Free Undercover by Bill James Page A

with a happy chuckle. ‘A refusal to accept the superficial. I love it, Mr Rockmain. I’m sorry – I know there’s a downside to wariness, which we should, as it were, be aware and wary of, but in Tom I see it as creative caution, if that’s not a contradiction.’
    â€˜Some contradictions are extremely fruitful,’ Rockmain replied. ‘Paradox has been defined as “truth standing on its head to attract attention” – apparently contradictory, yet true. I’ll admit that Tom’s wariness does have a positive, encouraging side.’
    â€˜My view, certainly,’ Lambert said. He poked at the shepherd’s pie with his fork, seemed to find something he’d been prospecting for and ate it.
    â€˜What Hilston couldn’t measure or investigate, Tom, was how well, or otherwise, you and your handler would suit each other,’ Rockmain said. ‘I’ll be assessing that. They wouldn’t know the handler, only the general role of handlers. It’s quite a bond, you see, officer – handler, a bond nearly as strong as marriage; in fact, stronger than many marriages. Someone’s life depends on this working bond: in the present case, yours, Tom.’
    â€˜I think I can say I feel such a bond between us forming already,’ Lambert said. ‘But, of course, I realize that Tom will view this unilateral statement from me so soon with a certain wariness, wariness being such a major element in Tom’s make-up. I do not object to having this wariness directed towards me. It’s a natural reaction by Tom, given his plain and bold leaning towards wariness, a leaning which I admire, and which is vital in the kind of work he will undertake. What, I ask, after all, is the opposite of wariness? Casualness? Naivety? Gullibility? These are hardly desirable qualities in an undercover officer.’
    â€˜There must always be full and constructive communication between the two, officer and handler,’ Rockmain said. ‘You must bring him your findings, obviously. They want to know about the structure of the Leo Percival Young firm, its money resources, its part in any deaths or injuries during turf wars. A complete profile as substantial aid to exposure and prosecution.
    â€˜On top of the bank accounts, Howard will be the one who supplies you with ready cash funds to buy drugs on a scale, Tom, that helps you at the start to get your entrance into the firm. He will also be the one who takes the purchased materials from you – mainly, I’d expect, coke, hash, crack, conceivably some H, skunk. Howard will collect such commodities and see to their due disposal. Now, these will not be nicely documented and detailed, account-book matters. There can be no record of monies or drugs that pass between the two of you. Hardly! Therefore, top in these transactions is trust.’
    Tom always felt uneasy when offered too much alliteration. It might show the speaker was more interested in impact than meaning. Rockmain obviously liked a bit of pairing and tripling. Maybe psychology taught this helped direct a listener’s mind. It didn’t work on Tom, though. ‘Your job is to judge whether we trust each other and can work together?’ he asked.
    Lambert said: ‘I will know that if I can, as it were, survive Tom’s initial wariness – a wariness I entirely sympathize with root and branch – if I can get past what we might call first base with him, then the trust will establish itself and must be the more valuable for not having been arrived at facilely. Facilely is not the way to achieve trust. As for trust in the other direction – my trust of Tom – this already burgeons
because
of that very wariness he exercises. It gives him stature, solidity, practical wisdom.’
    â€˜Yes,
part
of my job is to assess how you two will function – fuse,’ Rockmain replied.
    â€˜You think you can foresee that?’ Tom