Lying on the Couch (36 page)

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Though indifferent to money, Shirley was fiercely interested in one thing money could provide: the finest education possible for her children. Marshal had been so expansive, so grandiose, in describing the future returns of his investment in Peter's bicycle helmet factory that she grew concerned and, before agreeing to the investment (all stocks were held jointly), she insisted that Marshal call Melvin,

For years, Marshal and Melvin had had an informal, mutually profitable barter arrangement: Marshal offered Melvin medical and psychological advice and Melvin reciprocated with investment and tax guidance. Marshal phoned his cousin about Peter Macondo's plan.

"I don't like the smell of it," Melvin said. "Any investment promising that rate of return is suspect. Five hundred, seven hundred percent return—come on. Marshal! Seven hundred percent! Get real. And the promissory note you faxed to me? You know what that's worth? Zilch, Marshal! Exactly zilch!"

"Why zilch, Melvin? A promissory note signed by a highly visible businessman? This guy's known everywhere."

"If he's such a great businessman," Melvin said in his rasping voice, "tell me, why does he give you an unsecured piece of paper— an empty promise? I don't see any collateral. Say he decides not to pay you? He can always create defenses to payment—excuses not to pay. You would have to sue him—that would cost thousands and thousands—and then you would only have another piece of paper, a judgment, and you would still have to find his assets to collect. That would cost you even more money. The note does not remove this risk. Marshal. I know what I'm talking about. I see this stuff all the time."

Marshal dismissed Melvin's comments out of hand. First, Melvin was paid to be suspicious. Second, Melvin had always thought small. He was just like his father. Uncle Max, who, alone of all the relatives who had come from Russia, had failed to prosper in the new country. His father had begged Max to go partners in a grocery store, but Max scoffed at the idea of getting up at four in the morning to go to the market, working sixteen hours, and ending the day by throwing out rotting, cockroach-brown apples and grapefruits with green ulcers. Max had thought small, had chosen the safety and security of a civil service job, and Melvin, his gawky, gorilla-eared schlemiel of a son with arms that practically reached the floor, had followed in his father's footsteps.

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But Shirley, who had overheard their conversation, did not so easily dismiss Melvin's warnings. She grew alarmed. Ninety thousand dollars would pay for an entire college education. Marshal tried to conceal his annoyance at Shirley's interference. During their nineteen-year marriage, not once had she shown the slightest interest in any of his investments. And now, when he was poised to grab the economic opportunity of his life, now she chose to stick her uninformed nose in. But Marshal calmed himself—he understood that Shirley's alarm grew out of her ignorance of financial affairs. It would have been different had she met Peter. Her cooperation, however, was essential. To obtain it, he would have to placate Melvin.

"All right, Melvin, tell me what to do. I'll follow your recommendations."

"Very simple. What we want is a bank to guarantee the payment of the note—that is, an irrevocable and unconditional commitment by a prime bank to honor the note whenever you demand your money. If this man's holdings are as extensive as you describe, he should have no difficulty obtaining this. If you wish I'll personally draw up an iron-clad note from which Houdini couldn't escape."

"That's good, Melvin. Do that," said Shirley, who had joined the discussion on the extension phone.

"Whoa, wait a minute, Shirley." Marshal was now growing angry at these small-minded obstructions. "Peter promised me a secured note by Wednesday. Why don't we just wait and see what he sends? I'll fax it to you, Melvin."

"Okay. I'll be around all week. But don't send money till you hear from me. Oh, and one other thing: you say that Rolex came in a Shreve's Jewelry Store box? Shreve's is a reputable jeweler. Do me a favor. Marshal. Take twenty minutes, take the watch to Shreve's and let them verify it! Fake Rolexes are the rage—they sell them on every street corner in downtown Manhattan."

"He'll go, Melvin," said Shirley, "and I'll go with him."

The trip to Shreve's reassured Shirley. The watch was, indeed, a Rolex—a thirty-five-hundred-dollar Rolex! Not only had it been purchased there but the salesman remembered Peter well.

