“She’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Mann said to Coletti in the stilted tone he used with people he disliked.

“That’s good,” Coletti said in the same terse manner.

They sat in awkward silence for the next few minutes, listening to the engine’s hum and the siren’s wail as they drove toward Center City. They were both wondering if they could work together without speaking. Coletti didn’t think so. He decided to make small talk.

“How’d you learn to speak Cambodian?” he asked.

Mann was mildly surprised. Not by the question, but by the fact that Coletti had decided to speak at all.

“I dated a girl from Phnom Penh in college,” Mann said. “We didn’t talk much. She was just using me for my body, but I learned how to say, ‘Hi, how are you?’ in Khmer.”

Coletti looked at him. “So, how’d you go from that to a woman like Sandy?”

“What do mean ‘a woman like Sandy’?” Mann asked defensively.

Coletti shrugged. “I mean a woman who’s mature and confident,” he said with a smile. “A woman who’s too good for you.”

Mann looked out the window, unsure of what to say. In truth, he’d often asked himself the same question, and no matter how many times he tried, he could never quite come up with the answer.

“She was working when I met her,” Mann said, grinning at the memory. “It was three years ago, and I’d just joined the department two years before that. I guess I’d gotten into the habit of driving like I was in a squad car, no matter what time of day it was or where I was going. I figured I could always flash my badge if I got stopped, and for the most part, that’s what I did. But then one night I was on my way to the old post office at Thirtieth and Market, trying to get a package in the mail before they closed at ten. I made an illegal left on Twentieth Street, and a second later, I saw flashing lights behind me.

“I pulled over, frustrated as hell, and whipped out my badge while I waited for this cop to get out and ask for my license and registration. So I’m sitting there for, like, five minutes, and the cop never gets out. And the longer I sit there, the more pissed I get, so I decide I’m gonna get out and show this cop my badge so I can be on my way. The minute I open the door, she gets on the speaker and says, ‘Get back in the car.’