ON FIRE

Part 2


The Art of War Goren Style:

Create causal links between everyone involved

"It's me."

"How did you get this number?" Liz was nothing if not blunt.

"I'm a detective."

"Well detective get lost. I'm not screwing you again."

"Don't flatter yourself. I need a favour."

"Forget it. One romp and you think I owe you a lifetime of favours. Yeah that fits with who you are."

He gripped his neck in irritation. Why did she see him that way? Then he realized she was winning. She was getting to him, when he needed to be getting to her. He clapped back. "Have you told Bill about us yet?"

An interminable silence, then, "Shut up."

"I thought so. I'll pick you up in an hour."

"I told you we are not screwing again."

"It's something else. It's not about sex." But that wasn't true. The subtext here was sex. The favour was regarding sex. All of his problems stemmed from deceitful sexual encounters. Everything was about sex right now. The sky was the undulating flesh of a woman, the blades of grass were micro penises, the rivers were labia, the buildings were jutting concrete phalluses and the ocean was a great gaping wet vagina. Robert Goren was suffering from some kind of sexual synesthesia.

"Hang up. And never call me again." She tried.

"If you aren't waiting outside your office in exactly 59 minutes, I'm gonna call your husband. I'll tell him that while he's away on business his wife is a carnival ride."

"A carniv… You have got to be kidding me." He heard her muttering and cursing outside the range of the receiver. "Are you actually blackmailing me right now?"

"Ummm, yes I am."

She snorted.

It was still unclear to Bobby exactly who this woman was. The profile was lacking. Did she feel remorse? Did she love her sister? Did she love her husband? Was she afraid that Bill would find out? Or was she more afraid of losing status? Her emotional life was a mystery to him. He honestly didn't think she had one. There was nothing behind the eyes. Whenever he thought of Liz, he heard Nina Simone croon "scarecrows dressed in the latest styles, with frozen faces to keep love away" He had never heard Liz offer any wisdom. Or say anything interesting, except her colourful rebuttals of him. This dearth of information was dangerous for a diviner like Goren. He would have to restrain himself from pursuing answers. Constantly redirect his mind. It was fatiguing.

"I need a favour." He said once more. "Then you'll never hear from me like this again."

"What kind of favour? Tell me now."

"I need you to make a phone call for me. It's sort of a case I'm working on."

"Just a phone call?"

"Just a phone call. Exactly what I say. If you stray from the script…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, you'll tell my husband. Don't you work with like hundreds of women in a big office building downtown? Ask one of them."

"Can't. It's sensitive and… provocative in nature."

She scoffed "Right, so of course you came to the resident whore."

"Your words not mine."

"So you want me to call someone and talk dirty to them."

"Not quite. Be outside in 54 minutes." Then he hung up on her.

Goren took the Holland tunnel out of the city, then straight down the 78 until he reached Bayonne, New Jersey. The city where Liz worked. She was coatless and shivering under the glass and steel canopy of her office building. She wore a knee-length black faux leather skirt, with sheer nylons and a leopard print blouse. She capped it off with 3 inch patent leather pumps. It was always surreal for Goren to see this version of Alex steamengining toward him. Liz had a power in her gait. He imagined an inner furnace fuelled by raw sexual energy. She looked good. Again. All this would've been easier if she looked like shit. But she was a tight, polished, ball buster. And it made him hate her more.

She climbed into the mustang, slammed the door hard and said, by way of greeting, "This car is your best quality." Then let her hands caress the piping of the shiny leather seats. She slid ludly back and forth against the bumpy creaking fabric, and said. "Ooooh. Ribbed for her pleasure."

"You're right, I should've asked someone else to make this call." His voice dripped sarcasm. "You're so innocent. Honestly, it feels like I'm corrupting a child."

"Jesus. Lighten up. I never said I was The Madonna."

"How could you possibly be a nurse?" He asked shaking his head. This woman was a vamp. She had absolutely no bedside manner. He continued his inventory of her appearance. There were three gold rings on her slender fingers. The solid diamond solitaire set denoting her status as a married woman, and another gold signet ring boldly gracing her thumb. She had a quartet of ethnic styled bangles dangling from one wrist (they clacked when she moved) and a large masculine gold watch on the other. And all of that bling perfectly matched the ochre heart of each rosette on her blouse.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I'm in a more administrative role now. Director of Nurses. I deal with clinical operations."

He struggled for something socially acceptable to say in response. Like oh that's nice, was it a promotion? But found he just didn't care enough. He drove them to the farthest reaches of the parking lot. It was a great oversized suburban thing which probably never filled up. Liz worked for Circa Health, a large, home therapeutic solutions provider. She had been with the company for the full six years he'd known Alex. He also knew that once upon a time she had travelled from patient to patient wearing scrubs. To look at her now, that incarnation seemed impossible.

He killed the engine and turned to face her. "So. I want you to call a woman, her name is Angie. Tell her that you had an affair with her husband." He'd waited a long time to play this card.

"What the… No!"

"That's the deal."

"Ruin someone's marriage? That's the deal?"

"Ruin someone else's marriage or ruin your own." He said coldly.

"Is it even true?"

"Of course. This guy is no saint. His wife deserves to know."

He handed her a typed piece of paper with all the details of the tryst she was about to expose. She scanned it putting fist size divots along each edge. "In the coat room? At the Insignia? That's brave. Any little coat girl could've walked in. Are you sure you don't want to change the location?"

"Can't. It's the truth." His words were clipped.

Her head shot up. She looked at him. "Is this personal?"

"I told you it's a case. Just… just dial the number. Make sure you're talking to Angie. Tell her you can't live with yourself. Tell her you need to clear your conscience. Tell her where it happened, when it happened, and how it happened. Then hang up."

"Okay." She sounded dubious, but pulled out her cell. He stilled her hand and gave her a burner phone. She frowned.

"To ensure anonymity."

"Uh, Okay."

"And don't sound like you're reading. If you sound like you're reading, I'll..."

"Yeah I know, I know. You'll tell my..." She took a deep steadying breath, like an actor getting into the zone. "What if she wants to know my name?"

"No. Tell her to ask her husband."


It had happened during one of his weekday evening non-custodial visits. Once again the clock ticked 9. Once again he put Jude to bed. And once again Alex found her way into his arms.

But this time he whispered, "No promises. This doesn't mean we're…"

And she was saying, "I know. I know." Between positively pornographic kisses. "Just… please."

