“Understood who?”
“The killers. The animals. The monsters. Whatever you want to call them.”
“What’s to understand? They’re shitheads.”
“Spoken like a cop.”
“You telling me they’re not shitheads? You specialize in serial killers, no? You’re the expert on psychos who kill again and again and again, right? You’re saying these people are not shitheads?”
Becker paused again. He fiddled briefly with his shoelace.
“We’re all shitheads. Tee. That’s why I could always understand them.”
“Maybe it’s the beer,” Tee said, “but it sounds to me as if you’re lumping me in the same category as the shitheads, and I resent that.”
“Maybe it’s the beer,” Becker agreed.
“Because I personally, have never drained the blood out of people and boiled their bones, the way what’s- his-name did. I have never grabbed a kid from a shopping mall and beaten him to death.”
“They weren’t beaten to death.” Becker said. “They were beaten to dying. And then they were smothered.”
“A nice distinction.”
“A merciful one, maybe.”
“You got a funny idea of mercy.”
“You ever been beaten. Tee?”
“No.”
“Beaten regularly, viciously, by someone you were dependent on for your food, your shelter, your life?”
“No.”
“Beaten by somebody you loved and you didn’t know what you had done to make them so angry at you?”
“I said no.”
“Someone who kept reminding you that he loved you even while he was beating you? No? Then maybe you don’t know if it was mercy or not.”
“What are you pissed off at me about?”
“For that matter, have you ever killed anybody?”
“In Clamden? It’s against the law.” Tee chuckled, hoping Becker would join him, but Becker continued, his visage darkening steadily.
“What if you did. Tee? What if in the line of duty, perfectly legitimately, you put a hole through some shithead and watched the life ooze out of him?”
“I guess I’d deal…”
“And what if you found out, to your great surprise, it didn’t bother you all that much? What if you discovered you even kind of liked it?”
Tee felt as if he was being hammered by the queries that were not questions. He wanted to be away, but the room seemed to have shrunk and the power of Becker’s anger-if that’s what it was-was pinning Tee to the chair.
“You didn’t wish it, you hadn’t planned on it, but suddenly there it was. Just an accident, a result of something else you were doing, but there it was. You liked killing the shithead. You liked it throughout your whole god damned body and mind and soul, it gave you a thrill like nothing else could or ever had. What then, Tee?”
“I’d see a shrink pretty damned fast.”
“Good thinking. What if you discovered that the shrink was fascinated by you but had no clue how to change you? What if half a dozen shrinks were powerless to erase that thrill that came to you in only one way?”
“Then I guess I’d have a problem.”
Becker laughed, sharply, bitterly.
“That would be correct,” he said. “Now assume that you were, and are, an outstanding peace officer, sworn to uphold the law and preserve the Constitution. What if you were the fucking Chief of Police, but you had this little problem? Then suddenly you came upon a shithead who had a similar problem, had a tendency to thrill a little too much when he killed someone, you know, but with the difference that he wasn’t an outstanding officer of the law and local Chief of Police so his chances to kill people legally were rather limited. So, lacking your own native strength of will and inbred desire to do good works, this shithead has taken to getting his thrills as best he can. Not always in the same manly, straightforward way as yourself, of course, not by just doing away with people in the course of duty, but in more inventive and leisurely ways more in keeping with his individual temperament and personality-such as slowly draining the blood out of his house guests as you mentioned or hanging them from the basement pipes to study anatomy before stuffing pillows with their hair or maybe just tying them up and practicing all the positions in the Kama Sutra on their bodies before he feels called upon to get rid of them out of embarrassment over his excesses. See, whatever his peculiarities, he still suffers from essentially the same little problem that you have. Now, under those circumstances, and bearing in mind that you are the chief of fucking police and have an inherent tendency to consider yourself a human being despite your problem, don’t you think you might make an effort to try to understand these shitheads? Since you have the same affliction and all. Like fellow stutterers, say. In terms of insight, you might be one step ahead of the average peace officer who not only doesn’t stutter but also regards stutterers as an alien and therefore downright different species altogether. What do you think?”
“It must be the beer,” Tee said. “But I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about…”
“I thought we were discussing bad habits.”
“… and tomorrow you’re going to be glad I don’t remember it, either.” Tee tipped up the last of the six-pack of beers. He rose shakily to his feet. “A pleasure, as always,” Tee said.
“I’m sorry,” Becker said, suddenly contrite.
“Not at all.”
“I had no right to dump that on you.”
“Only glad I could help,” said Tee. He clung to the chair to steady himself. “I live to serve. Besides, I’ve already forgotten what you said.”
Becker drove Tee home and walked him to the door, where Tee turned and dropped a heavy hand on Becker’s shoulder.
“You’re not nearly as big an asshole as you think you are,” Tee said.
“How do you know?”
“Because if you were, I wouldn’t enjoy drinking with you so much.”
“I am awfully good company,” Becker said. “It’s one of my better qualities.”
“It is one of your qualities. And I didn’t hear you stutter once all night, so what was that all about, anyway?” Fumbling with his key, shushing Becker with a finger to his lips to keep from waking his wife. Tee stepped into his house in a half crouch.
Once inside. Tee drew himself erect and stopped staggering. He leaned against the door and sighed heavily with relief. It was not good, he thought, to know your friends too well. An awful lot of secrets were best kept that way.
Becker called Hemmings on his direct line, avoiding the switchboard and the resultant entry of the call in the log.
“You know officially I’m no longer on the case,” Becker said.
“Back on medical extension, I understand,” Hemmings said cautiously. “Sorry to hear about that.”
“Thank you.” Becker wondered how much of the sarcasm he heard in Hemmings’s voice was his own imagination. Just how crazy did the agents think he was? Drooling, unable to tie his own shoelaces? Living on medication? Or just taking advantage of a good opportunity to get out while clinging to the pension rights. Or did they think about him at all?
“Just wanted to make sure you know my status,” Becker continued. “I don’t want you to end up with your ass in a ditch.”
“I appreciate the thought. What can I do for you?” Hemmings asked.
