“You head inside,” Yarmark said.

“Sure, why the hell not?” He paused, passing the light over a sleeping bag that had been wrapped with a length of electrical cord; then he jagged the light up, tracing the words HANK JORDAN EATS ASS and below it, smaller, SNATCH COUNT IIIIIIIIII.

“Dumbfuck never learned how to write a tally,” Yarmark said. “Never even learned a fucking Roman numeral.”

“Welcome to public service,” Somers said.

“So you went inside,” Yarmark said. Then, in what he probably assumed was a suitably serious voice, a cop voice, he asked, “Did you have to put the guy down? Was that the first time?”

“I go inside. These people are squatters; no furniture in the house, just some trash, shit like this,” he waved the light, taking in their surroundings. “It’s a shotgun-style house, right, so I clear the first room, follow the hall, get to the bathroom, and stop. Light’s on. Fan’s on. I’m smart, so I stand to the side and knock. Announce myself. I’m a badass, so I’m really going at it—hammering on the door, screaming like a motherfucker.”

“Did that fucktool shoot at you?”

“Nothing. Silence. Not a word. Jesus Christ, my balls pulled up to my throat. I do it again. I mean, I bet they can hear me in the next county. I’m thinking he killed his girlfriend, and now he’s hiding in the bathroom. I push open the door, and—hey, radio back. Tell Norman and Gross we’re still checking this place out.”

“Dude, finish the story.”

Somers rolled a finger, and Yarmark pulled a face and radioed back.

“He’s in there, right? That son of bitch was doing some kind of hostage situation; that’s what I think.”

With a one-shoulder shrug, Somers said, “Finally, I try the door. It’s unlocked, but after a few inches, it’s stuck. I wait. I listen. Still nothing. I take a look, and holy shit, blood on the floor, and I can see a woman’s leg. Ok, so he killed her, I’m pretty sure about that, and he dragged her into the bathroom. I’m just about to force the door open—maybe she’s just hurt really bad, maybe she needs help right now—when I see somebody standing behind the shower curtain. And I might be a hotshot son of a bitch, but there’s no way I’m taking on a guy with a shotgun hiding behind a shower curtain by myself. I tell him police are on the way. I move down the hall, take up position. I radio for backup. Foley—the one on desk duty in the jail—he’s the first one there. He was just a kid too, and his partner, Robinson, was the biggest, dumbest fucker you’ve ever seen. He’d spent twenty-five years on patrol. Probably weighed three hundred, and a lot of it was muscle. They get there. I’m shaky by then, still trying to ride that high, and I’m telling them everything, and Robinson tells me it was my call so I’m the one breaching the door, which part of me knew was totally against protocol but, hell, he’s here, he’s been doing this job almost as long as I’ve been alive, and if he says breach the door, I’m going to breach that fucking door better than anybody’s ever done it in the whole history of cops.”