She stood, and I stood with her. She put out her hand. I took it. I think we were in a contest to see who could smile the most. She said, 'Thank you, Mr. Cole. This is very important to me."

"Elvis."

"Elvis." She smiled even wider, and then she gathered her things and left. It was twelve forty-six, and I stopped smiling. I sat at my desk and looked at the paper that she had given me with the information about Mark Thurman and herself, and then I put it into the desk's top right-hand drawer along with my copy of the receipt.

I leaned back and I put my feet up, and I wondered why Mark Thurman and his mean-spirited partner Floyd Riggens were following Jennifer Sheridan while they were on duty. I didn't like the following, but I didn't have very long to wonder about it.

At twelve fifty-two, Mark Thurman and Floyd Riggens came in.

Chapter 2

T hey didn't kick the door off its hinges and they didn't roll into the office with their guns out like Crockett and Tubbs used to do on Miami Vice, but they didn't bother to knock, either. The guy I figured for Floyd Riggens came in first. He was ten years older than Thurman and maybe six inches shorter, with a hard, squared-off build and weathered skin. He flashed his badge without looking at me and crossed to Joe Pike's office. I said, "It's empty." He didn't pay attention.

Mark Thurman came in after him and went out onto the balcony, like maybe a couple of Colombian drug lords had ducked out only seconds ago and were hanging off the side of the building with grappling hooks and Thurman wanted to find them. He looked bigger in person than he had in the pictures, and he was wearing faded khaki fatigue pants and a red jersey that said LANCASTER HIGH VARSITY. Number 34. He looked younger, too, with a kind of rural innocence that you rarely find in cops, sort of like Dragnet as played by Ronnie Howard. He didn't look like a guy who'd be into crime, but then, what does a criminal look like? Boris Badenov?

Riggens came out of Pike's office and scowled at me. His eyes were red and swollen and I could smell the scotch on his breath even though he was standing on the other side of the chairs. Hmm. Maybe he didn't have the weathered look, after all. Maybe he had the drunk look. Riggens said, "We need to talk about the girl."

I gave him innocent. "Girl?"

Riggens squinted like I'd spit on his shirt and grinned out the corner of his mouth. Mean-spirited. "Oh, I like it when jerks like you get stupid. It's why I stay on the job."

"What are you drinking to get eyes like that - Aqua Velva?"