“By the way,” I said into the receiver as I reached for the bottle, “someone tried to turn me into a greasy smear outside my apartment earlier. I got the gun. Can I drop it off for dusting and ballistics?”

Blout sounded amused. “Any idea who it was?”

“Zip. All I saw was a dark ’65 Mustang, speeding away with three people inside.”

“Why don’t you run down here in a little while? I’ll run the weapon, and we can grab some food and talk about the case. Suits upstairs are nervous that the press might catch wind and turn the thing into a circus.”

“Give me half an hour. I took a slug in the shoulder. I gotta stitch myself up.” I took a big swig of Beam.

“Christ, Cal. Go to the fucking hospital!”

I swallowed. The burn felt great. “No. I’ve been there a thousand times this month. It’s nothing. I’ll take care of it.”

“Fine,” was all Blout had to say. He hung up.

I chuckled. “What a granny.”

I removed my dress shirt and did some sewing.

By eleven o’clock that night, I’d polished off the bottle, popped some speed, and was at the station with the gun. The precinct was quiet. The only two people in the front office were me and the desk sergeant, an old-timer named Potts. He plastered a fake welcome smile across his bored, withered face.

“I’m here to see Blout.”

Potts made a face like bile had just shot the length of his throat, picked up the phone, and paged Blout.

I was about to take a seat when the front doors banged open. Two uniforms came in, noisily hauling an unruly who looked to be drunk and disorderly. I knew one of the cops, Dan Stockton. He was a major prick, disliked by more people than just me. He was pissed because he was still in uniform while everybody else made detective or better, bitter because he knew he was a nasty fuck that everybody hated, but mostly because it was just his nature. He was what you’d call a bad egg.

Stockton let his partner take the prisoner, and stopped—facing me. He was way too close. I was torn between a short lecture on personal space and jamming the cartilage in his nose through his brain.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Cal McDonald,” he sneered. “What the hell are you doing here? This is a police station, not a junkie detective station.”

He stepped even closer. I stood my ground.

“I got plenty of business here, Stockton. And all of it’s none of yours, so why don’t you just back off,” I growled, curling my mouth into a nasty scowl.

Stockton’s eyes blinked and stuttered. I’d got him. He wasn’t so sure I’d back down. I could tell he was searching for something snappy to say, but all he could muster was, “Why should I back off?”

“Because I have an aversion to halitosis,” I shot back.