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“And going off at somewhat of a tangent, Dr. Payne feels that your interest in so many members of the opposite sex is really a manifestation of your need to prove your manhood, carnally. And that, of course, is another proof, she feels, that you doubt your own manhood.”

“And all this time, I thought she was my friend.”

“She spoke to me as one physician to another. Give her that much, Matt. This was not idle gossip.”

“What else did she have to say?”

“You next began to prove your manhood by becoming a detective, and then a sergeant, in the latter case studying obsessively because it was obsessively so important to you that you do well-preferably better than anyone else- on the examination.”

“Anything else?”

“You told her, I think, that you were having nightmares about what happened in Doylestown?”

/> “And ten seconds after I did, I realized it was a mistake.”

“You ever have them about the other shootings, Matt?”

“What the hell, the cow’s out of the barn. Yeah. Most of them are about Doylestown, but every once in a while I have one about the guy who tried to run me down in the van, and now I suppose I’ll have them about the guy I just shot outside La Famiglia.”

“You said, ‘The guy in the van, the guy I just shot.’ But ‘Doylestown’?”

“I didn’t shoot anybody in Doylestown,” Matt said. “The guy we were after shot the girl who took us to him.”

“That’s all she was to you?”

Matt thought that over, then shrugged.

“No. I thought I was in love with her. I had to prove my manhood, I guess.”

Dr. Stein grunted.

“Amy thinks that your weeping over the girl in Doylestown was the first manifestation of your impending, uncontrollable psychological problems, and she feels the nightmares tend to confirm that theory.”

Matt looked at him but didn’t reply.

“You then were promoted to sergeant, and given your choice of assignment, and chose Homicide, primarily because Homicide is considered the ne plus ultra of warrior assignments in the police department.”

Matt shook his head.

“The warriors-Amy’s term-are Highway, the Bomb Squad… not Homicide,” he said.

Dr. Stein shrugged but did not respond directly.

“Where you were immediately plunged into things beyond your capacity to deal with,” he went on, “and to which you applied all of your best efforts. That, she believes, would have, so to speak, pushed you over the edge in and of itself, but then you became involved in this last incident, two nights ago, and that finally produced the inevitable result. You experienced an emotional meltdown, so to speak.”

“Well, I guess she’s got my number, doesn’t she?”

“She believes she has correctly assessed the situation.”

“And what does my all-wise sister think I should do about it?”

“That’s pretty clear to her too. She thinks you should face who you really are, and that done, take the appropriate action, which would be for you to resign from the police force, go back to law school, and assume a more suitable life for someone with your psychological makeup.”

“And you agree, right?”

“I didn’t say that. Are you interested in what I think?”

“Yes, of course I am.”