“I live through several small labour disputes that some gentlemen on this side of the Pacific had with the warden and the guards down at the various jails we maintain for the care and feeding of guys that make everybody nervous when they are out on the street. There was one night when some of my previous fellow officers went out to deliver a piece of paper to a guy that took French leave from the prison and I was ordered to join them because the word was that he had every sidearm Colt Firearms ever made and one or two extra from Remington Arms that you could put up against your shoulder for a little extra range. And he did, too, and he was using them, and I got out of that in one piece.

“I have never had an ulcer,” Roscommon said. “I am fifty-eight years old and if I do say so myself, I am in the prime of health and the pink of fucking goddamned good condition. But if I ever get an ulcer, if I ever do fall down and collapse on the floor with motherfucking apoplexy, it will be the fault of Terry Mooney.”

Roscommon got out of the wooden chair and began to pace around the conference room. His face reddened upward from the collar of his shirt to the roots of his grey hair. Mickey Sweeney and Donald Carbone, corporals in the Massachusetts State Police, looked at the floor and did not permit any expression of amusement to attract the attention of Detective Lieutenant Inspector John Roscommon.

“So,” Roscommon said, “we got no goddamned choice. That little piece of shit has got a law degree and for some reason that escapes my sawtoothed mind, the Attorney General has seen fit to make him a full-fledged prosecutor. There’re times when I think that guy’s playing with no more’n forty-four cards too, puttin’ a jerk of a kid like that in charge of anything bigger’n a head-on collision of two skateboards. But he did it and we’re stuck with it, the damned fools that we are.”

“John,” Mickey said, “what’s he want?”

“He wants to get reelected, naturally,” Roscommon said. “He’s got another year before he goes to bat again, and therefore naturally he is sucking every minority and majority hind tit he can find, and he is going to take over the work every District Attorney between here and Albany until he gets reelected. Then he will relax and maybe then we can all calm down a little and maybe even get some work done.