Sentinel!Neal 18
The fallout of the sociopath thing...this may go on a little longer than it really has to, and focuses more on Blair anthropologizing rather than on the Neal/Peter dynamics. Dunno. I'm not 100% happy with it, but there are some parts I like, and I'm tired of messing with it, so here it is! The next chapter, when I write it, will have to do with El's arrival in Cascade, so that should be fun.
Peter sat stunned as Neal stormed out of the party. As an FBI Agent, having some blowhard come up to him a party spewing pop-psych theories about the latest high-profile case was a professional hazard, like a doctor always being asked to identify people’s rashes. He’d thought this one was different only because of the minefield that was the entire subject of Kate. Hardwick didn’t know to tread lightly around it, and probably wouldn’t have even if he had known-and after Neal arrived, Peter hadn’t known whether shutting him up, and thus making an issue of it, would be worse than letting him keep blathering.
So Hardwick’s focusing on Adler had seemed like a good thing. Peter even wondered if he might be right, much like a stopped clock that’s right twice a day, about Adler’s presumed sociopathy. Adler’s sailing away while Kate drowned, or appeared to drown, had struck all of the Cascade PD Sentinels as thoroughly depraved. Somehow, Peter had failed to realize that everything Hardwick was willing to say about Adler-knowing only the two facts that he was a Sentinel and had been involved in a museum robbery-he would presumably also be willing to say about Neal.
Neal, clearly, had been fully aware of that fact. As had Sandburg, it seemed-he had once again leapt to Neal’s rescue while Peter did absolutely nothing.
“Bob, you priceless ass,” said Professor Margrave.
“Funny thing about sociopaths,” Hardwick said, “they’re often very quick to take offense.” He shrugged, as if to say, what can you do?
“He’s not a sociopath, you fucking asshole,” Peter said.
“You should probably tell him that,” Sandburg said.
“I will,” Peter said. It wasn’t going to be an easy conversation to have, but they’d have to have it.
Sandburg stood up. “Can I see you over here for a minute?”
Peter joined him in a quiet corner. “What?”
“I realize you’re new to being a Guide and all, but don’t you think you should go talk to him sometime before the slow heat-death of the universe?”
Knowing Sandburg a little better now, Peter was able to interpret what he meant. “You think I should go after him?”
“Yes.”
“He said he didn’t want to talk about it right now,” Peter said uncertainly.
“Right, that’s one of those things you’re not supposed to take literally.” Sandburg shook his head. “Come on.” Several people tried to catch Sandburg’s attention on their way out, but he ignored them. Outside, he started off in the direction of the Clinic and cottages. “You guys didn’t drive, did you?”
“No.”
“Is there anywhere else he might be going, other than home?”
“I can check where he is,” Peter said, taking out his phone and bringing up the tracking anklet app. Neal was about three blocks ahead of them, and moving fast. He showed Sandburg the screen.
“Okay, that’s kind of…Orwellian,” he said. “But handy, I suppose.”
Peter thought about pointing out all the good reasons he had to be able to tell where Neal was at any moment-the first one being, so he’d know if he was doing anything illegal, the second, so that he could give him an alibi if he hadn’t-but instead, just shook his head and started walking.
Even though he was walking fast enough to lose Sandburg, Peter didn’t actually catch up to Neal until they were nearly to the cottage. When he did, Peter tried to slip the phone into his pocket before Neal saw it, but he didn’t quite succeed.
“I’m going home, Peter, like I said. You don’t have to check up on me.”
“I’m not. I thought we should talk.”
“Great.” Neal resumed walking.
“Neal, that guy was an asshole. You’re obviously not a sociopath.”
“How would you know?” Neal asked, without looking at him.
“Because I know you. You’re-you’re not like that. You care about Kate, and June, and that weird guy who sends you packages, and--” And me, Peter thought, but couldn’t quite say. “Hardwick doesn’t know what he’s talking about-Sandburg and that other professor both know he was talking out his ass.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t know me, either.”
Were they seriously having an argument about whether or not Neal was a sociopath-with Neal taking the “pro” side? “You’re-dramatizing, just like that ‘ruining my life’ thing. Yeah, you’re not the…most ethical person in the world; that doesn’t make you a sociopath. Settle down.”
In answer, Neal took out his own phone and brought up the web browser. “Well, you tell me if any of this sounds familiar. ‘One. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest. Two. Deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for profit or pleasure.’ Three, four, and five, I’m okay on…’Six. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior. Seven. Lack of remorse.’ That’s the official definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder, which is what they’re calling sociopathy these days.”
It wasn’t lost on Peter that all four of the things Neal had just mentioned were things Peter had, specifically and repeatedly, criticized him for. The one about irresponsibility might be arguable if Peter wanted to claim that a four-year crime spree counted as ‘consistent work behavior,’ but he had a feeling that if he tried, Neal would remind him of all the times he’d insisted that nothing Neal did prior to his work release counted as a job. “Don’t be stupid,” Peter said, realizing as he said it that this was not the El-approved response to the situation. He should try to be understanding, no matter how idiotic Neal was being.
“Great, now I’m stupid and a sociopath. Glad to hear it.”
“Oh, please,” Peter said. “Look up any disease on the internet, and you can convince yourself you have it.” True, but probably still not understanding enough.
“This isn’t Psych 101 syndrome.” They had reached their cottage; Neal sat on one of the porch chairs, not looking at Peter, even when Peter sat down in the other chair next to him. “He said-some Sentinels are born wrong.”
“That could be as full of shit as everything else he said, and even if it’s not, there’s no evidence you’re one of them.” All right; he was getting a little warmer there.
“My dad was,” Neal said.
Peter’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level as he wondered what Neal’s father had done to him.
