'I felt you were too harsh with her.'
'Then you should have indicated your opinion a whole hell of a lot more subtly than you did. With your eyes. With a gesture, a touch. You handle it that way all the time. But with her, you came charging in like a white knight.'
'She had been through a very trying ordeal and--'
'Bullshit,' Frank said. 'She hadn't been through any ordeal. She made it all up!'
'I still won't accept that.'
'Because you're thinking with your balls instead of your head.'
'Frank, that's not true. And it's not fair.'
'If you thought I was being so damned rough, why didn't you take me aside and ask what I was after?'
'I did ask, for Christ's sake!' Tony said, getting angry in spite of himself. 'I asked you about it just after you took the call from HQ, while she was still out on the lawn talking to the reporters. I wanted to know what you had, but you wouldn't tell me.'
'I didn't think you'd listen.' Frank said. 'By that time, you were mooning over her like a lovesick boy.'
'That's crap, and you know it. I'm as good a cop as you are. I don't let personal feelings screw up my work. But you know what? I think you do.'
'Do what?'
'I think you do let personal feelings screw up your work sometimes,' Tony said.
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'You have this habit of hiding information from me when you come up with something really good,' Tony said. 'And now that I think about it ... you only do it when there's a woman in the case, when it's some bit of information you can use to hurt her, something that'll break her down and make her cry. You hide it from me, and then you spring it on her by surprise, in the nastiest way possible.'
'I always get what I'm after.'
'But there's usually a nicer and easier way it could be gotten.'
'Your way, I suppose.'
'Just two minutes ago you admitted my way works.'
Frank didn't say anything. He glowered at the cars ahead of them.
'You know, Frank, whatever your wife did to you through the divorce, no matter how much she hurt you, that's no reason to hate every woman you meet.'
'I don't.'
'Maybe not consciously. But subconsciously--'
'Don't give me any of that Freud shit.'
'Okay. All right,' Tony said. 'But I'll swap accusation for accusation. You say I was unprofessional last night. And I say you were unprofessional. Stalemate.'
Frank turned right on La Brea Avenue. They stopped at another traffic signal.
The light changed, and they inched forward through the thickening traffic.
Neither of them spoke for a couple of minutes.
Then Tony said, 'Whatever weakness and faults you might have, you're a pretty damned good cop.'
Frank glanced at him, startled.
'I mean it,' Tony said. 'There's been friction between us. A lot of the time, we rub each other the wrong way. Maybe we won't be able to work together. Maybe we'll have to put in requests for new partners. But that'll just be a personality difference. In spite of the fact that you're about three times as rough with people as you ever need to be, you're good at what you do.'
Frank cleared his throat. 'Well ... you, too.'
'Thank you.'
'Except sometimes you're just too ... sweet.'
'And you can be a sour son of a bitch sometimes.'
'Want to ask for a new partner?'
'I don't know yet.'
'Me either.'
'But if we don't start getting along better, it's too dangerous to go on together much longer. Partners who make each other tense can get each other killed.'
'I know,' Frank said. 'I know that. The world's full of assholes and junkies and fanatics with guns. You have to work with your partner as if he was just another part of you, like a third arm. If you don't, you're a lot more likely to get blown away.'
