The Analyst

by John Katzenbach

  That, Ricky thought, was intelligent.

  He knew who it was who wanted him to kill himself, he just didn’t know their names. He knew why they wanted him to kill himself. And he knew that if he failed in that demand, they had the capacity to do precisely what they had promised to do from the very first day. The bill for services.

  He knew the havoc that they had produced in his last two weeks would evaporate when Ricky met the deadline. The fiction of sexual abuse that had skewered his career, the money, the apartment, the entirety of what had befallen him over the course of fourteen days would unravel instantly, as soon as he was dead.

  But beyond that, he thought, the worst thing of all: No one would care.

  He had isolated himself professionally and socially over the past few years. He was, if not estranged, certainly cut off and distant from his relatives. He had no real family, and no real friends. He thought his funeral would be crowded with people in dark suits, wearing faces displaying sufficient fake concern and false regret. Those would be his colleagues. There would be some people in the church pews who were former patients whom he had helped, he thought. They would wear their emotions appropriately. But it is the cornerstone of psychoanalysis that a successful treatment would put all those folks into a realm where they were free of anxiety and depression. That was what he had designed for them, in years of daily sessions. So, it would be unreasonable to ask them to actually shed a tear on his behalf.

  The only person likely to squirm on the hard wooden church bench with genuine emotion was the man who’d created his death.

  I am, Ricky thought, utterly alone.

  What good would it do to take the letter, circle the name R. S. Skin in red ink, and leave it behind for some detective with the note: This is the man who made me kill myself.

  The man did not exist. At least, not in a plane where some local policeman in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, at the height of the busy summer season, where crimes were defined primarily by middle-aged folks driving home from parties drunk, domestic squabbles among the wealthy, and rowdy teenagers trying to buy any variety of illegal substances, would be capable of finding him.

  And worse, who would believe it? Instead, what anyone looking at Ricky’s life would discover almost instantly was that his wife had passed away, his career was in tatters due to allegations of sexual misconduct, his finances were a mess, and his home had been accidentally destroyed. A fertile groundwork for a suicidal depression.

  His death would make sense to anyone glancing at it. Including every colleague he had back in Manhattan. On the surface, his death at his own hand would be an absolute textbook case. No one would pause and think it unusual for even a second.

  For an instant, Ricky felt a surge of anger directed at himself: You made yourself into such an easy target. He clenched his hands into fists and placed them hard on the tabletop in front of him.

  Ricky took a deep breath and spoke out loud: “Do you want to live?”

  The room around him was silent. He listened, as if half expecting some ghostly response.

  “What is it about your life that is worth living?” he demanded.

  Again, the only reply was the distant humming of the summer night.

  “Can you live, if it costs someone else their life?”

  He breathed in again, then answered his own question by shaking his head.

  “Do you have a choice?”

  Silence answered him.

  Ricky understood one thing with a deep and crystal clarity: Within twenty-four hours Dr. Frederick Starks had to die.

  Chapter Twenty

  The final day of Ricky’s life was spent in fevered preparations.

  At the Harbor Marine Supply store he purchased two five-gallon outboard motor fuel tanks, the fire-engine red painted type that sit in the bottom of a skiff and plug into the engine. He picked out the cheapest possible pair, after rudely asking assistance from a teenage boy who was working in the store. The boy tried to steer him toward slightly more expensive tanks, that were equipped with fuel gauges and a safety pressure release valve, but Ricky rejected these with a show of disdain. The boy also asked why he needed two, and Ricky made a point of saying that just one wouldn’t do for what he had in mind. He feigned anger and insistence and was as pushy and unpleasant as he could manage, right through the moment where he paid cash from his reserve for the tanks.

  As soon as the transaction was completed, Ricky stopped, as if remembering something, and abruptly demanded the teenager show him the selection of nautical flare pistols. This the boy did, bringing out a half dozen. Ricky selected the cheapest, once again, although the teenager warned him that the pistol had a very modest range, and was only likely to shoot a flare fifty or so feet into the air. He suggested that other models, just slightly more expensive, would send flares significantly higher, thus providing an extra margin for safety. Again, Ricky was dismissive and insulting, told him he only expected to use the flare a single time, and, as before, paid cash after complaining about the overall cost.

  The teenager, Ricky imagined, was delighted to see him leave.

  His next stop was at a large chain pharmacy. He walked to the rear of the store and asked to see the head pharmacist. The man, wearing a white jacket and a slightly officious air, emerged from the back. Ricky introduced himself.

  “I need a scrip filled,” he said. He gave the pharmacist his DEA authorization number. “Elavil. A thirty-day supply of thirty milligram tablets. Nine thousand milligrams, total.”

  The man shook his head, but not in disagreement, more in minor surprise. “I haven’t filled that much in a long time, doctor. And there are some far newer drugs on the market that are more effective, with far fewer side effects, and not nearly as dangerous to take as Elavil. It’s almost an antique. Hardly ever used nowadays. I mean, I’ve got some in storage that’s still within its expiration date, but, are you certain that this is what you want?”