“He was a Sentinel, and a cop. My mother always told me he died in a shootout with some drug dealers when I was five. When I was a teenager, his Guide told me the truth. There was a shootout-between a Latino gang and the Italians my dad was working for. He was shot, but he didn’t die; he flipped on the Mob and went into witness protection. Couldn’t even pick a side and stick with it; whoever made him a better offer, that’s who’s side he was on.”
Peter tried to make sense of this information. “You’re getting this, at best, third-hand,” he pointed out. “Sometimes, in an undercover operation, things get…messy.”
“He wasn’t undercover; he was crooked. Ellen-his Guide-said she thinks he started out just tipping the Mob guys off about where there was going to be a sting so they could stay out of the way, things like that. Then he started manipulating evidence, either to clear them or to incriminate their rivals. By the end he was killing their rivals and saying they were armed and resisting arrest. She had no idea at the time,” he added. “They pieced all this together later, after he ‘died.’ I grew up hearing he killed eight bad guys-and I’m sure they were bad guys, but he murdered them.”
“Even if he did,” Peter said, “you’re not him.”
“Yeah, I’m just his son. I got the senses from him. What else did I get?”
“Not a propensity for murdering drug dealers,” Peter said. “I’d have noticed that.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“No,” Peter agreed. “This is--” He stopped himself from saying insane. “I’m sorry about your dad.” That, he was pretty sure, was one right thing to say.
Neal shook his head. “Not really the point, Peter.”
“I can see how your dad being…I can see how that would rattle you.” Peter worried about ending up like his dad, even though, all told, that wouldn’t be so bad. “But you don’t have to be like him, and you aren’t, so--” Okay, he didn’t have a way to finish that sentence other than stop being stupid. “You’re fine.”
Neal, instead of answering, looked off into the darkness beyond the porch. “What do you want, Blair?”
“Um, we came to make sure you guys were okay,” Sandburg said, stepping into view.
“He did,” Ellison said, joining him. “I came to drag him away if you’d rather he minded his own business.”
Before Neal could send them away, Peter said, “If you think you can help convince Neal he’s not a sociopath, you’re welcome to try.”
Sandburg dug his elbow into Ellison’s side and bounced up onto the porch, hitching himself up onto the railing. “You’re not a sociopath. Bob’s a dick who doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he said as Ellison leaned against the post by the stairs.
“I already tried that,” Peter said. It was pretty clear, from what Neal had said about his father, that this was something he’d thought about before Hardwick’s tactless remarks.
“That’s okay,” Sandburg said. “I’ve got more. Shall I start with the personal perspective or the academic?”
“Dealer’s choice,” Peter said.
“Okay. First off, while I don’t believe anyone’s born evil, I’ve met more than my share of people who were…broken, that way. You can tell.”
“How many is more than your share?” Neal wanted to know.
“Two. Both of them tried to kill me, so there’s another clue right there. You’re not planning to try to kill me, are you?”
“No,” Neal said.
“Good. And another thing is, if you actually were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Struggling with moral choices, making bad ones and rationalizing them, making bad ones and knowing they’re bad ones, doesn’t make you a monster; it makes you human.”
“Sentinels are supposed to be different,” Neal pointed out, sounding unconvinced.
“Hardwick would agree with you,” Sandburg answered. “And to understand why he’s wrong, we have to back up and talk about some Guide Studies 101 stuff-really, social sciences 101. Constructivism versus essentialism. Constructivists believe that categories-gender, race, sexual orientation, for example-are social constructs. There may be some biological basis for them, and for Sentinels there obviously is, but what it means to be a Sentinel, or to be a man or a woman, or a white person or a black person, whatever, is shaped by societal forces. Essentialists believe that there is such a thing as a fixed Sentinel nature, or essence. Or female nature, black nature, et cetera. Hardwick’s about as hardcore an essentialist as you can be.”
“And you’re not, I take it,” Peter said.
“No, I’m about as far out on the other end of the spectrum,” Sandburg admitted. “Except I’m willing to adjust my position in light of evidence, which is not something I’ve ever noticed Bob doing. When I teach Guide Studies 101, at this point I usually have the kids start listing things that are popularly believed to be part of the essential nature of Sentinels-they’re usually physically adept, courageous, drawn to careers like the military and police. Then we unpack that one, talking about how it covers Sentinels’ supposed preference for hierarchical structures, for having clearly-defined friends and enemies, for being in a protective role, stuff like that. And then some wiseass in the back says, ‘But there are Sentinels like that.’ And I say, Yes, absolutely, there are. But there are also mundanes like that, and Sentinels that aren’t. Everything that’s considered part of the ‘Sentinel package’ in contemporary Western culture is part of the range of normal human variation. Sometimes we also talk about how it’s part of the Western masculinity package, too, but that’s not germane right now. The point is that Sentinels vary, just like everyone else. You know Angel, right?”
“Doctor Temas?” Neal said. “Yes. He’s…not exactly a typical Sentinel.”
“No, if you think there’s such a thing as a typical Sentinel, he’s definitely not it. But he’s just as much a Sentinel as Jim is, or you are.”
“Because he has heightened senses,” Peter said, remembering something Sandburg had said earlier, back at the party.
“Right. That’s the only real essential quality of a Sentinel. The rest of it--” He made a dismissive gesture. “Now, the next thing the wiseass in the back usually asks is, ‘Why does it matter if this stuff is innate or culturally determined?’ And my answer is usually pretty abstract, with all of the concrete examples coming from the civil rights movement, which as far as a Guide Studies freshman is concerned might as well be the dark ages. But, as I’ve just learned, one reason it matters in the 21st-century United States is because of the way we treat so called ‘rogue Sentinels.’ The idea of rogue Sentinels has been around for a long time-basically, if you think that Sentinels have an essential nature, and that it’s better than everyone else’s, which is what the list of ‘typical Sentinel traits’ boils down to, then the observable fact that Sentinels can be as flawed as everybody else cries out for some sort of extraordinary explanation, which is where you get your sociopathic rogue Sentinels from. The presumption is actually equally insulting to all Sentinels-it assumes that none of you are capable of moral choices, and just instinctively act in either pro-social or antisocial ways. Mundanes can have complex and varied reasons for choosing to become a police officer or a bank robber, but Sentinels are only acting out some kind of inborn, instinctive destiny. Total bullshit.”
