—pit,pit,pitof gray rain on a gray morning, white breath like steam fog over a lake’s surface just before sunrise, car horns blaring in-beat to the sluggish pounding of his heart.
“You know Charlie? … He came up through Vice, back in the day.”
The remembrance of another lost life his alone to oversee because who else would take on the grief, the guilt—
“O’Halloran,” Larkin said, and he had to clear his throat of the dredged-up emotion.
“What?”
—Danielle Moreno’s body a soggy and broken ragdoll—
Larkin winced and physically jerked away.
—Like trash collecting in a gutter—
Larkin turned his back to the bullpen, pressed the receiver to his chest, and breathed through the sudden shakes and nausea.I can’t do this. I can’t do this without a high.
It was the withdrawal talking.
Intellectually, Larkin knew this.
He hadn’t taken his allowed dosage of Xanax yet that morning and probably should have after the impromptu sobfest he’d had in the Fuck It. He hadn’t experienced associations with such sober clarity in over eight months, hadn’t been forced to work through them without the ability to immediately dope himself in order to quiet their intensity, hadn’t realized just how long he’d coped and managed day in and day out without pharmaceutical aid until that crutch was being taken away. And now Larkin was vulnerable—extremely vulnerable—and it was almost as if his mind knew and was punishing him for it.
O’Halloran’s muffled voice asked, “Grim?”
—Doyle crowding him, backing him into a wall, all heat and exasperation and sandalwood and neroli and a promise made through hands and lips that memory didn’t come at the price of responsibility for murder too—
“You there?” O’Halloran was asking.
Larkin put the phone back to his ear and forced out the words, “Has Charlie Stolle retired.”
“Uh… no, not yet. He’ll be out in a few months.”
“When did he work Vice.”
“Do I look like his biographer?” O’Halloran countered.
“Ask him,” Larkin snapped.
“Sonofafuck—Charlie!” The mouthpiece was briefly muffled and only the low intonations of a conversation being held leaked through. O’Halloran returned a moment later, saying, “’85 to ’90.”
“Thank you,” Larkin said.
“Anything else you need to know? Charlie’s childhood hopes and dreams, maybe? His mother’s maiden name? How about who he lost his virginity—”
Larkin ended the call midrant. He studied his desk—the printouts, the missing girls, the pile of accordion folders, the steady stream of email notifications popping up on the lefthand corner of the computer screen—and walked away. Larkin entered the breakroom and made for the fridge. He grabbed a bottle of water off the door, cracked the top, and drank until it was half-empty. His hands still shook a little as he screwed the cap back on, but his breathing was evening out. He set the bottle aside before planting his hands far apart on the laminated countertop.
Someone had left a cascade of crumbs after making toast.
Larkin closed his eyes.
He’d been detoxing under Dr. Myers’s careful supervision for sixteen days now, the absolute worst of which had been the forty-eight hours following the first reduction in his daily dosage. It’d hit him so hard and so fast, it was like being knocked on his ass by an out-of-control locomotive. He’d had to call out of work both Thursday and Friday because he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat without getting sick. Doyle had stayed home on Friday as well, rubbing Larkin’s back when he hunched over the toilet bowl to vomit, fetching him water or Gatorade so he didn’t dehydrate, preparing bland meals and not getting offended when Larkin couldn’t keep it down.
Doyle had advised Larkin to take advantage of his accumulated sick days and stay home Monday as well, which had irritated Larkin to no end because he just wanted to regain a sense of routine and normalcy, and work was that foundation for him. Larkin had gotten unreasonably angry with Doyle for doing nothing more than trying to help him avoid known potholes in the road to recovery, but when Sunday morning had come and Larkin still felt like death warmed over, he’d tearfully apologized for becoming so upset over what had amounted to nothing.
And Doyle had simply smiled, squeezed Larkin’s hand, and said, “It’s okay.”
Larkin admitted to feeling considerably better by Tuesday, having pushed through what Myers had said was the “acute withdrawal phase.” She warned him, however, as they gradually kept decreasing the strength of his dosage, until it was safe to change medications entirely, Larkin’s withdrawal symptoms could not only linger several more weeks, but he could expect the more emotional effects like sleep disturbance, anxiety, irritability, and most certainly: cravings.