And he heard himself say "Okay." And it was the most redundant 'okay' ever spoken. She kind of had her leg hiked up on his, and her fingers tangled in his belt buckle. Which made a musical tinkle when it hit his leg. Then he had his hand up her wife-beater and down under the elasticized waistband of her NYPD sweatpants. And there was unadulterated joy and relief coursing through her fingertips. It made blue sparks of frictional static arc between them.

And he may have attacked her then, once his mind was fully made up. He may have hauled her up against him and flew them to the bedroom. He may have thrown her down on the bed like a sack of something, and then devoured her like food after a fast. He wanted her. He had never wanted anything the way he wanted her. And now that preternatural desire was okay because he had this thing to hold onto. This horrible thing he'd done to even up the score. He wasn't the pathetic transgressed anymore. He was the pathetic transgressor.

Then it had happened again a week later. The sex. And again two days after that.

But it was different between them now.

They were lying in the centre of what was formerly their bed. Now it was hers. Panting and sweating after another round of truly animalistic intercourse. And this Sealy Posturepedic had become her hair shirt.

"Stay with me tonight." Alex begged, looping her arms around his naked middle. Luring him with her warmth, and the not wholly unpleasant yeasty after-odour of their coupling.

He shut her down hard. "No."

"You love me Bobby. I know you love me."

"But you don't love me." He muttered, shoving away any feelings of hypocrisy. He brutally broke her grasp and swung his long hairy legs over the side of the bed.

"I love you. I do love you. Please." She begged. This Alex was absolutely shameless.

The first time Bobby had heard her plead like this, he had almost forgiven her immediately. Because he believed her. Her embarrassing display of weakness was so at odds with who he knew her to be, that he saw the authenticity in it. Alex was allowing him to have a new side of her. A woman utterly dismantled. And it worked, in toto. He was spellbound at the sight of it. Undone by her honesty. Alex only acknowledged a fraction of herself. Her 'commodities' he called them. The spectrum of emotion that served her ambitions. So naturally from the very second they had met, Bobby had been waiting for the rest. Because he had taken one look at her and seen all of her sparkling facets. All of the invisible lumps of carbon still embedded in the kimberlite of her constitution. That was why he loved her. For the woman she acknowledged, but even more the ones she didn't.

The problem was that he didn't trust her anymore.

"I love you." She repeated.

"You think you do." He said flatly. His wall was in place. He was frustratingly untouchable.

"I know I do."

Alex couldn't see the whole picture, and she didn't have his acuity. She didn't realize that winning him now wouldn't be a matter of begging or sexual acrobatics. She would have to find a way to shake his mental core. So she beat on, her boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. To a time when her wiles and smiles had been enough for him.

Before he could stand up, she moved quickly from their warm wet spot on the bed. She planted her pale bare buttocks on his lap. Anchoring him to their home. She pressed her loose full breasts into the overgrown garden of his chest. She rubbed her thin locks against his nose. He inhaled her. He had to. Goddammit she knew he had to. She continued to seduce him with her vulnerability. "I miss you so much. I can't sleep without you. Bobby I love you." She whispered rolling her forehead into the pit of his cheek. "I love you so much."

And although he'd just had her body - just shot his considerable load into her warm willing receptacle, and shouted raw and ragged to the waxing moon - here was his traitorous dick making a cameo between her creamy thighs. There was something about Alex. He was addicted. She was some kind of opiate. And it confounded him.

Wasn't he better then her? Prettier? Smarter? Kinder? Wasn't he the better of their duo? He thought so. As vain and repugnant as it was, he believed it. He was special. Goren had eventually found validation for that opinion in a book called: 'The Beauty Differential: Does Your Partner Deserve You?' The title was a ringer. Only about an eighth of the book delved into objective physical beauty/vigour, i.e. mathematical ratios, body mass index, body fat percentage, systolic/diastolic pressure. The book mostly hit the soft sciences: personality type indicators, etc. Then it culminated in a brutal 'Teen Vogue' style quiz. Which Goren had taken. He'd had no problem filling in Alex's part in absentia. He knew everything about her. Absolutely everything. The timing of her menstrual cycle, her PMS symptoms, her Meyers-Briggs indicator, her cholesterol number. He had closed the book feeling quite smug. Ha! I am objectively better.

This mental cruelty was a common side effect of rational Goren. All of his morally ambiguous conclusions came during the egocentric bliss right after closing a book. Because books released him from from his flesh, they sent him astral. To a place of pure sweet thought, untainted by quaint things, like duty and kindness. But that feeling was short lived. In the waning literary afterglow he was always dumped back into the realm of the mortals. A human after all. With his big cramped hands, and aching back, and page burned eyes. Thrust back, only to find that once again his feelings trumped his rationality. His superiority to Alex (real or imagined) was totally irrelevant. He. Only. Wanted. Her.

It was an obsession.

And it was horribly frustrating.

There was another book, that was much more apt. A thin paperback. One that had been on his shelf (and on his night table, and in his hands) thousands of times. One he'd found at the Canarsie Library discarded book sale and bought on a whim for a dollar. It had been worn soft when he'd found it, the corners sheared off by attrition — dog ears so manipulated that they couldn't abide. Now, 17 years later, he'd handled it so much that there were deep lines across its face like the leathery skin of a Mapuche native elder. Pablo Neruda's poems on love.

I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don't know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

"I love you more than anything in this world." Alex was murmuring to him. They were the words of a soulmate. Who else would intuitively know his secret heart? She placed plucking kisses all over his stubbly cheek and jaw. "More than anything." Alex repeated. Yes, she threw her kid under the bus, because this strategy was working on him. And because, unfortunately, it was true.

"Don't lie." He said his eyes were soft and hurt.

"I'm not ly…" But she trailed off and cowered. No. No more defensiveness and no more struggling. That was over. She only had 3 honest words. Her eyes were moist with unshed tears and she stroked his hair as she said. "I love you." This awful situation had thrown everything into stark relief. Alex saw her own behaviour juxtaposed against the truth. She was one of those women. The kind caught in a maelstrom of eros. The kind in a divinely ordained union. The kind utterly singularly devoted to her mate. This kind of love was so dangerous. The way it straddled healthy and toxic.

And perhaps this was why she'd been fighting him. From the very beginning. Alex saw it now. She had been flailing wildly, trying to get away for 5 years. FIVE FUCKING YEARS. Bobby was right to think she didn't love him. All he had ever wanted was for her to yield a little. They should have been married by now. But she'd never kept his ring on for more than a two day stretch. Never looked at gowns. Never told anyone important. And now he was a free agent. Free to find another. Free to dispose of her. He'd be right to do it. I am garbage.