“Sentinels do have instincts, though,” Peter pointed out. Everyone knew that, from the FBI human resources Sentinel liaison to Sentinels and Guides for Dummies, on up to Sandburg himself, who after all had indicated that his own Sentinel was territorial about crime scenes.
“Sure they do,” Sandburg agreed. “But so does everybody else. I did a really neat study on territorial instincts with a junior seminar a couple of years ago. We designed a survey to measure territorial responses-basically, a list of scenarios that might evoke a territorial response. I think they ranged from something like, someone goes into your office when you’re not there, sits in a guest chair, and waits for you-that was at the weak end, obviously-to finding someone you’ve never seen before in your life in your kitchen making a sandwich out of your food. Pretty much anybody would have a problem with that, right?” He shrugged, and didn’t wait for an answer. “The respondents were supposed to mark which items they’d have a problem with, and rate the strength of the response from one to five. The kids administered the survey to subjects-Sentinels, Guides, and mundanes-and put the responses on a scatter plot. That’s the kind of graph where you put a dot for each subject; we used different colors for Sentinels, Guides, and mundanes. The Sentinel dots were mostly clustered near the high end-the upper-right quadrant-but there was considerable variation, and there were plenty of mundane subjects in the same section of the plot. The strongest territorial response was a Sentinel, but there were several mundanes who were close, and the weakest response was also a Sentinel.”
“Pretty sure that was Angel,” Ellison put in.
“Yeah, so am I,” Sandburg said. “Anyway, it actually measured responses, not instincts, since all of the subjects were influenced by culture, but it shows that even when we’re talking about something that most people think of as pretty basic Sentinel behavior is highly varied, and overlaps with the full range of human responses. You see pretty much the same thing if you measure any of the other ‘typical Sentinel traits’-some clustering, but a lot of variation.”
“What about protective instincts?” Neal asked.
“Same thing. Sentinels do respond, without a lot of conscious thought, when they see a threat to someone whose safety they’re concerned about. But so does everybody else-you threaten somebody’s kid, spouse, or best friend, and they’re not going to have to stop and do a cost-benefit analysis about whether to respond to that threat or not. Exactly how they respond, and whether or not it’s an effective response, is a matter of individual psychology, experience, training, and societal expectation-and it’s exactly the same for Sentinels.”
“But for Sentinels, it doesn’t have to be their spouse or kid,” Neal pointed out. “They’re supposed to protect the whole tribe.”
“Right,” Sandburg said. “And there are plenty of other people who protect the whole tribe who aren’t Sentinels. You can say that those people, Sentinel or not, have stronger protective instincts than other people if you want to--don’t tell Hardwick I said so, but in a sense it doesn’t actually matter. To say that anyone has an innate, biological basis for feeling protective toward a whole country, or even a city like Cascade, is ridiculous. In the environment in which humans evolved, the ‘tribe’ was a group of about twenty to fifty individuals, mostly biological and affective kin. Social forces make it possible for us-for humans in general-to extend the way we feel about our immediate tribe to a city, country, or even the whole population of the planet, but that’s self-evidently cultural, not natural. And it’s generally a good thing when we do, but it’s not an instinctive response, and not doing that isn’t a sign that there’s something seriously wrong with you. Most people do, at one time or another.”
“There’s a difference between not feeling protective towards everybody and doing…bad things,” Neal said. “Hurting people.”
“You don’t hurt people,” Peter said. Neal’s crimes were all nonviolent; usually, his victims never even saw him.
“I don’t know about that,” Sandburg said. “I mean, you could make the case that stealing from people hurts them. And, socially, that’s a problem and you shouldn’t do it. But ‘protecting the tribe’ often means protecting it against other people-hurting them, taking their stuff if your tribe needs it more, or even just wants it. If you do believe that there’s such a thing as a Sentinel nature, there’s no way it would be outside of that nature to ever do anything harmful to anybody-they’d be completely useless to their tribes if it were. Is there anyone you’d consider it morally inappropriate to steal from?”
“Yes,” Neal said.
“Well, then, even if you think there’s such a thing as a rogue Sentinel, you aren’t one.” He shrugged again. “Those two people I talked about-one of them was a Sentinel; one was a mundane, which goes to show what I said about human variation-you could say that they were tribes of one, like Hardwick said. However they got that way, weren’t capable of making moral choices on a level that recognized that other people exist as something other than objects to be manipulated. Most people can, whether they’re criminals or not. You can, and if you’re unhappy with the implications of the moral choices you’ve made-and you probably should be-Dr. Sandburg’s prescription is that you start making different ones.”
Peter would probably have hesitated to make that parting shot, but Neal seemed to accept it-or possibly was just worn down by the only person Peter had met who could out-talk Neal himself. After a few more minutes, Ellison and Sandburg left to return to the party, and Peter and Neal went inside.
“Feeling better?” Peter asked.
Neal nodded, then shrugged. “I guess.”
“I could pull some files on your dad, if you…if it would help to know more.” Without a case-related reason, Peter wouldn’t be able to find out where he was now, but the records on the investigation that led to him going into the Program were probably accessible.
“No. I know as much about him as I want to.”
“Okay,” Peter agreed.
