Larkin shoved the hard candies back and reached around the lapel. “Ulmer,” he stated, tugging the small, bent notepad free from the breast pocket before turning around. Ulmer stood parallel in the aisle between desks, not so subtly sizing Doyle up. He glanced toward Larkin as he continued, “I’d like to begin my first day back with a set of new and well-thought-out regulations for you to adhere to. One: Stay away from me. Two: Stay away from my partner. Three: Stay away from this case and every other case that lands on my desk—from now until whichever of us dies first. Because if I find out you’ve so much as read a notation in the margins of my paperwork, breathed a word of my investigative process, had so much as a single thought about being some talking head’s inside source, I will make it both my professional responsibility to see you shitcanned and my personal pleasure to ensure you can’t even get a part-time security gig at Target. Have I made myself clear.”

Ulmer snapped, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s a simple yes-or-no question.”

Ulmer snorted loudly and shook his head in disgust. “You think you can just waltz back in here, throwing your dick around like the goddamn commissioner? Fuck you, Grim.”

Larkin took several steps forward, breaking through Ulmer’s boundary of personal space that was considered, by Americans, to be a suitable distance in which to keep professional relationships, and pressed right into Ulmer’s intimate circle, the eighteen inches or fewer reserved specifically for romantic partners, family, and only the closest of friends. It caused Ulmer to visibly recoil, his upper body bending away from Larkin in an attempt to recover the security inherent in distance, while simultaneously maintaining his ground against a threat.

“Get away from me, faggot,” Ulmer growled.

Looking up at Ulmer, his face a careful expression of indifference, Larkin said, “In this context, ‘yes’ is a function word used to express assent or agreement. It’s very simple. Only three letters. So when I ask if I have made myself clear, you reply—”

“Fuck you, you pompous dickbag,” Ulmer all but shouted before he turned on one heel and stomped toward the opposite end of the bullpen.

Unperturbed, Larkin offered Doyle the notepad. “Would you mind taking notes.”

“You should report him,” Doyle said.

“It’s not worth dealing with HR.”