Schwinn loved driving around, spent very little time at his desk, which was a pleasant switch from the butt-numbing routine Milo had experienced at Bunco. But the downside was Schwinn had no attention span for white-collar work, couldn’t wait to shove all the paperwork at his new junior partner.

Milo spent hours being a goddamned secretary, figured the best thing was to keep his mouth shut and listen, Schwinn had been around, must have something to offer. In the car, Schwinn alternated between taciturn and gabby. When he did talk, his tone got hyper and preachy—always making a point. Guy reminded him of one of his grad school professors at Indiana U. Herbert Milrad, inherited wealth, specialist on Byron. Lockjaw elocution, obese pear of a physique, violent mood swings. Milrad had figured Milo out by the middle of the first semester and tried to take advantage of it. Milo, still far from clear about his sexuality, had declined with tact. Also, he found Milrad physically repugnant.

Not a pretty scene, the Grand Rejection, and Milo knew Milrad would torment him. He was finished with academia, any idea of a Ph.D. He finished the goddamned M.A. thesis by flogging the life out of poor Walt Whitman’s words, escaped with a bare pass. Bored to tears, anyway, by the bullshit that passed for literary analysis, he left IU, lost his student deferment, answered a want ad at the campus student employment center, and took a job as a groundsman at the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge, waiting for Selective Service to call. Five weeks later, the letter arrived.

By year’s end, he was a medic wading through rice paddies, cradling young boys’ heads and watching the departure of the barely formed souls, cupping steaming viscera in his hands—intestines were the big challenge, the way they slipped through his fingers like raw sausage. Blood browning and swirling as it hit the muddy water.

He made it home alive, found civilian life and his parents and brothers unbearable, struck out on a road trip, spent a while in San Francisco, learned a few things about his sexuality. Found SF claustrophobic and self-consciously hip, bought an old Fiat, and drove down the coast to L.A., where he stayed because the smog and the ugliness were reassuring. He knocked around for a while on temp jobs, before deciding police work might be interesting and why the hell not?

Then there he was, three years later. Seven P.M. call, as he and Schwinn sat in the unmarked in the parking lot of a Taco Tio on Temple Street, eating green chile burritos, Schwinn in one of his quiet moods, eyes jumpy as he gorged himself with no apparent pleasure.

When the radio squawked, Milo talked to the dispatcher, took down the details, said, “Guess we’d better shove off.”

Schwinn said, “Let’s eat first. No one’s coming back to life.”

Homicide number eight.