Even now, as I look back at the mistakes I made-the way I had misunderstood Harry when he’d first come to the ER, the way I’d slipped easily into the world of wealth-the thing I’ll always regret is what I did next. Primum non nocere, we were taught in medical school: First, do no harm. Even in psychiatry, where nothing is so obviously mistaken as a surgeon cutting out the wrong body part or leaving a patient bleeding, some things are dangerous.
The worst is to push a patient past his limits, confront him with something so painful that he can’t cope. I don’t know if it made a difference-maybe the events were rolling inexorably toward their end. If it had all happened without me, though, I wouldn’t blame myself. I should examine my motives, but I’ve done it many times and I’ve come up short.
Every job has rules-barriers stopping abuse or even an appearance of it. They become wired into you, so you don’t have to think when you get close to the border. You hold back like a dog with an electric collar that gives it a shock if it passes across a buried wire. I’ve seen them standing there, barking wildly yet constrained from pursuit. I think of myself having crossed that border anyway, unable to hold back, only to find out what happens when you transgress. I’m more circumspect now-careful not to go past the line or even to approach it. I stay at a safe distance, warning those who pass me by but staying inside the wire. If we’d all stuck inside our limits, I’d still be a psych at Episcopal and Harry would still be a rich guy with his name on a plaque.
When I called, Felix picked up almost immediately, as if he’d expected it, and made no protest. If I’d thought more, I’d have realized that was a sign in itself. I told Felix about the people I’d met and what I’d discovered, and he listened silently.
“What are you doing later?” was all he asked.
Felix’s apartment was on Riverside Drive at the end of a street in the nineties that sloped down from West End Avenue. It ended on a quiet spot along the drive above the Hudson, illuminated when I arrived by a full moon. That moon picked out the buildings in New Jersey and a tanker riding low in the river, leaving a glittering wake. The night was quiet apart from the moan of cars and roar of trucks on the parkway. I gazed down at Riverside Park for a while, taking in the view and wondering if I should head back home. Having come so far, I was frightened by the prospect of at last finding out what had been hidden within Seligman-not just the financial deceptions, but also the broken relationships.
Then I saw Felix. He was standing a hundred yards away, his hands in the pockets. He hadn’t seen me and I walked toward him, waiting for him to look up, but I was within three yards before he showed any sign of noticing. At the last minute, he looked at me and nodded in acknowledgment.
“Shall we go inside?” he said quietly.
We walked across to his building, passing a Latino deliveryman wobbling the wrong way up the drive on a bicycle with no lights. It was the first time I’d known Felix to be quiet, and it felt alien, as if he’d had a stroke and lost the use of his larynx. He still hadn’t spoken by the time we got to his apartment, which was decorated in an ornate, gloomy way, with heavy curtains and furniture. He went into the kitchen and took a whiskey bottle from a cupboard.
“Single malt?” he said joylessly, as if it were medicine.
After he’d sloshed out two measures, he led me to his living room, where he lounged in an armchair with a knee across one of the arms. With his sweater riding up above his pants, he looked thinner than when I’d last seen him in my apartment. I wondered if he’d been eating properly or if drink had become his diet. I remember worrying briefly for him. I’d seen too many people dose their anxieties with drink, and it only made them worse. But I had always imagined Felix as so capable, so good at navigating a world of powerful people, that I wasn’t as concerned as I should have been. I didn’t think of him as in need of help: I’d relied upon him to help me. He raised his glass and the ice tinkled.
“Faithful servants,” he toasted.
“Your family’s away?”
“Yes, the wife decided to extend her stay there, put the kids in school for a while. It’s for the best, I’d say.”
He looked down at his glass, the rims of his eyes red, trying halfheartedly to make his life’s disintegration sound like a strategy.
“I saw a photo of you together in London-Harry, Marcus, Tom Henderson,” I said. “You worked at Rosenthal. You never told me that.”
“I didn’t realize you wanted my CV. Next time I’ll know.” He smiled flatly. “I guess Harry underestimated you. Unusual methods for a doctor, I’ve got to say.”
“What is it about Rosenthal, Felix? Why is everyone so obsessed with the place?” I said. “Henderson seems to love it.”
He smiled. “It’s hard to describe. So much of Wall Street is dog-eat-dog. We looked out for each other. If someone got in our way we were brutal, but there was camaraderie to it. We didn’t think we were the best. We knew it. Once you’ve been there you’re always part of it. I guess I’ve worked at Seligman twenty years now. If you cut me open, it would still say Rosenthal inside.”
“Why did you leave, then? You told me you were at Seligman when Harry came over from New York.”
“Not exactly. It was a mission Tom gave me. Rosenthal was a smaller place then, a partnership without a lot of capital. We’d got involved in Canary Wharf with Seligman and we were overextended. A lot had to be fixed. Then Harry came to town, swaggering about and making threats. Tom didn’t want him to blow it all up. They needed someone to watch him. Harry had taken a shine to me and he offered me a job. He adored the idea of stealing from Rosenthal.”
“You said you liked him,” I said.
“Rosenthal can be a cold place and Harry was warm. Tom laughed, thought it was a great idea. That’s the kind of thing that amuses him. Someone else thinking they’re getting a bargain when they’re doing what he wants. ‘Come back when we’re done,’ he said. I wish I had, but I never did. We fixed the deal. We even got a prize. I got Harry to go along with some things they needed and he never realized. His time in London worked out well and he got the top job with Seligman. I thought it was over, but Tom thought Harry owed them.”
“Even twenty years later?”
“They’re patient-they wait a long time to get a return. When Marcus got into trouble, Tom thought it was time for Harry to repay the debt. He called me, made it sound like it was my duty to help Marcus. Patriotic duty, duty to Rosenthal, I don’t think he sees a distinction. Harry was hot to trot, loved the idea. The only problem was Marcus’s balance sheet.”
“The Elements,” I said.
Felix’s eyes widened. He had been talking in a confessional, faraway tone, but as I spoke the words he became alert.
“Who told you about that? Lauren, I suppose.”
“Who?” I said as blankly as I could.
“Harry’s girlfriend,” he said reproachfully. “You know that, Ben. So did I.”
“How did you know?”
Felix rose a little unsteadily, picked up our glasses, and made his way back to the kitchen to refill them. I heard him twist off the cap of the whiskey bottle and the icemaker spit chips. Looking around the apartment with him gone, I saw a door leading to one of the bedrooms. It was ajar, and through the gap I saw a child’s bed with a line of stuffed animals on one pillow, blankly awaiting her return. She must have left without them, trusting she’d be back. He came back into the room, handed me my glass as he walked by, and sat down again.
“Harry told me one night when we’d had a few drinks,” he said. “We were in China to beg from a state-owned bank with a pile of money. We’d flown in on the Gulfstream and had dinner, just the two of us. We went to a bar that was full of Korean call girls and Russians in tracksuits, the usual Silk Road crap. We sat and drank moonshine. He was bursting with it. He had to tell someone. Next thing I knew, he’d put Lauren on the Grayridge deal. Love’s blind.”