A Fatal Debt by John Gapper

Author:John Gapper
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780345527912
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-06-25T22:00:00+00:00

16

Her footsteps announced her identity from a long way away. Most people in the place, even the doctors, tended to shuffle, but Lauren’s heels clicked along the corridor. She rapped loudly on the door with none of the tentativeness of my neurotic patients.

It had been easy to look Lauren up after she’d called, to find her photograph, her age—the same as mine—her magna cum laude education, and her list of jobs. High school in Beverly Hills, then Yale, then a job with a consulting company, then Harvard for an MBA, then to Seligman Brothers and a rapid rise from analyst to co-head of the Financial Institutions Group. I thought of Felix’s summary of Underwood’s job as we sat in the Gulfstream: A banker who advises other bankers. Go figure.

A photograph on her new bank’s website showed a woman with dark hair that curled around her ears before straightening, as if coming to its senses, and an unflinching gaze. There were two other photos, one at a fund-raiser in the city and another at a party in Southampton with a group of blue-blazered men. She’s got nice legs under that dress, I had thought, but the image hadn’t done her justice. She wore a silk blouse and an expensive-looking pantsuit that demurely covered the legs I’d noted. In person, her sleekness lit up the room.

“Dr. Cowper? I’m Lauren,” she said.

“Come in, Ms. Faulkner.”

Since she’d called, I’d been wondering why she’d tracked me down. Psychs are wired not to believe in coincidence. We quiz patients who claim they missed a train they wanted to catch or happened to meet a friend in the street. Deep down, we think, it was deliberate. The idea that Harry’s lover had selected me by sheer chance was ridiculous. I’d been attacked on the evening I’d been told about Lauren, and the man whose house she’d been observed visiting was in jail, accused of murder. This wasn’t a coincidence.

“Where should I sit?” Lauren said, glancing around the room. “I haven’t done this before, believe it or not. I’m the only one of my girlfriends who hasn’t. Man trouble, money, the usual things.”

Her voice was low and melodic and her tone unworried, suggesting our meeting was perfectly ordinary.

I indicated my patients’ chair. “Let’s see if I can help you.”

“I’m sure you can,” she said, as if it would be a waste of effort to try to dissuade her. She crossed her long legs and placed her black leather bag on the floor. She was more finely groomed than women I knew—so polished that she looked as though she wore a mask. Her red lipstick matched the soles of her Christian Louboutin shoes, and her eyebrows were exactly shaped.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

She paused for a few seconds, and I saw her assessing me. Both of us knew the answer to the question, but she avoided it.

“You’re on a list, aren’t you? Top doctors in New York,” she said.

I knew that New York magazine list, and I knew I wasn’t on it.

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