His hand was on her ass now. And they were a living brothel together. Moist and heavy from sweat and saliva and ejaculent. Growing cultures of God knew what bacterium on their pressed naked flesh. His other hand was on her back. "I love the feel of you." She said. And damn if it wasn't the most understated truth. His hands electrified her. They rose her gooseflesh. The prickle of his young beard made her shiver, her skin strained to fit into his palms.

"Look at what you do to me." She whispered. The evidence of her intoxication was everywhere, from rock hard nipples, to that fine epidermal rash, to the small puddle she was leaving on his thigh; a postcoital cocktail of him and her. "I love your hands on me. Do you want me again?" She whispered. She bent one leg and reached between her thighs and wrapped her fingers around his most sensitive anatomy.

"Don't do that." He gasped. And she dropped him cold, only to hear. "No don't stop. Touch me."

She did him one better. She slipped submissively to the floor between his thighs. The laminate was a cold, hard shock to her knees. Still she took him semi-soft into her mouth.

The spit sizzled through his teeth like a steak hitting a hot skillet. "Jesus." He planted his palms on the coverlet, it was the pretty white one, for special occasions. His big awkward fingers caught on the delicate decorative eyelets. Alex was masterful at blowjobs. He let his head fall back and looked to heaven.

But she grabbed his grey area. The spot where a back transitions to bum. "Look at me." She commanded. She was trying desperately to submit, but the urge to dominate was a constant war inside her. She was a natural Alpha.

He obeyed. He looked down into her eyes and watched her elastic lips stretch around him. It was sheer ecstasy. She had him in her trap, physically, emotionally, mentally. He couldn't disentangle from this woman. Bobby struggled to maintain his leverage, "Did you do this for him? Did you suck Deakins off?"

She deflated a little. He was always angry. Alex could feel heat of rage radiating off his cock. It stuck to the roof of her mouth like bubbling cheese on hot pizza. It peeled her skin away. She knew he was trying to humiliate her, asking her about her sins while she was servicing him. She didn't care. She deserved it.

"No." She let her tongue play over his throbbing knob.

"Did you get off with him?"

Her ribs caught a gusty sigh in their boney web. She wouldn't betray her frustration. She deserved to be punished. But this was more then punishment. It was infomania. His need for information had always been a disease. But now it kept colliding with her infidelity. The fact was, in order to move on some things had to go permanently unacknowledged. He needed to forgive, and moreover to forget. But he couldn't. So they lived in an ouroboros of pain.

About a month ago Bobby had begun talking to her again. Calling her in the middle of the night during his insomnia jags. Waking her. Maybe the timing had been malicious. She would lay, sleep interrupted, with the phone against her ear. She would be hoarse and groggy but so pleased that he needed her. Willing to sacrifice anything if it meant being close. During those times he urged her to tell him. And she had. Alex had told him every detail of her encounter with Deakins. Several times. With several inflections. She'd done it piously, she had done it crudely, she had done it crying, she had done it screaming, she'd even done it in person once, while looking deeply into his eyes. Oh yes, she had told Bobby this story before. It both aroused and revolted him.

"I said did you get off with him?"

"No." Alex stopped her fellatio and raised her fathomless Saturn eyes. "He was about this big." She held up her pinky. "And he didn't give a shit about me."

Bobby huffed. That gratified him. Perhaps it was sadism. Or maybe the simple idea that his enemies deserved each other. Or maybe it was her nakedness and the dull chant of his lizard brain: fornicate, fornicate, fornicate.

Regardless, the conversation wasn't a cockblock. If anything he got harder. Alex rubbed her closed lips against his length. "I thought about you the whole time." That wasn't a lie, but she held her breath. Because who knew where the tipping point between turn-on and turn-off lay for a jilted soul.

"In that coat room." Bitterness. Like he was tasting the worn wool of a coat, or the enamel on the wall of that room.

"It's the truth. Only you." She whispered resting her cheek on his thigh. Alex was very conscious of herself now, staying low, keeping her eyes averted. "Every second. Only you." They had only ever dabbled in this game. Dom and sub. But now it felt like her piety was the only thing between holding on and losing him. But her rigid genuflection made her think. Only four months ago the prospect of being done with all men had seemed like nirvana.

Now the truth.

This was reality.

She would do anything to keep him. She would embarrassed herself, humiliate herself, subordinate herself. She was broken. She didn't bother with the illusion of dignity. Being separated from Bobby felt like having her Siamese twin sawed off without anesthetic.

Bobby looked down on her glossy crown and raised a hand to pet her, but quickly put it away. He was a natural Beta personality. By all rights he should be the one on his knees. But those were only the broad strokes. This relationship was a microcosm of society: traditional gender roles, politics, power and shame. "Stand up." He commanded. And she rose so lithe and pale and pretty. His eyes followed every inch of her. Alex had a beautiful body. Nearly unblemished and smooth. Her skin was taut and translucent. He could see the map of her musculature at just a glance ...trapezius, deltoid, pectoralis major, abdominals… referencing his mental Gray's Anatomy. And yet she wasn't masculine. Her breasts were ripe. Her nipples were dusky rouge polyps. Her bum flared and there was a succulent apple weight in each cheek. Her mons pubis was feathered with soft auburn hair. And her dewy eyes implored him to forgive.

"Come here." He said.

She flew to him.

"On my lap, facing me." She did as he asked. She wrapped arms and legs around him. "Take me inside you." She reached down and did. His breath was choppy. "Rock... gently… oh god… gently." She did. Her hips rolled exquisitely. "More." He wheezed and she picked up the rhythm.

Bobby hated this. No. He both hated and loved her supplication. How long had he yearned for her to soften, to surrender to him. The answer: from minute one. From the second they'd met under the harsh fluorescents in the squadroom. But he wanted her, all of the snark and bitch and elemental fire that was Alex. Not this meek shameful thing. Not this animatronic sex toy. The first time they'd made love he'd said to her "Soften up. You can unclench with me." She never had. Until now. And in the face of it he was disappointed.

They sat intimately locked together and panting in the aftermath.

He let his lips linger against her forehead. He tasted a bead of her sweat. His tongue ran a spectral analysis; it was fresh, H2O, salt, satiation and fear. He closed his eyes briefly and nuzzled her.

Then he set her aside.

