'I like that,' said Daniel. 'I'll remember it.'
'Do that,' said Brooker. 'Sure to come in handy.' Pause. 'Anyway, now I know all about you.'
He stopped talking and seemed embarrassed, as if not knowing where to go with the conversation. Or how to end it. 'How'd you like the lecture?'
'Good,' said Daniel, wanting to be tactful. The lecture had seemed elementary to him. As if the agent were talking down to the policemen.
'I thought it was Mickey Mouse,' said Brooker.
Daniel was confused.
'The Mickey Mouse of Disneyland?'
'Yeah,' said Brooker. 'It's an expression for something that's too easy, a waste of time.' Suddenly he looked puzzled himself. 'I don't know how it came to mean that, but it does.'
'A mouse is a small animal,' suggested Daniel. 'Insignificant.'
'Could be.'
'I thought the lecture was Mickey Mouse, too, Lieutenant Brooker. Very elementary.'
'Gene.'
'Daniel.'
They shook hands. Gene's was large and padded, with a solid core of muscle underneath. He smoothed his mustache and said, 'Anyway, welcome to L.A., and it's a pleasure to meet you.'
'Pleasure to meet you too, Gene.'
'Let me ask you one more thing,' said the black man. 'Those Ethiopians, what's going to happen to them?'
'If they stay in Ethiopia, they'll starve with everyone else. If they're allowed out, Israel will take them in.'
'Just like that?'
'Of course. They're our brothers.'
Gene thought about that. Fingered his mustache and looked at his watch.
'This is interesting,' he said. 'We've got some time-how about lunch?'
They drove to the Mexican place in Gene's unmarked Plymouth, talked about work, the similarities and differences between street scenes half a world apart. Daniel had always conceived of America as an efficient place, where initiative and will could break through the bureaucracy. But listening to Gene complain-about paperwork, useless regulations handed down by the brass, the procedural calisthenics American cops had to perform in order to satisfy the courts-changed his mind, and he was struck by the universality of it all. The policeman's burden.
He nodded in empathy, then said, 'In Israel there's another problem. We are a nation of immigrants-people who grew up persecuted by police states. Because of that, Israelis resent authority. There's a joke we tell: Half the country doesn't believe there's such a thing as a Jewish criminal; the other half doesn't believe there's such a thing as a Jewish policeman. We're caught in the middle.'
'Know the feeling,' said Gene. He wiped his mouth, took a drink of beer. 'You ever been to America before?'
'Never.'
'Your English is darned good.'
'We learn English in school and my wife is American-she grew up here in Los Angeles.'
'That right? Whereabouts?'
'Beverlywood.'
'Nice neighborhood.'
'Her parents still live there. We're staying with them.'
'Having a good time?'
Interrogating him, like a true detective.
'They're very nice people,' said Daniel.
'So are my in-laws.' Gene smiled. 'Long as they stay in Georgia. How long have you been married?'
'Sixteen years.'
Gene was surprised. 'You look too young. What was it, a high school romance?'
'I was twenty; my wife was nineteen.'
Gene calculated mentally. 'You look younger than that. I did the same kind of thing-got out of the army at twenty-one and married the first woman who came along. It lasted seven months-burned me good and made me careful. For the next couple of years I took my time, played the field. Even after I met Luanne, we had a long engagement, working all the bugs out. Must have been the right thing to do, 'cause we've been together for twenty-five years.'
Up until then, the black: detective had come across as tough and dour, full of the cynical humor and world- weariness that Daniel had seen in so many older policemen. But when he talked about his wife, his face creased in a wide smile and Daniel thought to himself: He loves her intensely. He found that depth of feeling something he
