How does that Make you Feel?

At four o'clock on Thursday afternoon, Peter Finney rushed past the beautiful receptionist in the waiting room and burst into Dr. Eyck's teak-paneled Hollywood office. There, seated behind his free-form, polished desk, beneath the Picasso sketch, to the right of the Giacometti sculpture, was Dr. Eyck.

"You bastard," Finney said. "You stinking, rotting bastard."

If Dr. Eyck was surprised, he gave no indication. He glanced at his watch and said mildly, "You're early today, Peter. Is something troubling you?"

"You're goddamned right," Finney said. "You're goddamned right, you slimy, crud-coated Kraut."

Dr. Eyck stroked his goatee thoughtfully and nodded toward the black morocco couch. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Hell, no," Finney said, kicking the couch. "I'm tired of talking. I'm tired of pouring out my heart to you at a hundred bucks an (continued on page 156) How does that Make you feel? (continued from page 115)hour—one hundred shiny crisp ones—when all the time you and Gloria...."

His voice trailed off. He clenched his fists.

"Sit down," Dr. Eyck said calmly. "You are agitated."

"Agitated, hell. How do you expect me to be, you leprous creep?"

"I don't know the answer to that yet," Dr. Eyck said. "Shall we find out?"

"There's nothing to find out," Finney said. "I've already found out everything. Tuesday and Thursday nights at El Greco, when my so-called wife is attending her so-called bridge game. The back booth. At El Greco. Right?"

"Sit down," Dr. Eyck said, his voice soothing. "Calm yourself."

"I don't want to calm myself."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to kill you," Finney said, reaching into his pocket and taking out the gun. It was a short, stubby black automatic.

"How long," said Dr. Eyck, "have you wanted to kill me?"

"Since yesterday," Finney said. "Since yesterday at seven o'clock, precisely."

"How is that?"

"Yesterday, at seven o'clock precisely, I found out."

"You found out," Dr. Eyck repeated.

"Yes, you bearded bullshitter. I found out what my wife was doing on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I should have guessed before, of course. Gloria's passions don't really include bridge; she's not the type. But you know all that, you scabrous scum."

"Tell me exactly what happened," Dr. Eyck said reasonably.

"Yesterday," Peter Finney said, "we ran late on the set of Peter and George. We were doing interiors, and the lightman has hepatitis, and the replacement didn't know the system. Everything was slow; the schedule was shot to hell. So I didn't get off the lot until nearly seven that night."

"How did it make you feel to get off later than usual?"

"It made me mad," Peter said. "The damned lightman, and his damned hepatitis, screwing everything up. They can't keep me late. I'm the star of the series."

"Go on," Dr. Eyck said.

"So," Peter said, sitting down on the couch and placing the gun beside him, "when I got through, it was late, and I was tired. George suggested that we have a quick one. I wanted to get home, because Gloria worries about me on the freeways—after my seventh car accident, you know—but George insisted, so we went for a quick one. At El Greco, on Wilshire and Lewis. Across the street from Dropsy's. But you know where it is, you rare-roasted turd."

"Why do you say that?" Dr. Eyck asked.

"Because, when we got into the bar at El Greco, and we're having a quick one, I hear the bartender talking to some out-of-towners. Talking up the stars who come in there. Steve McQueen and Paul Newman and Angie Dickinson. The bartender is giving the hicks the low-down. And they're lapping it up and buying more drinks."

"More drinks," Dr. Eyck repeated. It was a trick he had, repeating the last part of a sentence.

"Yes, you son of a skunk and a toad. More drinks. And the bartender keeps talking. And finally, he mentions that even Gloria Starr comes into El Greco, but only on Tuesday and Thursday nights. That's when I begin to listen seriously."

"Seriously."

"Yes, I'm all ears, sitting there curled over my vodka gibson with the bartender jabbering on about Gloria Starr and how beautiful she is, how lovely and desirable, and a nice person under it all. And he never mentions her husband."

"How did that make you feel?"

"Mad," Peter Finney said, lying back on the couch and placing the gun on his stomach. "Very mad. I mean, shit, Gloria hasn't done anything—anything—for a year and a half, and the last thing she did was Dawn Beach Party, which was hardly box-office boffo, and not your sterling artistic success, and there I am with the lead in the biggest tube series going, bar none, the biggest comedy, the Nielsen killer, Peter and George, and there's the two of us—me, Peter, and George sitting next to me—we're loved by forty-two-point-one percent every week, and this creep never even heard of us."

"You resented the bartender?"

"I didn't resent him. I hated his guts, is all."

"Hated his guts."

