Scalpers

Hodges leaned back into the couch and continued to explain his problems to Dr. Hamel, who like any good psychiatrist, listened well and interrupted not at all, asking just the occasional leading question at the moment the Chief most needed it. Hamel was the only man, woman, or child Jake could truly confide in. He understood ... he really and truly felt and empathized with his superior, and he wanted absolutely nothing in return. Jake had tried talking to Hamel about more money, more prestige within the department. Anything he wanted, Jake wanted to provide, because Dr. Hamel had, after all, provided Jake so much in the way of peace of mind.

At first Jake resisted the sessions when Dr. Hamel asked for his participation in the new program. Hamel wanted Jake to bare his soul in a group setting with other cops. He told Jake that if he were to act as an example to his men, a powerful man with hair on his chest, iron in his spine, and grit in his voice, the others would follow.

'The men look to you for guidance and direction, Chief,” Hamel reassured him with comforting words again. “Hell, a man like you, a man who's come up through the ranks the hard way? That means the world to them, and the compromise we worked out is having its effect on them, believe me.'

The compromise they had worked out was a simple exchange, Jake's wants for Dr. Hamel's needs. Jake would undergo therapy, but only like this, one-on-one; Hamel readily agreed, knowing such information was soon to be common knowledge in the department. Each man knew that Jake Hodges would then be setting the example Dr. Hamel wanted, at least close enough.

A former beat cop in New Orleans thirty years ago, Hodges was, for all his faults, looked up to by the younger men, or so Hamel assured him again.

Jake knew he came to Dr. Hamel to hear such assurances. He knew his ego needed to be bolstered, his position reaffirmed in endless repetition if he were to survive another day, another night of his present life.

Married again, he saw no future for him and Sally. They could have no children. They were both too old, and Sally had drifted away, burying herself in her avocation, painting ... endlessly painting, fleeing into the seascapes she did, as bad as they were, losing herself in that other world of the canvas. Hodges told Hamel all about it, and Hamel understood, understood far more than Hodges had believed any other man could. Not that Hamel had admitted it in so many words, but somehow Jake knew, and he had made, for the first time in so many years, a new friend. Ben Hamel was closer in age to Jake than most of the people in the department, and Ben, too, must have had to make enormous sacrifices to get ahead. Not that he ever articulated those sacrifices in any specific terms, but speaking broadly, Ben knew exactly what Jake felt and why ... yes, why.

No cabby, busboy, or bartender could do that—know why a man felt depressed enough to suck on the end of a loaded gun.

'I know this Scalper case has your insides turned out, Chief,” Ben said to him now, “that your every nerve is feeling exposed now ... but you have to ride it out. A man like you, you can do it.'

'The more I think of it, the more I'd like to take Corman's neck in my hands and break it, snap him like a twig! He's making me look bad in front of my city, my department, and the Mayor.'

'But you don't know that he's guilty of anything more than excesses, the time away from the lab, a bit of fun with his judge, and it adds up to sloppy work.'

'I won't tolerate it, not in my department. Never have, never will.'

'The injunction hasn't helped your disposition.'

'I'm working on getting my own injunction that'll overrule his, and when I impound all that evidence, I'll call a press conference, let the people of Orlando decide what to do with Dr. Sydney Corman.'

'That's a big step, Chief.'

'Bold ... bold's the word ... like my old self.'

'Yes, you do like a fight.'

'Been a scrapper all my life.'

'Yes, I know.'

Jake laughed heartily at this, his thoughts on a childhood incident. Another thing he liked about Hamel. Somehow Hamel unlocked the memories of his rough upbringing, which his mind had trundled off to a secret place in his brain like a sad treasure chest to be buried forever within him. Somehow Hamel had found the ephemeral key that unlocked the amorphorous gate which held back both the horrors and the pathos of that childhood which, till now, was blanketed in darkness, kept even from the keeper.

'What are you remembering?” asked Ben Hamel.

Jake laughed lightly again. “A fight ... a fight with my father. He broke my rib.'

'Want to tell me about it?'

Jake did. He wanted to tell Ben every detail.

'Might be better than getting an ulcer over Sid Corman.'

Jake knew it was the truth. Telling Ben about the nightmare of lost childhood was somehow like a soothing balm these days. A few weeks ago, Jake Hodges would have denied the possibility. He had always hated dredging up the past before, but with Ben, it was a calm and cathartic journey, and he could remain at a safe distance and yet see, really see for the first time, that the terror of those days was not his fault, that the guilt he carried within himself for all these years could be vanquished.

'Go on, Jake...” Hamel's voice was motherly and fatherly at once.

Tearfully, Jacob Hodges began the horror story of his thirteenth birthday.

Hamel sat back, breathed deeply, listening quietly. He was a good listener.

But while listening, Ben Hamel allowed part of his mind to slip away, to the image of Dean Grant. He wondered what Grant's questions over dinner had been hiding, wondered what made Grant tick, and if soon Grant would not return to him with more questions: questions pertaining to Hamel's police patients, or patients he saw in his private practice.

Grant might insist on Hamel's actually revealing privileged information, which Hamel would, of necessity, decline to do. Hamel might declare his confidentiality with his patients, the old but very real doctor-patient relationship. Then Grant would press him, asking him if he knew of any individual with a fetish that might turn him into a hatchet-wielding killer after skin and hair.

Hodges here, for instance, spoke of his nasty father, whose back and chest were matted with ugly hair....

Hamel could think of at least two other patients who had morbid fears and hangups which, in a pinch, might place them into the category of suspect. But Hamel's job was not to second-guess, judge, or condemn his own patients, and Grant would likely respect him a great deal more if he maintained the scruples he had come into the profession with. Besides, Hamel honestly did not think Hodges nor any of his patients was the killer, any more than he believed that Lt. Park was the killer.

Van didn't know about Ian's idea. Ian wasn't supposed to get ideas; Van was—Van had told him so. They argued over whether Ian's dream about children with long-flowing hair had anything to do with the purposes of the Dark One, who had for all these years spoken only through Van. All day in the Florida heat, among the palmettos and moss-covered trees of the reserve bordering on the hidden little place Ian had rented for them, Van had wandered and sat and talked to himself and mulled over the questions.

Van had been given a task to perform, and whether Ian helped or not, he must perform his work for the Dark One.

Bugs and mites and ticks climbed over him as if he were a dog, nestling deep into his hair. Food for the demons, he thought, and moved on. Mosquitoes plagued him, but he had to work out his problems. Ian was beginning to think he could just do as he pleased, coming to him with this notion that the Dark One had gone to him—him—with a sign, telling Van that his plan of gaining a scalp from every nationality, every race, creed, and color was failing! How dare he suggest it? They were far from finished, and his pretty brother knew this, didn't he?

Once again Ian had gone for the daylight hours to his job down in the city. Once again, as always, Van was left alone to wait and ponder, “Alone again, naturally,” as the song said.

He'd have to put Ian in his place.

He'd have to remind him how it used to be.

He'd have to take down the long whip made of the coarsest hair and beat Ian again, beat Ian as their parents once beat Van, to put him in his place. It was what the Dark One ordered. There was no other way, and this was no time to be soft.

Just then a lizard suctioned itself against the tree branch overhead. Van, feeling a pang of hunger and not