Scott Sherman - First You Fall

“Hey,” he said, opening the door. Then, “what happened?” He touched my cheek, gently.

I went in and lied again about the stranger in the street.

“That’s not true, is it?”

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“Because I think you’ve gotten yourself involved in something very dangerous.”

I told him about the guy in the hotel. “I thought it might be related to the Harringtons, but I didn’t want to be paranoid.”

“I don’t think you can be too paranoid right now,” he said. “Let me show you.”

He brought me to his office. It was like walking into a super hightech computer store. LCD screens hung from the wal s and were perched on tables, where their displays were constantly flashing and updating. He took me to a large desk where three widescreen displays flanked an ergonomic keyboard. It was al very Minority Report.

“So, what do you run,” I asked, trying to sound smart, “Windows or Mac?”

Marc looked at me as if I’d asked if he slept with sheep.

“I run my own operating system,” he said. “Wrote it in high school.”

“Natch.”

Marc directed me to sit in the futuristic desk chair that seemed to mold itself to my body. He stood behind me, using a wireless mouse to run the computer.

“I ran that data mining program I told you about. It basical y looked for connections between the information you gave me that other investigations may have missed. Look at this.”

On the screen furthest to the left, he cal ed up the list of gay suicide victims that Tony had given me.

“You know who these are, right?” he asked. I nodded.

On the right hand screen he brought up what looked like the internal databases of The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. He pul ed up a file titled “Clientbase.”

“You got into their system?” I asked.

“I’ve gotten into the Pentagon,” Marc said. “This was nothing. Watch.”

He pressed a button and the information from the two side screens seemed to melt and merge into the middle screen. In a few seconds, the names of the suicide victims were on the middle screen, flashing in red, with the word “match” listed next to each one.

“What does this mean?” I asked.

“Al of the men who committed suicide were clients of Michael Harrington’s.”

Holy shit.

“So,” I said, “not only doesn’t his ‘reparative’ therapy work, but it drives his clients to kil themselves.”

“It may be worse than that.” Michael pressed more buttons. On the left screen a New York State Office of Taxation Web site popped up. Something about the Office of Probate. On the right, the financial records of The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy appeared.

Again, the two side screens overlapped on the middle screen. When they were done, the same names were listed on the middle screen, but this time, for al but one of the men, the word “match” was replaced by numbers: 150,000; 75,000; 225,000; 50,000; etc.

“What are those numbers?” I asked?

“Bequests,” Michael answered.

To who?

“To The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. Almost al of the men who kil ed themselves left sizable donations to the Center in their wil s.”

A wave of dizziness passed over me.

“He’s kil ing them,” I whispered.

“I thought they kil ed themselves,” Marc said.

“Yes but no,” I said. “I think he’s directing them to do it. Think about it-his ‘therapy’ involves intensive hypnosis. It teaches his clients to hate their own sexuality. It makes them feel ashamed and sick.

“That might be enough to make some of them suicidal. Michael sees this. But if the client is sufficiently wel off, and maybe if he’s someone with no friends or family who are likely to ask too many questions, Michael doesn’t do anything to help him.

Instead, maybe Michael gives him hypnotic suggestions that he needs to provide more support for the Center. Maybe even provide for it after his death. Then, if the client offs himself, wel, who’s the wiser?

“Or maybe Michael even encourages the client to kil himself once he updates his wil. Who knows how much control over his clients he has?”

Marc looked even paler than usual. “He’s programming them.”

“Yes.”

Marc looked around the office. “But people aren’t computers. You can’t control them to that extent.”

“Maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe he’s tried it with fifty clients, but it’s only worked with these. That would stil be enough to put…” I scanned the list,

“over a mil ion dol ars into his bank account.”

Marc sat down. “Wow. This is heavy.”

He wasn’t used to the real world intruding on his virtual existence.

“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

Marc said, “I could forward al this to the authorities. I could do it anonymously. When they see what he’s doing…”

“It would mean nothing,” I said. “There’s no proof.

Michael could make the case that of course some of his clients kil themselves-they come to him because they’re unhappy to begin with, right? He gives them help and they grateful y provide for the Center in their wil s. Sadly, despite his best efforts, they stil wind up kil ing themselves. Who’s to say otherwise?”

“So, let’s send it to the press instead.”

“Same problem. They’re not going to risk a libel case based on coincidences.”

Marc’s eyes narrowed. “Then, let’s take him down ourselves. I can do it, you know. Erase his bank accounts. Foreclose on his house. I could download so much child pornography onto his computer that he’d be in jail for the next hundred years.”

Now, that was tempting. I knew there was a reason I liked Marc.

“I’d need to prove it to myself, first,” I said. “I could be wrong.”

“How can you prove it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Not yet.”

Marc put his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t do anything crazy. And don’t go near him again.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I’m kind of scared now.”

“You should be.” Marc stroked the back of my neck.

Marc’s touch was just reassuring enough to make me think how truly over my head I was. I gave a little shiver and then couldn’t stop. Al of a sudden, my teeth were chattering and I felt as if the temperature had dropped a hundred degrees. I started to shake.

“Hey,” Marc said, dropping to his knees, “hey.”

He put his arms around me and held me through my mini anxiety attack. “It’s going to be OK,” he said,

“nothing’s going to hurt you.”

“It feels safe here,” I told him, warming in his embrace.

“I know,” said Marc, “why do you think I never leave?”

My hero, the agoraphobe.

I spent the night with Marc. We didn’t have sex.

He just held me and I feel into a sleep deep enough to pass for a coma. I woke to the sound of him padding around the kitchen. The smel of baked goods got me out of bed. It was 10:00.

I was stil wearing my clothing from the day before.

I peed, washed up, put some of his toothpaste on my finger and ran it over my teeth, then joined him.

This time, there was only one cup from Starbucks waiting for me. Chai tea. I thought it was nice he remembered.

However, the counter was also home to every kind of bagel, croissant, muffin, and Danish known to man.

“Let me guess,” I said, “you didn’t know what I wanted.”

“I figured you’d like a choice,” he admitted.

I picked up a croissant. “Sorry I wigged out on you last night.”

“No problem.” He tousled my hair. “It was nice having you in my bed.”

I pointed to the bruise on my cheek. “I couldn’t bear to look in the mirror. How bad is it?”