'If it was up to me, you piece of garbage…' Ketchum growled back at him.
Bishop didn't get it, at first. Then the surprising idea occurred to him. 'What? You mean I can go?'
Ketchum couldn't even bear to say it out loud. He nodded. He took his foot off the chair. He turned away, snarling and despondent.
Bishop blinked, scratched his jaw. It was an unexpected turn of events, all right. What do you know? he thought. He hadn't realized how crappy he'd been feeling till just now when he suddenly felt a lot better. He had no clue what was going on, but he wasn't going to ask questions about it either. He got out of his chair. His sardonic smile found its way back to his face.
Ketchum caught that, caught the smile with a sidelong glance. That was too much. He shook his head in disgust. He muttered curses into the knot of his tie. 'Yeah, you can be real proud. You can put this on your resume. You know why? You know why you're getting out of here?'
Bishop shrugged. 'No. Do I care?'
'If it was up to me, you'd be looking at battery.'
'Yeah, I figured that was coming.'
'But you know that fuck? That fuck whose arm you broke?'
'Yeah?'
'The fuck with the knife?'
'Yeah, the clay-headed fuck with the knife, sure, I know him.'
'Punk he was trying to kill?' said Ketchum.
'Skinny white kid, sure. What about him?'
'Name is David Adalian.'
Bishop's mouth opened. He made a little noise, a sort of laugh. The two men were only a couple of feet apart from each other in that outhouse of a room. For a second he could only stand there, looking deep into Ketchum's steaming brown eyes.
'Like Joseph Adalian?' Bishop said finally.
Ketchum gave a quick nod, jutting out his chin. 'He's Joseph Adalian's son.'
'Whoa,' said Bishop.
'The punk and the fuck were dealing meth together. Punk's an idiot. Fuck's a fuck. Punk got busted, dealt the fuck; fuck didn't like it, tried to cut the punk.'
'Except I broke his arm,' Bishop murmured.
'Except you broke his arm,' Ketchum growled.
Bishop laughed. 'So now Adalian…'
Even Ketchum chuckled once in a dejected, nauseated sort of way. 'Right. Now Adalian calls some of the lawyers he owns, and the judges he owns, and the faggot mayor and district attorney, who if you ask me he also owns…'
'And suddenly I'm free as a…'
'…psycho piece of shit in a city run by circus clowns, you got it.'
'Actually, I was gonna say 'bird.' Free as a bird. Or maybe a spring lamb,' said Bishop.
Ketchum made that dejected chuckling sound again. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks. His narrow frame was hunched as if he were carrying an anvil on his shoulders or maybe just the weight of an idiot city. 'Congratulations. You now have a friend in organized crime. Like I said, you can be very proud.'
Bishop snorted. 'Yeah, that is embarrassing.' His leather jacket was hanging on the back of his chair. He worked it off and slung it over his shoulder. 'I sure do hate to leave under those circumstances.'
'Yeah, I'll bet.'
'If it makes you feel any better, I'll go home and dress in orange and sleep in a room full of muscle-bound Mexicans.'
'Don't press your luck, prick. You'll be back.'
'It's always a pain in the ass to see you, Inspector.'
'Likewise.'
It was only a single step to the interrogation room door, but Bishop managed to put some swagger in it.
'Hey,' Ketchum said.
Bishop paused, looked at him, his hand on the doorknob.
Ketchum said: 'Adalian's the devil. Take my word. Whatever he offers you, you put your hand on it and you won't need me to run you to ground. You'll die in prison as sure as I'm standing here.'
'Thanks,' said Bishop. 'That's a very helpful tip. You should write a book.' He turned back to the door.
'Hey,' Ketchum said.
Bishop rolled his eyes, looked at him again.
Ketchum said: 'Why'd you do it?'
Bishop shook his head. 'Do what?'
'The fuck. Break his arm. Why'd you do it?'
'Hell, I don't know. He had a shank.'
'Yeah, but he wasn't after you. He was after the punk. You knew I'd come down on you for it. You could've just let him cut away. You don't give a shit. So why'd you do it?'
Bishop thought about it a second. 'Because,' he said. 'Because fuck him.'
He walked out and left Ketchum muttering.
12.
It was a fine, clear, cold October day. Bishop tooled his bike slowly across the Bay Bridge. His mouth tasted bad and he stank like garbage, but after two nights in lockup, it was good to be outdoors. The water spread sparkling around him. The cities of the East Bay lay before him in a mist of distance. The red rooftops dotted the green hills. The green hills rose against the blue sky. He felt the bike rolling under him. It was a decent feeling.
It didn't last. By the time the bike poured off the bridge into Berkeley, all the crap in his life had come back to him. Having his girl get arrested and screwing over Weiss, losing his job, and even that pain in his shoulder from where the psycho had stabbed him, which he'd forgotten about while he'd been in the can.
His bike sputtered up the avenue. The shops and streetlights whipped by on either side. There were the white stone buildings of the university up ahead and the green iron of the university gates. He curled the bike to the right, gunned it past the rising hill of campus grass. By now all his good feelings about getting sprung were gone, and he was pissed off and miserable again same as before he'd been arrested.
The Harley went on, down among the tall, faceless concrete dormitories on the south side. Splitting the lanes, cutting around the slow traffic of old student cars, Volks after Toyota after dusty Chevrolet. Bishop motored left and made his way to Telegraph.
His building was on the near corner, a dingy brown pile of brick and stone, elegant once, but not for a long time. Past the intersection, on the avenue itself, a steady flow of students and hangers-on slouched past the rock- star posters plastered on the windows of a music store. On a billboard hanging above them there was a picture of a sports car and the words EXPERIENCE FREEDOM.
Bishop pulled his bike to the curb. Shut it down. Swung off.
He stepped through the fine old oak doorway of his building into the vestibule. He paused there to open the creaking brass flap to his mailbox, to yank out some flyers, some bills. He pushed into the foyer. Slid back the cage of the old elevator. He rode upstairs, blinking, tired, irritable. He scratched his stubble with the edge of a piece of mail.
Fucking Ketchum, he was thinking. Fucking Weiss too. Fuck all of them.
The elevator stopped with a jolt. He rattled open the cage. As he shuffled down the carpeted hall, he sniffed his armpit, made a face. He smelled like something in a frat house refrigerator. Fucking CJ. Fucking everything.
He opened his apartment door, went through. He let out a long, whiffling breath as the door swung shut behind him.
The apartment was big, but there wasn't much furniture in it. There wasn't much point in buying furniture. He