  “Absolutely,” Ricky answered.

  The pharmacist shrugged, as if saying that he’d done his best to dissuade Ricky and steer him toward some other mood elevator that was more efficient. “What name shall I put on the label?” he asked.

  “My own,” Ricky replied.

  From the drugstore, Ricky went to a small stationery outlet. Ignoring the rows upon rows of prefabricated get well, condolence, new baby, happy birthday, and anniversary cards that cluttered each aisle, Ricky picked out a cheap tablet of ruled letter paper, a dozen thick envelopes, and two ballpoint pens. At the counter, where he paid for the purchases, he was also able to obtain stamps for the envelopes. He needed eleven. The young woman manning the register didn’t even look him in the eye as she rang up the order.

  He threw this collection of items into the backseat of the old Honda, and quickly drove down Route 6 toward Provincetown. This town, at the end of the Cape, had an unusual relationship with the other nearby vacation spots. It catered to a far younger and considerably hipper crowd, often gay or lesbian, that seemed the polar opposites of the more conservative doctors, lawyers, writers, and academicians who were drawn to Wellfleet and Truro. These two towns were all about relaxing, drinking cocktails, and discussing books and politics and who was getting divorced and who was having an affair, and therefore had a certain near-constant stodginess and predictability about them. Provincetown in the summer had a musical beat and sexual energy. It wasn’t about relaxing and finding rhythms, it was about partying and connection. It was a place where the demands of youth and energy were paramount. There was little chance that he would be seen by anyone who knew him, even tangentially. Consequently, it was the ideal spot for Ricky to acquire his next items.

  At a sporting goods store he bought a small, black backpack of the type favored by students for carrying books. He also purchased the cheapest back-pocket wallet the store had to offer and a midrange pair of running shoes. These purchases he made with as little conversation as possible with the clerk, avoiding eye contact, not behaving furtively, because
that might have drawn attention, but making decisions efficiently, so that his presence in the store was as routine and unnoticeable as possible.

  From this store, he went to another large chain drugstore where he acquired some Grecian 5 5-Minute Haircolor in black, a pair of cheap sunglasses, and a set of adjustable aluminum crutches, not the sort that extended up under the armpit, favored by injured athletes, but the type utilized by long-term users, people crippled by some disease or another, where the handle and the semicircular brace formed a sleeve for the hand and forearm.

  He had one other stop in Provincetown, at the Bonanza bus terminal, a small roadside office with a single counter, three chairs to wait in and a blacktop parking area big enough for two or three buses. He waited outside, wearing the sunglasses, until a bus arrived, depositing a flock of weekend visitors, before walking in and making his purchase rapidly.

  In the Honda, heading toward his home, he thought he barely had enough time left that day. Sunlight filled the windshield, heat poured in through the open side windows. It was the point of the summer afternoon when people gathered themselves off of the sand, called for the children to get out of the surf, collected towels and coolers and brightly colored plastic buckets and shovels, and began the slightly uncomfortable trek back to their vehicles—a moment of transition, before the nighttime routine of dinner and a movie, or a party, or a quiet time spent with some dog-eared paperback novel took over. It was time that Ricky, in years past, would have luxuriated in a warm shower, and then spent with his wife just talking over ordinary things in their lives. Some particularly difficult stage with a patient, for him, a client who couldn’t turn his life around for her. Little moments that filled days, and became simple yet fascinating in the scheme of living quietly together. He remembered these times, wondered a bit why he had not thought of them in the years since her death. Remembering did not make him sad, as it so often does to recall missing partners, but actually comforted him. He smiled, because, he thought, for the first time in months, he could recall the sound of her voice. For a moment he wondered whether she thought of the same things, not the big and extraordinary moments of living, but the easy, little times that bordered on the routine, and were so speedily forgotten, when she was preparing herself for death. He shook his head. He guessed that she had tried, but that the pain of the cancer was too great, and when masked by morphine, these memories would be lost to her, which was a realization that Ricky regretted.

  My dying seems different, he told himself.

  Far different.

  He pulled into a Texaco station and stopped at the row of pumps. He stepped from the Honda and took the pair of gas tanks out of the trunk, then proceeded to fill them up to the brim with regular fuel. A teenage boy, working at the full-serve section, saw him, and called out, “Hey, mister, you want to be leaving enough room for oil, if those are going into an outboard. Some take a mix of fifty to one, others, a hundred to one, but you gotta put it right in the tank . . .”

  Ricky shook his head. “Not for an outboard, thanks.”

  The teenager persisted. “They’re outboard tanks.”

  “Yeah,” Ricky said. “But I don’t own an outboard.”

  The boy shrugged. He was probably year-round, Ricky thought, a local high school kid who couldn’t imagine another use for the tanks other than what they were designed for, and who immediately put Ricky into the category that the Cape residents had for summer people, which was a status of mild contempt and utter persuasion that no one from New York or Boston had even the slightest idea what they were doing at any time whatsoever. Ricky paid, replaced the now filled tanks in the trunk of the car, an act even he understood to be remarkably dangerous, and set out for his home.

