Amanda reached over and squeezed Matt’s left wrist. “I’m sorry. I really wasn’t laughing at you.”
“Apology accepted,” Matt said, looking in her eyes and smiling.
And as long as you keep touching me, any and every other of your transgressions shall be immediately forgiven.
She pulled back her hand.
Damn!
Amy said, “I’m afraid that’s going to be difficult, Tony, but I’ll try.”
She looked at Matt and feigned a sweet smile. Then she made a toasting motion toward him with her glass, and sipped from it.
Matt felt a vibration in his pants pocket. He pulled out his cell phone and saw that he’d received a text message from Chad Nesbitt.
It read: SOUP KING U GET MY TXT?? U DIDNT REPLY
Not now, Chad!
What text?
He replied: can it wait till later?
Then almost immediately after he hit SEND, his phone vibrated again.
The text message read: SOUP KING WHENS L8R??
Then Matt’s phone started to ring. Its screen flashed: SOUP KING-1 CALL TODAY @ 1848.
Later is not now, dammit.
Matt pushed and held the 0/1 button.
Oh, look, Chad-my phone just “died.”
His phone screen went dark and then the phone turned off.
“Okay,” Dr. Amelia Payne was saying, “what often is confused with psychopathy is what’s called dissocial personality disorder. In concept, the two share the same criteria. But in reality there are distinct differences, ones that determine who truly is a psychopath.”
“What are these shared criteria?” Jim Byrth said.
“Behavior that is delinquent and criminal.”
“Well, our boy meets that criterion in spades. As my grandfather used to say, he’s meaner than a rattlesnake in a red-hot skillet.”
The Black Buddha chuckled.
“Furthermore,” Amy said, “prison studies have found that up to eighty percent of those incarcerated meet the criteria for dissocial personality disorder. But of those, only ten or so percent are in fact true psychopaths.”
“To borrow Jim’s word, that is fascinating, Amy,” Washington said. “Are there any precursors to the condition?”
She nodded, then took a drink of her wine.
“In the early 1960s,” Dr. Payne explained, “J. M. Macdonald came up with three indicators that pinpointed psychopathy in children. Those are bedwet ting, starting fires, and torturing animals.”
“The Macdonald triad,” Jim Byrth said.
“Exactly,” Amy Payne said, her face showing she was again impressed.