"Fine-looking gentlemen. Most beautiful coat I've ever seen: double-breasted gray cashmere, reached almost to the floor. He was on the verge of buying a second, identical watch for his father but then thought better of it—said he was going to fly to Zurich that weekend and he'd buy a watch there."

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Marshal was so pleased he offered to buy Shirley a gift. She chose an exquisite two-mouthed green ceramic vase for ikebana.

On Wednesday, as promised, Peter's note arrived and, to Marshal's great pleasure, it met Melvin's specifications precisely—a note guaranteed by Credit Suisse for ninety thousand dollars plus interest at prime, payable upon demand at any of the hundreds of worldwide branches of Credit Suisse. Even Melvin could find no fault with it and grudgingly admitted it did, indeed, appear to be iron-clad. Just the same, Melvin reiterated, he was uneasy with any investment that hinted at that rate of return.

"Does that mean," Marshal said, "you wouldn't want a part of this investment?"

"You offering a piece of it?" asked Melvin.

"Let me think about it! I'll get back to you." Fat chance, Marshal thought, as he hung up the phone. Melvin'll have a long wait to get a piece of this.

The following day the money from Marshal's stock sale entered his account, and he wired ninety thousand to Peter in Zurich. He played great basketball at noon and had a quick lunch with Vince, one of the players, a psychologist whose office adjoined his. Although Vince and he were confidants. Marshal did not speak about the investment with him. Or with anyone in his field. Only Melvin knew. And yet, Marshal reassured himself, this transaction was squeaky-clean. Peter was not a patient; he was an ex-patient, and an ex-brief therapy patient at that. Transference was not an issue. Even though he knew there was no professional conflict of interest. Marshal reminded himself to tell Melvin to keep this entirely confidential.

Later that afternoon, when he met with Adriana, Peter's fiancee, Marshal took care to maintain the boundaries of their professional relationship by avoiding any discussion of his investment with Peter. He graciously acknowledged her congratulations for his endowed lectureship, but when she informed him that she had learned yesterday from Peter that a bill requiring juvenile bicyclists to wear helmets had been placed before the legislature in both Sweden and Switzerland, he nodded only briefly and then immediately turned to her issues: an investigation of her relationship with her father, a basically benevolent man who, however, was so intimidating that no one dared confront him. Adriana's father had very positive feelings toward Peter—indeed, he was one of Peter's group of investors—but

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he nonetheless strongly opposed a marriage that would take not only his daughter but his future grandchildren and heirs out of the country.

Marshal's comments to Adriana about her relationship with her father—about how good parenting consists of preparing children to individuate, to become autonomous, to be able to leave their parents—proved useful. For the first time Adriana began to comprehend that she did not necessarily have to accept the guilt that her father laid upon her. It was not her fault that her mother had died. Not her fault that her father was growing old or that his life was so unpeopled. They ended the hour with Adriana raising the question of whether she might continue for longer than the five hours Peter had requested.

"Might it also be possible. Dr. Streider," Adriana asked as she rose to leave, "for you to meet jointly with me and my father?"

The patient had not yet been born who could force Marshal Streider to extend a session. Even by a minute or two. Marshal prided himself on that. But he couldn't resist a reference to Peter's gift and gestured toward his wrist, saying, "My new watch, accurate to a millisecond, says two-fifty precisely. Shall we begin our next session with your questions, Miss Roberts?"

SIXTEEN

arshal was pumped up as he prepared to see Shelly. What a great day, he thought. It doesn't get much better than this: the money finally wired to Peter, a brilliant session with Adriana, and glorious basketball—that final driving lay-up, lane opening up like magic, no one daring to get in his way.

And he was looking forward to seeing Shelly. It was their fourth hour. Their two sessions earlier in the week had been extraordinary. Could any other therapist possibly have worked so brilliantly? He had begun a deft, efficient sector analysis on Shelly's relationship with his father, and with the precision of a surgeon had methodically replaced Seth Pande's corrupt interpretations with correct ones.