He stood up too soon, light headed. So did she.

"Where are you going?" She looked haunted.

"Home." He said. Her posture was defeated, there was tension in her face.

"This is your home."

"Not anymore."

She wrung her hands. Actually wrung them. And suddenly he could see what a mess she was. All red rimmed eyes, dark hollows and acid reflux. "I mean me. I'm your home."

"Not anymore."

She made a noise as if he'd struck her. And that was when he saw them. Tears. A salty tsunami rushing to the corners, flooding her caruncle sandbags and pouring down her cheeks.

"God Bobby I'm sorry." She was verklempt and ragged. "I'm sorry." He was killing her. Literally. She felt her life force waning on each sob and spasm. She actually staggered then, losing her equilibrium, with her arms around her middle. Because she didn't know what to do anymore. This wasn't working. Nothing was working. He didn't love her. She'd ruined everything. He hated her. She hated her.

"What are you doing? Stop it. Stop it! You'll make yourself sick." He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a shake. It worked. She hiccuped and inflated a little. But then she took her tube man arms and twined them around his neck. And Goren gave up then. Just a little. He let his elbows settle in the familiar notches of her waist and his chin found his groove in her skull. And they sighed into each other. Because the shackles were real. And every respite from trying to tug free felt so good.

"I have to go." He said, his mandible clicking her cranium. She moaned. "No, it's okay. I'm not punishing you anymore." He rubbed her back with an honest soothing intent. "No. Shhhh. Baby Shhhh. It will be okay."

"Do you love me?" It was full of holes and gasps and snot. It was the Swiss cheese of questions.

He did.

He more than just loved her.

"Yes. I do." He muttered then he let her go, gathered his clothes and slipped out of the room.


The Art of War Goren Style:

Annihilate your Victim

Goren sat at his desk inside MCS.

He waited for all of it to be over.

He waited for the enormous Italian cream sheet cake from DiBenedetti's Bakery to disappear - square, by coconut cream slathered square. He waited for the paper plates to hit the garbage bin. He waited for several rounds of farewells. He waited for the guys of Major Case to stop their ritualistic masculine back pats. He waited for Sherry to tuck her tear stained tissue back up the sleeve of her cardigan. He waited for their former captain to get onto the elevator. He waited for Jimmy to put his stack of boxes - the ones that symbolized his career in law enforcement - into the trunk of his Buick. Goren waited for him to get inside the car and buckle up. He waited for him to pull out of One Police Plaza for the very last time. Then Goren climbed into the SUV and followed Deakins right down Avenue of the Finest. Which honestly seemed like a cosmic joke today, as they were both absolutely disgraceful. He tailed his former captain inconspicuously, right onto the FDR.

Goren glanced at the digital display. It was 3:30pm, kinda early for Deakins to head home he mused. Goren didn't peg him for a guy who would sit in his house and have a mid-afternoon sulk. What Goren didn't expect was for Deakins to exit onto Hamilton Street in Red Hook, and for him to pull into the covered parking lot of a Home and Garden store.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me." The detective muttered savagely. Shifting in his seat, banging the dash. It was almost too much. The normalcy of it. Goren had expectations. Maybe Deakins would stop at the liquor store for a big bottle of Smirnoff. Or maybe the captain would stare desolately over the railing at Battery Park. Or, wildest dreams, maybe he'd get to watch a Good Samaritan talk Deakins down from suicide row on the George Washington Bridge. Instead this. What was he doing? Getting a jump on some basement renovations? Preparing to step into a new house extension?

It really could've been any reason, someone making such a banal stop. Maybe Deakins needed lightbulbs for the custom floodlights in his motion sensored security system. Maybe he need hex bolts for an old table restoration. But Goren threw himself completely into his concocted narrative. The one about Deakins, and his good life, and how all of Goren's schemes hadn't made a lick of difference. How his arch enemy would continue to live well, while he was being eaten from the inside out.

It was absurd.

This man with his badge. Sitting there in a dark parking garage. Fuming from behind tinted windows after months of plotting. But it was a fact. There is something inherently unsatisfying about revenge. Perhaps because the only person incontrovertibly suffering is you. Anyway, it might explain what Goren did next.

He waited for Deakins to step out of his car, then he walked right up to the man.

"Goren." Deakins said. He's small. Goren noticed for the first time. Deakins stood with his narrow shoulders wrapped in a greige coloured wool coat, and hands deep in his pockets. He wasn't carrying a badge. He wasn't carrying a piece. He was a civilian now.

Goren used the momentum of temporary insanity to do the last bit of damage he could. He drew back and hit the man squarely in the nose. It is a very singular sensation to break somebody's nose. It doesn't take a lot of pounds per square inch of power, so much as a perfect trajectory. An aim levelled at the side of the bridge will crack the bone without impacting the brain. The nose is designed like a vehicle in that way, or rather vehicles are designed like it, to collapse in on themselves but protect the core. Deakins nose did that. And then the older man was doubled over, bleeding profusely, holding his face, and screaming obscenities.

"Aghhhhh." Deakins roared like a wounded bear. "My nose. Bloody shit, shit, shit! You broke my nose!"

Goren stared at him blankly, and flexed his hand. Bone was hard. He didn't have much to say. He finally felt complete. As if he touched the four ancient humours. Blood, yellow bile, phlegm and black bile. Or by their corresponding dispositions: Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic and Melancholic.

That probably needs explanation. Goren wouldn't have called himself a positive man, but before all this, in his family's embrace he'd been sanguine. He had optimistically anticipated the future. When Alex had told him she had cheated he'd been choleric in loss. He had screamed and threatened and broke things. He'd taken up physical arms. But then Goren had settled into his strength. His authentic temperament. He'd made a plan and phlegmatically pursued revenge without emotion or sentimentality. Now that it was over, he felt the onset of melancholia. After all, it wasn't just Deakins he'd hurt, there was so much collateral damage. And the weight of those destroyed lives was his to bear.

But on balance, he figured it was worth it. Because the melancholia was tinged with a perverse relief. His shoulder blades slipped down his back. The constant vigilant tension evaporated. Deakins could do whatever he wanted. He could come back at him, press charges. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. But for the record (and no doubt this was all being captured on CCTV inside the security office of the Home Depot) Goren quoted,

"I am not one of your good detectives. And you will never be right by me."

Then he turned and walked away.


