Even the Wicked

I said I supposed a dream was when you knew something on an unconscious level, and it came bubbling up to your consciousness.

Sometimes it was that, he agreed, and sometimes it was one of God's angels whispering in your ear. I was not certain whether he was speaking metaphorically. He is a singular mix of brutal practicality and Celtic mysticism. His mother once told him he had the second sight, and he accordingly places more faith in feelings and hunches than you might expect.

I must have told him how I'd found myself standing in front of Armstrong's, because he talked some about the owner of the Falling Rock, and who'd killed him and why. We talked about other neighborhood homicides over the years, most of them old cases, with the killers themselves long since gone to the same hell or heaven as their victims. Mick remembered a whole string of men killed for no real reason at all, because someone was drunk and took a remark the wrong way.

"I wonder," he said, "if your man's grown to like the work."

"My man?"

"Himself, that's killing men and writing letters to the newspaper about it. The People's Will, and do you suppose William's his true name?"

"No idea."

"That might add to the fun," he said, "or not, as the case may be.

He's full of himself, isn't he? Killing and claiming credit like a fucking terrorist."

"It's like that," I said. "Like terrorism."

"They all start with a cause," he said, "and it's noble or it's not, and along the way it fades and grows dim. For they fall in love with what they're doing, and why they're after doing it scarcely matters." He looked off into the distance. "It's a terrible thing," he said, "when a man develops a taste for killing."

"You have a taste for it."

"I have found joy in it," he allowed. "It's like drink, you know. It stirs the blood and quickens the heart.

Before you know it you're dancing."

"That's an interesting way to put it."

"I have schooled myself," he said deliberately, "not to take life without good reason."

"Will has his reasons."

"He had them at the start. By now he may be caught up in the dance."

"He says he's through."

"Does he."

"You don't believe him?"

He thought about it. "I can't say," he said at length, "for not knowing him, or what drives him."

"Maybe he's worked his way to the end of his list."

"Or he's tired of the game. The work takes its toll. But if he's got a taste for it…"

"He may not be able to quit."

"Ah," he said. "We'll see, won't we?"

* * *

I spent the rest of the week and most of the next one just getting through the days and enjoying the fall season. One offer of work came in, a negligence lawyer who needed someone to chase down witnesses to an accident, but I passed on it, pleading a heavy caseload. I didn't have a heavy caseload, I didn't have any kind of a caseload at all, and for the time being I wanted to keep it that way.

I read the paper every morning and went to a noon meeting every day, and an evening meeting too, more often than not. My attendance at AA wanes and waxes with the tides in my life. I go less often when I'm busier with other things, and seem to add meetings automatically in response to the prompting of stress, which I may or may not consciously feel.

Something evidently had me wanting to go to more meetings, and I didn't argue with it. The thought did come to me that I'd been sober for too many years to need so many meetings, and I told the thought to go to hell. The fucking disease almost killed me, and the last thing I ever want to do is give it another chance.

When I wasn't at a meeting I was walking around town, or at a concert or a museum with Elaine, or sitting in the park or in a coffee shop with TJ. I spent a certain amount of time thinking about Will and the people he'd killed, but there was nothing in the news to add fresh fuel to that particular fire, so it burned less brightly with every passing day. The tabloids did what they could to keep the story prominent, but there was only so much they could do, and yet another indiscretion in the British royal family helped nudge Will off the front page.

One afternoon I went into a church. Years ago, when I turned in my shield and left my wife and kids, I found myself dropping into churches all the time, though almost never when there was a service going on.

I guess I found some measure of peace there. If nothing else I found silence, often an elusive commodity in New York. I got in the habit of lighting candles for people who'd died, and once you start that you're stuck, because it's a growth industry. People keep dying.

I got in another habit, too. I began tithing, giving a tenth of whatever money came my way to whatever poor box I saw next. I was ecumenical about it, but the Catholics got most of my trade because they worked longer hours. Their churches were more apt to be open when I was looking for a beneficiary for my largesse.