“Thanks anyway.” Neal turned toward his room.
“Should we-we could do backrubs,” Peter suggested. The evening had probably been stressful, and that was what they were supposed to be for.
Neal shook his head. “I just want to go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Peter nodded. “Good night, then.”
“Night.”
Peter went to bed, too, not long after, but laid awake for a long time wondering if Neal was really all right, and if he’d managed not to screw that up too badly.
#
In the morning, Neal was a little embarrassed about the evening before. He knew he wasn’t a sociopath, really. Sometimes, late at night, when he was feeling low, he wondered about why his father had gone wrong, and whether the same thing would happen to him. But it wasn’t something he needed to make his co-workers reassure him about. It was stupid, like Peter said.
He hoped that Peter would let the whole thing drop, and it seemed at first like he might, but when they went to their appointment with Tim, almost as soon as they sat down Peter said, “Apparently Neal thinks he’s a sociopath.”
Tim nodded. “I heard a little bit about that.”
“Yeah, I’m over it,” Neal said.
He wasn’t terribly surprised when Tim didn’t let him off that easily. “Is there a little more to this than Bob Hardwick being…well, being himself?”
Peter explained about Neal’s father, another topic Neal figured he wouldn’t have a chance to avoid, if Peter insisted on bringing up the other thing.
Tim’s first question, when Peter finished, was, “What do you remember about him?”
“Not much. He ‘died’ when I was five, and even before that, he wasn’t around much. I remember it being a…special occasion, if he got home before my bedtime. Between his job, conspiring with gangsters, and the affair he was having with Ellen, I guess he was pretty busy.”
“Your father had an affair with his Guide?” Peter asked.
Right; Neal supposed he hadn’t mentioned that part before. “Yeah. She said-when we talked when I was a teenager-that Mom knew and was okay with it, but I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think she’d lie, but he could have lied to her. To both of them. I don’t know.” The next logical question, he supposed, was whether that had anything to do with Neal’s fears that being his Guide would be bad for Peter’s marriage. He definitely didn’t want to talk about that, so he said, “So I didn’t really know him. But Mom always said I was just like him.”
“What do you think she meant by that?” Tim asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Neal shrugged. Was he ‘just like’ the stories she told, where Neal’s father was a hero, or ‘just like’ he really was? “I look a lot like him. I was-you’ll think this is funny, Peter-I was going to be a cop, like him. That’s why Ellen told me the truth about him; she knew if I joined the force, eventually I’d hear the real story.”
“Funny,” Peter repeated. “So is that why you decided to be a criminal? So you wouldn’t be…a cop like him?”
“Sort of. I thought-well, I thought if I really was just like him, the last thing I should be was a cop. That way…I don’t know. I thought it was better to just be a criminal than a dirty cop.” It had made sense at the time. “Not that I ran away from Ellen’s place and immediately knocked over a bank or anything. I just kind of knocked around for a while. Did a little bit of shoplifting, picked tourists’ pockets, that kind of thing. Try to figure out what to do next. Then I hooked up with this guy who was looking for a partner and thought I had potential. He took me to Europe, and taught me a lot about gambling and forgery…and food and liquor. Not art, so much-I already knew about that. But he was into, you know, caviar and cognac; I thought that was really sophisticated.”
“Keller,” Peter said.
Neal glanced over at him in surprise. He hadn’t realized Peter knew about that part of his life. “Yeah, that was Keller. I looked at him and thought, okay, that’s who I’ll be when I grow up. Then we were doing this four-man job, and as we were leaving, one of the guys said he thought he’d left his passport back at the hotel. Keller took out a gun and shot him. So I came back to New York.”
“Why did you do that? Because you thought he’d kill you too, if you made a mistake?” Tim asked.
“No.” Neal wasn’t stupid enough to make that mistake, or to tell Keller about it if he did. “I didn’t want to be like him anymore. He was just a…thug with expensive tastes.”
“And you’re not like that,” Peter said.
Neal shrugged. “I knew I could do better than that, yeah. I started working with this other guy-the one who taught me to crack safes.” He paused to see if Peter knew his name, too-or a name, anyway. When he didn’t say anything, Neal continued, “He taught me a lot of stuff, too, and he’s okay, a real stand-up guy. A little…quirky, but I could do a lot worse than to be like him.”
“‘J. Edgar Hoover’?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, that’s him.” Good; the FBI clearly didn’t know much about Moz, which was how Moz wanted it.
Tim paged through his notes. “This is interesting. During our intake appointment, we talked-or started to talk-about how you felt about your job with the FBI, ‘working for the enemy.’ You said the FBI wasn’t the enemy; bad criminals were.”
“Yes.” He remembered saying that.
“I didn’t write it down, but I think you mentioned the Mob in that context.”
“Probably,” Neal agreed. “I’d put Keller in that category, too.”
“So your father worked with the enemy.”
“I guess.” If you wanted to get all Freudian about it.
“Wait,” Peter said. “How do you feel about working for the FBI? You said it bothers you that your dad switched sides, twice. Do you feel like you….” He trailed off.
“No.” It was hard to explain exactly how what he’d done-making a deal with the Feds to keep himself out of prison-was different from how his father had done the same thing, but it was. “If I helped you arrest people I worked with for jobs I did with them, that would be wrong.” That was it; he’d switched sides, but he’d done it without betraying anybody who had reason to trust him. It was different.
“Okay,” Peter said.
“Okay?” Neal had expected an argument-that if his friends were criminals, he ought to be all right with informing on them.
“Obviously I’d rather you didn’t withhold evidence,” Peter elaborated. “But as long as these crimes happened before we started working together, I can live with it.”
“Fair enough,” Neal agreed.
