“I’ll tell you what,” Trimble said. “Let Walker here, and his daughter, take a walk.” Bullock eyed the cop suspiciously, wondering what kind of game he was up to. Trimble continued. “They don’t have anything to do with this. He made the mistake of buying the wrong car, his daughter made the mistake of driving it. They’ve never done you any harm, they didn’t rip you off.”

Bullock stared at Trimble as though he’d never seen him before. “Have you lost your fucking mind? You’re suggesting we let them walk out of here. After they know what we’ve been up to, about that smartass photographer, about Eddie, where I live and conduct my business. You think, we let them walk out of here, they’ll just forget any of that stuff ever happened? You think that maybe all we have to do is ask them real nice?”

Even I was thinking Trimble had lost his mind. If I were Bullock, I’d kill us, too. Angie clutched me more tightly.

“I’m just saying,” Trimble said, “that maybe it’s time to lay low for a bit. You start piling up corpses, it has a way of attracting attention.”

Bullock suddenly looked contemplative, as though he might actually be considering what Trimble had to say. “You make some interesting points, Steve. I’d like to think on them a moment, perhaps discuss a couple of things with Mr. Walker here. Would you mind waiting out in the garage while I did that?”

Trimble eyed Bullock warily. None of this felt right.

“Sure,” Trimble said, then turned and walked out of the room, but not before looking over at me. He did something funny with the corner of his mouth that seemed to say “Hey, I gave it a shot. Good luck.”

Once Trimble was out of the room, Bullock walked over to Blondie and said, in a loud enough whisper that I could hear it, “Do him.”

Blondie turned, but I was taking a step in his direction, and shouting, “Trim—”

Pockmark was behind me, grabbing me at the top of my jacket and tossing me onto the couch. Angie screamed as I tumbled onto the cushions. Pockmark had his gun out and pointed at me as Blondie went out the door and pulled it shut behind him.

“You’re not going to kill him,” I said.

Bullock said, “He’s been a pain in the ass for a while. You start seeing the signs, that he’s starting to get some crisis of conscience or something. There’s nothing worse than a cop with a conscience.”

“He wasn’t bullshitting you,” I said. “You let us walk out of here, we’ll forget everything.”

“Sure,” Bullock said. “Sure. That’s exactly what I’d do, if I was you.”