Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 10 (13 page)

“You said you’d be concealing people’s real
identities,” I said. “So is Paul Radbuka not his real name?”

The ecstasy left Wiell’s face, replaced again by her
patina of professional calm. “He’s the one person who doesn’t seem to have any
living family left to be upset by his revelations. Besides, he’s so intensely
proud of his newly recovered identity that it would be impossible to persuade
him to use a cover name.”

“So you’ve discussed it with him?” Don asked eagerly.
“He’s willing to take part?”

“I haven’t had time to talk about it with any of my
patients.” She smiled faintly. “You only broached the idea yesterday, after
all. But I know how intensely Paul feels: it’s why he insisted on speaking up
at the Birnbaum conference earlier this week. I think, too, he’d do anything he
could to support my work, because it’s changed his life so dramatically.”

“How did he come to remember the name Radbuka?” I
said. “If he was raised by this foster father from the age of four and wrenched
from his birth family in infancy—have I got that chronology right?”

Wiell shook her head at me. “I hope your role isn’t to
try to set traps for me, Ms. Warshawski. If it is, I’ll have to look for a
different publisher than Envision Press. Paul found some papers in his father’s
desk—his foster father, I should say—and they pointed the way to his birth name
for him.”

“I wasn’t trying to set a trap, Ms. Wiell. But it
would certainly strengthen the book if we could get some outside corroboration
of his Radbuka identity. And it’s remotely possible that I am in a position to
provide that. To be candid, I have friends who came to England from central
Europe with the Kindertransport in the last months before the war began.
Apparently one of their group of special friends in London was named Radbuka. If
it turns out your client is a relation, it might mean a great deal, both to him
and to my friends who lost so many family members.”

Again the rapturous smile swept across her face. “Ah,
if you can introduce him to his relatives, that would be an indescribable gift
to Paul. Who are these people? Do they live in England? How do you know them?”

“I know two of them who live here in Chicago; the
third is a musician who’s visiting from London for a few days. If I could talk
to your client—”

“Not until I’ve consulted with him,” she cut me off.
“And I would have to have your—friends’—names before I could do so. I hate to
have to be so suspicious, but I have had too many traps set for me by the
Planted Memory Foundation.”

My eyes narrowed as I tried to hear behind her words.
Was this paranoia born of too much skirmishing with Arnold Praeger, or a
legitimate prudence?

Before I could decide, Don said, “You don’t think Max
would mind your giving his name, do you, Vic?”

“Max?” Wiell cried. “Max Loewenthal?”

“How do you know him?” Don asked, again before I could
respond.

“He spoke at the session on the efforts of survivors
to track down the fates of their families and whether they had any assets tied
up in Swiss or German banks. Paul and I sat in on that: we hoped we could learn
some new ideas for ways of looking for his family. If Max is your friend, I’m
sure Paul would be glad to talk to him—he seemed an extraordinary man, gentle,
empathic, yet assured, authoritative.”

“That’s a good description of his personality,” I said,
“but he also has a strong sense of privacy. He would be most annoyed if Paul
Radbuka approached him without my having a chance to speak to Mr. Radbuka
first.”

“You can rest assured that I understand the value of
privacy. My relations with my clients would not be possible if I didn’t protect
them.” Wiell gave me the same sweet, steely smile she’d directed at Arnold
Praeger on TV the other night.

“So can we arrange a meeting with your client, where I
can talk to him before introducing him to my friends?” I tried to keep
irritation out of my voice, but I knew I couldn’t match her in sanctity.

“Before I do anything, I will have to talk to Paul.
Surely you understand that any other course would violate my relationship with
him.” She wrote Max’s name in her datebook next to Paul Radbuka’s appointment:
her square, printlike hand was easy to read upside down.

“Of course I understand that,” I said with what
patience I could muster. “But I can’t let Paul Radbuka come to Mr. Loewenthal
out of the blue in the belief that they’re related. In fact, I don’t think Mr.
Loewenthal is himself a part of the Radbuka family. If I could ask Paul a few
questions first, it might spare everyone some anxiety.”