Alex was behind the wheel of her smart white Honda Civic, maneuvering through the streets of Forest Hills. She always felt a little funny in this neck of the woods. It was her neighbourhood but also not. This was Forest Hills Gardens, a distinctly ritzy residential area. It was her borough's most exclusive community. It was known for large houses all in the Tudor style. Imagine England's Stratford-Upon-Avon, only give Shakespeare's tiny village an American sensibility. Which is to say, scale it for size. Everything here was bigger, modern, detached, having been built in 1916 rather than 1516.

The Tudors here were governed by HOAs not Grade Listed by historical societies. But the area was undeniably pretty. Dark shingled roofs, half-timber construction, turrets and those twee, grid-effect, wooden appliqués on the front of each house. It felt like another universe. It was also a green place. With old growth trees and topiary delights. This is how the other half lives Alex thought (as she always did when she was here). She drove contemplatively down a pleasant mass of winding streets, revelling in the historic-look and the architectural gravitas of it all.

She found the café with very few problems, just on the outskirts. She had chosen it after all. Though she had never been here. It seemed like a place Carver would be comfortable, even if she wasn't quite of the same mind. When he'd called and asked if they could meet Alex had assumed it would be in or around 1PP. But then he'd intimated that he would prefer to come to her house. She had considered that for a few moments, then decided there was no way in hell she was letting Ronald Carver through her front door. Not only did Mr. Fancy-Pants make her self-conscious about her humble abode, but she didn't want word that she'd entertained him getting anywhere near Bobby.

Rumours at 1PP were like wildfire. They would burn down your house, and then start licking at your body before you even had a chance to deny them. That was the problem with a building full of sleuths. They were nosey. So she respected Carver's desire and suggested a place in her neck of the woods.

Alex had to admit she was deeply curious. This was unprecedented behaviour from the ADA. When she'd had her fling with Ron, years ago, they'd barely seen the outside of his swanky pied-à-terre. Ron's bachelor pad was in FiDi, spitting distance from Centre City. She still remembered the views from his Juliet balcony. Her eye would pause on that dollop of green called Battery Park and then soar straight out over the water. Back in 2001, they'd mostly scuttled over there on lunch breaks to fuck. They'd never had much in common. Alex had been new to Major Case. And the months following that promotion had been a heady and horny time. She hadn't been angling for a new relationship. Especially not one with a powerful man. She had just wanted to helm her own ship. She had just wanted to feel like Ms. Big Stuff. She had wanted some fun. Then, enter hurricane Goren. Once Alexandra Eames had started thinking about her partner she had never stopped. Ron hadn't stood a chance.

Now all these years later, despite the enmity of their break up, she and Ron had actually become friends, sort of. More like acquaintances with a past. A past that had erased physical awkwardness. It allowed them to sit in close proximity and talk with their faces together, without fear social faux pas or sexual tension. There was only camaraderie left between them. She liked the place she they were in today.

Alex heaved open the solidly built teak and double pane door. She skirted between the trendy patrons inside Balzac's. It was a interesting coffee bar concept. Here you could get a specialty coffee, or a hard drink (apéritif or digestif), or you could merge the two into a steaming hot pairing like Spanish Coffee. But there was no hardy food, only light fare: tapas and charcuterie, cheese plates, mousses and designer cakes. Alex had checked out the menu online.

Inside the decor was best described as industrial-hipster-glam. It was full of Danish teak tables and chairs, an entirely different esthetic from the neighbourhood surrounding them. Scandinavian hygge was in full effect. A roaring fireplace. Lush hide throws. Small but ornate crystal chandeliers hung low above each table dispelling the idea of casual. But they created a nice tension against the sparely built furniture and the walls of ruddy reclaimed brick. She could see retro logos in chippy peely paint ghosted over the latter.

It was a very nice environment. Dim and sexy. And, for Alex, melancholic. It reminded her of how little she and Bobby had lived in their neighbourhood. Sure they would trundle down to the market, or the drugstore, occasionally the liquor store, sometimes the gym. But they never explored it on the ground - poking idly into shops, or taking lazy days to walk hand-in-hand. They never went to flea markets or to Greenmarket (their version of a farmer's market), they rarely dined at local restaurants. They were tired, workaholic products of the NYPD. Perhaps worse of all, they had let that succubus of a job scare them out of living fully. Constantly fearing repercussions for fraternization. Alex realized that she and Bobby hadn't truly been frightened about their status as a couple in years. But they had allowed themselves to remain haunted by those early days, when their promotions had seemed so fragile.

She laughed quietly to herself. They were like that parable about the circus elephant. Once a man was walking through some fair grounds. Standing in the shadow of the Big Top he saw a mammoth beast, an elephant secured to a fence by a tiny piece of twine. The man asked "Why? Why doesn't he run? Why doesn't he know his own power? He could stampede right out of captivity." The trainer answered, "Because when he was young the twine felt like iron shackles." She and Bobby had been similarly ground down by life. They'd been resentful prisoners of love. And now they were here.

She came up behind Ron and tapped him playfully on the shoulder. He looked up and smiled, "Detective." He greeted her formally.

"Counselor." She said just as smoothly. Unbuttoning her wool coat looping it casually over the barrel back of her trendy chair. Then she sat and said "so what's with the cloak and dagger?"

"You get to the point. I've always liked that about you."

"Thanks." She said wryly. Alex was more aware of her tendencies then ever. Maybe too much so. Over the last months she'd been taking herself apart with a fine tooth comb, assessing every foible and quirk. Maybe I'm too pragmatic. Maybe I'm too aggressive. It doesn't always have to be about the bottom line. Ran on loop in her head.

"I suppose I wanted a little therapy." Ron said. "I trust you. At least more than anyone else in our workplace."

"Okay." That was news to her. He had never confided in her. And that made an odd sense. That he held her in high esteem, but played it close to the vest. Ronald Carver understood simple machines. He was a master with a lever. Everyday he used leverage exquisitely. And never let anyone get any verifiable dirt on him.

"I'm leaving." He said shortly.

"You're leaving." She reared back.

"I'm leaving the DA's office. I've already tendered my resignation. I'm looking forward to bigger and better things."

Alex lost her breath for a moment. It was too much change. "First Deakins now you? What the hell is going on?"

"You know, two things can occur simultaneously and not be related. It's a logical fallacy to think that they are."

She cocked her head suddenly. Trying to see his ear.

"What?" He followed her eyes, glancing over his shoulder twice. "What are you looking at?"

"You sound exactly like Goren. I was just checking to make sure I wasn't being Cyrano'd. Maybe you're wired? Or is it a Bluetooth headset..."

