blizzard of legal demands. Perhaps in this world, these things amount to the same. Certain lawsuits seem to function in much the same way that curses and spells did for my namesake.”
“And you are moving?”
The attorney reached down and extracted a small, crafted-leather card case from a pocket. He removed a card and handed it across the table to Ricky. “The new digs,” he said, not unpleasantly. “Success brings a demand for expansion. Hiring new associates. Need room to stretch.”
Ricky looked at the card, with a downtown address. “And am I to be another pelt on your wall?”
Merlin nodded, grinning not unpleasantly. “Probably,” he said. “In fact, it is likely. I shouldn’t really be speaking with you, doctor, especially without your attorney present. Why don’t you have your lawyer call me, we can go over your malpractice insurance policy… You are insured, aren’t you, doctor? And then get this thing settled swiftly and profitably for all involved.”
“I carry insurance, but I doubt whether it would cover the complaint your client has invented. I don’t think I’ve had a reason to read the policy in decades.”
“No insurance? That’s bad… And
“Who is your client?” Ricky demanded abruptly.
The lawyer shook his head. “I am still not at liberty to divulge her name. She is in the process of recovery and-”
“None of this ever happened,” Ricky sliced through the lawyer’s words. “It is all a fantasy. Made up. Not a word of truth. Your real client is someone else, true?”
The attorney paused. “I can assure you my client is real,” he said. “As are her complaints. Miss X is a very distraught young woman…”
“Why not call her Miss R?” Ricky asked. “
Merlin looked a bit confused. “I don’t know that I follow your thinking, doctor.
“Correct.”
“The point, Doctor Starks, is that you are in real trouble. And, trust me, you want this problem to disappear from your horizon just as quickly as humanly possible. If I have to file suit, well, then the damage will be done. Pandora’s box, doctor. All the evil things will just come flying out. Everything will become a part of some public record. Allegations and denials, although, in my experience, the denial never manages to have quite the same impact as the allegation, does it? It’s not the denial that sticks in people’s memories, is it?” The lawyer shook his head.
“At no time have I ever abused a patient’s trust in the manner alleged. I do not believe this person even exists. I have no record of such a patient.”
“Well, doc, that’s dandy. I hope you’re one hundred percent right about that. Because,” as he spoke, the lawyer’s voice dipped an octave and the intonation of each word gained a razor-sharp edge, “by the time I get through interviewing every patient you’ve had for the past decade or so, and talking with every colleague you’ve ever had a dispute with, and examining every facet of what you better hope is your saintlike life and certainly every second you’ve spent behind that couch, well, whether or not my client exists is not going to be completely relevant, because you will have absolutely no life and no reputation left. None, whatsoever.”
Ricky wanted to respond, but did not.
Merlin continued to stare directly at Ricky, not wavering even slightly.
“Do you have any enemies, doctor? How about jealous colleagues? Do you think any of your patients over the years have been less than pleased with their treatment? Have you ever kicked a dog? Maybe failed to brake when a squirrel ran out in front of your car up there at your vacation house on Cape Cod?”
Merlin smiled again, but now the smile had turned nasty.
“I already know about that place,” he said. “A nice farmhouse in a lovely field on the edge of a forest with a garden and with just a little bit of ocean view. Twelve acres. Purchased from a middle- aged woman whose husband had just died back in 1984. Sort of took advantage of the bereaved in that transaction, huh, doc? Do you have any idea how the value of that property has increased? I’m sure you do. Let me suggest to you, Doctor Starks, one thing and one thing only. Whether or not there’s the slightest bit of truth involved in my client’s allegation, I’m going to own that property before this is finished. And I’m going to own your apartment, and your bank account at Chase, and the retirement account at Dean Witter that you haven’t yet dipped into, and the modest stock portfolio you keep with the same brokerage firm. But I’ll start with the summer place. Twelve acres. I think I can subdivide and make a killing. What do you think, doc?”
Ricky listened to the lawyer, reeling internally.
“How do you know-” he started lamely.
“I make it my business to know,” Merlin cut him off rapidly. “If you didn’t have something I wanted, I wouldn’t be bothering. But you do, and trust me on this, doc, because your lawyer will tell you the same, the fight isn’t worth it.”
“My integrity is certainly worth it,” Ricky replied.
Merlin shrugged again. “You’re not seeing clearly here, doctor. I’m trying to tell you how to leave your integrity more or less intact. You rather foolishly believe that this has something to do with being right or wrong. Telling the truth rather than lying. I find this intriguing, coming from a veteran psychoanalyst such as yourself. Is the truth, in some wondrously authentic and clear-cut fashion, something that you hear often? Or are truths hidden, concealed, and covered up with all sorts of curious psychological baggage, elusive and slippery once identified? And never exactly black or white, either. More like shades of gray, brown, and even red. Isn’t that what your profession preaches?”
Ricky felt foolish. The lawyer’s words were battering him like so many punches in a mismatched prizefight. He took a deep breath, thinking he was stupid to have come to the office, and the smart course was to get out rapidly. He was about to rise, when Merlin added:
“Hell can take many forms, Doctor Starks. Think of me as merely one of them.”
“Come again?” Ricky said. But what he recalled was what Virgil had said in their first meeting, when she told him that she was to be his guide to Hell, and that was where her name came from.
The lawyer smiled. “In Arthurian times,” he said not unpleasantly, with the confidence of a man who has sized up the opposition and found it distinctly lacking, “Hell was very real in the minds of all sorts of folks, even the educated and sophisticated. They truly believed in demons, devils, possession by evil spirits, what have you. They could smell fire and brimstone awaiting the less than pious, thought that burning pits and eternal tortures were not unreasonable outcomes for poorly led lives. Today, things are more complicated, doctor, aren’t they? We don’t really think we’re going to suffer burning tongs and eternal damnation in some fiery pit. So, what do we have instead? Lawyers. And trust me on this, doc, I can quite easily turn your life into something resembling a medieval picture etched by one of those nightmare artists. What you want is to take the easy way out, doc. The easy way. Better check that insurance policy again.”
The door to the conference room swung open right then, and two of the moving men hesitated before entering. “We’d like to get this stuff now,” one man said. “It’s pretty much all that’s left.”
Merlin rose. “No problem. I believe Doctor Starks was just getting ready to leave.”
Ricky, too, stood. He nodded. “Yes. I am.” He looked down at the lawyer’s card. “This is where my attorney should contact you?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” he said. “And you’ll be available…”
“At your convenience, doctor. I think you’d be wise to get this settled promptly. You’d hate to waste your precious vacation worrying about me, wouldn’t you?”
Ricky did not reply, although he noted that he had not mentioned his vacation plans to the lawyer. He simply nodded, then turned and exited the office, not looking back for a second.
Ricky slid into a cab and told the driver to take him to the Plaza Hotel. This was barely a dozen blocks away. For what Ricky had in mind, it seemed the best selection. The cab lurched forward, racing through midtown in that unique manner that city cabs have, accelerating quickly, surging, braking, shifting,