  He set the two gasoline canisters down temporarily in the living room, and returned to the kitchen. He felt suddenly parched, as if he’d exerted a great deal of energy, and he found a bottle of spring water in the refrigerator which he gulped at rapidly. His heart seemed to have picked up pace, as the hours of this last day dwindled, and he told himself to remain calm.

  Spreading the envelopes and the pad of paper out on the kitchen table, Ricky sat down, fingered one of the ballpoint pens, and wrote the following short note:

  To the Nature Conservancy:

  Please accept the enclosed donation. Do not seek more,

  because I have no more to give, and after tonight, will not

  be here to give it.

  Sincerely yours,

  Frederick Starks, M.D.

  He then took a hundred-dollar bill from his stash and sealed it and the letter into one of the stamped envelopes.

  Ricky then wrote similar notes and enclosed a similar amount in all the other stamped envelopes, save one. He made donations to the American Cancer Society, The Sierra Club, The Coastal Conservation Association, CARE, and the Democratic National Committee. In each case, he simply wrote the name of the organization on the outside of the envelope.

  When he had finished, he looked at his wristwatch and saw that he was nearing the Times’s evening deadline. He went to the phone and called the advertising department as he had on three other occasions.

  This time, however, the message for the ad that he gave the clerk was different. No rhymes, no poems, no questions. Just the simple statement:

  Mr. R.: You win. Check the Cape Cod Times.

  Once that was accomplished, Ricky returned to his seat at the kitchen table and took the writing pad in hand. He chewed on the end of the pen for a moment, while he composed a final letter. Then he wrote rapidly:

  To whom it may concern:

  I did this because I was alone, and hate the emptiness in

  my life. I simply could not tolerate causing any further

  harm to any other person.

  I have been accused of things I am innocent of. But

  am guilty of mistakes toward the people I loved, and

  that has brought me to this point to take this step.

  If someone would mail the various contributions I have

  left behind, I would appreciate it. All property and funds

  remaining in my estate should be sold and the proceeds

  turned over to these same charities. What is left of my home here

  in Wellfleet should become conservation land.

  To my friends, if any, I hope you will forgive me.

  To my patients, I hope you will understand.

  And Mr. R., who helped bring me to this stage, I hope

  you will find your own way to Hell soon enough, because

  I will be waiting there for you.

  He signed this letter with a flourish, sealed it in the last remaining envelope and addressed it to the Wellfleet Police Department.

  Taking the hair color and his backpack in hand, he went to the upstairs shower. Ricky followed the directions for the dyeing agent, and emerged from the bathroom in moments with nearly jet-black hair. He stole a quick glance at his appearance in the mirror, thought it mildly foolish, then toweled himself dry. At his bureau, he selected some of the old and worn summer clothes he stored there, and stuffed them, along with a frayed windbreaker, into the backpack. He kept an additional change of clothes out, folded carefully and placed on top of the pack. Then he dressed back in the clothing he had worn that day. In an outside pocket of the pack, he slid the photograph of his dead wife. In another pocket he stuffed the latest message from Rumplestiltskin and the few remaining documents he had in his possession that detailed what had happened to him. The documents about the mother’s death.

  He took the backpack and change of clothes, the aluminum crutches, and stack of letters out to his car, leaving them on the passenger’s seat next to his cheap sunglasses and running shoes. Then he returned inside and sat quietly in the kitchen for the remaining hours of the evening to pass. He was excited, a little intrigued, and occasionally riveted by a bolt of fear. He tried hard to think of nothing, humming to himself, blanking his mind. This, of course, did not work.


  Ricky knew that he could not cause the death of another, even someone he didn’t know, who was only related through the accidents of blood and marriage. Of this, Rumplestiltskin had been correct from the first day. Nothing about his life, his past, all of the little moments that made up who he was, who he had become, who he might yet turn out to be, amounted to anything in the face of this threat. He shook his head, thinking, Mr. R. knows me far better than I do myself. He had me pegged from the start.

  Ricky did not know who he might be saving, but knew it was someone.

  Think about that, he told himself.

  Shortly after midnight, he rose. He allowed himself one final tour of the house, reminding himself how beloved each corner, each warp, and each creak in the floorboards truly was.

  His hand shook slightly as he took the first canister of gasoline to the second floor, where he spread it liberally about on the floor. He doused the bedding.

  The second canister was used the same way, throughout the ground floor.

  In the kitchen, Ricky blew out the pilot lights on the old gas stove. Then he opened every jet, so that the room filled immediately with the distinctive odor of rotten eggs, the stove hissing in alarm. It blended with the stink of gasoline which already permeated his clothes.

  Seizing the marine flare pistol, Ricky walked back outside. He went to the old Honda, started it up and moved it well away from the house, pointing it down the driveway, leaving the engine running.