Tim had some follow-up questions, and skirted pretty close to the issue of whether Peter thought he was a bad person or not-which Neal still didn’t want to hear the answer to-but didn’t quite ask. Neal was quite pleased that he’d successfully evaded both that question and the subject of his father’s affair with Ellen.
#
Peter sat stunned as Neal stormed out of the party. As an FBI Agent, having some blowhard come up to him a party spewing pop-psych theories about the latest high-profile case was a professional hazard, like a doctor always being asked to identify people’s rashes. He’d thought this one was different only because of the minefield that was the entire subject of Kate. Hardwick didn’t know to tread lightly around it, and probably wouldn’t have even if he had known-and after Neal arrived, Peter hadn’t known whether shutting him up, and thus making an issue of it, would be worse than letting him keep blathering.
So Hardwick’s focusing on Adler had seemed like a good thing. Peter even wondered if he might be right, much like a stopped clock that’s right twice a day, about Adler’s presumed sociopathy. Adler’s sailing away while Kate drowned, or appeared to drown, had struck all of the Cascade PD Sentinels as thoroughly depraved. Somehow, Peter had failed to realize that everything Hardwick was willing to say about Adler-knowing only the two facts that he was a Sentinel and had been involved in a museum robbery-he would presumably also be willing to say about Neal.
Neal, clearly, had been fully aware of that fact. As had Sandburg, it seemed-he had once again leapt to Neal’s rescue while Peter did absolutely nothing.
“Bob, you priceless ass,” said Professor Margrave.
“Funny thing about sociopaths,” Hardwick said, “they’re often very quick to take offense.” He shrugged, as if to say, what can you do?
“He’s not a sociopath, you fucking asshole,” Peter said.
“You should probably tell him that,” Sandburg said.
“I will,” Peter said. It wasn’t going to be an easy conversation to have, but they’d have to have it.
Sandburg stood up. “Can I see you over here for a minute?”
Peter joined him in a quiet corner. “What?”
“I realize you’re new to being a Guide and all, but don’t you think you should go talk to him sometime before the slow heat-death of the universe?”
Knowing Sandburg a little better now, Peter was able to interpret what he meant. “You think I should go after him?”
“Yes.”
“He said he didn’t want to talk about it right now,” Peter said uncertainly.
“Right, that’s one of those things you’re not supposed to take literally.” Sandburg shook his head. “Come on.” Several people tried to catch Sandburg’s attention on their way out, but he ignored them. Outside, he started off in the direction of the Clinic and cottages. “You guys didn’t drive, did you?”
“No.”
“Is there anywhere else he might be going, other than home?”
“I can check where he is,” Peter said, taking out his phone and bringing up the tracking anklet app. Neal was about three blocks ahead of them, and moving fast. He showed Sandburg the screen.
“Okay, that’s kind of…Orwellian,” he said. “But handy, I suppose.”
Peter thought about pointing out all the good reasons he had to be able to tell where Neal was at any moment-the first one being, so he’d know if he was doing anything illegal, the second, so that he could give him an alibi if he hadn’t-but instead, just shook his head and started walking.
Even though he was walking fast enough to lose Sandburg, Peter didn’t actually catch up to Neal until they were nearly to the cottage. When he did, Peter tried to slip the phone into his pocket before Neal saw it, but he didn’t quite succeed.
“I’m going home, Peter, like I said. You don’t have to check up on me.”
“I’m not. I thought we should talk.”
“Great.” Neal resumed walking.
“Neal, that guy was an asshole. You’re obviously not a sociopath.”
“How would you know?” Neal asked, without looking at him.
“Because I know you. You’re-you’re not like that. You care about Kate, and June, and that weird guy who sends you packages, and--” And me, Peter thought, but couldn’t quite say. “Hardwick doesn’t know what he’s talking about-Sandburg and that other professor both know he was talking out his ass.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t know me, either.”
Were they seriously having an argument about whether or not Neal was a sociopath-with Neal taking the “pro” side? “You’re-dramatizing, just like that ‘ruining my life’ thing. Yeah, you’re not the…most ethical person in the world; that doesn’t make you a sociopath. Settle down.”
In answer, Neal took out his own phone and brought up the web browser. “Well, you tell me if any of this sounds familiar. ‘One. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest. Two. Deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for profit or pleasure.’ Three, four, and five, I’m okay on…’Six. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior. Seven. Lack of remorse.’ That’s the official definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder, which is what they’re calling sociopathy these days.”
It wasn’t lost on Peter that all four of the things Neal had just mentioned were things Peter had, specifically and repeatedly, criticized him for. The one about irresponsibility might be arguable if Peter wanted to claim that a four-year crime spree counted as ‘consistent work behavior,’ but he had a feeling that if he tried, Neal would remind him of all the times he’d insisted that nothing Neal did prior to his work release counted as a job. “Don’t be stupid,” Peter said, realizing as he said it that this was not the El-approved response to the situation. He should try to be understanding, no matter how idiotic Neal was being.
“Great, now I’m stupid and a sociopath. Glad to hear it.”
“Oh, please,” Peter said. “Look up any disease on the internet, and you can convince yourself you have it.” True, but probably still not understanding enough.
“This isn’t Psych 101 syndrome.” They had reached their cottage; Neal sat on one of the porch chairs, not looking at Peter, even when Peter sat down in the other chair next to him. “He said-some Sentinels are born wrong.”
“That could be as full of shit as everything else he said, and even if it’s not, there’s no evidence you’re one of them.” All right; he was getting a little warmer there.
“My dad was,” Neal said.
Peter’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level as he wondered what Neal’s father had done to him.
“He was a Sentinel, and a cop. My mother always told me he died in a shootout with some drug dealers when I was five. When I was a teenager, his Guide told me the truth. There was a shootout-between a Latino gang and the Italians my dad was working for. He was shot, but he didn’t die; he flipped on the Mob and went into witness protection. Couldn’t even pick a side and stick with it; whoever made him a better offer, that’s who’s side he was on.”
