He turned back, his eyes full of fire, resolve in them. He angrily gathered up the money, stuffing it back into his pockets, rising. “Tim didn’t want to die, not like that. The cops don’t know anything. You want to side with them? Fine. But I know what I know, and I’m going to prove it. Sorry I wasted your time.”

Jung stormed off, and I shot up from the booth, following after him. “Jung, wait.” But he was through the dining room and out the door before I could catch up. I burst out onto the sidewalk, scanning right, left. He was gone.

“The skinny guy jumped on a beat-up–looking ten-speed and booked it. Want me to give chase?”

I turned to see Detective Eli Weber leaning his long body against an unmarked cop car. He smiled, nodded. “Which way did he go?” I asked.

“West, then north. Seriously, do I need to send a flash?”

I looked west, sighed. Setting the cops on Jung wouldn’t do any good in the long run. “No. Hopefully, he’ll just go on home.”

Weber unstuck himself from the car and walked over, his intense brown eyes lasering in. He wasn’t hard to look at, I had to admit. He was midforties, six two to my five seven, dark, clean-shaven. His angular face, I’d come to realize, was capable of revealing absolutely nothing, unless he wanted it to. I suspected there was a lot going on behind his probing eyes, and that intrigued me, but that’s as far as I’d taken it. We’d met on Pop’s case, and hadn’t gotten off to a good start, though I slowly found out that he was a stand-up guy, real police. Weber was also married, which right off the bat made his business none of mine.

“Somebody call for a detective?” I asked.

“Personal call. Thought I’d stop by and see how you were getting along.” He glanced at my leg. “Last time I saw you, you could barely stand on that knee.”

“How’d you know to check here?”

He smiled. “Your place, isn’t it?”

The hospital. Late April. That’s the last time I’d seen him. I bent my left knee, a quick demonstration of how good the knee had mended. A murdering bastard had stomped on it in a church, right before I’d threatened to blow his head off. The knee was still a little wonky, not yet a hundred percent, but it’d be okay. “No permanent damage. I meant to call and thank you for sitting with me in the ER. That was nice. I guess I got busy.”

He nodded, the eyes never once wavering. “Mickerson said you’ve been busy.”