The Hypnotist (27 page)

“I don’t agree that it’s unethical. It’s critical information, and we need it if there’s any hope of us obtaining the Memory Tool.” Dr. Malachai Samuels was standing in front of the window in Dr. Iris Bellmer’s office on Tuesday morning. She was aware of the stress he was under, had heard it over the phone last night when he’d called her and asked her to come in early to discuss something of grave importance. Now, she felt her own level of stress rise as she responded to his emotions.

“Malachai, there’s no way I can do what you’re asking.” She tried to talk soothingly, hoping she could calm him down, but from the way he was repeatedly shuffling the deck of antique playing cards, she clearly wasn’t succeeding.

“Yes, there is. Just call James Ryan and tell him that you’ve been going over his tapes and have found some curious consistencies between his various past-life memories, and you think another session might be beneficial.”

The sound of the cards was the only noise in the room. Iris tried to figure out a way to refuse without raising his ire. After all, he was her boss and she loved her job.

Malachai, unaware of her struggle, continued, “Then, when he gets here, hypnotize him.”

“And go looking for information he doesn’t know I’m searching for? You know I can’t do that. It’s more than unethical. It could be criminal.”

Malachai stopped playing with the cards and looked at her as if he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard her correctly. His eyes were cold and unyielding, his face frozen.

Iris hadn’t meant to use the word
criminal.
She knew about the FBI’s year-and-a-half-long investigation into her boss’s life and how much damage it had done to his and the foundation’s credibility. It hadn’t been smart to remind him of all that now.

“I would never ask you to do anything criminal, Iris.” His eyes were boring into her, and she could feel his cold rage. “You do know that, don’t you?”

She tried to look away from his gaze. “Malachai, I won’t do it to my patient and you can’t do it to yours, either. You can’t bring in that little girl and push her to give you more information.”

“What I do with my patients isn’t your concern.”

“It is. I work here, too. My reputation is tied to the reputation of the institute. I took an oath to do no harm, and so did you. Our interference would be harmful.”

A muscle twitched in Malachai’s jaw. “If you don’t want to contact your client, then I will.”

“Are you threatening me?”

Malachai took a breath. Iris could see he was making an effort, but an effort at what? Reining in a temper she’d never before seen exhibited? Trying to figure out another tactic to convince her to do what he was asking?

“You’re right, of course,” he said in a soothing, placating tone. Moving away from the window, he sat down at her desk, opposite her, leaned back in his seat and smiled in that odd way
he had of moving only his lips without it ever traveling to his eyes. It gave him an inhuman look, she thought.

“I’m sorry, Iris. Did I upset you?”

“A little, yes.”

“It’s just that this is important to me.”

She nodded.

“Forget about asking Ryan to come in again.”

She was relieved—until he told her what he wanted her to do instead.

“Why don’t you just give me the cassette tapes of your sessions with him and let me listen to his regressions. Let me see if there’s anything there that could help us. Then we can discuss this again.”

“I didn’t get permission from him to actually play his tapes for anyone else.”

“You don’t have to. I’m the co-director of the foundation, and I supervise you. It’s entirely within the code of ethics for me to hear them.”

“Is it? I’m not sure.”

“You are stubborn, aren’t you?” He smiled at her again in that same odd way. Malachai put his hands on the chair’s ornate wooden arms and fingered the lion’s claws. He studied the carvings for a moment, then glanced up at her. “You know, this chair has been in this building since the Phoenix Club was first convened in the 1840s. Since my great-great-great-uncle decided that reincarnation was worth examining. They were all so fascinated with the idea of past-life regression. Walt Whitman, Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Law Olmsted…” The way he said their names was like music. “Henry Rice Billings, Frederick L. Lennox…” Malachai reached out and picked up one of the snow globes sitting on her desk, the one containing an Egyptian pyramid. Shaking it, he watched the sand—not snow—swirl, float and then start to settle.

“Over four thousand years ago in ancient Egypt,” he said, “there was an Egyptian priest named Imhotep who healed people in a sleep temple. Have you ever read the stories of the miraculous cures he was responsible for?”

Malachai shook the snow globe once more, agitating the sand again, then watching as the grains swirled, floated and then started to settle.

“No,” Iris said.

“Have you ever been to Egypt?”

“I haven’t been, no. My parents brought that back for me. I’ve always wanted to go.”