Peter tried to make sense of this information. “You’re getting this, at best, third-hand,” he pointed out. “Sometimes, in an undercover operation, things get…messy.”
“He wasn’t undercover; he was crooked. Ellen-his Guide-said she thinks he started out just tipping the Mob guys off about where there was going to be a sting so they could stay out of the way, things like that. Then he started manipulating evidence, either to clear them or to incriminate their rivals. By the end he was killing their rivals and saying they were armed and resisting arrest. She had no idea at the time,” he added. “They pieced all this together later, after he ‘died.’ I grew up hearing he killed eight bad guys-and I’m sure they were bad guys, but he murdered them.”
“Even if he did,” Peter said, “you’re not him.”
“Yeah, I’m just his son. I got the senses from him. What else did I get?”
“Not a propensity for murdering drug dealers,” Peter said. “I’d have noticed that.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“No,” Peter agreed. “This is--” He stopped himself from saying insane. “I’m sorry about your dad.” That, he was pretty sure, was one right thing to say.
Neal shook his head. “Not really the point, Peter.”
“I can see how your dad being…I can see how that would rattle you.” Peter worried about ending up like his dad, even though, all told, that wouldn’t be so bad. “But you don’t have to be like him, and you aren’t, so--” Okay, he didn’t have a way to finish that sentence other than stop being stupid. “You’re fine.”
Neal, instead of answering, looked off into the darkness beyond the porch. “What do you want, Blair?”
“Um, we came to make sure you guys were okay,” Sandburg said, stepping into view.
“He did,” Ellison said, joining him. “I came to drag him away if you’d rather he minded his own business.”
Before Neal could send them away, Peter said, “If you think you can help convince Neal he’s not a sociopath, you’re welcome to try.”
Sandburg dug his elbow into Ellison’s side and bounced up onto the porch, hitching himself up onto the railing. “You’re not a sociopath. Bob’s a dick who doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he said as Ellison leaned against the post by the stairs.
“I already tried that,” Peter said. It was pretty clear, from what Neal had said about his father, that this was something he’d thought about before Hardwick’s tactless remarks.
“That’s okay,” Sandburg said. “I’ve got more. Shall I start with the personal perspective or the academic?”
“Dealer’s choice,” Peter said.
“Okay. First off, while I don’t believe anyone’s born evil, I’ve met more than my share of people who were…broken, that way. You can tell.”
“How many is more than your share?” Neal wanted to know.
“Two. Both of them tried to kill me, so there’s another clue right there. You’re not planning to try to kill me, are you?”
“No,” Neal said.
“Good. And another thing is, if you actually were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Struggling with moral choices, making bad ones and rationalizing them, making bad ones and knowing they’re bad ones, doesn’t make you a monster; it makes you human.”
“Sentinels are supposed to be different,” Neal pointed out, sounding unconvinced.
“Hardwick would agree with you,” Sandburg answered. “And to understand why he’s wrong, we have to back up and talk about some Guide Studies 101 stuff-really, social sciences 101. Constructivism versus essentialism. Constructivists believe that categories-gender, race, sexual orientation, for example-are social constructs. There may be some biological basis for them, and for Sentinels there obviously is, but what it means to be a Sentinel, or to be a man or a woman, or a white person or a black person, whatever, is shaped by societal forces. Essentialists believe that there is such a thing as a fixed Sentinel nature, or essence. Or female nature, black nature, et cetera. Hardwick’s about as hardcore an essentialist as you can be.”
“And you’re not, I take it,” Peter said.
“No, I’m about as far out on the other end of the spectrum,” Sandburg admitted. “Except I’m willing to adjust my position in light of evidence, which is not something I’ve ever noticed Bob doing. When I teach Guide Studies 101, at this point I usually have the kids start listing things that are popularly believed to be part of the essential nature of Sentinels-they’re usually physically adept, courageous, drawn to careers like the military and police. Then we unpack that one, talking about how it covers Sentinels’ supposed preference for hierarchical structures, for having clearly-defined friends and enemies, for being in a protective role, stuff like that. And then some wiseass in the back says, ‘But there are Sentinels like that.’ And I say, Yes, absolutely, there are. But there are also mundanes like that, and Sentinels that aren’t. Everything that’s considered part of the ‘Sentinel package’ in contemporary Western culture is part of the range of normal human variation. Sometimes we also talk about how it’s part of the Western masculinity package, too, but that’s not germane right now. The point is that Sentinels vary, just like everyone else. You know Angel, right?”
“Doctor Temas?” Neal said. “Yes. He’s…not exactly a typical Sentinel.”
“No, if you think there’s such a thing as a typical Sentinel, he’s definitely not it. But he’s just as much a Sentinel as Jim is, or you are.”
“Because he has heightened senses,” Peter said, remembering something Sandburg had said earlier, back at the party.
“Right. That’s the only real essential quality of a Sentinel. The rest of it--” He made a dismissive gesture. “Now, the next thing the wiseass in the back usually asks is, ‘Why does it matter if this stuff is innate or culturally determined?’ And my answer is usually pretty abstract, with all of the concrete examples coming from the civil rights movement, which as far as a Guide Studies freshman is concerned might as well be the dark ages. But, as I’ve just learned, one reason it matters in the 21st-century United States is because of the way we treat so called ‘rogue Sentinels.’ The idea of rogue Sentinels has been around for a long time-basically, if you think that Sentinels have an essential nature, and that it’s better than everyone else’s, which is what the list of ‘typical Sentinel traits’ boils down to, then the observable fact that Sentinels can be as flawed as everybody else cries out for some sort of extraordinary explanation, which is where you get your sociopathic rogue Sentinels from. The presumption is actually equally insulting to all Sentinels-it assumes that none of you are capable of moral choices, and just instinctively act in either pro-social or antisocial ways. Mundanes can have complex and varied reasons for choosing to become a police officer or a bank robber, but Sentinels are only acting out some kind of inborn, instinctive destiny. Total bullshit.”
