okay?”
“I believe you,” Lauren said, but it was obvious she was just saying this to end the conversation as quickly as possible.
Adam felt like locking himself in his office and spending the rest of the day alone, but he had an eleven o’clock appointment with Martin Harrison. Martin was what Adam and his colleagues called a professional patient. Adam had been seeing him for nearly two years but except for exhibiting mild symptoms of OCD and perhaps some generalized anxiety disorder, there was nothing really wrong with him. He was happily married with two kids and was doing well in his career as an advertising exec, but, for whatever reason- perhaps it was a subconscious emotional de penden cy issue, because his father had left his mother when he was five years old- he continued to pay out of pocket to see Adam two days a week. During most sessions, they rehashed topics they’d already discussed, and sometimes it was a strain to find anything to talk about. But what was Adam supposed to do, suggest that he end his treatment? What with managed health care restricting the annual visits of his insurance- paid patients, cash- paying patients like Martin were what made Adam’s practice sustainable.
Martin’s major personality flaw was that he had a very direct style of communication, almost too direct, bordering on inappropriate. When he entered Adam’s office, he didn’t even say hello but went right to, “So I was reading about you online this morning.”
Oh, Jesus, Adam hadn’t thought about this yet. The story wasn’t just in the papers; it was all over the Internet. Somehow that made it seem more permanent. People would throw out today’s papers, but the story, with all those skewed, misreported facts, would be available online forever.
“What did you read?” Adam asked, trying his best not to sound overly concerned but probably failing miserably.
“Just about how you had to shoot that guy. Yeah, it sounds rough. Sorry you had to go through all that.”
Martin didn’t sound very sympathetic. Adam considered pointing this out to him- maybe it could become an issue for today’s session?- but instead he said, “Just so you know, it didn’t happen like that at all. My life was in danger, and I had to shoot that guy in self- defense, but of course they tried to sensationalize the whole thing.”
“I hear you, I hear you,” Martin said. “I’m just glad to see you pulled through and you’re okay.”
Adam got the sense that Martin really didn’t care whether he was okay or not. No, to him, Adam was the typical guilty guy who would swear he was innocent ad nauseam till the day he died. Still, Adam wanted to keep things as professional as possible- this was a therapy session, after all- so he tried to minimize the whole situation, saying, “Well, I can’t complain that the last couple of days have been uneventful.”
Adam laughed, trying to get Martin to laugh with him, but Martin was unusually serious. Throughout the rest of the session, he seemed very agitated- fidgeting a lot, avoiding eye contact. Adam confronted him about his behavior a few times, but he insisted that everything was fine. Then, as he was leaving, he said that he wouldn’t be able to make it to his appointments next week. Adam asked him if he was going on vacation, and he said, “No,” but didn’t give any other explanation for the cancelations.
Adam wondered if this was just the beginning. Maybe even his oldest, neediest patients would have second thoughts about seeing him and there would be a mass exodus from his practice. He was trying to decide whether he should do some damage control, or predamage control, maybe have Lauren contact some of his regulars and make sure all was well, when he remembered that he had a noon meeting with the reporter from New York Magazine.
He rushed over to the Starbucks on Madison and Forty- ninth, looking forward to the chance to set the record straight and to tell the public what had really happened the other night. When he entered, an attractive young black woman came over and said, “Dr. Bloom, right?”
“That’s me,” Adam said.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Grace Williams. I’m sitting right over there.” She pointed to a table behind her. “Do you want to get something?”
Wow, not only did she want to meet him for coffee, rather than lunch, she wouldn’t even pay for the coffee.
“That’s okay,” Adam said. “I had a cup today and don’t want to be overcaffeinated.”
He sat across from her, and she took out a pad, turned on a digital recorder, and said, “This shouldn’t take long.”
“I want to tell you, I’m really glad I’m getting a chance to talk to you. I’ve been kind of shocked, actually, by how this whole story has been misreported.”
“Really?” she asked, barely interested.
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, they’ve been making me out to be a vigilante or something, but that isn’t the case at all.”
“I’m just going to ask you a few questions, Dr. Bloom, okay?”
“Okay, but-”
“Did you ever fantasize about using your gun to kill someone?” Was she serious? It seemed like she was.
“No,” Adam said. “Of course not.”
“Even someone you really hated. Like a boss or an ex- lover.”
“One time at the range, just for fun, a guy put a photo of Osama bin Laden on the target, but-”
“Did you ever feel like you want to blow all the bad guys in the city away?”
“No,” Adam said firmly. “And see, this is exactly what I’m talking about, how this whole thing has gotten distorted. I never felt that way at all.”
“So you don’t condemn the man who broke into your house?”
“Of course I condemn him,” he said. “He was trying to rob my house.”
“Why did you shoot him ten times? Wouldn’t once have been enough?”
He hated her sensational tone.
“Do you want the facts,” he asked, “or do you just want to write a provocative story?”
“I want the facts, of course,” she said, looking right at him.
“It was dark,” he said. “I didn’t know if I hit him or not, so I had to keep firing to make sure I got him.” He wasn’t sure this was true, because he vaguely remembered knowing that the first shot had hit Sanchez, but he continued, “And it happened very fast. When you’re in that type of situation you don’t think, you just react. It’s like a soldier in battle. You’re in fight- or- flight mode. You have to listen to your instincts, follow your gut. Oh, and since it seems very likely that my maid, who was killed yesterday morning, had something to do with the robbery, I feel like I absolutely did the right thing.”
“What do you mean?” Grace asked.
“You heard that my maid was killed, didn’t you?”
“You killed your maid?”
“No, I didn’t kill her. Jesus, whatever you do, don’t write that. No, it was another shooting.”
“In your house?”
“No, not in my house, but there was definitely someone else in my house the night of the shooting, and that person could’ve had a gun. The police know the guy I killed, Sanchez, was involved with my maid. They were lovers, boyfriendgirlfriend, whatever. It was either my maid with the gun or someone my maid knew. So it was just by chance that Sanchez wasn’t armed. You get what I’m saying?”
She didn’t seem to get it, or want to try to get it, and asked, “But doesn’t it bother you that you killed an unarmed man?”
Adam took a few moments to collect his thoughts, choosing his words carefully, then said, “Of course it bothers me. I didn’t ask to be in that situation, it wasn’t something I sought out. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it for the rest of my life. But that doesn’t make me an aggressor, a vigilante.”
“So you’re saying you’d kill him all over again.”
“Kill is a strong word. You know, I really think you’re-”
“Would you shoot him all over again?”
“Yes,” he said. “I mean, I wouldn’t do anything differently except-”
She turned off the recorder, put it away in her purse, then stood up and said, “That should do it, Dr. Bloom.”
