I sat with Burnett in his office and we talked about the department and a couple of the cases that we had worked together. One case had involved a hired killer who had murdered both the intended target in South L.A. and then his employer in Hollywood when the employer failed to pay the second half of the agreed-upon fee. We had worked it together for a month, my team and Biggar and his partner, who was named Miles Manley. We broke it when Big and Manley, as the pair were called, came up with a witness in the target victim’s neighborhood who remembered seeing a white man on the day of the shooting and could describe his car, a black Corvette with red leather interior. The car matched the vehicle used by the second victim’s next-door neighbor. He confessed after a lengthy interrogation conducted alternately by Biggar and me.

“It’s always something small like that,” Biggar said while leaning back behind his desk. “That’s what I loved best about it. Not knowing where that little break was going to come from.”

“I know what you mean.”

“So you miss it?”

“Yeah. But I’ll get it back. I’m starting to now.”

“You mean the feeling, not the job.”

“Right. How about you, you still missing it?”

“I’m making more money than I need here but, yeah, I miss the juice. The job gave me the juice and I don’t get it shuffling rent-a-cops around and setting up cameras. Be careful what you do, Harry. You might end up successful like me and then you sit around remembering the old days, thinking they were a lot better than they were.”

“I’ll be careful, Big.”

Biggar nodded, pleased that he had dispensed his dose of advice for the day.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Harry, but I’m guessing this guy in the chair is Lawton Cross, huh?”

I hesitated but decided it didn’t matter.

“Yeah, it’s him. I’m working something else and it crossed his path. I went to see him and he said some stuff. I just want to make sure. You know.”

“Good luck with it. I remember his wife, saw her a couple times at things. She was a nice lady.”

I nodded. I knew what he was saying, that he hoped Cross wasn’t being victimized by his wife.

“People can change,” I said. “I’m going to find out.”