Cyrano De Bergerac.

He laughed in his Ron way, contained, with a hand smoothing both his tie and any tumultuous emotion. "No. Although you get a point for making a literary reference and another for admitting that Goren is devious."

Alex considered that, she would have never, in a million years, called Robert Goren devious. To her the term devious always seemed to imply shady but simple. Goren was meta complicated. Goren contained multitudes. But Carver would never give Goren his due. Carver held grudges like an Ayatollah. Another of his uniquely off-putting characteristics.

"Speaking of Jimmy, I've already told him I'm leaving. He's not doing well. He never intended to go this way."

"Who the hell does? This is a complete disgrace!" Alex was pissed.

"I meant longevity. He wanted to go the distance. He was lobbying for Bureau Chief. I have it on good authority that he was shortlisted. It could have been his. He had the credibility. He had the connections. He was a good cop."

They clinked glasses.

"Yeah well, same old story right? We're committed to the job, but the job is never committed to us. We're just a number in their army."

"That's the peril of bureaucracy." Carver said and they sat in a long mutual silence, both considering how insignificant they were.

"Poor guy." She said at last. Deakins.

"He didn't do this. I think we both agree. I have a contact at the DOC Reception Centre."

Alex frowned. "That's...?"

"It's an administrative way-station between inmate classification and inmate transfer." He waved a hand. "Anyway, it's red tape, and I pulled some strings at Goren's request. Frank Adair is going to be part of the next scoop. He's getting transferred. Somewhere his long arms won't reach. It's too little too late but..."

"What? Really?" Alex brightened. "Where are they dumping him?" They both knew that the prison system was one big carrousel. No one gave a shit about all the criminal meat living inside them. Only debits and credits.

"Interstate. As far from here as I could manipulate. Probably California. He'll never bother Jimmy again."

"Or see his family. Couldn't of happened to a bigger asshole." They clinked glasses again. The schadenfreude at this small cafe table was profound.

"Why are you leaving then?" She pled. Ron had so much expertise and pull. It would be such a loss.

"I just think… it's… time to parachute... into… greener pastures."

Alex made a face. All those mixed metaphors were a cry for help. "Pastures? As in 'put out to'? You're not that old. What is going on?" She pushed.

"Okay. Here it is. I'm divorcing Patrice. I filed last week."

"When you decide to make a change you go big." Alex said, her eyes briefly the size of silver dollars.

"It was time. I was involved with someone. An ADA and she, she got…"

Alex stopped him. "I know about Borgia. I know you were close." She dropped her voice dramatically on word close. It almost felt sacrilegious to speak. As if she had no right. As if death had a seat at the table.

"Yes. Right. The rumour mill." His lips tightened.

"I'm very sorry."

"Thank you, but it was new, and it's... it's really her mother and her father that deserve the sympathy." He was clipped.

This was what she hated about Ron. You couldn't get near him. He operated in a narrow range - from mildly amused to completely emotionally unavailable. If you wanted to get close; you had to risk offending him, push through his affectations, and speak to the heart of the matter. So that's what she did. "It shook you didn't it? Her dying. Made you reconsider what the hell you've been doing."

Ron pulled up short. He looked like he was about to give it to her with both barrels. But instead he said. "Yes."

"So you're leaving."

"I have been very badly behaved." He smiled ruefully "I told Patrice. Not that she was ignorant, she knew very well what I was doing. It's been going on for years. She operates on the BAP code of ethics."

"BAP?"

"Black American Princess. Imagine a WASP with more…" pigment. He waved a hand around not wanting to put too fine a point on it. "A stiff drink and grand house, are prized over emotional honesty and healthy relationships. Patrice thinks she runs the Westchester chapter." His laugh was sardonic and gutteral.

"Mmmm." Alex nodded. He was probably right to have filed for divorce. Forget the philandering, once you started publicly expressing contempt for your spouse it was over.

"I've decided to stop playing the game. All the games. I'm stepping off the ride. Life is too short."

"Do you have something else lined up?"

"Firmly? No. But I'm not worried." He sat back and slung one leg over the other while unbuttoning his blazer, "I've made contacts. I'm sitting down with Gilbrant, Cobson and Stern in a couple of weeks. I expect it will be several rounds of steak and cognac before anything is decided."

"That's what you want? To go from public law to private? To start defending the criminals?"

"I… I never had that fiery social conscience that I see in my colleagues. I've always liked governance, rule of law. From that perspective it's not that big a change. Plus more money, more upward mobility. A move makes sense at this juncture." He massaged his chin, thinking about alimony.

"Juncture." Alex shook her head. He was proper. "Yes, well at this juncture I'd like tapas."

Eating set them both at ease. It felt normal, like something they might do together over a working lunch. Then later while she sipped her Café con Leche, and he, his Café Cortado he said, "I think I might have loved her."

"Borgia?"

"Yes Alexandra." He was wistful. "I think of her. I think of her last moments sometimes. I…"

"Don't." She grabbed his hand. "Don't." But he kept talking. Alexandra Borgia had been kidnapped and tortured. She had choked to death on her own vomit in the trunk of a car.

"I couldn't believe it when I heard. Is that a stage of grief? I still can't believe it. Then I had this absurd urge see you. I felt like... I don't know..." he laughed mockingly. "Your name. Because you have her name. And because we were intimate. And because everyday you meet the same kind of degenerates that killed her. I… I felt like before I go, I should make sure that Alexandra is okay." This was very rough ground for a pragmatist and a rationalist to tread. It showed in all the stops and starts. It showed in his downcast eyes. What he was saying was foolish and sentimental, even a little mystical.

"I'm not really okay." Alex was honest. She was walking that thin line between content and tears again. "Bobby and I are struggling. We might not make it."

"Hmmm." He leaned over the small table, clasped his hands in front of him, and looked at her hard. "Goren is difficult. Impossible sometimes. But I think I'm man enough to say this now. He's very good. You're very good. And you thrive together. You also clearly torture each other." He huffed a laugh, "But I think that the dynamics of what you've created are worth fighting for."

She frowned. "I can't fight…" alone.

He sighed and cut her off, "You can. You will. You are a fighter. Don't let this job ruin your chance to be happy. And please don't let it kill you."


