Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil (84 page)

“Yes. Andy’s very loyal and grateful to Gene, but it slipped through that Gene was burned out, feeling overwhelmed, out of his depth. You weren’t kidding when you said that was a hazard of your business. Things are pretty grim down there.”

“Grim?” Even in the dim light of the limo, I could see a flicker of irritation on Stick’s face. “I don’t think it’s grim. More like a playroom, isn’t it? Or summer camp?”

“They’re not playing,” I said firmly, but without emphasis, as if it had no importance to me. “They’re fighting for survival.”

“For survival?” He chuckled. “Aren’t you exaggerating just a little?”

Adopting a casual and pompous tone, I delivered a monologue chock-full of popular psychology jargon. I talked about limits and the need for authority. I talked about structure: rewards and punishments; incentives and security. I talked about how loyalty to a consistent parent figure or an appropriate substitute, such as a corporation, can empower and build self-esteem. I said his young employees all had the same base psychological profile. (Stick didn’t question how I could know that.) They are emotionally retarded, I said, fearful to ask for what they want, or worse, walled off from their emotions, suffocated by their mothers, rejected or squashed by their fathers as inadequate Oedipal competition—an outright contradiction, by the way, but the sort of all-encompassing generalization that is commonly made by popular psychologists. My rambling speech continued while we entered II Cantinori, an expensive restaurant on Tenth Street off University Place. We had both ordered and consumed ziti with mussels, sun-dried tomatoes and yellow peppers by the time I finished my Dr. Joyce Brothers imitation.

“How do you think Andy is doing?” Stick asked. “What’s your impression of his management skills?”

“Okay,” I said, lowering my eyes and my voice.

“You know,” he leaned forward, caressing a glass of white wine in both hands. “We’ve got a lot riding on our people. Andy’s in a position to help himself and the company. He’s also in a position to hurt himself and the company.”

I nodded. But offered nothing.

“What’s your opinion of his state of mind?”

“I spent less than an hour with him. Can’t really say.”

Copley leaned back and sipped his wine reflectively. He returned the glass lazily, sliding it onto the table. He cocked his head, locking his fingers together. “This afternoon I was thinking about you and Gene. He was doing very well, for himself and for us, up until about a year, year and a half ago. That’s when he stopped seeing you, right?”

I nodded.

Copley flexed the fingers outward, cracking them. “Don’t be shy, Doctor. Tell me your opinion of Andy’s state of mind.”

I paused and stared off thoughtfully for a moment. “Andy’s a prodigy, right? I mean, even for a computer whiz, he’s a prodigy?”

“Bachelor degree at seventeen. Graduate degree, age twenty. Could’ve had his pick of jobs. Apple, IBM. Microsoft, for that matter. I think he’s as good at programming as engineering. Tell you the truth, he’s something of an underachiever. You could have knocked me over with a feather when he said yes to our offer.”

“I understand him choosing a young company, an underdog, if you don’t mind my calling Minotaur an underdog.”

“Not at all. We are underdogs. We try harder.”

“Well, that would appeal to Andy. Prodigies are lone wolves. They’re usually resented by other children while growing up, and often resented by adults, too. It’s hard to deal with, the spectacle of a child doing something better than most of us could ever hope to. Hostility toward prodigies is understandable and easy to dismiss as envy if you have a sound ego and some life experience. But that hostility is directed at a child, who, also naturally enough, expects praise and love for his abilities. So prodigies learn to work alone, or at least as outsiders. Often they also learn to hide what they can do, to underachieve, as you call it. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to self-sabotage.”

“Self-sabotage?”

“Yes, self-sabotage. As opposed to self-destructiveness. The distinction might seem academic, but it’s significant to me. Self-sabotage isn’t an act of self-punishment. Rather, it’s an act of self-protection.”

“You mean, they unconsciously fail so people won’t resent them?”

“Very good.” I raised my wine glass and toasted him. “I shouldn’t be surprised. A man who runs a large successful company must have a delicate feel for psychology.” Copley shook his head, about to shrug off my compliment. I prevented him by continuing, “I don’t know enough about the structure of Andy’s family relations. For example, his Oedipal dynamic. Was Gene a substitute father figure? If so, defeating him, taking Gene’s job, might be very troubling, especially since Andy’s victory is the Oepidal nightmare: Gene died.” I stared up at II Cantinori’s excellent restoration of an elaborate tin ceiling and mused, almost mumbling, “Perhaps there is an element of self-destructiveness. Andy might be unconsciously punishing himself for his triumph.”

