Dr. Donald Pasternack lived and worked out of a white stone townhouse on Eighty-eighth, just off Fifth Avenue on a block that fairly reeked of quiet old money. He buzzed me through the wrought iron outer door and then through the inner door to the vestibule. There was no receptionist. Was he cheap or was it just her day off?
I checked the alarm system on the way in. It was one of those rudimentary motion detectors that was at least fifteen years old. It wouldn’t pose any problem.
The good doctor stood at the top of the stairs looking down at me as I walked up. That was the last time he was able to look down on me. It wasn’t until I got to the top of the stairs that I could see he was at least a foot shorter than me. He wasn’t a dwarf exactly, but he was really short for a full-grown man, like one of those little people in the Wizard of Oz. Five-two maybe. He had a powerfully-built upper torso and a head that looked too big for the rest of his body. This, and his full-face bushy black beard and sharp eyes, gave him the look of a lion. A voracious pussy cat, at that.
When I faced him, he put out his hand and gave me a strong grip. Overcompensating?
Then he spoke and his voice came out as a full-throated growl. “Mr. Rogan, follow me.”
Definitely overcompensating.
The landing was sparsely furnished with some expensive art objects. The house looked more like an architect’s place than a psychiatrist’s. The floors were white marble and the walls were stark white. The whole setting gave off a cold and unwelcoming appearance. It was tough to see how any patient would feel comfortable here.
He took me into his consulting room and shut the two soundproofed doors behind us, even though no one was within earshot. Matter of fact, there didn’t appear to be anyone else in the house. The room was silent as a tomb. He sat down on a large comfortable chair. There was no place for me to sit except the couch. But it was one of those torture racks that designers love-all chrome and leather that they think is pleasing to the eye but is pure hell for a real human being to sit on.
I sat on it and cursed him under my breath.
He was a dapper man. One of those guys who takes too much care about his appearance. His hair was black and bushy, just starting to show the first hints of gray like his beard, and just as well-trimmed. He was wearing an expensive cashmere sport coat, a Hermes tie, gray slacks and Gucci loafers. On one wrist hung a chunky gold bracelet and on the other a Santos watch.
He was sizing me up too, and he didn’t like what he saw either.
“I’m here…” I started to say.
He cut me off. “I know why you’re here. I’ve been expecting you. I suppose you think you can dance in here, get whatever information you believe you’re entitled to and then dance out again without taking any of the responsibility.” He leaned forward in his chair and put his hands on his knees. “Well, it doesn’t work that way. We all share the blame for Alicia’s death, but you most of all.” His eyes blazed. “Yes, you most of all. You were the one who killed her.”
I was beginning to get his drift, but I wasn’t buying a nickel’s worth of his psychobabble. These shrinks lived in a world of their own. They were all insane to begin with and heartily distressed with anyone who wasn’t.
“Was something troubling her the last few months?”
“Yes,” he said.
Now we were finally getting somewhere. “What?”
“You. You were constantly on her mind. You were an obsession with her. You were the one who was going to save her, rescue her from the mess she’d made of her life. Sir Galahad on a white charger. But I told her she was wrong. You weren’t going to save her.”
This shaman was right about that. “Why was I an obsession with her?”
“She never forgave you.”
I laughed. It wasn’t a pretty laugh. “Shit. Forgave me? She was the one who fucked Wheelock and walked out on me.”
He shook his head. “No, my friend.” It was obvious from the way he said it that I wasn’t his friend. He pointed a manicured finger with clear nail polish at me. “You weren’t there for her when she needed you. Sure, you were there physically, but you cut yourself off from her emotionally. You were out to lunch, emotionally-speaking. You didn’t communicate with her. You couldn’t give yourself to her spiritually. She said you never told her you loved her.”
His finger jabbed at me like he wanted to poke out my eye. “You kept your emotions bottled up inside you. You never talked with her about the way you felt.”
“All this rhapsodizing doesn’t have anything to do with Alicia’s death,” I said.
He grinned at me. One of those grins you give when you want to knee someone in the balls. “You’re wrong. It has everything to do with it. Because that’s when she started down the road that led to this end.”
“What do you mean?”
He gave me his evil grin again. “You sent her into Wheelock’s arms with your indifference. That led her into further situations which she shouldn’t have been in-situations and relationships that were destructive to her well-being.”
Now we were getting to the red meat. “What situations?”
He got up and walked over to where I was sitting. He came so close I could smell his cologne-a sweet powdery scent that men with manicures wear.
“Even if I could tell you, I wouldn’t.” He smiled with the command of his withheld knowledge. “Suffice it to say that she began her descent into her own private torment when you split up.”
He was standing next to me now and his head was almost on a level with mine. Two could play this amusing power game. I stood up and towered over this toy psychiatrist with his Olympian view of the human species.
I took a long shot. There was nothing to lose. “Dr. Pasternack, why were you engaged in sexual activity with your patient against her wishes? You know that’s a strong breech of professional ethics.”
He took an uncertain step back and stared up at me.
“I…I never…”
“She told me all about you. She told me what you did to her. How you had your way with her when she didn’t want to. How you took advantage of her weakness with your so-called therapy. I could take a little walk up to the state licensing board and give them all the details of your indiscretions with your patients. They could pull your ticket for a stunt like that. Then you’d be reduced to selling bagels on Forty-eighth street in all kinds of inclement weather.”
He waved his hands helplessly in front of him as if he was brushing me away. “It’s not…what you think…the way you think.”
“That’s not what she said. She gave me the story…about what a lowlife son of a bitch you are.”
“The only thing I ever did to her…I swear, I once got my finger in only a little way…for a very short time…and only once. She must have exaggerated…she was given to exaggeration.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what she told me.”
“She lied…she lied.” He was near tears. “I swear it. One finger…once. I loved her. I swear it. I loved her. She shouldn’t have been killed. You killed her.” He started to babble and blubber at the same time. Tears rolled down his hairy cheeks. “I wanted to but she wouldn’t let me. I loved her but she didn’t love me…she called me her love pygmy.”
The guy was out of control now. He couldn’t hold back the sobs or the torrent of words.
“I loved her. God, how I loved her. Now she’s dead. Gone forever…” His hands went over his face and his fingertips pressed into his eyes in a futile attempt to stop the tears.
He was carrying this transference nonsense a trifle too far. There was no sense in hanging around here any longer. He was no use to anybody like this.
I went down the cold marble staircase. Were his tears from grief or guilt? How much more did he know that he didn’t tell me? The only sound in the house was the rhythmic fall of my steps, the echoes of his nemesis walking away, leaving him with his solitary agony.
Downstairs, sitting on a flat leather bench in the entranceway, was a pale nondescript woman dressed in black and gray, a rust-colored Gucci scarf wrapped around her head. Her eyes were cast down, refusing to meet mine- a patient waiting for the uncertain relief of her therapy session.
Upstairs, Pasternak’s sobbing was clearly audible through the open door.
“I’d give him a couple of minutes to pull himself together,” I told her. “He hasn’t had a very nice day.”