Last Man Standing (53 page)

She shook her head. The man was a mess inside. And yet he had withstood the psychological battering of both the Bureau and
HRT. Web had said he had figured out the MMPI test and had managed to lie his way right through it. He did not know how right
he was about that.

She looked at Romano as something new occurred to her. She would have to craft the question delicately because she couldn’t
reveal any patient confidences. Web had told her previously that he wasn’t taking any medications, and she had accepted his
word on that. With what she had just learned, though, she wondered if he were taking something that would help combat the
internal traumas that were clearly eating away at him. She motioned Romano over to a far corner, out of Web’s hearing. “Do
you know anything about any medications Web might be taking?”

“Did Web say he was taking any pills?”

“I was just wondering. It’s sort of standard operating procedure for shrinks to ask,” she answered evasively.

“Lots of people take pills to help them sleep,” Romano said defensively.

She hadn’t said they were sleeping pills. So Romano did know about them, thought Claire. “I’m not saying it’s wrong, I was
just wondering if he ever mentioned to you if he took anything, and if so, what he took.”

“You think he might be addicted, is that it? Well, I’m telling you you’re nuts.”

“I’m not implying that at all. It’s just important that I know in case I want to prescribe something for him. I don’t want
any dangerous drug interactions.”

Romano still was not buying it. “So why don’t you ask him?”

“Well, I’m sure you’re well aware that people don’t always tell their doctors the truth, particularly the kind of doctor I
am. I just want to make sure there are no problems.”

Romano looked over at Web, apparently to make sure he was still out. He looked back at Claire and seemed to be having trouble
getting the words out. “I saw him holding what looked like a prescription bottle the other day. But look, he’s hurting right
now and he’s probably a little screwed up about things and maybe needs a little help pill wise, but the Bureau’s real stiff
on that crap. They throw you overboard and let you sink or swim on your own. Well, guys have to look out for each other, then.”
Romano stopped, looked over at Web and said a little wistfully, “He’s the best HRT’s ever had.”

“You know he thinks very highly of you too.”

“I guess I did know.”

Romano left the room. Claire went to the window and watched as he crossed the road and was soon out of sight. It would have
been very hard for him to reveal a confidence like that about his friend, and he probably felt himself a traitor for doing
it. But in the end it would help Web far more than hurt him.

She sat across from Web, leaned forward and spoke slowly so that he wouldn’t miss a word. Ordinarily hypnosis was used to
pare away the inhibitions and layers covering repressed memories that prevented patients from really talking about their troubles.
Typically the patient was brought out of hypnosis fully remembering everything that had happened while he was under. Here,
Claire could not do that. It would be too traumatic. Instead, she gave Web a posthypnotic suggestion. It instructed him that
when he came out of the hypnotic state he would remember only enough to allow him to deal adequately with the situation. What
would control what, if anything, he remembered would be his unconscious. Under the circumstances, Claire felt certain he would
remember almost nothing. He was not prepared to deal with this, so buried was it within his unconscious. She slowly brought
him up the escalator, step by step. Before he came fully out of it, she finished composing herself, prepared herself to face
him.

When he finally opened his eyes, he looked around the room and then at her. He smiled. “Anything good?”

“First I need to ask you a question, Web.” She paused to collect herself again before saying, “Are you taking any medication?”

His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you already ask me that?”

“I’m asking you now.”

“Why?”

“You mentioned voodoo as an explanation for why you froze. Let me offer another one: negative drug interaction.”

“I wasn’t taking any medication before we went into that alley, Claire. I would never do that.”

“Drug interactions are funny,” replied Claire. “Depending on what you’re taking, the effects can materialize some time after
you’ve stopped taking them.” She paused once again and added, “It’s important for you to be entirely truthful on this point,
Web. It really is, if you want to get to the truth.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Web rose and went into his bathroom. A minute later he came back and
handed her a small vial with pills in it. He sat back down as she examined the contents.

“Since you have them with you, should I assume you’ve been taking them recently?”

