for a smoke, Ricky?”
He shook his head. Her smile remained.
“Of course not. When was it you quit? Fifteen years ago? Twenty? Actually, Ricky, I think it was 1977, if Mr. R. informs me correctly. A brave time to stop smoking, Ricky. An era when many people lit right up without thinking, because, although the tobacco companies denied it, people actually did know that it was bad for you. Killed you, no lie. So people pretty much preferred not to think about it. The ostrich approach to health: Stick your head in a hole and ignore the obvious. And there was so much else happening, anyway, back then. Wars and riots and scandals. I’m told it was a most wondrous time to be alive. But Ricky the young doctor-in- training managed to quit smoking when it was ever so popular a habit and not nearly as socially unacceptable as today. That tells me something.”
The young woman lit the cigarette, took a single long puff, and languidly blew smoke out into the room.
“An ashtray?” she asked.
Ricky reached into a desk drawer and removed the one he kept hidden there. He put it on the edge of the desktop. The young woman immediately stubbed the cigarette out.
“There,” she said. “Just enough of a pungent, smoky smell to remind us of that time.”
Ricky waited a moment, before asking, “Why is it important to remember that time?”
The young woman rolled her eyes, tossed her head back, and let loose with a long, blaring laugh. The harsh sound was out of place, like a guffaw in a church or a harpsichord in an airport. When her laugh faded, the young woman fixed Ricky with a single, penetrating glare. “Everything is important to remember. Everything about this visit, Ricky. Isn’t that true for every patient? You don’t really know what it is they’ll say or when they’ll say it that will open up their world to you, do you? So you have to be alert at all times. Because you never precisely know when the door might open to reveal the hidden secrets. So, you must always be ready and receptive. Attentive. Always vigilant for the word or the story that is slipped loose and tells you much, right? Isn’t that a fair assessment of the process?”
He nodded in reply.
“Good,” she said brusquely. “Why would you think that this visit today is any different from any other? Even though it obviously is.”
He did not reply. Again, he remained quiet for a second or two, just eyeing the young woman, hoping to unsettle her. But she seemed oddly cold-blooded and even-tempered, and silence, which he knew is often the most disturbing sound of all, seemed to not affect her. Finally, he spoke quietly, “I am at a disadvantage. You seem to know much about me, and at least a little something about what happens here in this room, and I don’t even know your name. I would like to know what you mean when you say Mr. Zimmerman has ended his treatment, because I have had no contact from Mr. Zimmerman, which is extremely unlikely. And I would like to know what your connection is to the individual you call Mr. R. and whom I presume is the same person who sent me the threatening letter signing it Rumplestiltskin. I would like the answers to these questions promptly. Otherwise, I will call the police.”
She smiled again. Unflustered.
“Practicality intrudes?”
“Answers,” he replied.
“Isn’t that what we’re all searching for, Ricky? Everyone who steps through that door into this room. Answers?”
He did not respond. Instead he reached for the telephone.
“Do you not imagine that in his own way, that is what Mr. R. wants, as well? Answers to questions that have plagued him for years. Come now, Ricky: Don’t you agree that even the harshest sort of revenge starts with a simple question?”
This was intriguing, Ricky thought. But the interest he might have had in the observation was overcome by his growing irritation with the young woman’s manner. She displayed nothing except a confident arrogance. He put his hand on the receiver. He was at a loss for anything else to do.
“Please respond promptly to my questions,” he said. “Otherwise I will turn all this over to the police and let them sort it out.”
“No sense of sport, Ricky? No interest in playing the game?”
“I fail to see what sort of game is involved with sending disgusting, threatening pornography to an impressionable girl. Nor do I see the game in demanding that I kill myself.”
“But, Ricky,” the woman grinned, “wouldn’t that be the biggest game of all? Outplaying death?”
This made him pause, hand still hovering over the telephone. The young woman pointed at his hand. “You can win, Ricky. But not if you pick up that telephone and dial 911. Then someone, somewhere, will lose. That promise has been made, and trust me, it will be kept. Mr. R. is, if nothing else, a man of his word. And when that someone loses, you lose, too. This is only Day One, Ricky. To give up now would be like conceding defeat right after the opening kickoff. Before you’ve even had time to run a single play from scrimmage.”
He pulled his hand back.
“Your name?” he asked.
“For today and for the purposes of the game, call me Virgil. Every poet needs a guide.”
“Virgil is a man’s name.”
The woman who called herself Virgil shrugged broadly. “I have a girlfriend who goes by the name Rikki. Does this make a difference?”
“No. And your connection to Rumplestiltskin?”
“He’s my employer. He’s extremely wealthy and able to hire all sorts of assistance. Any kind of assistance he wants. To achieve whatever means and ends he envisions for whatever plan he has in mind. Currently, he is preoccupied with you.”
“So, presumably, then as an employee, you have his name, an address, an identity which you could simply pass on to me and end this foolishness once and for all.”
Virgil shook her head. “Alas, no, Ricky. Mr. R. is not so naive as to fail to insulate his identity from mere factotums, such as myself. And, even if I could help you, I wouldn’t. Hardly be sporting. Imagine if the poet and his guide had looked up at the sign that said ‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here!… ‘ and Virgil had shrugged and said, ‘No shit. You don’t want to go in there… ‘ Why, that would have ruined the poem. Can’t write an epic about turning away at the gates of Hell, can you, Ricky? Nope. Got to walk through that doorway.”
“Why, then, are you here?”
“I told you. He thought you might doubt his sincerity-though that young lady with the stodgy and utterly predictable dad up in Deerfield who had her teenage emotions rearranged so easily should have been message enough for you. But doubts sow hesitation and you have only two weeks left to play, which is a short enough time. Hence, he sent a bona fide guide to get you jump-started. Me.”
“All right,” Ricky said. “You keep talking about this game. Well, it is not a game to Mr. Zimmerman. He has been in analysis for slightly less than a year, and his treatment is at an important stage. You and your employer, the mysterious Mr. R., can screw around with me. That’s one thing. But it is altogether something different when you involve my patients. That crosses a boundary…”
The young woman called Virgil held up her hand. “Ricky, try not to sound so pompous.”
Ricky stopped and stared harshly at the woman.
She ignored this look, and with a small wave of her hand, added, “Zimmerman was elected to become part of the game.”
Ricky must have looked astonished, because Virgil added, “Not so eagerly at first, I’m told, but with an odd sort of enthusiasm after a short time. But I wasn’t a participant in that particular conversation