She shook her head with finality: she would not turn
Paul over to someone like me, an unskilled outsider. “Whether it’s Mr.
Loewenthal or his musician friend who is part of the family, I assure you, I
would approach them with the utmost empathy. And the first step is to talk to
Paul, to get his permission for me to go to them. How long will your musician
be in Chicago?”

At this point I didn’t want to tell her anything about
anyone I knew, but Don said, “I think he said that he’s leaving for the West
Coast on Monday.”

While I fumed to myself, Don got Wiell to give a
précis on how hypnosis worked and how she used it—sparingly, and only after her
patients felt able to trust her—before he brought up the kind of controversy
the book was likely to generate.

He grinned engagingly. “From our standpoint,
controversy is highly desirable, because it gives a book access to the kind of
press coverage you can’t buy. But from yours—you may not want that kind of
spotlight on you and your practice.”

She smiled back at him. “Like you, I would welcome the
publicity—although for a different reason. I want as many people as possible to
start understanding how we block memories, how we recover them, and how we can
become liberated in the process. The Planted Memory Foundation has done a great
deal of damage to people suffering from trauma. I haven’t had the resources to
make the truth clear to a wider audience. This book would help me greatly.”

A silvery bell, like a Japanese temple bell, chimed on
her desk. “We’ll have to stop now—I have another patient coming and I need time
to prepare for my session.”

I handed her my card, reminding her that I wanted an
early meeting with Paul Radbuka. She shook my hand in a cool, dry clasp, giving
my hand a slight pressure intended to reassure me of her goodwill. To Don she
added that she could help him stop smoking if he wanted.

“Most of my hypnotic work is in the arena of
self-exploration, but I do work with habit management sometimes.”

Don laughed. “I hope we’ll be working closely together
for the next year or so. If I decide I’m ready to quit we’ll put the manuscript
aside while I lie back on your couch here.”

Ramping Up

A
s we walked
past the liposuckers to the elevator, Don congratulated himself on how well
things had gone. “I’m a believer: it’s going to be a great project. Those eyes
of hers could convince me to do just about anything.”

“They apparently did,” I said dryly. “I wish you
hadn’t brought Max’s name into the discussion.”

“Chrissake, Vic, it was a pure fluke that she guessed
it was Max Loewenthal.” He stood back as the elevator doors opened to let out
an elderly couple. “This is going to be a career-saving book for me. I bet I
can get my agent to go to high six figures, not to mention the film
rights—don’t you see Dustin Hoffman as the broken-down Radbuka remembering his
past?”

Lotty’s bitter remark on ghouls profiting on the
remains of the dead came back to me full force. “You said you wanted to prove
to Lotty Herschel that you’re not the mike-in-the-face kind of journalist.
She’s not going to be very persuaded if you’re prancing around in glee about turning
her friends’ misery into commercial movies.”

“Vic, get a grip,” Don said. “Can’t you let me have my
moment of triumph? Of course I won’t violate Dr. Herschel’s most sacred
feelings. I started out feeling a bit doubtful of Rhea, but by the end of the
hour she had me totally on her side—sorry if the excitement’s gone to my head.”

“She rubbed me the wrong way a bit,” I said.

“That’s because she wouldn’t toss you her patient’s
home phone number. Which she absolutely should not give anyone. You know that.”

“I know that,” I had to agree. “I guess what bugs me
is her wanting to mastermind the situation: she’ll meet Max and Lotty and Carl,
she’ll decide what they’re about, but she’s resisting the idea that I might
meet her client. Don’t you think it’s odd that he gave her office as his home
address—as if his identity was wrapped up in her?”

“You’re overreacting, Vic, because you like to be the
one in control yourself. You read some of the articles you printed out for me
on the attacks against her by Planted Memory, right? She’s sensible to be
cautious.”

