Viper - Michael Morley [23]
‘That all?’ said Jack, moving dirty dishes and crumpled cans from around the foot of the couch. ‘Should be a breeze.’
Howie eventually reappeared, his giant knuckles wrapped around the handles of two mugs of black coffee. ‘Man, I’d diet for Lindsay. Hell, I’d go to a fat farm and have a blubber-suck for her. You know, where they stick one of those friggin’ hose-pipes in your gut and – voom! – in a schlurp they’ve siphoned off forty pounds. Yep, for Lindsay, I’d lose the weight!’
Howie handed over the coffee and slumped in a chair. ‘Anyway, how have you been keeping? How’s your catcher’s mitt?’
Jack flexed the fingers of his left hand. It had been badly cut during his final encounter with the Black River Killer. ‘It’s getting there. Seems some nerve got damaged.’ Jack fell silent for a moment. Memories of BRK flooded back – the nightmares that had haunted him for years, the victims he’d been unable to save and the personal danger that BRK had exposed him and his family to. ‘Doc says I probably won’t ever have a hundred per cent feeling back but, with physio, I think I’m gonna get close.’
‘At least it’s not your right hand,’ said Howie, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.
‘Yeah, thank God for small mercies. So, exactly what happened at the Bureau? I can’t believe you quit.’
Howie shrugged his huge shoulders in a way that made him shrink. He looked like a jilted teenager who didn’t want to talk about it. ‘I was a mess, man. It was jump or be pushed, and I didn’t want the Push Monkey on my friggin’ back.’
Jack tried the coffee. Cheap instant. Too hot to drink. Too bad to swallow.
‘You should have claimed some lost time, taken a spell of compassionate. I’m sure they’d have understood that you needed a little breathing space.’
‘Maybe,’ said Howie, sounding defeatist. ‘Truth is, I can’t even walk straight, let alone think straight. I’m best outta there. I couldn’t bear the thought of fucking up in the field.’
Jack put down the coffee. He could see his friend had been more depressed by the divorce than he’d realized. ‘You’ve got to kick the booze, Howie. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Booze helps me snooze,’ he joked. ‘Without it I just lie awake at nights and drive myself friggin’ crazy.’ Howie put his hands behind his head and stretched his neck, trying to ease the tension that seemed to be always with him. ‘Every minute of the goddamn day I can see Carrie getting balled by this punk at the gym that she went to. Christ alive! I was so fuckin’ stupid not to realize she was playing away.’
Jack tried to get him focused. ‘What exactly is bugging you? Is it that you found your wife cheating? That you discovered she wanted to be with some other guy? Or just that you got divorced?’
‘All that and then some.’ Howie scratched at his head again and then checked his fingers to see if he’d lost more hair. ‘You know, I think what pisses me most is that I still love her. Even now, I’d forgive her and try again, but she don’t want none of it.’
Jack tried to counsel the depression out of him but it was deep-seated, like a bruise that was yet to show its colour. It was going to take time to work through. He was still hurting for his friend as he said goodbye and caught a cab back. He’d promised they’d do lunch soon and he’d help him get sorted.
A couple of hours later, back at Nancy’s parents’ place, Jack was still thinking about Howie as he took a call from Massimo Albonetti. The Direttore cut to the chase. ‘Jack, I called the Criminal Investigations Unit in Naples. Turns out they know your Luciano Creed, and he is a strange young man.’
‘That I knew.’
‘Creed is late twenties, single, came to them on secondment from the university, with good recommendations. A top graduate in criminal psychology and on paper the perfect recruit to the Crime Pattern Analysis and Research Department. But that’s where the good stuff stops.’
‘I figured it might.’
‘That’s what makes you such a good profiler, Jack,’ joked Massimo. ‘A month ago they terminated