Burning Time Read Free

actions? Is he crazy?”
    He didn’t wait for an answer. The tape came on. The guy was still talking.
    “Well, and there was an organization that put money into my business and somehow there were some questions in the minds of the cops about the legality of it all. I myself don’t remember all the details. My memory has been fuzzy ever since I’ve been on the sauce. But the cops. I can tell you what the cops are interested in. They’re interested in the whole concept of crime. Crime. What is crime? If you want my opinion. The Exxon
Valdez
is crime. George Bush is crime.”
    “You think George Bush is a criminal?” Jason asked.
    “He’s a criminal because he sells dope. He’s got an organization that sells dope for politics, starts wars for oil. These are the criminals. They steal money from the American people, big money. My organization isn’t involved with crimes like that. Nothing like that. A little prostitution maybe. Victimless crimes where people are not hurt personally. A little question of the law.” He spread his hands wide.
    “And let me tell you about the law. Ever try and get a cop to help you when you got hurt, when someone broke a law in your neighborhood? You can’t talk to these people. They can’t speak English. They can’t even
type
. I’m not a criminal. The people I’m associated with aren’t criminals. They’re good family men. They care about their wives. They love their kids. And they’re involved with making this country great.” He paused for air.
    “I bet you never think about who the real criminals are. Is it the ones who start the wars, steal our money, and ruin the ecology or is it somebody who helps horny men find a way out of their sexual tensions, huh? What’s good anyway? What’s evil?”
    Jason switched off the tape for the last time and turned to his audience.
    “Okay, what do we have here? This guy is getting us to think about what’s moral, what’s immoral. What’s legal and should be legal. Victimless crimes—what’s psychopathology? He says he’s crazy, but he doesn’t act crazy. He’s a ham. He loves being on the show, being entertaining. He’s uneducated but bright. He liked turning the tables on me, interviewing me. So what’s the story here? Is he immoral? Is he crazy?”
    Forty-five minutes later Jason gathered up his things, and pushed out to the icy cold wind of Bloor Street.
    It had gone very well. His audience loved it. He hadreason to feel elated and up. But instead he was exhausted and uneasy. For some reason this time when he watched the tape he was struck by the remark about the cops not being there when you needed them. And not helping when they were there, because they were too busy worrying about what the crime was.
    Jason had been beaten up pretty badly once when he was fifteen. In the Bronx where he came from, the cops had been less than sympathetic. They saw him as just another bellicose street kid in a fistfight. They searched him, found the knife he’d never had a chance to take out of his pocket, and threatened to take him in for possession of a concealed weapon.
    Jason considered himself fully analyzed. He knew being middle-class was very important to him. He had liked the last patient’s analysis of him. But now, for a reason he couldn’t pinpoint, the tape upset him. The more he thought about the questions that were raised on it, the less sure he was about where he stood on them.
    Suddenly he felt anxious again about his wife, as if he had left her too long, or overlooked something he should have noticed. It began to snow as he looked for a taxi.

2
     
    Detective April Woo neatened up her desk for the night shift and covered a small yawn, even though the squad room was empty except for Ginora, the glorified secretary who answered the phone and took the messages, and Sergeant Sanchez. Both were at their desks hunched over their phones talking rapidly in Spanish. Neither looked her way.
    Detective Bell was at the range in the