238
"Did you know he was a Communist?"
''1'
d rather not answer."
WILLIAM PHILLIPS
"You'll have to answer later. You might as well answer now."
"He was sympathetic to the Communists. He did business with them.
But I don't think he was a member. We didn't discuss politics. You
know politics is not what he came for."
"What did he come for?"
"That's a private matter.
It
had nothing to do with his politics, with
the accident."
"How do you know? That's for us to decide. Did he ever talk
about terrorism, about bombing?"
"No, never."
Hastings couldn't control his impatience. He got up, went over to
the window, and while ostensibly looking out, asked: "What was Gi–
anelli like? How would you describe him, the kind of person he was?
Was he violent? What did he look like?"
"He was not a violent man. At least he didn't act violently or talk
about violence. He was fairly short, about five six, I'd say, sort of round.
His face was ruddy and he had a trim -is that what you call it? -
moustache. He liked to eat well, that was one of his problems. In gen–
eral he liked to live well. But he also ran himself ragged. At times he was
frantic. You know he came from a well-to-do family, upper-middle- dass.
He was a real cosmopolitan."
"What about close friends? A woman he might have been intimate
with, he might have confided in?"
"He sometimes mentioned his wife, his third wife, I think. But he
was what you would call a loner. He funneled his energies into his work.
He worked sixteen hours a day. He had trouble sleeping."
"Is that why he came to you?"
"It
was one of the reasons. "
"Tell us the other reasons. It might throw some light on the way he
died. Was he suicidal?"
"Not really, though he suffered from severe depressions. He was very
unhappy, but it was masked by his throwing himself into his work. We
call that sublimation."
Hastings got up again and asked impatiently: "But why did he carry
a bomb in his pickup truck and get himself killed by the explosion?"
"I don't know. Clinical analysis does not always explain specific acts,
particularly such extreme and bizarre acts."
"But you must have some theories, some hunches."
"I would be going beyond my role as a therapist. I would be in–
dulging in unbridled speculations, in what we call wild analysis."
"Try it out on us. This is not a scientific meeting. We are detectives,