Private Eyes

space that he peered through.

I said, “I’m sorry.”

“It was a terrible time for me.” Chewing slowly. “For a while it seemed as if nothing would ever have reinforcement value again. But I ended up with Ursula, so I suppose there’s a silver lining.”

Heat in the blue eyes. Unmistakable passion.

I thought of the way she’d obeyed him. The way he’d looked at her rear. Wondered if what turned him on was her ability to be both wife and child.

He lowered his hands. “Soon after the tragedy I married again. Before Ursula. Another error in judgment, but at least there were no children. When I met Ursula, she was an undergraduate applying for graduate school and I was a full professor at the university and the medical school as well as the first non-M.D. associate dean the medical school had ever appointed. I saw her potential, set out to help her realize it. Most satisfying accomplishment of my life. Are you married?”

“No.”

“A wonderful convention if the proper confluence can be achieved. My first two were failures because I allowed myself to be swayed by intangibles. Ignored my training. Don’t segregate your scholarship from your life, my young friend. Your knowledge of human behavior gives you great advantage over common, bumbling homo incompetens.”

He smiled again. “Enough lecturing. What’s your take on this whole thing- poor Mrs. Ramp?”

“I don’t have a take, Dr. Gabney. I came here to learn.”

“This McCloskey thing- very distressing to think such a man is roaming free. How did you find out?”

I told him.

“Ah, the daughter. Managing her own anxiety by attempting to control her mother’s behavior. Would that she’d shared her information. What else do you know about this McCloskey?”

“Just the basic facts of the assault. No one seems to know why he did it.”

“Yes,” he said. “An atypically close-mouthed psychopath- usually those types love to brag about their misdeeds. I suppose it would have been nice to know from the beginning. In terms of defining variables. But in the end, I don’t feel the treatment plan suffered. The key is to cut through all the talk and get them to change their behavior. Mrs. Ramp has been doing very well. I hope it hasn’t all been for naught.”

I said, “Maybe her disappearance is related to her progress- enjoying her freedom and deciding to grab a bigger chunk.”

“An interesting theory, but we discourage breaks in schedule.”

“Patients have been known to do their own thing.”

“To their detriment.”

“You don’t think sometimes they know what’s best for them?”

“Not generally. If I did, I couldn’t charge them three hundred dollars an hour in good faith, could I?”

Three hundred. At that rate- the kind of intensive treatment they did- three patients could carry the whole clinic.

I said, “Is that for both you and your wife?”

He grinned, and I knew I’d asked the right question. “Myself alone. My wife receives two hundred. Are you appalled by those figures, Dr. Delaware?”

“They’re higher than what I’m used to, but it’s a free country.”

“That it is. I spent most of my professional life in academia and in public hospitals, ministering to the poor. Setting up treatment programs for people who never paid a penny. At this stage in my life I thought it only fair that the rich be offered the benefit of my accumulated knowledge.”

Lifting the silver pen, he twirled it and put it down. “So,” he said, “you feel Mrs. Ramp may have run away.”

“I think it’s a possibility. When I spoke to her yesterday, she hinted that she was planning to make some changes in her life.”

“Really?” The blue eyes stopped moving. “What kind of changes?”

“She implied that she didn’t like the house she was living in- too big, all the opulence. That she wanted something simpler.”

“Something simpler,” he said. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s about it.”

“Well, disappearing like this can hardly be thought of as a simplification.”

“Do you have any clinical impressions that would explain what’s happened?”

“Mrs. Ramp is a nice lady,” he said. “Very sweet. Instinctively, one wants to help her. And clinically, her case is fairly simple, a textbook case of classically conditioned anxiety strengthened and maintained by operant factors: the anxiety-reducing effects of repeated avoidance and escape strengthened by the positively reinforcing qualities of reduced social responsibility and increased altruism of others.”

“Conditioned dependency?”

“Exactly. In many ways she’s like a child- all agoraphobics are. Dependent, ritualistic, routinized to the extent that they cling to primitive habits. As the phobia endures, it gains strength, and their behavioral repertoire drops off sharply. Eventually they become frozen by inertia- a sort of psychological cryogenics. Agoraphobics are psychological reactionaries, Dr. Delaware. They don’t move unless prodded sharply. Every step is taken with great trepidation. That’s why I can’t see her gaily running off in search of some ill-defined Xanadu.”

“Despite her progress?”

“Her progress is gratifying but she has a ways to go. My wife and I have each mapped out extensive plans.”

That sounded more like competition than collaboration. I didn’t comment.

Unwrapping another stick of gum, he slid it between his lips. “The treatment is well thought out- we offer full value in return for our appalling fees. In all probability, Mrs. Ramp will return to the roost and avail herself of it.”

“So you’re not worried about her.”

He chewed hard, made squirting noises. “I’m concerned, Dr. Delaware, but worrying is counterproductive. Anxiety-producing. I train my phobics to stay away from it and I train myself to practice what I preach.”

15

He walked me to the door, talking about science. As I made my way across the lawn I noticed the Saab had been moved forward into the driveway. Behind it was a gray Range Rover. The windshield was dusty, except for wiper arcs.

I visualized Gabney behind the wheel, forging through the mesquite, and drove away thinking what an odd couple the two of them were. At first glance she was an ice queen. Combative, accustomed to fighting for her rights- I could see why she and Melissa had raised each other’s hackles. But the frost was so thin it melted on scrutiny. Underneath, vulnerability. Like Gina’s. Had that formed the basis for an exceptional empathy?

Who’d introduced whom to small gray rooms and the art of Mary Cassatt?

Whatever the reason, she seemed to care. Gina’s disappearance had shaken her up.

In contrast, her husband seemed intent upon distancing himself from the whole affair. Shrugging off Gina’s pathology as routine, reducing pain to jargon. Yet, despite his nonchalance, he’d zipped down to L.A. all the way from Santa Ynez- a two-hour drive. So perhaps he was as worried as his wife and simply better at concealing it.

The old male-female split.

Men posture.

Women bleed.

I thought of what he’d told me about losing his son. How he’d told me. The ease with which he’d spun his tale suggested he’d mouthed it a thousand times before.