“Sentinels do have instincts, though,” Peter pointed out. Everyone knew that, from the FBI human resources Sentinel liaison to Sentinels and Guides for Dummies, on up to Sandburg himself, who after all had indicated that his own Sentinel was territorial about crime scenes.
“Sure they do,” Sandburg agreed. “But so does everybody else. I did a really neat study on territorial instincts with a junior seminar a couple of years ago. We designed a survey to measure territorial responses-basically, a list of scenarios that might evoke a territorial response. I think they ranged from something like, someone goes into your office when you’re not there, sits in a guest chair, and waits for you-that was at the weak end, obviously-to finding someone you’ve never seen before in your life in your kitchen making a sandwich out of your food. Pretty much anybody would have a problem with that, right?” He shrugged, and didn’t wait for an answer. “The respondents were supposed to mark which items they’d have a problem with, and rate the strength of the response from one to five. The kids administered the survey to subjects-Sentinels, Guides, and mundanes-and put the responses on a scatter plot. That’s the kind of graph where you put a dot for each subject; we used different colors for Sentinels, Guides, and mundanes. The Sentinel dots were mostly clustered near the high end-the upper-right quadrant-but there was considerable variation, and there were plenty of mundane subjects in the same section of the plot. The strongest territorial response was a Sentinel, but there were several mundanes who were close, and the weakest response was also a Sentinel.”
“Pretty sure that was Angel,” Ellison put in.
“Yeah, so am I,” Sandburg said. “Anyway, it actually measured responses, not instincts, since all of the subjects were influenced by culture, but it shows that even when we’re talking about something that most people think of as pretty basic Sentinel behavior is highly varied, and overlaps with the full range of human responses. You see pretty much the same thing if you measure any of the other ‘typical Sentinel traits’-some clustering, but a lot of variation.”
“What about protective instincts?” Neal asked.
“Same thing. Sentinels do respond, without a lot of conscious thought, when they see a threat to someone whose safety they’re concerned about. But so does everybody else-you threaten somebody’s kid, spouse, or best friend, and they’re not going to have to stop and do a cost-benefit analysis about whether to respond to that threat or not. Exactly how they respond, and whether or not it’s an effective response, is a matter of individual psychology, experience, training, and societal expectation-and it’s exactly the same for Sentinels.”
“But for Sentinels, it doesn’t have to be their spouse or kid,” Neal pointed out. “They’re supposed to protect the whole tribe.”
“Right,” Sandburg said. “And there are plenty of other people who protect the whole tribe who aren’t Sentinels. You can say that those people, Sentinel or not, have stronger protective instincts than other people if you want to--don’t tell Hardwick I said so, but in a sense it doesn’t actually matter. To say that anyone has an innate, biological basis for feeling protective toward a whole country, or even a city like Cascade, is ridiculous. In the environment in which humans evolved, the ‘tribe’ was a group of about twenty to fifty individuals, mostly biological and affective kin. Social forces make it possible for us-for humans in general-to extend the way we feel about our immediate tribe to a city, country, or even the whole population of the planet, but that’s self-evidently cultural, not natural. And it’s generally a good thing when we do, but it’s not an instinctive response, and not doing that isn’t a sign that there’s something seriously wrong with you. Most people do, at one time or another.”
“There’s a difference between not feeling protective towards everybody and doing…bad things,” Neal said. “Hurting people.”
“You don’t hurt people,” Peter said. Neal’s crimes were all nonviolent; usually, his victims never even saw him.
“I don’t know about that,” Sandburg said. “I mean, you could make the case that stealing from people hurts them. And, socially, that’s a problem and you shouldn’t do it. But ‘protecting the tribe’ often means protecting it against other people-hurting them, taking their stuff if your tribe needs it more, or even just wants it. If you do believe that there’s such a thing as a Sentinel nature, there’s no way it would be outside of that nature to ever do anything harmful to anybody-they’d be completely useless to their tribes if it were. Is there anyone you’d consider it morally inappropriate to steal from?”
“Yes,” Neal said.
“Well, then, even if you think there’s such a thing as a rogue Sentinel, you aren’t one.” He shrugged again. “Those two people I talked about-one of them was a Sentinel; one was a mundane, which goes to show what I said about human variation-you could say that they were tribes of one, like Hardwick said. However they got that way, weren’t capable of making moral choices on a level that recognized that other people exist as something other than objects to be manipulated. Most people can, whether they’re criminals or not. You can, and if you’re unhappy with the implications of the moral choices you’ve made-and you probably should be-Dr. Sandburg’s prescription is that you start making different ones.”
Peter would probably have hesitated to make that parting shot, but Neal seemed to accept it-or possibly was just worn down by the only person Peter had met who could out-talk Neal himself. After a few more minutes, Ellison and Sandburg left to return to the party, and Peter and Neal went inside.
“Feeling better?” Peter asked.
Neal nodded, then shrugged. “I guess.”
“I could pull some files on your dad, if you…if it would help to know more.” Without a case-related reason, Peter wouldn’t be able to find out where he was now, but the records on the investigation that led to him going into the Program were probably accessible.
“No. I know as much about him as I want to.”
“Okay,” Peter agreed.
“Thanks anyway.” Neal turned toward his room.
“Should we-we could do backrubs,” Peter suggested. The evening had probably been stressful, and that was what they were supposed to be for.
