“In the glove compartment. Too hot for a shoulder holster,” said Batiste.

The Yo-Yo switched hands with his gun, opened the glove box, and extracted Batiste’s service weapon.

“What’s your beef with me, Evan?” asked McGrath, taking Batiste’s gun from the Yo-Yo.

“I ran the crime stats. They didn’t add up. Knew someone was running a cleaning op like a boss. Might not be so easy anywhere else. But here? In a bankrupt city?”

Batiste was working hard to come across as in control. No one would be relaxed in his current situation, unless they were stupid. He’d just been expertly jumped. But if he at least came across as in control, then there was a fair chance they would think he had a good reason to be so. He decided it might also be prudent to look like he was really listening to whatever horseshit they were going to threaten him with. It was a tough job though. Every one of his senses seemed to hum. His mouth felt dry. He felt it showed in his voice, like those first-time TV interviewees with their parched clicking throats. He heard birds singing, the hum and throb of distant traffic.

Why are no cars coming by? Because this is the back route to the gym, Evan, the one that dodges the crowds, remember?

He smelled the motorcycle leathers of the big guy next to him. He knew who he was, too, knew he’d killed, but only lowlives and maybe a witness once. He felt his hands in his lap on the fabric of his suit trousers. Gray. His second-favorite suit. Slightly thinner than his favorite. Better for the heat.

There was other stuff Batiste knew. And he was confident that McGrath didn’t know he knew. So he found himself wondering why the ambush.

He heard a small click. Sounded like a safety catch.

There was no time for his brain to ponder it any further. Or anything any further. The round from his own weapon punched up through his chin, through the roof of his mouth, his brain, and out the top of his skull, embedding itself in the car’s roof, thereby turning the Charger from departmental ride to suicide scene in a microsecond.

McGrath turned away as the detective’s blood sprayed his face. Batiste’s head lolled forward, in its crown a craterlike aperture from which a dark, shiny river of blood flowed continuously.

“Jesus,” said Cal.

“What’s wrong?” said McGrath, without looking up. “You never seen a guy kill himself before?” McGrath had seen two suicide scenes, both during his Gulf War days. Both guys had chosen the same method: bullet through the chin, forty-five degrees through the software and out of the dome. Lights out and a big ole mess.