“I throw up a lot,” I said. “Hurry up with the stitches.”

The doctor bobbed his head and ran his fat tongue along the inside of his mouth. “Mr. McDonald,” he said, “let’s check it. Better safe than sorry, riiiiight?”

I hated him for no other reason than the way he rolled out the word “right.” What a freak, and I couldn’t for the life of me determine what the hell accent he had. It was either Armenian or Turkish. I couldn’t decide.

I allowed him to run a few tests and poke around my gut. Every time he checked some part of me he’d shake his head. Finally after an hour he’d finished and said my stomach lining looked like Swiss cheese. I had a bleeding ulcer, acid reflux disease, and possibly a problem with my “digestive tract” or something equally disgusting. It was a polite way of saying my ass was falling apart.

“You have to take care of yourself, Mr. McDonald. You are not a young man anymore.”

“Hey, fuck you!” I said, and meant it.

“Fuck me? Okay, everybody fuck me, but you have to stop drinking alcohol.”

I glared at him. “Say what?”

The doctor said I had to stop eating spicy foods, quit drinking, and start taking down at least a quart of milk a day. Milk. Can you believe it? I hate fucking milk. It’s liquid mucus as far as I’m concerned. Just to get the asshole off my back, I agreed and left the hospital. On the way back to my house, I stopped at a corner store and picked up some milk, cigarettes, and a twelve-pack of some shit beer that was on sale. There was whiskey waiting for me on my desk.

At home, I sat at my desk and sorted through my mail while I killed one six-pack. It was nothing but a bunch of collection notices from bill collectors as usual. I took a swig, and I swear, because that dickhead doctor had put the idea in my head, it hurt like shit, right in the bottom of my gut. Shit. I took a bigger swig of the whiskey and now, it hurt again.

Finally, I got sick of playing tough guy with my stomach, so I got the milk I’d bought, and started alternating shots of whiskey and milk. After about fifteen shots, I was feeling pretty normal, and then the phone rang.

I stared at the phone as it rang a couple times and debated letting it ring, but in the end I buckled and lifted the receiver.

“Yeah, hello.”

It was Detective Lieutenant Gretchen Brueger. She was my LAPD contact. “I got something on the slab that I want you to look at.”

“What’s the job pay?”

“A big fat zero,” she said.

“Well, since you put it that way,” I started to hang up.

“There’s a reward on the case.”