'I get the feeling I'm supposed to ask you who his partner was.'
''Cause you're one smart cookie.'
'And if that's what I'm supposed to ask, then I know the answer.'
'Let's hear it.'
'Francis Curry.'
'Give the man a silver dollar. You got those up in Canada?'
'We have loonies.'
'So do we. And some of them, unfortunately, carry a badge.'
'What about the third man?' I asked. 'Any unsolved killings match up from that time?'
'A couple,' he said. 'Ronald Atkins, white male, thirty-six, five-eleven. Found bobbing along in the river, not far from the Ohio Street bridge. No suspects, no arrests. The other was Chuck Belkin, forty years old, six-foot-one, found shot to death in the Humboldt Park area. No arrests, but a theory that he was buying or selling drugs and stepped on some Latin King toes.'
'That's him,' I said.
'What makes you so-'
'Birk said something to me about dumping me on gang turf, make it look like I'd wandered into the wrong neighbourhood. What's Belkin's background?'
'He was unemployed at the time of his demise.'
'Any police or security work in his past?'
'No.'
'Carpet cleaning?'
'Dude, we didn't have his CV on hand. All our guy had on him was he was an army veteran, served in Desert Storm.'
Ex-military. After my first meeting at Birk's office, Francis Curry had told me he was 'ex a lot of things.'
I was betting military was one of them. — Jenn called at ten o'clock. I'd never been so glad to hear her voice.
'Is Ryan with you?'
'Oh, yeah.'
'What's that mean?'
'We left at five and we're making good time. Still in Michigan but close to the Indiana state line.'
'You can't say what you want to say?'
'Nope.'
'He's not your average bear.'
'No,' she said. 'Not at all.'
'You talking about me?' I heard Ryan say. 'Hey, all I did was put my hand on your leg when we were crossing the border.'
'It wasn't my leg,' Jenn said. 'It was my thigh. My upper thigh.'
'I was trying to be convincing,' he said. 'You know what the border is like now. We're a couple on holiday, I figure we're supposed to be lovey-dovey.'
'A little too lovey there, dovey.'
'Put him on the phone,' I said.
There was a pause and then Ryan came on. 'Do yourself a favour,' I told him. 'Don't touch her tits. Last guy who did that is still trying to find his balls.'
'And hello to you too.'
'Thanks for coming.'
'You know me,' he said. 'I still like a party.'
'Did you bring your, uh, camera case?'
'Of course. I mean, I assume that's why we couldn't fly.'
'You assume correctly.'
'Hey, you okay?' Ryan said. 'You sound a little dopey.'
'I had some codeine for breakfast.'
'What happened?'
'I'm a little banged up.'
'How banged up?'
'I'm turning all the colours of the rainbow.'
'This Birk again?'
'Yeah.'
'Don't worry,' he said. 'We'll tune him up good.'
'That's why I invited you.' I stood a long while at the window looking out at the city, grey now and overcast, the wind up, the waves churning and foaming on the shore of the lake. People on the street below were holding onto their hats, clutching their coats around themselves. At twelve o'clock, I took two more codeine and leafed through the sports section. I don't know when I fell asleep but it was two when I woke up, thirsty and hungry enough to order a club sandwich. When it came, I ate half of it. Could only look at the other half. Wanted to soak my aching muscles in another hot bath but had no desire to share the tub with a dead assassin. Lay back on the bed. Clenched and unclenched my hands, felt the raw skin pull against the gauze wraps. Got up and paced, bad knee and all, until there was a knock on the door.
'Yes?'
'It's us,' Jenn said.
I removed the chair and undid all the locks, opened the door and there they finally were. Jenn looked at my hands, the welt on my arm, and threw her arms around me and held me. I felt like crying into her shirt the way Marilyn Cantor had. 'Look at you,' she said. 'You're a mess.'
'And you're only seeing the outside.'
Ryan said, 'Hey,' and set his camera case down and got out his cigarettes. 'Please tell me this is a smoking floor. Your partner here wouldn't let me smoke in my own fucking car. Hell, she barely let me speak.'
Jenn rolled her eyes. 'Only because so much of what you say is in Neanderthal,' she said.
'Don't start that again,' Ryan growled. 'Christ, I say one little thing and she's all over me.'
'One little thing?'
'All I said was that if I wasn't married-'
'Like that makes a difference,' Jenn said.
'— that I would love to help you switching teams.'
'Like that would do it.'
'It was a compliment,' Ryan insisted.
'From another century!'
'A way of saying you're a looker. Plenty of dy-sorry, plenty of gay women, I could give a shit, with their crewcuts and legs like Bulgarian wrestlers. But you're fucking beautiful, man.'
'How can anyone resist him?' Jenn said. 'How'd you get your wife to marry you? You club her and drag her to your cave by the hair?'
'There you go again with the caveman shit. I'm plenty modern, okay? I help my wife with our kid, with dishes, with laundry-'
'You help her with it, meaning it's still her responsibility.'
'Twelve hours of this,' he said to me. 'She's lucky the guns were in the trunk.'
'See? Threats of violence,' Jenn said. 'You don't agree with a woman, just shoot her.'
'Finally,' he grinned. 'Something we can agree on.' Then to me: 'This the can here? I got to take a leak. I been holding it in since fucking Skokie.'
'You might not want to go in there,' I said.
'I'll hold my breath.'
'It's not that. I had, uh, company this morning.'
Ryan went into the bathroom. I heard the shower curtain swish along its rail, plastic rings clacking together. 'Holy shit!' he said.