Shelly entered the office and, as always, stroked the orange bowl of the glass sculpture before taking his seat. Then, with no coaxing from Marshal, he immediately began.

"You remember Willy, my poker and tennis chum? I talked about

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him last week. He's the one who's worth about forty, fifty milHon. Well, he's invited me to La Costa for a week to be his partner in the annual Pancho Segura invitational doubles tournament. I thought I was okay with that, but . . . well, there's something about it that doesn't sit right. I'm not sure what."

"What are your ideas about it?"

"I like Willy. He's trying to be a good buddy. I know the couple thou he'll be laying out for me at La Costa is nothing for him. He's so loaded there's no way he can even spend the interest on his money. Besides, it's not like he's not getting something back. He's set his sights on a national ranking at senior doubles and, let me tell you, he's not going to find a better partner than me. But I don't know. This still doesn't explain the way I feel."

"Try something, Mr. Merriman. I'd like you to do something different today. Focus on your bad feeling and focus, too, on Willy and just let your thoughts run free. Say anything that comes into your mind. Don't try to prejudge or select things that make sense. Don't try to make sense of anything. Just think out loud."

''Gigolo —that's the first word that comes—I'm a kept gigolo, a call boy for Willy's entertainment. Yet I like Willy—if he weren't so goddamned rich, we could be close friends . . . well, maybe not . . . I don't trust myself. Maybe if he weren't rich, I'd lose interest in him."

"Keep going, Mr. Merriman, you're doing fine. Don't select, don't censor. Whatever comes to mind, let it in and then talk about it. Whatever you think or whatever you see, describe it to me."

"Mountain of money . . . coins, bills ... the money looms . . . whenever I'm with Willy I'm scheming . . . always scheming . . . how can I use him? Get something from him? You name it ... I want something: money, favors, gourmet lunches, new tennis racquets, business tips. I'm impressed with him ... his success . . . makes me bigger to be seen with him. Makes me smaller, too ... I see me holding my father's big hand ..."

"Stay with that image of you and your father. Focus on it. Let something happen."

"I see this scene, I must have been younger than ten because that's when we moved across town—Washington, D.C.—to live on top of my father's store. My father held my hand as he took me to Lincoln Park on Sunday. Dirty snow and slush on the streets. I can remember my dark gray corduroy pants rubbing when I walked and mak-

ing that ratchety sound. I had a bag of peanuts, I think, and I was feeding the squirrels, throwing peanuts to them. One of them bit my finger. Bad bite."

"What happened then?"

"Hurt hke hell. But can't remember anything else. Nothing."

"How did one bite you if you were throwing peanuts?"

"Right! Good question. It don't make sense. Maybe I held my hand down to the ground and they ate out of my hand, but I'm guessing—I don't remember it."

"You must have been scared."

"Probably. Don't remember."

"Or remember getting treated? Squirrel bites can be serious— rabies."

"That's right. Rabies in squirrels used to be a big deal on the East Coast. But nothing comes. Maybe I remember jerking my hand back in pain. But I'm pushing it."

"Just keep describing your stream of consciousness."

"Willy. How he makes me feel smaller. His success makes my own failures stand out more. And you know, the truth is that when I'm around him I don't just feel smaller, I perform smaller ... he talks about his real estate condominium project and how sales are slow . . . I've got some good ideas about promotion, I'm great at that—but when I tell him about my ideas, my heart starts pumping and I forget half of 'em . . . even happens with tennis . . . when I play as his doubles partner ... I play within his range ... I could do better . . . I'm holding back, just pushing my second serve . . . when I play anyone else I rip that twist into the backhand corner—I can hit the chalk nine out of ten times ... I don't know why . . . don't want to show him up . . . got to change that when we play in doubles tourney. It's funny, I want him to succeed . . . but I want him to fail . . . last week he told me about an arbitrage investment going sour and . . . shit, you know what I felt? Happy! Can you believe that? Happy. Feel like a piece of shit . . . some kind of friend I am . . . this guy has been nothing but good to me ..."