“When I was there I saw what’s left of those sleep temples. Dream temples, they’re sometimes called. Priests lulled people who were sick into a trancelike state with a process that’s not very different from the process you and I use today to hypnotize our patients.” He shook the snow globe again. The grains churned violently, then slowed. “They were priests, we are doctors, but we’re all after the same thing—to help people who are in pain and troubled. Four thousand years ago, those priests used hypnosis and religious rituals and kept their patients in a trance for as long as three days while they prayed to their gods to heal them. We work with our patients for a few months and pray our own training will help them. But how different are our jobs from the priests’?”

Once again Malachai repeated the ritual of shaking the globe and watching the disturbed sands calm. “Those ancient priests claimed they succeeded in casting bad spirits from the mind and body. I’m sure they were telling the truth as they saw it. But what really happened? Was it just the power of suggestion? I don’t think so. I’ve read their writings. You believe, and I do, too, that so much of what causes our pain and suffering are unresolved past-life issues carried over into the present. There are tools,
Iris, tools that can help us do our jobs, that could help us help our patients. Tools we could utilize in order to prove reincarnation is real, to prove that you and I and all of us are part of the past and the present and will forever be part of the future. That our souls are part of each other.”

He was shaking the globe more slowly now, back and forth, not allowing the sand to settle at all, keeping it in constant motion. “Did you ever stop to really think about what it would mean to us if we could prove it? Really prove it, Iris. We might end wars, murder and crime… If people truly believed that we are all connected, that karma must be paid back, they might not be so quick to harm and hurt. Think about that. And think about how you and I and Beryl could become the heroes of this revolution. The ones who found the proof. The Marco Polos and Columbuses of our day. Who are we to deny the power that might help people far more than we ever will be able to by ourselves?”

As she watched the to-and-fro movement of the snow globe, as she stared at the way the lamplight glanced off its rounded glass surface and glinted with each half rotation, she felt his passion and excitement stir up inside of her. Yes, it would be amazing if there was a tool, and if they could be the ones to find it—if there was a way to help people slip into past-life memories with even more ease, if she was part of the discovery of that tool.

Malachai rolled the globe to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left. “Iris, please give me James Ryan’s tapes.”

Slightly swaying to the rhythm of the right, left, right, left spinning, Iris rose and walked to the file cabinet behind her desk. She unlocked it with a small key on a silver ring she withdrew from her pocket.

After closing it and relocking it she walked around the desk and over to the man she worked for, who was still playing with the gift her parents had brought back from Egypt.

“I want to be part of the discovery,” she said, and handed two small black cassette tapes to Malachai Samuels.

It wasn’t until after he put the sandy pyramid back down and she heard its base knock against her wood desk that she realized what she’d done. “Wait,” she called to Malachai as he walked out of her office, but he didn’t turn around.

The bulk of the estates on Round Hill Road in Greenwich, Connecticut, were on four- to ten-acre lots and set far back from the road, so few neighbors noticed the unmarked Crown Victoria driving through the iron gates of the Canton property that morning.

The housekeeper who looked at the agents’ badges was frightened and scurried off to find her employer.

Seconds later, Oliver Canton blustered down the hall. The red-faced, overweight man was wearing a bad toupee and an old-fashioned silk smoking jacket. “What the hell is going on here?” he shouted as he came toward the agents, who introduced themselves and showed him their search warrant.

“You are not looking through anything in my house until I call my attorney.”

“By all means, call your attorney. But make sure you tell him we have this,” Richmond instructed, holding up the legal document. “He’ll tell you that if you don’t cooperate it’s within our right to look around on our own.”

Not succumbing to the threat without a fight, Canton pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, dialed a number and explained
the situation. As he listened, sweat popped out on his upper lip, and after a few seconds he hung up. His face was drained of all color.

“What do you want to see?” he asked.

The agents followed Canton into his library, where he grudgingly offered them seats at a round mahogany table.

“I assume you want to stay in business?” Lucian asked without preamble.

“Is there a reason I wouldn’t be able to stay in business?” Canton asked with a false bravado as see-through as cellophane.

Shabaz must have already been in touch with him.

“That all depends on you and your willingness to cooperate,” Richmond said. “We know you were involved in selling two paintings to Darius Shabaz. He’s given us the bills of sale and all the documentation on their provenance that you gave him. Everything was in order.”

Canton looked slightly relieved, then confused, and Lucian imagined he was wondering why they were here if the paperwork was in order.

