The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [159]
“It’s the taste that’s so awful.”
“I know. But you’ll get past that in no time, Petey, Trust me.”
“I do.”
He washed his face and brushed his teeth before turning off the sink and shower. They left the bathroom together. Robin was standing by the side of her bed rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Breakfast time!” Gretchen sang out gaily. “Hungry, Robin baby?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So’s Mommy. Mommy could eat a horse,” she said, winking at Peter.
Robin said, “Eat a horse!” and burst into giggles.
For breakfast, Peter and Gretchen between them ate nine eggs, five pancakes with syrup, a half pound of bacon, and three English muffins with butter and jam. They drank several cups of coffee with cream and sugar.
David Loewenstein took as much time cleaning his pipe as it had taken him to smoke it. He separated the bowl and stem, knocked the dottle into an ashtray, twisted pipe cleaners into various shapes and employed them in various stages of the operation. Warren watched, fascinated. It was a shame, in a way, that Loewenstein’s most obvious idiosyncrasy was one any fourth-rate actor would have invented on his own; all psychiatrists smoked pipes and they all made a ritual of it.
Loewenstein was a tall man, a little taller and a little leaner than Warren. His dark-brown beard was bushy, his hair neatly combed but shaggy in the back. Pipe ashes had burned several holes in his shirt and tie.
When he was done with the pipe he said, “I have to tell you I don’t like a single bit of this.”
“I know what you have to tell me, David.”
“A figure of speech. I am serious, Warren. I disapprove.”
“It’s not your approval I require, David.”
“Merely my cooperation.”
“I rather prefer acquiescence.”
“And I in turn could prefer a phrase like accessory before the fact. Cooperation seemed a neutral meeting place. You require my cooperation. I don’t see how I can give it.”
“Will it work, David?”
The psychiatrist made a tent of his fingertips. “Yes, of course it will work,” he said at length. “Your objective is so easily attained. It is criminally easy.” He smiled without humor. “What you are planning to do, that too is criminal.”
“It was criminal for us to make love, David.”
“You must know that there is a limit to what you can draw from that particular account.”
“I wasn’t doing that. I was merely putting the concept of criminality into some perspective.”
“And perhaps telling me at the same time that I am not a stickler for the law?”
“You’ve always been too clever for me, David.”
“Oh? And for so many years I’ve thought it was the other way around. Let it go. I grant that laws do not demand devotion. Laws are one thing. Ethics another.”
Warren rolled his eyes.
“I am not scoring debating points, my good friend. I take ethics seriously.”
“I’m not asking you to violate them.”
“But that is precisely what—”
“Merely to bend them.”
“I am afraid they are not that flexible.”
“Oh?” He noted that he’d unconsciously given the word the same inflection Loewenstein used. “Bend them and they snap?”
“I am afraid so.”
“David, there is no place for ethics in relations between friends. Don’t look at me like that. You know it’s true. Ethics exist to codify behavior between persons who are otherwise not obligated to one another. And I am not asking you to violate the Hippocratic oath. I am merely—what is it?”
“I was remembering the language of the oath. Let me think a moment. You know, I believe you are correct.”
“I know I am. I read the oath last night after I spoke with you.”
He went on, making points, countering objections, taking more time than he wanted to take. The psychiatric liked to take arguments apart with the same thoroughness with which he cleaned his pipes.
Finally Warren broke in. “David, let’s shorten this. There’s only one question that applies. Is there another way of doing what has to be done?”
“Speaking as a psychiatrist—”
“No. Speak as yourself.”
“I am a psychiatrist. It’s difficult not to speak as one.”
“It’s easier if you don’t attach that preface to your speech.”
“Hell. Shit. I could commit her.”
“With no