“And start seeing a shrink?” Roland scoffed. “Doubtful.”
“But possible.”
“Okay, possible. But so what if he does?”
“I don’t want him out there stirring up chatter about what happened to his wife.”
Oz had a point, but Roland wouldn’t exactly classify going to therapy as “stirring up chatter.” Therapists abided by the same rules as lawyers and medical doctors. They were sworn to confidentiality, so whatever a patient said to one would never be repeated.
Nor could he envision the cagey ex-fed spilling his guts to anybody. According to Roland’s source inside the PD, Haskell hadn’t opened up to anybody about his late wife’s death, not even Bowie. If he hadn’t poured out his heart to his best friend, he wasn’t going to confide in a stranger.
But Oz disliked being contradicted, so Roland kept those thoughts to himself.
“Bowie put his foot down,” Oz said. “Let’s see how Haskell reacts. Have your mole keep an eye on him.”
Roland replied, “Will do.”
He barely got the words out before Oz disconnected. Roland didn’t take offense. That was standard operating procedure. Out of necessity, Oz kept to a tight schedule. When he wanted you, he meant ASAP, and when he was done, it was over and out.
Now Roland reclined in his high-backed leather desk chairand absently rotated his signet ring while considering options for how to go about the follow-up on Haskell.
After giving it several minutes’ thought, he placed a call to his mole, who answered immediately. Without preamble, Roland asked, “What’s your take on this morning’s showdown? Gut feeling? Will Haskell do as Bowie ordered or not?”
“Odds in the unit are heavy on the nays. When Haskell blew out of here, he looked ready to murder Bowie with his bare hands, friendship or no friendship.”
As Roland digested that, he thought back on the events of two years ago. It had taken a while for him to learn the identity of the undercover agent who’d engineered several successful busts that were costing Oz’s organization dear. It had lost product and valuable personnel to the individual who had won the confidence of unsuspecting dealers and mules—unscrupulous, volatile, violent cutthroats, seasoned felons all.
Yet this agent had hoodwinked them into believing that he was one of them. When in his congenial company, they had talked freely, unwittingly disclosing information he had then used to snare them, get them indicted, convicted, and put away for a long time.
This crafty spy had turned out to be Mitch Haskell. The name had been the last two words Haskell’s partner, a fellow named Randy Nelson, had uttered before Roland nearly decapitated him with a wire garrote, his weapon of choice.
However, this hadn’t taken place until months after Haskell had left the federal agency and returned to the Auclair PD to work as a detective with his friend John Bowie.
Even though Haskell had no longer posed a direct threat to Oz’s operation, Oz had a long memory and an unforgiving nature. He’d vowed vengeance for the damage Haskell had leftin his wake, and had called on Roland to bring it about. His only instruction had been for him to “make it hurt.”
“I have an idea,” Roland remembered saying to Oz. When he’d told him what that idea was, Oz had chuckled. “I like it. He’ll hurt for a long time.”
However, Oz, a wizard of secrecy, was too careful and cunning to trumpet that he’d been responsible for the “suicide” of Haskell’s wife. What’s more, the cocky ex-fed remained none the wiser as to who had been behind her death. And, as was evidenced by Haskell’s drunken rampage last night, and this morning’s meltdown at the very mention of his beloved’s name, her death was still eating at him in a manner that exceeded your garden-variety bereavement.
Who knew? Maybe Haskell would surprise them all and consent to the mandated therapy. Roland didn’t want to look back and regret that he’d been hasty to dismiss the likelihood of that. God forbid he would ever have to admit to Oz that he’d made a wrong call.
Haskell’s memory might be just as long as Oz’s, and his nature equally unforgiving, unmerciful, and vengeful. Despite the great quantities of booze he was reputed to consume these days, had he really lost his edge? Or was he as sly and deceptive as he’d ever been?
If Haskell was harboring deep-seated suspicions about his wife’s passing, Roland didn’t like thinking of him airing them. Not to anybody. Even to someone sworn to silence.
His plant had been waiting patiently for further instructions. Brusquely Roland asked, “What happened to the list of shrinks Haskell ripped up?”
“I guess the pieces are still there on the floor near his desk, unless someone picked them up and put them in his trash can.”
“Get me that list,” he ordered, then abruptly disconnected.
He sat for a moment in contemplation, then pushed away from his desk, went over to the door of his office, and flipped the lock. He didn’t want any of his employees coming in and catching him engaged in his secret daily ritual.
He returned to his desk, opened the bottom drawer on the left, took out his rosary, and began to pray. He rushed through the first prayers, reciting them by rote, but he fervently mouthed the Fatima prayer, the one that appealed for forgiveness.
Roland Malone feared nothing on earth.
But he was terrified of spending eternity in the fires of hell, about which his mother had warned him so frequently and with such conviction that he believed in them.