“Everything, until we got to the last owner of each painting. At that point the owners had bogus names. Who did you purchase those paintings from? What are their real names? Did they come to you to fence the paintings, or did you put out the word that you were looking for works from those artists?”

“Those were the names the sellers gave me. I had no idea they weren’t their real names. How can I be responsible for people lying to me? The paintings were authentic, and that’s all that mattered.”

“Bullshit,” Lucian spat out. “You knew exactly what you were doing. Who did you buy the Matisse and the Van Gogh from? Real names. Now.” He banged his fist down on the table. Lucian was tired and jetlagged, his head hurt and he was abso
lutely certain this man was lying through his teeth. Canton not only knew he’d bought stolen artwork, but had probably orchestrated the thefts.

“My lawyer said you have a search warrant but that doesn’t mean I have to answer your questions. I was just trying to help out.”

Lucian stood up. Richmond followed, and together they started pulling out file cabinet drawers and piling stacks of paperwork on the table.

“What are you doing?” Canton screamed.

“We’re taking your records and getting out of here since you’ve stopped cooperating.”

Canton’s hand shook as he reached for the glass of soda already on the table and spilled some of it bringing it up to his lips. He took a long gulp and then asked, “What do you want?”

“The men you worked with,” Lucian said. “Who stole the paintings for you? Were you looking for those specific paintings? Did you put the word out? What the hell happened, Canton?” He knew he was bullying the dealer, but he didn’t care anymore.

Canton was hyperventilating, and his skin had turned even redder. Richmond glanced over at Lucian and raised his eyebrows as if to question the man’s reaction—was it a performance or for real?

“I need…” Canton whispered and then stopped. “I need…” Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out an amber pill bottle, thumbed the cap off, shook out a pill and, with trembling fingers, managed to get it into his mouth.

“You all right, Mr. Canton?” Richmond asked.

“It’s my heart.”

Lucian had been able to read the label. The dealer wasn’t in cardiac distress; the pills were anti-anxiety medication. “Then we’ll just take what we need and leave you to rest,” Lucian said
as he started dumping the files into garbage bags he and Richmond had brought with them.

Yesterday afternoon the agents had visited Andrew Moreno’s art gallery in Chelsea, and the paperwork they’d confiscated from his office was enough to keep them busy for days. With this load added to it, Lucian figured he’d be working nights and weekends for a while. He’d need to call Emeline from the car and tell her he might not make it to the Met’s reception tonight. They’d talked twice earlier today, and both times her voice had been tight and twisted with fear. The longer the threats continued, the more distraught she became. Lucian knew from cases he’d worked on how incessant worry and fear frayed your nerves. At a certain point you stopped being able to push the anxiety aside. No one survived attacks like the one Emeline was enduring without scars. She’d told him that she’d gone back to work that morning, and so far had gotten two calls, both in the same mechanical voice:
Tell anyone what I look like and I’ll kill you before they find me. You and your father, too.

“And he repeated it,” Emeline had said, her voice tight with the effort of holding back tears. “Three times. Just like in the e-mails.”

Lucian reassured her that Broderick and his men were getting close to making an arrest but it was a lie. They hadn’t made any progress. This guy had to be smart to go this long without once slipping up. Did that mean he was smart enough to elude them and get to Emeline? Lucian prayed not. One accident was all they needed. If he just stayed on the phone a few seconds too long or walked by the gallery and lingered an extra second peering in the windows.

“This drawer’s empty,” Richmond said to Lucian as he dropped another five files into a black plastic garbage back and nodded to another file cabinet. “I’ll grab that, you get the rest of the stuff.”

The color in Canton’s face intensified as he watched Lucian move to the desk and pick up the laptop computer. With a tortured
“NO”
the dealer leaped forward with teeth bared and bit Lucian’s hand.

Richmond jumped Canton, wrestled him to the ground and had him cuffed in less than thirty seconds. Lucian, excruciating pain radiating up his arm, read him his rights then listed the offenses he was going to charge him with.

“I’ll drop the last three and you’ll have a chance at spending at least some of the rest of your life outside a prison, but I want the name of the man or the men you worked with to get the Van Gogh and the Matisse.”

Twenty minutes later, as Richmond drove away, with the dealer handcuffed and whimpering in the backseat, Lucian kept looking down at his hand as if it had betrayed him by being so close to the dealer’s mouth.