Private Eyes

stripes, tan chinos, and high-top basketball shoes that had once been white. His black hair was longer than I’d ever seen it, the forelock completely hiding the brow, the sideburns nearly at jaw level. His pocked, lumpy face was flecked with three days’ worth of patchy beard and his green eyes seemed filmed over- the normally startling hue dulled to the color of very old grass.

He said, “The good news is at least now you lock it. The bad news is you open it without checking to see who the hell’s out there.”

“What makes you think I didn’t check?” I said, standing aside and letting him in.

“Latency of response from final footstep to latch-turn. Powers of detection.” He tapped his temple and headed straight for the kitchen.

“Good morning, Detective. Leisure becomes you.”

He grunted and didn’t break step.

I said, “What’s up?”

“What should be up?” he called back, face already in the fridge.

Another bona fide random drop-in. They were growing more frequent.

Terminal doldrums.

Halfway into his punishment- six months’ suspension from the force without pay. The most the department could hand out short of canning him. The department hoping he’d learn to enjoy civilian life and never come back. The department deluding itself.

He scrounged for a while, found rye bread, lox spread, and milk, located a knife and a plate, and began preparing himself some breakfast.

“What are you staring at?” he said. “Never seen a guy cook before?”

I went to get dressed. When I came back he was standing at the counter, eating spread on toast and drinking milk out of the carton. He’d put on more weight- his belly approached sumo-status, meloning the nylon shirt.

“Got a busy day planned?” he said. “Thought we might go down to Rancho and shoot some golf balls.”

“Didn’t know you golfed.”

“I don’t. But a guy needs a hobby, right?”

“Sorry, I’m working this morning.”

“Oh, yeah? Need me to leave?”

“No, not patients. I’m doing some writing.”

“Ahh,” he said, giving a dismissing wave. “I meant real work.”

“It’s real work for me.”

“What, the old blockaroo?”

I nodded.

He said, “Want me to do it for you?”

“Do what?”

“Write your paper.”

“Right.”

“No, I’m serious. Scribbling always came easy for me. That’s why I went as far as the master’s- God knows it wasn’t all the academic shit they shoved at me. Not much flair to my prose, but it was… workmanlike, if a bit pedestrian. In the words of my former academic adviser.”

He crunched toast. Crumbs cascaded down his shirtfront. He made no effort to brush them off.

I said, “Thanks, Milo, but I’m not ready for a ghostwriter yet.” I went to make coffee.

“Whatsamatter?” he said with a full mouth. “Don’t trust me?”

“This is scientific writing. The Hale shooting for a psych journal.”

“So?”

“So we’re talking dry. Maybe a hundred pages of dry.”

“Big deal,” he said. “No worse than your basic homicide file.” He used a crescent of rye crust to tick his fingers: “Roman Numeral One: Synopsis of Crime. Roman Numeral Two: Chronological Narrative. Roman Numeral Three: Victim Information. Roman-”

“I get the point.”

He shoved the crust in his mouth. “The key to excellent report writing,” he said between chews, “is to take every bit of passion out of it. Use an extra heaping portion of superfluously extraneous tautological redundancies in order to make it mind-numbingly boring. So that when one’s superior officers read it, they zone out and start skimming and maybe don’t notice the fact that one has been spinning one’s wheels since the body turned up and hasn’t solved a goddam thing. Now tell me, is that so different from what you’re doing?”

I laughed. “Up till now I’ve been telling myself I was after the truth. Thanks for setting me straight.”

“No problem. It’s my job.”

“Speaking of job, how’d it go downtown?”

He gave a very long, very dark look. “More of the same. Desk jockeys with smiling faces. This time they brought in the department shrink.”

“Thought you refused counseling.”

“They got around it by calling it a stress evaluation. Terms of the penalty- read the small print.”

He shook his head. “All those greasy-faced fuckers talking real softly and slowly, as if I was senile. Inquiring about my adjustment. My stress level. Sharing their concern. Ever notice how people who talk about sharing never really do? They were also careful to let me know that all my medical bills had been picked up by the department- therefore the department had received copies of all my lab tests and there was some concern over my cholesterol level, triglycerides, whatever. Was I really feeling up to returning to active duty?”

He scowled. “What a bunch of princes, huh? I smiled back and said it was funny how they never gave a shit about my stress level or triglycerides when I was out there doing the job.”

“How’d they react to that bit of charm?”

“More smiles, then this greasy silence you could deep-fry potatoes in. Mind-tripping. No doubt the asshole shrink prepped them- no offense. But that’s the military mind: Destroy the individual.”

He looked at the milk carton, said, “Ah, low-fat. That’s good. Here’s to triglycerides.”

I filled the coffee-maker carafe with water, spooned Kenyan into the hatch.

“Give the assholes one thing,” he said. “They’re getting more assertive. This time they came right out and talked pension. Dollars and cents. Actuarial tables, how much more it added up to when you threw in the interest I could earn if I invested wisely. How nice life could be with what I had coming after fourteen years. When I didn’t slaver and snap, they dropped the carrot and picked up the stick, started hinting around about how the pension was by no means a foregone conclusion, given the circumstances. Blah blah blah. How timing was of the essence. Blah blah blah.”

He started to work on another piece of bread.

I said, “Bottom line?”

“I let them blah on for a while, then got up, said I had a pressing engagement, and left.”

“Well,” I said, “if you ever do decide to quit, there’s always the diplomatic corps.”

“Hey,” he said, “I’ve had it to here.” Running a finger across his throat. “Give me the half-year boot, okay. Take my gun and shield and pay, okay. But just let me do my time in peace and quiet, and cool it with the fucking follow-ups. All that phony sensitivity.”

He drank and ate. “Course, guess I can’t expect much better, given the circumstances.” He smiled.

“A-plus in reality testing, Milo.”

He said, “Assaulting a superior officer.” Bigger smile. “Has a nice ring to it, wouldn’t you say?”

“You forgot the crucial part. On TV.”

He grinned, started to drink more milk but was smiling too broadly and lowered the carton. “What the hell, this is the media age, right? The chief wears pancake when he plays meet-the-press. I gave them some soundbites they’ll never forget.”

“That you did. What’s the situation with Frisk?”

“Word has it his cute little nose has healed quite nicely. The new teeth look almost as good as the old ones- amazing what they can do with plastic nowadays, huh? But he is gonna look a little different. Less Tom Selleck, more… Karl Malden. Which isn’t bad for a superior officer, right? That shopworn look-