"Damned right," Peter said. "There he is, talking about Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. What marvelous actors they are. When everybody knows they can't act, they just run around on motorcycles and make films with their shirts off and bat their piercing blue eyes at the cameras and that's supposed to make them great actors. That's supposed to make them sexy. And they have these sexy wives."

"Sexy wives," Dr. Eyck repeated.

"Yeah," Peter Finney said. "Sexy wives."

"What does that make you think of?"

"Well, look, I've got a sexy wife, too. Gloria Starr. Nothing sexier. A thirty-eight-D, a real thirty-eight-D, not your press agent's thirty-eight-D; I mean, you have to admit, Gloria is really sexy."

"How does that make you feel?"

"Fine," Peter Finney said, "until I heard the bartender explain that she came into El Greco on Tuesday and Thursday nights with a fat guy who had a goatee, you bloated bag of gas. I felt just fine until then."

He sat up on the couch and gripped the revolver carefully in his right hand.

"I don't follow you," Dr. Eyck said, frowning. He was ignoring the gun.

"You follow me fine, you two-faced crud."

"Do you mean that you identified with me when the bartender mentioned a fat man with a goatee?"

"I didn't identify with anybody," Finney said. "I just thought to myself, who do I know that is a true-blue, twenty-four-carat, crap-plated bastard? And fat, and affects a goatee?"

Dr. Eyck sat back in his chair and nodded. "And what did you decide?"

"You," Finney said. "I decided it was you."

"Do you think that was a reasonable decision?" Dr. Eyck asked reasonably.

"Yes."

"And what did you do?"

"I said to George, 'I'm going to kill the creepy son of a bitch.' "

"How did it make you feel to express your hostility toward me?"

"Not as good," Finney said, "as I'll feel when I put a bullet through your fat gut."

"Why," Dr. Eyck asked curiously, "do you say I am fat?"

"Because you are. Look at you: that big, self-satisfied Kraut paunch hanging out...."

"Have you always considered me fat?"

"No. I don't think I ever noticed it until now. I never paid any attention. But now I see clearly—a big, fat, greasy cuckolder."

"Then your perception of me has recently changed?" Dr. Eyck said.

"You're goddamned right it has, you sulphurous slob."

"In fact," Dr. Eyck said, "my family name is Dutch, rather than what you refer to as 'Kraut,' and I am not fat. I weigh only two hundred pounds and am more than six feet tall. I am stocky, but not what most people would call fat. That is why you never thought of me as fat before."

"Wrong," Peter Finney said. "I never thought of you as fat before because I never looked at you before, you hairy lecherous leech."

"Los Angeles," Dr. Eyck continued, "is a city of more than two million persons. The last report I read stated that twenty percent of males were strikingly obese. And you know that there are many fat men in this city with beards. You can name several stars yourself."

"That doesn't matter," Peter said.

"Why?"

"Because you're the one."

Dr. Eyck sighed patiently. "No, Peter; you are deluding yourself. You are saying that because you would like to think it is true. Isn't that so?"

"I know it's true," Finney said.

Dr. Eyck shook his head. "Last night," he said, "you entered a bar in an irritable mood. Your pride was then wounded by the remarks of the bartender. But then, when this same bartender, who is, by your own admission, uninformed—when this same man mentions your wife and her alleged rendezvous with a mysterious fat man with a beard, you immediately associate this man with your analyst. Why?"

"Because you're the one," Finney said stubbornly, but he put the gun down.

"When you first heard the bartender talking of your wife, did anyone else come to mind? Any other possibilities?"

Finney bit his lip. "No," he admitted.

"You immediately assumed the bartender was referring to me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Finney hesitated. "I don't know."

"Did you call the bartender over and ask him for more details? Did you question him more fully?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I didn't want to," Finney said.

"How is that?"

"I didn't think it was necessary," Finney said slowly.

"But surely this was a matter of concern to you. You would want more information."

"When he made the remark, it just seemed immediately evident to me. Very clear. I knew exactly who he was talking about. At least I thought I did."

"And now?"

"Well, now. I'm not so sure."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, when I first thought of you, I also thought of our last session, where we had been discussing my mother and my difficulties in relating to people in a warm way. Discussing Gloria and my insecurity concerning her."

"Why did you recall this?"

"I don't know."

"You mean you don't want to know."

Finney hung his head, looking miserable. He said nothing.

"In fact," Dr. Eyck continued, "we were discussing your insecurity in relation to sexual matters, isn't that right? So that when you heard a rumor concerning your wife's infidelity, you felt threatened. You were anxious and you associated with your last period of anxiety, which was discussing sexual matters with me."

"I guess so," Finney said.

