entry for
His pulse quickened. He saw that Dr. Lewis had touched several letters in the midst of words with a yellow highlighter pen. Ricky grabbed a sheet of paper and wrote down the letters. Then he sat back sharply, staring at gobbledygook. It made no sense. He went back to the encyclopedia definition, and recalled the one-third key. This time he wrote down letters three spaces away from the marked ones. Again, useless.
He considered the dilemma again. On this occasion, he looked at letters that were three words away. But before writing these down, he thought to himself one over three, so he went instead to letters three lines below.
By doing this, the first three dots produced a word: the.
He continued rapidly, producing a second word: jones.
There were six more dots. Using the same scheme, they translated to: agency.
Ricky stood and walked to the bedside table, where, beneath the telephone there was a New York City telephone book. He looked up the section for theatrical talent, and found in the midst of a number of listings, a small advertisement and telephone exchange for “The Jones Agency-A theatrical and talent agency catering to the up-and-coming stars of tomorrow…”
One down. Now, Merlin the attorney.
He pictured the man in his mind’s eye: hair carefully combed; suits without wrinkles, tailored to the nuances of his body. Even his casual dress had been formal. Ricky considered the man’s hands. The fingernails had been manicured. A middle child, who wanted everything to be in order, who couldn’t tolerate the messiness of the disruptive life he’d come from. He must have hated his past, adored the safety of his adopted father, even as the old analyst had systematically twisted him. He was the arranger, the enabler, the man who had dealt with threats and money and savaged Ricky’s life with ease.
This diagnosis came more easily: obsessive-compulsive disorder.
He turned rapidly to that section of the encyclopedia, and saw the same series of highlighted letters. Using the key provided, he swiftly came up with a word that surprised him: arneson. It wasn’t exactly a jumble of letters, nor was it something that he recognized.
He paused, because this seemed to make no sense. Then he persisted, and found the next letter was
Ricky went back, checked the key again, knitted his brows, and then understood what he was being given. The remaining letters spelled out the word: fortier.
A court case.
He wasn’t certain which court he would find Arneson v. Fortier in, but a trip to a clerk with a computer and access to current dockets would likely turn it up.
Turning back to the encyclopedia, Ricky thought of the man at the core of everything that had happened: Rumplestiltskin. He turned to the section under
And there were the series of dots that he’d come to expect.
Using the key already given him, Ricky quickly deciphered the letters, writing them down on a sheet of paper. When he finished, he sat up straight, sighing deeply. Then he clenched the paper in his hand, crumpling it into a ball, and angrily throwing it toward the wastebasket.
He let loose a string of epithets, which only masked what he’d half expected.
The message he’d come up with had been: not this one.
Ricky had not had much sleep, but adrenaline energized him. He showered, shaved, and dressed himself in a jacket and tie. A lunch-hour trip to a court clerk’s office and some modest cajoling of one of the impatient assistants behind the counter had provided him with some information about Arneson v. Fortier. It was a civil dispute in superior court, scheduled for a pretrial hearing the following morning. As best as he could tell, the two parties were arguing over a real estate transaction that had gone bad. There were claims and counterclaims and substantial sums of money gone astray between a pair of well-heeled midtown Manhattan developers. The kind of case, Ricky imagined, where everyone was angry and wealthy and unwilling to compromise, which meant that everyone would end up losing, except for the lawyers representing each side, who would walk away with a considerable paycheck. It was so utterly mundane and ordinary, Ricky almost felt contemptuous. But with a black streak of nastiness coursing through him, Ricky knew that in the midst of all that posturing, pleading, and back and forth threats and posing between a handful of attorneys, he would find Merlin.
The court docket gave him the names of all the parties. None stood out. But one was the man he was seeking.
The hearing was not set until the following morning, but Ricky went to the courthouse that afternoon. For a few moments he stood outside the huge gray-stone building, looking up at the sweep of steps leading up to the columns that marked the entranceway. He thought that the building’s architects dozens of years earlier had sought to endow justice with some sort of grandeur and stature, but after all that had happened to him, Ricky thought justice was really a much smaller and far less noble concept, the kind of concept that could fit into a small cardboard box.
He went inside, walking through the corridors, between courtrooms, fitting into the ebb and flow of people, noting elevator systems and emergency stairwells. It occurred to him that he could find the judge assigned to Arneson v. Fortier and probably discover who Merlin was merely by providing a description to the judge’s secretary. But, he understood, that simple act would likely turn suspicious in quick order. Someone might remember later, after he’d achieved what he wanted.
Ricky-thinking all along like Frederick Lazarus-wanted what he had in mind to do to be utterly anonymous.
He saw one thing that he thought would help: There were many distinct types wandering through the courthouse building. The three-piece suits were clearly the attorneys with business within the walls. Then there were some less well heeled, but still presentable types. Ricky put these into a category that included the police, jurors, plaintiffs, accused, and courtroom personnel. All the folks that seemed to more or less have a reason for being there, and an understanding about what role they were to play. Then there was a third, fringe category, that intrigued Ricky: the buzzards. His wife had once described them to him, long before she was diagnosed, and long before her life had become nothing more than appointments and medications and pain and helplessness. They were the old pensioners and hangers-on, who found watching courtrooms and lawyers to be