The Art of War Goren Style:

The Gloat

Alex made her way down a residential street in Weehawken, New Jersey. Past rows of single clapboard homes, a few duplexes, and one triplex. She drove past a liquor store called 'Big Sammy's Booze Emporium', past tiny mom and pop convenience shops, and past several tattoo parlours. This is where he was living? Jesus Christ Bobby. She supposed it wasn't all that bad. It was just... It was just that everything was relative, and compared to their place in Forest Hills this was poverty. She tried to look on the bright side. At least he was living alone. At least he had his own entrance.

She knocked on the door.

Goren answered wearing a faded red T-shirt and stained sweatpants and said. "Welcome to my palatial residence." Like a gallant fool.

Alex walked in and nearly walked into the bed. Okay, that was an exaggeration. But the bed wasn't very far from the front door, or the kitchen, or the bathroom, or everything else you didn't want to see your bed while doing.

She sighed. After 2 whole judgemental minutes, she was ready to make him pack his crap and follow her out of this place. "What are you doing here Bobby?"

"Ummm living?"

"I mean you have a home. You should come home. We can put this behind us. You broke his nose you know? He can barely breathe. So can you let it go now?" Alex had barely recognized Deakins voice when he'd called her. But it was more than that, that had propelled her to Weehawken today. It was the one-two-punch of it. A woman had called Angie Deakins and told her about her husband's affair. And Jimmy, at his lowest ebb, had yelled at Alexandra Eames about betrayal and collusion, about her psychotic partner and the end of his marriage. It had felt a like a showdown with Fozzie bear. So nasal. Alex had laughed. Not in his ear of course. That would have been cruel. But afterwards she had chuckled a little, because relief. Finally she was totally innocent. Unfortunately Bobby was still as grim as ever.

"Still talking to your boyfriend?" He mumbled. "Nice."

An indignant huff caught in her throat. She couldn't believe he was still doing this. "Deakins is not my boyfriend."

"Whatever you say," Goren clicked a hard candy between his teeth. Alex squinted and stepped closer. It was plain in his eyes. With Bobby it was always the eyes.

"Oh my God. Are you high?!"

He put his thumb and forefinger about and inch apart and shook it. "Lil bit."

"On what?"

He bared his teeth. He clenched a glistening candy between them like a bit. She saw the pale green stripes that he'd sucked away. "It's an edible."

She bristled. "Pot? Now you're a pothead?"

"Ed-head." He said laughing soundlessly. "Calm down. I won't be high for another hour.

"What the hell is going on with you Bobby?"

"Well Alex, I can't exactly smoke weed here." He said in a mocking stage whisper. "I'm a police officer. It's illegal."

She'd never known him to do extracurricular drugs. He'd told her he couldn't. He'd told her that it could affect his mind because he was the child of a schizophrenic. Now here he was, all alone, living in Weehawken, and sucking back THC like a calf on the teat. She frowned.

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't look at me like you care." He said. The truth was, he was doing this to sleep. He had to sleep. He couldn't take the prescribed stuff anymore. He was self-medicating, upping the dosage. One desperate night after his own stupid cocktail of alcohol, antihistamines and zolpidem, he'd started to feel really sick. He'd sat half-naked on the toilet, short of breath, with darkening vision. That had been enough to scare anyone straight. Goren had glimpsed how easy it would be to die alone. It was too dangerous. Pot was safer. But let Alex think whatever she wanted.

"So what? Now you hide in your… your… your lair, and plot." She attacked him.

"Lair. I like that."

"Okay. So you punched him and told his wife. Feel better?"

"If that's all I'd done I'd feel like shit."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He sighed and thumped his chest like a great ape. "I got rid of your boyfriend."

Alex stood there with her brow crinkled and considered what he was saying for about 15 beats. "What do you mean?"

"I made it so I never have to see his smug face again." He said matter-of-factly. And with his rumpled hair and stretched out t-shirt, this was the banality of evil.

"So the Martinez email…" She ventured.

"That was me."

"The phonecall to Bardin?"

"Me."

"I suppose you made Logan plug a cop too."

"I'm not actually God. I just seem like him." Goren said. "You don't need predictive analytics to know that Mike Logan's statistical likelihood of refuckup was off the charts. Everyone knew it. But Deakins is pretty stupid."

"No." She said. "No. This isn't possible." Shaking her head rapidly. "Adair copped to all of it."

"Uh uh. That was me too."

"What you mean that was you? Deakins confronted him. In person."

"Oh yeah." He sat up straighter. "Been discussing this with Jimmy? Did he cry on your shoulder? Did you give him another happy ending?" He made a rude hand gesture. Ramming his forefinger into the round cove of his palm over and over.

Alex flushed with pure rage. She marched up to him and slapped his filthy fingers down. "It was once." Then she stung him, "Maybe you want me with Deakins. Maybe want to make a gift of me. Because he's wrecked and he won't stop calling."

Goren tried to smile. But he felt odd. Normal was slipping away, and paranoia and anxiety were creeping in on spindly legs. This was the edible's dreaded surprise, there was a greater risk of having bad high. For a moment he wondered if Deakins was a demon or something. The man would not get out of his head. I should kill him. I should get my gun. I should go over and shoot him. Goren grabbed his head, ruching his temple, making his forehead into a 3D topographical of the Alps. This would a very bad trip if she didn't shut up.

Alex was shifting nervously from heel to heel, "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing."

"I'm not letting Jude come over here, not with drugs that look like candy lying around."

Shit. Another thing he hadn't considered. Shit. Shit. Shit. He was starting to feel panicky. He rolled his shoulders. And his neck. "You're stressing me out."

"Am I? Am I stressing you out." She grabbed his chin. To Goren each word snapped like a pair of fake teeth.

"Yessss."

"I can't believe you've got your fingerprints all over this." She shook her head. "You actually went to Adair? He agreed?"

"C'mon, I'm not an idiot." Then he frowned and looked up and to the left, as if remembering the contrary. Then said, "Most of the time, I'm not an idiot. No one knows it was me." Then, like a true dankhead, he hissed. "Cypher."

"You goin' after his pension too?"

Goren shrugged.

"Deakins told me that they might take his pension."

"He'd have to be convicted of a crime for that."

"Then why is he so worried?" She demanded.

"Maybe because a little bird told IAB he'd done this before. There might be proof that he violated the 'Public Integrity Act'. A good cop should never abuse the public trust." Goren said, then yawned.

Alex had the look of dawning horror. IAB would be relentless. Forensic accountants, a witch hunt of his collars… "But it's all bullshit!"

"Until someone believes it." Goren spoke a universal truth. "You know what Deakins shouldn't have done? He shouldn't have fucked my girlfriend."