He paused while the elevator landed and we negotiated
our way past the group waiting to get on. I scanned them, hoping I might see
Paul Radbuka, wondering about the destination of the people boarding. Were they
getting fat sucked out? Root canals? Which one was Rhea Wiell’s next patient?

Don continued with the thought uppermost in his own
mind. “Do you think it’s Lotty, Max, or Carl who really is related to Radbuka?
They sound pretty prickly for people who are only looking out for their
friends’ interests.”

I stopped behind the newsstand to stare at him. “I
don’t think any of them is related to Radbuka. That’s why I’m so annoyed that
Ms. Wiell has Max’s name now. I know, I know,” I added, as he started to
interrupt, “you didn’t really give it to her. But she’s so focused on her prize
exhibit’s well-being that she’s not thinking outside that landscape now to
anyone else’s needs.”

“But why should she?” he asked. “I mean, I understand
that you want her to be as empathic to Max or Dr. Herschel as she is to Paul
Radbuka, but how could she be that concerned about a group of strangers?
Besides, she’s got such an exciting event going on with what she’s done with
this guy that it’s not surprising, really. But why are your friends so very
defensive if it isn’t their own family they’re worrying about?”

“Good grief, Don—you’re almost as experienced as
Morrell in writing about war-scarred refugees. I’m sure you can imagine how it
must have felt, to be in London with a group of children who all shared the
same traumas—first of leaving their families behind to go to a strange country
with a strange language, then the even bigger trauma of the horrific way in
which their families died. I think you’d feel a sense of bonding that went
beyond friendship—everyone’s experiences would seem as though they had happened
to you personally.”

“I suppose you’re right. Of course you are. I only
want to get in with Rhea on the story of the decade.” He grinned again,
disarming me, and pulled the half-smoked cigarette out of his pocket again.
“Until I decide to let Rhea cure me, I need to get this inside me. Can you come
over to the Ritz with me? Share a glass of champagne and let me feel just a
minute moment of euphoria about my project?”

I still wasn’t in a very celebratory mood. “Let me
check with my answering service while you go over to the hotel. Then a quick
one, I guess.”

I went back to the corner to use the pay phones, since
my cell phone was dead. Why couldn’t I let Don have his moment of triumph, as
he had put it? Was he right, that I was only resentful because Rhea Wiell
wouldn’t give me Radbuka’s phone number? But that sense of an ecstatic vision
when she was talking about her triumph with Paul Radbuka had made me
uncomfortable. It was the ecstasy of a votary, though, not the triumphant smirk
of a charlatan, so why should I let it raise my hackles?

I fed change into the phone and dialed my answering
service.

“Vic! Where have you been?” Christie Weddington, a day
operator who’d been with the service for longer than me, jolted me back to my
own affairs.

“What’s up?”

“Beth Blacksin has phoned three times, wanting a
comment; Murray Ryerson has called twice, besides messages from a whole bunch
of other reporters.” She read off a string of names and numbers. “Mary Louise,
she called and said she was switching the office line over to us because she
felt like she was under siege.”

“But about what?”

“I don’t know, Vic, I just take the messages. Murray
said something about Alderman Durham, though, and—here it is.” She read the
message in a flat, uninflected voice. “‘Call me and tell me what’s going on
with Bull Durham. Since when have you started robbing the widow and orphan of
their mite?’”

I was completely bewildered. “I guess just forward all
those to my office computer. Are there any business messages, things that don’t
come from reporters?”

I could hear her clicking through her screen. “I don’t
think—oh, here is something from a Mr. Devereux at Ajax.” She read me Ralph’s
number.

I tried Murray first. He’s an investigative reporter
with the
Herald-Star
who does occasional special reports for Channel 13.
This was the first time he’d called me in some months—we’d had quite a falling
out over a case that had involved the
Star
’s owners. In the end, we’d made
a kind of fragile peace, but we’ve been avoiding involvement with each other’s
cases.