"So in your anxiety, you became aggressive, angry, hostile. You fantasized murder."

"Yes."

"But you never really intended to kill me, did you, Peter? It was just a fantasy."

"Yes, I guess so."

"Do you understand why?"

Finney frowned, thinking hard. "I guess," he said, "I was projecting. When I sat in that bar and heard that creep talking about Gloria, I was humiliated. I wanted to kill myself, I was so humiliated, but I projected and decided I wanted to kill you."

Dr. Eyck nodded wisely. "I think that is a very good insight, Peter. How does that make you feel?"

Finney sighed and relaxed. His muscles loosened and he lay back on the couch, breathing easily. "I feel better now." he said.

"Good. Do you want to talk more about it?"

"No," Finney said. "Let's talk about something else."

"Your mother?"

"All right," Finney said. "My mother."

• • •

At the end of the hour, Peter Finney shook hands pleasantly with Dr. Eyck, apologized for bursting in on him and went out past the beautiful receptionist. Alone, Dr. Eyck sat at his desk, brooding and stroking his goatee. Then he made a telephone call, dialing the number without looking it up. When the woman answered, he said, "Darling, we had better change plans."

"Why?" Gloria Starr said.

"Peter was just here. He knows you're meeting someone at El Greco."

"Does he suspect—"

"Me? Yes. But I took care of that. Everything is fine now."

"What should we do?"

"Wait a week," Dr. Eyck said. "Then we'll try L'Estragon. Do you know it?"

"I can find it, lover," she said in a low voice.

"A week from Tuesday, then. At the usual time."

"All right," she said.

When Dr. Eyck had hung up, he looked over and saw Peter Finney standing just inside the door. Peter Finney looked very grim, definitely angry, almost certainly homicidal. He had his hand in his jacket pocket, clutching the gun.

"Peter," he said, "you mustn't jump to conclusions. I swear that—"

Peter Finney grinned. "I just wanted to say," he said, "that I'll be in for my regular appointment Friday at four-thirty."

Dr. Eyck was stunned. He struggled for composure.

"Is that all right?" Finney asked innocently. "You look upset."

"No... no, it's fine."

"You see," Finney smiled, "I would hate to desert you now."

"How do you mean?"

"You'll need the money."

"Money?"

"Yes. My hundred dollars an hour. You'll need that, and a lot more."

"I don't understand."

"It's quite simple," Finney said. "Why do you think I have been filling your delicate ears with stories of Gloria for the past six months? Why do you think I have described in glowing, meticulous detail her bedroom abilities? Why do you think I have concentrated on my impotence and her frustration?"

"Those are the things that bother you," Dr. Eyck said.

"What bothers me," Finney said, "is that the stupid broad isn't working and is draining me—draining me—at the rate of two thousand a week for her clothes and cars and crap. I've hit it rich with this series and she's been bleeding me to the bone. I've never liked Gloria. She is a stupid, selfish, petty, ignorant woman."

"But, Peter—"

"My only problem." Finney said, taking the gun from his pocket, "was divorcing her. I'm making a lot of money, a hell of a lot of money, and she could sue for a whopping alimony. And she'd never remarry: Who in his right mind would marry the unemployed star of Dawn Beach Party? So you see. I had to arrange an affair. Another man. That was where you came in."

"Peter, this is all—"

"My lawyers knew an excellent and discreet detective agency. They have everything, including infrared pictures. Quite the latest stuff. You'll pardon me if I have to name you in the divorce proceedings, but it's worth a great deal of money to me."

"Peter—"

"The trouble was," Finney continued, waving the gun at Dr. Eyck, "that we needed something extra. That final touch, the proper witness. Someone who would be attractive and sympathetic on the stand. And someone related, in some way, to the situation. The obvious answer was, of course, your delightful receptionist, Miss Patrick. Miss Patrick and I have been seeing each other for some weeks now. She and I decided that a girl in her position couldn't help but overhear her employer's telephone conversations from time to time. Quite by accident, you understand."

"Peter, this is all quite—"

"So she listened in," Finney continued. "For the past two weeks. But you were careful, you never called Gloria from the office. You were being very cagey. So Miss Patrick and I decided to arrange something. A little something to spur you into action."

Dr. Eyck sat back in his chair, shaking his head slowly.

"So you see," Finney said, "that's how it is."

He raised the gun and fired three rounds at Dr. Eyck. The room was filled with thick acrid smoke, and it was a moment before Dr. Eyck realized that he hadn't been hit; the gun was filled with blanks.

Peter Finney laughed.

"There, now," he said, as Dr. Eyck coughed in the smoke. "How does that make you feel?"