Neal shook his head. “I just want to go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Peter nodded. “Good night, then.”
“Night.”
Peter went to bed, too, not long after, but laid awake for a long time wondering if Neal was really all right, and if he’d managed not to screw that up too badly.
#
In the morning, Neal was a little embarrassed about the evening before. He knew he wasn’t a sociopath, really. Sometimes, late at night, when he was feeling low, he wondered about why his father had gone wrong, and whether the same thing would happen to him. But it wasn’t something he needed to make his co-workers reassure him about. It was stupid, like Peter said.
He hoped that Peter would let the whole thing drop, and it seemed at first like he might, but when they went to their appointment with Tim, almost as soon as they sat down Peter said, “Apparently Neal thinks he’s a sociopath.”
Tim nodded. “I heard a little bit about that.”
“Yeah, I’m over it,” Neal said.
He wasn’t terribly surprised when Tim didn’t let him off that easily. “Is there a little more to this than Bob Hardwick being…well, being himself?”
Peter explained about Neal’s father, another topic Neal figured he wouldn’t have a chance to avoid, if Peter insisted on bringing up the other thing.
Tim’s first question, when Peter finished, was, “What do you remember about him?”
“Not much. He ‘died’ when I was five, and even before that, he wasn’t around much. I remember it being a…special occasion, if he got home before my bedtime. Between his job, conspiring with gangsters, and the affair he was having with Ellen, I guess he was pretty busy.”
“Your father had an affair with his Guide?” Peter asked.
Right; Neal supposed he hadn’t mentioned that part before. “Yeah. She said-when we talked when I was a teenager-that Mom knew and was okay with it, but I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think she’d lie, but he could have lied to her. To both of them. I don’t know.” The next logical question, he supposed, was whether that had anything to do with Neal’s fears that being his Guide would be bad for Peter’s marriage. He definitely didn’t want to talk about that, so he said, “So I didn’t really know him. But Mom always said I was just like him.”
“What do you think she meant by that?” Tim asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Neal shrugged. Was he ‘just like’ the stories she told, where Neal’s father was a hero, or ‘just like’ he really was? “I look a lot like him. I was-you’ll think this is funny, Peter-I was going to be a cop, like him. That’s why Ellen told me the truth about him; she knew if I joined the force, eventually I’d hear the real story.”
“Funny,” Peter repeated. “So is that why you decided to be a criminal? So you wouldn’t be…a cop like him?”
“Sort of. I thought-well, I thought if I really was just like him, the last thing I should be was a cop. That way…I don’t know. I thought it was better to just be a criminal than a dirty cop.” It had made sense at the time. “Not that I ran away from Ellen’s place and immediately knocked over a bank or anything. I just kind of knocked around for a while. Did a little bit of shoplifting, picked tourists’ pockets, that kind of thing. Try to figure out what to do next. Then I hooked up with this guy who was looking for a partner and thought I had potential. He took me to Europe, and taught me a lot about gambling and forgery…and food and liquor. Not art, so much-I already knew about that. But he was into, you know, caviar and cognac; I thought that was really sophisticated.”
“Keller,” Peter said.
Neal glanced over at him in surprise. He hadn’t realized Peter knew about that part of his life. “Yeah, that was Keller. I looked at him and thought, okay, that’s who I’ll be when I grow up. Then we were doing this four-man job, and as we were leaving, one of the guys said he thought he’d left his passport back at the hotel. Keller took out a gun and shot him. So I came back to New York.”
“Why did you do that? Because you thought he’d kill you too, if you made a mistake?” Tim asked.
“No.” Neal wasn’t stupid enough to make that mistake, or to tell Keller about it if he did. “I didn’t want to be like him anymore. He was just a…thug with expensive tastes.”
“And you’re not like that,” Peter said.
Neal shrugged. “I knew I could do better than that, yeah. I started working with this other guy-the one who taught me to crack safes.” He paused to see if Peter knew his name, too-or a name, anyway. When he didn’t say anything, Neal continued, “He taught me a lot of stuff, too, and he’s okay, a real stand-up guy. A little…quirky, but I could do a lot worse than to be like him.”
“‘J. Edgar Hoover’?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, that’s him.” Good; the FBI clearly didn’t know much about Moz, which was how Moz wanted it.
Tim paged through his notes. “This is interesting. During our intake appointment, we talked-or started to talk-about how you felt about your job with the FBI, ‘working for the enemy.’ You said the FBI wasn’t the enemy; bad criminals were.”
“Yes.” He remembered saying that.
“I didn’t write it down, but I think you mentioned the Mob in that context.”
“Probably,” Neal agreed. “I’d put Keller in that category, too.”
“So your father worked with the enemy.”
“I guess.” If you wanted to get all Freudian about it.
“Wait,” Peter said. “How do you feel about working for the FBI? You said it bothers you that your dad switched sides, twice. Do you feel like you….” He trailed off.
“No.” It was hard to explain exactly how what he’d done-making a deal with the Feds to keep himself out of prison-was different from how his father had done the same thing, but it was. “If I helped you arrest people I worked with for jobs I did with them, that would be wrong.” That was it; he’d switched sides, but he’d done it without betraying anybody who had reason to trust him. It was different.
“Okay,” Peter said.
“Okay?” Neal had expected an argument-that if his friends were criminals, he ought to be all right with informing on them.
“Obviously I’d rather you didn’t withhold evidence,” Peter elaborated. “But as long as these crimes happened before we started working together, I can live with it.”
“Fair enough,” Neal agreed.
Tim had some follow-up questions, and skirted pretty close to the issue of whether Peter thought he was a bad person or not-which Neal still didn’t want to hear the answer to-but didn’t quite ask. Neal was quite pleased that he’d successfully evaded both that question and the subject of his father’s affair with Ellen.
#