When she reached us, Rosenblatt stood.
“Katarina. How’s everything going?” There was guilt in his voice-he’d make a very bad liar.
“Fine, Harvey,” she said, looking down at her board. “You’re up in two minutes. Might as well take your place on stage.”
I never saw either of them again, and the events of that autumn soon faded from memory, sparked briefly, the following Jannary, by a newspaper obituary of Andres de Bosch. Cause of death was suicide by overdose-prescription tranquilizers. The eightyyear-old analyst was described as despondent due to ill health. His professional achievements were listed in loving, inflated detail, and I knew who’d provided them.
Now, years later, another spark.
Good lovelbad love. De Bosch’s term for mothering gone bad. The psychic damage inflicted when a trusted figure betrays the innocent.
So Donald Dell Wallace probably wasn’t behind it. Someone else had picked me-because of the conference?
Someone with a long, festering memory? Of what? Some transgression committed by de Bosch? In the name of de Boschian therapy?
My co-chairmanship made me seem like a disciple, but that was my only link.
Some kind of grievance? Was it even real, or just a delusion?
A psychotic sitting at the conference, listening, boiling. ..
I thought back to the seventy strangers in the auditorium. A collective blur.
And why had Becky Basille’s murderer howled “bad love”?
Another madman?
Katarina might have the answer. But she hadn’t had much use for me back in seventy-nine, and there was no reason to believe she’d talk to me now.
Unless she’d gotten a tape, too, and was frightened.
1 punched 805 information. There was no Santa Barbara listing for either the de Bosch Institute or the Corrective School. Neither was there an office number for Katarina de Bosch, Ph.D. Before the operator could get away, I asked her to check for a home number. Zilch.
I hung up and pulled out the latest American Psychological Association directory. Nothing there, either. Retrieving some older volumes, I finally found Katarina’s most recent entry. Five years ago. But the address and number were those of the Santa Barbara school. On the off chance the phone company had messed up, I called.
A woman answered, “Taco Bonanza.” Metallic clatter and shouts nearly drowned her out.
I cut the connection and sat at my desk, stroking the top of the bulldog’s head and gazing at the coffee stain on the brochure.
Wondering how and when enlightenment had given way to enchiladas.
Harvey Rosenblatt.
Half past one made it four-thirty in New York. I got the number for NYU’s med school and asked for the department of psychiatry. After a couple of minutes on hold, I was informed that there was no Dr. Harvey Rosenblatt on either the permanent or the parttime clinical staff.
“We do have a Leonard Rosenblatt,” said the secretary. “His office is out in New Rochelle-and a Shirley Rosenblatt in Manhattan, on East Sixty-fifth Street.”
“Is Shirley an M.D. or a Ph.D.?”
“Um-one second-a Ph.D. She’s a clinical psychologist.”
“But no Harvey ?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you have any old rosters on hand? Lists of staff members who’ve retired?”
“There may be something like that somewhere, sir, but I really don’t have the time to search. Now if you’ll-” “Could I have Dr. Shirley Rosenblatt’s number please?”
“One moment.”
I copied it down, called Manhattan information for a listing on Harvey Rosenblatt, M.D learned there was none, and dialed Shirley, Ph.D.”s exchange.
A soft, female voice with Brooklyn overtones said, “This is Dr. Shirley Rosenblatt. I’m in session or out of the office, and can’t come to the phone. If your call is a true emergency, please press one.
If not, please press two, wait for the beep, and leave your message.
Thank you and have a lovely day.”
Mozart in the background. .. beep.
“Dr. Rosenblatt, this is Dr. Alex Delaware, from Los Angeles. I’m not sure if you’re married to Dr. Harvey Rosenblatt or even know him, but I met him several years ago at a conference out here and wanted to touch base with him on something-for research purposes. If you can help me reach him, I’d appreciate your passing along my number.”