Bad Thoughts

Chapter 21

The bartender gave Shannon a tired, well-practiced smile. “What can I get you, buddy?”

Shannon asked for a bourbon. He was sitting at the bar at the Black Rose, sitting at the same stool he had sat on before blacking out a week earlier. The bartender poured him a shot and slid it in front of him. He asked if Shannon wanted to start a tab.

Shannon nodded. He didn’t recognize the guy but that didn’t mean anything. He held out his hand and introduced himself. The bartender, a bit dubiously, accepted it and gave back his name as Tom Morton.

“Tom, let me ask you something. Do you remember seeing me here a week ago?”

“I don’t get you, buddy.”

Shannon showed an embarrassed grin. “About a week ago I got really shit-faced and am trying to piece some stuff together. I know I was drinking here around six-thirty. I’m trying to figure out what I did afterwards.”

The bartender’s broad face darkened. “Yeah,” he said, nodding, “I remember you.”

“Was I with anyone?”

The bartender removed the shot glass from in front of Shannon. “I think you better leave.”

“Why’s that?”

“Come on, buddy, get out of here, okay?” The bartender started to reach for something under the bar. Shannon took his badge out and laid it out in front of him. As the bartender looked at it he moved away from what he’d been reaching for.

“You’re a cop?” he asked, his voice sounding queer.

“That’s right. What’s going on?”

The bartender didn’t say anything.

“I asked you what’s going on?”

“Yesterday a couple of FBI agents were in here showing your picture around,” he said, a pained expression creasing his face. “That’s how come I remember you.”

“That’s it?”

There was a hesitation while he looked as if he had a bad attack of gas, and then he told Shannon they wanted to know if he had left with anyone. “They were also showing another picture around.”

Shannon stared at him until he let it out that it was a picture of the woman who had been stabbed to death on Beacon Hill the previous week.

“They wanted to know if you met her here,” he added.

“Did I?”

The bartender gave Shannon an odd look. “I don’t even remember you here,” he said. “They came back later and asked around to some of our regulars. Betty was the only one who remembered you. She said you were drinking alone.”

The bartender put the shot glass back in front of Shannon. “On the house,” he said before walking away.

Shannon looked long and hard at it. His mouth all of a sudden felt dry. He found himself wanting the drink, wanting it badly. His hand shook as he picked it up. He held the glass for a moment, his arm stiff, the joints in his fingers throbbing. Some of the alcohol spilled on his sleeve. With some pain, he forced the glass back onto the bar.

He got up and left, the bourbon softly whispering to him.. .

Of course, Elaine had been right earlier, he had gone someplace pretty awful. He had gone right where the hypnotherapist had led him. Right back to Herbert Winters.

As he left the Black Rose, Shannon found himself wondering about the dreams he’d been having, about why he felt so helpless in them. Why he felt so weak and ineffectual in them. Earlier, when he was under hypnosis and thought he was lashing out at Herbert Winters-when he thought he was squeezing the life out of him-it felt better than anything he could remember. When he realized it wasn’t Winters but the hypnotherapist, for a brief moment anyway, he didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to give up that feeling. He would’ve given anything to have been able to hold on to it.

But there was nothing to hold on to.

Shannon drove aimlessly as he tried to sort the events out in his mind. He had almost killed that man because of where he’d been brought to. What he didn’t know was if he had ever been brought there before-if that was where he went during his blackouts-because if he did, God knows what he would be capable of.

He tried to swallow. His mouth felt as if he had gargled with a handful of sand. As he drove past a liquor store, he involuntarily slowed down. The world seemed to slow down with him. A bottle of bourbon would make everything so much easier. Especially after a few shots. Especially then.

He didn’t stop for the booze. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t stop. Instead, he headed towards the Central Square precinct. He wasn’t even sure why until he got there.