“I’m on a job, Claire. No pills. So I deal with the insomnia and the pain you sometimes get with two big holes in you and
half a face.”

“So why do you have them?”

“Security blanket. You’re a psychiatrist—you understand that and thumb-sucking, don’t you?”

Claire took out the pills and examined them one by one. They were all different. Most she recognized, some she didn’t. She
held up one of the pills. “Do you know where you got this?”

“Why?” he asked suspiciously. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“Perhaps. Did you get these pills from O’Bannon?” she said doubtfully.

“It’s possible, I guess. Although I thought I finished his prescription a long time ago.”

“Well, if not O’Bannon, who, then?”

Web became defensive. “Look, I had to get off the painkillers they were giving me for my
injuries,
because I was growing dependent on them. And then I couldn’t sleep, for like a year. Some HRT guys have the same problem.
It’s not like we’re doing illegal drugs or crap like that, but you can only go so long without sleep, even at HRT. Some of
the guys have given me pills over the years. I just collect them in a bottle and take them when I need them. That pill might
have come from one of them. What’s the big deal?”

“I’m not blaming you for taking medication to help you sleep, Web. But it’s stupid and dangerous for you to take an oddball
assortment of pills, even from friends, when you have no idea what drug interactions might occur from their use. You’re very
lucky something serious hasn’t happened to you. And maybe it did. In the alley. Maybe this odd method of pill taking is the
reason you froze.” Claire was also thinking that the traumatic events surrounding Raymond Stockton’s death might have bubbled
to the surface at the worst possible time—when Web was in that alley. Perhaps, as she had thought earlier, seeing Kevin Westbrook
had triggered something in Web, disabling him.

Web covered his face with his hands. “Shit! This is unbelievable. Unbelievable!”

“I can’t say for sure that’s the case, Web.” She looked at him sympathetically, but there was something else she needed to
know. “Have you reported the medication you’ve been taking to your supervisor?”

He uncovered his face but didn’t look at her.

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“Are you going to say anything?”

“Are you still taking them?”

“No. As best I can recall, the last time I took one prior to the mission in the alley was a week before. That’s it.”

“Then I have nothing to report.” She held up the same pill again. “I don’t recognize this medication, and as a psychiatrist
I’ve seen just about all of them. I’d like to get it analyzed. It’ll be on the QT,” she quickly added, as he looked alarmed.
“I have a friend. Your name will never come up.”

“Do you really think it was the pills, Claire?”

She stared at the pill before pocketing the vial and looking back at him. “Web, I’m afraid we’ll never know for certain.”

“So was the hypnosis a bust?” Web asked finally, though Claire could tell his mind was clearly on the pills and their possible
implication in what had happened to Charlie Team.

“No, it wasn’t. I learned a lot.”

“Like what?”

“Like Harry Sullivan was arrested during your sixth-year birthday party. Do you remember talking about that?” She was reasonably
certain he might recall that from the hypnosis session. But
not
the event with Stockton.

Web slowly nodded. “Actually, I do. Some of it, anyway.”

“For what it’s worth, before the arrest, you and Harry were having a great time. He clearly loved you very much.”

“That’s good to know,” Web said, without enthusiasm.

“Often situations that are traumatic are repressed, Web, sort of a safety valve. Your psyche can’t handle it, that level of
confrontation, and you basically bury it so you don’t need to face it.”

“But that’s like burying toxic waste,” he said in a low voice. “That’s right. And it sometimes seeps out and does considerable
damage.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Do you recall anything else?”

He shook his head.

Claire looked away for a moment. Web, she knew, was in no shape to hear the truth about his stepfather’s death. She looked
back at him and managed a tiny smile. “Well, I think that’s enough.”

She looked at her watch. “And I need to get back.”

“So my dad and me were really getting along?”

“You were singing songs, he was carrying you on his shoulders. Yes, you were having a great time.”

“It’s starting to come back to me. So there’s still hope for me, right?” Web smiled, perhaps to show he was partly kidding.