Alex faltered. She literally tucked one suede booted foot behind the other for balance and swayed. This was all about her? What had he done? Alex had a very real moment of panic as she feared for his soul. She couldn't let this be. He had to repent. "No! You did the wrong thing. You annihilated him. It's too much Bobby." Although, a small (very tiny) immoral dot in her heart felt invigorated. This version of Goren was a slob. Soiled and horrible. He sat there unshaven, in his ugly t-shirt, half his ass was hanging off of an old brown kitchen chair, one long leg launched out for stability. And yet he'd singlehandedly restructured Major Case. Manipulated 4 departments of the NYPD. He'd fooled several levels of brass. He had cost the largest police force in the United States tens, nay hundreds of thousands of dollars in internal investigations, lawyers fees, and HR man-hours. He had made them waste hundreds of hours of productivity. Alex felt such an uncomfortable tension about it. As if a master luthier were stringing her body, bowing her over the bridge, painfully tautening her with a turn of each peg. And when he plucked her, the sound was discordant. But the instrument was truly divine.

Now Alex had the barest inkling of what it meant to be a genius.

"You," She got him in her sites. She pointed a finger at the tip of his nose. "Have to man up and fix this."

"Man up? Man up?! I just made the NYPD my bitch."

She stared.

He laughed.

"I made you my bitch too. Remember that… remember that little old secretary in the Patrol Borough Commander's office? You really showed that innocent grandma who was boss."

Alex felt green. She'd thought that Sharon Wingert was framing Deakins. Now the truth was glaringly obvious. Goren had handed her that list of people on the Street Drug Task Force right from his desk drawer. Goren had seen the similarities on the email header. Goren had taken them to Wingert's office. Goren had quietly watched her stump for Deakins. All the while Alex had thought they were a team. A team of two fighting to save the guy she'd screwed. How could she have believed that Goren would save Deakins? Had it been magical thinking?

No. It wasn't that.

Alex had just become so used to deferring to Goren's judgement and powers of observation that she hadn't questioned a thing. She'd played the idiot exquisitely. "Oh you're so powerful." She jeered.

"You're right I am powerful."

"What is happening to you? You've been… you've been sitting in the dark nursing grudges? Making phone calls? Callin' in favours?"

"Right. That's right. You've got it exactly right."

"Jimmy didn't deserve all this."

"So you've forgiven him? You're friends now? Good. You're perfect for each other."

"We aren't friends. But I wasn't raped Bobby!" She yelled. "I… I made a mistake! He made one too and he's paying for it."

"He should be thankful. I could've saved myself the trouble and shot him."

And she took several steps back. She bit her lip and looked at him with new eyes. Where was her calm empath? Her psychological guru? Her introspective sweetheart? Bobby was gone. He was ice. She'd broken something in him. And yet wasn't that the ultimate hypocrisy? When they were on a case, when the game was afoot, when he did these things to criminals she was first on board his immoral train.

"Shot him?! You're what? A murderer now?"

He stood up, he got into her face and said coldly. "Maybe I am. I feel like I could kill." And Bobby could see the worry in her. No. More then that. The worry was so tangible that it had cleaved off and become a third person, a silent observer in the room. One of her hands was jammed against her mouth the other wrapped around her middle.

That was when he decided to say it. Decided that there wouldn't be a better moment than this one. They would never be farther apart. "One more thing." He said quietly. He almost couldn't say it. But then he thought. Like Carthage after the Roman victory. Burn it down and salt the earth. He told her about Liz.

"Funny." She spat, with a hysterical smile.

"Not funny." He smiled too. "Well it's a little funny. Doing your bitchy sister."

"That's a filthy lie."

"It was filthy. But it's not a lie."

"No." Alex's voice went up an octave. "She wouldn't do this to me."

"Are you sure about that?"

To her eyes he was starting to look like a mushroom cloud. A symbol of complete decimation.

"You sister is kinky." He cooed.

"Stop." She was drowning in bile and tears and mucus, all of it unshed. During a pulmonary edema your lungs fill with fluid. It's like the ocean is inside you. No flailing, no life preservers, only a very slow personal death. "Stop." She said again weakly, one hand flailing, finding the wall.

"Ask her. Ask her!" He was relentless. "She doesn't respect you. She doesn't love you."

"You're disgusting."

"She was disgusting. A whore."

Alex felt one of her knees buckle.

"Just remember I wasn't cheating. I can sleep with whoever I want." He turned and sat down hard. The kitchen chair popped, groaned and slid.

"I have begged you for months to come back to me." She found her voice.

He waggled his finger and seemed hypnotized by it. "For months you've sought solace in familiarity. But the enmity remains."

"The hell are you rambling about?" She gasped at some stabbing pain.

"I'll say simple. You never loved me. I got too close. You wanted your comfort zone back." It's simple proxemics his hi-def brain thought. He had gotten inside her bubble, she had found a way to get him out. "You'll cheat on me again."

"Go see a shrink." She sagged, defeated. "You don't know what love is."

"I want know what love is. I want you to show me." He sang a few messy bars of a Foreigners 80s pop hit.

She couldn't talk to him. He was fully tripping. He was a surreal blend of evil and nonsense. She self-soothed. Maybe it was all a lie. Goren liked lies because he liked people's reactions to them even more. But she sensed it wasn't. Sometimes - standing in a funeral home before an open casket, or inside a prison cell, or at a bedside when a squawling newborn arrives - a room is made of authenticity.

"How could you do this?" Alex was hoarse.

In an instant he was hyper-lucid. She was wrong. He wasn't that high at all. His face grew ugly and contorted. A few tears rolled down his cheeks and he screamed "NO! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?" She had heard him scream before but not like this. Like a feral beast, he slammed his fists on the table. "You were my family! Work was my family! The only family I have ever had!"

She finally understood how deep this went.

She got it.

He had been at peace. He had relaxed into her love. He had built imaginary castles. They had worked together with supernatural success and purpose. He had finally known his place in the world. Now it was gone. He was alone again. Like that little boy with no daddy, who'd woken one day to find mommy was a stranger.

Alex thought she heard him mutter "I don't care. You can all burn. Burn in hell."

She edged toward the exit like a coward. She was eviscerated. Hemorrhaging her guts and waste all over the floor. She was in full retreat.

He fixed his raw red eyes on her, as she slipped quietly out the door. "How does it feel? How does it feel to lose what you love?"


Confucius says: Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.


season 5 finis