“‘I had the feeling he was just the opposite. You get the impression he has steel cables for nerves.’
“‘Quite the reverse. He’s terrified. It’s only that his rage is even greater than his fear.’
“‘Do you think his fear is real or imaginary?’
“‘Fear is always real. The question is whether it’s justified by the actual conditions. If it isn’t you have paranoia in some form.’
“‘Then he’s paranoid?’
“‘Most of us are, to some degree, certainly if we live in the cities. Usually we get along, we’re protected by our neurotic defenses. But sometimes those defenses fail and the ego collapses, and the unconscious terrors burst through into the conscious centers. I’m sure to this man it’s a vital and very personal fact, not just a dry statistic, that the heroin addicts in New York outnumber the police by a factor of several thousand to one.’
“‘Doctor, if you were asked to draw in words a composite psychological portrait of the vigilante, what would you say?’
“‘It’s difficult. So much depends on factors we don’t know—his upbringing, his experiences. But I think you can say this much. He’s careful, methodical, quite intelligent. Probably an educated man to some degree. Certainly he’s not terribly young. I’d say he was at least in his middle thirties and more likely well over forty.’
“‘What makes you think that?’
“‘Well, it’s rather analogous to our emotional reactions to space flights. Those of us in my generation are rather mystified by the whole thing, we don’t pretend to comprehend it on the emotional level even though we may understand the scientific basis for it. On the other hand children take it for granted—my younger daughter, for example, has never lived in an age without space flight and television. A little while ago she asked me quite seriously, “Daddy, when you used to listen to the radio, what did you look at?” Do you know I couldn’t remember? But the point is that the young people have grown up accustomed to shifting circumstances and unstable values. They may not like the things they see happening, they may even act violently to express their idealism, but at bottom they understand and accept the fact that these things do happen. When they act, they act in groups, because that’s the dominating ethos. You don’t find solitary teenagers going off into the backwoods to start organic farms; they do it in communes. You don’t find individuals protesting the war at the Pentagon—it’s always groups, however badly organized. Our youth have become group-oriented; perhaps it’s the influence of Marxism. But the rugged individualism, if you want to call it that, which this man stands for, is something our youth have rejected vehemently. And it’s also fairly clear that this man is bewildered and hurt by all the drastic things he sees around him—he doesn’t understand them, he can’t comprehend what’s happened, let alone accept it. He’s fighting back, but he’s doing it according to the traditions of his generation—not theirs.’
“‘Then you say you’d draw a picture of a middle-aged man, reasonably well-educated, careful, intelligent. Could you add anything to that?’
“‘Well, I’ve already said I think he’s probably a confused liberal. If he were a right-winger he’d have access to like-minded groups and we’d be more likely to have an entire wave of assassinations—an entire gang of them out there murdering people, rather than one isolated killer. That’s the strange things about rightists, of course, they preach individualism but they’re far more adept at organizing themselves than the left. And I’d add that he’s probably a man who’s alone—really alone—and that this situation is something new and sudden in his life. That is to say, it’s quite likely his family was recently taken from him. Killed by criminals, perhaps. That’s merely speculation—everything I’ve said is. But it would explain a number of things, you see. We all know people who seem to lose all their inhibitions the day they get divorced. They do things they wouldn’t have dreamed of doing before they were married.’
“‘You seem convinced the vigilante is a man. Isn’t it possible it’s a woman?’
“‘It’s less likely, although anything’s possible. Women don’t resort to overt violence nearly as much as men do. The gun isn’t a female weapon.’
“‘It’s been suggested in the press a few times—the fact that the murder weapon is a .32. That’s a rather small caliber—they used to call them ladies’ pistols.’
“‘It may also be a practical matter. A small caliber pistol makes far less noise than a .45, you know. But my own impression is that he’s a man who’s not intimately acquainted with the use of firearms. A small pistol is much easier to handle. Somewhat more accurate, certainly less recoil and noise, and easier to conceal in your pocket of course.’
“There wasn’t much more. But if Dr. Perrine is right—and he has the reputation—then be on the lookout for a middle-aged, middle-class liberal who has just lost his family, possibly to criminal attackers.
“It could be anyone, couldn’t it. Someone I know, someone you know. It could be you.”
20
He spent the weekend in the apartment except for the Sunday ride to Princeton with Jack. The psychiatrist’s pontifications made him uneasy; to what extent were the police guided by his opinions? Would it occur to them to start questioning every middle-aged male whose wife had been the fatal victim of an unsolved crime? How many like him were there?
The gun was the only real clue they could find. It kept coming back to that. He ought to hide it. But he needed it: without it he would be easy prey for any junkie overdue for a fix. Without it he would again have to walk in fear, circumscribing his movements in time and place. It was the only city he knew of in which it was the well-off citizens, the honest people, who were herded into ghettos. Through most of the city you could not walk unarmed at night; through some of it you could not walk unarmed at any time of day.
Take the chance. It was better than the fear.
“I had a call from George Eng,” Henry Ives said. He watched as if he were peering into strong light: with his aged head down and his eyes narrowed to slits.
Paul sat forward, forearms resting on knees. He felt the muscles and nerves twitch in his face, worry pulling at his mouth: I blew it, he thought, I fucked up something.
Ives’ smile was without menace but Paul felt a chill. A vein throbbed above Ives’ eyebrow, embossed as if by contained anger. Paul pinched his mouth closed with tight compression and breathed deep through his nose.
After a silence that nearly cracked his nerves he heard Ives say in his cool precise voice, “You did a thorough job on the Jainchill matter, Paul. George is deeply grateful. He’s on his way to Arizona to close the deal for Amercon. He asked me to pass on to you his congratulations—we all know what a strain you’ve been under. It takes a great deal of strength to carry on as you have.”
Paul straightened in relief; he made an effort to dispose the muscles of his face toward lines indicative of modest appreciation.
“Quite frankly,” Ives said, and his eyebrows contracted sternly, “we’d been watching to see how you bore up under it. I can confess now that there were a few who thought it was only a matter of time before you’d be taking three martinis for lunch and letting your work go to pot. Personally I felt you were made of better stuff than that, but I allowed the partners to persuade me to wait and see. I can tell you now you’ve passed the test with flying colors.”
Test? Paul said with uncertain hesitation, “Ye-es?”