After it was over, we argued about which was better—Fail-Safe or Dr. Strangelove. I said it was no contest; Strangelove was a masterpiece and Stanley Kubrick was a genius. Jay said I was too artsy. I said he was too literal. He said Henry Fonda was the greatest actor in the history of cinema. I assured him he was drunk.

“If only they’d had some sort of supersecret code word to call those bombers back.” He settled back into the couch, eyelids at half-mast, beer in one hand, glass of Chivas in the other.

“‘Supersecret code word’?” I laughed.

He turned his head. “No, really. Say ol’ President Fonda had just spoken to each squadron pilot privately, gave them each a secret word only he and they knew. Then he could have called them back after they crossed the fail-safe line.”

“But, Jay,” I said, “that’s the point—he couldn’t call anyone back. They’d been trained to think any communication was a Russian trick after they passed fail-safe.”

“Still…”

We sat there watching Out of the Past, which had followed on the heels of Fail-Safe. Another terrific black-and-white movie on Channel 38, back when 38 was cool. At some point Jay went and used the bathroom, then came back from the kitchen with two more beers.

“If I ever want to send you a message,” he said, his tongue thick with liquor, “that’s our code.”

“What?” I said.

“Fail-safe,” he said.

“I’m watching Out of the Past now, Jay. Fail-Safe was a half hour ago. New York is blown to smithereens. Get over it.”

“No, I’m serious.” He struggled against the couch cushion, sat up. “I ever want to send you a message from beyond the grave, say, it’ll be ‘fail-safe.’”

“A message from beyond the friggin’ grave?” I laughed. “You’re serious.”

“As a coronary. No, no, lookit.” He leaned forward, widened his eyes to clear his head. “This is a rough business, man. I mean, it’s not as rough as the Bureau, but it’s no cakewalk. Something ever happens to me…” He rubbed his eyes, shook his head again. “See, I got two brains, Patrick.”

“You mean two heads. And Esmeralda would say, you used the wrong one tonight, which is why she wants to cut it off.”

He snorted. “No. Okay, yeah, I got two heads, sure. But I’m talking about brains. I got two brains. I do.” He tapped his head with his index finger, squinted at me. “One of them, the normal one, is no problem. But the other one, that’s my cop brain, and it never shuts off. It wakes my other brain up at night, forces me to get out of bed and think about something that was bugging me and I didn’t even know it was. I mean, I’ve solved half of my cases at three o’clock in the morning, all because of this second brain.”