“That’s not the problem either, Starks, but you’re getting warmer. Palm prints provide a very high index of accuracy. They are as unique as fingerprints, in fact, and we have very clear samples from the hypothenar zone and the fourth palmar zone. What that means to you is that there are many more points of similarity than we’ll need to make an indisputable match.” Nunes draws on that cigarette. She is watching me closely for my reaction. The riverfront around me is bright—I know my pupils are dilating in fear—and reflexively I squint and try to keep my face calm.

“And for conviction,” she says.

“Detective,” I say, “I still don’t see the problem.”

“The problem, Starks, is that Janus doesn’t record palm prints. Neither, funny enough, does the Department of Defense.”

“No one has a record of palm prints?” I say. “That is funny.”

“I’ve been laughing about it all day. Mind if I take yours?”

“Laughter?”

“Palm prints.”

“Yes.”

“But if you’re innocent, Starks, then we can eliminate you as a suspect. Why would you mind if I take them?”

“I’m saving them for my wedding night. I want to have something special to give.”

“I can get a court order.”

Even though I have no idea if I’m right—I know I am just talking cop-show—I can’t help saying, “Not without probable cause. And simply not liking my aftershave doesn’t constitute probable cause.”

“I could arrest you.”

“I doubt it. Not after all those false arrests made by Fritzy. I can’t imagine the DA is too eager to have the media get wind of any improprieties from the police yet again, do you?”

Nunes doesn’t smile. Neither do I, but her unsmile is stronger than mine.

“All right, Starks. We’ll play it this way. But my offer’s off the table. It’s just a matter of time until you screw up—if you haven’t already—and when you do, you’ll end up in the same ward with Frankie Nickels. No clemency. That’s a promise.”

Nunes turns around, umbrella swinging at her side, then stops and says, over her shoulder, “And by the way, where were you late last Friday night?”

Again something in me advises passionately against the sentence I have loaded in the chamber; again I ignore it.

“I was begging for spare change with the homeless.”

Nunes kills the cigarette with her heel. I know how it feels.

The Nakamura Job

The Nakamura Job