McDermott’s eyebrows went up just a little. “Is that what I’m doing?”

“That’s how I read it.”

The detective-sergeant leaned back on the bed, resting on his elbows. He squinted up at the ceiling, looked around at the walls, focusing on the places where the wallpaper was ripped and the plaster showed through. He murmured, “Whaddya pay for this room?”

“Four-fifty.”

“That’s a dollar too much.”

“It don’t bother me,” Corey said. “I’m a spender.”

McDermott chuckled softly. And then, cutting it off, “Well, I don’t know. Maybe you are, at that.”

What the hell is he saying? Corey wondered. What’s it signify? Could be he’s been drinking. He’s got that hazy look, as if he’s high on something. But it don’t hafta be liquor; it don’t hafta be weed or pills or anything like that. It could very well be that he’s high on just plain oxygen. There’s some who can do that, you know. They set their minds to it, and all they gotta do is breathe air, and in no time at all they’re high. I’ll give you fifty-to-one that’s the way it is with him. And that makes it a problem for you. I mean, he can climb up there and float around and bomb away from any angle.

The detective-sergeant said, “You sure you got nothing to tell me?”

“All I got is a question.”

“Let’s have it.”

“How’d you like to go to hell?”

McDermott chuckled again. “Now you’re really annoyed.”

“Now I’m plenty annoyed.” Corey spoke more tightly, exaggerating the annoyance, faking a scowl. “You sign me in, you gimme a badge, and the very next day you come snooping.”

“It ain’t that.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s just that you’re new on the squad and I wanna get to know you better.”

Corey thought about that for a moment. He smiled inside himself. He said, “Let’s try that again.”

“I wanna get to know you. This is just a social call.”

“Then why the grilling?”

“Don’t pay that no mind,” McDermott said, and he smiled gently. “That’s just a habit I got. Like some of them dentists when they’re away from the office. They wait for you to open your mouth and right away they’re looking at your teeth.”

There was another lapse of silence.

Then the detective-sergeant said, “You got a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“There’s nothing around.”

“Maybe you ain’t looking.”

Corey scowled again. This time he wasn’t faking. He said, “What about yourself, Sergeant? What do you do for relief?”

“I buy it,” McDermott said.

“You ain’t married?”

“Yes, I’m married,” McDermott said. “I been married twenty-seven years.”

“And?”

“She can’t do it. She won’t let me come near her.”

Corey looked at the detective-sergeant, then quickly looked away.