One of the Wicked: A Mick Callahan Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

analysis, they've got to make themselves happy, just like the rest of us. All we can do is be there for one another in a pinch, and perhaps be friends."
    "I'm going to think of a good argument the second we sign off."
    "I doubt it, Mick. And one other thing, at the risk of sounding like a broken record . . ."
    "Hal, they don't play records anymore."
    "Don't nitpick." He leaned forward, closer to the camera. "You have a fierce anger that is rooted in your childhood, needless to say. I'm no therapist, but it seems to me that if my stepfather beat the feces out of me on a regular basis and forced me to fight other children for money, I might have a tendency to confuse love and hostility."
    I grimaced. "Hal, I'm not the one starting the fights here."
    "But you'll damn well finish them?"
    "What's that supposed to mean?"
    "It means that when Darlene lashes out at life, maybe you instinctively think about winning the battle instead of loving her through an emotional experience."
    He stared, I stared. "Old man, sometimes I just want to strangle you."
    "Take your best shot," Hal said, then laughed and touched the computer screen with his fingertips. "Just do it now, not the next time we're in the same room."
    I grinned. "This fellow is selectively courageous."
    Hal leaned back in his chair. "How are those nightmares?"
    A shrug. "Some okay, some terrible. I don't dream about him very often anymore, if that's what you mean." The man in question being Donny Boy, a violent psychopath who had nearly killed me on two occasions, and was now fortuitously six feet under the Nevada desert. One of my finer achievements. "Most of the time they're fighting dreams. No surprise there."
    "I wish I could help you get a good night's sleep," Hal said sadly. "What do you think these bouts with the demons are really about, counselor?"
    "A man named Robert Simon wrote a book on forensic psychiatry called Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream. He views human behavior as nothing more than a continuum from the rare instances of extreme good, all the way in an arc to the thankfully rare instances of extreme evil. He says we're all capable of just about anything under the right circumstances. I happen to agree."
    Hal sighed. "I learned that when I examined my own drinking and drugging history, and finally did a fourth step."
    "As did we all. Anyway, Simon makes the simple observation, similar to Freud's, that our dreams solve problems, work out violent and inappropriate impulses, and therefore protect us against our antisocial tendencies. Any good therapist learns rapidly that some part of him completely understands his most disturbed clients in a very visceral, sometimes upsetting way. Like bad dreams." Of my violent past; getting tossed from the Navy SEALs for drinking, brawling, and that affair with an officer's wife; the humiliating crash of my television career. Booze, drugs, and rage. Sex. Booze, drugs, and rage. On and on.
    "What about understanding Darlene, then?"
    I hate it when Hal uses logic on me. I sighed. "I hear you. Her anger may have nothing to do with me. I'm being too self-centered when I react that badly."
    "You said it, not I."
    "You manipulated me into saying it."
    He cocked his head. "Promise me you'll try again. She's the finest young lady I've ever seen in your company."
    "Well, that's certainly true enough. That's a promise I don't mind making. I haven't given up on her. Not yet, anyway."
    "Glad to hear that."
    "Hey, did Jerry e-mail you those pictures of his little palace at the beach? He's surrounded by sand, surf, healthy young ladies in tiny string bikinis, and enough sunshine to give a rattlesnake a bad case of sunstroke."
    He laughed. "The lad is probably in heaven."
    "Jerry likes California a lot more than Nevada, that's for sure, and the security job lets him consult and telecommute more often than not. I think he is one happy camper."
    "Are they going to do that work on his face?"
    My hacker friend was badly disfigured. His foster