“There’s always hope, Web,” Claire replied.

S
onny Venables was off duty and out of uniform as he sat in an unmarked car and surveyed the area. There was stirring in the
backseat as the big man who was lying on the floorboard stretched out his long legs.

“Don’t get antsy, Randy,” said Venables. “We got some time to go yet.”

“Trust me, I’ve waited dudes out a lot longer than this, and from places a lot shittier than the backseat of a car.”

Venables nudged out a cigarette from the pack in his pocket, lit it, cracked his window and blew smoke out.

“So you were telling me about your meeting with London.”

“I covered his backside even though he didn’t know it at the time. Good thing too, though I don’t think Westbrook would have
really killed him.”

“I heard about that guy, but I’ve never run into him.”

“Lucky you. But let me tell you there’s a lot worse than him out there. At least Westbrook’s got a little code of honor. Most
dudes out there are just flat-out nuts. Kill you just to kill you and brag about it. Westbrook does everything for a real
good reason.”

“Like maybe take out HRT?”

“Don’t think so. But he delivered a message to London about the tunnels under the building that was HRT’s target. That’s apparently
how the guns came in. London checked it out with Bates. And I heard that he was right.”

“From what you’ve told me about Westbrook, he doesn’t sound like a message boy.”

“He is if the person he delivered the message for has somebody he cares about, like his son.”

“Gotcha. So
that
person was behind what happened to HRT?” “That’s my thinking.”

“So where’s the Oxy come into to all this?”

“That’s the op I saw in the building that night. They even had some of the product there. No coke bricks, just bags of pills.
And I saw computerized records that laid it all out. Millions of bucks in business. And in two days it was cleared out.”

“Why all that trouble to set you up? Why wipe out HRT? That just brings the Bureau down on them like a ton of bricks.”

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Cove agreed, “but that seems to be what happened.”

Venables stiffened and flicked his cigarette out the window. “Show time, Randy.”

Venables watched as a man left the building they’d been watching, walked along the street, turned right and headed down an
alley. Venables started the car and it moved slowly forward.

“Is it the guy you were expecting?” asked Cove.

“Yep. You want some info on new drugs coming to town, this boy will know it. Name’s Tyrone Walker, but he goes by T. Real
imaginative. Belonged to three or four different crews over the years. Time in jail, time in the hospital, time in drug rehab.
He’s about twenty-six and looks ten years older than me and
I
don’t look all that good for my age.”

“Funny I never ran across T before.”

“Hey, you don’t have a monopoly on information in this town. I might just be a lowly street cop, but I get around.”

“Good thing, Sonny, because I’m tainted goods right now. Nobody will talk to me.”

“Well, old T will, with the right persuasion.”

Venables pulled around the corner, hit the gas, then turned right onto a street that ran parallel to the one where they had
been parked. As soon as they turned the corner, T emerged from the alley, which cut through to this street.

Venables looked around. “Coast looks clear. You want to do your thing?”

Cove was already out of the car. Before he knew what was happening, T had been searched expertly and was lying facedown
in the backseat of Venables’s car, with one of Cove’s big hands on the back of his neck, keeping him there. Venables drove
off while T loudly cursed them. By the time he calmed, they were two miles away and in a better part of town. Cove pulled
T to a sitting position. The man looked first at Cove and then at Venables.

“Hey, T,” said Venables. “You looking good. Been taking care of yourself?”

Cove could sense T was about to make a lunge out the other door, so he clamped his arm around T’s shoulders. “Hey, we just
want to talk to you, T. Just talk.”

“What if I don’t wanta talk?”

“Then you can just get out of the car,” said Cove.

“Is that right? Okay, stop the car and I’m getting out.”

“Whoa, there, T, he didn’t say anything about me stopping the car
before
you got out.” Venables cut the wheel, entered an on-ramp, and they pulled onto Interstate 395, crossed the Fourteenth Street
Bridge and they were in Virginia. Venables pushed the accelerator to sixty.