One of the NYPD detectives smiles at me and nods toward a cubicle that has four walls and an actual door. “That’s Detective Blumenthal’s office,” the detective says.

“Fancy digs,” I say.

“It’s good to be the king,” the detective says.

I smile, but I’m thinking, How good can it be? Shiny suits from Men’s Wearhouse, Trader Joe’s wraps for lunch, an office made out of rented partitions, and, most of all, kidnappings and an attempted murder case that seems to be nearly impossible to solve.

Blumenthal’s office door is wide open. It’s a relatively small space with a ridiculously large cluttered desk, a filing cabinet stuffed to overflowing with paper, and the world’s largest collection of used disposable coffee cups.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I say.

“It’s better than what we had before,” he says. Then without waiting a moment he says, “Look, you wanted to help out, and now we’ve got a really smart plan for you to help with.”

There goes my blood pressure. Simmering to boiling.

“Do you mean that this is a really smart plan, as opposed to my plan, the dumb plan?” I ask.

“That’s exactly what I mean.” A pause. “Now, may I go on?”

Leon Blumenthal is shameless. Yeah, he may look sort of handsome in that shiny suit, but nonetheless, he remains a shameless, sarcastic bully. And already I’m predicting that within three minutes we’ll be screaming at each other.

Some other woman would have stormed out of the crappy little office already. But that’s not me. I won’t give Blumenthal the satisfaction. Plus I really want to be a part of this.

“Yeah, go on,” I say, and I hope he doesn’t notice the smoke coming out of my ears.

“But first, here’s what went down before we came up with this. Myself and another detective went out to Queens to see your informant, Patrik Kovac.”

“Who was the detective you brought?”

“Bobby Cilia, he’s a good guy. You don’t know him.”

“Isn’t he the detective who followed up with Sarkar and Dr. Whall about who told who to leave the operating room?”

“Yeah, but how about for now I finish briefing you.”

I nod. I like the word briefing. It sounds so official. Blumenthal continues.

“Anyway, Patrik Kovac totally cold-shoulders us. Bobby and I ask questions. Patrik just keeps saying, ‘You are confusing me perhaps with another man.’ I tell him what you told me. I tell him that I was the first-responding detective when his daughter was attacked and her baby stolen, and I can tell by the way Patrik looks away from us and the way he stutters and stammers all over the place, well, I can tell he’s either bullshitting us or just totally afraid to cooperate.”