The Tower

Needing to hear Allander's voice, Jade switched back to the psychology audiotapes. In the next hour, his pen never stopped tapping against his knee, even to take notes. Finally, in the sixteenth tape, his suspicions were confirmed, when in another momentary lapse, Allander's true voice shone through. There'd been a different interviewing psychologist on that tape, one who was much more aggressive.

For the first ten minutes, Allander didn't respond to any questions. The psychologist started going through material from old interviews to try to goad Allander into speaking.

Jade, who had almost fallen asleep during the last three tapes, leaned forward, suddenly excited. He knew Allander was one to take a challenge. He'd already proved that.

The psychologist spoke loudly, an edge of sarcasm in his voice. "So let me get this straight, Atlasia. You're the holder of human truth. You know the foibles of the human heart, its yearnings, its errors, its desires. And since you know them so intimately, you're not afraid to act on them." He paused dramatically. With interviews, timing was everything, Jade thought. "What makes you so special?" the psychologist continued. "Why should you know any more than I?"

"Any more than you?" Allander sneered, rising to the bait. "You're a personified superego, a walking shadow that's run out of gas. Compare you to me. Hyperion to a satyr. I've lived through more than you can dream. I've lived the fantasies. I'm the only one to do it without a Greek wrap and I don't need any forks for my eyes. Try checking that at the door, Doctor. Let that roll around on your back for a while."

Then he was silent. Just like last time-one outburst and back to silence or dispassionate interaction.

But that one lapse was all Jade needed. The Greek wrap indicated Oedipus. Allander must have raped his mother. He had raped Darby. That's why Thomas was so unforgiving when Darby spoke compassionately about her son. Allander had literally fulfilled part of the Oedipal complex.

Jade thought back to the books he'd read on Freud. Freud used the Oedipal myth as the basis for his theory of development. Every boy desires his mother and wants to kill his father. Once the father is dead, the boy can fully possess his mother. Boys must learn to sublimate into other avenues, to break the fantasy in order to live in reality.

But Allander wasn't about sublimation. "What I carve, I'll carve in flesh," he'd said. "What I paint, I'll paint in blood." His reality was fantasy-he'd alluded to this many times. Others sublimate because they are scared of their fantasies. Oedipus put out his eyes when he realized that he'd killed his father and slept with his mother. But Allander wasn't scared to face his fantasy, to recognize it as a part of himself. I don't need any forks for my eyes. He'd already acted on part of it, but he was a perfectionist. He needed to finish the job.

Jade thought about the fact that Allander hadn't molested the children in the house he'd broken into. The children weren't enough of a challenge anymore. He was after a challenge ages old, a challenge that he thought fundamental to all humans. All humans had the yearning, none the courage to act on it. Except him. Except Allander Atlasia.

And though he had stripped her, Allander hadn't raped the mother at the first house, a fact that pointed to his sexual insecurity. Maybe something had gone wrong when Allander tried to rape his mother. Maybe he couldn't go through with it, maybe he was impotent. Whatever it was, something had happened that he was trying to fix after all these years. He was building up his courage for the second round.

And Jade knew right where he was headed.

He picked up the phone and called Dr. Yung. The secretary put him on hold. Jade's knee bounced up and down as he waited.

"Mr. Marlow, I'm so glad you called," Dr. Yung said when he finally picked up. "I was about to call you. I went through some of the materials again and I think I came up with something."

"Go ahead," Jade said.

"On the tape you left with me, he said that Dr. Schlomo-whom you identified as Freud-'just never should have backed off.' I didn't give this much thought at first, but then I went back to it. Freud initially thought the sexual content of his patients' dreams was based in reality, that many of them really had sexual interactions with their opposite-sex parents. But then he switched his position and posited that these thoughts were just fantasies, just wishes.

"I think that's what Allander meant by 'he just never should have backed off.' He thinks Freud was right the first time. That these sexual thoughts are the reality, not the fantasy. Which means he doesn't think you outgrow them."

"But you can act them out."

"Exactly. Now if he's ready to take on the Oedipal complex, we could have a dead father and a raped mother on our hands soon. Or on your hands, I should say."