Roses Are Red

Chapter Ninety-Seven

That morning, somewhere on the fifth floor of Hazelwood, the Mastermind was incredibly pissed off at his doctor. The useless, worthless quack had taken away his privileges to go off the hospital grounds. The shrink wanted to know why he seemed different lately? What was going on? What was he holding back, holding inside?

He stewed in his pitiful little room on the fifth floor. He got angrier and angrier. Who was he really furious at? Besides the shrink? He thought about it, then he sat down and wrote some hate mail.

Mr. Patrick Lee Owner

Dear Sir

I don't fucking understand you. I signed our lease with amendments we agreed upon in good faith. I've held up my end of the deal and you have not! You conduct yourself as if you are purposely defying our lease.

Let me remind you, Mr. Lee, that while you may be the owner of this apartment, once you take my money, it is my home.

This letter will show, for the record, the illegal actions you have taken against me.

You must cease and desist posting eviction notices on my door. I have paid the rent every month and on time!

You must stop calling me, rambling on in your loud Cantonese gibberish, and bothering me.

Stop harassing me!

I ask you one last time.

Stop harassing me!

Immediately. ,"

Or I will harass you!!!

He stopped writing. Then he thought long and hard about the letter he'd just written. He was losing it, wasn't he? He was going to blow.

He shut down his PC and went out into the hallway of the ward. He put on his usual passive and slightly out-of-it face. The nuts were out in all of their glory. Nuts in ratty bathrobes, nuts in squeaky wheel-chairs, nuts in the nude.

Sometimes, more often than not, he found it impossible to believe that he was here. Of course, that was the point, wasn't it? No one would guess that he was the Mastermind. No one would ever find him here. He was perfectly safe.

And then he saw Detective Alex Cross.