“Punishing himself how, Doctor?”

I returned my attention to him, with a startled look, as if woken from a reverie. “Please, call me Rafe. I feel uncomfortable being addressed as Doctor.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Rafe, but I have to insist you be more specific. I’ve got a fiduciary responsibility to Minotaur stockholders. If Andy is psychologically unstable it could fuck up a lot more than just his life.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s
that
serious.” I smiled at him, a forced artificial smile, and looked at my watch. “I’m sorry, but I’m leaving early in the morning. I should be getting to bed. And you have a long ride home. Luckily, you don’t have to drop me off. I’m staying six blocks from here, so I won’t need a ride.” I twisted in my chair to look for our waiter. He saw me, I made a writing motion, and he nodded.

Turning back, I found Copley’s dark eyes on me. “They have great desserts here,” he said in an ominous tone.

“I’m full.”

“Well, we’re always full, aren’t we?” Copley slapped his nonexistent belly as though he were pounding an enormous bass drum. “That’s no reason to stop eating.”

“Were you overweight as a child?” I asked. The question was absurdly posed: presumptuous, pompous, and grave. It should have gotten a laugh.

Instead, Copley stared at me. He cocked his head after a moment and drawled, “Yeah. I was a fat kid.”

I nodded as if that were obvious. “Not for long, I bet.”

“Soon as I hit puberty, I made sure to
get
rid of it.”

“Exceptional,” I commented in a schoolteacher’s tone.

He grinned. “Exceptional?”

“Very rare for that cycle to be broken in adolescence. Shows enormous strength of character.”

“You believe in concepts like strength of character?”

The waiter appeared. “No dessert?”

“We’ll have two decaffeinated cappuccinos,” Copley said and added to me, “Okay?”

“Sure,” I agreed. The waiter left.

“You believe in innate qualities?” he asked. “Genetically encoded personality traits?”

“Of course. It’s just that it’s impossible to know exactly where heredity leaves off and environment begins. Or, for that matter, how much one distorts or influences the other. That’s why we often treat the whole family unit, especially in child psychology.”

“Hmmm,” Copley considered this carefully. He smoothed his hair down and commented, “A company is like a family.”

“Yes!” I leaned toward him, excited. “That’s just what I was thinking when Andy showed me your labs. This is a family. That was the flaw with how I treated Gene—” I caught myself. I covered my mouth, embarrassed. “Please,” I said, “don’t blame Andy for showing me around.”

Stick, who had been staring intently with a thin-lipped smile, broke out laughing. “Don’t worry. I don’t mind. I’m sure you’re not an industrial spy. Anyway, I knew. Andy told me he gave you a tour.”

“Really?” I stroked my chin thoughtfully. I understood why Freud grew a beard. Without one, the gesture doesn’t quite work. “And yet he seemed so frightened about you finding out. That’s fascinating … You really are their father. It’s an unfair burden on you. To be an effective manager you can’t also be an emotional support. That’s why … I see now …” I trailed off, pensively.

“What?” Copley asked. I looked at him absentmindedly. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, I didn’t understand, at first, why a man like you, who doesn’t really know computers …” I let that go and shrugged, “I mean, you don’t really have any creative ability, so why are you running a company that has to reinvent itself every year or so? In theory, someone like Gene or Andy ought to be CEO, not a salesman like you. That’s your background, isn’t it? You were head of sales for Flashworks, right?”

The amusement and self-assurance were gone from Copley’s face and body language. He sat stiffly now, eyelids half-closed, waiting, warily, for me to go on.

“But it’s leadership, isn’t it?” I continued. “In fact, now that I think about it, this isn’t an uncommon pattern in today’s complex world. Presidents, for example, especially in this century, are rarely men of exceptional intelligence. And that has long been the case with armies. The era of brilliant tactical generals also being the political leader faded once we got past Napoleon. I think the skill you possess, the father-figure who can bring the best out of his brilliant children, is underrated. It isn’t intellectual genius or creative genius as we understand it, but rather a kind of emotional—No!” I snapped my fingers, excited. “No, it’s a genius of character. That’s where your will, the strength of purpose that allowed you to
get
rid of the weight as you entered adolescence, comes in. It’s a talent, an intelligence.” I shook a finger at him. “What perhaps you don’t appreciate is the extent of your emotional impact on people.”

“You’re wrong,” he said mildly.

“Really?” I was cheerfully curious. He nodded. “Tell me. I know this must all seem silly to you, but it’s important to me. I think there may be a major theoretical book in this notion of character intelligence.”

Copley smiled again, relaxing. He was amused (understandably) by my pedantic manner. “I know the effect I have on people. It’s calculated. What you’re talking about may be a secret to psychiatrists, but it’s no secret in American business. Management skills are key in today’s competitive environment. Technical skills, what you call creative ability, are so specialized that you can’t expect them to be combined with leadership. Andy, for example, barely has time to dress himself, much less keep track of the marketplace.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” I said, bursting with enthusiasm. Our decaffeinated cappuccinos had arrived. I drained half of mine in a gulp and leaned over the table, excited. “But I don’t think even you appreciate the emotional leadership you provide. We live in a world where the family has deteriorated, community has disintegrated, religion is merely a sentiment. Today’s extended family, today’s community, today’s moral leadership is provided by business. And today’s corporate manager, unfairly, has become father, community leader, and priest—all wrapped into one. The psychological implications of your role are enormous.”

Copley raised a hand to his smoothed-back hair and checked that it was in place. I finished my cappuccino, leaned back, and watched the pensive, calculating Copley, stroking his eyebrows. His fingers eventually trailed down his starved face, enjoying the accomplishment of his thinness, thinking hard, thinking himself into my trap.

Stick was slow to take the bait. Was the delay caused by a protective intuition he chose to ignore? He waited until he paid the check. (He had scoffed at my offer to split it.) “You think Andy’s under too much pressure, don’t you?”

“No,” I said quickly, too quickly. “This is silly. I hardly know him.”

“Give me a break, Rafe. Stop holding back. I’ll take what you have to say with a grain of salt.” He stood up. “Let’s walk to where you’re staying. I’ll have the car follow us.”

The streets were wet. It had rained lightly sometime during our meal. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees. He asked for Susan’s address and gave it to the driver. We strolled toward Fifth Avenue. “Let’s hear your best guess about Andy.”

“It’s only a guess.”

“Understood. Come on.”

“He’s going to fail. I can’t identify, as I said earlier, whether it’s punishment or neurotic self-protection, but he’s isolating himself from his co-workers, developing symptoms of paranoia, and he’s pressing. I don’t know enough about computers to have any idea if he’s actually done harm to the design yet, but he will, unless either his guilt or his vulnerability is relieved. I know you have a successful company, and I don’t wish to insult you, but the atmosphere down there is dangerous. Morale is astonishingly low. I made a mistake with Gene that you’re repeating with Andy.”

Copley stopped walking. I pretended not to notice until I had gone ahead a few steps. “What’s that?” he asked, not catching up.

I walked back to him. “You’ve put Andy in a role he’s not fit for.”

“And just how did
you
do that with Gene?” Copley asked, daring me.

I took the dare. “I encouraged Gene to go after your job.”

For a moment, Copley’s stone face seemed to have truly become stone. “What?” he barked.

“Surely you knew. I made a mistake. I decided that because Gene was responsible for creating all your products he should be aiming to run the company. Look, you asked me to be blunt. If you’d rather—”

“No!” Copley’s tone was too loud. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, a hand touching his face again, fingers caressing his sunken cheeks. The hand came away. “Go on.”

“Everybody at your company knows Gene was its creative heart. For God’s sake, even your goddamn telephone was designed by Gene.”

“Who told you that?” Copley asked.

“Nobody had to. He was its emotional leader. Who put up the basketball net for Andy? I bet that was Gene, too.” Copley nodded, slowly. I continued, “Every machine your men design today is first tested theoretically on what?”

“Black Dragon.”

“You told me Dragon was Andy’s design. Tha t was an exaggeration, wasn’t it? Gene built it.”